Man - Beyond His Physical Body

What is Man? Is he the body by which we recognize his identity or is he beyond this physical matter of flesh and blood? Does one cease to exist after his body has been done away with after he dies? What happens to the self that thinks and feels with his inner senses? These are some of the questions that dog most people.

Man is not the body, but a soul – an immortal indefatigable being that lives on eternally. The physical body may be compared to a school uniform for all students who come to the Earth school to learn and grow. He needs a body of physical matter to enable him to work on the physical plane. However, he is clothed in not just a physical garment, but has sheaths of invisible bodies interpenetrating each other as well – etheric, astral, mental and causal bodies, and these interplay with each other. What affects one, affects the other. Thoughts are generated in the mental body, whereas all emotions have their seat in the astral or emotional body. To identify the self by his physical appearance is erroneous; the body is not the Self that you see in the mirror each day. The various bodies of the self are only a means for the soul to function on different planes of the Universe. Just as you have cars that move on road, ships on water and aeroplanes in the air, yet the person using these modes of travel remains the same. There is no transformation as he travels from road to air or to water. Similarly, the self operating through astral, mental and spiritual bodies is the same personality. Only the bodies differ one from the other; one grosser than the other, one more short-lived than the other, one more limited in its capabilities than the other.

 

Let us go through each of these bodies in brief. The physical body is the densest part of your being and is composed of physical matter. It serves the soul for one lifetime at a time on the physical plane, and is then cast off by man at the time of death, which then disintegrates on the physical plane. In his waking consciousness on the physical plane, man is completely shut out from the higher planes of existence. The physical organs are not fine-tuned to pick up the more subtle vibrations of the sights and sounds of the higher worlds. The soul working through this body is inhibited by its grossness, and depends solely on the physical organs to perform its task on Earth. The consciousness working through this body is limited to the physical plane and is subject to the ordinary laws of space and time.

Close to the physical body and interpenetrating it, is the Etheric body, which is called the Etheric double as it presents a perfect duplicate of the physical body. It is violet-grey in colour and is coarse or fine in texture depending upon the texture of the physical body. Both the etheric double and the physical vary together equally in quality. While the person sets to refine his physical body with a conscious effort, the etheric body will simultaneously refine itself without a person’s conscious awareness or effort. Similarly, if the physical body is being abused with pollutants and wrong eating habits, the etheric body is defiled as well.

It is by means of the etheric double that the life-force, Prâna, runs along the nerves of the body and thus enables them to act as the carriers of motor force and of sensitiveness to external impacts. The powers of thought, of movement and of feeling are not resident in physical or ether nerve-substance; they are activities of the Ego working in his inner bodies, and the expression of them on the physical plane is rendered possible by the life-breath as it runs along the nerve-threads and round the nerve-cells; for Prâna, the life-breath, is the active energy of the Self. The etheric double acts as a medium between the astral and the physical bodies, whereby it transmits the energies that the astral body picks up, to the physical body and similarly the emissions released by the physical body are sent out through the astral body into the atmosphere.

The astral body is seen clairvoyantly as a mist of colours swirling into each other and pulsating with luminosity. That part of the astral body that extends beyond the limits of the physical body is termed as aura. In the case of an undeveloped person the astral body is a loosely organised, vaguely outlined mass of astral matter with a great predominance of substances from the lower grades; it is gross, dark in colour, and dense — often so dense that the outline of the physical body is almost lost in it — and is thus fitted to respond to stimuli connected with the passions and appetites. In size, it extends in all directions about ten or twelve inches beyond the physical body.

The astral body of an average moral and intellectual person is comparatively larger, extending about 18 inches on each side of the body. It is made of matter, which is more balanced and finer in quality, giving a certain luminous radiance to the whole and its outline is clear and definite.

In the case of a spiritually developed man the astral body is still larger in size and is composed of the finest particles of each grade of astral matter, the higher largely predominating. For instance, the auric field of Lord Buddha extended for about three kilometers. 

The colours of the astral body range from dull, murky shades of the undeveloped person to more and more delicate, radiant and brighter hues as the person develops. However, the shades and colours of your aura fluctuate according to your moods, emotions, thoughts and feelings at any given time. All physical diseases have their roots in the astral body, and it is only a matter of time when it will manifest in the physical body. Sometimes the imperfection lingers on in the astral body for years before reaching the physical body or in some cases, just weeks. Most of the fatal diseases can be effectively removed at the auric level before they strike the physical body, if the doctors were spiritually knowledgeable and well equipped to scan your aura.

Now that you know what constitutes a man, you can lead a more prudent lifestyle whereby you stand to gain much in terms of your health at all levels of your being.