The Flight Of The Subtle Body

Swami Chinmayananda

oi-Staff

By Staff

Tuesday, January 27, 2009, 11:44

The cardinal philosophical idea in Vedanta is that an individualized ego continues to identify with a given physical body only as long as it needs that particular instrument for gathering its desired quota of experiences. Once it is over, it "kicks the bucket" as it were, and walks off forgetting all its responsibilities, relationships, and vanities of that particular existence. With reference to the body, this condition is called death. But the ego-centre, although not manifest and functioning through the body, continues to exist in its subtle form.

This ego-center set in the subtle body is enveyed to its next field of activity (loka) by the energy called udana. Udana, which is one of the five Upa pranas, is that energy that supplies the motive power for the ego-centre with its subtle body to move out from one physical structure to another at the time of death.

When the subtle body thus divorces from the physical body, it is logical to believe that its thoughts would revolve around the most predominant desire or aspiration in it - either gathered in its past embodiment, or acquired in its present life. This last powerful will, determined by the last thought, decides its destiny in the future.

We are now going to discuss the routes in which evolutionary pilgrimages can be undertaken by the subtle bodies of those individuals who performed self-evolving actions and therefore, were essentially good. The following verse from the Prasnopanisad indicates what would be the direction of this flight: "...... And there are two paths: the Southern and the Northern. Those who follow the Path of Karma alone, by the performance of sacrificial and pious acts, obtain only" the world of the Moon" and certainly they are born again ...... This matter is verily" the path of the ancestors." (Section 19)"

The "Path of the Ancestors' , also known as heaven, is considered to be the path of return, and presided over by the Moon, which represents the world of matter. Those who leave the world after spending their lifetime in doing good and performing rituals, unaccompanied by meditation and worship, are those who go to the world of ancestors:

Vedanta, being thoroughly scientific, has systematically divided every conceivable noble action capable of contributing to the evolution of humankind into two groups: Istam and Purtam. Istarn comprises those noble acts sanctioned by the scriptural texts called Srutis. Purtam are the noble acts of kindness and charity sanctioned by other subsidiary texts of Dharma called Smrtis.

Istarn includes all Vedic rituals, self-control, truthfulness, the study of Vedas, disseminating the Vedic knowledge to deserving aspirants, serving unexpected guests, and tending continuously to the sacred fire in the house. Purtam includes constructing village tanks, public wells, bathing ghats, maintenance or construction of temples, feeding the poor, opening new roads, parks, feeding places, watersheds, and so on. If you analyze these classifications and understand them from the level of the mental condition of the devotees, you will certainly understand how and why they follow two different paths in their evolutionary progress.