The Three Bodies (Sthūla, Sūkṣma, Kāraṇa Śarīra)
Not one body but three nested layers — and the true self is none of them.
Advaita Vedānta analyzes what we call 'the body' into three nested layers. The gross body is the visible physical form, active in waking life. Within it is the subtle body — the mind, intellect, ego, senses, and vital energies — which operates in dream and carries on after death. Subtlest of all is the causal body, little more than the seed of ignorance from which the other two unfold, dominant in deep dreamless sleep. The point of the analysis is discriminative: the witnessing self is none of the three bodies, and recognizing this is a step toward freedom.
How it traveled
- VivekacūḍāmaṇiŚṛṅgeri (Sringeri) · 1400explains
Key passages(18)
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
But Indra, before he had returned to the Devas, saw this difficulty. As this self (the shadow in the water) is well adorned, when the body is well adorned, well dressed, when the body is well dressed,
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It is not woman, it is not man, nor is it neuter; whatever body it takes, with that it is joined (only).
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That being divided itself threefold, Aditya (the sun) as the third, and Vayu (the air) as the third . That spirit (prana) became threefold. The head was the Eastern quarter, and the arms this and tha
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'Maghavat, this body is mortal and always held by death. It is the abode of that Self which is immortal and without body. When in the body (by thinking this body is I and I am this body) the Self is h
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The wise who knows the Self as bodiless within the bodies, as unchanging among changing things, as great and omnipresent, does never grieve.
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As in a mirror, so (Brahman may be seen clearly) here in this body; as in a dream, in the world of the Fathers; as in the water, he is seen about in the world of the Gandharvas; as in light and shade
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Even as a man casts off worn-out clothes, and puts on others which are new, so the embodied casts off worn-out bodies, and enters into others which are new.
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This, the Indweller in the bodies of all, is ever indestructible, O descendant of Bharata. Wherefore thou oughtest not to mourn for any creature.
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This earth is the honey (madhu, the effect) of all beings, and all beings are the honey (madhu, the effect) of this earth. Likewise this bright, immortal person in this earth, and that bright immorta
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