"The subtle plane, or Antarloka, is the mental-emotional sphere that we function in through thought and feeling and reside in fully during sleep and after death. It is the astral world that exists within the physical plane."
You will recall from last week the first aspect of man, the physical body, and the second aspect, the vital health body. The third aspect is the astral body. The astral body is almost an exact duplicate of the physical body. However, changes that appear upon the physical body, such as aging, first occur within the structure of the astral body. The astral body is of the subconscious mind, at the level of the memory and reason chakras. It can be easily disturbed and is sometimes called the emotional body. It is made of odic prana and kept intact by the general life flow of actinic prana bursting constantly forth from its atomic structure. Being the exact counterpart of the physical body, the astral body appears like the physical body in size, shape, in every sense except weight. It differs in weight because it is composed of astral odic matter. This matter vibrates at a higher rate of vibration than what we might call physical matter.
Try to picture for yourself the fact that the physical body and astral body are of different vibrations and fit one inside the other, connected by the energy factor, which is the odic pranic energy of the vital health body. The astral world vibrates just inside the physical world that we see through our physical eyes and feel with our physical hands. Therefore, it is an exact duplication of everything that exists materially to our physical senses. This is logical to us, knowing and having identified the states of mind, for each state of mind is a form of vibration working together with all the others. The "one mind" is in different forms of vibration, all working together, one aspect within the other.
As we can walk and talk using our conscious mind and our physical body as a vehicle during our waking hours, so can we walk and talk using the duplicate of the physical body, our astral body of the subconscious mind, during the hours we are asleep. When we are in the astral body in the subconscious world, other people are also in that world, and forms of communication take place, as in the physical world.
There is a cord of odic and actinic force which connects the two bodies. It is called the silver cord. Should someone travel too far from his physical body astrally, or have an intense astral experience, an extra supply of energy would be drawn from the vital health body and the physical body, and he would be tired on awakening.
The inner study of you can be complicated, for you are a most complex being of many dimensions. As we embark on this study of the inner you, it may be helpful to have a list which you can refer to now and then to put together the pieces in the right order. The age-old teachings which are captured in this book boldly claim "man" to be more than is usually understood, that being a mortal body with an intellect, small or large. Man, as the mystics understand him, is the immortal soul surrounded by seven aspects. Here follows a summary of the "seven aspects of man" established around the actinic causal body of the soul, anandamaya kosha, "sheath of bliss:" 1) the physical body, annamaya kosha, "food-made sheath;" 2) the vital health body, pranic sheath, pranamaya kosha; 3) the astral body, instinctive aspect of manomaya kosha; 4) the human aura and instinctive mind, prabhamandala and manas chitta; 5) the intellect, odic causal sheath, buddhi chitta; 6) the subtle nerve system, nadis and chakras; 7) the intuitive mind, actinodic causal sheath, vijnanamaya kosha, "sheath of cognition."
Just as we have school, entertainment, discussions and meetings with friends in the conscious mind on the physical plane, so do we go to school, enjoy entertainment, discuss problems and meet and talk with friends on the astral plane. And as the subconscious mind receives impressions from the conscious mind during our waking hours, so does the conscious mind receive impressions from the subconscious mind as we go through experience during our sleeping hours.
In the same way, people have seen with the eyes of their astral body, while simultaneously conscious through their physical eyes, people on the astral plane. Similarly, those who are traveling on the astral plane can see people on the physical plane, as they look out through the odic astral force field into the gross conscious-mind world. Travel is much faster on the astral plane, as it is done through desire, and the astral body is a much more refined rate of vibration than is the physical body, which functions close to the time sequence as we know it.
Each night when you read your lesson in this book, realize that therein is your key to entry into the astral school of Himalayan Academy. Going to sleep thinking about the lesson you have been reading, try to wake up slowly in the morning and, with effort, recall what you have been doing during the night on the astral plane.
The astral world is a plane in space, just as the physical world, as we know it in the conscious mind, is a space plane. It is the particular rate of vibration which each of these worlds generates that determines the space plane it occupies. Looking out through the conscious mind, we perceive outer space. Looking into the subconscious mind, we perceive inner space. As the habit patterns of the subconscious mind control many of our conscious-mind happenings on the physical plane, so does the superconscious mind control many of the occurrences of the astral plane through the subconscious astral body. This has to do with the awakening of the subsuperconscious mind. The subsuperconscious mind becomes stronger and stronger, providing we exercise our intuition on the conscious-mind level.
Just as you choose your friends on the physical, conscious plane, so do you attract kindred beings to you in the astral world? By keeping our homes clean and peaceful, by keeping our bodies and clothing fresh and clean, the odic force becomes quite pure and enables us to be more actinically alive. This condition also keeps lower astral people away from us, so long as we do not ourselves enter into an instinctive, astrally odic vibration. The spiritual, actinic vibration keeps all lower astral influences away, just as doors, locks, windows and walls discourage unwanted entrance into buildings.
It is not advisable to admit lower astral entities if you are sensitive to this possibility, for doing so creates a double influx of odic force, whereas the striving of a yoga student is to become actinically superconscious and not to intensify the odic subconscious. Astral entities live in their own world on the astral plane. Possibly you enter this plane at night, too, but during the day we must attend to our conscious-mind activities and take care of our immediate programs, keeping the two worlds apart as distinctly as our sleeping state is separated from the state of being awake.
When the physical body dies, this automatically severs the actinodic silver cord that connects the astral and physical bodies. Then the process of reincarnation and rebirth eventually begins. The physical body remains on the physical plane as a conglomeration of magnetic forces and begins to dissolve into the forces of surrounding nature. The actinic life of the physical body and the vital health body travels up the silver cord as it dissolves and lends a tremendous charge to the astral body. This movement registers on the subconscious astral body all conscious-mind memory patterns of the life just lived, and the person becomes fully conscious on the astral plane.
This tremendous charge of odic and actinic force registering upon the astral body at the time of transition, or death, is what stimulates and gives the initial impulse to the process of reincarnation. This process is largely controlled by the activity of subconscious habit forces. Before the reincarnation cycle fully takes hold, however, the person just departed often quickly recreates the same states of consciousness, the same interests he was accustomed to on the physical plane, and he may go on as usual, meeting his family who visit him during their sleeping hours in their astral bodies. Although the astral body is still bound by the habit patterns of its physical life, it continues to wear away from the moment of transition, and odic force is continuously fed back to the physical plane in an effort to make contact again with family, friends or loved ones through the medium of memory and desire. Another physical body is created, and a reentry into the conscious world is made. The old astral body is dropped off, and the newly generated actinic forces give life to a new physical body and a new health body, along with a new astral body. The new astral body is the sum total of all preceding subconscious experience, and it may be quite mature during the time the physical body is only a child. The odic astral form that was left behind is called an astral shell and eventually corresponds to the corpse of the dead physical body.
As we begin the study of the fourth aspect of man, let us hold in mind the first three: the physical body as the first aspect, the vital health body as the second aspect and the astral body as the third aspect. The fourth aspect is the instinctive mind and the human aura, the colorful spectrum that registers whatever state of mind the person passes through. The human aura is the reflection of specific evolution. But it registers most clearly the basic reactionary patterns of the instinctive mind.
Within the instinctive mind there are both aggressive and passive odic forces. Some of these are fear, anger, jealousy, deceit, pride, greed -- and then there is that form of attachment sometimes called odic or magnetic love, as well as happiness and affection. These emotions are either aggressive or passive, depending upon the motivating factors involved. The motivating factors are desire, a lack of control of odic force, or a type of actinic, superconscious flow which motivates from within to the externals of human consciousness. When this actinic flow is in action, the more refined emotions of compassion, benevolence and joy are experienced. Basically, all of these qualities may be defined as being either odic or actinic. The actinic forces flow from the core of the soul out through the odic force field, and when the actinic forces become diminished, odic forces congeal and rush in to fill the gap.
Fear is passive odic force. Anger is aggressive odic force. The two basic colors of the odic aura are gray and red. Gray is the color of fear, which when it leads to depression or intense fear becomes black. Red is the aura's registration of anger. In a suppressed state of the instinctive mind, when desire has not been met, the aura registers a reddish black to portray the emotion of lust.
Fear dominates the lives of many people, even when they have no reason for being afraid. It is a protective mechanism of the lower, instinctive nature inherent in every human being; animals, too. The fear of the darkness, for instance, was born in primitive man's lack of a shelter. Long before he discovered the use of fire or even learned to live in caves, he trembled in the darkness when the sun went down each day, for he knew he was at the mercy of wild animals and other dangers of the night. Even today, the ability of men to fear endows them with a natural caution in the face of the unknown. The gray cast permeates the aura during protective investigation until it is proven that a condition of safety exists.
Today man still retains fear of the darkness. But now he surrounds himself with electric light, symbolizing the new golden age in which his actinic force has begun to penetrate through the instinctive mind, refining this mind just as the glow of electricity refines the vibration of the Earth at night. Among other forms of fear are fear of death, fear of poverty, fear of water and fear of high places.
Anger is also, like fear, an instinctive control, and at one time served its purpose. The onrush of anger served to protect man's private interests in critical situations by injecting adrenaline into his blood and thus preparing him for defense. But as man evolves closer to his real, actinic being, he discovers that actinic love, understanding, compassion and wisdom are higher qualities than anger. Two more instinctive emotions that motivate the passive and aggressive odic forces into action are jealousy and deceit.
The actinic age is bursting forth upon this planet. Its signposts heralding the spiritual mind of man are portrayed in symbolic happenings upon the Earth, such as the electric light, atomic energy, probes into space, probes into the subconscious, probes into prior lives and dangerously expanding states of awareness stimulated by chemicals. All this and more show us that man has outgrown the lower, instinctive emotions such as jealousy, portrayed in the odic aura around and through the body in the color of dark green, and deceit, portrayed as green-gray.
Yes, man has outgrown jealousy and deceit, but how often does he realize this? The newspapers are filled with examples of people who let them be controlled by these emotions. When jealousy is felt, one feels that the person they admire has more control over the odic and actinic forces than they do, and in a frantic effort to balance the forces, they devise plans to tear down the odic forces or cease the flow of actinic forces of their prey. Jealousy is treacherous when it turns active and aggressive and makes a person deceitful.
Many people do not feel deceit to be an emotion after it has been existent in their nature long enough to become a habit. Instinctive emotions often become habits when allowed to be indulged in too much, especially these basic and baser ones -- fear, anger, jealousy and deceit -- all of which are resident in the lower chakras, below the muladhara chakra.
Fear, anger, jealousy and deceit produce an odic aura web of green, gray, black and red, running through and through the organs of the astral body, affecting the organs of the physical body, as well as draining the vital health body of needed odic power. This cuts the actinic flow to a minimum, so that the only life in the body exists in a dull, crafty sparkle in the eyes.
These basic instinctive emotions of the subconscious mind are the substance through which we evolve. As more control of the forces is effected, the colors of the aura lighten and the nature is refined. This refining process is done quickly through discipline on the raja yoga path to enlightenment. Every effort that you make to curb and control your base, instinctive nature brings you that much closer to your spiritual goal. There is a very true saying, "You are only as actinic as your lowest active odic force." Those things to which you still react represent your low points and must be turned into actinic understanding before you can dissolve the odic force field that contains them.
Another dimension of the instinctive mind is the habit mind. Habits are built into us from childhood. Some remain conscious and others enter the subconscious. The most difficult to overcome are our habitual identifications with the force fields of our city or state, our country, our race, and even the world itself. The many ramifications of human behavior which pertain to a study of the habit mind could fill many books. Prejudice is one of the negative emotions contained in the habit mind. We may not think of prejudice as being a habit, but it is. Many adults retain very strong habitual prejudices. They do not care for people who do not belong to their particular race, caste or social class.
When there is any sudden shift or disturbance in the race's instinctive mind, its forces may very suddenly and quickly become aggressive, arousing the lower instinctive emotions. When, however, the race mind is allowed either to run its natural evolutionary course, or it is kept under control and its own sense transcended, then man realizes that he cannot judge himself or another on the basis of race, color, caste, creed or nationality, but rather on the basis of spiritual individuality.
Make a list of all the negative emotions which still reside in your instinctive force field. Should you find that you are dominated by one or more of these emotions admit it to yourself honestly? This admission, this facing yourself, loosens the hold of the odic force and allows some actinic force to penetrate and dissolve the lower force field of the instinctive emotion you are examining. First step, admission; second step, observation. When, for instance, you become angry, fearful or jealous, observe yourself in this action. Immediately become aware of actinic force. Become an empty being of colorless energy; see the dark auric colors dissolve into a radiance of blue, yellow, lavender and white. You can do this with your present understanding that the actinic force is much higher than the instinctive mind, much greater than the astral or the physical or health bodies.
