Seven Bodies -Human being

Seven Bodies -Human being

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osho said that the individual can be divided into seven bodies.

1. Physical Body
2. Etheric Body
3. Astral Body
4. Mental Body
5. Spiritual Body
6. Cosmic Body
7. Nirvanic Body, the bodiless body 

In the first seven years of life, the physical body alone is formed. The other bodies are in seed form. They have a potential for growth but they lie dormant in the beginning of life. So the first seven years are years of limitation. There is no growth of intellect, emotion or desire during these years. Only the physical body develops within this period. Some people never grow beyond seven years; they stagnate at this stage. Animals develop only in the physical body; the other bodies remain untouched within them.

In the next seven years - that is from seven years to fourteen years - the etheric body, develops. These seven years are years of emotional growth of the individual. This is why sexual maturity, which is the most intense form of emotion, is reached at the age of fourteen. Now some people stagnate at this stage. Their physical bodies grow but they are stuck with the first two bodies.

In the third seven-year period, between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one, the astral body, develops. In the second body, emotion is developed; in the third body reasoning, thinking and intellect are developed. After the development of the second body a person reaches adulthood. But this is the adulthood of sex. Nature's work is complete with this development, and this is why nature gives its full cooperation up to this stage. But at this stage man is not man in the full sense of the word. The third body, where reason, intellect and the thinking power develop, is an outcome of education, civilization and culture. This is natural, because as man is becoming more and more evolved, the usual span of seven years for the growth of each body is becoming less and less. Normally, however, twenty-one years are required for the growth of the third body, and the majority of people do not develop further than this. Their growth stops short with the development of the third body, and there is no further development for the rest of their lives.

The fourth body is the mental body. This body has its own wonderful experiences. Dreams are a happening of the fourth body, and the fourth body has a great potential. Whatever powers are mentioned in yoga are attained in this body. Yoga has incessantly warned the meditator not to go into them. The greatest danger is there of going astray. Even if you go into a psychic state it has no spiritual value. The fourth body exists, but it is very subtle; it cannot come within our grasp. Only the physical body can be grasped. Yet there are corresponding points between the first body and the fourth body.

The fifth body, which is called the spiritual body - is of great value. If growth in life continues in the proper manner, then by the age of thirty-five this body should be fully developed. But this is a faraway idea because even the fourth body is only developed in a very few people. This is why the soul and such things are only a topic of discussion for us; there is no content behind the word. When we say soul, it is merely a word; there is nothing behind it. But there is no meaning behind the word soul, because we have no knowledge, no experience of the soul. This is our fifth body, and only if the kundalini awakens in the fourth body, is entrance possible in the fifth; otherwise we cannot enter. We are not aware of the fourth body, so the fifth also remains unknown.

The sixth body is the cosmic body. When a person evolves beyond his soul, when he is willing to lose it, he enters the sixth body. If mankind develops scientifically, the natural development of the sixth body would take place at the age of forty-two, and that of the nirvana body - the seventh body - at the age of forty-nine.

The seventh body is the nirvanic body which is no-body - which is a state of bodilessness, an incorporeal state. This is the ultimate state where only the void remains - not even the brahman, the cosmic reality, but only the emptiness. Nothing has remained; everything has disappeared.

The state of moksha (enlightenment) is experienced in the fifth body. The limitations of the first four bodies are transcended and the soul becomes totally free. So liberation is the experience of the fifth body.

Heaven and hell pertain to the fourth body, and he who stops here will experience them. For those who stop at the first, second or third body, life between birth and death becomes everything; there is no life beyond death for them. If a person goes beyond into the fourth body, after this life he experiences heaven and hell where there are infinite possibilities of happiness and misery.

If he reaches up to the fifth body there is the door of liberation, and if he reaches up to the sixth there is the possibility of the state of God-realization. Then there is no question of liberation or no liberation; he becomes one with that which is. The declaration of "AHAM BRAHMASMI" - I am God - is of this plane. But there is yet one step more, which is the last jump - where there is no 'I' and no 'Thou', where I and Thou are totally nonexistent, where there is simply nothing - where there is total and absolute void. That is Nirvana.

Source:

http://awarenessosho.blogspot.in