Kāraṇa-Śarīra
A Sanskrit term which literally translates as “causal body” and is equivalent to the theosophical use of the term CAUSAL BODY. An alternative term, sometimes used, is kāraṇopādhi (i.e., kāraṇa + upādhi). It is one of three such bodies identified in the Vedānta literature (i.e., UPANISADS and ADVAITA VEDANTA philosophy). It is the reincarnating soul or jiva, retaining within itself the essence of one’s life experiences which cause the conditions of one’s future incarnations. It is sometimes termed the “higher mind.” Since it is not the SELF, it may also be defined as the Self (ATMAN) limited by a material vehicle. It is sometimes considered to be an illusion (maya). But, since the root of the word maya is ma, meaning “measure,” the soul is merely the Self limited by a vehicle or body (sarira, upadhi). This delimiting of the Self results in a feeling of one’s being a separate ego; in that sense the limitation is a kind of “illusion,” so the Vedanta definition of jiva as “Self + illusion” is not really incorrect, even if somewhat misleading. All its vehicles limit the expansive consciousness of the Self. But without such vehicles, the Self could not act within a material universe.
The other two bodies are the sthula-sarira or “gross (i.e., physical) body,” and the suksma-sarira or “subtle body,” what Westerners would call the “personality” (i.e., the emotions and categorizing mind). Another classification identifies five vehicles or “sheaths” (kosas) of consciousness: the anna-maya-kosa, literally “food-made-sheath,” (i.e., biological body, which is equivalent to the sthula-sarira), the prana-maya-kosa (vital energy body, called, in theosophical literature, the “ETHERIC DOUBLE”), the mano-maya-kosa or “mind-made-sheath” (one of the components, with the prana-maya-kosa, of the suksma-sarira), the vijñanamaya-kosa or “intellect sheath” (equivalent to the karana-sarira), and the ananda-maya-kosa or “bliss-made-sheath” (called in theosophical literature the “buddhic body”). Because mind and emotion commonly function together, the suksma-sarira is also referred to in theosophical literature as the desire-mind (kama-manas). And note that maya (“made”) here is not maya.
Since the karana-sarira or Causal Body is the receptacle of the essences of a life’s experiences and tendencies, and since in the normal process of REINCARNATION the vehicles which would normally store specific memories and behavioral tendencies are shed, it is only in unusual cases of rapid reincarnation that one would recall a former life. Furthermore, the distilled experiences of a human incarnation could never result in the rebirth in an animal form, so theosophical theory does not admit of the popular Hindu notion of transmigration. Only in cases of the most extreme cruelty or debauchery could future incarnations be considered even a human retrogression. Evolution of consciousness and conscience may be slow for the majority of people, but it is steady.
It is stated in theosophical literature that the karana-sarira or Causal Body is formed at the time of Individualization, that is, at the transition from animal to human consciousness. It is at that point that all three aspects of the Trinity manifest, at first only in a latent form, in what is termed in theosophical literature the lower quaternary (“lower” mind, emotions, etheric double, and physical body) with the Causal Body being the “bridge,” as it were, between the upper triad (ATMA-BUDDHI-MANAS) and that lower nature. In some theosophical literature that “bridge” is termed the ANTAKAHRANA or “internal instrument,” but in classical Indian literature the antahkarana is said to be made of the ego-nature (AHAMKARA), BUDDHI (variously interpreted as intuition or moral sense), MANAS (probably the “lower” or desire-mind), and citta (individual consciousness, as contrasted with universal consciousness or cit) and is not considered a “bridge” to one’s higher nature, but rather is what would be termed the personality in Western thought.
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