The subtle and casual bodies are not physical; they are real. They are not imagined; they are experienced. They affect our sensory and physiological functioning, especially in people with a kundalini rising. The subtle body is of essential importance in kundalini process as it must be sufficiently strong and clear for a person to attain a healthy kundalini rising and support a comfortable kundalini process.
Joan Harrigan: The Science of Spiritual Transformation
The purpose of this chapter is to convey my understanding of the spiritual transformative experience that began during the latter part of my retreat as it relates to the archetypal model detailed in the previous chapter.
I believe that through the discipline of Christian meditation, particularly if practiced over a long period of time in connection with a faith practice, one can, through a process of surrender, by-pass the distractions created by the mind and experience momentarily that “still point”.
In the archetype, this may be called the celestial realm or the casual body. Pure consciousness or bliss consciousness are words that for me describe this reality. They were my unions with Christ because the “I-ness” of the "ahankara" or ego had been surrendered in every respect to the presence of the indwelling Christ. Such touches with this “ultimate reality” were never sustainable. There was always this coming back to what existed before, and many times, a forgetting of what existed in the celestial realm because of the re-absorption into ordinary existence.
What began to happen on the thirty-sixth day (Dec. 5) of my retreat, after a lengthy period of intense meditation, was a stirring of an energy that existed at the base of my spine, in the pelvic and lower abdomen region, that would begin a process of restoration and renovation that would change this forever. It began with spontaneous pranayama caused by the sensory motor mind or "manas" which controls all reflexive bodily actions without too much of our conscious involvement. This spontaneous deep inhaling and holding of breath created great pressure which prepared and opened areas of my body for the energy flow that was to follow. These areas including the pelvis, abdomen, back, neck, skull, and crown. The experience left me giddy.
It was the next morning (Dec. 6) during meditation that energy began to advance up through the central cavity of my body and into my head. I described this tingly, pressured, blissful flow in this way: "I felt like my brain was being restructured as intense energy moved through it." As it moved through the “chitta” or the unconscious storehouse of past impression and imprints, it de-energized or discarded some of this baggage that was there, and with it I experienced the beginning of the melting away of affective memory. As it moved through the “ahankara” or ego, I had visions of things falling away, truck going backwards down a hill, rock structures, cities crumbling to dust, buildings falling over. With this, I experienced the beginning of a loss of self-definition as I moved more deeply into being in the present moment. This was also the beginning of my awareness of a strong internal blissful pulse in my lower abdomen.
The next morning (Dec 7) again during meditation, the energy was experienced much more intensely. During meditation, it was as if I passed through the center of an overpowering light energy that then passed down over me from head to toe.
The next morning (Dec 8) during meditation, I experienced an even more intense flow of energy and light which started on the front right side of my brain, and slowly crept across the right side, and then the left. Later that day, the energy and light of even greater intensity, starting in the front of my brain, crossed over the top. This is when I visualized the scene of being under a sea in the murky, dirty, polluted water full of sea weed and ugly monsters. It was as if I were an observer, looking into “chitta” at a storehouse of past impressions and imprints, unresolved issues, baggage etc. My experience was a melting away of more affective memory as the energy continued with its renovation.
Dec 9 was a travel day with little to report but tiredness. But on Dec. 10, while meditating, it was as if a light energy exploded within me originating from the pulsating in the pelvic area and my whole body was filled with an ecstasy that moved me to a full ecstatic surrender. It was after this that my brain would become easily overloaded with energy as the blissful pulsating would flood into my mind . My affective memory continue to be eroded away, and my self-definition evaporated as this energy was ravaging “chitta” and “ahankara”.
Dec. 11, 12, 13 and 14 were filled with bazaar psychotic experiences of visions, seeing things, and the beginning of spontaneous yoga and vision distortions. The energy sheath was bursting at the seams with activity as renovations were now in full progress and out-of-control. Physical symptoms became active from the movement of energy through nadis and meridians combined with the deep psychological symptoms. Every night this energy would repeatedly move into the mental sheath continuing its purification process in the “chitta” and “ahankara” eliminating further from the storehouse of past experiences, crumbing the life time of constructs that I had created, and then into the discernment sheath with the imposing question: “What do you what to become”. And then stillness, not the shimmering lake of the past, but absence, emptiness.
As the energy returned in successive times, always at night, and continued with its renovation of the layers of the mental sheath, I would see again the visions of being in a murky sea with sea weed and monsters as it passed through "chitta, and things falling away, crosses, churches, whole sections of the earth crumbling to dust, as it passed through "ahankara" until finally little remained but “I AM”.
As the purification process would continue through the succeeding weeks and months, and as I cooperated with its progress, my life moved away from emotional reasoning, away from self-definition, to living only in the moment. My meditation time, no longer like it was before, became a time of a blissful presence and union with God, but with one difference. It was no longer just at meditation time. It was most of the time.
The first to go was the psychotic experiences; the second to go was the physical reactions caused by energy breaking into new tissue, organs and pathways; the third to go was the build-up of energy in my brain as it had finally found its path back to the solar plexus and circulated freely. Never to cease but evolving with greater intensity and vibration is the flow of ecstatic energy from the three lower chakras, up the spine and into the crown where a blissful consciousness is realized that moves into emptiness that can only be found in the celestial realm or casual body.
Others terms that could be used to describe the casual body
are pure consciousness or bliss consciousness, the point of contact with the “Ultimate Reality”. This was referred to by Phillip St. Romain in his book as the “zero point”. I have referred to it previously as the “still point”. It is the place where one has moved beyond false and limited identification with the transitory world of illusion, beyond space and time, beyond phenomena, beyond dualism. It is the “I AM”.
I believe that through the discipline of Christian meditation, particularly if practiced over a long period of time in connection with a faith practice, one can, through a process of surrender, by-pass the distractions created by the mind and experience momentarily that “still point”.
In the archetype, this may be called the celestial realm or the casual body. Pure consciousness or bliss consciousness are words that for me describe this reality. They were my unions with Christ because the “I-ness” of the "ahankara" or ego had been surrendered in every respect to the presence of the indwelling Christ. Such touches with this “ultimate reality” were never sustainable. There was always this coming back to what existed before, and many times, a forgetting of what existed in the celestial realm because of the re-absorption into ordinary existence.
What began to happen on the thirty-sixth day (Dec. 5) of my retreat, after a lengthy period of intense meditation, was a stirring of an energy that existed at the base of my spine, in the pelvic and lower abdomen region, that would begin a process of restoration and renovation that would change this forever. It began with spontaneous pranayama caused by the sensory motor mind or "manas" which controls all reflexive bodily actions without too much of our conscious involvement. This spontaneous deep inhaling and holding of breath created great pressure which prepared and opened areas of my body for the energy flow that was to follow. These areas including the pelvis, abdomen, back, neck, skull, and crown. The experience left me giddy.
It was the next morning (Dec. 6) during meditation that energy began to advance up through the central cavity of my body and into my head. I described this tingly, pressured, blissful flow in this way: "I felt like my brain was being restructured as intense energy moved through it." As it moved through the “chitta” or the unconscious storehouse of past impression and imprints, it de-energized or discarded some of this baggage that was there, and with it I experienced the beginning of the melting away of affective memory. As it moved through the “ahankara” or ego, I had visions of things falling away, truck going backwards down a hill, rock structures, cities crumbling to dust, buildings falling over. With this, I experienced the beginning of a loss of self-definition as I moved more deeply into being in the present moment. This was also the beginning of my awareness of a strong internal blissful pulse in my lower abdomen.
The next morning (Dec 7) again during meditation, the energy was experienced much more intensely. During meditation, it was as if I passed through the center of an overpowering light energy that then passed down over me from head to toe.
The next morning (Dec 8) during meditation, I experienced an even more intense flow of energy and light which started on the front right side of my brain, and slowly crept across the right side, and then the left. Later that day, the energy and light of even greater intensity, starting in the front of my brain, crossed over the top. This is when I visualized the scene of being under a sea in the murky, dirty, polluted water full of sea weed and ugly monsters. It was as if I were an observer, looking into “chitta” at a storehouse of past impressions and imprints, unresolved issues, baggage etc. My experience was a melting away of more affective memory as the energy continued with its renovation.
Dec 9 was a travel day with little to report but tiredness. But on Dec. 10, while meditating, it was as if a light energy exploded within me originating from the pulsating in the pelvic area and my whole body was filled with an ecstasy that moved me to a full ecstatic surrender. It was after this that my brain would become easily overloaded with energy as the blissful pulsating would flood into my mind . My affective memory continue to be eroded away, and my self-definition evaporated as this energy was ravaging “chitta” and “ahankara”.
Dec. 11, 12, 13 and 14 were filled with bazaar psychotic experiences of visions, seeing things, and the beginning of spontaneous yoga and vision distortions. The energy sheath was bursting at the seams with activity as renovations were now in full progress and out-of-control. Physical symptoms became active from the movement of energy through nadis and meridians combined with the deep psychological symptoms. Every night this energy would repeatedly move into the mental sheath continuing its purification process in the “chitta” and “ahankara” eliminating further from the storehouse of past experiences, crumbing the life time of constructs that I had created, and then into the discernment sheath with the imposing question: “What do you what to become”. And then stillness, not the shimmering lake of the past, but absence, emptiness.
As the energy returned in successive times, always at night, and continued with its renovation of the layers of the mental sheath, I would see again the visions of being in a murky sea with sea weed and monsters as it passed through "chitta, and things falling away, crosses, churches, whole sections of the earth crumbling to dust, as it passed through "ahankara" until finally little remained but “I AM”.
As the purification process would continue through the succeeding weeks and months, and as I cooperated with its progress, my life moved away from emotional reasoning, away from self-definition, to living only in the moment. My meditation time, no longer like it was before, became a time of a blissful presence and union with God, but with one difference. It was no longer just at meditation time. It was most of the time.
The first to go was the psychotic experiences; the second to go was the physical reactions caused by energy breaking into new tissue, organs and pathways; the third to go was the build-up of energy in my brain as it had finally found its path back to the solar plexus and circulated freely. Never to cease but evolving with greater intensity and vibration is the flow of ecstatic energy from the three lower chakras, up the spine and into the crown where a blissful consciousness is realized that moves into emptiness that can only be found in the celestial realm or casual body.
Others terms that could be used to describe the casual body
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