The mechanism of the astral body is composed of eighteen Principles, viz., Consciousness (Intellect), Ego, Mind, the Ten Senses: the Powers of Seeing, Hearing, Smelling. Tasting, Feeling, Speaking, Holding, Moving, Excreting and Generating; and the five attributes of the Elements: Sound, Touch, Form, Taste and Smell. These Principles work through their counterpart-organs of the physical body which is composed of the five remaining Principles, viz., the Five Elements—Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth. Now let us see how the physical body is composed of the five Elements. The vigor of our father and the blood of our mother, of which our physical body is made, are formations of assimilated food. Every kind of foodstuff, vegetable or animal, is but condensed form of earth's juice; earth-juice is earth. Now Earth is composed only of its five attributes: Sound, Touch, Form, Taste and Smell, the first four of which compose Water, the first three compose Fire, the first two Air, and the first, Sound, is the Attribute of Ether (Akās). Therefore the other four Elements are present in earth on account of their respective attributes being contained in it. Our physical body, therefore, being made of formations of Earth, is composed of the Five Elements. The material of the physical body is supplied by our parents and the astral body we supply ourselves. The astral body is our permanent body. It puts on new flesh-garments from time to time. When it slips into a new flesh-garment it is called birth; when it slips out of it, it is called death. But really the astral body lives on forever and ever and never ceases to exist unless we find the means and take measures to destroy it. The extinction the astral body is brought about by the mind's absolute dissociation from the bondage and influence of matter and material ideas, and absorption into the Divine Essence, Mukti. The earth and the visible sky form the physical body of the Universe and the upper six spheres form its astral body which includes still subtler bodies. This means that both the universal and the human bodies are constructed on the same principle. Both are formed of seven bodies, encased like a sheath within a sheath. These are called the Food-made (physical) body, the Vital body, the Mental (or Astral) body, the Psychic body, the Wisdom (or Causal) body, the Blissful body and the Soul body. SECTION XVII. KARMA.