The Five Bodies of Consciousness
One of the critical missing areas of knowledge in our current medical curriculum is an understanding of the subtle energetic anatomy, known today as the human Biofield. Without a scientific model to explain the ancient systems of healing that use concepts such as Chi – Prana – Life Force, you are essentially reducing the human being to a mechanistic model in which only a pharmaceutical or surgical force can be applied to cure disease. At the same time, this reduced vision disqualifies any other approach to healing as nonscientific. The consequences are tremendous, and as I wrote in Creative Integrative Medicine, “No one knows the price we are paying for an incomplete medical education!”
The Five Bodies of Consciousness introduces allopathic and natural medicine education to the fundamental premises of quantum physics to describe the subtle energy structure of the Biofield. According to Dr. Amit Goswami, quantum physics recognizes that human subtle anatomy has five energetic layers or envelopes: Physical, Vital, Mental, Supramental, and Bliss.
- The first, outermost layer is physical, dense, and is nourished and developed by nutrition and material nourishment. This body is also known as the Physical Body.
- The next layer is more subtle. It is sustained and nourished by the breath and constituted by prana or life force. This body is also known as the Vital Body.
- The third layer, finer still, is the mental layer formed by active thoughts. This body is related to the mental processes as well as to the personality and is also known as the Mental Body.
- The fourth layer is called the Supramental body. A domain of archetypes, this is the intuitive body, also related to the high discriminative capacities. Self-consciousness is one of the expressions of this subtle body.
- The fifth layer is the body of bliss or happiness. This body is the basis of all the other bodies or layers and is related to deeply spiritual experiences of enlightenment where time, space and individuality no longer exists. It is the finest and most subtle layer that interpenetrates all others in a nonlocal and holographic way. The Bliss Body can be understood as the unified field of pure Consciousness dwelling within each individual.
More importantly, Quantum Integrative Medicine is associated with a multidimensional approach to healing that can’t be addressed without referring to the multidimensionality, holographic, and nonlocal nature of human reality, expressions of the Unified Field of Consciousness or, in the words of Goswami, “Consciousness as the ground of all being.”
In conclusion, there is more than the currently taught science-based medical model of chemical and biological structures and functions: there is the reality of the Biofield, more accepted now since quantum physics has laid out a foundation to integrate its energetic reality.
Drawing from advances in quantum biology and biophysics, the Five Bodies of Consciousness will provide a scientific perspective with solid theoretical foundations supported by empirical evidence of how the Chakras, Meridians, Marvelous Vessels, and the Five Bodies can be understood within this multidimensional holographic matrix.
