The Metaphysical Magazine 2, no. 5 (November 1895), 337-344
Part II.[1]
II. The personality, or astral body. (Sukskma Sharira.) The physical body is the outward material expression of the personal image called the ” ethereal astral form.” If there were no personality, there would be no personal character and no personal appearance. If there were no “astral body” existing in the “astral light” (the memory of the world-soul), there would be no visible corporeal image reflecting its characteristics; and without that expression on the material plane the personality could not be seen with the physical eye.
The personality of a man is the expression of the sum of the attributes manifested in him. As these attributes are many and of various shades, and moreover continually subject to change, it is not only (like the physical body) a very complicated thing, but also very changeable. Not only does it change during the period between the cradle and the grave, but it changes to a certain degree every moment of time; for each new experience produces a change in man’s personality, and it may truly be said that no man is exactly the same personality which he was a moment ago. While the grossly material appearance of man undergoes only a gradual change, the “astral man” changes more rapidly. The state of consciousness in man’s personality constitutes his “self,” and, as these states change, the “selves” of a man are very unstable and changeable things.
What is it that is personally conscious in man? Surely his personality, and not the body of flesh and bones which he inhabits; for the body, without the life that comes from the inner inhabitant, would be a corpse. In this personality we discover two aspects: First, as a living and sentient being; secondly, as a thinking entity. These aspects are described by Shankarāchārya as two envelopes of the soul, a lower and a higher one, as follows :
The envelope of the soul constituting the body of life (Pranamaya Kosha, corresponding to the Linga Sharira). He defines it as “being constituted of Prana (life), with its five-hood of vital airs and its five-hood of powers to hear, speak, etc.” This is the living animal man hidden within the visible body. His consciousness is the product of the sum of the sensations which he receives from external nature by means of the impressions that come to him through the organs of sense, and it continually changes according to the nature of these impressions. Such a temporary self-consciousness can be called neither real nor permanent. It exists for a moment, to be changed the next; and the reason why we do not every moment find ourselves another personality is on account of the continuity of impressions and the memory that links them together.
The envelope of the soul constituting the body of thought (Pranamaya Kosha,[2] corresponding to Kama Manas). This is defined as “Manas (mind), with its five-hood of powers for perceiving, joining, and collecting ideas. While the consciousness of the animal man is made up of external sensations, that of the mind is made up of thoughts, ideas, and memories. The Sukshma Sharira, according to Shankarāchārya, is the seat for the manifestation of all the higher and lower powers of man. Its lower activity refers to the functions of animal life; its higher to that of the world of ideas. Man is a thought living within a realm of ideas, comparable to a sun surrounded by a galaxy of stars; but unless he has found the true sun of his heaven and become identified with it, sometimes one and again another of these stars will take the place of the sun of his system and become the centre of his personal consciousness, around which all the impressions and memories will collect. The thoughts in the mind of man are “spirits,” forms of his will and imagination, born from ideas and nourished by his will. Each thought in man is a separate entity in the same sense as each cell in his body has its own individual state of being. Each thought may become an objective reality in. the mind and usurp dominion over the remaining ideas. “Fixed ideas” are hypertrophied states of thought, forms of obsession, difficult to cure. Each mental state leaves its indelible impression within the mind. Having left the field of our consciousness, it is a “departed spirit,” a slumbering ghost that may be brought back to life again when the sun of our consciousness enters its being. Therefore a re-awakened memory of a previous state of being may again assume the role of our inner self.
Modern psychologists, ignorant of the true inner nature of the constitution of man, are frequently puzzled by phenomena of multiple personality, manifested in cases of trance, hypnotism, obsession, somnambulism, etc.; for instance, the case of Molly Fancher, in whom were observed five different states of personality, called respectively: “Sunbeam,” “Idol,” “Rosebud,” “Pearl,” and “Ruby.” There also often appears the higher personality speaking with contempt and ridicule of the lower one; giving instructions for the guidance of the latter; having tastes, likes, and dislikes directly opposed to the other; and manifesting a knowledge which the outward personality never had. In such cases there is only one body, apparently occupied by different personalities; but there are different “selves” manifesting their presence successively in one and the same person.
The spirit of man is the gardener, the mind is the garden, the soul the soil, ideas the germs, and thoughts the plants which under the sunshine of desire grow into “selves.” In the soil are the germs of all the different personal characters, such as we find upon this earth; and within one personality there may grow up almost any character known to history. Thus the mind of man is a world peopled with many beings, whose ruler changes according to the idea predominating therein. The ideas entering the mind may be compared to comets or cosmic mists condensing into stars, developing into worlds, and sooner or later disappearing. A man ruled by a certain idea or desire is a different personality than when possessed by another; and such ideas are relatively real and far more enduring than visible things, each having its own individuality.
In looking back over my past life I do not find it a smooth-running current, with myself as the same person moving along; but it seems rather a series of periods strung together, like a river with many windings and small and great cataracts. I find my own self like a series of images, appearing at a certain period as playing a given part upon the stage of life, and at another period another part: a number of personalities belonging to one individuality, like a row of beads linked together upon one string. There are the child, the boy, the soldier, the student, the amorous fool, the perplexed philosopher, etc., while all these different images are essentially myself. To revive my memory of one is to re-awaken its consciousness; but unless thus called into objectivity, they sleep in the subjective realm.
But what is it that creates these astral and personal “selves” and looks down upon them as if they were strangers? Experience teaches that this is a still higher and inner Self, superior to the personal “selves” and standing nearer to God, which means nearer to the realization of divine, universal, and unlimited Being. Shankarāchārya describes it as follows:
III. The causal body (Karana Sharira), having the following attributes: (a) It is formed of the ineffable conception of individual existence (separateness from the eternal One) ; (b) it is the cause of the two bodies, the luminous (astral) and the dark (physical) body; (c) in its own nature it is a conception of self (a-juana)[3]; and (d) it is the seat of Buddhi (the spiritual understanding).
This is the silent spectator who causes his own astral and physical body to grow; the individuality which is unaffected by the life or death of the personal images which it created ; the Self that sends out its “selves” to act upon the stage of life, not only during one personal existence but through innumerable reincarnations or “projections of itself into terrestrial life”; the individuality which manifests itself in successive bodily appearances upon the earth or other planets; the spiritual man who lives in his own light and consciousness, a radiation of the divine Ātma, while the successive personalities created by him are born, live, and die. While that spiritual Self identifies its consciousness with that of the person, it partakes of the joys and sufferings of the latter; but in its own self-consciousness it is unaffected by the conditions of the personality, whether the latter is asleep or awake. Its light illumines the personality like a ray of sunlight illuminating a crystal, bringing to it messages of a higher state of existence than the merely animal-intellectual plane.
It is this presence of the light coming from the superior Self that endows the personality with intuitive knowledge, the product of experiences which the superior Self obtained in previous existences, and which enables him to realize the actuality of immortality. The superior Self is immeasurably greater than the personal “selves;” in it is stored the knowledge gained by successive existences through aeons of ages, and only a small portion of its divine qualities finds expression in one personal appearance during one terrestrial life. The realization of the superiority of the immortal, individual Self over the personal mortal “selves” caused Victor Hugo to write:
“I feel in myself the future life. I am rising, I know, toward the sky; the sunshine is on my head. The earth gives me its generous sap; but heaven lights me with the reflection of unknown worlds. Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. The nearer I approach my end, the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. It is a fairy tale and a history. For half a century I have been writing my thoughts in prose, verse, history, philosophy, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode, and song. I have tried all, but I feel that I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me. When 1 go down to my grave I can say, like many others, ‘I have finished my day’s work’; but I cannot say. ‘I have finished my (eternal) life.’ The tomb is not a blind alley; it is a thoroughfare; it closes with the twilight to open with the dawn. My world is only beginning. The thirst for the Infinite proves infinity.”
Of this clarified spiritual body, Shankarāchārya describes two aspects, namely:
The body of (spiritual) knowledge (Vijñāmaya Kosha [kośa]), which is “the spiritual understanding” (Buddhi) with its five-hood of powers for (spiritual) perception. Spiritual knowledge is real knowledge. The lower mind (Kāma Manas) does not know eternal truth; it merely forms its opinions in regard to it by collecting and comparing ideas—drawing inferences by way of logic, argumentation, and reasoning; while the higher mind (Buddhi Manas) sees, feels, contemplates, and directly understands and realizes the truth, Buddhi being the spiritual understanding itself. That which is eternal in man knows eternity: that which is perishing in him is concerned with the world of phenomena. For this reason the science that deals with phenomena has nothing in common with occult (spiritual) science, which results from a direct recognition of truth. The only real knowledge is self-knowledge. That which I have realized myself, and not the information received, from another, is my own knowledge. Each principle can have self-knowledge of that only which belongs to its own self; therefore the spirit of God in man penetrates into the divine mysteries, while the science of the material mind is a complicated piece-work and cannot grasp eternal truth.
The body of bliss. (Anandamaya Kosha) Of this, Shankarāchārya says:
“It is the product of the ineffable conception (illusion) of individual existence formed by the Karana Sharira, arising from the desire for individual selfhood and love for separate being, which proceed from a still imperfect knowledge of truth. The divine illusion of Self thus formed says to itself: ‘This five-hood of envelopes is my own; this form or image is my own; this life, this mind, this understanding is my own.’ It regards wisdom as its own property, just as one considers a house his own; it beholds its own individuality as if it were something distinct from the universal Self.”
IV. The Universal Self (Ātma) is the one reality, the truth which is above and beyond, but nevertheless within, everything; “the joy of being conscious of its own being (Sat-chit-anandam”). It is that state which can be fully realized only by overcoming the illusion of egoism. Its realization is called Nirvana.
In the light of these teachings the course of evolution represents itself as follows: Within the one and undifferentiated world-soul there arises the desire for individualized divine existence. This gives rise to the conception of “self,” with separate knowledge, powers, and possessions; and this desire causes the descent of the spirit into matter, creating a thought-body, which by means of the astral influences produces an astral form (personality), finding its ultimate expression in a visible, physical form according to the laws of material nature. Thus the absolute, infinite consciousness produces a state of relative consciousness; the individuality creates a personal image; “the mountain gives birth to a mouse,” and the mouse imagines itself greater than the mountain. The creature cannot know the creator, because the creator is infinitely greater than the image which he created.
The lower the creature sinks into materiality and sensuality the more does it shrink and become unconscious of its own divine nature and origin—until after many lessons taught by disappointments, wasted efforts, forlorn hopes, vanishing joys, and sufferings, it begins to realize the illusive character of its fancied isolation and separateness. The light of spiritual knowledge coming from above begins to dawn upon the terrestrial mind—calling man to come up higher. After many trials and failures in many lives he begins to listen to the silent voice; he sacrifices the delusion of self; and as the consciousness of his true divine nature awakens in him, he becomes initiated into a higher state of existence, a man “reborn in the spirit,” with new powers of perception and action, such as had been heretofore dormant in him.
Without this sacrifice of self that arises from the recognition of the unity of all being, no real spiritual progress is possible; and even the higher intellectual development depends upon the recognition of the one real and universal truth. We may fancy to be or to know this or that thing, but fancying does not make it true. Eternal truth is self-existent and independent of all our fancies, influences, opinions, deductions, and imaginations; it needs no defence and no recognition; but we need the recognition of truth, and this depends solely upon the manifestation of truth within ourselves. No man can reveal the truth to another; he can only guide him. The truth itself must reveal itself within the soul. Truth is universal, like the sunlight. It manifests itself, not as a special favor, but wherever no obstacles to its manifestation exist. The obstacles which hinder the manifestation of the one reality in ourselves are our own errors, prejudices, and misconceptions. The removal of these is the final object of all occult and metaphysical study. It is the ultimate purpose of existence for every human being in this or any other world.
Note:
[1] Initiation. The Self and the “Selves.” Part II. Franz Hartmann, M.D. The Metaphysical Magazine 2, no. 5 (November 1895), 337-344 {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos, by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}
[2] {R.H.—This is not correct, I believe. It should be the Manomaya Kosha = Mental Body, i.e., Manomaya Kosha (manomaya-kośa), the body of thought, the mind, with its fivefold powers of perception, ordering and gathering of ideas. Dr. Hartmann, considering all his articles have always gotten it correct. So, did he read Shankara incorrectly? Because in the previous paragraph, he gives the etheric body correctly as the Prānamaya Kosha = Liṅga Śarīra. It is also possible the printer who typeset the article did not submit this article galley to Dr. Hartmann before final okay.}
[3] {R.H.—I don’t know what he means by this word. Looks like a-jñāna. But that would mean non-knowing or knowledge. Not sure}