Self-Knowledge and God-Knowledge II

GA 90b — 18 August 1905, Berlin

XIII. The Seven Principles

Atma consists of seven principles: 1. auric covering, 2. Budhi, 3. Manas, 4. Kama Manas, 5. Kama, 6. Physis.

This seven-principle being has three states of consciousness, also called 'destinies' or 'upadhis'. Atma lives in three upadhis:

physical - strength

astral - living

manasic - thinking.

Sthula Sharira: The entire mineral kingdom has not awakened. It is powerful, that is, it is, but it does not feel and does not think its being.

Linga Sharira: Plants and animals have partially awakened. They live, that is, they feel, but they do not think their being.

Karana Sharira: People have awakened. They think, that is, they think their being.

Let us imagine a personality, it is perceived and it is recognized. We therefore have subject and object. Furthermore, the subject perceives itself, it places itself, as it were, outside of itself and makes itself an object; its I stands above the external expression of its I. It is, perceives itself and thinks.

Let us imagine Atma. In order to perceive itself, Atma must manifest itself, that is, it must make itself known through an act of will; it must be and therefore surrounds itself with a fine shell, which we call the auric shell.

Now Atma perceives itself, it feels, senses itself as a being and thereby forms the astral shell in the auric shell. - Second aspect: the world as feeling/Budhi.

In order to have an idea of itself, Atma must step out of itself, it now makes itself objective and thus creates the physical shell. - Third aspect: the world as thinking / Mahat.

We now have Atma, which permeates everything seven times: three times subjectively and three times objectively in its aspects, and once as itself.

If we consider the objective side in its descent, in the “separation of Atma, we find will without spirit as force, feeling without spirit as Kama, thinking without spirit as concrete Manas. In its ascent, that is, in its return to the welling Atma, Kama becomes Budhi, Manas becomes Mahat, the force becomes the auric covering. Everything is absorbed again into Atma: if a being is to come to itself, it must consist of seven principles. The number seven in the objective world and in man:

A being can awaken in three states of consciousness, that is, in its three shells: as energy, as life – or as feeling – and as thought.

In the mineral kingdom, the being has awakened only as energy; in the plant kingdom, as life; in the animal kingdom, as life and feeling; in the human kingdom – as thought.