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The Seven Principles Of Man
By A Besant
The Lower Quaternary
We have outlined thus far a necessarily brief description of the atman and the buddhic principles in our constitution, as well as of manas, the ego. We now come to a consideration of those sides of human nature with which we average men and women are more familiar — the principles which comprise our lower quaternary.
The lower quaternary, as the name implies, consists of four principles: kama, prana, linga-sarira, and sthula-sarira. These four working together form the vehicle in which the ego, overshadowed and guided by atma-buddhi, reimbodies itself on this earth — in a word, reincarnates.
KAMA The Sanskrit word kama means desire. At first thought we may get the idea of kama as something low in the scale of human qualities, but such is not necessarily the case.
Kama is the driving or impelling force in the human constitution; per se it is colorless, neither good nor bad, and is only such as the mind and soul direct its use. It is the seat of the living electric impulses, desires, aspirations, considered in their energic aspect. Usually however, although there is a divine kama as well as an infernal one, this word is restricted, and wrongly so, to evil desire almost exclusively. — G. de Purucker, Occult Glossary
Also, in the Bhagavad-Gita, we find Krishna, who is the personified self of the cosmos, telling his disciple Arjuna:
In all creatures I am desire regulated by moral fitness. — 7:54
Of course in the average man or woman desire is limited as a rule to narrow personal interests and certainly therefore it is not high in quality. We can better understand the range of this principle if we compare the desires of a Christ or a Buddha, in their compassionate self-dedication to the needs of the world, with the desires which motivate a gangster — these being examples of extreme aspects of the human kamic principle.
In the average person desire is neither very high nor very low. It is the work of evolution to train us through experience in many lives to raise the quality of our desires, for these desires obviously form a powerful element in the development of character and therefore of evolution. Unfortunately, due to ignorance and selfishness, people too often use the vital powers of desire and will to secure success for themselves regardless of the rights and welfare of others. So we create disharmony and suffer sooner or later the consequences. This being an ethical universe we have thus had to learn mostly through suffering.
PRANA
Prana signifies "life principle" — vitality. It forms the psychoelectrical field, bounded by the organism, like the air in the lungs. Prana keeps the astral-physical organisms of all creatures alive and growing. It permeates the linga-sarira and the physical body from birth to death with ever-renewing currents of vital-magnetic energies. Prana also accounts for the falling to pieces of an organism. The death of an organism is caused in the first place by the prolonged wearing-down of that organism by streams of pranic energy which at last bring it to the point of dissolution. Both death and — as even science is beginning to suspect — sleep come not from the failure of life but from its excess.
LINGA-SARIRA
This is the "model-body" upon which the physical body is formed. It is like a matrix or mold of ethereal matter into which the atoms of the physical body are built. It is often called the astral body. William Q. Judge wrote of it:
The astral body is made of matter of very fine texture as compared with the visible body, and has a great tensile strength, so that it changes but little during a lifetime, while the physical alters every moment. . . . The matter of which it is composed is electrical and magnetic in its essence, . . . The astral body is the guiding model for the physical one, and all the other kingdoms have the same astral model. — The Ocean of Theosophy, p. 39
It is this astral model, flushed with prana, that preserves our physical identity. We have been told by scientists that within a period of seven years, more or less, the matter of the physical body is completely renewed. Each day we lose atoms which are replaced by others. We are therefore different physical beings today from what we were, say, ten years ago. What is it then that keeps our bodies in shape, so that in spite of this continual flux of entering and departing atoms, which is going on continuously all our lives, each body yet retains its own characteristics of structure? This marvel is due to the model-body which, existing within the physical, molecule for molecule and cell for cell, holds its form so that even scars, deformities, or mere wrinkles are perpetuated.
There is another point which should also be emphasized:
The astral body has in it the real organs of the outer sense organs. In it are the sight, hearing, [taste], power to smell, and the sense of touch. — The Ocean of Theosophy, p. 42
In the case of marking by being born legless, the idea and strong imagination of the mother act so as to cut off or shrivel up the astral leg, and the result is that the molecules, having no model of leg to work on, make no physical leg whatever — and similarly in all such cases. But where we find a man who still feels the leg which the surgeon has cut off, or perceives the fingers that were amputated, then the astral member has not been interfered with, and hence the man feels as if it were still on his person. For knife or acid will not injure the astral model, but in the first stages of its growth ideas and imagination have the power of acid and sharpened steel. — Ibid., p. 41
The astral body or linga-sarira is made of astral matter or substance. Speaking generally, it might be said, of course, that it is made of what science used to call ether. Theosophy, however, can explain much more about the ether than science. The aether or astral light or, to give it its technical name in theosophy, the akasa is, like everything else, sevenfold. Its highest or innermost levels or reaches are the home of our higher principles. Its lower and grosser levels surround our earth and we call them the astral light. All people cannot see the astral light in the way that they can see the surrounding air because they have not developed the astral faculties to enable them to see it.
Psychics and clairvoyants see its faintly luminous coils. It is this star-like luminosity that originated the name "astral." These sensitives have developed in themselves the astral senses which correspond in their range of activity to the astral plane. But these so-called visions of clairvoyants are seldom anything but glimpses into the lower levels of the astral light. These levels are the ones closest to and surrounding the earth. They are a welter of images and influences produced upon and within astral matter by mankind's unregulated and often evil emotions, thoughts, and desires. Hence these visions are not only misleading but frequently dangerous.
At the moment of death, when the spirit-soul lets go of all the lower principles, they fall apart. The astral body then separates out from the physical but does not leave it, as they belong together. And as the physical body disintegrates, the astral likewise slowly passes away.
STHULA-SARIRA
There are certain interesting facts connected with the physical body, or sthula-sarira, which theosophy has always taught but which physical science has only recently discovered. One of these facts is that physical matter is mostly holes. We are now told by scientists that if all the material spread out in this seemingly solid body of ours were collected into a compact mass, it would actually occupy a space about the size of a pin head!
The body, therefore, though appropriately called the sthula-sarira or "gross body," is really foam-like, full of vacant spaces, something like a sponge. This is one of the many paradoxes or seeming contradictions which abound throughout nature and which make the study of her processes so fascinating. The grosser a substance appears the more foamy it actually is, and therefore the more illusory. Our bodies appear solid because they are formed of particles of matter in such inconceivably rapid motion that to our senses they seem as if solid. Just as when we whirl a lighted stick fast enough we see what appears to be a complete circle of fire. This indicates one great lesson that we may learn from a consideration of physical matter — that the real things, the permanent things, are invisible to our physical senses. We do not even see physical matter, but only the forms which it takes in the incomprehensible rapidity of its vibrations.
The sthula-sarira illustrates for us another basic spiritual fact of the cosmos. For it is a convenient example of the law of analogy, "As above so below; as it is below, so is it above." In other words, the physical body being, in its substances, structures, and functions, an offspring of the universal cosmic life, it is itself a cosmos in miniature. This being the case, a knowledge of what takes place in physical bodies will, in the light of the archaic teachings of theosophy, reveal to us and illustrate faithfully the processes of the invisible spiritual worlds. As Blavatsky tells us:
Analogy is the guiding law in Nature, the only true Ariadne's thread that can lead us, through the inextricable paths of her domain, toward her primal and final mysteries. — The Secret Doctrine 2:153
The use of this law of analogy therefore — in the action of the nervous system and the circulation of the blood, the nuclear structure of the cells, and many other facts — will provide a wonderful key to the understanding and application of the deeper teachings in regard to the structure and operations of the invisible and causal worlds. To the ignorant the body is a gross drag upon spiritual experience. But when kept in its proper place, controlled and intelligently used, the body has its own basic part to play in our evolution. For without it, how could we function in human life, where we are daily gaining such rich lessons in experience and development?
The relation of the sthula-sarira to our evolution may be viewed in two ways:
(1) It is our vehicle of contact with physical nature, and also with human life where we gain necessary lessons in experience and consequent development. Besides, without a complete knowledge of all the aspects of nature, divine, spiritual, mental, emotional, vital, astral, and physical, we would never reach the complete evolution of all our faculties.
(2) The sthula-sarira enables our higher principles to act not only upon our own physical atoms but also upon the atoms throughout the whole range of our physical and mental contacts. And this dynamic influence helps unconsciously in the evolution of all those atoms, particularly those used in our own body. We must remember that at the heart of every atom is a spirit-soul or monad pouring through it the urge to unfoldment and growth. And the effect of human will and evolutionary desires upon these developing monad-atoms is continuous and immense. So that the physical body has its definite and vital use in our development.
