Introduction to Integral Theory and Practice IOS Basic and the AQAL ...

There’s Even Room for Many Bodies
Let’s return now to states of consciousness in order to make a final point
before bringing this all together in an integral conclusion.
States of consciousness do not hover in the air, dangling and disembodied.
On the contrary, every mind has its body. For every state of consciousness, there
is a felt energetic component, an embodied feeling, a concrete vehicle which
provides the actual support for any state of awareness.
Let’s use a simple example from the wisdom traditions. Because each of us
has the 3 great states of consciousness—waking, dreaming, and formless sleep—
the wisdom traditions maintain that each of us has 3 bodies, which are often called
the gross body, the subtle body, and the causal body.
3 bodies? Are you kidding me? Isn’t one body enough? But keep in mind a
few things. For the wisdom traditions, a “body” simply means a mode of
experience or energetic feeling. So there is coarse or gross experience, subtle or
refined experience, and very subtle or causal experience. These are what are
philosophers would call “phenomenological realities,” or realities as they present
themselves to our immediate awareness. Right now, you have access to a gross
body and its gross energy, a subtle body and its subtle energy, and a causal body
and its causal energy.
What’s an example of these 3 bodies? Notice that, right now, you are in a
waking state of awareness; as such, you are aware of your gross body—the
physical, material, sensorimotor body. But when you dream at night, there is no
gross physical body; it seems to have vanished. You are aware in the dream
state, yet you don’t have a gross body of dense matter but a subtle body of light,
energy, emotional feelings, fluid and flowing images. In the dream state, the mind
and soul are set free to create as they please, to imagine vast worlds not tied to
gross sensory realities but reaching out, almost magically, to touch other souls,
other people and far-off places, wild and radiant images cascading to the rhythm
Introduction to Integral Theory and Practice. Page 20