CHAPTER 7: Causal Body🔗

The causal body is associated with the deep pain that happens at the time of death that results in coma. The causal body is experienced in deep sleep, in deep darkness. Darkness is a beautiful energy we have been associated with right from our birth, right from when we were in our mother's womb.

We originate from the darkness of our mother's womb, and we also get rejuvenated every day in darkness when we fall into deep sleep, and ultimately, we disappear also into darkness at the time of death! Darkness is energy. In the vedic tradition, Mother Kali is represented as dark energy. Kali in Sanskrit means darkness.

Each and every one of us by our own nature has a layer of darkness around us. This body is called the causal body.

We should understand what happens exactly when we fall into deep sleep.

Whenever your body needs rest, automatically the mind is pulled down and inserted into the causal body. It is like a battery; when it is discharged, that battery is taken out and inserted into the re-charger. There is also a particular time for recharging. In the same way, after your excitement for the day, the mind will be automatically pulled, because it needs some rest. It will be inserted into the causal body.

In the causal body, you are in darkness, but you don't want to rest in darkness. So what do you do? You continuously jump around in your mind. When you fight with darkness, when you don't want to rest in darkness until you get recharged for that recharging period of half an hour or one hour, you create side effects which are called depression and worry.

Actually, depression is a natural phenomenon which is supposed to happen, which gives you the rest that you need. Nature gives you rest for you to get back your energy. If you can go deeply into depression, you can go deeply into excitement also.

Please understand: A person who can't get depressed can never get excited. If you know how to travel with the low mood, with the low current, then you will know how to fly with the high mood also! If you don't know how to travel with the low current, you will never be able to go to the peak of the high mood also.

Darkness is the causal body. It is the place where you actually get rejuvenated. It is the layer from which you actually receive energy. When you sleep, you feel so totally refreshed because you are actually inserted into the causal body, into the darkness.

Two things happen when you cooperate with the darkness: one is, you don't resist depression if it happens. Also, you will not create depression at all.

Be very clear: depression can never depress you if you simply depress the depression! As long as you resist it, it is depression. When you allow it, it is rest, it is deep rest. It is actually the time when you are with yourself. The problem is that you don't want to be with yourself but you are being pulled into it. Then you fight with it and name it depression, worry, suffering, everything.

You must have seen in your life times when you are in the office and suddenly you get a call to go home immediately. You simply obey the order, right? You don't have any problem in doing that. In the same way, you just need to know how to travel with the depression, with the darkness.

You see, sometimes during a weekend, you go around and have a good time. When everything is over, you come back to your house. But when you get up the next day, your body and mind will have a hangover, is it not? You will feel like giving it rest. You won't want to move anywhere. You just feel like lying down. Your mind doesn't want to work. But what do you do? You forcibly start moving around and creating further activity for yourself.

You have a very deep hatred for laziness. If you actually stop hating laziness, it will actually disappear from your system.

A small story:

Once a man went to his friend's house. His friend was a very cunning and diplomatic person. Diplomacy and cunningness go hand in hand. You can always see that the people who are innocent, will never be diplomatic. They will not know what diplomacy is. But the cunning persons will know diplomacy very well. The friend somehow wanted to drive away this man. He suddenly called his wife and said, 'Bring some coffee for him'.

The wife shouted, 'There is no sugar, no milk. There is nothing in the house!'

The man got up and gave his wife a kick saying, 'Fool! You do not know how to treat a guest. You don't have anything to offer my friend. Is this the way to take care of him? Is this the way to treat a guest?' He started shouting and screaming.

She started weeping and wailing.

The guest saw this and said, 'Oh sorry! Because of me, all this is happening. Don't worry. It is time for me to go to another function. Let me go.' He got up and walked out.

When the man left, the host smiled and said proudly, 'See how I played the right drama and sent him out!'

The wife retorted, 'No! It was me who played it up and sent him out.'

Then the host replied, 'I acted as if I beat you, and he ran away.'

She said, 'I acted so well as if I was crying and he ran away.'

At that point, the man walked in saying, 'I acted as if I went away, but I have come back!'

Whenever you don't take care of the guest properly, he might just suddenly simply disappear from your house. In the same way, when laziness comes as a guest, don't pamper it too much and don't even resist it. Just don't bother about it. Don't hold on to the idea that you are lazy.

As I said earlier, your mind is like a re-chargeable battery. It is like a battery getting discharged. It will be simply removed and put inside the charger for recharging. But the battery is not ready to wait until it gets fully recharged. It wants to again jump and play inside the toy. Understand that when you don't allow the recharging to happen, when you resist the recharging process, you create depression.

If you don't resist but allow the process to happen for a few moments, then depression will drop you. You will see that once the batteries are recharged, they will be simply bubbling. You will have the total energy to experience the ultimate excitement.

The time for recharging differs for each person. But once you know the knack of how to cooperate with the recharging process, then the time will be reduced and the quality will also improve. So it is the knack of cooperating, the method of cooperating with the darkness that you need to learn.

You see, this is the darkness, the ultimate darkness.

If you allow yourself to be recharged for a few minutes, you will come out of the depression. If you allow yourself to be recharged, if you cooperate with this darkness, you will come out of sleep also. If you work totally on the darkness, you can come out of death itself, because all these three are the expressions of the same thing: that is darkness.

Understand that depression, deep sleep and death are all the outcome of the same darkness layer. If you know how to work with the darkness in ordinary life, the depression will disappear. Also, the third thing, that is the fear of death, will completely disappear from your system. When this happens, you will not fall into coma before you die. You will die consciously. As of now, 99 % of us die only after falling into a coma. This is the worst kind of death you can have… falling into coma and dying.

Don’t think that coma means ‘no pain’. The whole death process will start with pain. You will have pain. From the outside you won’t feel the pain, but inside, it will be excruciating. When the pain becomes too much, you have a built-in mechanism of a pain killer. To make you forget the pain, coma is the built-in painkiller system.

Whenever your body needs rest but your mind is continuing in an excited and restless mood, your body cannot rest. Unless the mind itself is pulled inside the causal layer, the darkness layer, your body cannot rest. Unless your mind is black, your body will not become black. You will not allow your body to be black. So your whole body and mind will be pulled and inserted into the black hole. If you resist that moment and think, ‘Oh, I have depression,’ you create depression by thinking you have depression. If you don’t resist that moment, you will simply go inside and come out with a fully regenerated feeling. So it will be more like a complete rest rather than depression.

The causal layer is also called the kaarana shareera in Sanskrit. It is the layer which we are stuck in when we want to do something but we end up saying, ‘I know it is right, but I am struggling. I know but….’ If you are caught in this, you are dead... over! You will neither achieve this nor that. Nothing can be done by you. You will be stuck with this one idea for many births. This is what we call 'kaarana shareera' - giving reasons.

If you feel, 'I know what you are talking is right but I am not able to do it,' it means that you are caught in the kaarana shareera. You will never be able to get out of this layer unless you take a strong step and put your foot down to the whole nonsense. If you are caught in this layer, be very clear – nobody can save you. Nobody can save you. Do not be caught in the causal layer. That is what I call evil. When you are caught in the causal layer, you are like different fragments living inside one body. You are fragmented.

Anything fragmented is hell. Only something that is integrated is effective. You are either integrated or just schizophrenic. In my own life, I can say how integration, integrated devotion, was responsible for everything that happened. Integrated devotion is the real devotion. Schizophrenic devotion is not devotion at all. If you say, 'I know it is right but I am not able to get there...' the whole thing is over!

The reason for my first deep spiritual experience is that I never had that schizophrenic attitude in my inner space. One of my great inspirations was Annamalai Swamigal. I was so inspired and impressed by all the masters and mystics I was associated with in my young age. Also, the inner space was so pure at that young age, and there were no other heroes in my space except these masters. The masters were my heroes and in every step, I used to think, ‘How will they behave? Let me behave like that. What and how will they act? Let me act like that.’

I used to go for a circumambulation of the sacred Arunachala hill very often. The circumambulation is totally 16 kilometers. I used to go late at night. When I had a little fear, I used to ask myself, ‘How will Annamalai Swamigal behave? He won’t bother about fear. Then let me also be like that!’ and I would continue the circumambulation without fear!

Let me tell you about one incident:

One day, maybe around the time I had my first experience, it was raining heavily. I was doing the circumambulation. There was heavy rain, thunder and lightning. Immediately I thought, ‘How will Annamalai Swamigal behave? He won’t bother about it. He would just continue to walk. Let me also act in the same way.’ I continued to walk.

As I walked on, I was passing through the common crematorium where the people in that place were cremated. In India, both cremation and burial are done in the same place. I was walking in that place because when you go round the hill the path goes through that crematorium also. It is the town’s cremation ground.

Suddenly I saw a dog biting something and eating. When I went near, the dog started barking at me. At first, when fear arose, I thought, ‘How will Annamalai Swami behave? He won’t bother. Let me just move on then.’ I started moving. Anyhow, when I started moving, the dog got scared and ran away.

When I went closer, I saw that what the dog was biting was a dead body which had not been completely buried and had come out in the rain and was lying on the road. Just imagine a twelve-thirteen-year old boy at midnight, seeing a dead body without its head, because the head was in the dog’s mouth!

The moment the fear started, it did not even reach my being completely; even before that, even before the fear stroke could happen completely, the awareness was so intense and I thought, ‘How will Annamalai Swami respond now? He would just walk around and go on. So let me just walk around and go on.’ I went on… that’s all.

I just took a detour and walked on. I did not even turn back and look. I just walked. The fear stroke did not even touch my whole body. The fear stroke, which was like a pebble, which was about to start, did not even open up. It did not even reach my body. The heat or the shivering or the shaking was not even there in the body. It had just died.

Just the decision, ‘If Annamalai Swamigal does, I will do,’ did the whole thing… over!’ When any thought came up from inside, I would think, ‘How will Annamalai Swami respond to this thought? How would he respond?’ If I get the response, ‘He will not have this thought,’ I would just say to myself, ‘Then forget about it. It’s not mine.’ Over!

See, the person who inspires you or impresses you becomes the hero of your inner space, especially if you are still young. These great masters impressed me so much. In every situation, internally I would calculate, ‘How would these great masters have behaved?’ and whatever came to my mind, I would do the same.

For example, if there were some sweets, my brothers would jump, ‘Hey, I want this much as my share!’ I would simply think, ‘How would Annamalai Swami react in such a situation? He won't bother. He would just give away such things.' I would also then just keep away from the whole thing.

Clearly, the entire inner space was so deeply conscious and ready for the spiritual experience. That is why, just a small push, just a small inspiration from Annamalai Swamigal was able to put me into the first spiritual experience. This is what I call 'Living Enlightenment!'

When you live the master's body language, you live enlightenment. Whenever any thought came into my body or into my inner space, the first thing I would think would be, 'How would he behave?'

It could be anything... related to clothes or food or anything... If I felt a little lazy to meditate or to walk, I would think, 'How would Annamalai Swamigal be in this situation? How would he handle this situation?' Naturally, he would not bother about the laziness. He would just get up and meditate, that's all. So I used to do just that. He became the scale for everything. All the great masters became the scale for me for everything that I did from morning till night. They became my life center.

One day, I asked Annamalai Swamigal about a dream that I had, and I also asked him what he saw in his dreams. He replied, 'I don't have dreams!' I was shocked. I asked him, 'You don't have dreams at all?

Then how could I have dreams?' That night I clearly remember that when I was having a dream, I said to myself in my dream, 'I cannot have dreams because Annamalai

Discourse 'Living Enlightenment', Los Angeles, Nithyananda Poornima 2007

The inner space was so thorough, so innocent, and so direct, that it just happened. Even if I felt cold or very warm, I would ask myself, 'How would Annamalai Swamigal feel, in such a situation? He won't bother. Then I too won't bother. There were no further questions or arguments inside.

In your life also, to get out of the kaarana shareera, this is the most direct and powerful technique. In any situation, think 'How would the master respond? How would the master face this situation?' You will see that a new door opens out of nowhere! This is what I call 'Living Enlightenment'. You don't need anything else. This one thing is enough. Even if you are sitting, if thoughts come up, think to yourself, 'If the master were sitting here, what would be coming up? Naturally silence. Then why am I thinking? Silence!' Over! Nothing else is needed. If your mind steps in and says, 'No, no! I know it's true. I know it, but it is too much.' Then think, 'If master's mind says this, how would He respond to it?' He would have just finished the mind off at that moment! That's all, nothing else.

Take this one message with you and let this message become the very life in you - the message of Living Enlightenment. Actually, this is what I call 'relationship with master' as well. Relationship with the master is not just doing some puja or offering some flowers to Him or worshipping Him once in a while.

Feeling connected to master means just living Him. When you live the master, you feel connected to Him. Only then you are expanding also. Only then something is happening to you. Otherwise, you are just a schizophrenic person. You will have ten different faces. Sometimes you will behave nicely. Sometimes you will behave rudely. Sometimes you will be with lust. Sometimes you will be in a worshipping mood.

Just integrate yourself. No kaarana or reason should be told. Just allow the whole body and mind to imbibe the energy, spirit and inspiration of the master. It should go so deep into your inner space that when dreams start coming in, you should say, 'Would master have dreams? No. Then relax.' It should go so deep into your inner space! And it is perfectly possible also. When this starts happening, many times you will see that you are aware within your dream itself!

One person came to me and told me, 'Swamiji, I had a dream that a ghost was trying to catch me. Within the dream, I remembered you, and suddenly the ghost left.' This means that even inside the dream, the faith that the master will save you has gone inside. When that can go inside, this can also go inside! It is not that in the dream a ghost will catch you. The dream itself is a ghost which will catch you!

Carry this one message: 'How will the master behave in this particular situation?' Any problem can be solved with this one thought. Anything in the internal world can be solved, because a Paramahamsa is a person who knows all the possible experiences one can undergo on planet earth. Only such a person can be called Paramahamsa. If he is not aware of a particular experience, Existence makes him go through that experience so that he can become a Paramahamsa. So whatever you go through, or went through, or are yet to go through, I have gone through already. Understand that. So there is no space that you can say I have not gone through!

Now let us enter into the layer of darkness.

Sit straight. Throw out all the colors that are there in your mind. Keep only darkness in your mind. You have to chant the ooooo kara – the ooooo sound. Understand, it is not Om or Hoooom. It is just ooooo.... You will continually push the air out as much as possible. Don't bother about breathing in. Just keep pushing air out continuously by chanting this as deeply as possible. By pushing the air out, the body will breathe by itself. Take a small breath in, and then chant ooooooooo. In the small gap that is there between the final exhalation and the next short inhalation, the body will take in air by itself. So put in all your effort to just throw out the air with the oooo sound. Throw everything out totally.

I will guide you through the meditation. You will be made to visualize a dark cave, a dark cave inside which you are sitting and meditating. Then you will be able to enter into the layer of darkness.

So please sit with your eyes closed and tie your eye bands.

Start chanting the ooooo kara

Put your whole effort on only exhaling; just exhale. Throw out all your prana (Life giving energy), life, everything… just throw them out.

(After 20 minutes)

Stop.

With all your effort, keep exhaling through the nose. Do not intone any sound. Just exhale.

(After 5 minutes)

Stop.

Visualize a deep and big forest wherein there is a deep and dark cave. You are sitting inside the cave. Visualize all the walls of the cave. It is a cave within a single rock. The ceiling of the cave is also rock surface. There is just a deep darkness - soothing, relaxing and joyful darkness, comfortable darkness.

Totally comfortable and secure with the darkness, you are alone, sitting and meditating. Feel the darkness. It is covered by layers of darkness over darkness. Darkness is totally drowned in darkness.

You are just in your mother's womb, the same comfortable darkness of your mother's womb. Feel the utter relaxation, the utter rest, with no responsibilities, only total, comfortable, peaceful darkness. You are sitting inside the dark cave and meditating on the darkness. Feel the cave. Visualize yourself inside the cave. Visualize that you are comfortably sitting and meditating on the deep darkness. You only know one word: darkness... darkness... darkness.

Inside the cave you are connected to the darkness of the universe, the darkness from which the universe was born - the darkness of your mother's womb from which you were born. You are just filled with that live darkness. There is no other thought except darkness. Become the darkness. Feel that the whole thing is just darkness. Your body has disappeared into the darkness. Penetrate into the deeper and deeper layers of darkness. Just become pitch black darkness, nothing else.

The whole space is filled with thick darkness. The darkness is much more intense and dense than the earth itself. Just taste the experience of the deep and peaceful darkness.

(After a few minutes)

Om Nithyanandam.

Relax. You can open your eyes.

Please carry this darkness with you for the next half hour - the darkness of your mother's womb, the darkness that is the deep comfort. Rest and relax in the darkness of no responsibility, only freedom. Carry this darkness of rest and relaxation with you until the next session. Avoid speaking to anyone. Do not look more than four feet in front of you. Try to look down at the ground. Carry this peaceful darkness with you.

After the NSP, I really understood how to face fear. It was such an exhilarating feeling. As I was driving back one day, a vehicle suddenly veered in my direction. Normally I would have had my heart in my mouth, but to my very pleasant surprise, I remained very calm and negotiated the vehicle. There was no panic; it was such a huge relief. I must admit, this has remained with me to this day. Even if some child or vehicle comes across my path while I am at the wheel, I don't panic unconsciously.

After the NSP, the feeling was just like as if you have been unchained, unfettered and are flying. Looking back, I think it was not so much the content as being in His presence that transformed me. One experience of the NSP is the consciousness of sleep. During the darkness meditation, I was clearly able to be aware that I am floating on thoughts and the next morning, Swami asked, 'Do you now know that what you thought of as sleep is actually floating on thoughts?'

The overall experience of the NSP is that it took me deeper into another dimension; one that I did not even suspect existed.

Sri Nithyananda Sajeeva Businessman, Mysore