The 6 Human Dimensions

In the West, we often view ourselves as nothing more than a physical body. Many ancient traditions, such as the Yogis and the Taoists, viewed the human being as dimensional. They believed we are much more than just a body of muscles, tissues, bones and organs.

In this episode of The BE ULTIMATE Podcast, Travis breaks down these six dimensions using stories, quotes, science and providing clear takeaways to leave you firing on all cylinders.

Understanding these layers helps you to understand how powerful you truly are!

“Know thyself.”
-oracle at Delphi

Hope you enjoy this episode!

The best way you can show your GRATITUDE is to share The BE ULTIMATE Podcast with your community – and please RATE and REVIEW the podcast.

Thank you for helping us spread inspiration and wisdom across the globe!

Episode Summary:
-Overview and intention of The 6 Human Dimensions
-Physical Body Dimension
-Energy Body Dimension
-Mind Dimension
-Heart Dimension
-Awareness Dimension
-Soul Dimension

Inspiring quotes from Wayne Dyer, Jim Rohn, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Vedas, Jesus, Oracle of Delphi, Plato, Albert Camus, Eckhart Tolle, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Theresa


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[The following is the full transcript of this episode of “The Be Ultimate Podcast.” Please note that this is direct from Travis speaking unscripted and unedited.]

Hello, and welcome to episode number six of the Be Ultimate podcast. This episode is called The Six Human Dimensions. 

Now, dimension I know sounds a little bit sci-fi. And I promise you this is not about the next installment of a Star Trek movie. This is actually based upon a philosophy that goes back thousands of years. 

When I was in Ayurveda school, we learned about something called the koshas. And kosha means a sheath or a layer. So from a yogi's point of view, we're made of these various layers, or what I like to call dimensions.

So it's my hope that as we go through this podcast, that maybe you'll understand yourself on a deeper level. The way that I see the world, the way that I see other people, the way that I create things, whether it's a yoga program, a book, or even podcasts, I always think about this framework of the six dimensions. 

If you're a creative, a filmmaker, author, musician, artist, whatever it is that you do, if you think about these six dimensions and you put this into practice, I promise you, you're going to impact people on such a deep level.


A lot of this is really with that intention of just knowing who it is that we really are in this strange human life. 

As the Oracle of Delphi says, "Know thyself.”

 As Jesus said, "Examine yourself. Learn who you are, how you exist, and what will become of you.”

We have to take time to turn our energy inward, to turn our focus in so that we really know who and what we are.

1) Physical Body Dimension

So let's jump into the first dimension of being a human being. The first dimension is the physical body, and this is pretty much common sense. Nobody disputes that we are in this physical body. 

The physical body really consists of muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints, bones, tissues, cells, the pigment of our skin. This is all part of that physical dimension. 

As Wayne Dyer says, "Your body is the garage where your soul is parked." 

So this is the dimension of the garage. This is where we start. How do we take care of this dimension? We do it through exercise. We do it through moving our body. We also do it by what food choices that we make and what we're bringing into our body. All these things are going to affect this physical form that we're in. 

Jim Rohn said, "Take care of your body. It's the only place that you have to live.”

Now, on my first trip to India, I was blessed to go to this sacred - what would you call it? - town called Vrindavan. And Vrindavan is a major pilgrimage site for a lot of devotees of Krishna. So if you're unfamiliar, Krishna represents love. And so people from all over the country, they travel to Vrindavan because this is part of their spiritual practice. I had the fortune and experience of being in Vrindavan for about a week and a half. And one thing that struck me was all these pilgrims were devoted to God. They were devoted to the divine, but they were so devoted they actually neglected their body. They treated their body almost like trash. And many of them were disease-ridden. Their bodies were falling apart. And so I had this visceral experience that the physical body, as Wayne Dyer describes being the garage or the container, is something that we really have to hold sacred. It's something that we have to really take care of. 

When I came back from India, I actually increased the intensity of my yoga practice because I wanted a stronger body. I increased my exercise because I wanted this body to be as strong as it possibly could be. So this is why we honor that physical dimension of who we are by exercising and eating right.

2) Energy Body Dimension

Now let's jump into the second dimension. The second dimension is what we call the energy body. So now we start to get a little bit deeper, and people might be like, "What are you talking about? The energy body? That kind of sounds New Agey or weird." 

Now energy and yoga is called prana. Bruce Lee and the martial artist community, they call it chi. And the ancient Egyptians, they called it Ra. So these are labels of describing energy. 

Now, let's look at the building blocks of life, and then we'll penetrate underneath that. So cells are these building blocks. And when we go deeper into cells, we start to see molecules. And when we go deeper into the molecules, what we find are these clusters of atoms. 

Interestingly, 2,400 years ago, the Buddha had discovered this and even gave it a word, and that word was kalapa. 

So we have these clusters of atoms. Now, what are these atoms made of? Well, these atoms are made of electrons, protons, and neutrons. 

Electrons, protons, and neutrons are the building blocks of the entire material world. This is known as subatomic energy.

Underneath our muscles, our tissues, and our bones is this field or flow of subatomic energy. So that's why dimension number two is really about being aware that on a deeper level, we are energy. 

As Nikola Tesla says, "If you want to know the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration." 

We are vibratory beings made of magnetic energy, made of electricity. 

How do we address this energetic body? Well, we do it through the air that we breathe. We also do it through the food that we eat, food that's raw and alive and free of preservatives. It's not fried. It's not overcooked. That's going to have a tremendous amount of energy. We also get energy from sunlight. We get it by being in nature. And we can also get it through herbs, by drinking herbal tea. 

One thing I learned in Ayurveda school is you can take essential oil, like tulsi, and you can drop about maybe five, six, or seven drops into a bathtub. And the energy of tulsi will infuse the water, and that'll help to support this energetic body. 

Now, another way that we can increase our energetic body is really through proper sleep and rest. If we're overly caffeinating, if we are pounding back Red Bull and eating Doritos, do you think that you're going to have a healthy energy body? No. You may feel good for about 10, 15 minutes, but eventually, you are going to crash.

It's important that you eat well, but you also sleep well, and you find the balance between yang and yin. So you give yourself time to rest, and we can do that through meditation. We can do it through yin yoga. We can do it through restorative yoga. We can do it through activities that activate what we call the parasympathetic state. 

Also, we can do it through breath work. In yoga, we call it pranayama, really working with the breath because the average person only breathes into about one-third of their lung capacity. So most people aren't breathing enough. No wonder they need to go to coffee. No wonder they need to go to stimulants to get energy, because they're not breathing right. So to really get into a practice where we're working with breathing fully and deeply and powerful, this is going to enhance and animate our energetic body. 

As Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, "The world belongs to the energetic." 

So we need energy. We need energy in life to do our jobs. We need energy to be there for our families, our friends, our loved ones. We need energy to fulfill our purpose in this world, our dharma. 

There is a Sanskrit proverb that says, "For breath is life. And if you breathe well, you will live long on Earth." 

So take time within your practice to incorporate some of this breath work in addition to eating good quality food, getting out into nature to increase this energetic body.

3) Mind Dimension

Now let's move into the third dimension. The third dimension is the mind dimension. The realm of the mind, which is encapsulated within the organ of the brain, is the dimension of thinking. So this is the dimension of thoughts. 

Science shows the brain pops out a new thought about every 1.2 seconds, which is about 60,000 thoughts a day. 

So these thoughts are being pumped out. Now, unfortunately, a lot of times in Western medicine, there's a disconnect between these dimensions. And a lot of times, there's not even an awareness of these dimensions. 

The Greek philosopher Plato wrote, "The greatest mistake that physicians make is that they attempt to cure the body without attempting to cure the mind. Yet, the mind and the body are one and should not be treated separately." 

Over 90% of people walking into a doctor's office is actually associated to some level or degree of stress. And stress and anxiety, that exists within this third dimension of the mind.

Now luckily, we have this emergence of mind-body medicine, which says that the mind has an effect on the body, and the body has an effect on the mind. And it has an effect on this energetic state. So we're starting to really see an awakening and an emergence, even within our medicine. 

How do we address this third dimension of the mind? Well, we can activate it through studying. We can enact it through absorbing information, like listening to a good podcast or reading a book or watching an inspiring documentary. We also get it through science. So when I tell you something like one-third of people out there-- or not one-third of people, but people are breathing into one-third of their lung capacity, this is science. So that's feeding your mind. That's feeding your brain. And we get it through acquiring knowledge. 

And we now live in the Information Age. So on some level, we can really, really take advantage of technology and all this access to information that we have. We just have to make sure that we're choosing information that's actually going to be awakening and uplifting, and not information that's going to make us feel negative or toxic or bring us down in life. So we can activate the mind dimension through those means.

And of course, we can also do it through meditation. And specific meditations that will be helpful for the mind dimension would be Intention meditation, where we set an intention. I like to work with the phrase, "I am." And then I pick a quality that I want to strengthen, whether that's health or wisdom or joy or equanimity. And then I put that into the phrase, and then I just repeat that phrase over and over. So I'm using my mind, and I'm creating a thought that is activating the mind dimension. Same thing within affirmations. An affirmation might be, "I am abundance. I am health. I am wealth. I am joy," whatever resonates with you. And again, repeating that like your intention over and over and over again. 

Lastly, we can also activate it through the mindfulness meditations. So mindfulness, being aware of our thoughts. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that as we progress deeper and deeper into these dimensions.

So let's go ahead, segue now into the fourth dimension. 

4) The Heart Dimension

The fourth dimension is the heart dimension. Now in the East, the heart and the mind are really one and the same. And we also know within science that there's a very nuanced, sophisticated flow of information that's actually happening between the heart and the mind. The brain is speaking to the heart, vice versa, over and over and over again. So in Eastern medicine, they often put the mind and the heart together. 

But how is the heart different than the mind? Well, the mind is the home of thoughts, the brain. The heart is obviously the home of the organ of the heart, but it's also where our emotions and our feelings reside. This is where our emotions come from. So emotions like joy, compassion, happiness, love, they all come from the heart. And then we have the other kinds of emotions, emotions like sadness, anger, guilt, shame, resentment.

All these emotions are really carried within our heart. And these more negative emotions is sometimes what we might call the unfinished business of the heart. Many of us are walking around with these negative emotions that are bogging us down, and for some people, making them sick.

And we move through these experiences in life that can be very intense and challenging and traumatic. And if we don't process or deal with this trauma in a healthy, clear, efficient way, then this stays in this dimension of the heart. And it can really, really become a kind of pollutant or a toxin that affects the other dimensions. 

So living this ultimate life is dealing with this stuff, not denying it, but actually dealing with it. And it hurts, and it's painful to move through that. But this work is so very, very, very important. If we really want to be the best version of ourselves, we have to heal this stuff. 

Albert Camus writes, "We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, our ravages. Our task is not to unleash them on the world. It is to transform them within ourselves." 

So this is the work. It's the work of addressing what we might call the pain body. And if our pain body is out of control, then it's going to activate pain bodies within other people. And so our relationships are really going to suffer because our pain body is interacting with another person's pain body. And it's just back and forth reactive pain body that's dragging two people, or a family, or a community, or a nation, or the entire world into suffering and misery. This is why this is very, very, very important.

Now how do we work with this? How do we deal with this on a practical level? What's the takeaways, Travis? 

Well, of course there's therapy. And there's great therapists out there, and there's not so good therapists out there. But therapy with a great therapist can be a powerful way to address the pain body. 

We can also do it through deep inner reflection, retreating from our busy worlds. Maybe we go on a retreat, and we look within, and we really reflect upon these kind of things. What am I holding onto that's actually bogging me down? 

We can do it through journaling. 

And then we can also do it through many forms of meditation. Examples of what those meditations might be would be gratitude, compassion, forgiveness, love and kindness, joy. And these are all meditations that, eventually, you'll find here on the Be Ultimate podcast. I'm going to record a meditation at least once a month. So keep an eye and an ear out for these meditations because these are very, very powerful. 

So these first four dimensions, the physical body, the energetic body, the mind, and the heart, these are bundled up into what we call the ego or the identity.

The word EGO stands for Edging God Out. 

So the ego becomes like a potential prison that encapsulates and enslaves us within its domain and within its control. 

When the ego controls us, we endure incredible suffering. This suffering will only increase and increase until we break through the cage of the ego. This is the goal of all spiritual practice. 

It is about freeing yourself from the cage of your ego. Now as we move to the fifth dimension, we're breaking through the cage. We're going to blast through that ego. 

5) Awareness Dimension

So this is the dimension of the awareness. This is the awareness dimension, sometimes called the higher self, the inner teacher, the witness, or the one who knows. 

Eckhart totally writes, "Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not yours. They're not personal. They are conditions of the mind or the heart. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.” 

Who you truly are is Awareness. 

You're not just your body. You're not just even your energy. You're not just your mind, and you're not just your heart. Who you really, really are is awareness, is this dimension. 

To be aware is to be awake. 

It's to be enlightened. It's to turn the light on that you can now see those first four dimensions.

And as you become awake, you realize that you're not just your sensations. You're not just your thoughts. You're not just your emotions. And you're certainly not your stories that you keep telling over and over and over again that keep you trapped in your past. 

One way that we become aware is by being present, not being stuck in our past and not worrying about the future, but being in this moment right here, right now. So how do we get into the awareness dimension? We do it through meditation. It all comes back to meditation. I know I sound like a broken record, but we have to become mindful. 

And you can do this through The PAUSE Meditation Ep5. Take 20 minutes and pause so that you start to really not theoretically understand that you're awareness, but experientially understand that you're awareness so that you know this stuff, that you embody this stuff. 

You can't think it because it's beyond your mind. It's beyond your thoughts. You have to know it. So this awareness is the key to breaking out through the ego. And the awareness takes us to the last sixth dimension. 

6) The SOUL Dimension

The sixth dimension is the soul dimension, sometimes described as essence, source. For some people, they may call it Christ consciousness or Buddha consciousness. Some people call it the universe. Some people in science, they call it the quantum field.

In one of my favorite stories-- you may have heard it before, but you know how good stories are like bedtime stories. You can never hear it enough. 

It's a story about the Zen master who tells his students to go do their spiritual practices at the first sign of light. And so these students, they wake up the next day. And they go to start to do their practice, and then they've realized they're a little bit uncertain as to what their teacher meant when he said, "the first sign of light." So they go back to see their teacher, and they ask him, "How do we known that we've seen the first sign of light? Is it when we look out over the valley, and we can tell the difference between an oak tree and an olive tree? Is that how we known that we've seen the light?" And the master shakes his head no. And then they say, "Well, is it when we look out over the valley and we can tell the difference between a dog and a sheep? Is that how we known that we've seen the light?" And the master again shakes his head no. And then they say, "Well, is it when the sun is just appearing and rising above the horizon, and that shaft of golden light begins to penetrate out? Is this how we known that we've seen the light?" And the master again shakes his head no. And he goes on to explain, "You'll known that you've seen the first sign of light when you look into somebody's eyes and you realize that the soul that exists inside of them is the same soul that exists inside of you. This is how you known that you've seen the light. Until then, you're living in darkness."

So this dimension of the soul is a part of us that is the same within all human beings. All 7-plus billion people, growing to 8, 9, and 10 billion. And also the same soul that exists within all of life, even within nature, even within the cosmos, the stars. 

The universal soul is everywhere, existing beyond duality, in an interconnected field of Oneness.

So this part of us that is the same within other people is such a big awakening along the spiritual path because it reminds us we're all in this together. It's what we call shared humanity. 

Mother Teresa said, "We've forgotten that we belong to each other." 

And it's sad to see other people attacking other people because of the color of their skin, or because of their religious belief, or because they're from a different tribe. And that's all the ego creating the suffering. The ego creates the “other.” Those other people are not my friends. Those other people are not me, so I'm going to attack them, or I'm going to be hateful to them. And what we do is we other and other and other because we forgot that we belong to each other.

So how do we work on activating the dimension of the soul? Guess what? 

You've heard it before. Meditation. 

But it's got to be deep states of meditation. And it's a little difficult because you can't force your way into a deep state of meditation. The more that you strive to get into a deeper meditation-- striving comes from the ego. So that's going to block you from actually accessing those deeper states of meditation. 

It actually happens within letting go. And really, it becomes an act of grace. 

It's an act of grace to experience the dimension of the soul. 

But as we experience these deep states of meditation, even our awareness disappears. So the previous dimension, the awareness dimension, we're aware of our thoughts. We're aware of sensation. We're aware of feelings. We're aware of experiences. 

But in this dimension, this level of meditation, we're not even aware that we're aware because there's no YOU anymore. So whatever it is that you're meditating on, you become one with that, and you disappear. Your ego, your identity disappears. 

Everything disappears. And now you are existing in that field of oneness. 

You're existing in Christ consciousness or Buddha consciousness or the oneness of the universe.

But the ego does not like this. As I say, your ego is not your amigo. 

So you got to watch out for that dirty little sucker. It will fight. It will doubt. It will strategize to stop you because it doesn't want to die. It wants to be in control of you, so it will throw the whole arsenal of stuff at you to keep you from realizing who you really are. It wants to be fed with your recurring thoughts, old stories, drama, judgment, comparison, gossip, etc., etc., etc. 

Hopefully, you get the point. It's going to take tremendous courage to break through that ego to get to the awareness dimension, to get to that soul dimension. 

As Martin Luther King Jr. so beautifully said, "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering." 

We will meet your physical force with soul force because here's the deal.

Nothing, nothing, nothing can stop soul force. It's like a universal law. And physical force is a force that comes from the ego, so it's limited. When you take something that's limited and you crash it against something that's unlimited, whatever is unlimited can absorb it, and break it down, and bring spaciousness to it.

When we operate with soul force, we become unstoppable and unbreakable.

Many of our problems in our life are because we don't know who we are. 

We are not aware of these dimensions. We think that we're just the physical body. We think that that's all that we are. And we're just a little small tiny version of who we really, really are because we don't understand these six dimensions. 

As you begin to activate these six dimensions, you begin to transform. You begin to awaken within your life. 

As you awaken on an individual level, this will ripple out into the world like throwing a stone into a pond. 

It will ripple out to your family, into your community, and it will ripple out even globally. So if you're feeling a little bit down about the way that the world is right now, do this work. 

Transform yourself. Awaken yourself. 

And then that will begin to have a tremendous impact in a way that you probably can't even comprehend.

These six dimensions, as you activate these, will have you firing on all cylinders. 

So that's going to feel powerful. It's going to feel strong. You're going to understand that we aren't just little humans having a spiritual experience. 

We are spiritual giants having a human experience, we have the capacity to move through the world with soul force, to stay connected to a deeper part of us that is timeless, boundless, and divine. 

Let's finish with the ultimate prayer. 

“May we bring strength where there is weakness. 

May we bring courage where there is fear. 

May we bring compassion where there is suffering. 

And may we bring light where there is darkness. 

May we be Ultimate.”

[Hope you enjoyed this episode!

The best way you can show your GRATITUDE is to share The BE ULTIMATE Podcast with your community - and please RATE and REVIEW the podcast.

Thank you for helping us spread inspiration and wisdom across the globe!]

Transcription Services Provided by:

Produced by Jason Reim
Opening Music by Howie Hersh
Closing Music by Ryan Richko

By |2019-03-09T17:16:34+00:00March 4th, 2019|Be Ultimate Podcast|0 Comments

About the Author:

Travis has become a world-renowned yoga and meditation teacher and author. He teaches his signature Holistic Yoga Flow classes in Los Angeles and in workshops, festivals and retreats around the world. His style is intensely dynamic and has inspired many of today's top athletes, celebrities, and entertainers. Most recently Travis has become passionate about spreading yoga and meditation inside maximum security prisons. This work has proven to bring light to the darkest of places. info@traviseliot.com | traviseliot.com