Dictionary of all Scriptures & Myths

PLANES, FIVE OR SEVEN

These are divisions of the material nature of the universe, graded according to the rates of vibration of the atoms on each plane, the slowest rates being, of course, of the atoms on the physical plane, which is the external or lowest plane of all. In the present cycle of life, only five planes are manifest or in activity: the two highest, to make up the seven, being latent.

"The 'Five Worlds' (Awalim-I Khamsa) of the Sufis. These Five Worlds are not five different localities, but five different planes of existence, which loses in true Being as it descends they are consequently often spoken of as the Five Planes' (Hazrat-i Khamsa).' - GIBB, Hist. of Ottoman Poetry, Vol. I. P. 54.

The five planes of manifestation must be regarded as occupying the same space in the universe, one plane within the other. This explains the bodies or sheaths of the soul, for these are the correlated forms on the lower planes in which each Ego dwells.

See Also

ATOMS
CHAPTERS
DAYS (five)
ELEMENTS, FIVE
GATHA (ahuna)
WORLDS (five)