Mr. B. C. Das, a Lecturer in Physics of Allahabad University, asked: “Does not intellect rise and fall with the man?”
M.: Whose is the intellect? It is man’s. Intellect is only an instrument.
D.: Yes. Does it survive man’s death?
M.: Why think of death? See what happens in your sleep. What is your experience there?
D.: But sleep is transient whereas death is not.
M.: Sleep is intermediate between two waking states; so also death is between two successive births. Both are transient.
D.: I mean when the spirit is disembodied, does it carry the intellect with it?
M.: Spirit is not disembodied. The bodies differ. It may not be a gross body. It will then be a subtle body, as in sleep, dream or day-dream. Intellect does not alter; the bodies may differ according to circumstances.
D.: The spirit-body is the astral body then?
M.: The Intellect is the astral body even now.
D.: How can it be?
M.: Why not? You seem to think that the intellect cannot be limited like a body. It is only an aggregate of certain factors. What else is the astral body?
D.: But intellect is a sheath?
M.: Yes. Without intellect, no sheath is cognised. Who says that there are five sheaths? Is it not the intellect that declares thus?