Astral Journeys are a reality

There are five dimSadhgurusions or sheaths of the body. The first sheath or the first layer of the body is called annamaya kosha or the food body, because what you call as physical is just a heap of food. The second is called manomaya kosha or the mental body. Today doctors are talking about psychosomatic diseases. If you have tension in the head, you can get an ulcer in the stomach. So whatever is happening to the mind is happening to the body because what you call as mind is not in any one place. Every cell in the body has its own intelligence. So there is a mental body this is manomaya kosha.

Right now, the only things that are in your experience are your body, your mind, and your emotions. And you can infer that if these three things have to happen the way they are happening, there must be an energy that makes them happen. Without energy, all this cannot be happening. For example, a microphone amplifies sound. Even if you don't know anything about the microphone, you can infer that there is a source that powers it. So the third layer of the body is the energy body, or the pranamaya kosha.

The fourth is known as vignanamaya kosha or the etheric body, and the fifth as the anandamaya kosha or the bliss body. We are referring to everything as body in yoga so that you can understand it as a physical entity. Though the last two are not physical, still we are referring to them as "body" because yoga is a method, not a philosophy. We are seeing how to employ a specific method to make use of certain things.

What is being referred to as astral travel is, leaving the physical body, mental body, energy body and the bliss body intact, and just allowing the etheric body to float around. That means you can conduct your physical activity in the world because your physical body, mental body and energy body are intact but just allowing the etheric body to go. That is a certain kind of mastery.

Physical body, mental body and energy body are physical. Bliss body is totally beyond the physical. Etheric is a transitory energy, it is neither physical nor beyond – it is a transition. Etheric body is not something that you can touch unless you are in a certain level of sadhana and intensity within yourself. You cannot just psyche yourself into it.

It needs enormous sadhana for a person to do that. But they are doing astral travel in every street corner these days – that is just hallucination. Ranked amongst the fifty most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and a New York Times bestselling author Sadhguru has been conferred the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2017, the highest annual civilian award, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service.