THE SEVENFOLD HUMAN STRUCTURE
By Lubomir Dimitrov MSc,
Professional Astrologer, Australia

Part 5

The seven human bodies are “chained” to each other. In other words, where one vibration finishes, another one begins and thus, changes in one of the bodies will be passed over to the one immediately above or below it.

Usually, it happens from the top to the bottom – the changes in the Higher Self lead to changes in the Buddhi body. These changes then lead to changes in the Causal body, which in turn causes changes in the astral body and so on, but unfortunately this process can also be reversed.

We can illustrate this with an example of a man who is addicted to smoking. The smoke inhaled with the cigarettes affects the physical body first and causes certain negative effects, such as tar and other heavy residues being deposited at the lungs. These changes in the physical body lead to changes to the body immediately situated above it – the ethereal body. Since the ethereal body is the one that brings us life and health, that means that the life-force and the health of this person will become now out of balance. Once the ethereal body is undermined, that leads to changes also in the astral body. The astral body is the bearer of all our desires and needs and thus, the unbalanced ethereal body misbalances also the astral body in such a way that the person now starts craving smoking on a regular basis. In other words, the changes in the ethereal body lead to changes also in the astral body in such a way that the man in question becomes dependent on the poison that ultimately
destructs him.
If the other (higher) members of the human structure are weak, these negative changes will creep up even further up the ladder of human bodies and affect the mental body of the person (who will now not only crave cigarettes on a regular basis, but it will constantly think about it, and the mental picture of smoking will bring him pleasure). If this process is left uncontrolled, the next member of the human structure will become affected – the causal body and then certain events will start unfolding, affecting directly this person in a negative way:

for example his girlfriend may break up with him, because of his bad habit. Or he may find himself employed in a non-smoking environment, where he will suffer a great deal because of inability to sustain his smoking habit, etc. Further he may find himself in a situation of hardship, because he will not be in a position to sustain financially his addiction, or he can constantly find himself in situations where smoking is regarded highly inappropriate and undesirable. All these symptoms will indicate serious negative changes in the person’s causal body.

Normally the negative changes are stopped here, by the buddhi body. The buddhi body controls the long lasting periods of our lives and if nothing is done to counteract the bad habit, in some cases people may experience extremely long periods of struggle and suffering. These last in some extreme cases for a lifetime and greatly contribute to the degrading and to the falling apart of the whole human structure and ultimately to its death. The process described above becomes greatly aggravated if not cigarettes, but some other drug substances are involved, because in this case the changes in the ethereal and astral bodies are much stronger and the dependency on them is much more compelling.
The same process applies not only for drug addicts, but also for other people who take medically prescribed drugs and over a period of time become dependent on them. The problem with these people is even more severe, because while the consensus within the society is that doing drugs is unacceptable, at the same time taking medically prescribed medicines is regarded as something quite normal. For the clairvoyant observer, however, the difference between the heavy smoker, the drug addict and the person who is dependent on pills is minimal: the final result achieved by these three types of behaviour is essentially the same and leads to a chain reaction that destructs the ethereal, the astral, the mental bodies and so on and in the end leads to an untimely death.

Fortunately, the subtle bodies can be affected not only from below, but also from above. The Athma body or the Higher Self is the body that resides at the top of the chain of human bodies. It is in closest relationship to the God–Creator and basically it is made up of the same matter. In other words, the Higher Self relates to the God– Creator in the same way as the drop of water relates to the ocean. The difference in the size is significant, but the difference in the substance is minimal. Because it resides three levels above the mental body, it is extremely difficult to create a mental concept in our heads about the Higher Self. Nevertheless, its actions can be observed indirectly in the action of the Will of this person. The presence of a strong will power is a very good indicator of a highly developed and strong Higher Self.

Let’s see now how the above mentioned destructive process of smoking can be reversed and turned into good. The opposite process initiates at the level, where the Higher Self resides. Normally the Will to do something about it is triggered as a consequence of all the negative effects caused by smoking. Then, if the person in question possesses a strong enough willpower, he starts changing the Buddhi body below it. We know by now
that the Buddhi body controls the events in our life that are connected with time, or with some lengthy periods of time. For this reason, kicking the bad habit usually starts with the phrase: “From tomorrow I am not going to smoke”, or “From New Year I will stop smoking”, or “I did not smoke before for three months, so I can do it again”. Once a certain time period is set up, the process of changing the Buddhi body is put into motion.

The impulse (the Will) of non-smoking is carried down to the mental body, where the major battle takes place. Thinking of oneself in terms of being a non-smoker can help enormously in that respect. Eventually, this impulse is then carried down to the astral body, which also starts changing and after some period of time it stops craving cigarettes, freeing itself in such way from the dependency which was enslaving the individual before.
Once the individual becomes free of the desire to smoke, the impulse initiated in the Higher Self can now permeate the ethereal body, restoring its original rhythm and flux. Since the ethereal body is the bearer of life and health, not long after that, the individual becomes feeling livelier and healthier. He realizes that now he is in a position to perform tasks which were not possible for him before, for example climbing up the stairs without loosing his breath, or performing physical exercises which he couldn’t do before. And finally, after some time, the ethereal body working on the physical body helps it to clean the tar and other residues accumulated in the lungs, which ultimately lead to a healthier, more functional and much better-looking physical body.

When we regard the controlling mechanisms of the subtle bodies from below and from above, it becomes apparent that the human freedom as it is often perceived in the society is a myth, i.e. in reality it does not exist.

The spiritual world is so densely populated that there is no room for vacuum in the human soul. People, who deny the existence of higher forces (or God) and decide that they can act “freely” as they please, fall inevitably under the influence of the lower spiritual forces and become controlled by them. Those who accept the existence of higher forces and follow voluntarily the God’s will become controlled by those forces from above.

Such is the man’s destiny – his freedom lies only in the choice which forces he would prefer to be controlled by. Drug addicts are a perfect example that illustrates this notion. Everyone is familiar with the incapability of our society to deal with this problem. The reason why a whole bunch of doctors, psychologists, politicians, professors, social workers and the like cannot solve this problem is because these people do not understand the sevenfold human structure. They regard people as being made up of physical bodies only and this is why they
fail in their attempts to find a solution. The major battlefield in the case of the drug addicts is not in their physical bodies, but in their astral bodies. This is the realm where they become controlled and possessed by the overwhelming forces of the lower spirits. It is impossible for any mere mortal to resist by himself the compelling power of the lower spirits in their deadly mission. This is especially true for individuals with a relatively weak will power. The only way to overcome any dependency (i.e. to win the battle in the astral and in the mental body) is to ask the higher, benevolent spirits for help. Besides, it is not important if the individual
will ask them consciously or unconsciously for assistance – the bottom line is that without such help, the mere mortal human is not in a position to win this battle. The immense power of the lower spirits can be overcome only from above, once the man accepts God in his heart and lets the higher forces control his life, instead of the lower ones.

Let’s take as an example the drug rehabilitation centre, established in Russia by Ieromonah Anatoly Berestov. Father Berestov is a medical doctor, a monk and a neurologist. His drug addicts rehab centre was opened in Moscow in 1988. It is called the Charitable Centre of St. John Kronstadt. The father believes that prayer, confession and communion remain the most effective cures for Russia's millions of drug users. Each client at the Charitable Centre participates in Orthodox worship. After finishing the program, some receive additional
treatment at hospital day programs and others further rehab, including job training at one of the five rural facilities. Some decide to enter monasteries.
Seventy percent of Russia's 450,000 officially registered addicts are 25 and younger, and most start using drugs at the age of 14 or 15. Rehabilitation programs are few, and patients must pay for treatment in almost all of them, in contrast to the Soviet era, when alcohol and drug treatment were not only free but also mandatory. The program at Berestov's 6-year-old centre, which is financed entirely by donations, includes psychological and medical counselling, work at the centre or a nearby monastery, and a heavy regimen of prayer.
It is important to note that most people that enter Father Berestov’s rehab centre are anything but what you could call Christian believers. Their average age is 22, and the youngest is 17. Most of them have criminal pasts and are raised in an environment of constant violence, rape and abuse. “They're all former criminals, even murderers," - says Berestov himself - "But I'm not a police officer. I'm a priest, and my role is to repair." Most
of the addicts that turn to this rehab centre do this initially out of despair, having realized that no one else can help them.

Practically all patients before entering the rehab centre had no concept of what is a sin, virtue or chastity. By 16 - 18 years of age they were already guilty against all 10 commandments given by the God to Prophet Moses on Mount Sinai. Their life was entirely defined by ideology of hedonism: pleasure, pleasure and again pleasure.
But it is necessary to pay for pleasure and this payment costs considerable money. And where to get the money from? And then they have to steal, plunder, enter criminal groupings and even to kill. In such a way we see that for those people all values in life were reversed and what is really a virtue was considered by them to be a bad thing and what is a real sin was considered by them to be good. The important role of the rehab centre of Father
Berestov is to reverse the value system of these people and to turn these teenagers to their real, spiritual values.

“Once this is done” – says Father Berestov – “we do not have to heal anybody, because Christ Himself does the healing in the addict’s souls”. The latest statistics shows that the centre has an 80 percent success rate for the 3,000 addicts treated there so far.
The program of Ieromonah Anatoly Berestov is very popular in Russia and he regularly appears in the newspaper columns, on radio and on TV. A simple search on his name in the Internet on Google or some of the other search engines brings up many articles about him. As a further reading for those readers who are interested in his program I can recommend the article “Liturgy vs. Opium” which the reader can find on http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/001/19.28.html.

The rehabilitation centre of Ieromonah Anatoly Berestov is just one example which shows that the dependence on the dark, lower, spiritual forces can be overcome only by voluntarily submitting one’s soul to the higher spiritual forces of light.

The spiritual world is densely populated by spiritual beings that reside on all of the seven layers of energy vibrations described above. Some of them operate in the lower astral world, some of them in the higher astral world, some of them live only in our thoughts, etc. Besides, some of them are benevolent toward us; some of them are far from it. In the example of the processes described above both types of spirits will lead a battle for supremacy in the seven human bodies. The spirits, controlling the higher human bodies try to ascend the Man
higher, so that he can come closer to their realm and become eventually one of them. On the contrary, the spirits working in his lower bodies try to drag him down so they can use him for their own purposes and to make him a puppet in their hands. The epic fight between the spirits for supremacy in the man’s soul is at the same time comic and tragic, mainly because most humans are totally unaware of it! In essence this is the battle between
the “good” and the “evil” described in the Bible. Every single man living on this planet has to decide for himself which of these forces he prefers to join during his lifetime and this choice will determine to a great extent his future destiny.