Theos-Talk Archives (March 1996 Message tl00053)

OCEAN5.TXT

CHAPTER V

THE BODY, AS A MASS of flesh, bones, muscles, nerves, brain
matter, bile, mucous, blood, and skin is an object of exclusive
care for too many people, who make it their god because they
have come to identify themselves with it, meaning it only when
they say "I." Left to itself it is devoid of sense, and acts in
such a case solely by reflex and automatic action. This we see
in sleep, for then the body assumes attitudes and makes motions
which the waking man does not permit. It is like mother earth in
that it is made up of an infinitesimal number of "lives." Each
of these lives is a sensitive point. Not only are there
microbes, bacilli, and bacteria, but these are composed of
others, and those others of still more minute lives. These lives
are not the cells of the body, but make up the cells, keeping
ever within the limits assigned by evolution to the cell. They
are forever whirling and moving together throughout the whole
body, being in certain apparently void spaces as well as where
flesh, membrane, bones, and blood are seen. They extend, too,
beyond the actual outer limits of the body to a measurable
distance.

One of the mysteries of physical life is hidden among these
"lives." Their action, forced forward by the Life energy ,
called Prana or Jiva , will explain active existence and
physical death. They are divided into two classes, one the
destroyers, the other the preservers, and these two war upon
each other from birth until the destroyers win. In this struggle
the Life Energy itself ends the contest because it is life that
kills. This may seem heterodox, but in Theosophical philosophy
it is held to be the fact. For, it is said, the infant lives
because the combination of healthy organs is able to absorb the
life all around it in space, and is put to sleep each day by the
overpowering strength of the stream of life, since the
preservers among the cells of the youthful body are not yet
mastered by the other class. These processes of going to sleep
and waking again are simply and solely the restoring of the
equilibrium in sleep and the action produced by disturbing it
when awake. It may be compared with the arc-electric light
wherein the brilliant arc of light at the point of resistance is
the symbol of the waking active man. So in sleep we are again
absorbing and not resisting the Life Energy; when we wake we are
throwing it off. But as it exists around us like an ocean in
which we swim, our power to throw it off is necessarily limited.
Just when we wake we are in equilibrium as to our organs and
life; when we fall asleep we are yet more full of life than in
the morning; it has exhausted us; it finally kills the body.
Such a contest could not be waged forever, since the whole solar
system's weight of life is pitted against the power to resist
focussed in one small human frame.

The body is considered by the Masters of Wisdom to be the most
transitory, impermanent, and illusionary of the whole series of
constituents in man. Not for a moment is it the same. Ever
changing, in motion in every part, it is in fact never complete
or finished though tangible. The ancients clearly perceived
this, for they elaborated a doctrine called Nitya Pralaya, or
the continual change in material things, the continual
destruction. This is known now to science in the doctrine that
the body undergoes a complete alteration and renovation every
seven years. At the end of the first seven years it is not the
same body it was in the beginning. At the end of our days it has
changed seven times, perhaps more. And yet it presents the same
general appearance from maturity until death; and it is a human
form from birth to maturity. This is a mystery science explains
not; it is a question pertaining to the cell and to the means
whereby the general human shape is preserved.

The "cell" is an illusion. It is merely a word. It has no
existence as a material thing, for any cell is composed of other
cells. What, then, is a cell? It is the ideal form within which
the actual physical atoms , made up of the "lives" , arrange
themselves. As it is admitted that the physical molecules are
forever rushing away from the body, they must be leaving the
cells each moment. Hence there is no physical cell, but the
privative limits of one, the ideal walls and general shape. The
molecules assume position within the ideal shape according to
the laws of nature, and leave it again almost at once to give
place to other atoms. And as it is thus with the body, so is it
with the earth and with the solar system. Thus also is it,
though in slower measure, with all material objects. They are
all in constant motion and change. This is modern and also
ancient wisdom. This is the physical explanation of
clairvoyance, clairaudience, telepathy, and mind-reading. It
helps to show us what a deluding and unsatisfactory thing our
body is.

Although, strictly speaking, the second constituent of man is
the Astral Body , called in Sanskrit Linga-Sharira , we will
consider Life Energy , or Prana and Jiva in Sanskrit , together,
because to our observation the phenomenon of life is more
plainly exhibited in connection with the body.

Life is not the result of the operation of the organs, nor is it
gone when the body dissolves. It is a universally pervasive
principle. It is the ocean in which the earth floats; it
permeates the globe and every being and object on it. It works
unceasingly on and around us, pulsating against and through us
forever. When we occupy a body we merely use a more specialized
instrument than any other for dealing with both Prana and Jiva.
Strictly speaking, Prana is breath; and as breath is necessary
for continuance of life in the human machine, that is the better
word. Jiva means "life," and also is applied to the living soul,
for the life in general is derived from the Supreme Life itself.
Jiva is therefore capable of general application, whereas Prana
is more particular. It cannot be said that one has a definite
amount of this Life Energy which will fly back to its source
should the body be burned, but rather that it works with
whatever be the mass of matter in it. We, as it were, secrete or
use it as we live. For whether we are alive or dead, life-energy
is still there; in life among our organs sustaining them, in
death among the innumerable creatures that arise from our
destruction. We can no more do away with this life than we can
erase the air in which the bird floats, and like the air it
fills all the spaces on the planet, so that nowhere can we lose
the benefit of it nor escape its final crushing power. But in
working upon the physical body this life , Prana , needs a
vehicle, means, or guide, and this vehicle is the astral body.

There are many names for the Astral Body. Here are a few:
Linga-Sharira, Sanskrit, meaning design body, and the best one
of all; ethereal double; phantom; wraith; apparition;
doppelganger; personal man; perisprit; irrational soul; animal
soul; Bhuta; elementary; spook; devil; demon. Some of these
apply only to the astral body when devoid of the corpus after
death. Bhuta, devil, and elementary are nearly synonymous; the
first Sanskrit, the other English. With the Hindus the Bhuta is
the Astral Body when it is by death released from the body and
the mind; and being thus separated from conscience, is a devil
in their estimation. They are not far wrong, if we abolish the
old notion that a devil is an angel fallen from heaven, for this
bodily devil is something which rises from the earth.

It may be objected that the term Astral Body is not the right
one for this purpose. The objection is one which arises from the
nature and genesis of the English language, for as that has
grown up in a struggle with nature and among a commercial people
it has not as yet coined the words needed for designating the
great range of faculties and organs of the unseen man. And as
its philosophers have not admitted the existence of these inner
organs, the right terms do not exist in the language. So in
looking for words to describe the inner body the only ones found
in English were the "astral body." This term comes near to the
real fact, since the substance of this form is derived from
cosmic matter or star matter, roughly speaking. But the old
Sanskrit word describes it exactly , Linga-Sharira, the design
body , because it is the design or model for the physical body.
This is better than "ethereal body," as the latter might be said
to be subsequent to the physical, whereas in fact the astral
body precedes the material one.

The astral body is made of matter of very fine texture as
compared with the visible body, and has a great tensile
strength, so that it changes but little during a lifetime, while
the physical alters every moment. And not only has it this
immense strength, but at the same time possesses an elasticity
permitting its extension to a considerable distance. It is
flexible, plastic, extensible, and strong. The matter of which
it is composed is electrical and magnetic in its essence, and is
just what the whole world was composed of in the dim past when
the processes of evolution had not yet arrived at the point of
producing the material body for man. But it is not raw or crude
matter. Having been through a vast period of evolution and
undergone purifying processes of an incalculable number, its
nature has been refined to a degree far beyond the gross
physical elements we see and touch with the physical eye and
hand.

The astral body is the guiding model for the physical one, and
all the other kingdoms have the same astral model. Vegetables,
minerals, and animals have the ethereal double, and this theory
is the only one which will answer the question how it is that
the seed produces its own kind and all sentient beings bring
forth their like. Biologists can only say that the facts are as
we know them, but can give no reason why the acorn will never
grow anything but an oak except that no man ever knew it to be
otherwise. But in the old schools of the past the true doctrine
was known, and it has been once again brought out in the West
through the efforts of H.P. Blavatsky and those who have found
inspiration in her works.

This doctrine is, that in early times of the evolution of this
globe the various kingdoms of nature are outlined in plan or
ideal form first, and then the astral matter begins to work on
this plan with the aid of the Life principle, until after long
ages the astral human form is evolved and perfected. This is,
then, the first form that the human race had, and corresponds in
a way with the allegory of man's state in the garden of Eden.
After another long period, during which the cycle of further
descent into matter is rolling forward, the astral form at last
clothes itself with a "coat of skin," and the present physical
form is on the scene. This is the explanation of the verse of
the book of Genesis which describes the giving of coats of skin
to Adam and Eve. It is the final fall into matter, for from that
point on the man within strives to raise the whole mass of
physical substance up to a higher level, and to inform it all
with a larger measure of spiritual influence, so that it may be
ready to go still further on during the next great period of
evolution after the present one is ended. So at the present time
the model for the growing child in the womb is the astral body
already perfect in shape before the child is born. It is on this
the molecules arrange themselves until the child is complete,
and the presence of the ethereal design-body will explain how
the form grows into shape, how the eyes push themselves out from
within to the surface of the face, and many other mysterious
matters in embryology which are passed over by medical men with
a description but with no explanation. This will also explain,
as nothing else can, the cases of marking of the child in the
womb sometimes denied by physicians but well-known by those who
care to watch, to be a fact of frequent occurrence. The growing
physical form is subject to the astral model; it is connected
with the imagination of the mother by physical and psychical
organs; the mother makes a strong picture from horror, fear, or
otherwise, and the astral model is then similarly affected. In
the case of marking by being born legless, the ideas and strong
imagination of the mother act so as to cut off or shrivel up the
astral leg, and the result is that the molecules, having no
model of leg to work on, make no physical leg whatever; and
similarly in all such cases. But where we find a man who still
feels the leg which the surgeon has cut off, or perceives the
fingers that were amputated, then the astral member has not been
interfered with, and hence the man feels as if it were still on
his person. For knife or acid will not injure the astral model,
but in the first stages of its growth ideas and imagination have
the power of acid and sharpened steel.

In the ordinary man who has not been trained in practical
occultism or who has not the faculty by birth, the astral body
cannot go more than a few feet from the physical one. It is a
part of that physical, it sustains it and is incorporated in it
just as the fibers of the mango are all through that fruit. But
there are those who, by reason of practices pursued in former
lives on the earth, have a power born with them of unconsciously
sending out the astral body. These are mediums, some seers, and
many hysterical, cataleptic, and scrofulous people. Those who
have trained themselves by a long course of excessively hard
discipline which reaches to the moral and mental nature and
quite beyond the power of the average man of the day, can use
the astral form at will, for they have gotten completely over
the delusion that the physical body is a permanent part of them,
and, besides, they have learned the chemical and electrical laws
governing in this matter. In their case they act with knowledge
and consciously; in the other cases the act is done without
power to prevent it, or to bring it about at will, or to avoid
the risks attendant on such use of potencies in nature of a high
character.

The astral body has in it the real organs of the outer sense
organs. In it are the sight, hearing, power to smell, and the
sense of touch. It has a complete system of nerves and arteries
of its own for the conveyance of the astral fluid which is to
that body as our blood is to the physical. It is the real
personal man. There are located the subconscious perception and
the latent memory, which the hypnotists of the day are dealing
with and being baffled by. So when the body dies the astral man
is released, and as at death the immortal man , the Triad ,
flies away to another state, the astral becomes a shell of the
once living man and requires time to dissipate. It retains all
the memories of the life lived by the man, and thus reflexly and
automatically can repeat what the dead man knew, said, thought,
and saw. It remains near the deserted physical body nearly all
the time until that is completely dissipated, for it has to go
through its own process of dying. It may become visible under
certain conditions. It is the spook of the spiritualistic
seance-rooms, and is there made to masquerade as the real spirit
of this or that individual. Attracted by the thoughts of the
medium and the sitters, it vaguely flutters where they are, and
then is galvanized into a factitious life by a whole host of
elemental forces and by the active astral body of the medium who
is holding the seance or of any other medium in the audience. From 
it (as from a photograph) are then reflected into the
medium's brain all the boasted evidences which spiritualists
claim go to prove identity of deceased friend or relative. These
evidences are accepted as proof that the spirit of the deceased
is present, because neither mediums nor sitters are acquainted
with the laws governing their own nature, nor with the
constitution, power, and function of astral matter and astral
man.

The Theosophical philosophy does not deny the facts proven in
spiritualistic seances, but it gives an explanation of them
wholly opposed to that of the spiritualists. And surely the
utter absence of any logical scientific explanation by these
so-called spirits of the phenomena they are said to produce
supports the contention that they have no knowledge to impart.
They can merely cause certain phenomena; the examination of
those and deductions therefrom can only be properly carried on
by a trained brain guided by a living trinity of spirit, soul,
and mind. And here another class of spiritualistic phenomena
requires brief notice. That is the appearance of what is called
a "materialized spirit."

Three explanations are offered: First, that the astral body of
the living medium detaches itself from its corpus and assumes
the appearance of the so-called spirit; for one of the
properties of the astral matter is capacity to reflect an image
existing unseen in ether. Second, the actual astral shell of the
deceased , wholly devoid of his or her spirit and conscience ,
becomes visible and tangible when the condition of air and ether
is such as to so alter the vibration of the molecules of the
astral shell that it may become visible. The phenomena of
density and apparent weight are explained by other laws. Third,
an unseen mass of electrical and magnetic matter is collected,
and upon it is reflected out of the astral light a picture of
any desired person either dead or living. This is taken to be
the "spirit" of such persons, but it is not, and has been justly
called by H.P. Blavatsky a "psychological fraud," because it
pretends to be what it is not. And, strange to say, this very
explanation of materializations has been given by a "spirit" at
a regular seance, but has never been accepted by the
spiritualists just because it upsets their notion of the return
of the spirits of deceased persons.

Finally, the astral body will explain nearly all the strange
psychical things happening in daily life and in dealings with
genuine mediums; it shows what an apparition may be and the
possibility of such being seen, and thus prevents the scientific
doubter from violating good sense by asserting you did not see
what you know you have seen; it removes superstition by showing
the real nature of these phenomena, and destroys the
unreasonable fear of the unknown which makes a man afraid to see
a "ghost." By it also we can explain the apportation of objects
without physical contact, for the astral hand may be extruded
and made to take hold of an object, drawing it in toward the
body. When this is shown to be possible, then travelers will not
be laughed at who tell of seeing the Hindu yogi make coffee cups
fly through the air and distant objects approach apparently of
their own accord untouched by him or anyone else. All the
instances of clairvoyance and clairaudience are to be explained
also by the astral body and astral light. The astral , which are
the real , organs do the seeing and the hearing, and as all
material objects are constantly in motion among their own atoms
the astral sight and hearing are not impeded, but work at a
distance as great as the extension of the astral light or matter
around and about the earth. Thus it was that the great seer
Swedenborg saw houses burning in the city of Stockholm when he
was at another city many miles off, and by the same means any
clairvoyant of the day sees and hears at a distance.


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