Swami Shivananda on Astral Heavens Transit

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 5 years before Jan 27, 2019

MiBeloved 5 years ago

During practice this afternoon, Swami Shivananda appeared, floating in the sky in a very colorful astral body, which had pastel colors. He was in a jovial mood but wanted to confront me about people thinking that he was an impersonalist.

He said,

“Why not defend me when people suggest that I am an impersonalist?”

I replied,

“What is the use of defense if someone has read your books and got the idea from there, or if someone goes to your ashram and gets the idea from there. Then a defense would appear pretentious.”

He then said,

“If anyone asks you, at least you should state that I am not an atheist and Krishna is my prime deity. I wrote favorably about Krishna, who is dear to me.”

I replied, “Yes, Guruji. I know your position, if someone asks I will explain that the Swami status from Shankara’s lineage required certain philosophical positions but that does not mean that Swami is an atheist.”

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Swami then changed the subject, even though I know that he felt that I should forcefully denounce anyone who feels that he is an impersonalist and that he is not fully convinced of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita.

He began talking about how to shift from Indra’s heavenly world (Indraloka) to the Maharloka place, which is the lowest of the higher heavenly worlds. There is above Indraloka, Maharloka and then Janaloka and then Tapaloka and then Satyaloka which is also called Brahmaloka, meaning the residence of the Brahma deity (not the brahman world nor brahman effulgence).

This what he said about jumping from Indraloka to Tapaloka:

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A yogi has to pass the complete pull-up test and must transcend the opposite gender of his or her body. Generally speaking a male yogi has to cause the success of at least one female disciple, because that shows that he knows what he is doing through and through.

The female psyche has different motivations for doing yoga, and even though for males motive is important, for females usually it has little, if any, significance. For them it is the ability to listen. It is not a matter of motive or reason for them. It hinges on the ability to listen to someone who can give them the kriyas which would elevate them beyond Indra’s world.

Male may think their way out of Swarga but females must feel their way out of there.

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MiBeloved’s Comments:

If a yogi goes to the Swarga angelic world after death, then his chances of going higher are just bout nil.

Why?

Because the situation there pilots the yogi to exploiting pleasure energies in all shapes and forms.

A few yogis however do go higher. They go to the first of the highest astral planes which is called Maharloka. When such a yogi gets that transit, he smiles and considers that the Swarga angelic world is comparable to a ghetto. Then he considers what an animal he was to have been enthralled by such a place.

A dark damp dingy mold infested cupboard is heaven to a cockroach.

There are some paragraphs from Buddhist Master Sayadaw book, Knowing and Seeing, page 148, which are relevant to this discussion:

He wrote this about a Buddhist yogi, based on stories from Lord Buddha’s life.

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If he does not get the chance to listen to the Dhamma from Dhamma-teaching devas, he may get the chance to meet friends who were fellow meditators in his past human life in a dispensation. Those fellow meditators may say, for example: ‘Oh friend, please remember this and that Dhamma which we practiced as bhikkhus in the human world.’ He may then remember the Dhamma, and if he practices Vipassanà, he can attain Nibbàna very quickly

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But a paragraph which is in the printed version, is missing from the online pdf of this book,. It reads this:

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An example of a lesser Steam-Enterer who was reborn in the deva realm, and who attained Nibbàna very quickly afterwards, is the Venerable Samana-Devaputta. He was a bhikkhu who practiced samatha-vipassana earnestly. He died when practicing, and was reborn in the deva realm. He did not know he had died, and continued meditating in his mansion in the deva realm. When the female devas in his mansion saw him, they realized he must have been a bhikkhu in his previous life, so they put a mirror in front of him and made a noise. He opened his eyes, and saw his image in the mirror. He was very disappointed, because he did not want to be a deva; he wanted only Nibbàna.

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This statement is very important. Can you understand it and put it into perspective in terms of your present yoga practice?

There is no statement in the book that this ascetic attained the Swarga angelic world. It only says the deva world. I am saying that it is the Swarga world because of the situation of how the female residents of that place approached him. For one thing he did not know that he was transferred into that world and that his material body has passed on because he left that body in a samadhi before it was deceased.

After leaving that body, his astral body grafted into the dimensional existence which is known as the Swarga world. There he automatically got a palatial residence and consorts of the angelic type. Note here that he did not even know that his astral body was transformed like this and he was a practicing yogi. The angelic women realized that he was deceased from physical existence but knew that he was unaware of the transit of his astral body into their world. They knew how to which was to bring him out of samadhi into that world.

So as to not confuse him they put an astral mirror before him so that he would know that he was now an astral body and was no longer a yogi ascetic in rags doing austerities as recommended by Buddha.

By making a certain sound, they disturbed his samadhi and jolted him out of it so that his focal consciousness was not synchronized into the deva world of Indra. These females were to be his consort there but when he opened the eyes of that body and saw his appearance there, he was shocked and disappointed. He immediately realized that he failed to reach the territories of the Buddhas, the Tushita heavens.

This is unusual because normally, a yogi would be happy to come out after death in the Swarga heavenly world where he would be awarded, by the nature of the place itself, several consorts who are angelic women of incredible beauty.

Because this yogi was highly indoctrinated in the philosophy of Lord Buddha, he could not regard the Swarga Place as being fit for habitation. He was frightened that he got transited to that place even though it was not his desire to go there. His physical body died before he could attain the higher place which he aspired for and his subtle body was only energized up to the level of the Swarga Angelic world.

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Swamiji Shivananda made a joke by asking me which or how many females I could elevate beyond the Indra world. It is both a joke and a serious consideration. A yogi must know however that first he should secure his own release and then he may consider others. A yogi is not a bodhisattva who feels that he must release others before he can gain release for himself.

First you save yourself, and then if you are commissioned you assist others.