A human is a tripartite being. He is composed of mind, body and emotions. During his life on earth, these three compo-nents are fundamental for his development, and each of these parts have the support of the other. Every objective develop-ment must be done with the participation of all these three components: if one wants to develop some physical skill, this must include the intellectual and emotional component.
These three components as tools for human inner develop-ment are symbolized in the ancient cultures by the triangle shape.
The Intellectual component is all the impressions recorded in life and transformed into thoughts. Logic, reasoning and reflections, independently if results are of something we have learned from imitation, or based on our experience, are all parts of the intellectual sphere. Its bases are in our experi-ence, and the past experiences of others Therefore, we can say that our mind is always conditioned by the past. So, it is important to develop an open and flexible mind, which could accept new theories and experiences; a conditioned and conservative mind is unsuitable for possible individual development.
The Emotions are all the sensations and feelings that arise when something is experienced by us. Feeling the beauty of
a landscape or a body, feeling compassion and loving kind-ness for another, falling in love or being attracted by some-one, are all emotive reactions. Eating and even reading this post could produce emotive reactions in all of us. Without emotions, every kind of development would be impossible.
Releasing all the emotive constraints is crucial for a harmonic development of a man. The negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, and envy have to be eliminated, because they have a kind of vibration that is deleterious for our mind and body.
The Physical body is obviously intended as the whole of what we can see (exterior form) and the organs, nervous system, and the vital energy that feeds all the physical systems. Even if we can see this material part of us, its functioning is almost unknown and ignored, and this is clear when we observe our relations with the physical machine.
Behind these functions, there is what we know as “Being”.
In all the ancient traditions – even the early Christian – the being is what transmigrates from life to life is to acquire new experiences with the aim of achieving Spiritual Conscious-ness. The being is what we really are – our “natural” I. The Being needs as tools for this evolution, the physical body and the mind: with the first he experiments with the material world, and the second tool, the processes of the data of what it has experienced. The emotions are the other manifesta-tions of the being and its perceptive tool. The emomanifesta-tions are also important to fix remembrance. To suppress the positive emotions – a usual thing in contemporary society, is to in-hibit the development of the being. All our power resides in the being that is practically unknown by the majority. The ancient traditions always said that for a possible develop-ment, one must first know himself (NOSCE TE IPSUM).
This means to realize our true nature, what we really are, the being that is suppressed by the personality developed by cul-tural conditioning and the limits imposed by social life. We must develop the awareness of our true nature, the being.
This can be achieved only by a conscious and
“mathemati-cal” process of working on ourselves, developing a stable cen-ter of consciousness that resides in our being, and not in the personality. So, the being will influence the body, the mind and the emotions which otherwise, in a normal state of “con-sciousness” are under the slavery of the external influences.
Through a specific system of learning, the being becomes the master and manifests its powers and qualities through the mind, emotions and body which cease to be under the in-fluences of the outer world. The emotions become the true expression of the being, and the personality – that must not be destroyed – is guided exclusively by our true nature: our Being.
Ways to Achieve a Better State of Awareness
Sometimes, many persons, new seekers along the path of inner development, don’t understand what it really means to observe themselves. What does it mean to make a space between them , to take a look and see what they are as they are, such as they observe some other person, a friend, or a stranger…someone who is not themselves? They do not know the correct way to understand how to perform such a challenging task. How to begin?
It would be useful to observe a dog, a cat or a bird moving between people. It’s a simple thing to do. Observing them, we become more aware of the fact that their degree of attention is nonexistent.
Their attention is directed to someone, then, at the first external sound or movement, their attention moves to the new object of their identification. It is also worth observ-ing the dog’s eyes: they are so expressive that we can perceive the exact moment they change their emotional state.
In the animal realm, it is so simple to perceive frag-mented attention, always susceptible to the reactions of the external world.
After having performed such experimental obser-vation, if we are able to maintain even such low degrees of attention to do this, let’s try the same observation with the persons around us. A crowded bar would be a good
“labora-tory” to perform this “experiment”.
So, observing with attention and patience, we will be astonished by the similarity between human and animal behavior in this field of consciousness. We can notice a per-son’s mechanicalness in their manner of walking, the vacuity in their gaze and the fact that their center of attention con-stantly changes.
“Look..a shop window!! The new Armani collection for this winter!! Wait…wait…let’s stop here for a moment…
I would like to see…No…maybe another time, I’ve remem-bered that I have to do one thing…but, now I would like to drink a good coffee…no, maybe an ice cream is better…oh, that itch on my back…what’s on tv this evening?”…
Their gazes pass from one thing to another. It seems that these two lovers at the next table are speaking. But, they don’t communicate. They are speaking without any interest, each of them distracted by what is happening around them.
Absence in their eyes, absence in their hearts…they aren’t re-ally together.
Sitting in a popular bar among others: such a mar-velous and horrible thing. The more we develop the abil-ity to observe, the more we become aware of the fact that persons can’t really do anything…nothing...everything hap-pens. What they are speaking is accidental, such as the vari-ous things which attract their attention from moment to mo-ment.”
Now, with such a new point of view, with such new
“consciousness” of what surrounds us, let’s make another step: let us observe ourselves! Maybe, we stand up and start walking such as the others do. Yes, walking, looking at a shop window…some new PC, a shirt, a blouse, what we have to do during this day…Wait! Didn’t we say that we have to observe
ourselves? So, why do we astonishingly “catch”ourselves looking at the new Armani collection, sticking our nose on the shop window? When did it happen that we have lost the attention of our purpose?
Is it a joke? An exaggeration? Try it on yourself. It’s a very interesting fact, something that everyone who has per-formed some work on himself could testify. Amazing! At the beginning, when we “catch” ourselves in such conditions, when we notice that we don’t have a continuity of conscious-ness, we feel a sense of fear. Not panic, but a slight sense of discomfort. But this emotion vanishes once we realize that all those who surround us live their lives in the same situa-tion, but never assumed or perceived the problem.
Progressively, we begin to see things and persons with
“different eyes”: an angry or altered friend, an impulsive re-action of a mate, our attitudes towards all those to whom we felt a sense of embarrassment, authority, and all the rest.
When we start to perceive the things from this different point of view, then, this “fear” of our condition begins to vanish.
Progressively, if we are lucky, in us arises a desire to know and understand more and more…we develop the wish of becom-ing more awake, more aware, freebecom-ing ourselves from all those people and situations who treated us as foolish.
But…it’s not so simple, that’s true. Probably, the day after, waking up from sleep, we’ll forget our purpose to con-tinue such work. That’s our loss of continuity...continuity in our purposes, continuity in our consciousness. Maybe, instead of continuing this work, a different part of our frag-mented personality will choose to drink coffee, or making a trip to Alabama….
Through Sincerity Comes Security (and Unity)
Just a short pondering about relations between hu-man beings.
The question about sincerity is almost a daily topic in a person’s mind. Are others sincere towards us? Are we sincere towards others? Are we sincere with ourselves? There is another question which may arise in our minds: is it pos-sible to establish a friendship or a relationship on reciprocal Loyalty, Trust, and Freedom, maintaining the same relations as pure, innocent, unharmful?
Loyalty, Trust, and Freedom are qualities that should be the foundation in every type of relationship, both in friendship and in love. It should also provide the fundamen-tal basis in the relationships between all human beings.
Such relationships are surely possible. Eventually, we may meet someone who shares the same ethical points of view, or someone who has a different point of view that deems them as fair and high-minded. However, to require these qualities of loyalty, trust and freedom in a relationship may mean that we may be solitary for a very long time.
Perhaps the world in which we live, is a kind of cross-road. I think never more than the present time, we need people capable of believing in universal values based on true love, who can never be separated from freedom and fairness.
To achieve what we need and want, we should do one
thing: to continue to be honest with ourselves, and at least,
with whom we say we love. Who dares, wins! The Theory of the Four Bodies (a never-ending story)
….The following text is a short consideration of a never-end-ing research…so, be patient, receptive, and open-minded….
According to ancient teachings, a man has four bod-ies: physical, emotional, intellectual, and causal. Different from many other esoteric disciplines, the Fourth Way system says that a mechanical man normally has only the first body – the physical. The other three bodies are only a possibility.
This concept often causes confusion among the seekers, and this theory is often ignored or even ridiculed by the followers of the various factions of the New Age movement.
Let us put aside the considerations of these individu-als who follow only beliefs instead of the effort of creating an objective reason – a healthy function of their intellectual center. Let us also put aside the purely theoretical consid-erations. Let’s begin to think with a clear mind. So, does a man have the subtle bodies or are they only a possibility?
In my experience, the answer for both questions is “yes and no”. It would be better to say that the superior bodies exist as a possibility. I don’t consider the sentence “they are only a possibility”, because this omits the existence of something that is possible to develop in a concrete body.
But to understand something about this argument, it is best to start from the beginning. What is a body? What does it mean? And the core question- what is a subtle body?
Ordinarily, when we speak about the subtle-higher bodies, we create an image related to our physical vehicle and
assign to them the same form: two hands, two legs, eyes, head and so on. Is this a correct interpretation? Maybe! But, if we search to the etymological meaning of this word, we see that the body has its concrete meaning: this word derives from the Latin corpus, and it means “agglomerate, a whole”.
Now, we can suppose a bit objectively, that the body means a whole of something, of some substance. The physical body is the ensemble of all the flesh, the bones, the organs, and all that is part of him. In the same manner, we can say that the emotional “body” is a whole of all we perceive as emo-tions. The intellectual body is the whole of our thinking and thought system. We, or better said, I, can say nothing about the causal or spiritual body, because I cannot perceive the substance that can model it.
So, this is a possible answer to the above mentioned
“the subtle bodies are only a possibility”. We have all the necessary “stuff” to make a superior body, but it remains use-less if we don’t use it. First of all, we cannot recognize nor administer our emotions, so these emotions remain scattered and disconnected. One moment we feel peace, the other mo-ment, anxiety. This may change a thousand times during one day. This consideration can be applied for the intellect: we cannot control nor administer our thoughts. They change steadily. So, the subtle bodies exists in all of us as a pos-sibility, but they are like an atrophied muscle: they need to be trained to become concrete and efficient. The training to achieve this aim is well-known by the seekers on this path:
self-observation, constant efforts, discipline, intentional suf-ferings, and objective faith. This is the only way I’ve per-ceived it in my experience, and I ponder that an experience is better than a thousand theories.