Sūtrātman

Sūtrātman (devanāgarī: सूत्रात्मन्) is a Sanskrit word composed by sūtra (“thread”) and ātman (“self”), usually translated as the "thread-soul".

H. P. Blavatsky defined it as follows:

Sûtrâtman (Sk.). Lit., “the thread of spirit”; the immortal Ego, the Individuality which incarnates in men one life after the other, and upon which are strung, like beads on a string, his countless Personalities. The universal life-supporting air, Samashti prau; universal energy.

According to C. W. Leadbeater

All these causal bodies are filled with living fire drawn from a higher plane, with which the globe appears to be connected by a quivering thread of intense light, vividly recalling to the mind the words of the stanzas of Dzyan, " the Spark hangs from the Flame by the finest thread of Fohat"; and as the soul grows and is able to receive more and more from the inexhaustible ocean of the Divine Spirit which pours down through the thread as a channel, the latter expands and gives wider passage to the flood, till on the next sub-plane it might be imaged as a water-spout connecting earth and sky, and higher still as itself a great globe through which rushes the living spring, until the causal body seems to melt into the in-pouring light. Once more the [page 81] Stanza says it for us: " The thread between the Watcher and his shadow becomes more strong and radiant with every change. The morning sunlight has changed into noon-day glory. This is thy present wheel, said the Flame to the Spark. Thou art myself, my image and my shadow. I have clothed myself in thee, and thou art my vahan to the day, ' Be-with-us,' when thou shall re-become myself and others, thyself and me."

Online resources

Articles

• Sutratman at Theosopedia