The level (kosha) of the intellect is one of relationship, also known as subtle or sacred geometry. Points of awareness create relationships that lead to geometry and structure. Sound modulates this, giving rise to form.
Deeper still, on the causal level, is what we might call templates or blueprints, patterns for those geometries to follow.
Many of these templates are ideal forms or optimal patterns. The layers of resistance, unresolved karma, muck, and such are laid over the geometries, distorting their expression through the mental and energy levels. We’re not typically pure vehicles for expressing the Divine, joy, and love.
Dorothy Rowe has mentioned, and I’ve also noticed, that some templates can be a little damaged and false archetypes can be added. These are less obvious than unresolved experiences as they’re clear and clean.
Yet if you put an Ikea chair together wrong, it may not support your weight.
For example, we can build a meme of not being good enough at subtle levels. This leads to things like shame, subtle expectations of a negative outcome, or not feeling we deserve a good life. That can interfere with the smooth flow of fulfillment.
Inversely, we can have a meme overestimating our self-importance, leading to entitlement and expectations that others should serve us.
Because these are subtle, they’re more powerful than positive thoughts. Ideas can change the world, but subtle archetypes can change perception and our sense of reality.
Davidya
Something I didn’t explore in the article is that the templates have their origin in Veda and Smriti, memory. I have an article on the latter that will be posted on the 26th.
Hello David:
I was at a checking, or experiences session with Maharishi on a six month course in 1976, One person told Maharishi “when I meditate I see these images, beautiful people with a golden glow, dressed in beautiful Indian style clothing, moving here and there.”
Maharishi responded “Yes, these are the devas.”
Another gentleman spoke up, “When I meditate I see these beautiful, intricate geometrical forms, all moving around and merging and interacting with each other in different ways.”
Maharishi responded “Yes, these are the devas.”
I realised that the laws of nature are not best expressed through separate academic disciplines, but that they express themselves through different forms at different levels of creation. Elsewhere I learned that the same laws that appeared as anthropomorphic and geometric forms also appear as music and mathematical equations.
Beautiful, Peter. Different levels can be part of it. But the primary distinction is if we’re experiencing them personally or impersonally, with the heart or intellect. The heart can see the laws expressing with forms, the intellect as functions.
On the heart level, the form is influenced by both your expectations of what they’d look like and their intention to be seen. Often, they’ll show in ways we’d be comfortable with or to communicate ideas.
The functions, like geometry, sound, and fields are more straightforward to understand but forms allow communication. The flow of the heart aka devotion is also much easier with forms.
David: Hi and thanks in advance. Is there, and if so, what is the relationship between the kosha and the shell over the chhandas, which can seem like something akin to plates on a rhino or a shell on a turtle?
Hi Don
First thing – chhandas itself means covering. The object side of consciousness has a quality of covering, so it is the shell. We see an appearance and may not recognize something behind it. We build up concepts to support our experience, then a resistance to anything else.
Consciousness expresses in layers which behave like koshas or sheathes. Put another way, they are each a value of chhandas. However, in practice, some are more dense than others. For example, some people are oblivious to their emotions and only the world appearance seems real. It behaves like a covering. Others will find it hard to see past the mind. It’s common to have a hard crust on the heart.
Even the awake may not see past the elements and our universe, and thus not directly experience the dynamics of consciousness. And finally, consciousness itself behaves like a covering over Brahman.
Rhino and turtle are analogies but the coverings can be quite dense and impenetrable. Yet transcending takes us through the coverings, softening their grip. At some point, the lights come on and they’re seen through.
Another way this is framed is as mayas or world appearances. The appearance of the world, the appearance of the gunas, the appearance of consciousness. The kosha model is simply a body-centric perspective of this.