Saptaparna - the seven fold man

So this is one way of dividing the constitution of spiritual man, according to teosophical doctrine. it is a good starting point to clarify different abstract points. if anyone would want to discuss

the higher triad:
1. spirit (atman); 2. spiritual soul (buddhi); 3. mind (manas)

the lower quaternary: 4. animal desires and passions (kama); 5. life or vital principle (prana); 6. astral body (linga-sharira); 7. physical body (sthula-sharira).


1. Atman
The essential self, pure consciousness. The essential and radical power or faculty which gives us and every other entity its sentient consciousness of pure selfhood.
2. Buddhi
The faculty or spiritual organ which manifests as intuition, understanding, judgement, discrimination. It is the inseparable veil or garment of atman.
3. Manas
The centre or organ of the ego-consciousness in man and in any other quasi-selfconscious entity; the seat of the ‘I am I’.
4. Kama
The organ or seat of the vital psycho-electric impulses, desires, aspirations, considered in their energic aspect, and therefore the driving force in the human constitution. As every principle is sevenfold, there is a divine and spiritual kama as well as a grossly emotional kama, with all intermediate stages.
5. Prana
‘Life’, or more accurately the electromagnetic veil or ‘electrical field’ manifesting in the individual as vitality.
6. Linga-sharira
The astral model-body, slightly more ethereal than the physical body; the astral framework around which the physical body is built, atom for atom, and from which it develops as growth proceeds.
7. Sthula-sharira
The physical body. Strictly speaking, it is not a real ‘principle’, but functions as the common ‘carrier’ of all the inner constitution during any lifetime on earth.

more details here

[link to davidpratt.info]