Despite the fact that our physical bodies appear to be thick and substantial, they are made up of billions of molecules and atoms, or energy in continual motion.
The soul (the indwelling pure spirit – the truth of who we are) has numerous interconnected non-physical, subtle bodies or vehicles encircling and interpenetrating the physical form, each of which is a field of energy vibrating at a certain frequency level and density.
The individual soul manifests itself through five sheaths (koshas), which are separated into three bodies: the physical body, astral body, and causal body.
Our everyday experiences in the three states of thought — awake (jagrat), dreaming (swapna), and dreamless sleep — are mediated by the physical, astral, and causal bodies, respectively (sushupti).
The soul exists outside of these three states, seeing them.
So there are five sheaths divided across three bodies, each of which serves as a vehicle for the manifestation of the soul awareness, which is separate from all of them .
- The physical sheath of the gross body, the annamaya kosha (food sheath), is vulnerable to birth, growth, sickness, decay, and death.
- The food sheath gets its name from its reliance on gross prana in the form of food, water, and air.
Prana is the essential life-energy that allows life and creation to exist.
- Prana pervades the entire universe and may be found in both the macrocosmos and microcosmos. There is no life without prana.
- Prana is the connection that connects the astral and physical bodies; when this relationship is severed, the physical body dies.
- The astral and prana bodies both leave the physical body.) It's also made up of the five components (ether, air, fire, water and earth).
THE ASTRAL BODY
The five subtle elements akash (ether), vayu (air), tejas (fire), jala (water), and prithvi (earth) make up the astral body, which creates the five gross elements on the physical plane. There are three sheaths that make up the astral body.
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