Physical, Astral and Casual Body

The soul is formless and invisible, so it does not look like anything. The soul, when taking human form contained with the physical, astral, and causal bodies.

The physical body is easily observable and tangible. Just look in a mirror or touch your arm. The astral body is sometimes seen by people or it may be photographed by special machines. It is made of light and is sometimes called an aura. The causal body has no form it is the thought or idea of a person as an individual.

There are five organs of action - speech, hands, legs, anus, and genitals. It is with these that we are able to speak, to grasp, to move, to excrete, and to procreate. The body responds to external stimuli through them. They are prompted by the mind into action.

The five life forces are Respiration, Circulation, Digestion, excretion and Reverse Action.

The body is clearly made up of the physical body and the Astral body. Nobody will deny the fact that the body is not the gross element of earth, water, air, fire and space, but it also includes the mind and the intellect. It includes the sense organs, the organs of action, the life forces the Pranas, and therefore with even the slightest of introspection one will admit that the body is both the  physical body and the  astral body.

There is a third aspect to the body is both - the physical body and the  astral body. What is difficult to accept is that there is a third aspect to the body called the casual body, the actual cause of the   casual body’ because this cannot be seen, it requires deep introspection  to understand. The casual body arises out of ignorance and until one has knowledge one will never be able to realize that we are also comprised of not only the  physical or the  astral body but also the casual body.

The five life forces that run the five systems of the body along with the mind, intellect and the five sense organs and five action organs together as the subtle body drives the body into action.

The subtle body and the gross body are caused  by the causal body, the subtlest of three.

Although the causal body does not physically exist, the ignorance in it creates the subtle body and the gross body, and thus gives it prime importance. The ignorance can be destroyed by knowledge. Therefore, the causal body is not eternal like the Soul or the true self.

Just like the wave that thinks it exists, but in reality, is actually the ocean.

Author

Narain Balchandani.