The theory of the Four Bodies (a neverending story)

….The following text is a short consideration of an neverending research...so, be patient, receptive and open-minded… In accord to the ancient teachings, a man has four bodies: physical, emotional, intellectal and causal. Differently from many other esoteric diciplines, the Fourth Way system says that a mechanical man normally has only the first body, the physical; the other three bodies are only a possibility. This concept causes often more confusion between the seekers and this theory is often ignored or even ridiculed by the followers of the various fractions of the New Age movement. Let put aside the boorish considerations of these individuals who follows only beliefs instead of the effort of creating an objective reason, an healthy function of their intellectual center, and lets leave as well the purely theoretical considerations. Let’s start to think with a clear brain. So, a man has the subtles bodies or they are only a possibility? in my experience, the answer for bot questions is “yes and no”; there would be better saying that the superior bodies exists as possibility -I don’ t consider the sentence “they are only a possibility”, because this omits the existence of something that is possible to be developed in a concrete body. But, to understand something about this argument, is better to start from the beging: What is a body? What they mean? And, the core, question, what is a subtle body? Ordinary, when we speak about the subtle- higher bodies, we create an immage related to our physical veichle and assign them the same form: two hands, two legs, eyes, head and so on; is this a correct interpretation? Maybe! But, if we search to the etymological meaning of this word, we can see that the body has his concrete meaning: this word derives from the latin CORPUS, and it means “agglomerate, a whole”. Now, we can suppose a little bit objectively that the body means a whole of something, of some substnce: the physical body is the ensemble of all the flash, the bones, the organs and all that is part of him; in the same manner, we can say that the emotional “body” is a whole of all we perceive as emotions; and the intellectual body is the whole of our thinkings and thoughts system; we or, better said, I can say anything about the causal or spiritual body, because I can’t perceive what is the substance that can model him. So, this is a possible answer to the above mentioned “the subtle bodies are only a possibility: we have all the necessary stuff to make a superior body, but it remains usesless if we don’t use him. First of all, we cannot recognize nor administrate our emotions, so these emotions remain scattered and disconected between them: one moment we feel peace, the other angry, anxiety, peace, and this change for thousand times during one day; the consideration can be applied for the intellect: we can’t control nor administrate our thoughts, they change steadily. So, the subtle bodies exists in all of us as a possibility but they are like an atrophied muscle: they need to be trained to become concrete and efficient. And the training to achieve this aim is well known by the seekers on this path: self- observation, constantly efforts, discipline, intentional sufferings and objective faith. This is the only way I’ve perceived in my experience, and I ponder that an experience is better that thousand theories. All the best