gross body and subtle body

November 1, 2001

This is an excerpt from a lecture by HH Radhanath Swami. Unfortunately the date

and place of the lecture is unknown to me.

"And rather than a society of two legged animals, this world is in need of a

society of human beings to understand the real culture and purpose of life. Who

am I? We are the eternal soul that gives life to this body. We have two bodies

on the material platform. The gross body and the subtle body. The gross body is

what we can see, what we can touch, what we can smell. Earth, water, fire, air

and ether and the various combinations. This gross body, at any moment can get

sick, at any moment, can succumb to death, disease, and old age can come at any

moment. This gross body is always changing. At one time, we were a little baby,

then we become little children, then youth, then old. The body is always

changing, but the consciousness within the body remains the same. The

difference between the living body and the dead body is simply consciousness.

It is not material elements. We also have subtle body, a form that cannot be

seen or touched or heard or smelled or tasted. It is the mind, the intelligence

and the ego. We have thoughts. And nobody can trace the thoughts. You cannot

grab on to the thoughts. Hers is something subtler than your senses can

perceive. And this subtle body is the subject of far greater distress than the

gross body. When people are terribly sick physically, they somehow or other

hold on to their life. When a person is mentally in too much distress, that is

the reason when people usually take suicide. In the great country of America

that the world is modeling itself after, in the 1920s there was a depression

where all the millionaires became poor. Not because they did anything

different, but beyond their control, the stock market crashed and everything

was finished. And who were the people? It was the poor street people killing

themselves. It was all the big corporate heads, big businessmen, jumping into

the Chicago river, jumping off the Empire State building. All these famous

monuments were places of suicide, taking poison, shooting themselves.Why?

Because they could not live, could not cope with the mental distress that was

upon them. This is the subtle body. And the soul, the atma, which is the

witness of the gross and subtle body, sometimes identifies with the gross body

and sometimes with the subtle body. Right you are identifying yourselves with

your gross body. "I am getting dressed in the morning. I am making myself very

nice. Walking to school, getting on to the bus. But when you dream at night,

you completely forget this gross body. You forget that you are a man or a woman

and you are identifying with completely different. And when you wake up you

completely forget your dream. So actually, which body are you? This is the most

important question to begin your life. What is the nature of the soul? There are

no educational departments which deal with the body, the mind. Bhagavad Gita

deals with the science of you, the soul. Krishna says in the Gita, that for the

soul, there is neither birth, nor death, nor does it ever cease to be. Even at

the end of this body, the soul remains. Krishna says that for a self-realized

person, death is the changing of one’s clothes."

baccha · March 21, 2012

I am curious to know more about the subtle body or soul, Do they feel pain and relief after so called body's death?

can they be seen by others ?

This is an excerpt from a lecture by HH Radhanath Swami. Unfortunately the date
and place of the lecture is unknown to me.

"And rather than a society of two legged animals, this world is in need of a

society of human beings to understand the real culture and purpose of life. Who

am I? We are the eternal soul that gives life to this body. We have two bodies

on the material platform. The gross body and the subtle body. The gross body is

what we can see, what we can touch, what we can smell. Earth, water, fire, air

and ether and the various combinations. This gross body, at any moment can get

sick, at any moment, can succumb to death, disease, and old age can come at any

moment. This gross body is always changing. At one time, we were a little baby,

then we become little children, then youth, then old. The body is always

changing, but the consciousness within the body remains the same. The

difference between the living body and the dead body is simply consciousness.

It is not material elements. We also have subtle body, a form that cannot be

seen or touched or heard or smelled or tasted. It is the mind, the intelligence

and the ego. We have thoughts. And nobody can trace the thoughts. You cannot

grab on to the thoughts. Hers is something subtler than your senses can

perceive. And this subtle body is the subject of far greater distress than the

gross body. When people are terribly sick physically, they somehow or other

hold on to their life. When a person is mentally in too much distress, that is

the reason when people usually take suicide. In the great country of America

that the world is modeling itself after, in the 1920s there was a depression

where all the millionaires became poor. Not because they did anything

different, but beyond their control, the stock market crashed and everything

was finished. And who were the people? It was the poor street people killing

themselves. It was all the big corporate heads, big businessmen, jumping into

the Chicago river, jumping off the Empire State building. All these famous

monuments were places of suicide, taking poison, shooting themselves.Why?

Because they could not live, could not cope with the mental distress that was

upon them. This is the subtle body. And the soul, the atma, which is the

witness of the gross and subtle body, sometimes identifies with the gross body

and sometimes with the subtle body. Right you are identifying yourselves with

your gross body. "I am getting dressed in the morning. I am making myself very

nice. Walking to school, getting on to the bus. But when you dream at night,

you completely forget this gross body. You forget that you are a man or a woman

and you are identifying with completely different. And when you wake up you

completely forget your dream. So actually, which body are you? This is the most

important question to begin your life. What is the nature of the soul? There are

no educational departments which deal with the body, the mind. Bhagavad Gita

deals with the science of you, the soul. Krishna says in the Gita, that for the

soul, there is neither birth, nor death, nor does it ever cease to be. Even at

the end of this body, the soul remains. Krishna says that for a self-realized

person, death is the changing of one’s clothes."