The Sanskrit term “Mayavi Rupa” literally means “illusionary body,” “illusory form,” or “body of illusion.” Its equivalent term in Tibetan Buddhism is “Gyu-lu,” although the Buddhist usage of that term does not have quite the same meaning as in the Esoteric Philosophy known as Theosophy.
What “Mayavi Rupa” actually means in Theosophy, however, has long been something of a mystery to many.
We began the article What Is The Causal Body? by saying, “Within the authentic Theosophical literature there are various layers and levels of meaning and esoteric disclosure. One of the most striking examples of this is in regard to the subject of the Causal Body, or Karana Sharira in Sanskrit.” We could add that much the same can also be said in relation to the subject of the Mayavi Rupa and what it really is.
As with the Causal Body or Karana Sharira, the Mayavi Rupa is subjected to a variety of differing, hazy, unclear, and sometimes contradictory definitions in some of the writings of H. P. Blavatsky. But as we expressed in that article, this is not due to some fault or incompetence of hers but rather because these subjects relate to something profoundly esoteric and deeply sacred, almost nothing of which can be clearly, directly, and specifically stated and explained in public print, but a small amount of which is occasionally permitted to be made a little clearer as time goes on. As with the Causal Body, HPB’s earlier remarks about the Mayavi Rupa tend to confuse or at least not illuminate, whereas towards the end of her life she occasionally made clearer and more specific disclosures for the benefit of her readers or rather those readers attentive and serious enough to take note.
In a September 1880 editorial footnote in “The Theosophist” to “Nanga Baba of Gwalior,” HPB uses the term “Mayavi-Rupa” as an exact synonym for the Kama Rupa (our desire and passional nature, the fourth Principle of the sevenfold human constitution) and for the Linga Sharira (the astral body or astral double, the second or sometimes counted as the third human Principle). For insights into the astral body, please read carefully Theosophy on The Astral Body and The Question of The Etheric Body, Astral Body, and Other Bodies.
In “The Present Great Need of a Metaphysico-Spiritual Vocabulary” (April 1882) she directly equates the Mayavi Rupa with the Kama Rupa. In July 1883, she calls the Mayavi Rupa “the astral or inner body” and in her posthumously published article “Chinese Spirits” she again equates the Mayavi Rupa with the Linga Sharira or astral body.
In a letter to A. P. Sinnett, the Mahatma K.H. had used the expression “that ethereal body-shadow – the Mayavi-rupa,” using it again as a synonym for the astral double, occasionally called the ethereal double or ethereal body (but which does not mean “etheric,” the now popular “etheric body” being largely a post-Blavatsky invention by C. W. Leadbeater and has only a partial basis in the original Theosophical teachings, as we have shown here).
In “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 241, the Mayavi Rupa is called the “astral body” but this is then said to also mean “the animal-human Soul,” which is not how the term “astral body” is ordinarily defined and used in Theosophy.
On p. 190 of “The Key to Theosophy,” written the following year, Mayavi Rupa is presented as a synonym for Kama Rupa and is therefore said to be “the personal form” which, after death, becomes the “shell” and “is carried off to remain in Kamaloka and to be gradually annihilated.” Similarly, shortly afterwards in “Transactions of The Blavatsky Lodge,” we read that “once the body is dead, the body of illusion, Mayavi Rupa, becomes Kama Rupa, or the animal soul, and is left to its own devices.” (p. 75)
In “Dialogues Between The Two Editors: On Astral Bodies, or Doppelgangers” HPB first refers to the Mayavi Rupa as “the “Thought” body, or Dream body, rather,” and proceeds to explain it in the same way as the quotes in our above paragraph.
Later on in that article, however, she gives a more specific explanation, which refers to something quite different from all her preceding explanations of this term:
“The adept may at his will use his Mayavi-rupa, but the ordinary man does not, except in very rare cases. It is called Mayavi-rupa because it is a form of illusion created for use in the particular instance, and it has quite enough of the adept’s mind in it to accomplish its purpose.”
Her entry for “Plastic Soul” in “The Theosophical Glossary” (p. 255-256) sheds some further light on this point. She does not use “plastic soul” as a term for the Mayavi Rupa but rather for “the linga sharira or the astral body of the lower Quaternary,” although the astral body is technically not really a “soul” of any sort. But she then goes on to emphasise:
“The linga sharira must not be confused with the mayavi rupa or “thought body” – the image created by the thought and will of an adept or sorcerer; for while the “astral form” or linga sharira is a real entity, the “thought body” is a temporary illusion created by the mind.”
This is more helpful for our present purpose than the actual entry for “Mayavi Rupa” on p. 211 of “The Theosophical Glossary,” which again equated it with the astral double.
Accepting, as we must, that with the exception of the two quotes in blue above, the Theosophical usage and definitions of “Mayavi Rupa” are mostly confusing or at least lacking any great precision or definiteness, we can deduce from those quotes in blue that –
* The Mayavi Rupa is not a permanent Principle or component in the human constitution.
* The Mayavi Rupa is a temporary form created – when needed – by the mind and will of an Adept (good or bad) for a temporary purpose and situation.
* As an illusory form, the Mayavi Rupa may or may not have the actual bodily appearance of the Adept who has produced it. The Adept could potentially use it as a means of temporarily adopting another form or appearance if he or she sees that this will enable them to help a person or persons more effectively. As it is not the Linga Sharira or astral double, upon and around which the Sthula Sharira or physical body is built, there is no particular reason why a Mayavi Rupa projected by an Adept should represent Their own bodily appearance.
(This is illustrated by an event in Theosophical history that became known as “the Vega Incident.” In March 1882, the Master K.H. mentioned in a letter to A. P. Sinnett – found in “The Mahatma Letters” p. 411 – “I am determined to do that, for once, which hitherto I have never done; namely, to personate myself under another form, and, perhaps – character. Therefore, you need not grudge Eglington the pleasure of seeing me personally, to talk with me, and – be “dumbfounded” by me, and with the results of my visit to him, on board, “The Vega.” This will be done between the 21st and the 22nd of this month . . . As he will see somebody quite different from the real K.H., though it will still be K.H. – you need not feel like one wronged by your trans-Himalayan friend.” William Eglinton was a young English Spiritualist medium who had gone to India to try to find out for himself whether H. P. Blavatsky and the many reports of visitations and occult phenomena from the Mahatmas were genuine. The Masters decided to avoid giving him any proof of Their reality and powers until he was on his return ship home, as the Master K.H. observed, “Now that he is gone, and will be on the 22nd, hundreds of miles away at sea; and that no suspicion of fraud can [then] be brought against either of them [i.e. HPB and Col. Olcott], the time for the experiment has come. He thinks of putting her to the test – he will be tested himself.” Eglinton would later write: “On the 22nd March, 1882, I was at sea, having left Ceylon [i.e. Sri Lanka] about 6 p.m. the same day. I occupied a deck cabin forward under the bridge. About ten o’clock I was in this cabin undressing preparatory to sleeping on deck, my back being to the open door. On turning round to make my exit, I found the entrance barred by what I took, at first sight, to be a khitmaghur or native butler. Thinking he had come on some message, I waited for him to speak, but as he did not do so, and deeming his manner insolent from his not having demanded entrance, and not paying the deference usual to Europeans, I angrily told him, in Hindustani, to go away; whereupon he stepped into the cabin, grasped me by the right hand, and gave me the grip of a Master Mason before I had sufficiently recovered from my astonishment. I requested him to tell me why he had intruded upon me and to state his business. Speaking in perfect English, he deliberately informed me he was “Koot Hoomi Lal Singh,” and I was at the moment so profoundly impressed with his general appearance, his knowledge of Freemasonry, and the statement that he really was the person, mystic, or Adept of whom I had heard so much during my residence in India, that without hesitation I accepted him as such. We then entered into conversation of some length, of no particular importance to anyone but myself, but it proved to me that he was intimately acquainted with both the Spiritualistic and Theosophical movements, as well as with friends of mine in India. He was in every respect an intelligent man, perfectly formed, and in nowise differing, in outward semblance at any rate, from the thousands of natives one sees in the East. Nor was it hallucination, for I was in full possession of all my faculties; and that it was not a subjective vision is proved by the grasp of the hand, and the very evident materiality of the figure. Some little thing attracted my attention from him for a moment, for I was criticizing him keenly, and when I turned my head again – he was gone! Two steps took me to the open door, where I had the advantage of scanning both the fore and aft decks, but I could observe no one in the act of retreating, although no living being could have in the time escaped from the range of my vision.” He concludes that the next day he “searched the ship, even going down into the shaft tunnel to find a person in appearance like the man I had seen on the previous night” but was unable to find any trace of such a person.)
* Understood in this light, the Mayavi Rupa is a “Thought Body” in the sense that it is a temporary body that has been created, fashioned, and brought into manifestation by an individual’s thought. Usually, it is a suitably trained Initiate who does this; however, HPB has mentioned in other places that anyone has the potential to unconsciously and unknowingly send forth a Mayavi Rupa on certain rare occasions, such as if one is thinking about someone with an extreme intensity, in which case that “someone” may have the experience of briefly perceiving the thinker’s form or appearance where they are.
It is not directly stated whether an Adept’s Mayavi Rupa is always only perceptible subjectively by certain people who are sufficiently clairvoyantly or spiritually attuned, or whether a Mayavi Rupa can be made tangible and material enough to be objectively perceptible to anyone and everyone within its immediate locality. We suspect that both scenarios are within the capability of a suitably advanced Initiate.
In a glossary at the end of her book “Buddhism: The Science of Life,” the English Theosophist Alice Leighton Cleather, who had been one of H. P. Blavatsky’s specially chosen twelve members for the Inner Group within her Esoteric School, provides this comment, in the entry for “Mayavi-rupa”:
“The Mayavi-rupa is formed by Kriyashakti, the latent creative potency in man which can be developed by Yoga training. When this power is used consciously by an Adept he first exerts his imagination to create the form and then directs it by his will. If an ordinary person appears to another at a distance it is the mayavi-rupa formed by unconscious Kriyashakti.”
Seeing as the term “Mayavi Rupa” has – as we have shown – been used in a variety of different ways in the Theosophical literature, any student of Theosophy is perfectly free to use the term in any of those different ways. But we would suggest that when a more precise, definite, and comprehensible usage of a term has been given by H. P. Blavatsky, it is better to stick primarily with that one. In this case, the three paragraphs in this article which we have coloured blue reveal and explain far more about what the Masters really mean by the Mayavi Rupa than any other comment about it in the public Theosophical literature.
~ * ~
This article may have raised more questions about various things. Please make use of the site search function (the magnifying glass symbol at the top of the page) and visit the Articles page to see the complete list of over 300 articles covering all aspects of Theosophy and the Theosophical Movement. For more on the Mayavi Rupa, please also see The Question of The Etheric Body, Astral Body, and Other Bodies.
T H E O S O P H Y 