United States or British Virgin Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The name "etheric double" will therefore for the future be used in Theosophic writings instead of "Linga Sharîra": and this change will not only give us the advantage of an English name which is clearly indicative of the character of the body to which it is applied, but will also relieve us from the frequent misunderstandings which have arisen from the fact that an entirely different signification is attached in all the Oriental books to the name we have hitherto been using.
Linga Sharira, the Astral Double, had been attached to it by a "delicate cord," which is our old friend "the thread of life" a convenient metaphor turned into a positive proposition. It is necessary, therefore, to be very quiet in the death-chamber, while the Linga Sharira is eloping.
Owing to certain conditions connected with my linga sharira, or "astral body" which it would be difficult for me to explain to those who are not to some extent initiated I passed through the various degrees of chela- ship with remarkable rapidity.
Behind that, and consisting of a finer grade of matter that of the rûpa levels of Devachan lies the devachanic body or aura of the lower Manas, whose colours, changing only by slow degrees as the man lives his life, show the disposition and character of the personality; while still higher and infinitely more beautiful, where at all clearly developed, is the living light of the Kârana Sharîra, the aura or vehicle of the higher Manas, which shows the stage of development of the real Ego in its passage from birth to birth.
As closer investigation enables us to be more precise in the use of our terms, however, we find ourselves compelled to admit much of this invisible matter as purely physical, and therefore to define the Linga Sharîra no longer as the astral, but as the etheric double.
It is hard enough to get a fair knowledge of our organism, its physical constitution, its intellectual faculties, and its moral tendencies; but the task is absolutely appalling when, we have to get a satisfactory knowledge of our Atma, our Buddhi, our Manas, our Kama, our Prana, our Linga Sharira, and our Sthula Sharira. Anyone who can master all that may as well go on unto seventy times seven.
Woman's real charm consists in her linga sharira that ethereal duplicate of the physical body which guides jiva, or the second principle, in its work on the physical particles, and causes it to build up the shape which these assume in the material.
Whenever I went with my astral body, or linga sharira, into the mysterious region of Thibet already alluded to, leaving my rupa, or natural body, in Khatmandhu, I was always conscious of a feeling of rawness; while the necessity of looking after my rupa of keeping, so to speak, my astral eye upon it, lest some accident should befall it, which might prevent my getting back to it, and so prematurely terminate my physical or objective existence was a constant source of anxiety to me.
Still the sympathy between our linga shariras was so intense, that I perceived that I had only to go back for my rupa, and travel in it to the region of the sisterhood, to recognise her in her rupa at once. Every chela even knows how impossible it is to make love satisfactorily in nothing but your linga sharira.
No confusion need arise; but strictly speaking, the linga sharira, or third principle, is the astral body, and that cannot be sent about as the vehicle of the higher principles." As, however, "no confusion need arise" from my describing how I went about in my linga sharira, I will continue to use it as the term for my vehicle of transportation.
Word Of The Day