Saravsar Upanishad #6

Man’s personality is composed of many layers. And a right awareness of these layers is essential if we are to pass beyond them. That which we have to transcend must first be known; that from which we would be freed must first be recognized.

Seen from the outside, what a man appears to be is not his whole body; it is only the first layer of his bodies. What we ordinarily see the seers called the Annamaya Kosh — the physical body.

This body is obtained from the parents; it is not yours. This layer is not you; it is a long tradition. Thousands of bodies have contributed to the making of this body. In the seed your mother and father give you, the entire built‑in process of this body, all the potential for this body, lies concealed.

Now even scientists say that whatever manifests in your body throughout life is contained in that primal seed‑cell; nothing new happens. The color of your eyes, the color of your hair, the hue of your skin, your lifespan — whatever will fructify in your personality is hidden in that seed; but that is not you. That body has its own long journey — it came to you from your parents, and to them from theirs — a journey of millions of years.

If we trace our body back, within each person’s body the whole history of this world lies concealed. On the first day the world may have come into being, yet something of your body was present even then; evolving and evolving, it has become this body. In a tiny seed‑cell the entire tale of existence is hidden; it is not yours, it is a long lineage. That seed‑cell has traveled through who knows how many humans, how many animals, how many plants, how many minerals, before it arrived in you. It is your first layer. The seers called this layer the Annamaya Kosh. It is called ‘annamaya’ because its process of formation is through food; it is made of food.

Every person’s body is renewed in seven years. Everything changes — bone, flesh, marrow, everything. If a man lives seventy years his entire body is transformed ten times. Each day the food you take builds your body; and each day your body throws out the dead body. When we say someone has died, we refer to the final death of the body…when his Atman has left the body. But in fact, the body is dying daily; each day the dead is being expelled. You cut your nails — there is no pain, because nails are the dead part of the body. You cut your hair — there is no pain, because hair are dead cells. If hair were living parts, cutting them would hurt.

Your body each day throws something out… An amusing fact: often in the grave a corpse’s hair and nails continue to grow; because nails and hair have nothing to do with life, they can grow even in a dead body; they are dead parts…dead parts that can keep their process going for a while.

Food is daily giving you a new body, and the dead body is daily being thrown out. It is a continuous process. Hence the name Annamaya Kosh — it is constructed of food.

Therefore much depends on what kind of food you take. Much depends on it. Your diet is not merely for running life; it fashions the first layer of your personality. And on this layer will depend much of whether you can journey within or not; because not all foods are alike.

There are foods that will not allow you to enter within at all — they will keep pushing you outward; foods that will not allow your consciousness to be born within, because they keep you unconscious; foods that will never let you be tranquil, because their very process gives rise to a restlessness in the body. There are diseased foods and healthy foods; pure foods and impure foods.

‘Pure food’ simply means this: that your body does not become an obstacle to the inner journey — nothing more. The only meaning of pure food is that your body does not stand in your way within.

A man can build the walls of his house of solid stone. Another may make his walls of glass; but glass is transparent — standing outside one can still see within. If the walls are solid stone, standing outside you cannot see inside.

The body too can become transparent like glass. The name ‘pure food’ is given to that food which makes the body transparent — so that even while you move without, a glimpse of the within continues. Or you can make the body such a wall that the very thought of going within is forgotten, and all glimpses from within stop.

This is the only meaning of sattvic and non‑sattvic: that your body may become transparent…that the first layer may become transparent. Then the inner journey begins. Only when the first layer becomes transparent does the second layer become apparent — otherwise, not. We do not come to know that within the body there is yet another body. There is no other reason. The yogi comes to know that within the body there is another body because his first layer becomes transparent; then he begins to catch glimpses of the second body.

And then there are methods to make the second body transparent. Then the third begins to be glimpsed. When the third too is made transparent, the fourth. And when the fourth is transparent, the fifth. And when the fifth becomes transparent, then that which is beyond the body, outside the body, the bodiless, begins to be glimpsed.

So you can make your body walls of solid stone, or you can make them transparent like glass.

Hence the rishi begins from the very first: ‘Annamaya Kosh.’

This body around you, formed of food — certainly it is entirely made of food. There is nothing in it that has come from outside food. It may be that the food was eaten by your father, and by his father before him — it makes no difference; nothing in this body has come from outside food.

If we analyze the human germ‑plasm by which conception occurs, nothing is found there except the constituents of food. The essence of food, its subtlest distillation, is stored in the seed.

Great experiments were carried out by wise ones. For thousands of years, generation after generation, some families had the courage to live purely vegetarian — for generations! Because nothing changes in the body in a day; the body’s web is vast. But if for thousands of generations a family has lived on vegetarian food, radical transformations take place in the body; and if one has lived on meat, radical transformations also occur — because what is sifted again and again becomes the purest and enters the seed‑cell. And only when it enters the seed‑cell does transparency arise.

It was a unique experiment: to change food completely and thereby transform the whole body. Even scientists agree at least this far — that whatever we put into the body changes the body.

The difference between a woman’s body and a man’s body is of a few hormones and nothing else. A very small difference. Those hormones too are produced out of food. If we remove a little of certain hormones from a woman’s body, it will begin to transform toward a man’s body. If we remove a little of certain hormones from a man’s body, it will begin to transform toward a woman’s body. Hence soon man will no longer be bound to remain as he is born — if he wishes, he can be woman; if he wishes, he can be man. It is only a small difference of hormones…and hormones are food — the distilled essence of food. By so small a difference the distinction between male and female arises.

With slight differences in food intelligence becomes dull, or it grows keen — because there are indispensable nutritive elements for intelligence which must reach it. If they do not, intelligence becomes feeble. Even if the capacity for intelligence is there, it will not manifest, because the assistance needed from the Annamaya Kosh is not being supplied. A very minute element is produced in the third eye — as I said yesterday — in the pineal gland; if it is not produced, intelligence becomes suddenly diminished.

When a man drinks alcohol, its effect does not actually reach intelligence itself; alcohol does not touch consciousness. But the juices produced in the pineal gland stop being produced; that’s all — intelligence is lost. No direct effect on intelligence, but that part of the Annamaya Kosh through which intelligence relates becomes dormant.

Now a madness has begun to spread from the West — of lysergic acid and such things. Scientists say LSD, or mescaline, or such substances affect only the pineal gland. And the element whose arising gives man intelligence, discernment, is blocked there; it ceases. Hence it would not be surprising if the new Western generation experimenting with LSD brings the entire civilization crashing to the ground; because that civilization stands on the foundation of intelligence, and that intelligence is bound to be damaged.

Certainly, with the fall of that intelligence man becomes free of a certain bondage; for discernment too is a kind of bondage, a certain limitation. If one mistakes release from that limitation for freedom, it is a great error; because freedom can be of two kinds: by rising beyond the limit, or by falling below it. The freedom that comes by falling below is only insanity; the freedom that comes by rising beyond — that alone is the supreme state.

A very cheap moksha is being purchased through chemicals. But that too is only chemical…food.

This first layer of ours is of food. Therefore discernment about food is important — not mere superstition or blind belief. A purely vegetarian body has a certain suppleness, a flexibility, which a non‑vegetarian body does not have. Slowly the body of a meat‑eater becomes like that of animals.

It is curious that we never consider that the meat we eat is the very constituent of those animals’ bodies. You take that meat directly into your own body; gradually you begin to impose inside yourself the arrangement of those animals. That arrangement will affect you. It will turn your body into a wall of solid stone. Perhaps the lack of development of intelligence in animals has much to do with their Annamaya Kosh.

The discernment that has flowered in you — by gathering an animal’s body around you, you will pull it down.

Very small things bring revolutionary change — things we do not suspect, so small they seem. Scientists say man’s brain could develop because he stood upright on two feet; had he continued to move on all fours, his brain would never have developed. So small a thing — could it make a difference so vast between ape and man, dog and man? What a distance between an Einstein and a monkey! Scientists say this immense gap resulted from a tiny change: man stood upright. Why? Because then the flow of blood toward the brain became less…less, for blood must be pumped upward to reach the brain. And when less blood began to go toward the brain, the brain could develop subtle fibers. If the flow is too strong, the subtle fibers break.

In animals the flow toward the brain is continuously strong; hence those subtle fibers cannot be formed. Where there is a swift river current, tiny plants cannot root in it; even small pebbles cannot remain — they will be swept away.

That less blood goes to the brain — this alone is the reason for the development of so much human intelligence. That is why after night, when you wake in the morning, your intelligence feels fresh. It feels fresh only because through the day you tire your intelligence by using it; then you sleep, and in sleep the flow of blood runs back again.

There is not much difference between our sleep and an animal’s sleep; the difference lies in waking. A man asleep and an animal asleep — search as you like, you will not be able to tell a difference; can you tell any? A beast asleep and a man asleep?

No, all the difference begins when the animal wakes and when the man wakes.

A saint asleep and a sinner asleep…in deep sleep, in sushupti — can you tell any difference? However you cut and probe the brain, could you guess which is the sinner and which the saint? In sushupti no distinction can be made. In truth, in sushupti distinction collapses; all distinctions belong to waking. Standing on two feet, all our differences begin. One man is a Buddha, one is an Einstein, and one is dull‑witted — but these differences are of waking; when the blood does not reach the brain, all these distinctions of fibers cease.

Have you noticed, that even to bring good sleep you must place a pillow under the head? Remove the pillow — sleep becomes difficult; because as soon as the pillow is removed, blood rushes to the head more forcefully.

The structure of the head is such that if you sleep without a pillow, the head sinks lower than the body; the flow of blood rushes to the head so strongly that the fibers cannot rest…and sleep cannot come. Hence as man’s intelligence has developed, pillows have gone on increasing — one becomes two, three. The reason: the more subtle the inner fibers, the more they must be protected; otherwise sleep will not come…the subtle fibers will vibrate so sharply that sleep will be impossible.

Such a small event — and scientists say humankind underwent a radical transformation. I am recounting a small event so it may occur to you that food is not a small event. Tiny events bring great differences.

Because man stood upright, sociologists say the family was born; otherwise the family would never have come into being. You cannot imagine what standing upright has to do with the family. And if the family is not born, there is no civilization, no culture; for civilization and culture are but the expansion of family. Can you even imagine any relation between standing upright and the birth of the family?

Scientists say: because man stood upright, love was born; otherwise love could not be. You cannot think what love has to do with standing upright. But it happened. Researchers are unanimous. In all animal intercourse, the faces are not face‑to‑face — they cannot be, because animals mate from the rear. In human mating, faces became face‑to‑face because man stood up; rear mating fell away. Mating turned toward the front. And only when we look into the face does the sense of personality arise; otherwise, nothing arises. So when a man approaches a woman from the front, very soon a connection with the face is established.

Curiously, all the rest of the body is almost the same; there is not much difference — only the face bears distinctions, only the face carries individuality. If all your heads were cut off, it would be difficult to recognize whose body is whose. But the heads could be recognized, because individuality, the form of personhood, is in the face. Because the face entered intercourse, lust began to transform into love…and personal relationships were born; the family began to arise — slowly the rest of the body became secondary and the face became important.

For animals the face is utterly unimportant. A deep connection through the face never forms.

Scientists say: because man stood upright, therefore family, therefore love, therefore culture, therefore civilization… Can so small a thing be so momentous? Then food is no small matter; it is great — and great because our entire body is made of it.

Whatever we put into the body has its own quality. That quality will become your body’s quality today or tomorrow. A man who pours alcohol into himself continually — and we suddenly say to him, ‘Stop drinking’ — he cannot stop. Why? It is no longer he who drinks; each and every cell of his body has begun to drink — each and every cell. It is now beyond his control — each hair’s breadth of his body is drinking; cell by cell. There are roughly seven trillion cells in a human body; one by one they have become alcohol‑drinkers, addicted. This is what addiction is. There is no other addiction.

We say a man is addicted — it only means that now it is not merely he who drinks; the entire cellular city demands, ‘Drink, otherwise we cannot function, cannot move, cannot sit.’ Now it is very difficult to quit; because seven trillion lives within are crying: ‘Drink!’ Seven trillion living cells! You are a great crowd, a vast city; you are not alone — you live within that great city.

Hence the word chosen for the soul was ‘Purush’. Purush means: the one who dwells in a pur, a great city — the indweller. In every man’s body there is a vast metropolis — vast, not small. Multitudes of lives surround you. And when all their demands arise, you get into difficulty; you have to fulfill them, and even if you wish to go out of it, you cannot.

So the food you give is creating these seven trillion cells, creating their demands. Then you must live bound with them. And this bondage becomes an obstacle to going within.

We have called sattvic that food which does not create addiction — food that only gives energy to the body, not intoxication. Understand the difference clearly: that which gives energy to the body but not stupefaction; that which satisfies the body’s needs but does not create madness; that which fulfills necessity but does not become indulgence.

To the extent that anything produces stupor in the body, to that extent your Annamaya Kosh is distorted. But we do not think, we do not consider; we do not care what we eat, what we drink; we simply follow the crowd.

In India the contemplation of food and diet has gone farther than in any other land; perhaps because here for the first time it dawned that if one is to go within this body, the body must be changed; as it is, it will not suffice.

Pavlov experimented on dogs — great experiments, fifty years of labor. By removing a tiny gland in the dog, anger could no longer be provoked in it; try as you may, the dog that was ferocious a moment ago — by removing a pinch of a certain toxin — beat it, do what you will, it cannot get angry. What happened? A pinch of poison was removed. That poison comes from the dog’s diet. If we do not remove the poison from the dog but change its food so the poison no longer forms, the dog will not remain angry either.

Man’s violence too comes from the toxins produced within. If certain toxins are removed from you, you will not be able to be violent. Therefore a large group of physiologists says those who commit murder are not criminals — this is foolishness to call them so; they are only sick. A particular poison is being produced in their body; what can they do? To punish them or hang them is madness, sheer madness. And sooner or later, if the thoughtful American behaviorist B. F. Skinner succeeds in persuading the world, he says criminals should be operated upon. There is no crime — a few glands should be removed; then they will not be able to murder, to be violent.

But when a scientist, or a laboratory, or a state begins to cut out your glands, you will become slaves. If I cannot be angry at all, what value will my forgiveness have? Impotency is not non‑violence; to become impotent is not ahimsa. The scientist can cut — no need to change your food; keep eating what you eat, but your glands can be cut, the arrangements where those juices are produced can be broken — then you cannot be angry, cannot be violent, cannot kill — but there will be no quality of your own in it, and there will be no inner journey; you will only have become impotent.

But we discovered another process…not to pressure you from above, not to break a part of you; we were ready to keep your body as it is, but for self‑transformation you voluntarily change your arrangement of food and diet. Slowly, slowly your body becomes free of those poisons that lead you into sin; free of those excitations that drive you outward.

And gradually the reverse also becomes possible. This is only half, the negative half — that poisons arise and cause anger; can an amrit, a nectar, arise within that causes forgiveness? Skinner does not yet know. If there are glands that make you male or female and produce sexual desire, is it not possible that such a current may arise within you that frees you from both woman and man?

Yes, by operation you can be freed from male and female — but that is a fall. Then you only become impotent. But if the full capacity of male and female remains, and within you begins a stream that carries you beyond, so that the attraction to both man and woman drops away — the very idea that you are man or woman is forgotten — then you rise, and your energy becomes upward‑flowing.

The body is the first thing.

The second layer of the body… The seers have called it the Pranamaya Kosh — the vital body.

Only when this first body becomes transparent will you come to know it; otherwise this will remain just talk. Hidden behind this body is a body of prana.

By prana is meant the energy body, the vital body.

The difference between a stone and a living being is this: a stone has only one body — the Annamaya Kosh. A plant has one more body within — the Pranamaya Kosh. A plant has two bodies; a stone has one. A plant is not merely stone; there is something stone‑like that encases it, but within a current of life flows. A plant is sometimes young, sometimes old; sometimes it is exuberant when the current flows richly; sometimes it is dull when the current is feeble.

When the sun rises in the morning the stone remains a stone — at night it is the same, in the morning it is the same; but the plant is something else at night, something else in the morning. Within is a life‑current, a prana body, that is filled with joy as the sun rises. The energy that comes from the sun is received by the prana body. Hence the stone is unaffected by day and night; the sun has no effect on it.

When I say ‘stone’ I do not mean a mountain — remember — because mountains are alive; some mountains are young, like the Himalaya which is still growing. The Vindhyas have become old.

A beautiful legend says it bowed its head for the journey of a muni, and the muni never returned; so it remains bowed. The truth is different. The Vindhyas are an old range — the oldest on earth; the Himalaya is a mere child. Long ago its back bent and its spine slackened; it grew old. The myth is delightful — but it hints that the mountain is old, it can no longer lift its head. Even if the rishi returns now, it cannot raise its head. The Himalaya rises and rises; day by day it grows. How much it will still grow is hard to say.

It is a strange fact that the Rigveda does not speak of the Himalaya. Impossible that the Himalaya could be missed. With such peaks as Gaurishankar dazzling the sky nearby, could the rishi not sing? Impossible. The truth is: when the rishi sang, the Himalaya had not yet been born. No other reason explains it; for the rishi did not miss small things — how could he miss the Himalaya? Only one reason: when the rishi sang, the Himalaya was not yet born — or if born, it was such a small hillock that it could be ignored.

The Rigveda remembers journeys and places not in India but in Central Asia; it remembers those nights that occur only near the North Pole — six months of day and six months of night. But there is no mention of the Himalaya. It seems the Himalaya was absent. Either the rishi lived near the North Pole, or between the Pole and India there were direct paths without the obstructing Himalaya.

Those who believe Aryans came to India from outside face a difficulty: there is no mention of the immense difficulties of crossing the Himalaya! If they came from outside — impossible that they would omit it. They mention so many things, and the terrible difficulty of crossing would have been deep in the race’s memory — who knows how many died, how many were lost; of a thousand who set out perhaps ten arrived. There is no mention. So, most likely, the Himalaya did not exist. It is not an ancient mountain.

So when I speak of stone I do not mean mountains. Mountains too have a prana body. Wherever there is growth there is a prana body. Growth happens in prana, not in matter. It is always prana that grows, not matter. Thus it happens that sometimes a man filled with matter appears utterly lifeless; a heavy frame and yet no prana. And sometimes a frail frame and the prana feels oceanic.

This Pranamaya body is energy‑made, the energy body. The gross body is matter‑made; it is made of food. The prana body is made of energy, of shakti. This energy is received from the sun; it is received from air; it is received from endless, subtle waves.

Hence it may happen that if a person learns the art of nourishment for prana, he can be free of food; he can reduce food. If energy is directly available and he knows the art of transforming it…such an art exists. Sometimes it happens accidentally. Even now there are a few persons on earth who for years have taken no food. Their weight does not drop — it should. The only conclusion: in one way or another their organism has learned a trick by which energy is converted directly into matter. And since Einstein it has become clear that matter and energy are not two things; matter is only energy, energy is only matter — two states of one.

Einstein’s great formula is this: energy and matter are not two, but two states of one. Matter can become energy; energy can become matter. On this formula the atom bomb was developed. The atomic explosion is only a declaration that we turn matter into energy. We split an atom and it becomes energy. The reverse is also possible. And the reverse occurs when a man lives without food and the body requires none — the atom of the prana body is becoming matter.

This energy body is a layer within; we are not aware of it. Sometimes, in certain moments, we get a feel of it — sometimes! Standing on the seashore suddenly it seems a wave has run within. That wave does not run in your material body; waves cannot run in matter. A wave is an event of energy. Do waves ever arise in stone? Waves — tarang, vibration — belong to energy. When you fall in love with someone, suddenly waves surge within. They do not surge in your gross body — though the body experiences them; even the hairs on the body may stand.

The Western poet Housman wrote: I call a poem only that in which my hair stands on end. But the effect of poetry is not on the body; it is on the prana body. And the skillful poet is one who penetrates as deep as possible into your prana body…so that you become wave‑tossed.

That song which cannot make you dance is not song; the ear may have heard it, but it has not reached the prana. When song reaches the prana it becomes dance. Sometimes, hearing a song, hearing the veena, with the surge of the sea, in a moment of love, looking at the moon in the sky, at the rising sun, in a gust of wind, watching a bud become a flower — a tremor runs within. That is not of your Annamaya Kosh; that vibration belongs to your prana energy.

Scientists are beginning to experience that there is prana energy within; they call it bio‑energy, life‑energy; they call it the body’s electricity.

There are more electric people and less electric people. Those about whom you say, ‘Just seeing them hypnosis happens’ — there is no other reason. You go near someone and suddenly feel influenced — the influence seems causeless. Its relation is with the prana body. If such a person has a developed prana body — and this happens only when the first body is transparent — then waves immediately arise in your prana body…the prana body touches the prana body. It can touch from very far; for it, distance does not matter. Distance pertains only to the Annamaya body; it has no meaning for the prana body. Then something wavers in you, something trembles, something yields, something is overshadowed.

The most expressive window of the prana body in the gross body is the eye. That is why nothing appears as alive as the eyes; the rest of the body seems dead. The eye is in fact a double plane. The eye is the place from which, through your Annamaya body, your Pranamaya body looks out. Hence the eye is so vibrant, so waveful. Waves rush into the eyes immediately. Your hand will take time to become angry — to clench, to have blood rush, to move for attack; the eye becomes angry in an instant. For the waves of prana, or love, to reach the body takes time, there must be waiting; the eye falls in love instantly.

Your eye is the language of your prana body. A keen reading of your eye can tell everything about your prana body. The eye continuously reports what is happening within. The eye is very waveful.

This second prana body also needs purification. This prana body also needs to be made transparent. All the practices of pranayama are devices to make the prana body transparent. The more prana — oxygen — you take in, the more this prana body is clear and pure; the more carbon dioxide dominates, the more this prana body becomes impure, tainted and gross.

Therefore it is difficult to sleep in the day, easy at night; because at night the oxygen in the atmosphere decreases and carbon dioxide increases. In the day oxygen increases and carbon dioxide decreases. The notion of waking in Brahmamuhurta was only this — not that one ‘should’ get up then, but that it should become natural to wake then. If, as the sun is rising, your prana body is not affected, you have made it very stony. The sun wakes; plants are affected; birds begin to sing; and your prana body is not stirred! You keep tossing in bed! Then you have become very rock‑like.

This prana body, being energy, is influenced by breath. Therefore breathe as deeply as possible — it is beneficial. Make it a natural part of life. Do not breathe shallowly. The deeper the breath, the more prana you will have; the deeper the breath, the sharper your intellect will be.

If women have lagged behind men in intelligence, among many reasons one is their wrong habit of shallow breathing. Among animals there is no such gap between male and female in intelligence; none is visible. In humans a big gap appears. There are a thousand reasons; one is that women breathe shallowly. The reason for shallow breath is their constant over‑consciousness about the breasts. If the breasts are to be made big, shallow breathing is useful. With deep breathing the breasts will remain only as large as the body needs. But there is no need for large ones.

Curiously, except for human females, all other mammal females have breasts that swell in season and then shrink — when the child needs milk. Only woman has developed breasts that remain large even when not needed for milk. This is the effect of shallow breathing. If the breath goes to the belly, the breasts will be only what is needed. If you want large breasts, you must keep the abdomen drawn in; the breath should not go to the belly.

Therefore even a wrestler who wants a big chest will not let the breath go to the belly. Wrestlers are seldom intelligent — they cannot be. They cannot be! I have never heard of a wrestler being intelligent; because for the development of intelligence, prana energy must be dense. The wrestler keeps the belly drawn in and breathes with the chest.

Have you seen how an infant breathes? The infant’s breathing is the right way. The infant’s belly rises and falls, not the chest; because the child is not yet spoiled — he does not want to be a wrestler, nor to make big breasts; he has no such fuss. He breathes as nature intends — the belly rises and falls.

You may have noticed something: in Indian images of Buddha, the chest is large and the belly small; but in Japanese and Chinese images, the chest is small and the belly large. They look a bit odd; but there is a reason — though it is not that Buddha’s body was so. In Japan and China they deliberately made such images to say the focus of meditation should be on the belly, not the chest. If attention is on the chest, breath will reach only the chest and turn back.

So one reason for women’s lesser intellectual sharpness is their shallow breathing; the energy body remains small.

This energy body is purified by receiving more and deeper prana. And besides breath, there are subtler foods for this energy body. Wherever waves can be received…there are many kinds of waves — pure waves and impure waves.

The sole purpose of satsang was this: you went and sat near a sadhu, neither talking nor discussing — just sitting. Why? Because around him are waves that become available to your energy body without any conversation.

Darshan was a unique phenomenon that arose in this land. In the West no one can understand what darshan means. To go for the ‘sight’ of someone? To go to meet, to talk, to discuss — that is understandable; but to go for darshan! What madness is this? What will happen by mere ‘seeing’? Much happens. Often what cannot happen by talking or discussion happens through darshan. Darshan simply means we are going near a place where a very vibrant prana body exists, surrounded by an atmosphere of prana. Sitting there even for two moments gives movement, waves, to your energy body.

The sadhu has gone to the mountain…away from human density, because wherever people are dense they are releasing their waves — impure or pure as they are.

Crowds are tiring. Have you noticed, when you return from a crowd you are a little diminished; some energy has fallen. Crowds are exhausting.

And crowds lower your intelligence — have you noticed? Therefore if you want some great foolish act done, you cannot get it done by individuals, only by crowds. If you want to set fire to a mosque or break a temple, you can do it by a crowd, not by individuals.

And it is strange that if you ask the very people in the crowd one by one to do it, each will say, ‘It does not feel right. What is the point?’ But in the crowd the level of intelligence falls; discernment and responsibility are lost. The man thinks, ‘I alone am not responsible! So many are doing it; I am only with them.’ And all think the same. Thus the great sins of the world have been done by crowds, not by persons; persons have committed only small sins.

Going away from the crowd had only this purpose — that prana energy becomes purest; the crowd does not infect it.

So Moses goes to Mount Sinai; Muhammad climbs the mountain; Buddha and Mahavira wander in the forests; for thirty years there is no trace of Christ…Christians have no story of what he did for thirty years! Only three years are told — the last three before he died. Where was he in those other twenty‑three? There is no record. He was outside the crowd. Those twenty‑three years were to strengthen the vital body, the prana energy.

About the third body we will speak tonight; for now, let us work a little.

When I say to you, deep and intense — deep and intense breathing — I am trying to awaken your prana body. No miserliness will do; put in your whole strength. When I tell you to go mad and throw out all that is piled within, I say it for your purification; throw it out. And when I speak of the roar, that too is to strike your energy body.

Now let us move into the experiment. Spread out far and wide.

Less than going mad will not do. Put your cleverness aside. In any case you are not truly clever; so it won’t be too difficult to put it aside. Less than going mad will not do…