The Inner Life, v. I/Fifth Section/IV

THE CAUSAL BODY No number of physical bodies could fully contain the causal body, any more than any number of lines can make a square, or any number of squares can make a cube. The ego puts himself down into his various bodies with the hope of gaining two things — to make the causal body learn to respond to more vibrations, and also to increase its size. Most people are not more than just conscious in the causal body. The strings of such egos cannot be played upon directly, but are affected from below by way of overtones. Most men can at present only work on the matter of the third sub-plane of the mental (the lowest part of their causal bodies), and indeed only the lower matter even of that is usually in operation. When they are on the Path, the second sub-plane opens up. The adept uses the whole causal body while his consciousness is on the physical plane. A rough and ready way of deciding at what stage a man stands is to look at the causal body. It shows also how he arrived there. Men develop unequally — we are all undeveloped in some way. An animal has a minimum-sized causal body as soon as he is individualized; then it has to be developed both as to size and color.