Introduction to Vedanta by
H. H. Swami Paramarthananda Saraswathi
Chapter -9

Sarira - Trayam and Avastha - Trayam

 

Every individual is endowed with sarira - trayam i.e., three bodies. We are aware of one body but the scriptures talk of three bodies. We need, therefore, to understand them. They are :
* Sthula-sariram or the gross body
* Suksma - sariram or the subtle body.
* Karana - Sariam or the causal body

With regard to each body, we have to understand four important features. The first one is the raw material of which it is made. The second featue is the components or the constituents of each body. Just as a house has various parts like the walls and the windows, so also the body has its components. The third feature we have to know is its function. If a body does not have a function, it need not be there at all. Whatever we keep in a house has a particular function. In human creation, some objects may not have any function. But in God’s creation, where everything is beautiful, perfect and orderly, everything must have a function. Even a weed is a particular plant whose function is not yet understood. The fourth feature is its nature.

Sariam / body	Raw material	Constituents or parts	Function	Nature
Sthula-sariram (gross body)	Gross matter	Head, trunk, hands and legs.	Abode or the residence of the experiencer	Visible and experienceable to others and me
Suksma-sariram (subtle body)	Subtle matter consisting of five subtle elements	Sense organs of knowledge (5) Sense organs of action (5) Physiological system (5) and Inner organs (4)	Instrument of interaction with the world	Invisible to others and experienceable to me
Karana-sariram (causal body)	Subtlest form of matter called avidya	Physical and subtle body in unmanifest form	Resolution of sthula & suksma sarirams	Unmanifest - form. Invisible to others and me.

Sthula-Sariram
In the above chart is mentioned the four features of the three bodies. The sthula-sariram being gross is made up of gross matter, consisting of the five elements viz. space, air, fire, water and earth. The parts of the gross body are the head, trunk, hands and legs. The scriptures point out that the gross body functions as an abode or residence of the experiencer. It is a temporary house which the experiencer will have to vacate at any time. Sometimes notice is given. Sometimes, without any notice, the experiencer will have to vacate. Residing in the gross body, the experiencer intereacts with the external world. Thus, the gross body provides the operational address for the experiencer. Then , what is the nature of the physical body? Being gross, it is clearly perceptible to oneself as well as to others. It is also subject to change like birth, growth, decay and finally death, which are called vikara. Above all, it has a shorter like, the maximum of a hundered years. In other words it has a limited life.

Suksma-Sariram
Now let us see the four features of the subtle body. The first feature is the matter or material it is made up of. The scriptures say that the subtle body is made up of subtle matter consisting of the five subtle elements. We require sastras to enumerate the parts of a subtle body as these are subtle and cannot be seen. The parts of the subtle body are as follows.

Five sense organs of knowledge (jnanedriyas)
* Srotram (ear) - the sense organ that perceives the sound.
* Tvak (skin) - the organ that perceives the touch
* Chaksu (eye) - the organ which sees colours and forms.
* Rasana (tongue) - the organ which perceives the taste
* Ghrana (nose) - the organ which perceives the smell.
Thus, there are five organs to experience five types of objects.
* The next five components of the subtle body are the five sense organs of action (Karmendriyas). They are:
* Vak (mouth - the organ of speech, whose function is to speak.
* Pani (hands) - the organ which does varieties of actions like carying, lifting etc.
Introduction to Vedanta
* Pada (legs) - the organ which helps our movement from one place to another.
* Payu (organ of excretion) - the organ which removes wastes from the body.
* Upastha (organ of reproduction) - the organ which helps in the propagation of the species.

If you compare and contrast the organs of knowledge and the organs of action, it will be seen that the jnanendriyas are meant for receiving experiences from the world. They are like entrance - gates while the karmendriyas are meant for our contribution to the world. Therefore, they are like exit - gates. When I am speaking to some one, I am not receiving any thing through the organ of speech. I am contributing to the other person in the form of words or ideas. All transactions involve give and take and therefore we are given one set of organs for giving and the other set of organs for taking.
The next set of organs is the pancha-pranas, the five physiological systems which are meant to produce energy and support the sense organs.

A car needs not only wheels but also fuel for its running. Just as we supply fuel to the car which gets converted into energy to make the car run, so also we supply food as fuel to the body which gets converted into energy to make us work.
We have a big hole called the mouth into which we dump varieties of food. There is a tongue in between to ask for taste. When we supply fuel through the mouth a converter is required to convert this fuel into enegy and supply to the sense organs. Our body is indeed a beautiful machine to which fuel is addd. The fuel is converted into nutrition and energy and the wastes are removd through the exhaust pipe. We also have many pipelines carrying nutriton and energy throughout the body.

This inner system, which energizes the body, is the pancha-pranas. The system has five functions. They are :
* Prana - the respiratory system which is very important for breathing - in oxygen and removing Carbon-dioxide, to purify the blood.
* Apana - the excretory system which does the work of an exhaust pipe.
* Samana - the digestive system which converts food into nutrition and mechanical energy.
* Vyana - the circulatory system which circulates the nutrition and the energy produced to various organs. It is the transport system which supplies this energy to every cell of the body. Even the hair should get nourishment. Otherwise it starts falling off.
* Udana - a system for protecting the body from unwanted, extraneous things. It throws out what is not good to the body. Sneezing and vomiting are examples. Generally the food has to go inside but sometimes it gets thrown out. The normal process is reversed. This reversal system is called Udana which functions only when the body has to be protected from toxic extraneous things. The Udana becomes active at the time of death also
These are the panca-pranas which are very essential in energizing the panca-jnanendriyas and pancha-karmendriyas. Even if any one of them stops functioning, we see that the activities of the sense organs get affected.
The last four organs are called antahkaranam. They are the four-fold inner organ. They are :

* Manah - the mind, which is associated with emotion, desire and doubt. It is the emotional faculty.
* Buddhi - the intellect, which is associated with analysis, judgement, conclusion etc. It is the rational faculty or the intellectual faculty.
* Chittam - the memory faculty, which stores all information acquired. So, whatever we have experienced from childhood are all there deep inside.
* Ahankara - the ego which is associated with self-identification. Through this, I claim the body-mind complex as myself. In fact, the four-fold inner organ represents the four faculties of one organ only.

All the organs put together make 19 organs. While enumerating the last four inner organs, some books reduce the last four into two i.e., the mind and the intellect. Memory and ego are included in the mind and the intellect. Thus, instead of 19 organs, 17 organs are mentioned. These are the components of the subtle body.

The subtle body serves as a medium, as a counter, as an instrument of interaction wth the world. In other words, the experiencer contacts the world only through the subtle body and each organ helps in contacting each part of the world.
For example, through the sense organ called the eye, I can contact only that part of the world consisting of forms and colours. For a blind person, one-fifth of the world is non-existent. The paintings, the Olympic shows, the TV programs all these are non-existent. If that person is also deaf, another one-fifth of the world is non-existent. When we say the world is non-existent, we mean that the world is there but for this experiencer there is no contact with this specific world.
Hence, any contact is possible because of the linking medium which acts like a telephone. The moment the telephone stops functioning my contact with that part of the world is gone. Therefore all the organs act as different links helping me to contact each part of the world.

The gross body is called ayatanam the subtle body. Next we have to see the nature of the subtle body. The first point we have to note is this : the subtle body is subtle because it is mae up of subtle matter. The gross body is gross because it is made of gross matter. Now what is meant by gross and subtle? A gross body is experienceable to others and me. But in the case of the subtle body, I can experience it but others cannot do so I know the conditions of my sense organs, my digestive system, the intellect and the mind. I can know what is in my mind but you cannot know it. Therefore ‘subtle’ is defined as something experienceable to myself but not to others. In other words, we can say the gross body is fully manifest but the subtle body is only partially manifest.

Finally, we have to note that the subtle body has a longer life than the gross body. In other words, when the gross body dies, the subtle body does not die. It survives and takes another physical (gross) body. It continues to take physical bodies until the resolution of this world, which is called pralayam.

Death and the Subtle Body
The concept of rebirth can be understood only by a person who has known the subtle body. Sthula-suksma-sarira-viyogah maranam. Death is defined as the disassociation of the subtle body from the gross body. Sthula-suksma-sarira-samyogah punarjanma. Rebirth is the association of the subtle body with a new gross body.

Therefore to understand birth, rebirth or death, a clear understanding of the subtle body is necessary. Again, we should remember that the subtle body is one which keeps in it all the punyam and papam, the results of all the good and bad actions. The subtle body remains the store-house of all these and therefore it is very important.

Moreover, we have to remember that when the subtle body leaves the physical body during death, we will not be able to see the subtle body because of its very nature. As we have seen, the subtle body is one which is not perceptible for other people even when I am alive. How can others see the subtle body after it quits the gross body? Thus, we can conclude that the subtle body survives after the death of a person but it cannot be seen. Now the question is how do we know that the subtle body has quit the gross body? The moment the subtle body quits, all the transactions end, because the medium of transaction has left the body.

Karana-Sariram
Next we shall go to the next body called the Karana-Sariram, the causal body. Here also we should see all the four features. To begin with, let us see the material of which it is made up. the scriptures say that the causal body is made up of causal matter, which is the subtlest form of matter. In Tattva-bodha it is called avidya, a very technical word. Normally, avidya is translated as ignorance. But the word avidya has a technical meaning in Vedanta. It means causal matter, the subtlest form of matter.

The next topic is its components. Here we have to understand certain basic principles based on which alone we can understand this clearly. We know that matter can never be destroyed. It is scientific truth. We don’t even required the sastras for this. But we generally talk of destruction of something. What we actually mean is a thing going back to its original unmanifest form. This is similar to the destruction of a wave in the ocean. When a wave is destroed or resolved, the matter which makes up the wave has gone back to the ocean form from which it has appeared. We generally say that it has gone back to the ocean.

But can we see the wave in the ocean? We will definitely not be able to say which part is the wave and where it has resolved in th ocean. Hence, when we talk of destruction of the wave, we actually mean that the wave has gone back to its unmanifest condition and from there again it will come back to the manifest state. The wave keeps repeating this process.
Similarly when water gets evaporated during boiling, water disappears; it becomes steam or gas in the atmosphere; it does exist in an invisible form. Extending this, the scriptures say that when all the gross and subtle bodies get destroyed during pralaya which is a total destruction of the universe, then, all the gross and subtle bodies go back to the invisible, unmanifest form. This is because matter cannot be destroyed. Thus the gross body along with the subtle body exists in an unmanifest form which is called the causal body.

The causal body is made up of the subtlest form of matter, the fundamental form of which even the scientists have not come to know. Scientists are aware of the grossest matter which they call as matter, they know also about the subtle matter which is in the form of energy. But here we are talking of the subtlest form of matter in which even different energies resolve and become fundamental.

Scientists have succeeded in reducing all forms of energy into four or five types. They are trying to reach at one fundamental energy from which even these four or five are formed. Once we reach the most fundamental form of matter, it gets reduced to one. Scriptures have named that one fundamental form of matter avidya.

Let us imagine a state before the creation of the world (i.e., srsti) or after the destruction of the world (i.e., pralayam); The physical body cannot be totally destroyed, so too with the subtle body. Both continue to exist before and after the destruction, just as the ornament continues to exist even after melting-not in the form of the ornament, but as gold. Thus all our sense organs existed, all our minds existed and all our pranas existed, all our bodies also existed. This form in which they existed is known as Karana-Sariram.

In the karana-sariram, the various parts will not be clearly visible, just as the various parts of the tree are invisible in a seed. Hence the components of the causal body ar the physical body and the subtle body, present in an unmanifest, undifferentiated, causal or seed form.

The function of the causal body is to be the ground for the resolution of all the bodies and functions as well as the source for their origination. Gold is the resolution-ground of all the ornaments and is also a source for the origination of all the ornaments. It is like a green room in a drama stage. A green room is the place to which the actors can go when they are no more playing any role. Not only this; that is the place from where all the actors come out also. We do not see the actors but we know that the actors are in the green room, because we see them entering and coming out. All of them exist in a differentiated form on the stage but when they are in the room, I know they exist, but I do not know the details.
Similarly karana-sariram serves as the green room for the sthula-sariram and suksma-sariram. When the sthula-sariram and the suksma-sariram do not function, they very much exist in the green room of the karana-sariram. I know their existence but I do not know the details.

Therefore, karana-sariram functions as the resolution-ground and also as the source for the other two sarirams. But it is not involved in any transaction because all transacting organs are dormant.

Now, we will study the nature of karana-sariram. We saw that the gross body is gross, experienceable to me and to the others while the subtle body is experienceable to me, but not to the others. The causal body is neither experienceable to me nor to the others because it is a state in which all transactions have needed including perception, thinking and feeling. Thinking and feeling will take place in the subtle body alone in which the mind, intellect and ego function. But the karana-sariram is that in which the physical and subtle bodies have resolved ; the locus and instrument of transaction are resolved. Then, where is the question of any operation or function taking place? There are no more transactions. It is a state of blankness, a transactionless state, and therefore it is not available for me also because my intellect and mind are also resolved. This happens during pralaya when everything is resolved, when there are no more transactions. Does the karana-sariram exist at all? It must exist because of the law that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. I do not experience this body because all the divisions in the form of the experiencer and the experienced are resolved.

Its nature is fully unmanifest. In Sanskrit, it is called nirvikalpa state, which means a state where all distinctions like the subject and object are resolved. In the ocean where the waves have resolved, I cannot distinctly see which wave is where. When different rivers are merged in the ocean, I know all the rivers are there but I will not be able to say which is Yamuna, which is Godavari etc. I cannot see the difference but the rivers are there. Before merging they were in savikalpa form. The gross and subtle body are in the savikalpa form. Whereas the causal body is nirvikalpa where the differences are not evident.

Avastha-Trayam
Now we shall go to the next topic called avastha-trayam, which is another very important topic in the scriptures. Avastha-trayam means the three states of experience. They are.
* jagrad-avastha, the waking state
* Svapna-avastha, the dreaming state
* Susupti-avastha, the sleeping state

Jagrad-avastha (waking state)
Waking state is that state in which the experiencer functions through the physical body and the sense organs and experiences the external world. When I function through the physical body and the sense organs and contact the external world, I am in jagrad-avastha.

When I contact external world, two things happen. One is the experience (anubhava) of the external world, which is the sthula-prapancha, the gross universe. This is the sthula prapancha-anubhava. There is another thing also. While contacting the external world, the mind records and stores all the experiences in the form of vasanas or impressions. A audio cassette recorder can record only the sound. An video cassettee recorder can record the sound, forms and colours too. But the mind, being far superior, can record sabda, sparsa, rupa, rasa and gandha.

A local audio or video cassette can store only a few hours of a program. Thereafter we have to look for another cassette. We also have to change the cassette. The mind, on the other hand, can record for not only hours, days, weeks, months and years, but also janmas. When we record a new thing in an ordinary cassette, the previous recordings get erased. But our wonderful mind retains the previous recordings also. Thus jagrad - avastha is a state in which recording in the form of anubhava and storing in the form of vasanas take place.
Swapna-avastha (dreaming state)
The second state is called svapna-avastha. After recording all our impressions in jagrad awastha, when we go to bed and stop functioning through the physical body and sense organs, the extrnal world disappears. My identification with the physical body disappears. I do not know that I have a physical body. Other people know that I have a physical body but I do not know this. I am no more transacting with the external world through the physical body. But in this svapna-avastha, I encounter a new world with its own sabda, sparsa, rupa, rasa and gandha. This is the dream world which is not an external world but an inner world, a projected world born out of the activation of the vasanas.

This inner world is very much similar to the external world. It is a full-fledged world with roads, buildings and people ; with the sun and the moon and the other planets. In this projected world we also have our own physical body. It is an inner projected body with all limbs and projected activities. Only after waking up do we know that everything is projected inside our mind but, while dreaming we do not even know the fact that it is dream. When I see a snake in dream, I believe that the snake is outside me, and that it is a real snake chasing me and I run away from it. Such a state in which the inner world is solidly real and I do not know it is my projection is the svapna-avastha or dream state.

According to the scriptures, we get certain dreams based on the vasanas gathered in previous births also. We have to remember that, between this birth and the previous birth, only the physical body is different. The subtle body continues to be the same. Hence, the Gita says that rebirth is like changing the clothes. Behind these different clothes, which are worn and cast away, remains the subtle body which is the same for all the births. Hence, dreams born of the activation of purva-janma-vasanas are also possible.

Sometimes, we develop a liking or hatred for a particular thing without any reason. Some people develop a great love for music when they are still young. The scriptures explain that these people get attracted to the particular person or object through the activation of old vasanas. A child becomes a prodigy because of the activation of the purva-janma-vasanas.
Sometimes, the activation may not be total. In such cases, the memory is vague. I feel a familiarity with some people and objects but I don’t have a clear idea about them. It is the activation of the previous vasanas which makes some people feel easily attracted to spirituality. Thus vasanas play a contributory role in jagrad-avastha and a prominent role in svapna avastha.

Susupti-avastha (Sleeping state)
The third state of experience is called susupti-avastha, the deep sleep state. It is a state in which I don’t experience the external world because I don’t function through the physical body and sense organs. Since the mind also does not function, the vasanas are not activated. Hence there is no inner projected world. Only involuntary actions like blood circulation, breathing and digestion go on. There is no conscious willful functioning through the body. There is total blankness without any experience of either the external world or the inner world.
This state of dreamless sleep is a state of relaxation without any strain. This makes the deep sleep state a highly refreshing one. Sleep is a natural relaxation which refreshes the physical and subtle body.

These three states - the waking state, the dream state and the deep sleep state- are introduced in the sastras for a particular purpose. The three bodies-the physical body, the subtle body and causal body- cannot be physically separated. And it is not easy to understand them distinctly because they are always together. Therefore, we have to find out the state in which each one of them functions prominently so that we will be able to distinctly understand its role.
The scriptures say that the walking state is an ideal state in which the gross body can be discerned very clearly for, in the waking state, the gross body plays a very prominent role. During all our interaction, we are referring to the physical body only. In dream state even though the physical body is there, the subtle body plays a predominant role primarily because the vasanas or impressions are playing an active role. Vasanas being to the subtle body. Thus, the dream state is an ideal state to understand the subtle body.

Finally, the deep sleep state is the ideal state to understand the causal body. In this state all the functions of the gross body and the subtle body are resolvd. The karmendriyas and jnanedriyas do not function. Thinking or feeling is not there. Even ahankara, the ‘I’ notion, is resolved. All go back to the causal state called karana-sariram. Even though the two bodies are not resolved, they are as good as resolved because they are without voluntary functions. Thus, the deep - sleep state can serve as a model for pralayam (total dissolution).

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