What is it that reincarnates?

In the 1st SD list of principles in man that I recall, there are 1 astral/kamic ones. However in other lists there are 2 or even 3 mental/manasic ones. Is the one with 2 (or even 3) elsewehere in the SD or HPB's texts? I am curious what you would call them in Sanskrit; IIRC 2 terms in the 1st list have 'kama' or at least 'astral' in them. I know there is a chart in a box in the SD with various Sanskrit names for the principles... I hope that was just given above because I cannot find it now....

mensagitat,

I do not think the spelling of Atman changes whether it is the subject or object of a sentence. The useage of Atman vs. Atma is due to the phonetic rules of Sanskrit.

"What is the bicycle the vehicle for?"

--> The human.

"I mostly have difficulty going further than the mental body."

--> I think most people have the same problem. It is difficult to imagine the attributes of our Buddhic and Atmic 'bodies.'

David,

I am not sure what you are talking about. If you could find some examples, that would be great.

David, HPB enumerates the Principles in several different ways in different places in her writings. There are several charts, in the SD, the Key, and in the ES Instructions, and they are mostly different.
In the ES Instruction I, she warns against trying to enumerate the Principles stating (a that they differ from person to person depending on their relative state of development, and (b that they are not hierarchical, but interpenetrating.

I originally thought that I could understand the Principles and their hierarchy - that they were like the colors in a rainbow, but alas..

This is a little off topic maybe, but I have just started reading a book In search of the Miraculous by P. D. Ouspensky. 1st body Carnal Body-Carriage Body-Physical Body. 2nd Body- Natural Body-Horse-Feelings, desires-Astral Body
3rd Body-Spiritual Body-Driver-Mind-Mental Body.
4th Body- Divine Body-Master- It, Consciousness, will-Causal Body. He compares the Christian Terminology to Theosophical Terminology . He goes on to say that the Astral Body is a luxury man can not afford, that a man can live without an astral body. I in my teachings know we are striving to live without the physical body which Madame Blavatsky talked about for the future. It is so interesting to read different takes on this as it gives one a chance to learn what others think. Oh well just thought i would share.

Sara,

You said,

"...we are striving to live without the physical body...."

--> The way I see it, we are only using physical bodies because some things can only be learned while living inside physical bodies. Once we have learned those lessons and move on to a higher level of consciousness, we will discard our physical bodies as no longer being necessary.

When we were children, we put training wheels on our bicycles. When we got older, we discared the training wheels as unnecessary. It is the same thing with having a physical body.

I was looking at it from an Alchemist point of view also. I am studying with a teacher and the Alchemist not only is striving to create a tinture that will heal mankind, we are also striving to live in the real body which is the astral. the physical is jut a vehicle or a car, the engine is the astral which after many attempts at distillation and reincarnations is the goal. I myself have never been in my body as much as I should. I had to go see a woman who taught me grounding so I would be in it from time to time. Being out of my body is what has kept me alive when i was given two weeks to live. it is a long long story best left to another life time.

I bet we can use the word upadhi and then say that the human has seven upadhis. I would say that the upadhi is the base material like hydrogen is for our physical Sphere. They all intermix rather than having hard lines of demarcation.

It is what I found interesting about the movie "The Golden Compass." They spoke of the 'dust' and it was evident they were describing Mulaprakriti. They had a scene in this movie that spoke of alternate universes, and in the universe that this movie was based upon, a daimon was outside the human body in the form of an animal. I suspect they utilized this particular way of showing the daimon because there was a scene showing the 'dust' coming down from the Constellations through the animal daimon and into the human. 'Our' daimon, devata or genius must be how the lower manas can receive communication or coadunition with Buddhi.

Sara, I read the "Fourth Way' first and found it to be too complicated. When I came across "In Search of the Miraculous" which is a previously written text, I enjoyed it much more. I found it to be a better text than the "Fourth Way." It was not until I began studying Theosophy however, that I was able to better understand it. But then I realized the question, 'why do I need to read the words of Gurjieff, through Ouspenski, now that I have Theosophy? Actually, I don't feel that they are a waste of time in the least. Especially the book you're reading. I really enjoyed it a lot.

Sara,

You said,

"...we are also striving to live in the real body which is the astral. the physical is jut a vehicle or a car, the engine is the astral which after many attempts at distillation and reincarnations is the goal."

--> I would not say achieving consciousness on the astral plane is our ultimate goal. After we do that, we will later achieve consciousness on the mental plane. After that, we will achieve consciousness on the buddhic plane. On and on it goes, it a seemingly endless line of levels of consciousness. I look at all the stars at night. Each one of those stars is a conscious Being who was conscious on the astral plane a long, long time ago, but has now risen to a level of consciousness that is much higher than the astral plane.

"I myself have never been in my body as much as I should. I had to go see a woman who taught me grounding so I would be in it from time to time. Being out of my body is what has kept me alive when i was given two weeks to live. it is a long long story best left to another life time."

--> I think it would be fascinating to hear your story. We have another thread on psychic abilities and experiences. I hope you find the time to share your story.

I am unsure why you say that since the SD says there are 3 or 4 upadhis: one also called a vahana.

Yes I read that a human has three or four upadhis and sometimes the word is interchangeable with vahana (vehicle). Usually, it refers to the base material, and with mind seen as the foundation for Buddhi, I can only assume one would rather refer to manas as a vehicle than a substantial base.

"The mind moves the matter" may be a confusing phrase to some, if mind is a substantial base for buddhi. On the other hand, if we go ahead and look at manas as substance -- and we could very well do precisely that by simply perceiving mind in a relative manner in the company of buddhi and Atman -- remembering that substance always tends to ascend toward ethereality while spirit infills matter, imbeds itself upon substance, is the vital life-force in the form of prana; if the direction is toward matter, then one can say that spirit descends.

If I was going to continue, I'm sure that I would give inadequate expression with my own thoughts. I think 'expression' might be key. I suppose the physical body, the temple, the instrument, evolves toward ever increasing ethereality and expanding content and number and variety of forms of expression.

So, spirit descends into matter of ever increasing density, perfecting it with a natural impulse at a point, to reverse direction toward ethereality, and strivings to express in a manner which increasingly calls for a better body to meet the demand for greater expression.

There was a lot of mention made of dimension, space, the question of how physical differs from material, and I might as well throw in the word substantial. I was going to be a smarty-pants and say that everytime dimension or space is mentioned, dimensions are measurements of space, or perhaps more accurately, mass. The latter is measured by the space it fills.

Purucker gives a similar line of thought to the above, in explaining that space is matter, or substance, or physical. I think physical can be described by the word phenomenal.

We all know that substance, or matter, is energy. Energy and matter are different states of the same thing. All the elements of this physical plane are simply multiples of hydrogen. SPACE has been described as Divine and I just gave some illustration that matter and energy are space. At some lofty point we say that only Ideation exists. We describe those levels inbetween this point and that lofty destination with abstract ideals of the dominant psychological state of each gradient, but we don't have a clue or even dare to speculate on what the base substance might be upon each of the Spheres above us. Or maybe there has been some discourse on the base matter of each World, and I'm being forgetful.

Perhaps they vary in different intra-atomic speeds of light interactions. A more ethereal body would then be larger and less dense proportionately to the different speed of light. Or maybe I need to swallow some pyroglutamic acid pills as a chelating action to remove my ignorance. For some unknown cause, I have an intuition that isotopes play a part in dimensional parameters.