The complex nature of man is an accepted fact today. Thanks to science and medical men, we know that man, the crown-piece of evolution, is the most complex creature that nature has evolved and that despite incessant research, study and investigation to unveil his true nature, we hardly know him. His body alone is a subject of study by numerous medical specialists. Add to this study factors such as intellect, ideas, emotions, ideations, aspirations, drives, desires and passions, aversions and attachments, and we have a mystery most difficult to understand. We might live with an individual for years and hardly know him. Let alone that, we do not even know our own selves completely. Honest and introspective people would admit that there have been incidents in their lives that totally surprised them with startling revelations about their own nature.

To know man, we can start with what is visible and perceptible to us—his body. Body by itself is capable of very little. During sleep, the body of a most dynamic and active man, one most intelligent and vivacious, as well as that of a dull and uninteresting person, are all reduced to automatons—mere machines—capable of unattended operations within their limited domain. At death, something vital seems to escape from the body—making a dead body an object of morbid fear and abhorrence among living beings. One thing is certain that man is not his physical body—however healthy, beautiful and efficient it may be. Body is simply an instrument, a vehicle which is being used by the real man within. It is merely one part of man's personality. Persona means mask—like those worn by actors who performed different roles so that the mask carried the makeup of the role they played. Unfortunately, wearing this mask, i.e., the personality of this life, not only do we not recognize other human beings as separate from their masks, but we have even forgotten who we really are!

Our dream state during sleep gives a vital hint about the real man within. During sleep, while body assumes various positions and postures which the real man would not permit during waking hours, the latter, the invisible man within, is working on a different plane, with experiences of dream state and then of deep sleep state. Dream life is so real that sometimes we wake up totally shaken up by a nightmare. And then, our relief is great that it was only a dream. But none the less, we experienced it. The sadness, happiness, despair, desperation, anger, fright are all vividly experienced by us in dreams—all the while our physical body slept. We were working on the inner plane, using another and subtle body and separate set of senses on that plane which had its own sense of time and space. This is the invisible body of man called the astral body or the design body or the double.

This invisible body is a kind of blueprint or a model for the construction of our physical body. Theosophy tells us that it is made up of matter which is essentially electro-magnetic in nature. It is flexible, plastic, elastic, extensible beyond the bodily limits, impressionable like the photographic plate—receiving, retaining and throwing off impressions of all the happenings in and around the person. It is this model within the mother's womb that forms the basis for the developing foetus. It changes very little during the lifetime of a person and hence maintains the same general appearance from maturity till death. It is in this invisible body of the man that the real senses are located. In this body reside the secrets of many psychic powers. But this body is not the real man. The real man uses this body when working on non-physical planes such as the dream plane. At death, an aspect of this astral body still remains with the physical body—not letting it crumble into a heap of matter immediately. Another aspect of the astral body vivified by the raging passions and desires of the departed man forms his ghost or bhuta.

We are living in an ocean of LIFE (energy) or Jiva that surrounds and interpenetrates us. When we live, we absorb and resist this Life energy by turns. When it works through the body of a living being, it is called breath or prana—because breath is necessary for continuance of life in the human body. It circulates through our astral body—just as blood circulates through our physical body. It vitalizes, rejuvenates and sustains healthy, youthful organs of our body with the help of what are called "preservers" and it kills us with the help of "destroyers" when the term of natural life ends. The "preservers" and "destroyers" are the minutest conceivable lives that compose our body. At death, it is breath or prana that leaves the body. Prana is that aspect of the One Life which sustains and permeates the physical body. When that aspect is withdrawn, the body disintegrates.

In death, it is not just the breath which has gone from the body. Something more important is now missing. The real man within has discarded the worn-out body and departed—the man, who thinks, feels and reasons. The man, who feels his identity throughout all the changes of life—from childhood to old age, as being himself and no other. It is this thinking principle called Manas which makes him a distinct individual. He thinks and chooses. He introspects. He rationalizes and discriminates. Manas or the Thinker uses the human brain as an instrument to reason from premises to conclusions. Animals act from automatic and so-called instinctual impulses, whereas the man can reason. He learns through experiences and grows, preserving the memory of all the experiences of a lifetime—it is called a storehouse of thought. It is the knower, the perceiver, the thinker who carries the results and values of all the different lives lived on earth or elsewhere.

At this stage of our development, our desires are having dominance. Desires are essential ingredients of existence. If there was no desire to breathe, to eat and drink, to live, we would perish. Desire or Kama is present both in man and in animals. Desires are not merely impulses from the body. Man incarnates again and again on earth because he desires existence in body. But our desires are twofold—lower and higher. The lower desires are those which are self-centred and selfish—not necessarily bad. But higher desires have their roots in the spiritual and immortal nature of man.

But Soul per se can have no existence apart from the Spirit. The power to think, to choose, to act, comes from the immortal Spirit—the very Atman in man. Atman itself is not a human principle. It is an aspect of the very source, the ONE REALITY. Its radiance reaches the thinker through Buddhi—a discriminative principle. Atman is like electricity. It requires a channel to work through. Buddhi provides that channel. Buddhi is the accumulated experience and wisdom of past incarnations, which provides a channel for the power to flow through to Manas. Electricity can light up a bulb, move the fan, produce heat, move a motor car or even put a person to death in an electric chair. It is the same power put to different uses. Buddhi is the power of perception. It is also perfected perceptions acquired by use of that power. We are the perceivers—we are constantly exercising the power of perception.

All this may sound abstract and difficult to understand. But all of us have felt its presence, experienced its powerful and benevolent influence in our lives. It whispers to us as the Voice of Conscience—guiding us to do what is right. It is the source of flashes of intuition which makes us see the truth, which solves the most complex problem in an instant during the rare moments of our receptivity—like when we go to sleep after a prolonged and exhausting struggle with a troublesome problem. Poets and philosophers, artists and scientists have produced their marvellous work when the higher nature has shed a bright ray on the man below. Every noble impulse has its root in man's higher nature. The more we attune ourselves to it, the more powerful its influence shall grow, and before long the animal man will have transformed himself into divine man. It is up to the incarnated Manas—mind working through this brain and body—to consciously turn within for help and guidance.

Manas per se is not immortal. It has to acquire immortality by uniting itself with Spirit. Manas entangled in the worldly desires can aspire to immortality because of the presence of the God within. Whenever Manas is able to unite, even for a brief moment, with its Divine Parent, it receives an intuitive flash, displaying the mark of a genius. And for enlightened personages like Buddha and Shankara, this union is permanent. As they say, what a man has done, other men can do. We too can attain to enlightenment, not solely on personal strength, but by holding onto the finger offered by the Great Lord within—what H.P.B. in The Secret Doctrine calls Monad—"a plank of salvation" for the personalities to hold on to. At the end of each incarnation, it is the aroma of experiences of life, those which were in tune with our divine nature—universal, impersonal, compassionate—that gets added to the Spiritual Ego or Buddhi-Manas and thereby becomes immortal—enabling the radiance of Atman to shine through.

Monad has passed through millions of transformations in matter, evolving better and better forms. It has garnered experiences in the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms to finally reach the human stage. Impulse to evolution comes from the Monad. When the human stage was reached, there was man in body but not in mind. He was like an animal but with a brain of deeper and higher capacity. Manas that was lying latent was lighted up or activated by those beings who had already undergone evolution on other systems. This was a turning point in man's life. With activation of Manas, a wide gulf now separates man from animal, as now man can take his evolution into his own hands. He has free will, so that he can choose to accelerate or retard his progress. He can choose to become like an animal or raise himself to the level of Gods. Man is now sevenfold: Physical Body; Astral Body or Design Body; Desire nature or Kama or Animal Soul; Life or Prana; Manas or Human Soul; Buddhi or Spiritual Soul; Atma or Spirit.

Man has to realize that he is not his body, emotions, desires or ideas that are changing all the time and that the body is a sacred instrument for the real man to work through.