Kama-Manas

Kama-Manas corresponds in Indian Theosophical terminology approximately to what we call the ego or the lower I of man as it lives in the intellectual or mind soul. By enveloping Manas, the higher self with Kama, the astral wish or desire substance, the ego of man comes into being through Kama-Manas:

„To the Indian disciple the human form, the archetype, became clearly perceptible in the upper Devachan. Then it enveloped itself in the lower Devachan with an astral shell, which had within itself the powers to develop love. The love, the Eros, was called Kama. This is how Kama gets a meaning for the evolution of the Earth. The divine word, Brahman, clothed itself in Kama, and through Kama the primordial word sounded out to the disciple. It was Kama in which Manas clothed himself, that was the I.“ (Lit.:GA 106, p. 58)

In the course of development, Kama-Manas, the intellectual soul, became more and more oriented towards merely satisfying the lower animal needs. This development already began in the decaying period of Egyptian culture:

„What their Chaldean predecessors limited to heavenly connections, the Egyptian sages drew into the service of more and more earthly affairs and animal needs; they placed the manasic entity in the service of matter. This is precisely the character of the intellectual soul, that it uses the manasic wisdom and thereby seeks to satisfy outer needs and wishes. Today this development, the Egyptian darkness, the Manas darkening, is much more advanced. Kama Manas is the name given in Theosophy to such a connection of higher consciousness with animal, earthly, material purposes. The ancient religions saw a defilement of sacred things when man placed his higher spiritual faculty in the service of the lower needs of nature. The name Egypt is the symbol of such apostasy; for it was in Egypt that it first happened on a large scale. The exodus (of the Israelites) is at the same time the exodus of Manas into the higher reality.“ (Lit.:GA 94, p. 265)

Literature

• Rudolf Steiner: Kosmogonie, GA 94 (2001) English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Ägyptische Mythen und Mysterien, GA 106 (1992) English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Die Geheimnisse der Schwelle, GA 147 (1997) English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

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