Chapter 61The Environmental Consciousness · The Environmental Consciousness around the Individual

In its lowest parts (vital-material) it is the agent of pain, physical illness etc.

* body, from around, below or above. The order of the planes is in reference to each other, not in reference to the body. In reference to each other, the vital physical is below the physical mind, but above the material: but at the same time these powers interpenetrate each other.

* The body energy is a manifestation of material forces supported by a vital-physical energy which is the vital energy precipitated into matter and conditioned by it.

By material is meant the body consciousness, the consciousness of Matter etc. Physical is a wider term. There is for instance a physical mind (which cannot be called material) dealing with outside earthly things.

* A great part of the body consciousness is subconscient and the body consciousness and the subconscient are closely bound together. The body and the physical do not coincide — the body consciousness is only part of the whole physical consciousness.

* What you describe is the material consciousness; it is mostly subconscient, but the part of it that is conscious, is mechanical, inertly moved by habits or by the forces of the lower nature. Always repeating the same unintelligent and unenlightened movements, it is attached to the routine and established rule of what already exists, unwilling to change, unwilling to