Our 4 Lower Bodies
Normally we think that we have a body, one body and that is it. That is just the physical vessel.But we actually have 7 bodies, 4 lower ones and 3 higher ones. The lower ones are the etheric, mental, emotional and physical, and these correspond to the 4 elements: physical is earth, emotional is water, mental is air and etheric is fire.
The 4 lower bodies are like those Russian nesting dolls, but they can also be seen as being like colanders, you know that you drain spaghetti in, with the holes. The holes are the acupuncture points where energy comes from the higher bodies into the etheric, to the mental, through the emotional and finally to the physical. So many of our so called physical illnesses stem from an out of alignment state between these bodies so the energy doesn’t flow through the meridians that sustain our energy for our physical body.
We mostly know about the physical body and its anatomy and physiology, but it is quite limited not to take into account our other bodies.
The water body or emotional or astral body is something that we should try to maintain in mastery, harmony and balance. It ebbs and flows like the tides of the sea and like the tides is very much influenced by the phases of the moon. That is why there is more crime and mental breakdowns during the full moon, but when balanced it may magnify romance and devotion. It is no coincidence that over 70% of the surface of the earth is covered by water, this body is a major reason we are here, we have to develop mastery of this body. There is an entire astral plane above the physical on this earth, or which this astral body is a part. It is a collective unconscious of emotion and nowadays is polluted by all of humankind feelings, just like our physical oceans are polluted. It is through meditation, prayer, devotion, clearing of your past painful emotional traumas and forgiving the past and practice the discipline of not being moved or triggered by outer events or other people that we gain mastery of this body. Gradually you can quell the moods that come and go, like a pond that is free from ripples, so it can reflect the sun of the higher self and higher bodies.
The air or mental body is what we often identify with as the mind.This body is made up of what is called thought forms. They are like glyphs or shapes or memes that contain an entire train of thought. Much of our education is geared toward filling this mental body with information. But we are seeing so much failure in our society, as there is not the balance with the spiritual bodies, the emotional mastery and the physical health. So someone may have a large mental body but are like a geek who doesn’t know how to do relationships or devotion or sustained or graceful physical effort. The mental body is sort of like a computer that computes data and analyses information. It is possible to convey thought forms to other people and this can manifest as ESP, or reading of other peoples minds. But even a good teacher knows how to take a difficult concept and convey that thought form to their students to more easily understand. Authors create though forms in the mental plane that contain their ideas and concepts and when you are an attuned reader, you can absorb these patterns of wisdom and receive their intended concept.
In the fire element is the etheric body. There is actually a lower etheric and higher etheric body. The lower one is a light body that surrounds your physical body and is the energetic blueprint that sustains the structure of your form. It has the rivers of energy that are described in Chinese medicine as acupuncture meridians and have 7 main energy organs called chakras that are aligned along the spine and correspond to the main 7 glands.
The higher etheric body is your spiritual memory body. It contains all the records and memories you have of all your experiences, not only of this life but in past lives as well. How could physical molecules in your brain store the memory of your grandmothers scent or the memory of breaking a bone when you were seven. It is stored in this vast unconscious of your etheric body, the brain is more like the receiver and not the origen of thought and memory.
There is also a vibrational range or place called the etheric plane, which is what many call heaven. It is the highest level that most people of Light can gravitate towards, and beings from even higher levels, can comfortably come down to this level to act as our guides, teachers and way showers. It is in this level that you met with your guides and planned out this drama of your life, all for your growth and evolution as a soul. You keep your etheric body vibrant when you eat living vital foods and eschew the dead plastic foods that the mass culture promotes. And one specific word of advice to keep all your bodies strong is to avoid sugar. When you exercise and breathe deeply fresh air you bring more vitality to this energy body. When you meditate, you still the emotional and mental bodies and allow your higher consciousness to come into your mind from higher levels, even levels above the 4 lower bodies, which we will discuss next week.
If you liked this talk then you may want to listen to videos online with Leonard Jacobsen, Eckhardt Tolle and Shunyamurti.