The Three Kayas (and the Emanational Bodies), Part 2

In Part 1 of this article, I made it clear that the Three Kayas (The Buddhist Trikaya and Christian Trinity) are outside time and space – uncreated, unborn and unmanifest. I also made it clear that the Three Kayas are consubtantial, or coessential, meaning that it could be said that, ultimately, there is only the Dharmakaya (or Father), and that the Sambhogakaya (or Holy Spirit) and the Nirmanakaya (or Son) are simply the Dharmakaya (or Father) in, respectively, the Dimensions of Energy (Sambhogakaya, or Spirit) and Soul (Nirmanakaya, or Son).

When creation (unfathomably) emerges from the Uncreate (Dharmakaya-Sambhogakaya, or Father-Spirit, or Siva-Shakti), the Uncreate remains unimplicated. When Man appears, the Body, or Dimension, of Nirmanakaya, or Soul, is “implanted” in a life (or form)-vehicle, so that Nirvana, or Heaven, can manifest on Earth.

Soul (or immanent Consciousness) is implanted in Man, but covering Man’s Soul, or Self, by functioning as veiling sheaths, are several “Bodies”(Causal, Higher Mental, Lower Mental, Astral, Pranic, and Physical), which effectively prevent him from recognizing himself as Soul (or Self, or Son, or Buddha, or Nimanakaya). All of these bodies, sans the Causal Body, are cosmic (rather than acosmic, or hypercosmic), meaning that they manifest in time and space.

According to Hindu Advaita Vedanta, there are five (hierarchically layered) Sheaths, or Bodies, or Dimensions, that cover the Self, or Soul – the Causal, Higher Mental, Lower Mental, Life-Energy, and Physical Bodies.

The Physical body is the gross-form, or material, Body. It is a reflection of the vital, or Life-Energy, Body, which is a karmic reflection of the Astral Body, as are the Lower Mental and Higher Mental Bodies. The Astral (or “star”) Body, which isn’t identified in the Advata Vedanta five-sheath schema, is the “soul-matrix,” of an individual, the complex of psychical seed tendencies (which in an un-en-Light-ended individual functions to contract immanent Absolute Consciousness (the Soul) into a bound soul (characterized by unique cognitive, conative, and affective predispositions).

The bound soul (or soul-matrix-contraction of Soul, or Consciousness Absolute) is, relative to the Physical Body, located two digits to the right of the center of the chest, in the Heart-Center (Hridayam, not the Anahata chakra), where it effectively “functions” as a “knot” that prevents an individual from realizing himself as, and radiating as, the Soul, or Self (immanent Consciousness Absolute).

The soul-matrix, or Astral Body, is the repository, or storehouse, of one’s karmic psychical seed tendencies (samskaras), which concatenate into habit-energies, or desire-impulses (vasanas), which “crystallize” as thought-forms in the brain. Thought-forms, or concepts, that pertain to worldly or mundane matters and knowledge constitute the lower mind, or Lower Mental Body, while those that pertain to “vertical’ discriminating intelligence and the Self-awakening project comprise the higher mind, or Higher Mental Body. In an un-en-Light-ened individual, both the Lower and Higher Mental Bodies, function as a continuum of thought-forms, which modify, and thus reduce and contract, Pure Consciousness into the self-contraction, epitomized as the Heart (or Absolute Consciousness)-knot. But as will be explained later in this article, the higher mind, or Higher Mental Body, sooner or later, leads one to the Causal Body, which is the bound soul’s Salvation.

The soul-matrix, or Astral Body, has an inseparable energy-body correlate, the Etheric Body, which manifest visibly to psychics as one’s aura. Hence the Astral and Etheric Bodies are sometimes described as single body: the Astral-Etheric Body. The soul-matrix, or Astral (or Karmic “Star”) Body, is not only reflected as one’s Physical, Lower Mental, Higher Mental, and Etheric Bodies, it is also reflected as one’s subtle life-energy body, the Pranic Body, the network of nadis (or subtle-body ”nerve” channels) through which lower vital -- and in yogis, higher Kundalini, energy flow. Chakras, rotating “wheels,” or vortices, of pranic energy, are formed where numerous nadis intersect.

The Causal Body (Anandamaya Kosha) is the fifth and final sheath in Advaita Vedanta. It is simply another name for the Sambhogakaya, the Holy Spirit, and Shakti (specifically Iccha Shakti, meaning Divine Will, or Power). The goal of the highest Yoga, Divine Yoga, is to directly and immediately unite the “vine” of one’s soul (specifically the highest element of one’s soul, consciousness functioning as the free attention) with the Sambhogakaya, or Holy Spirit, or Shakti which the yogi receives as Grace, or Blessing/Blissing Clear-Light Energy (or Power). When the “vine” of the yogi’s soul (via the practice of Divine Communion) permanently unites with the “vine” of Shakti, the Heart (or Gordian)-knot is cut, and the Causal Body dissolves, morphing into Amrita (or Atma) Nadi, the ceaseless, radiant Force-current emanating from the now “broken-open” Heart.

From the perspective of the Trikaya, when the Causal Body (or Sambhogakaya) unites with the contracted soul, or nirmanakaya, in the Heart-center, the nirmanakaya morphs into the Nirmanakaya, or Soul, or Self, or Buddha, in whom the Dharmakaya and Sambhogakaya (or Siva and Shakti) are One.

From the viewpoint of Utimate Reality there is but a single Body, or Mind, or Body-Mind – the Dharmakaya (or Father), the All that has become all. But for the Divine Emergence of the Dharmakaya (or Father) as Nirmankaya (or Son) to occur in space-time relative to an incarnational form- body, the Sambhogakaya (or Holy Spirit) has to unite with (and de-contract) the temporarily space-time-bound Nirmanakaya (or Soul). And for this to happen, the space-time sheaths, or Bodies, must be penetrated and outshone by the Causal (or Blessing/Blissing Clear-Light Energy) Body, which occurs when the Heart-knot is rent asunder.