Page:Philosophy of bhagawad-gita.pdf/59

Rh the physical wants of man, may no doubt communicate themselves to the astral man, but higher than this they do not go.

This karana sharira is what passes as the real ego, which subsists through incarnation after incarnation, adding in each incarnation something to its fund of experiences, and evolving a higher individuality as the resultant of the whole process of assimilation. It is for this reason that the karana sharira is called the ego of man, and in certain systems of philosophy it is called the jiva.

It must be clearly borne in mind that this karana sharira is primarily the result of the action of the light of the Logos, which is its life and energy, and which is, further, its source of consciousness on that plane of Mulaprakrti which we have called sutratma, and which is its physical or material basis.

Out of the combination of these two elements, and from the action of the energy of the light emanating from the Logos upon that particular kind of matter that constitutes its physical frame, a kind of individuality is evolved.

I have already said that individual existence, or differentiated conscious existence, is evolved out of the one current of life, which sets the evolutionary machine in motion. I pointed out that it is this very current of life that gradually gives rise to individual organisms as it proceeds on its mission. Furthermore it begins to manifest what we call conscious life, and,