A living person is made up of the following bodies:
1. The physical body
This is the body best known to modern science. It is made up of the skeletal framework, muscles, tissues, organs, blood, 5 sense organs, etc.
2. The vital energy body
This is the body also known as Praandeha. This body provides vital life-sustaining energy for all functions of the physical and mental body. There are five types of vital energies or praana:
Prana: Energy for inhalation activity.
Udana: Energy for the activity of exhalation and speech.
Samana: Energy for the activity of the stomach and intestines.
Vyana: Energy for voluntary and involuntary movements of the body.
Apana: Energy for urination, excretion, ejaculation, childbirth, etc.
3. The mental body or the mind
The Mental Body (Manodeha) or the Mind is the seat of our feelings, emotions and desires. It carries with it a countless number of impressions from this life and previous lives. It consists of three parts:
The conscious mind: It is that part of our thoughts and feelings that we are aware of.
The subconscious mind: It contains all the impressions required to complete our destiny (praarabdha) in our current life.
The unconscious mind: This is the aspect of our mind that we are completely unaware of. This contains all the impressions that are associated with our accumulated account.
Sometimes we also refer to an aspect of the Mental Body as the Desire Body or Vaasanaadeha. This is the aspect of the mind that contains all the impressions of desires. The physical organ associated with the Mental Body is the brain.
4. The Intellect
The Causal Body (Kaaranadeha) or the Body of the Intellect is the body that deals with the decision-making process and reasoning ability. The physical organ associated with the Intellectual Body is the brain.
5. The subtle ego
The Subtle Ego or Supracausal Body (Mahaakaaranadeha) is the final vestige of nescience and is the feeling that we are separated from God.
6. The soul
The Soul is the God principle within us and is our true nature. It is the main component of the subtle body which is a fraction of the Supreme Principle of God with the qualities of Absolute Truth (Sat), Absolute Consciousness (Chit) and Bliss (Aanand). The Soul is beyond the 3 basic subtle components.
the subtle body
The Subtle Body is defined as that part of our being or consciousness that leaves our Physical Body at the moment of physical death. It includes the Mental Body, the Causal Body or Intellect, the Supracausal Body or Subtle Ego and the Soul.
The following are some other aspects of the subtle body:
Subtle sense organs:
By subtle sense organs we mean the subtle aspect of our 5 sense organs by which we are able to perceive the subtle realm.
Subtle motor organs: By subtle motor organs we mean the subtle aspect of our physical motor organs, such as the arms, the tongue, etc. All activity is first initiated in one’s fine motor organs and then executed in the physical dimension by one’s gross motor organs.
ignorance
The word Nescience or Avidyaa arises from the fact that we identify ourselves with our physical body, mind and intellect and not with our true nature, which is the Soul or the God principle within us. The greatest attachment that each one has is for himself; that is his own mind and body. Even minor discomfort or illness can make one feel unhappy; therefore, everyone should gradually detach from themselves and calmly accept pain and illness. This is, of course, with the inherent understanding that happiness and unhappiness in life are experienced primarily because of our destiny. Also that only by identifying ourselves with the Soul can we experience perpetual Bliss.
Soul and Nescience together constitute the embodied soul. Nescience for a living person has twenty components in total: the physical body, the five subtle sensory organs, the five subtle motor organs, the five vital energies, the conscious mind, Chitta, the intellectual body, and the ego. Since the functions of the components of the subtle body continue continuously, the attention of the embodied soul is directed towards them instead of the soul, which moves away from spiritual knowledge towards nescience.