SPIRITUAL UNFOLDMENT: Page 34

The italics are mine. It is a lengthy quotation but each word will repay perusal. Thus we see that "Spiritual Unfoldment" means a gradual stripping off of the dense and subtle sheaths in which man is clothed for the manifestation of the spirit. What is the Spirit ? I can give you but a very poor idea. The spirit is the highest principle, the most sublime attribute of Man. According to the teachings of advanced occultists and the great sages of India. Man is a sevenfold creature; is also in seven sheaths; manifests on seven planes of being. These are according to Yogi Ramacharaka's classification: 7 Spirit; 6 Spiritual mind; 5 Intellect; 4 Instinctive Mind; 3 Prana, Vital Force; 2 Astral Body; 1 physical body. Few, almost none of the present race, have achieved the seventh principle. The spirit in man is a spark from the Divine Flame. It establishes a psychic connection, if I may so put it, between Man and the Absolute. The noblest of men, the most wonderful geniuses, the most brilliant master-minds, were the fortunate recipients of a few flashes of the spirit, which is the Invincible Controlling Power in Man. In moments of deep abstraction, the human consciousness, if concentrated upon high ends, finds messages from the Spirit flash downwards, like a streak of lightning; and the world is startled by the revelation. As I have remarked before, Man is not a finished