To Light a Thousand Lamps - The Theosophical Society

Death: A Doorway to Light / 43
To comprehend more clearly what happens to us after
death we need first to understand something of the several
elements that make us up, and the role they play both during
our lives and after we die. Paul’s division of man into
spirit, soul, and body is basic and useful in relation to other
systems of thought, which classify man variously as being
composed of four, five, seven, or even ten facets or principles.
These facets of man’s nature are not isolated one from
another. In the sevenfold system, for example, each facet is
itself sevenfold and contains an aspect of all the others. We
could as easily adopt a fivefold division, into monads of
descending quality with their corresponding sheaths or vehicles
of expression; or again, a fourfold enumeration, as the
Qabbālāh does, three ‘‘breaths’’ of gradually more material
quality, all manifesting through a ‘‘shell,’’ our physical body.
Using the sevenfold division as generally followed in
theosophical writings, the principles (with their Sanskrit
names) are listed, starting with the highest:
Divinity — ātman, ‘‘self,’’ our immortal monad;
Spirit — buddhi, ‘‘awakened intelligence,’’ the veil of
ātman: the faculty of perception attained in full by a
buddha;
Mind — manas, dual in function: higher manas united
with the highest two principles constitutes the spiritual individuality
(ātma-buddhi-manas); lower manas attracted toward
kāma, the ‘‘desire’’ principle, manifests as the ordinary
personality (manas-kāma);
Desire — kāma, ‘‘love, desire’’; when influenced by the
higher mind (buddhi-manas), it manifests as aspiration;
when utilized by the personality (manas-kāma), without any