Maharishi Ramji

Many many greetings, trusting you are well and enjoying your travels. I have a feeling one of my emails has gotten lost in the ether as I have not heard from you regarding certain questions about your last epistle.  I think the main issue was whether the subtle body can be considered a thought of the Self.

Martin

Hi Martin,

Yes I am well and enjoying my travels. As soon as I got to Oregon I got another job fixing up a house for sale so I've been busting my ass on that but it won't last long and then it's off for a couple of weeks to the wilderness. I was a bit surprised that I didn't hear from you about that last satsang because I felt that it would be interesting and useful to you. It must have been lost in the ether as you say.

Ramji: The subtle body has evolved as the result of millions of years of interaction between the Self in the form of the material universe and the pure Self i.e. pure awareness. It is part insentient and part sentient. The qualities that one finds in subtle bodies are derived from the Self in the form of the elements. These subtle qualities are called tanmatras. The awareness that lends sentiency to the subtle body is actually free of the influence of the elements, but owing to ignorance it becomes identified with the subtle material elements. When you are angry you are under the influence of rajas which is derived primarily from the fire element, for example. I have not worked out the complete psychology of man from the elemental model but astrology has given it a try and one can see that there is something there.

But there is always a problem when we try to take observable experiencable objects and events to be solid and substantial i.e. real: you can never make a definitive statement about them owing to the fact that they are always changing. So the idea of a subtle body is just that, an idea. But it is a useful idea because it can be used as the basis of a discrimination that leads to Self knowledge. The purpose of the discrimination is to understand the difference betweens one's psyche and the light that illumines it. One needn't worry about enlightenment or self realization because one is always only the Self. But the nature of the Self is not known because it is confused with the subtle body (read mind/intellect/ego). So by describing the Self in the form of the subtle body in various ways one can isolate it and then appreciate the Knower, awareness.

Martin: Or are the 5 billion beings on this rock just the vasanas of the Self being worked out?

Ramji: Yes. But while it is reasonable to see reality in this way because it frees one of the ego's biases, there are not really 5 billion beings. There is one being, the Self, that seems to be five billion because it is (wrongly) identified with the five billion vasana-created bodies through which the Self functions. But for practical purposes in Maya one can operate on the assumption that there are five billion unique individuals because almost all five billion lack discrimination i.e. they are under the spell of Maya. Because they all basically agree that the dream in which they find themselves is real, the human world goes on in a reasonably ordered fashion. And even in the case of plants and animals whose subtle bodies are not well developed there is order because the Self is constantly there behind the vasanas its nature never changing.

Martin:  Does the subtle body actually disappear at Moksha or is
the potential for illusory individuation always there? Or is this an unfair way of presenting something the literature is fairly quiet on.

Ramji: Yes, this is an unfair way of presenting the problem. As usual the problem lies with the meaning of words, in this case disappear.' It actually' disappears because it is not there in the first place. It is a concept. And when the Self is known for what it is minus its forms (the elements and the subtle body) the Self reawakens' to the fact that only it exists. However, this does not mean that the subtle body no longer ceases to function; only that one understands that the subtle body is also the Self in form, in action. So the potential for illusory individuation' is not a problem when one knows that one is the Self and the Self alone. It is like the mirage. It remains when one realizes that one cannot drink it. One sees water and knows that the mind in conjunction with the elements is producing water.'

There is the strange belief in the spiritual world that you are not enlightened if you have a subtle body (read ego/mind). But this is the belief of people who do not know the Self. When you realize that you are the Self and the Self alone anything else' that appears is included in your vision. So the subtle body, the individual, is just an instrument that you use to play in your Self. All along you know it is a play. So how can it be a problem? The tendency to separate, to individuate, is only a problem from the point of view of ignorance of the oneness of things. This is why people have such a problem being individuals. If you are the Self you don't have problems because you do see yourself as an individual.

Ramji