Yes. The concept of a gandhabba (mental body) is necessary for at least two reasons:
1. Some babies die within a few months, and some even die in the womb within a few days of conception. If the ‘human existence’ is limited to the ‘birth with a physical body,’ does the ‘human existence’ end after such a short time for them?
2. In rebirth accounts, there is always a gap of several years (sometimes hundreds of years; see “Rebirth Account of Dorothy Eady“) between consecutive rebirths. See “Evidence for Rebirth.” What happens to the ‘person’ in between two consecutive lives with physical bodies?
- Without the concept of a gandhabba (mental body), it is not possible to explain the above observations.
3. Even while living inside a physical body, the gandhabba (mental body) can ‘pop out’ in some situations, especially during heart operations or close to the death of the physical body. See “Near-Death Experiences (NDE): Brain Is Not the Mind.”
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4. The following is an excerpt from another post: “Distorted Saññā Arises in Every Adult but Not in a Newborn.”
“2. A big “mental block” exists in many people’s minds to view the gandhabba as an alien entity. You are your “mental body,” and the physical body is secondary. Your thoughts (cittās) arise in your mental body. Once outside the physical body, the mental body can see, hear, and think independently; of course, it cannot taste, smell, or touch.
- It has been ingrained in our minds (primarily via modern science) that our physical body (or the brain) creates thoughts. But the physical body is just a “shell” that becomes useless once the mental body (gandhabba) emerges from it.
- As we have discussed, a human bhava (existence) may last many thousands of years. It is that “mental body” that lasts through that whole time.
- Your essence is not your physical body or the brain but your mental body (gandhabba). However, the physical body and the brain play significant roles while the mental body is inside the physical body.
Mutual Interactions Between Mental Body and Physical Body
3. The issue is understanding how the gandhabba (mental body) trapped inside the physical body receives sensory inputs from the external world. That must be understood before understanding how gandhabba recognizes things in the external world (saññā).
So, the first step is: How does the gandhabba receive information about the external world? How does it see someone standing in front of the physical body?
Facts:
- Gandbabba consists of only a hadaya vatthu (seat of the mind) and five pasada rupa (cakkhu, sota, ghāna, jivhā, kāya.)
- If the gandhabba is outside the physical body (as in an out-of-body experience, such as an OBE/NDE), it can see and hear by itself; see the chart in #5 below. Here, seeing and hearing happen via mechanisms we don’t understand.
- However, when the gandhabba is within the physical body, it is completely shielded from the external world; the body must function effectively to transmit sensory signals to the gandhabba. Take vision first. To see something, the physical eyes must work. That light signal must be transmitted to the brain via the optic nerves and processed there. The brain MUST pass that information to the gandhabba (by a mechanism we don’t fully understand).
- Sometimes, during accidents or due to other medical reasons, one of those three components (physical eyes, optical nerves, or brain function) may permanently or temporarily stop.
- If the brain function stops (temporarily), the patient cannot see, hear, or respond in any way.
4. That is what happened to the woman in the following video. She temporarily lost brain function.
Notes:
- In most cases, the patient is unaware of the external world until the brain recovers. However, in the above case, the patient’s gandhabba came out of her body and enabled her to see without the aid of her physical body.
- The woman’s gandhabba may have come out of the paralyzed body at some point. It was in the room when Dr. Greyson came and followed him to the other room, where her friend was. The gandhabba was watching and listening to the conversation between her friend and Dr. Greyson.
- Once medical treatment restored her brain function, she could recall the conversation and tell Dr. Greyson about it in great detail. She not only heard but also saw the full details. That is why she noticed the stain on Dr. Greyson’s tie!
- So, she was able to see with her gandhabba body. Can there be any doubts about that?
- The gandhabba coming out of the physical body is not a common occurrence. However, he mentioned (perhaps in another video) that approximately 10% of people have experienced such an OBE. It is more common when patients undergo heart operations because the hadaya vatthu in the mental body overlaps the heart in the physical body.”