The Three Bodies according to the yoga teachings

According to the teachings of yoga, man is adorned with 3 bodies, causal, astral and physical, as outlined in the following verses.

Karana sarira – or causal body

The causal body is merely the cause or seed of the subtle body and the gross body. It has no other function.

It is nirvikalpa, "undifferentiated form" It originates with avidya, "ignorance" or "nescience" of the real identity of the atman or Self, instead giving birth to the notion of jiva (individualized soul.

Swami Shivananda characterizes the causal body as "The beginningless ignorance that is indescribable “It is also described as the causal body as characterized by "emptiness", "ignorance", and "darkness”. In the search for the "I am", this is a state where there is nothing to hold on to anymore.

Suksma sarira - subtle body

Suksma sarira or the subtle body is the body of the mind and the vital energies, which keep the physical body alive. Together with the causal body it is the transmigrating soul or jiva, separating from the gross body upon death.

Sthula sarira - gross body

Sthula sarira or the gross body is the material physical mortal body that eats, breathes and moves (acts). It is composed of many diverse components, produced by one’s karmas (actions) in past life out of the elements which have undergone Panchikarana i.e. combining of the five primordial subtle elements.

It is the instrument of Jiva’s experience, which, attached to the body and dominated by Ahamkara, uses the body’s external and internal organs of sense and action. The Jiva, identifying itself with the body, in its waking state enjoys gross objects. On its body rests man’s contact with the external world.

The Sthula sarira’s main features are Sambhava (birth), Jara (old age or ageing) and Maranam (death), and the "Waking State". The Sthula sarira is the anatman.

Correlations with other models, Kosha

The Taittiriya Upanishad describes five koshas, which are also often equated with the three bodies. The three bodies are often equated with the five koshas (sheaths), which cover the atman:

    Sthula sarira, the Gross body, also called the Annamaya Kosha

    Suksma sarira', the Subtle body, composed of:

        Pranamaya Kosha (Vital breath or Energy),

        Manomaya Kosha (Mind),

        Vijnanamaya Kosha (Intellect)

    Karana sarira, the Causal body, the Anandamaya Kosha (Bliss)

 Four states of consciousness and turiya

The Mandukya Upanishad describes four states of consciousness, namely waking consciousness, dream, and deep sleep, and turiya, the base-consciousness.

Waking consciousness, dream, and deep sleep are equated with the three bodies, while turiya is a fourth state, which is equated with atman (Self) and purusha (Spirit).

Turiya

Turiya, pure consciousness, is the fourth state. It is the background that underlies and transcends the three common states of consciousness. In this consciousness both absolute and relative, Saguna Brahman and Nirguna Brahman (Saguna Brahman means Brahman with infinite attributes, including form, Nirguna Brahman is without form or attributes).

Four bodies

Siddharameshwar Maharaj, the guru of Nisargadatta Maharaj, discerns four bodies, by including turiya or the "Great-Causal Body" as a fourth body. Here resides the knowledge of "I am" that cannot be described, the state before Ignorance and Knowledge, or Turiya state.

Atma vijnana

According to the Advaita Vedanta tradition, knowledge of the "Self" or atman can be gained by self-inquiry, investigating the three bodies, and disidentifying from them. It is a method which is well-known from Ramana Maharshi, but also from Nisargadatta Maharaj and his teacher Siddharameshwar Maharaj.

By subsequently identifying with the three lower bodies, investigating them, and discarding identification with them when it has become clear that they are not the "I", the sense of "I am" beyond knowledge and Ignorance becomes clearly established.

In this investigation the three bodies are recognized as not being anatman, the idea that there is no self.

Essentially, man as a soul is a causal-bodied being. His causal body is an idea-matrix for the astral and physical bodies.

Man's subtle body of light, or prana; the second of three sheaths that successively encase the soul: the causal body, the astral body, and the physical body.

The powers of the astral body enliven the physical body, much as electricity illumines a bulb. The astral body has nineteen elements: intelligence, ego, feeling, mind (sense consciousness); five instruments of knowledge (the sensory powers within the physical organs of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch); five instruments of action (the executive powers in the physical instruments of procreation, excretion, speech, locomotion, and the exercise of manual skill); and five instruments of life force that perform the functions of circulation, metabolization, assimilation, crystallization, and elimination.

This subject is unknown to many people who simply think of themselves as mind/body beings.

Facing our fears with courage

Many people do not reach their potential because they are paralyzed by fear of failure. The solution to this is to exercise the quality of courage.  Courage is not necessarily an absence of fear; an individual can feel great trepidation and still be courageous.  The valorous person is one who does not succumb to his fears, but rather makes up his mind to confront and conquer them.

We may be afraid of something without even knowing why, perhaps because of some forgotten traumatic experience in this life or in a previous incarnation.  But if we look objectively at our insecurities, we usually find they are unfounded. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”* [Franklin D. Roosevelt. ]  There is much truth in that statement.  Often the major threats to our sense of well-being lie not in the outer conditions we encounter, but in the fact that we haven’t learned to face those conditions with the strength and faith that are native to the soul.

The Roots of Yoga

"Yoga is like an ancient river," explains yoga scholar Georg Feuerstein. "It has countless rapids, eddies, loops, tributaries, and backwaters and extends over a vast, colorful terrain of many different habitats." The roots of yoga are complex, ancient, and only scantily known. "So, when we speak of yoga, we speak of a multitude of paths and orientations with contrasting theoretical frameworks and occasionally incompatible goals."

Orthodox Hinduism is based on the Vedic revelation, as contained in the four Vedas - Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva. These are India's sacred scriptures, whose ancient origins are unknown. The Vedic orthodoxy accords validity to six schools (or darshana, "points of view"): Purva-Mimamsa, Vedanta, Samkhya, Nyaya, Vaiseshika, and Yoga. (Some scholars add Buddhism as the seventh.) Each school has its founding sage and canonical sutra.

The Purva-Mimamsa ("earlier discussion") school, founded by Jaimini (c. 200 B.C.), is a philosophy of ritualism, a catalogue of priestly duties, a science of moral action, and a schema for ethical behavior.

Vedanta also called Uttara-Mimamsa ("later discussion"), means "Veda's end." Formulated by Shankaracharya (788820), it is fundamentally monistic and nondualistic and is based on the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Sutra. Some believe Shankaracharya to be a divine incarnation of Shiva; in any case, he taught that reality is a single, indivisible whole. Shankaracharya founded 10 new orders of swamis and established four holy seats (maths) throughout India, important Hindu "bishoprics" still occupied and revered today.

The Samkhya ("number") school, founded by the sage Kapila and elaborated by Ishvara Krishna (c. 350 A.D.), is Vedanta's intellectual rival in the Hindu fold. Samkhya concerns itself with the number and description of the categories of existence. Its focus is the plurality of being, and its methods emphasize discrimination within a dualistic framework involving spirit (purusha) and matter (Prakriti).

The Nyaya ("rule") system, established around 500 B.C. by Gautama (not to be confused with the historical Buddha), taught rules for logic, rhetoric, and causation and proposed a general theory of knowledge.

Kanabhaksa formulated the tenets of Vaiseshika around 600 B.C. He described six fundamental categories of existence and stressed the differences (vaisesha) between things.

Classical Yoga ("union") was propounded in 196 sutras by the great sage Patanjali, who lived in the second century A.D. Hindu tradition contends that Patanjali was an incarnation of Ananta, Vishnu's thousand-headed Lord of the Serpents, the race that guarded the secret treasures of Earth. With his systematic treatise on yoga practice, Patanjali "supplied the yoga tradition with a reasonably homogeneous framework that could stand up against the many rival traditions," explains Feuerstein.

Within the school of Yoga, six major forms have gained prominence and comprise '.bats called the Wheel of Yoga.

Raja yoga is "the resplendent yoga of slirilol hips.' says Feuerstein. It is the eightfold high road of contemplation and meditation.

Hatha yoga, Hatha is a general category that includes most yoga styles. It is an old system that includes the practice of asanas (yoga postures) and pranayama (breathing exercises), which help bring peace to the mind and body, preparing the body for deeper spiritual practices such as meditation.

Jnana yoga, which cultivates the eye of wisdom, is a non-dualistic path of Self-realization through inspired reason, understanding, and discernment. It is often associated with the teaching known as advaita ("nondual") Vedanta.

With bhakti yoga, the path of Bhakti yoga, also called Bhakti marga (literally the path of Bhakti), is a spiritual path or spiritual practice within Hinduism focused on loving devotion towards a personal god.

Karma yoga, the paths to spiritual liberation in Hinduism, karma yoga is the path of unselfish action. It teaches that a spiritual seeker should act according to dharma, without being attached to the fruits or personal consequences. Karma Yoga, states the Bhagavad Gita, purifies the mind.

Laya yoga, Laya yoga is a yoga form in which dissolution of self and merging with the Supreme Consciousness are achieved. Laya is a Sanskrit term meaning "dissolve." Laya yoga leads to the state of samadhi, which is the highest unification with the Divine. It leads the mind from the state of manifestation and dissolution to moola Prakriti, meaning "original state."Though it may also be referred to as Kundalini yoga as it awakens the kundalini power, Laya yoga works from the Sahasrara (crown chakra) at the top of the body and flows down through the lower chakras to awaken kundalini.

Raja yoga (also called Ashtanga yoga or eightfold path) in Sanskrit texts, Raja yoga was both the goal of yoga and a method of attaining it. The term also became a modern name for the practice of yoga, when in the 19th-century Swami Vivekananda equated raja yoga with the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Pratyahara, “Pratyahara” means literally “control of ahara,” or “gaining mastery over external influences.” It has been compared to a turtle withdrawing into its shell—the turtle's shell is the mind and the turtle's limbs are the senses. The term is usually translated as “withdrawal from the senses,” but much more is implied. “Ahara” means “food,” or “anything we take into ourselves from the outside.” “Prati” is a preposition meaning “against” or “away.” “Pratyahara” means literally “control of ahara,” or “gaining mastery over external influences”. Patanjali says that when an asana is correctly preformed, the dualities between body and mind, mind and soul, have to vanish.