Mayavi-rupa body

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The Mayavi-rupa body (from Sanskritमाया māyā, "illusion, sorcery"; literally "the great non-being" and रुपा, Rūpa, "form"), also called illusion-body or manifestation-body, is a temporary astral body which only the adept can form willingly and fully consciously from the mental body (Lit.:GA 88, p. 253) and through which it can temporarily become visible and effective on the astral plane. It is formed by thoughts from astral matter and is therefore also called the "thought-body". Its form corresponds to the purposes which the adept wishes to realise through it. When the work on the astral plane is finished, the illusory body dissolves again and the adept returns to the mental plane. In special cases, the Mayavi-rupa body can also be formed unconsciously by uninitiated people as an astral projection. For example, if one thinks very intensely of another person, the Mayavi-rupa body can appear to that person, if they are receptive to it, without one becoming aware of it[1]. Occasionally the Mayavi-rupa body is also associated with the appearance of the double.[2][3].

„What we see is the physical body, it belongs to the mineral kingdom, but through Prana, the life principle, it lives also in the etheric sphere of the plant world, it has its etheric body; and further it lives also through sensation in the astral world, in its astral body, and through rational imagination in the mental world, through the Kama-Manas principle. Man has four bodies in the lower world with the principles. But he is also connected with the higher world, because he has his origin there. He can develop his mental body and advance from the idea of the individual and the many to the idea of the type, he can develop the causal body and rise to the higher world of the trinity Manas-Budhi-Atma. In the Budhi sphere he will be able to form his thoughts out of astral matter, to create the Mayavi-rupa body, will live and work out of his causal soul, will himself be a creator and again become one with the totality. But this upper trinity, to which man must ascend, is in truth present hidden deep within him, it underlies his being, he must liberate it one after the other - 'As above, so below'.“ (Lit.:GA 88, p. 173)

Literature

References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

Weblinks

References

  1. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. XII (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 706.
  2. "M.C. Every country in the world believes more or less in the "double" or doppelganger. The simplest form of this is the appearance of a man's phantom, the moment after his death, or at the instant of death, to his dearest friend. Is this appearance the mayavi rupa?
    H.P.B. It is; because produced by the thought of the dying man.
    M.C. Is it unconscious?
    H.P.B. It is unconscious to the extent that the dying man does not generally do it knowingly; nor is he aware that he so appears. What happens is this. If he thinks very intently at the moment of death of the person he either is very anxious to see, or loves best, he may appear to that person. The thought becomes objective; the double, or shadow of a man, being nothing but the faithful reproduction of him, like a reflection in a mirror, that which the man does, even in thought, that the double repeats. This is why the phantoms are often seen in such cases in the clothes they wear at the particular moment, and the image reproduces even the expression on the dying man's face. If the double of a man bathing were seen it would seem to be immersed in water; so when a man who has been drowned appears to his friend, the image will be seen to be dripping with water. The cause for the apparition may be also reversed; i.e., the dying man may or may not be thinking at all of the particular person his image appears to, but it is that person who is sensitive. Or perhaps his sympathy or his hatred for the individual whose wraith is thus evoked is very intense physically or psychically; and in this case the apparition is created by, and depends upon, the intensity of the thought. What then happens is this. Let us call the dying man A, and him who sees the double B. The latter, owing to love, hate, or fear, has the image of A so deeply impressed on his psychic memory, that actual magnetic attraction and repulsion are established between the two, whether one knows of it and feels it, or not. When A dies, the sixth sense or psychic spiritual intelligence of the inner man in B becomes cognizant of the change in A, and forthwith apprises the physical senses of the man, by projecting before his eye the form of A, as it is at the instant of the great change. The same when the dying man longs to see some one; his thought telegraphs to his friend, consciously or unconsciously along the wire of sympathy, and becomes objective. This is what the "Spookical" Research Society would pompously, but none the less muddily, call telepathic impact."
    ON ASTRAL BODIES, OR DOPPELGANGERS, abgerufen am 4.10.2013
  3. Mayavi-Rupa (Sanskrit). This is a compound of two words: mayavi, the adjectival form of the word maya, hence "illusory"; rupa, "form"; the mayavi-rupa or thought-body, or illusory-body, a higher astral-mental form. The mayavi can assume all forms or any form, at the will of an Adept. A synonymous philosophical term is protean soul. In Germany medieval mystics called it the doppelganger. There is a very mystical fact connected with the mayavi-rupa: the Adept is enabled to project his consciousness in the mayavi-rupa to what would seem to the uninitiated incredible distances, while the physical body is left, as it were, intranced. In Tibet this power of projecting the mayavi-rupa is called hpho-wa.
    Gottfried de Purucker: Occult Glossary [1]