grasp of all of us, and we may train ourselves in the habitual distinguishment between theSelf - the man - and his bodies; even to do this is to step out of the illusion in which themajority are wrapped, and changes our whole attitude towards life and towards the world,lifting us into a serener region above "the changes and chances of this mortal life," placing us above the daily petty troubles which loom so largely to embodiedconsciousness, showing us the true proportion between the ever-changing and therelatively permanent, and making us feel the difference between the drowning man tossedand buffeted by the[3]waves that smother him, and the man whose feet are on a rock while the surges break harmlessly at its base.By man I mean the living, conscious, thinking Self, the individual; by bodies, the variouscasings in which this Self is enclosed, each casing enabling the Self to function in somedefinite region of the universe. As a man might use a carriage on the land, a ship on thewater, an aeroplane in the air, to travel from one place to another, and yet in all placesremain himself, so does the Self, the real man, remain himself no matter in what body heis functioning; and as carriage, ship and aeroplane vary in materials and arrangementaccording to the element in which each is destined to move, so does each body varyaccording to the environment in which it is to act. One is grosser than another, oneshorter-lived than another, one has fewer capacities than another; but all have this incommon - that relatively to the man they are transient, his instruments, his servants,wearing out and renewed according to their nature, and adapted to his varying needs, hisgrowing powers. We will study them one by one, beginning with the lowest, and thentake the man himself, the actor in all the bodies.[4]
THE PHYSICAL BODY
Under the term physical body must be included the two lower principles of man - calledin our old terminology the Sthūla Sharīra and Linga Sharīra - since they both function onthe physical plane, are composed of physical matter, are formed for the period of one physical life, are cast off by the man at death, and disintegrate together in the physicalworld when he passes on into the astral.Another reason for classing these two principles as our physical body or physical vehicleis that so long as we cannot pass out of the physical world - or plane, we are accustomedto call it - we are using one or other or both of these physical vestures; they both belongto the physical plane by their materials, and cannot pass outside it; consciousnessworking in them is bound within their physical limitations, and is subject to the ordinarylaws of space and time. Although partially separable, they are rarely separated duringearthly life and such separation is inadvisable and is always a sign of disease or of ill- balanced constitution.They are distinguishable by the materials of which they are composed into the gross bodyand the etheric[5]double, the latter being the exact duplicate of the visible body, particlefor particle, and the medium through which play all the electrical and vital currents on
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