Chapter 5§
The Golden Body
With orders from his guru to start teaching only when he turned 30 years old, Subramuniya returned to America and enjoyed the mystical aftermath of his realization of the Self.§
In 1956, Subramuniya migrated north into the pure mountains of Colorado that are today the refuge of seekers and modern-day mendicants. His meditations deepened. In Denver, he underwent a tremendous spiritual experience during deep contemplation, as the last of the outer self was displaced by the matured soul.§
He would later describe this event as “the full actualization of the anandamaya kosha, in which the soul body displaces the outer self.” At that time, the golden body of the soul completely inhabited the physical body, concluding the long climb up the kundalini and the descent of the divine.§
Returning to America, Gurudeva lived a mostly solitary life, pursuing the sadhanas and directions his guru had decreed. One day, in Colorado, the golden body of his soul overtook his outer being.§
The golden body, svarnasharira, is a body made of golden light. After many experiences of Parasiva, it gradually descends from the seven chakras above the sahasrara into the ajna chakra, which then becomes the soul’s muladhara, then down into the vishuddha chakra, which then becomes its muladhara, and then down into the anahata, which then becomes its muladhara.§
All seven chakras above the sahasrara slowly come down and down and down until the entire astral body is psychically seen, by mystics who have this sight, as a golden body. The astral body slowly, slowly, slowly dissolves into the golden body. That is what I have seen happen. That is what our parampara and our sampradaya know from experience. Experience is the only true knowing—a knowing that can be verified in books, through others who have the same knowing, but a knowing that no others know who have not had the same experience. To them it is only a concept, a nice one maybe, but just a concept or written off as an opinion.§
When the golden body fully enters the physical, having taken over the astral, the knowing that is known comes unbidden. It is beyond reason but does not conflict with it. It is a living scripture but does not conflict with those written by seers of the past who have seen and their records have become scripture. So great is the Sanatana Dharma that it defies all who doubt it, all who disdain it, all who disregard it, all who degrade it, with personal realization of its Truth.§
This golden body, which begins to build into a golden body after the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi, is connected to the sahasrara chakra. In other words, the sahasrara chakra is the home base in the physical body for the golden body. There are twelve basic unfoldments to this chakra as the golden body grows. When the realized sannyasin travels in high states of contemplation, he moves freely in his golden body and can help and serve mankind. Over time, he gains a conscious control of the sahasrara chakra as a force center which propels him into inner space.§
It is this golden body, as it refines and refines and refines itself within the Sivaloka after moksha, that finally merges with Siva like a cup of water being poured into the ocean. That same water can never be found and put back into the cup. This truly is svarnasharira vishvagrasa, the final, final, final merging with Siva.§