If one has really technically penetrated a subject, things that previously seemed in complete contrast, might be purely mathematical transformations of each other. -Von neumann

Some people feel that they should spend their time meditating on the chakras. I really don't think so. I think it's a great waste of time for most people to meditate on the chakras. Because when you meditate on a chakra, you're fixating. I will take exception to the heart chakra or occasional chakra meditation. If you meditate and start your meditation each day by meditating on the heart chakra, you'll have a very progressive, beautiful meditation. It will bring you into the higher psychic planes, which will bring purity into your being and love and light. Occasionally it's fun to meditate on some of the other chakras. But I'm suggesting that you should not spend your whole meditation focusing on the chakras because it's a bit of a fixation. Spend maybe five or ten minutes or 15 minutes at the beginning of, let's say, a 45-minute meditation session meditating on the chakras. And then, after you've done that, stop—stop focusing on the chakra. Now just feel light, feel love, ignore your thoughts and let go.

Some people feel that they should spend their time meditating on the chakras. I really don't think so. I think it's a great waste of time for most people to meditate on the chakras. Because when you meditate on a chakra, you're fixating. I will take exception to the heart chakra or occasional chakra meditation. If you meditate and start your meditation each day by meditating on the heart chakra, you'll have a very progressive, beautiful meditation. It will bring you into the higher psychic planes, which will bring purity into your being and love and light. Occasionally it's fun to meditate on some of the other chakras. But I'm suggesting that you should not spend your whole meditation focusing on the chakras because it's a bit of a fixation. Spend maybe five or ten minutes or 15 minutes at the beginning of, let's say, a 45-minute meditation session meditating on the chakras. And then, after you've done that, stop—stop focusing on the chakra. Now just feel light, feel love, ignore your thoughts and let go.

The chakras are useful; they're like an automobile. The auto will take us from one place to another. But the auto has its limitations. It can't fly, it can't talk to us, it can't give us a foot rub. At least not the models I've seen. So don't be overwhelmed by the chakras. The chakras are like the organs in your body. When your body is healthy they function properly and efficiently. You don't have to think about your heart or your lungs or your liver. If your body is healthy, if you're in good condition, then everything functions perfectly. To keep everything functioning perfectly you have to attune yourself to light and love and humor. Then the chakras will work the way they're supposed to. But if you fixate on the chakras, very often you can enlarge them, in a way of speaking. It's hard to put this into words. But imagine that you made your heart too big for your chest. It would be very painful. If you developed one leg much more than you did the other, you'd be imbalanced. So people who meditate too much on the chakras very often create an imbalance, not in the chakras themselves, the chakras won't exactly get larger or smaller, but let's say that the chakras are fields of attention, fields of awareness, and you're formed by these fields of awareness. The fields of awareness are in a certain balance; there's a certain structure. It's like the DNA. Now, when you start to mess around with that balance, you're messing around with the structure of your being. If you don't know what you're doing you can get yourself in a lot of trouble. If you do know what you're doing, you won't do anything, you'll let eternity do everything. It's fun to try meditating on the chakras a little bit. Meditating on each chakra will not hurt you, don't misunderstand me. I'm simply suggesting that people who meditate on the chakras every day for several hours a day, let's say on the same chakra, day after day, month after month, unless it's the heart chakra or any of the higher chakras, really, but if you're meditating on the navel chakra or the two lower chakras for excessive periods of time, you will bring energies and forces into yourself that are very strong and very powerful but not necessarily very pure and happy. You can fall into deep depressions, be filled with frustration, anxiety. It's fine to meditate occasionally, meditate for a few minutes each day, on your navel center or on one of the other centers. But to spend hours and hours on the chakras will produce effects, and those effects cannot necessarily be erased very quickly.

The occult body is a field of attention. A human being is composed of various parts: the physical body; the subtle physical body or the etheric body; the occult body; the psychic body; the mind; the ego; the life force; and of course the jiva or the soul or what they call in Buddhism the anatman, that eternal spark which is the ultimate perceiver or non-doer. The occult body is not a body in the sense that it has a shape. It's shapeless. The occult body is a field of attention. It's an avenue of awareness. It's a wind tunnel that connects the different realities. Now certainly there are what we call “occult bodies.” It is possible to create these occult bodies. They're extensions of your own bodies; we call them allies or helpers. An advanced spiritual aspirant is capable of creating many different bodies and can utilize these bodies to help aid others in their liberation. But the occult body, more than anything, is a field of awareness. You might say it's a way of being. The occult body is power but power that is not directed in an obvious manner. The word “occult” means hidden, that which is unseen. There are various forms of spiritual practice. Naturally in some forms of spiritual practice we see that which is apparent. When someone loves God, is truthful, is kind to others, compassionate, we can see what appears to be the cause and effect. But the occult body is part of the realm of mysticism and it works through the occult fields.

Just as there are different radio frequencies—shortwave, longwave, television, microwave—so in the cosmos there are different planes of awareness, different frequencies of being. Some of these frequencies don't relate to human beings at all. Some do. The principal planes that relate to human beings are the physical plane, which is part and parcel of the physical body; the vital plane or the plane of energy, the life force; the mental plane or the plane of thought and ideation; the plane of self, the sense of self, the ego, the "I”; the occult plane which is the plane of mysterious power, effect without cause; the psychic plane, which is the plane of beauty and psychic oneness and awareness; and finally the superconscious, the undifferentiated pure light of being from which all things come forth and to which all things return. The occult plane is neither good nor bad, neither emotional nor unemotional. It's an expression of pure intensity. We go down to the beach on a cloudy, stormy night when the wind is blowing and there's a tremendous gale. The white caps are foaming, the winds are rising and everything is swept by that wind. The surf pounds the sand. That intensity, that tremendous, awesome power is similar to the occult reality. The occult reality is a place of force and power.

Many different beings live in the occult world, but the occult world is not a world for the lightweight. By that I mean that the occult world is a world of warriors. It's a world of power, survival of the fittest, I suppose you might say. The beings in the occult world help some people in their spiritual evolution. But very often they destroy people. The occult reality is like a wild jungle and to go into that jungle you have to be very strong. You'll be dealing with untamed tigers and lions and elephants and all kinds of things. So unless you are very confident of your power, it's a good place to stay out of.

You travel through the occult plane, through this different spectrum or band of existence, in your occult body. The occult body is your extended awareness. For example, if I choose to, I can send my occult body anywhere, to any universe, to any plane of existence, to any place in this world. And my occult body can produce effects. I can gather knowledge and see. It's like having a kind of mobile video unit out there. I can communicate, transmit power, prevent things from happening, start things—all without leaving my room. I can sit here in my room and create effects without appearing to create effects. This is all done through the occult body.

Now, the occult body can be used for positive things. In my case I use the occult body to locate students, people who seek enlightenment, who I could work successfully with. Many people might seek enlightenment but I wouldn't be of any help to them. I wouldn't appeal to them as a teacher, even though I'm enlightened. The shoe wouldn't necessarily fit. But there are many people on this earth who live in many far-flung lands. Some are my students from past lives or some have worked with other teachers, but they could work successfully with me, meaning that I can be of some service to them along their way, which is of course what I live in this world for. Now, for me to find those people is very difficult. The world is very big; we only have a small amount of time in any given incarnation. So how could I find those people? I could travel the world and put ads in magazines, but maybe that day they wouldn't look in the magazine. Or maybe they're just in such a state of inner slumber that the thought of meditation and self-discovery hasn't even occurred to them yet. Even though they have an advanced soul, they're wrapped in maya. So what I—or any spiritual teacher—do is to use my occult body to work for me. My occult body can be out traveling, producing effects and creating changes, waking people up, giving them spiritual experiences, guiding them in some way to see a poster or an ad or something like that. People who are receptive, whom I could be of some service to, can be helped tremendously by my occult body. I don't have to necessarily be consciously aware of what it's doing.

Very often I use the occult body in dreaming. The occult body is the body of dreaming. At night when I'm asleep for a few hours I use the occult body to travel and visit, to give people spiritual experiences, to learn, or simply to have a good time, just to play. Because I love to play, just to play in the occult realms. Sometimes in the occult realms I have to fight sorcerers and witches and nonphysical beings that are harmful. I also have many friends who are in the occult realms, who exist in these planes, nonphysical beings who help me terrifically in what I do. We work together as a team. For humanity. Very often my occult body will travel in dreaming when I'm awake. For example, I might have a student who's in, let's say, Japan. I might be physically awake at that time, but my occult body, if my student is asleep, can enter their dreams, can converse with them, can communicate with them, teach them or simply have fun with them. I have literally thousands of occult bodies. Being an advanced teacher, who's been a spiritual teacher for many, many lifetimes, I've accrued the power to manifest hundreds and thousands of occult bodies simultaneously. Or you can say that hundreds and thousands of occult bodies have learned how to manifest me. Either one would be correct. I use the occult body just for fun, to give people beautiful spiritual experiences, to help find people, in other words to aid people in their spiritual evolution, to help them in their overall advancement.

Now, the occult body can be used in other ways that are not quite so progressive. The occult body can be used to injure someone, to gain power over them, to steal their power or to destroy them. A lower occultist, someone who practices voodoo, has learned to manipulate energies and to send their body of dreaming to do harm. Whenever I encounter such a person I “destroy” them. It’s like a psychopath who, no matter what you do or say, is bent only on doing harm to others. They do not know reason. A person who has opened themselves up to entities and has been taken over by these lower occult beings has really lost their mind and all they do is destruction. Such a person must be destroyed. In other words, when I say “destroyed,” I don't mean that you kill the person, but I mean that you remove their powers. You take them away. You destroy that part of them that has any affinity with that world. Very often it's necessary to actually destroy beings. I've done that many times, in the occult world. If I see a negative being harming one of my friends, it's necessary to destroy it, to vaporize it. You can't kill it; it will change form, but it's like destroying a virus or a bacteria, something harmful that seeks to destroy the life force in someone. You can't be emotional about these things. There is no emotion in the occult world. In the occult world there's only power and various uses of power. If your heart is pure, you will use that power only for the greater good of all and never to further or advance yourself. If you are impure, then you will use the power in impure ways, and a person who uses the power in impure ways will suffer tremendously.

Many people practice what they call channeling. They get in touch with spirits; they communicate with nonphysical beings. This is the occult. They're dabbling in the occult reality. But always remember when you do these things you're opening a doorway that will not necessarily close when you want it to. When you communicate with spirits and forces you're linking your energy with theirs. They may appear initially to you to be very progressive. They may give you interesting information. But always remember, they can see. Some of them are quite knowledgeable. And they can see what you want. They can tell what your desires are. If they fulfill your desires, then they begin to gain control over you, over your mind.
Very often we read about some lunatic in the paper going and killing someone. Like the fellow who killed John Lennon, for example, or the "Son of Sam" as he was called in New York. These lovely people tell us that they heard voices that told them to kill a certain person and that they listened and they followed what the voices said. These [voices] are occult beings. These individuals were practicing occultism. Now, they may not have been part of a coven of witches, necessarily, but inwardly they were talking to nonphysical beings for a long, long time and there were transactions that occurred with them. Many of the invisible friends in childhood are not imaginary; they're actual. These beings really exist. Normally they will not have a transaction with you unless you seek them. They don't particularly like light, the lower ones. If you meditate every day and if you're a happy, progressive person you need never even think about the occult. You can throw this tape away because the occult doesn't really apply to you. And I do not suggest that you look into the occult.

I had many incarnations where I worked with the occult, particularly in ancient Egypt and Atlantis and in other cycles. But occultism in those days was a high science. Today occultism is your local fortune-teller, your witch. This is not occultism. These are people who dabble with forces that they don't understand, with powers that can destroy them and eventually will. Occultism is a beautiful art when you understand it and it's definitely an art. It's much like ballet. It involves perfect form and movement. You have to be able to move perfectly through the occult realms. Many things will tempt you and if you can still be tempted then you will give in. But if you realize that the only thing that matters is light and that that's your real essence and substance, then you're free to play with occultism, to use the higher occultism. Many of the pyramids were built with occult power. People didn't do a lot of it manually; it was all done with energy, with fields of attention. You can move the stars around, rearrange their patterns, project alternate bodies to different locations. Walk on air. Walk on yogurt. You can do all kinds of things with the occult attention. But it's definitely an attention. If you want to develop your occult attention, do a lot of fasting. Fasting is very good for developing the occult attention. I don't recommend that you develop the occult attention. I'll tell you how because I think all knowledge is useful; some of the knowledge that is most useful is the knowledge we never use. But occultism is a slippery path. It's a slippery mountain pass, and it's a long way down.

Now, what I'm going to do is show you how the occult body works. I could talk to you for hours about the occult body or if you came and saw me meditate or went out into the desert with me, you could see it a little bit. But it's not necessary. I can show you the occult body and the influence of the occult body from where you're sitting listening, and that's what I'm going to do right now. Because all time is divisible. In other words, it doesn't really matter when you listen to this, if it's two days after I make the tape, if it's a hundred years hence. The occult body that I'm going to be using will be available as long as this tape is available. What I'd like you to do is just for a moment, unless you're driving an automobile, in which case you can just kind of listen along—just sit up nice and straight, don't lie down and close your eyes. Do this now, if you would be so kind. Now what I'm going to do is reach out and touch you with my occult body. I'm not going to touch your skin or your body, but I'm going to go inside your being. You're going to feel a variety of different sensations, perhaps see something, perhaps not. What I'd like you to do is to close your eyes—this will work best if you're alone, but it'll work anyway—and just be very still and listen to my voice. Your eyes should be closed at this point. Now what I'm doing right now, through all time, beyond time, is reaching out with the occult body. It's a body of beautiful light and I'm reaching inside your being, and you should be able to feel me reaching right inside your being, feel me going right up and down your spine, and I'm turning you. That is to say, I'm taking a higher level of attention, and I'm spinning it inside you. And you can literally feel a shifting. Now, just listen. We're going to have a moment of silence on the tape while I do this, and you just feel what I'm doing. [Several seconds of silence on tape.]

This is an unusual tape, I admit. The next time you go to sleep, or within the next few times, if you would like that to happen, I will visit you in dreaming. If you listen to this tape particularly before you fall asleep, or as you fall asleep, it will help you synchronize your being with mine, and I'll visit you in dreaming and I'll tell you some interesting things about yourself. And maybe I'll take you flying with me. In the other realms. You see, as an occultist, I have nothing that I can tell you. As a spiritual teacher, I can tell you a great deal. But when I practice occultism, higher occultism, when I help you gain enlightenment through that, there's very little I can say. I can show you, but I don't have much that I can say. And as I'm talking right now again, of course, I'm showing you, I'm reaching out. Not through the tape, the tape is a mere medium. The tape is like a crystal. You look inside it and you see it reflects something, it refracts it. Let us just say I'm making you aware of my occult body and I'm giving you a little practical demonstration. Here I'm going to put my finger—right—on—the back of your neck. Right there. And I'm now bringing the kundalini energy right in through your spine, from the top down. You can feel it flowing right down. Now I’m letting go. This is mysticism. And I think you've had enough for one tape.

Occultism is the scientific branch of Buddhism.

Most of the important things that we learn about and experience in life can’t be understood immediately. Some things take a lifetime, if not several lifetimes, to fully grasp.

I try to avoid long-range plans and visions – that way I can more easily deal with anything new that comes up.

The chakras in the palms and in the hands are connected with healing. The healing energy, which comes from the second chakra primarily, what we call the spleen chakra, the chakra of generation and regeneration, will move through the hands and it's amplified by the chakras in the hands, if they're open. It increases the power of that healing energy. There are many chakras, hundreds of them, in different places in the subtle physical body. There are some very strong chakras in the feet. As you progress in your meditation, you'll gradually become more and more aware of the different chakras in your being.

There are chakras in the hands, in the palms of the hands and in the fingertips. The chakras in the palms of the hands can be used for manipulating what they call the shakti. Shakti is the kundalini energy when it's taken outside of the body and transferred from one person to another. It's very easy to move the kundalini in the form of shakti through the chakras in the hands and bring it into people, either by physically touching them—you can put your hand on their body and transfer the energy—or just shoot it out. That's what you'll see me do very often when I meditate and I'm doing what they call the mudras. I raise my hands and hold them in different positions. I'm not simply moving my hands on a physical level, but let's say that on a subtle physical level I'm moving energy, fields of energy, through everyone who I'm meditating with in a variety of different ways.

Meditating on each chakra will not hurt you, don't misunderstand me. I'm simply suggesting that people who meditate on the chakras every day for several hours a day, let's say on the same chakra, day after day, month after month, unless it's the heart chakra or any of the higher chakras, really, but if you're meditating on the navel chakra or the two lower chakras for excessive periods of time, you will bring energies and forces into yourself that are very strong and very powerful but not necessarily very pure and happy. You can fall into deep depressions, be filled with frustration, anxiety. It's fine to meditate occasionally, meditate for a few minutes each day, on your navel center or on one of the other centers. But to spend hours and hours on the chakras will produce effects, and those effects cannot necessarily be erased very quickly.

If you fixate on the chakras too long you will develop certain powers, you'll open certain doorways to other worlds. But very often you'll create more problems for yourself than you'll solve. If the powers come prematurely, they can be very painful. It's necessary for your body, your being, to become purified through meditation and through self-giving and by associating with the holy—persons who practice advanced forms of spirituality—and by wanting that more than anything. You'll gradually become pure, meaning you'll lose your lower motives. You'll care more for the welfare of others than you'll care for yourself. When you've reached this level of attention, when this is the way you feel, then you'll find that the chakras will open by themselves. Also, the chakras are, to a certain extent, superfluous, in the sense that you can open up all of the chakras and not attain liberation. The chakras are access points. They're gateways to other worlds. Liberation really has nothing to do with these access points. Liberation means we've gone beyond the access points into pure light itself.

Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.

Continous effort-not strength or intelligence-is the key to unlocking our potential.

As a student of enlightenment, your attitude should not be to become enlightened. But it should be to learn. In other words, when you are studying for a Ph.D., let's say there are a number of areas that you have to study and become very competent in, and then you'll take comprehensive examinations and perhaps do a dissertation or an experiment or whatever it is that your program has. You have to learn about these different areas. You have to become an expert. Now, needless to say, you won't be an expert just to get a doctorate. You learn enough to teach these things on a basic level, and then after you complete your doctorate, that's when you really begin. The doctorate just gives you exposure to the subject and then you have to continue beyond that. There's no end to what you can learn about anything. So, in the school of enlightenment there's a lot to learn. But the proper attitude, if you want to be a successful student, is not to be concerned about graduating, not to be concerned about becoming enlightened. Obviously, one is doing it for that reason. You go to school to get a degree, but that shouldn't be the only reason because otherwise you'll be miserable for many years until the day comes when they hand you the piece of paper. Optimally, you hope that you will go -- this is the right attitude according to Rama -- optimally you hope to go as far as you possibly can and do not put a limitation on that, since you don't even know what the word enlightenment means. It's just a word, until you've experienced it. You really don't know what it is. You may have had some enlightening experiences, but most people's enlightening experiences, from the point of view of someone who's truly enlightened, are just basic beyond belief.

So if you enjoy experiences in enlightened consciousness, if you enjoy meditating and learning to stop your thoughts, which is the hardest thing, that's why you need to enjoy meditation the most. It's like my yoga exercise -- you learn to like it because it's the hardest thing, the struggle. If you like learning about being selfless, being kind, being dedicated, being honest, not being a virtuoso performer but learning how to work with some concordance in a group, at times being separate, sole, alone in eternity, in the beauties of eternity -- that's the right attitude. People who are too concerned about graduating would be better off to keep their mind on their work and not on their graduation day. They're much more apt to graduate more quickly.

Becoming enlightened is -- it's not special, but it's unusual.

Becoming enlightened is -- it's not special, but it's unusual. I try to make this clear at seminars, but I don't know if it always comes through. Sometimes I tease about, you know, "Don't hold your breath until you become enlightened," which of course is a pun because when you're enlightened, very often you don't breathe for long periods of time (Rama laughs), when you're in deep meditation.

There are no technical secrets to being a good student other than hard work, working cleverly -- meaning not working on things that waste your time, not spending your time with people who don't work well. If you hang around with a lot of bad students, you just pick up their habits. If you hang around with good students, then you do well.