How the Spiritual Self Looks

Before Freud & Jung, our Sanatan Dharma had decoded how our mind works ages ago & here’s the tea.

First, the Bhraman or the nirgun i.e. formless Super Being activates little baby souls called “atmans” to play in its pool called the bhramanda or universe.

Bhraman sits in all our atmans as the paramatman, kinda acting like our inner moral compass. And to make our life easy, it dresses up in sagun or physical states through different Bhagavans which are the Gods we worship.

Around our atman we have 5 koshas or layers like the peeled skins of an onion, starting with the outer-most Annamaya kosha or sthoola sharir i.e. physical body.

We then have Pranomaya, Manomaya & Vidnyanomaya koshas which are basically our breath, mind & intellect forming the Sukshma Sharir or subtle body - these bodies are built by the 5 elements or the panchabhootas.

This mental layer is further divided into 4 organs called Antaḥkaraṇa, starting with Ahamkarara (ego) which helps us identify ourself, Buddhi (intellect) which helps us make decisions, Manas (or our mind) which is where our desires come from, and chitta or memory which stores our learnings.

Here we meet the 3 DNA strands of the universe i.e. gunas of rajas, sattva & tamas which interact with our mental & physical organs to form the spiritual genes that affect our personality & mood.

At the end, we have the Anandamaya kosha or state of bliss which is a close reflection of the Atman, which we temporarily access in REM deep sleep or when are at complete peace.

In short, the goal of our life is to peel all of these layers through meditation & good karma, helping us go from a Jeevatman to the unity with the Bhraman.