The Form of the Personality

"... that vehicle of physical, astral and mental matter that provides the means of contact in the three worlds. It is built in each life, the key of the vibration being set up in the life preceding the present. That form proves adequate for the average man and serves him till death. The man who is entering on the occult path starts with the vehicle provided, but during incarnation builds for himself ever a newer and better vehicle, and the more progressed he is the more consciously he works. Hence eventuates that constant turmoil and frequent ill-health of the beginner in the occult life. He senses the law, he realizes the need of raising his key, and frequently he begins with mistakes. He starts to build anew his physical body by diet and discipline, instead of working from the inner outward. In the careful discipline of the mind and the manipulation of thought-matter and in transmutation of emotion comes the working out on the physical plane. Add to the two above, physical plane purity as to food and manner of life, and in seven years time the man has built for himself three new bodies around the permanent atoms." Alice Bailey