Gnosis in a Hundred PagesPage 69 of 100 · Part V

Part V · The one who lives in you

The bodies you have, and the ones you build

You have a physical body and, the books teach, subtler ones. Some are lent by nature. The finer ones are built by the work.

Read to me

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Two hands held close together, a faint warmth glowing between them.

The tradition teaches that a human being has seven bodies, each finer than the one before. There is the physical body, and the vital body that keeps it alive. Then come the astral body of the feelings and the night, and the mental body. Beyond them are the body of the will, and two that belong to the spirit.

You can feel the second one now. The vital body is the warmth and the faint hum of life under the skin. Without it the physical body could not live for a moment.

On page 46 you met a further teaching. Most people have only loose, borrowed versions of the astral and mental bodies, lent by nature. The real ones, the books say, are built, slowly, by the kept energy of Part III. So is the body of the will.

This is why the energy matters so much. It is not only for calm days. It is the material from which the finer bodies are made.

You do not need to see any of this to work with it. You need only notice the life in your own body, and stop spending it carelessly.

Try this

  1. Sit still and close your eyes. Hold your hands a little apart, palms facing each other.
  2. Feel the warmth and the faint hum between and inside them. That is the vital body.
  3. Let your attention spread to your arms, your chest and your whole body.
  4. Breathe slowly for a minute and feel the whole body alive.

Words on this page

Vital body
The energy body that keeps the physical body alive. Solar bodies — the finer bodies built by the work, in place of the borrowed ones.

In the old words

“The existence of the physical body would be impossible without the vital body.”

The Solar BodiesSamael Aun Weor
On the next pageThe bodies have centers, like wheels along the spine.70. The chakras