CHAPTER- 6
Destiny Unfolded ;
Destiny- A metaphysical interpretation

The Astrophysical studies have propounded that the body of the human/living beings is made up of several sheaths around a monad which has been described as spark of the supreme fire, named devine fragments. The holy flame from which these sparks come from is the Ishwar or the God himself. The monads are thus the un detached sparks of universal flame i.e. the Supreme Being (GOD). A monad may thus be defined as- a fragment of the divine life, separated off as an individual entity by rarest film of matter, matter so rare that, while it gives a separate form to each, it offers no obstacle to the free intercommunication of life, thus encased, with the surrounding similar lives. Though the monad is thus not pure consciousness (pure soul) but monad is consciousness plus a sheath of matter. This monad of theosophy is the jeevatma of hindu philosophy and the purusha of the samkhya darshan and vedanta of vedic scriptures. The whole process of the individual aham or the I factor is the activity chosen by the monads themselves. We the living beings are there, in this world of matter, because we as monads, willed to be alive. So we are self-moved, self determined. This will to live of the monad can be manifested by the seed, which pushes its growing point (seedling) up, towards the light, and in a bud which bursts its prison and expands to be a flower. It is the creative genius of the painter, sculptor, poet, musician or a craftsman. There is a joy in being alive, there also is a bliss in living and both of them are because of the will to live of the monad.
To say that the monads go forth would be somewhat inaccurate. It is rather that they shine forth, sending out their rays of life. They themselves remain ever "in the bosom of the father i.e. the parmatman", while their life rays stream out into the ocean of matter and evolve in the lower planes. The shining forth of the monads has been graphically described by H.P. Blavatsky as: the primordial triangle i.e. the three faced monad of will, wisdom and activity, as soon as it has reflected itself in the heavenly man i.e. atma -buddhi – manas. So the monads themselves, therefore, remain ever beyond, the fivefold universe made of five basic elements of matter i.e. panch mahabhootas. And in that sense the monads are only spectators and once manifested by reflecting itself into the heavenly man, it dwells beyond the five planes of the matter. They are the self, stand self conscious and self-determined. They reign in changeless peace and live in eternity. But as we have seen, they appropriate matter, taking to themselves atoms from the various planes. The monads are of seven types or rays, just as the matter is of seven types or rays. The process by which the seven types arise is as follows. The three aspects of the consciousness of the universal self are will (ichcha), wisdom (jnana) and activity (kriya). The three corresponding qualities in matter are inertia (tamas), mobility (rajas) and rhythm (satva). These are related with others as follows:
The aspect of will imposes on matter the quality of tamas or inertia. The aspect of activity imposes on matter the quality of mobility or rajas. The aspect of wisdom imposes on matter the quality of satva or harmony. Now, every monad has three aspects of consciousness, the proportion of which varies in different monads in seven ways as mentioned or tabulated below:
Predominant aspect
Secondary aspect
Tertiary aspect
1.
Will
Wisdom
Activity
2.
Will
Activity
Wisdom
3.
Wisdom
Will
Activity
4.
Wisdom
Activity
Will
5.
Activity
Will
Wisdom
6.
Activity
Wisdom
Will

The seventh variety is that in which all the three aspects are equal. The seven types of matter are similarly formed by the varying proportions of the three qualities of tamas, rajas and satva. The stream of life known as the second out-pouring in fact, is composed of seven streams and one of the seven types of matter combinations being found in each of these seven streams. So seven types of monads have the seven corresponding types of matters. The monads are then attached to the atoms. Attachments of atoms to the monad is a complex process but to sum up, one can say that, from the luminous ocean of atman a tiny spark of light gets separated off from the rest by a film of buddhic matter and it becomes enclosed in an egg like casing of matter. The atoms which get attached to monad are called as permanent atoms or life atoms. The atma, buddhi, manas or the ray of the monad, is also known as- heavenly man, spiritual man, the higher self or spiritual triad. Our shastras use a term jivatma for this ray of monad but this term is actually applicable to the monad itself without any matter attached to it. So if the monad is the godhead or jivatma then the ray of monad attached to permanent atoms is the vessel into which the monad pours life. The spiritual triad is thus monadic ray of the three aspects i.e. will aspect, wisdom aspect and activity aspect attached to atoms of atma, buddhi and manas. From this spiritual triad, a tiny thread, like a minute rootlet, a golden coloured thread of life sheathed in buddhic matter called sutratma in our philosophy, descends and get encased by the permanent particles of buddhi or wisdom (mental molecules ) and a mental unit of the lower triad is formed.The whole process is then repeated at next lower level. The thread of life, en sheathed in the buddhic matter, with the mental unit attached to it, pushes outwards to the astral plane where, by identical means, an astral atom is attached and ultimately by accumulating the elemental essence of the third elemental kingdom, an astral atom (astral molecule) of the lower triad is formed. Yet, once more in the process repeated, when the great wave of life passes downwards in the physical plane, the thread of life sheathed in the buddic matter, now already attached to mental and the astral permanent atoms, pushes outwards and annexes the physical permanent atom. The heavier physical matter atoms get attached to it in the etherized  atmosphere and a physical molecule is formed. All these three molecules i.e. mental, astral, physical combine to form another triad below the spiritual triad. This lower triad is also known as the triad of manas, kama & sthula. The seven rays from a monad give rise to seven higher triads and then they in turn give rise to seven lower triads attached to them. They form the seven primary group souls. These group souls then exist everywhere i.e. the mineral kingdom, vegetable kingdom and the animal kingdom. But in the three kingdoms mentioned, we do not find one soul in a block of mineral or plant or animal. Instead of it we find one block of life-en-soling a vast quantity of mineral substance, a large number or plants or trees or a number of animals. So this is how the animals including humans and plants are born. The minerals are also born or created in the same manner. But we being humans are concerned more with ourselves. 
          The human body is made up of the four sheaths as per the meta physical aspects of creation. The outermost sheath is the physical sheath/body. In this physical sheath we appear before us and the others as it is our physical body (bhautik sareer). The next from the outer sheath is the astral sheath/body (linga sareer) which comprises of 35 elements out of which 16 are common with the physical sheath and 19 are common with the next sheath i.e. causal sheath (karan sareer). The causal sheath/body (karan sareer) is made up of 19 elements i.e. intelligence, ego, feeling, five sense organs and their senses i.e. sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. The work organs and the works performed by them of procreation, execution, speech, locomotion and skills. Causal body needs bliss or peace which it gets from the anandmaya kosh residing in it. Causal body or karana sareer is the map template which is sole cause for the physical body (gross/bhautik sareer) and astral body (subtle body) in the future births of the souls which are not liberated or detached from the casual & astral bodies. Causal body ( karan sareer) thus control the formation and growth of the two other bodies, and determine every aspect of the next birth. Casual body is also the doorway to the higher consciousness. It links individual consciousness with the collective consciousness. Experiences from past lives are stored in the causal body and called as samskaras. The causal and astral bodies remain together and attached to the inner sheath (pran sareer/spiritual sheath). Once the soul is detached from casual/astral body it goes to the abode of the God. That soul never comes back to this world again except for the God’s wish. Such souls have achieved the salvation (moksha). They only come to the world to execute divine mission.
The life force in the astral sheath (linga sareer) perform the involuntary actions of circulation, metabolism, assimilation crystallization and elimination. The subtle light emanating from the innermost sheath of energy (prana) is the structural essence of the astral sheath. This radiance of the astral sheath can be perceived when we are in a stage of deeper meditation. At the time of the death of person the Soul coated with this radiant astral sheath ascend or descend to the higher/lower astral planes, according to the merits of deeds, to continue with spiritual pursuit of evolution in the greatest realm of subtleties. There it remains for a karmically determined time until physical rebirth. The manomaya and gyanmaya koshas are the places in the astral body where lives the mind and the intellect. Pranmaya kosh is the place where from the life force (pranic force) direct our physical and mental activities. The movement happens through the channels (conductors of energy) called as nadis. These nadis from six chakras or nerve plexuses. They control all our vital forces. As long as this vital force (pran urja) exists in the sthool/physical sareer we live and function and when it is lost, we die. There are counterparts of the organs outside in the astral body which are called astral senses. In meditative state a yogi can hear through astral ears and see through astral eyes. He can hear sounds from distant lands and can see objects in the distant localities. They are called as clairvoyance and clairaudience. In vedic texts the lower mind (mana) and the higher mind (intellect/buddhi) are two parts of astral body. Manas is the rational, linear sequential and thoughtful mind. Whereas buddhi is the quality of discrimination which comes after knowledge/gyana which is achieved after elimination of ignorance (illusion). Manas is called manomaya kosh and buddi is called the gyanmaya kosh. Buddhi includes knowledge/wisdom and intuition. This gives the discriminative capability i.e. vivek by which we differentiate between virtues & vices, good and bad, right and wrong, truth and untruth etc. Thus the astral body in some texts has also been divided into two sub bodies i.e. emotional body (manomaya kosh) and the mental body (gyanmaya kosh). Eastern esoteric yoga thus propound five sheaths instead of four i.e.
-      Etheric body or electromagnetic body
-      Astral body/emotional body
-      Mental body/intellectual body
-      Causal body/spiritual body
-      Physical body/bhautik sareer
The innermost sheath is the atman or the ego (which is energy only & is called spiritual sheath/body. This is the will, wisdom and activity rays of the spiritual monad and attached to it are the permanent atoms of atma (soul) buddhi (intellect) and manas (mind), which constitutes the primordial triad. This is the spark of divine energy encased in the ethereal matter and it never perishes (pran sareer). This pran sareer leaves the bhautik sareer when we die. The pran coated with the causal & astral sheath i.e. the sukshma sareer leaves the bhautik or sthula sareer which disintegrates into the panch maha bhoot tatvas of the universe.
We generally perceive death as something loathsome and gruesome which should be avoided at all costs. The termination of life at an uncertain moment and in an unexpected manner with resultant annihilation of the self identity has made the humans afraid of the death. Fear of death is also the fear of unknown and is basically due to our bondage or attachment with the form in which we are. The identification of self with physical form causes the bondage of the soul with body & is called maya or the cosmic illusion. Knowing the true nature of death releases man from this bondage. Such knowledge based on personal experience may be acquired. Beliefs to the contrary places an illusory boundary upon the unfolding soul. The dissolution of the physical body actually doesn't result in annihilation of the self. According to advaita vedanta through what is real can not be destroyed, what is unreal doesn’t exist apart from our false perception and understanding. The process of death may be experienced in the meditative state. Mystics call it dying while living. This stage is called marifatullah by Islamic gnostics.