The Four Sheaths - The Spirit Body

We now come to the fourth sheath in the composition of the human being. Like the astral sheath, this sheath is also not from this earth. It is eternal and it too streams from the heavens above.  The challenge we all face when discuss this sheath is that its very mention conjures various images in our minds. These images are part of the landscape we struggle with when trying to understand this sheath. This sheath is called the spirit.

It is not unusual to confuse soul with spirit or even equate the two. And yet they are different. Whereas soul or as I called it astral, refers to a sheath in which lives movement, it is in the spirit sheath that which is truly our individuality. Spirit streams for older words that are associated with breathing. To inspire, for example, means to breath in the spirit of another or even more 

picturesquely, to breath in the breathe of another. Each of us breathes and we breathe for ourselves. In this sense, the spirit is about us individually. This imagination is still difficult to grasp. And yet, when we see any human being, we recognize easily, the physical nature, the etheric nature and yes, even  the soul nature (not just in the movement of the other human being, but also in how experiences are expressed – anger, joy, etc.). Often we stop here. And yet we too see in each human being an individual, regardless of the similarities which may exist.  That which allows us to be individual, and be perceived as individual is our spirit. 

Of course we can say that animals also have individuality and therefore the spirit may only be part of the soul. In reality, animals in general do not have individuality – it is true our beloved pets appear to have individuality but this is also because we the owners ascribe this individuality to them. Every time we meet another human being, we do find ways to identify them: a name, a mannerism, a physical description. In many ways, what we are doing is looking for a way to individuate them, i.e. to clearly seem them as individual and not just another face in the crowd (and even this last phrase is a clear indication that we see individuals, not groups).  

Both the astral and spirit sheaths are humanity’s connection to its spiritual origins in the same manner that the physical and etheric sheaths are humanity’s connection to its earthly origins. And just as the etheric is in a way the spiritualization of the physical world, our astral sheaths are like “materialization” of our spiritual origins. Thus the spirit on earth has not direct way of experiencing the earth except through the astral body. In turn, the astral body needs to penetrate and form a community with the etheric sheath as it rises from the earth. In this manner, the spirit is to our spiritual origin what our physical is to our material origin. The spirit is the vessel of my true spiritual nature. This is the real me.

For us, it is difficult to talk about our spiritual sheath although many older traditions still echo this once known connection. If one assumes that the heavens are always good, true, and beautiful, then in many respects, our spirit sheath, which originates from there, must always be good, true and beautiful. The imperfection we live with arises from the penetration of our spiritual nature by our material essence. This does not mean the physical world is imperfect; rather, it is non-spiritual in its way and the relationship that needs to be established between the spirit realm through the soul and the physical realm, through the etheric, is one of constant rhythm and movement that consciously finding and hold the harmony is the challenge of our daily lives.

Sources: Theosophy by Rudolf Steiner.

The Four Sheaths – The Astral Body

The first two bodies I have discussed are earthly bodies. They find their origin in the earthly nature of human beings. These bodies are wonderful gifts from our parents, the mother and father who together bring about the creation of a physical body that is imbued with life forces. However, most of us also believe that there is something more to our human nature. We have other bodies so to speak, neither of them earthly in nature.  These bodies are not gifts from our parents; rather they are from a more eternal and infinite existence that transcends our material and life bodies on earth. These two bodies have many names. I am used to knowing them as soul and spirit. However, the soul, true to its nature, has other names that help in building the imagination to understand it. 

This soul body is referred to as the astral body or the experience body. Both give very wonderful imaginations about the nature of the soul. As an astral body, we can imagine this body as one coming from the stars, i.e. astral. It speaks of the descent of some body from the stars unto earth entering a physical and etheric body that has been lovingly prepared by parents. It is as if a star being has come to live on earth, in a temple that parents have prepared. As in all stars, it is a being filled with light and movement. Movement is what has also made it possible to descend onto earth.  Stars were generally perceived to travel across the sky. Modern science may have changed this view, but it does not change the imagination. Movement is important for the astral body. Movement is the gift it brings into the physical-etheric sheaths of the human beings. Animals move too, and the move freely, i.e. not attached to the earth. Our etheric body is rhythmical. It moves towards the sun, upwards and in a broadening fashion that also give it every chance to always face the sun. It is this rhythmical movement is what allows plants to gaze upon the sun and to grow to such wonderful dimensions. And the sun is a star. Herein lies the secret of the relationship between the astral body and the etheric body; the former descends from the heavens to meet the earth; the latter rises from the heavens to meet the stars. And both meet within the human being.

Another useful term for the astral body is the experience body. I heard this term from an upper school mentor who visited us and help us prepare the upper school. All of us gain experiences during our lifetime and these experiences must be “experienced” somewhere. That somewhere is the astral body. Experiences are always full of movement and many different levels of feeling or emotion. If it were always still, there would be no need for meditation or relaxation. But we do need moments of quiet which are reflective of a body full of moment.  Just like the imagination of the stars “racing” across the sky, our experiences fill and course through our astral bodies. Some of these experiences translate into activities or deeds. Other experiences simply remain experiences which we may call upon from time to time. 

When we look around us, we perceive many different experiences that are full of movement. Some of the obvious ones are emotions; some are less obvious such as colors. But emotions or colors find a home in our astral body as it is a body of experiences, of movement. If our physical body related to the earth, its minerals, and the our etheric body to the plant world, to life, to water, our astral bodies relate to the wind – it is above the earth, in constant movement yet finding time to touch the earth and meet the earth. The plants dance with the wind as their arms branch out and their leafy fingers meet and embrace the wind. The plants share their earthly experiences with the wind, and the wind brings “movement” to the plants. 

Hence our astral body is our body that allows us to move and to experience things, phenomena, events. It is what the heavens bring down to earth and with the meeting of the etheric, creates a necessary link, within humanity between heaven and earth.

Sources: Theosophy by Rudolf Steiner.

The Four Sheaths - The Etheric Body

Last time I wrote of the physical body of the human being. It is every easy to stop here. After all, this is the body that we perceive and literally “live in.” However, just as we can derive an understanding of the nature of the physical body, so can we derive a broader understanding of what constitutes the human being. 

As the physical body is related to our mineral nature, this would also mean that the physical body would not be alive or imbued with life. No mineral is and it would be consistent with their nature. And yet, in the material world, we are surrounded by so much life that there must be more to living things then mineral substance.  Through observation of the world, we can readily see that there are substances that strike us absolutely mineral or “inanimate” as we would probably say, and there are other things that strike as living or “animate.”  Plants, animals, and eventually human beings, constitute pretty much the second category. And yet, what makes us mineral and animate at the same time? I will not discuss here, just yet, the different types of “animate” existence that plants, animals, and human beings have. That will come later, in a separate discussion. I am only addressing a commonality shared by plants, animals and human beings in that there is something within that makes them animate. 

All three share something in common with the mineral world; that is, all three have distinct forms and shapes and parts of their being that are absolutely mineral in nature. It would appear, that on top of that, is something else, a body or sheath that makes them “alive” so to speak.  This living body is evidence also by its absence. When we observe things we consider to be “living” after they have died, they appear to be smaller or more contracted in size. Of course one can say that this is the loss of fluids in the body or air resulting from breathing or any other such distinction. Could this be all? What if all living things had another body on top of, surrounding and interpenetrating the mineral body?  Let us say such a body exists and for convenience calls it the life body, the body that imbues us with life.  We can then say that all living things have a life body. 

So where does this life body come from and how does it arise from the mineral world? Some process maybe taking place on earth that brings such a body into being. But what could it be?  Let us revisit this life body or all living things and inevitable, we can see another common attribute of all living things: all living things lift themselves up from the physical world. 

What does this mean? Don’t mountains also lift themselves up from the physical world? Yes, that is true; mountains appear to have a similar gesture. However, the movement is external to the uplifting gesture. Confusing? Mountains, no matter how high, are “lifted up” by forces external to the mountain. The collision or sliding of tectonic plates, the upward push of molten lava to create volcanoes is activities that are independent and external to the mountain. The mountains are results of these external impulses. The mountains, internally, have no impulse of their own to lift up from the physical world. They remain consistent with the notion of the mineral discussed in the physical body. However, unlike mountains, all living things have an impulse from within to push up and away from the physical world. Effectively, it is an impulse within all living things that make them reach into the sphere of the air or even heavens.  This force can be found in the smallest seed; in the smallest animals, and of course in human beings. All living things grow or “lift up” from within. This reaching into the so-called “airy regions” that float above the physical world lends another name to this life body – etheric. The ether, in ancient languages, often referred to the airy region above the earth. Hence a body that lifts its self away from the physical world penetrates the airy world, so to speak, and become etheric. 

In this process of “etherilization,” the density and solidity of the physical or mineral body is being “lightened” to such an extent that it can lift itself up, no matter how small, from the physical world. So strong is this impulse that it can push trees to heavenly limits, and it can have an animal, as large as an elephant, with extremely dense mineral nature, stand-up. 

From this point I would like to suggest a perspective that can be difficult to imagine. Could it be that such a process of “etherlization” may also be a process of transformation to the spiritual? Let us consider spirit in a non-religious sense. Spirit is about breath (for example to inspire, i.e. to breathe in). Could it be that the life body or the etheric body is about breathing, the breath of life? If this were so, then we could say the living things are the physical world spiritualized, i.e. filled with breathe.  To consider this picture would help us imagine that all living things, big or small, are of mineral nature into which streams this breathe of life. This would mean that all living things would have at least two bodies, a physical body and an etheric body. And yes, the mineral would have an etheric body as well; one that is asleep in the sense that its breathing is stilled at the moment. 

With an imagination like this, then it becomes possible to see all living things as a vivid and real-time transformation of our physical world into one that is being permeated with the breathe of life or spirit.

The world we live in is a wonderful place with more than meets the eye. Let us be open to see this as possible.

Sources: Theosophy by Rudolf Steiner, the Nature of Substance by Rudolf Hauschka, and Nutrition by Rudolf Hauschka.

The Four Sheaths – The Physical Body

How can I understand the nature of the human being? All too often we take this very nature for granted and do not really take the time and effort to understand it. Of course we have various points of view on this nature, points of view that generally sprout when we are confronted with the question “Why does he\she do\behave like that?” Could the nature of the human being so difficult to grasp although we are constantly surrounded by it? Through these series of short essays, let us consider an alternative way of looking at what the human being is and allowing us a chance to understand, hopefully better, why we are the way we are.

Let us begin with the most visible, tangible, part of our body, the physical body. We are beings of a physical world, a world that can be measured to some degree, grasped, sensed, and in some cases even shaped. There is clearly and distinctly a part of the world which is the epitome of the physical as it is constituted of a certain density, mass, and gravity. One may refer to it as the “material world”; it may also be considered the mineral world. Mineral comes from the same root word as mines. With this picture in mind, it would be difficult to escape the idea that the physical, mineral world is truly of the earth. 

Minerals, as we generally understand, tend to be found in the earth, sometimes quite deep. Many, if not all, are shaped by forces that surround the mineral. These forces press and shape the mineral from the outside. It is as if something has been “deposited” into the earth and then pressed and shaped into its final form. Both these images are important in our understanding of the physical body of man. We do have clearly, a mineral element in our bodies, the skeleton. Made primarily from calcium, it cannot be mistaken for anything but a mineral. If this is so, could it be possible that, just like the minerals of the earth, it too is the result of “deposits” or precipitates that are then formed and pressed into its shape by forces that are external to it? Naturally we would tend to say to this picture. But let us consider the similarities.

Consider our entire body as the earth. Minerals are found deep within the earth, just like our skeleton. Like all minerals, they have distinct form, the result of forces that must be pressing down upon it from without. Like all minerals, our skeleton too has a relationship with veins. Just as there are veins of minerals, our veins continuously deposit material that eventually develops it minerals (imagine uric deposits at joints, these are minerals forming at the wrong place and the wrong time). And yes, when bones break, there is an additional deposit of material that eventually will form the new or repaired bone. Such similarities are too consistent to ignore.

Our skeletons and that which builds around it are necessary to be part of this material world. Just like the earth, our minerals are found mostly deep within and then surrounded by a sheath to shield it, hide it, protect it. Mineral ore lies deep within the earth, shielded, hidden, protected. 

Our physical, mineral body is what allows us to take shape to be part of the physical world. Without it, we would not possibly be connected to the physical world as we would share nothing in common.  Let us look at this sheath, this physical body, therefore as the first part of four that constitute the human being. In the next three essays on this topic, we will discuss the remaining three. These are important in understanding the nature of the human being in the world we live in. 

Next: The Etheric Body