The Subtle bodies

Table of contents

• The physical body
• The etheric body
• The astral body
• The psychic body
• The spiritual body
• The cosmic body
• The nirvana body

In a human one can distinguish seven bodies.



The first body is the physical body which is very known to us.
The second is the etheric body. Past the second we find the third, the astral body. After this we meet the fourth, the mental or psychic body. Next there is the spiritual body as fifth and as sixth the cosmic body. The seventh and last is the nirvana sharira, the nirvanic body, the bodyless body.

The physical body

In the first seven life years only the physical body forms, the sthul sharira?. The other bodies are present in potential. Thus the first seven years are limited in possibilities. Growth of intellect, emotion or lust is not there. Only the physical body develops in this phase. Some people don’t grow beyond this phase. They are no more then animals. The other bodies stay untouched.

The etheric body

In the next seven years, from the seventh till the fourteenth year, the bhawa sharira? develops, the etheric body. These are the years where human grows emotionally. Therefore sexual maturing, the most intense form of emotionality can be reached at the age of fourteen. Some peoples growth makes and end here. Their physical body keeps on growing, but they don’t get further then their first two bodies.

After the development of the second body, some one reaches adultness. This is only the completion of the line impulse. With this the work of nature is accomplished and this explains the full cooperation of nature.

Everywhere in the world girls of thirteen, fourteen reach there puberty. In the last thirty years the age for this has become lower and lower.

Ina society of the second body, everything will be turning around sex; literature, music, books, movies , even the houses.

The astral body

In the third period of seven years, between fourteen and twenty one years, the sukshama sharira?, the astral body develops. In the second body emotion was able to develop, in the third body ratio, the possibility to think, and the intellect will develop.
Lowering the age to be entitled to vote to eighteen makes it clear that the work of twenty one years now is finalized in eighteen years.Most people don’t go beyond this point.

In a society of the third body, people will be spiritual and contemplative. In the days of Boeddha? and Mahavir?, they were. Also in the era of Greece, with Socrates? and Plato? or Lao Tse? and Confucius? in China. Those beings lived in only a time frame of 500 years.

The psychic body

What is called the psyche is the fourth body, the manas sharira?. For some one who hasn’t developed his intellectual possibilities to the full, can’t be interested in math, to name one. Math can be a game like, music or art.

The fourth body hides amazing possibilities, but there are also many risks and miss guidings possible here. This is a realm of subtle energies. You can dream you left your body or it can be real. Only a statement confirms this. One can be fooled.
Dreams are from the fourth body, and one is not sure whether a dream was really a dream. You can’t tell. It’s easy to get lost in this immense area, and there is no spiritual value when you get lost.
Kundalini is also from he fourth body. So I is not easy to tell if an kundalini experience is true or not. True imagination means you can look ahead of this, look into the future.
True imagination moves in the direction of reality, a reality which is yet to happen. Even a scientist makes use of this kind of imagination. A fool on the contrary has lost his touch with reality, but use in essence the same imagination.
The fourth body is the psychic body. It doesn’t concern with this reality. When I want to go to an other room, on an other floor, I can take the stairs or an elevator, in my mind. No one can stop me doing this. It can be so that I see things which are really there. But who can tell; It can be true…or not. You can create a new world, but that doesn’t mean it is there or not there.
The only way to know that one has developed a fourth body is by checking his behavior. He or she is in a state of mahavrata: violent less, no steeling, no bezit, celibative, and totally aware.

The spiritual body

The fifth body, the atma sharira?, or the spiritual body is of great importance. Ideal it should have been developed in the body round the age of thirty five. The word atman is not connected with a certain meaning because we don’t own that knowledge yet to give it any meaning. One who isn’t conscious of his fourth body, will stay unknown to the fifth. They are what we call spiritualists. For these people the journey has finished. But the journey didn’t end yet. Those people for whom the fifth body is the final station, deny also the existence of God. They state: There is no Brahman, there is no patamatman.

The cosmic body

The sixth body is the brahma sharira?, the cosmic body. When someone is prepared to go further, to let go of the atman, he steps into sixth body. The laws of the natural development of the body state that at the age of fourty two the sixth body is a fact.

Moksha? is experienced in the fifth body. The limitations of the first four bodies are put aside, and the soul is totally free. Liberation is thus the experience of the fifth body. Heaven and hel are part of the fourth body.

The nirvana body

The nirvana sharira, the nirvanic body is reached at the age of forty nine. This happens very seldm. This body which is a not-body, is a state of non physical. This is the final state, where only emptiness stays; no brahma, no cosmic reality, only emptiness. Nothing has left. Everthing has gone.


For those who stop at the first, second or third, life between birth and death is all there is. For them there is no life beyond death.. For those who go further, into the fourth body, experience this life as an endless possibility of misery and happiness.

All emotions come from the second body. That is why the etheric body is also called the emotional body. It has its own working power, it has its own opwellingen of anger, love hate, restlessness. One can notice the contractions of the etheric body by the way some one walks, sits. He makes a timid impression.
In meditation we always experience the etheric body. It is possible that ,during meditation, we experience that the body has increased in size in such a way that we seem to fill the whole room. This is a sensation of the etheric body. In situations of fear it can shrink to the size of an atom. You can, like this, observe the expansions and the contractions of the second body. Therefore you need to be aware of your physical body intensively. Notice how you move, walk, stand , every minute of the day.

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