Is what we see and experience with our five senses all that we have? Or is there more to the names and forms around us? Sri Adi Sankaracharya in the Atma Bodha gives a part-by-part explanation of all that we call ourselves. Earlier, it was about the constitution of the physical body which is like a home. To this house, our daily experiences are delivered. We go through joy and sorrow, and most often the experiences are simply normal with no extreme peaks.
How do we feel joy and sorrow? There is a very subtle equipment in the body called thought. This thought manifests in many ways and carries out many functions. It expresses the five modifications of the energy of perception called prana. At its natural state, prana is responsible for perception through the sense of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Added to this are the five senses of action—speech, grasping, walking, excreting and reproducing. Besides, there are the two faculties of thinking and intellection carried out by the mind and the intellect. Together these components constitute the subtle part of our personality.
Their main role is to function as a tool of experience. It is because of this subtle body that we are able to feel, hear, taste, smell and see. When the mind is disturbed, the hand cannot hold things properly, the foot can miss steps leading to a fall, the speech may not be proper.
At the level of the mind, the thoughts are received by the subtle body, just like a reporter who collects information from the world outside and all the happenings within too. These collected informations are then experienced by the mind as thoughts.
We usually point to the intellect as residing in the head as the brain. The intellect, in fact, is the intense feeling that is within a plain thought. The source of feeling is actually the heart. This feeling makes the thought strong enough to manifest as words and actions. We may see the picture of an ice cream. It registers in the mind as a name and form of ice cream. This thought will not disturb us into action. However, the feelings about ice cream that we entertain, generated in the heart, fuels the light thought and stirs us into the action of seeking to buy or ask for it and finally eat it.
While the gross body is a specific mixture of five elements—earth, water, fire, air and space—the subtle body has those five elements in their natural subtle condition. Earth exists in the subtle body as smell, water as taste, fire as heat, air as breath and space as sound. This subtle body is the means by which we experience the names, forms, emotions and thoughts that are generated.