I am aware of, but not--the three bodies- 1.gross body

Self and the three bodies

The body like every other object, can be indicated as “this”. “I” the knower of “this ” am different from it.

1. What is the gross body?

• That which is made up of the 5 great elements- air, water, fire, earth, space/ether,
  
• that have undergone the process of grossification or panchikarana, as other matter on earth
• which can be perceived by the five senses, by one's own self and others,
  
•  born as a result of the good actions of the past,
• the stage for life experiences and emotions through the 9 orifices 
• and subject to the 6 modifications namely, to potentially exist [conception], to be born, to grow, to mature, to decay and die into the five elements…

Re: I am aware of, but not--the three bodies- 1.gross body

“I am not my physical body, but I work through it.”

That's quite a powerful statement. At once freeing and empowering.

Don't know about other moms; but for me, the trauma of childbirth was the lack of modesty in a hospital, with docs, nurses and anyone else who needs to come into the room while I was in the most indefensible position possible. It helped me to dissociate with my body, while all the time doing what I needed to, to help the new one take birth.

A strange birthing it is; a being who is conceived within the physical body of another; and then removes itself from it. And in all that drama neither of them is really fully within their physical bodies; though the birthing causes such intensity of emotion and experience.

When I lost count of the breaths I was supposed to be doing, I remember snapping at my husband:”Why are YOU stopping? YOU continue to breathe” as if he'd not only help pace me, but actually cause the labor to stay on course. Talk of breathing into another body!

Tales from athletes and soldiers show us how intense emotion can prevent a message of a near-fatal injury from reaching the brain; thus enabling the person to continue action. Even bodily action is not totally within the physical body; it transcends…

Now, when I am becoming even more physical than I have ever been- working out, doing housework, watching the aging and so on; I am even more amused by how powerful is the influence of the physical body –the gross body as the Upanishads seem to call it–on my life, even when I only inhabit it, and it is not “me”.

Re: I am aware of, but not--the three bodies- 1.gross body

I hear you Meenakshi, it was one of the most difficult aspects of childbirth for sure, along with the intense disorienting seemingly unending pain. Combination made it feel rather nightmarish so that when the child is finally in your arms, you are still often in the dissociation…

There is a lot to be said for home births!

It's interesting isn't how we are always dealing with our body in different ways as we grow older?

Love,

Nicole

Re: I am aware of, but not--the three bodies- 1.gross body

Interestingly, this discussion has been continued on the self is changeless thread.

Re: I am aware of, but not--the three bodies- 2.subtle body

The subtle body is

• composed of the five great elements which have not undergone grossification, just like teh entire subtle world.
  
•  born of the balance of merits and demerits of  past actions
  
•  the instrument for the experience of joy, sorrow etc. The physical body does not feelpain when pricked or honor when garlanded; it is the subtle body that actually experiences joy, sorrows, heat, cold etc. In deep sleep, when the mind-intellect stops functioning temporarily, there is no experience of the world.
  
•  constituted of 17 components viz. 5 sense organs of actions, 5 physiological functions without which the body cannot remain alive, the mind and the intellect

Re: I am aware of, but not--the three bodies- 3.Causal body

3.Causal body

The causal body is that which is inexplicable -without beginning, in the form of ignorance, the sole cause of gross and subtle bodies, ignorant of its own true nature, free from duality.

Ignorance implies lack of knowledge. It does not actually have any existence. Yet it cannot be said to be non-existent. We experience its effects. It manifests as the gross and the subtle bodies and we also experience sorrow caused by ignoracnce.

Being nothing, the causal body that has no shape, size or quality, still does a great deal; hence it is an inexplicable power.


Ignorance can cause a rope to be mistaken for a snake. Similarly, not knowing my true nature, I mistakenly identify with the finite, feel a sense of incompleteness, desire to fulfill myself, so run after objects thinking that they would make me happy. Ignorance is at the root of all my actions.

Actions give rise to results which I enjoy or suffer and that leaves behind tendencies [vaasanaas] which prompt future desires-actions-results.

hence we can also say that inherent tendencies prompt actions.

I know I exist. I do not however know my own true nature : Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. I think I am the body, the doer of actions and enjoyer of results. It is strange that Iknow so much about the world, but do not know the 'knower'.

Ignorance cannot be known. Knowledge dispels it. There are degrees in knowledge but not in ignorance. It is beyond thought. Homogenous.

Ignorance can be destroyed by knowledge. The causal body is therefore not eternal.

The Self, being beyond birth and death, is eternal. Hence I am different from the causal body.

Thus, knowing my true nature, I experience myself as different from all the three bodies: gross, subtle and causal.

~  Swami Tejomayananda commenting on the Tattva Bodha (The Awakening to Reality) By Adi Sankaracharya

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Without meaning to be–as kids say nowadays – “punny”, I have to say that this causal body being of the nature of ignorance [avidyaa roopam] , is something that needs to awaken into me. Can't quite get it!

A supreme joke?

Re: I am aware of, but not--the three bodies- 3.Causal body

I am reminded of an incidence which is well documented in the life of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, guru of Swami Vivekananda.

Ramakrishna was a worshiper of Goddess Kali, and treated her as Mother, fed and talked to her as if she was a living being.

Totapuri, a famous Advaita Vedanta Master and Yogi, came to Ramakrishna and wanted to teach him the Advaita philosophy, telling him that his ideas about idol worshiping and imagining GOD in the form of an image was all wrong.

While they were together, the Vedantist suddenly developed a terrible stomach pain. To get rid of the pain, he started meditating, and went into “samadhi” (a state where all the physical senses disappear as the person sits in meditation). As long as he sat in samadhi, he would not feel any pain, but as soon as he would come back to senses,  the terrible pain would re-appear. He was extremely distresses, and finally surrendered to Ramakrishna, and requested him to help in relieving the pain.

Ramakrishna smiled and said, “Go to Mother, ask her, she will help”.

In great distress, the Vedantist ran to the image of Kali and surrendered and prayed for relief…

Lo and behold !!!

The pain vanished.

Truth is simple, but it is not simple to think simple.

Re: I am aware of, but not--the three bodies- 3.Causal body

Ian I am wondering how to meld your post below with my own experience. You suggest that we  ” not get too involved in this sort of mentivity because we can get lost in pursuit of knowledge rather than spiritual growth.” In a way, to be fully “grown” is to go back to the Source.

Yet this group encourages us to look outward into books an inward into our own experience; so…I plod on!!!

I couldn't understand the concept of the causal body; till I experienced Sat-chit-ananda, those words that led to a transcendent experience for me.

I look once more to the causal body, with the intellect part of me.

If it is the cause or source, and nothing; it reminds me of an egg. This is inner knowing.

And I am sure that if I google this for outer knowledge source, something will come up. That is how knowing and knowledge meld together…

Sure enough, when I google: “causal body cosmic egg”, this comes up: From The Cosmic Eggs By Robert Baird | Date Submitted: 05/30/05 :

The author refers to:

”the soul of man (the causal body of the theosophists). ” and then goes on to say:

”The egg or ball is an excellent symbol of the causal body, if one can believe clairvoyants, who see it as a kind of rounded or egg-shaped structure, in fine matter {Similar to ectoplasm as seen in ghosts.} of the higher mental {I would definitely NOT use this word.} plane. After death, according to accounts of occultists, there is a kind of play of forces, good and evil, which do seem to struggle for the possession of the causal body and to determine whether it goes to a good or bad incarnation when next it descends to clothe itself with coarser matter. The Druid's egg, says Pliny, was unknown to the Greeks {They certainly knew about the Temple of Artemis with all the eggs some current Cambridge scholar thinks is breasts, and Pliny the Roman is not an initiate in the Eleusinian or Cabiri, mysteries, to my knowledge.}. But other kinds of eggs are mentioned in Greek and Hindu mythology, and the consecration of an egg was one of the most important acts in the secret ritual of the Eleusinian mysteries. The Christian Church continued the use of the same symbol, as we see in the so-called Easter eggs, and in the ostrich eggs which are still to be seen hanging in Orthodox Catholic Churches in the East. In fact a whole lecture might be devoted to the symbolism of the cosmic egg.”

The karan sharir or causal body is the veil of maya which covers the soul. It is the eternal ignorance. It is destroyed only with the Grace of God at the time of God realization.

Let's see what else unfolds….
How difficult for the brain to understand ignorance!!! As Eli says, simple becomes difficult.

Re: I am aware of, but not--the three bodies- 1.gross body

Hello Everyone!
This is all very interesting and is a description of fact (Truth) by someone who is aware of what he is about but let us not get too involved in this sort of mentivity because we can get lost in pursuit of knowledge rather than spiritual growth.
I draw your attention to this blog of mine. [CLICK]
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Re: I am aware of, but not--the three bodies

Spiritual expansion is at first the shedding of what one is not, to find that core; and then, having known the essence, the taking on of all that is in the manifest and unmanifest world.

Words written in black and white are manifestations of thoughts that we encounter; and at times, are heard by one, written by another, read by a third…and who knows, propel  yet another when that is required.