Excerpted from: Ken Wilber's book Eye of Spirit:
http://holtz.org/Library/Philosophy/Epistemology/Wilber/Eye%20of%20the%20Spirit%20Ch1.html
We can look now at some of the actual levels or spheres of the holarchy, of the Great Nest of Being, as it appears in the three largest wisdom traditions: Judaeo-Christian-Muslim, Buddhism, and Hinduism, although any mature tradition will do.
(Let me remind you that these are the levels in the Upper Left quadrant, the levels in the spectrum of consciousness itself. We will, in the following chapters, see how this spectrum plays itself out in the other quadrants as well, cultural and social and behavioral--from anthropology to philosophy to art and literature. But for now we are concentrating on the spectrum of consciousness as it appears in the individual human being, the Upper Left quadrant.)
The Christian terms are the easiest, because most of us are familiar with them: matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit. Matter means the physical universe as it appears in our own physical bodies (e.g., those aspects of our existence covered by the laws of physics); and whatever else we might mean by the word "matter," it means in this case the dimension with the least amount of consciousness (some would say no consciousness, and you can take your pick). Body in this case means the emotional body, the "animal" body, sex, hunger, vital life force, and so on (e.g., those aspects of existence studied by biology). Mind is the rational, reasoning, linguistic, and imaginative mind (studied by psychology). Soul is the higher or subtle mind, the archetypal mind, the intuitive mind, and the essence or the indestructibleness of our own being (studied by theology). And spirit is the transcendental summit of our being, our Godhead (studied by contemplative mysticism).
According to Vedanta Hinduism, the individual person is composed of five "sheaths" or levels or spheres of being (the koshas), often compared to an onion, so that as we peel away the outer layers we find more and more the essence. The lowest (or most outer) is called the annamayakosha, which means "the sheath made of food." This is the physical sphere. Next is the pranamayakosha, the sheath made of prana. "Prana" means vital force, bioenergy, elan vital, libido, emotional-sexual energy in general--the sphere of the emotional body (as we are using the term). Next is the manomayakosha, the sheath of manas or mind--rational, abstract, linguistic. Beyond this is the vijnanamayakosha, the sheath of intuition, the higher mind, the subtle mind. Finally there is the anandamayakosha, the sheath made of ananda, or spiritual and transcendental bliss.
Further--and this is important--Vedanta groups these five sheaths into three major realms: gross, subtle, and causal. The gross realm is correlated with the lowest level in the holarchy, the physical body (annamayakosha). The subtle realm is correlated with the three intermediate levels: the emotional-sexual body (pranamayakosha), the mind (manomayakosha), and the higher or subtle mind (vijnanamayakosha). And the causal is correlated with the highest level, the anandamayakosha, or archetypal spirit, which is also sometimes said to be largely unmanifest, or formless. Further, Vedanta relates these three major realms of being with the three major states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, and deep dreamless sleep. Beyond all three of these states is absolute Spirit, sometimes called turiya, "the fourth," because it is beyond (and includes) the three states of manifestation; it is beyond (and thus integrates) gross, subtle, and causal.
So the Vedanta version of five sheaths is almost identical to the Judaeo/Christian/Muslim version of matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit, as long as we understand "soul" to mean, not just a higher self or higher identity, but higher or subtler mind and cognition. And soul also has the meaning, in all the higher mystical traditions, of being a "knot" or "contraction" (what the Hindus and Buddhists call the ahamkara), which has to be untied and dissolved before the soul can transcend itself, die to itself, and thus find a supreme identity with and as absolute Spirit (as Christ said, "He cannot be a true disciple who hateth not his own soul").
So "soul" is both the highest level of individual growth we can achieve, and also the final barrier, the final knot, to complete enlightenment or supreme identity, simply because as transcendental witness it stands back from everything it witnesses. Once we push through the witness position, then the soul or witness itself dissolves and there is only the play of nondual awareness, awareness that does not look at objects but is completely one with all objects (Zen says "it is like tasting the sky"). The gap between subject and object collapses, the soul is transcended or dissolved, and pure spiritual or nondual awareness--which is very simple, very obvious, very clear--arises. You realize that your intrinsic being is vast and open, empty and clear, and everything arising anywhere is arising within you, as intrinsic spirit, spontaneously.
The central psychological model of Mahayana Buddhism is the eight vijnanas, the eight levels of consciousness. The first five are the five senses. The next is the manovijnana, the mind that operates on sensory experience. Then there is manas, which means both higher mind and the center of the illusion of the separate-self. It is the manas that looks at the alayavijnana (the next higher level, that of supraindividual consciousness) and mistakes it for a separate-self or substantial soul, as we have defined it. And beyond these eight levels, as both their source and ground, is the pure alaya or pure empty Spirit.
I don't mean to minimize some of the very real differences between these traditions. I'm simply pointing out that they share certain deep structure similarities, which testifies eloquently to the genuinely universal nature of many of their insights.
