Meet Your Five Shells of Being · Inquiry Beyond the Cocoon
⁘ “Seek the ultimate inquirer. Recognize deeper and deeper planes of awareness. We speak of five bodies and five sheaths of the underlying raw consciousness. Your physical food-made body. Vital body of embodied dynamic energy. Mental body of feelings and flavors. Rational body of thought-forms. Causal body of uncognized latent impressions. As your attention shifts between them, inquire: "Where am I, and what am I there?" Also, who am I? Who is, what is, and why?”
Seek the ultimate inquirer.
Recognize deeper and deeper planes of awareness.
In classical teaching,
as is found in living experience,
we speak of five bodies and five sheaths,
five shells around the underlying raw consciousness.
First, at the most concrete end of the spectrum
is your physical food-made body.
Second, there is the vital body
of embodied dynamic energy.
Third, there is the mental body
of feelings and flavored atmospheres.
Fourth, there is the rational body
of thought-forms and cognitive structures.
And fifth, there is the causal body,
hosting our latent impressions,
the subconscious and unconscious domains
influencing and containing our existence.
These are the five shells in our existential egg.
The five sheathts shrouding our cocoon of consciousness.
As our attention shifts and migrates
between these shells of being,
there is benefit in the inquiry –
"Where am I, and what am I there?"
Also, who am I?
Who is, what is, and why?
But, where am I?
To know the places you keep on landing,
planes lower than the summit of
your undifferentiated consciousness.