The Subtle Body

The subtle body is formed of channels through which the ‘winds’ travel. Sentience is an awareness that arises in association with a physicality we call the ‘body’.

The body and its organs of sensation are made of the four physical elements and the 24 derived elements. What animates this body is called the subtle body — a collection of fine physical tubules that trap and modify the light of consciousness. Here, we will learn how this subtle body arises, and I will briefly cover its structure.

The first polarity that brings about life is established between the sperm — the white substance — and the ova — the red substance.

The sperm contains, in addition to DNA, structures called centromeres within its neck. When the sperm fuses with the ovum, it delivers these centromeres, along with paternal DNA, into the cytoplasm of the ovum. Centromeres are specialised organelles that develop into asters — star-like structures of radially arranged microtubules. These microtubules form the skeleton of the cell and are essential in cell division, attaching to chromosomes and pulling them into daughter cells.

I suspect these asters, being close to the wavelength of light, catch photons and may act as cellular illumination at the microscopic level.

The ovum, having expelled its own centromeres during maturation, is receptive to the paternal centromeres upon fertilisation. Thus, the sperm provides the structural information upon which the subtle body is built — through its centromeres and asters — forming the fine tubes that give the cell structure and form. The ovum remains pristine, serving as the receptive base material.

Once fertilised, a polarity is established between the light-trapping aster and the red substance, about which a fine network of channels develops. This network radiates from the aster like a microcosmic nervous system. Over the first three months of development, this primary channel network is duplicated and specialised into lineages of channels throughout the organism, functionally and morphologically distinct but resonant across the whole body.

These microscopic channels organise into major and minor networks based on cellular mass activity. While bathed in dynamic electromagnetic fields generated by circulating iron-rich haemoglobin, these channels process consciousness, which manifests as light. Though individually microscopic, when coordinated across cells, they form patterns we recognise as chakras. The chakras seem to rotate, but in reality, they resemble sequentially activated segments, like lights flashing in sequence to simulate movement.

Each cell’s polarity — between its light-collecting aster and its elemental base — reflects the alaya consciousness. While every healthy cell connects to the alaya, it primarily maintains cellular health. From about six weeks after conception, the heart begins functioning and forms a static electromagnetic vortex known as the heart base. This becomes the attachment point for the gandharva — the intermediate being — establishing the mind of the developing being.

The mind arises as the ongoing bhavanga (life continuum) — the rebirth-linking consciousness carried forward from previous existence. The eight consciousnesses now arise:

• The alaya (storehouse consciousness) touches every cell.
• The five sense consciousnesses arise as karmic patterns appear in the sense fields.
• Discriminative mind (sixth consciousness) observes the mind door itself.
• The seventh consciousness arises between the senses, mind, and alaya, producing perceptions that create the illusion of self through object-subject division.

This cellular polarity extends across the organism. The white substance becomes the white bindu at the crown of the head; the red substance forms the red bindu at the navel. At death, these bindus merge at the heart centre. During life, they establish the polarities of the subtle body. Clusters of specialised cells form blood vessels (red bindus) and nerves (white bindus), while microtubules within cells transmit light.

Consciousness arises through this light-trapping process and manifests as the ‘winds’ that animate the body. These winds result from voltage differences across the electromagnetic body and are tenfold: five primary winds and five secondary winds. General anaesthesia may structurally affect these fine tubules, suspending sensory awareness by disrupting the sensory sphere.

The Bodhisattva, through mastery of these bindus, winds, channels, and chakras, is said to perform healing and purify physical stains within the subtle body.

I like to imagine the physical body as a lattice of fine, glass-like needles, harvesting and channelling sunlight and moonlight, which follow fixed energetic directions independent of their visible position in the sky. These subtle directions change through daily, lunar, and solar cycles.

According to tradition, by three months of gestation all the subtle channels are formed. Thereafter, one solar and one lunar channel are lost each day, so that by about 97 years of age, enough channels are lost to initiate physical decline and death.

“In the body, the whole cosmos is reflected.”
— *The Upanishads*