There exist 3 bodies (or manifestations of a human being’s existence), not just one.

Sthula sharira – the physical body
Made of the five elements. It is born… it grows… it decays… and it returns to the elements.
This is what the world calls death.

Sukshma sharira – the subtle body
Carries prana, mind, senses, dreams, vasanas, and karma. Does not die with the physical body.

Sukshma sharira is identified with antakarana and it’s four sub-divisions, mana (mind), buddhi (intellect), ahankara (ego, sense of individuality) and chitta (remembering/memory).

It travels beyond the Sthula Sharira and can be reborn.

Karana sharira – the causal body
The seed state of ignorance / the stem cell of humanity. It seeks the ‘why’.

‘Karana’ means ‘cause’. This body does not die until moksha.

It is the unmanifested condition, which is neither sat, nor asat. It is unborn. It is not created due to sat karmas.

It is of the nature of avidya or agyana (ignorance) and is the cause of the Sthula and Sukshma sharira.

In other words, it is due to ignorance of one’s true nature that one takes rebirth and is trapped in the cycle of birth and death. In order to enjoy or suffer the merits of karma and to get a chance to know one’s true nature, Sthula and Sukshma shariras are created. After Self Realisation, there is no rebirth and there is no cause of creating Sthula and Sukshma sharira.

All these 3 bodies are enveloped within the Atman – the self.

It is never born… never modified… never destroyed. It is universal.

Moksha (Liberation) is not taking the subtle body to a higher world. It is freedom from identification with all three bodies and being in an Atman state of existence.

What appears as life and death is only the movement of the bodies. the Self remains untouched.

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