Chapter 9: Parakaya Pravesham🔗

The exact translation of 'Parakaya Pravesham' is 'to be manifest in another body'.

This is a siddhi or yogic power which has several practical applications, depending on the extent of presence possible into the other being.

In the Vibhuti Pada of his Yoga Sutras, Patanjali describes this siddhi in the following way:

By the loosening of the causes of bondage (to one's own body) and the intuitive grasp of the passages of expansion, (happens) the entering into another body.

To understand Parakaya Pravesham, we must first understand the concept of the koshas.

Adi Shankaracharya, the great incarnation, describes in Vivekachudamani the koshas or energy bodies as below:

These sheaths are something like peels of onion growing one over the other.

Accordingly, the annamayakosha is permeated by four koshas: the

pranamaya and the rest. The pranamaya kosha is permeated by three koshas, the manomaya by two koshas and the vijnanamaya by one kosha. In this manner, each outer kosha is full of that which is within, i.e. the succeeding one being internal to the preceding.

By resolving each kosha into that which immediately succeeds it, we are led to the knowledge of the Brahman, which is beyond cause and effect, and realize our oneness with it.

Vedanta Prabodha explains how this happens, through the concept of sakshi.

When one wishes to read the mind of another, or cognize the physical experience of another, the technique applied would be to expand the koshas, such that the vijnanamaya kosha and the manomaya kosha are at the level of the recipient's own koshas.

Traditionally, the five koshas are:

These are all subtle layers of energies overlapping each other, with the anandamaya kosha on the inside in a normal incomplete human being, and expanding outwards as completion happens, allowing

An Avatar, being in oneness with Nature, the Manifested Consciousness, therefore, both with form and formless can easily convert matter into energy and back into matter again.

This allows the subtle aspect of the body to completely merge with another and experience the physical life through the merged body.

At the instance of the death of a person and subsequent loss of his conscious energy, it is possible for an Avatar to suffuse His own consciousness into the body, if it has been devoid of life energy for less than one hour.

In this technique, the Avatar or enlightened sage uses the siddhi to bring back to life the other being, without physically entering his cognition for any specific purpose.

The enlightened sage Tirumoolar is known to have entered into the body of a dead shepherd out of compassion for his flock.

In another famous incident concerns Adi Shankaracharya's disciple Hastamalakacharya. It is said that when the disciple was a baby, he drowned in a river, but out of compassion for his mother, an enlightened sage entered into the child's body using his siddhi of parakaya pravesham.

The siddhi of Parakaya Pravesham has been demonstrated on several occasions by His Holiness Paramahamsa Nithyananda, and witnessed by His disciples. A sharing related to one such incident has been documented at the end of this chapter.

Adi Shankaracharya

In the year 2012, Swamiji was conducting Inner Awakening in Kodaikanal in south India. As part of the IA, one evening we were having Kalabhairava darshan and Akashic Readings from Swamiji.

I was sitting the closest to Swamiji; unlike other times, strangely I started feeling my body becoming numb, and I was smelling my body as some dead body, akin to my pre-monastic childhood memory.

Suddenly I noticed a buzz of activity from the brahmacharis who were down the stage. From the looks of it, I knew there was something important / urgent that they wanted to convey to Swamiji.

Swamiji was unmoved, but paused briefly and had a really deep look on His face. From where I was sitting, it looked like He was looking deep into a distant sky; then He made a hand gesture that looked to me like, “It has left”! Since I did not know what it was, I only prayed, “Swamiji, there are too many false media attacks already; let there not be one more thing to defend!”

Swamiji abruptly stopped the Akashic Readings and went and sat down on His seat on the stage. Soon after, there was a brief moment when one of the brahmacharis updated Swamiji; something to which Swamiji very patiently replied, “He has left the body already.”

I thought to myself, “One of the ashramites died? Who? Why?” But all thoughts died down instantly. There was silence everywhere.

After what felt like quite a long time, Swamiji said, “He left the body, not able to bear the pain. I can bring him back, but he has to go through the same pain.”

Aha! I felt, and said to myself, “Is that all Swamiji? I know how You can bring back people, and when you do it, they won't feel any pain!” The memory of my own experience of Swamiji’s energy landing all around my body when I fell and fractured my hand filled me. I did not even care to listen to anything further, as I simply knew it was just another being that is going to have a strong, personal and physical experience of Swamiji’s incomparable compassion.

It turned out that one of the brahmacharis had met with a road accident while driving a two wheeler without wearing a helmet, despite Swamiji making that a pre-condition for anyone riding any two wheeler. He was taken to the hospital and was just declared dead. It was 15 minutes and he could not be revived medically.

Then Swamiji said in His authority that He has brought the person back into his body. God, all of us were looking with eyes wide open! I said to myself, ‘Yes, yes that is a big relief!’ Precisely at that moment, I saw I am grounding back onto my own body; there was no more numbness or the smell of any dead body.

Then Swamiji reminded those who brought the news to tell the doctors to attempt a revival now. If I remember correctly, it turned out that the brahmachari had already opened his eyes when they wanted to convey this to the doctors.

The most shocking thing was, when I returned to the ashram just a few days later, I found the same brahmachari moving about and doing his work normally, with no sign that he had just gone through a death experience a few days earlier!

Later I heard from a senior ashramite that this brahmachari had requested and received a boon from Swamiji that he will not die before Swamiji leaves his physical body.

Wow! I thought - that is the power of a boon given by the siddha Avatar – it can bring you back even from the other side of death!