How Meditation Affects the Subtle Bodies

We continue our Bodhi in the Brain Virtual Group Meditation via Zoom/YouTube, this evening, 8–10pm.

(Headphones or Earbuds Required)
Meeting ID: 859 0097 8411
Passcode: 676036

How Meditation Affects the Subtle Bodies

Modern science studies the brain’s waves, yet ancient wisdom charts the frequencies of being itself. Meditation doesn’t just calm the nervous system, it reorganizes the architecture of existence that extends beyond the skin. The physical body is the outermost layer of a far more intricate continuum, a series of subtle fields known as the etheric, emotional, mental, causal, and ultimately the nondual body. Each meditation deepens the conversation between these dimensions, aligning them into coherent resonance.

The first transformations begin within the etheric field; the energetic counterpart of the physical form. Breath slows, the heartbeat steadies, and prana, or life-force, begins to flow more evenly. This harmony clears stagnation and revitalizes the channels through which energy circulates. As vitality expands, the emotional body awakens. Old patterns surface to be felt and released. Meditation becomes the silent therapist, allowing the residue of unprocessed emotion to dissolve without resistance. The emotional body’s purification is not about suppression but integration; the merging of past experience with present awareness.

As meditation matures, the mental body is refined. Thought loses its compulsive gravity. The gap between thoughts widens, and awareness begins to see the structures of perception themselves. Beliefs, identifications, and judgments reveal their impermanence. A clarity dawns that no longer seeks to control reality but to understand its nature. This clarity is not cold detachment; it is spacious intimacy.

When these bodies are harmonized, the causal body, often associated with the witnessing consciousness, becomes luminous. Meditation pulls back the veils until only pure presence remains. Every subtle sheath becomes transparent to the light of awareness, allowing consciousness to know itself directly. This recognition transforms the very experience of being alive. The universe no longer feels external; it vibrates as one’s own inner current.

Understanding this process matters because human suffering is not merely psychological; it’s energetic. Distortion in one layer ripples through the rest. A clear mind cannot inhabit a body holding unresolved pain, and a peaceful heart cannot flourish in a field clouded by mental noise. Meditation realigns the total system, restoring coherence between all layers of being.

When the subtle bodies function as a single continuum, existence ceases to feel fragmented. The physical world, emotions, and thought merge as one stream of intelligent energy. Meditation reveals this unity not as belief but as direct knowing; the living pulse of reality experienced through every cell and every silence between heartbeats.

Morgan O. Smith

Executive Director

Bodhi Mental Care & Wellness

The Divine Soil of Atman

Understanding the Unity of Existence

Atman is identical to Brahman, fundamentally the same. While Atman is often viewed as the individualized aspect of Brahman, it retains its essence as Brahman. Brahman is the ground of all being, and Atman is but a speck of this divine soil. This soil, sharing the same substance as the ground, emphasizes their intrinsic unity.

Atman itself has no location, shape, or form, yet the physical body—the gross body—does. This physical body is also Atman but has shape and form, making it localized and subject to polarity. The physical body, dense and tangible, includes everything that constitutes it: vibrating strings, subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, and cells. Each of these elements, in their individual form, is Atman.


All the subtle bodies are also Atman, spanning from the most subtle to the gross physical body. When the physical body dies, the soul doesn’t leave the body because it is non-local. The soul, as Atman, remains ever-present. Atman offers a more sophisticated explanation of the soul. Remember, Atman doesn’t leave the body because there’s nothing there to leave. This nothing or nothingness is Atman, the empty witness.

The opposite of all shapes and form is indeed all shape and form. Nothingness is non-local, omnipresent, and ubiquitous. In its absolute state, nothingness manifests as everything. This empty witness manifests its individual reality. Every event that occurs from its individual perspective is Atman. Everything that happens, from all perspectives, is Brahman. Atman and Brahman are the same, transcending the ego and the sense of self.


Transcending the ego is an act, part of the cosmic play that Atman/Brahman engages in. The same Atman/Brahman that doesn’t exist yet does. Everything and nothing are the same, merely imagined from two different perspectives.

Morgan O. Smith

Yinnergy Meditation, Spiritual Life Coaching & My Book, Bodhi in the Brain…Available Now!

https://linktr.ee/morganosmith