Death comes - early, late, suddenly
One important question related to the theme of the posthumous existence of consciousness is the question of the timing and methods of transition to another world. As you know, all of us have their own life span measured by fate. Death comes to someone at a ripe old age, someone dies very young. Some die for natural reasons, others are taken away from this world by tragic life circumstances - wars, accidents, violent death. The ancient Romans said: "The gods take their favorites to heaven young."
Which of the transitions to the world of the dead can be considered the best?
Julius Caesar, when asked what kind of death he would have preferred if he had the opportunity to choose, Caesar without hesitation said: "Sudden." And ironically, his wish became a reality.
Sudden, instant death seems to be the easiest for many people. However, in the teachings of Agni Yoga about such death it is said that, despite the seeming lightness, it can bring many difficulties to the consciousness of a person who has passed into another world. And the first of them is that if people who suddenly died had a low level of spiritual development, after their death they sometimes cannot even understand that their existence has moved from the material to the Subtle plane of being.
After death, their state of consciousness becomes even more vague and half-asleep than during life in the physical world. In their best version, they continue to indulge in the habits they are accustomed to during their earthly life (with the only difference that in the Subtle World they have an even more illusory form than on the earthly plane); in the worst case, their consciousness, instead of at least ascending to the middle layers of the astral plane, "gets stuck" within the boundaries of the physical world, and sometimes at the same time also disturbs living people who find themselves "near" the astral forms of such suddenly dead (ghosts) …
It is difficult to reconcile with an unexpected death not only for the deceased himself, who suddenly found himself in other conditions of existence, but also for his relatives, even if this death occurred as a result of an illness. And, of course, death from an accident looks especially cruel and ridiculous - after all, very young people are victims of this. How can you explain such a tragic turn of fate? In one of his letters, Helena Roerich answers this question:
Promotional video:
"Of course, almost all so-called accidents are the result of karma." But, as she wrote in another letter, in continuation of this theme, “… especially bright souls, becoming a victim of this or that accident, especially easily pass into the Subtle World. The Light Guardians immerse them in a life-giving sleep to give time to the subtle body to heal the damage, and when they wake up, they are already in the care of friends. (From a letter to Helena Roerich). Thus, if for a spiritually undeveloped person, sudden death brings inevitable problems in posthumous life, then for a person of a high level of development, such a transition to another world is not terrible.
Unfortunately, the level of development of the overwhelming majority of people in our civilization is extremely low. Therefore, the departure from life at a young age for most people is an extremely undesirable phenomenon, contrary to the opinion of the ancient Romans. The deaths of many people during the wars are especially terrible. Wars, revolutions, national clashes, which are accompanied by the untimely death of many people, are called true madness in Living Ethics.
People who have accepted death as a result of such circumstances, in full bloom, are deprived of the opportunity necessary for their spiritual development to get rid of their earthly karma. They move to another plane of being, without breaking off attachments to the earthly, material aspects of life (which does not happen with death from old age), without using up the supply of vital energy released by them. Unrealized vital energy and unreleased karma, like a magnet, attract their souls to the physical plane, to the lower layers of the astral world, which has an extremely negative effect on their spiritual development and, in addition, makes the already low-vibration layers of the lower astral layer heavy. This problem is touched upon in one of the books of the teachings of Agni Yoga, which was published just on the eve of the outbreak of World War II, as a warning to humanity:
“(…) People decided to fill the Subtle World with multitudes that did not come in time. No one thought about the consequences for themselves. It is impossible to kill millions of people with impunity without establishing the most difficult Karma, even if this Karma is personal, all the worse if it multiplies the Karma of countries and the entire planet. What has been said about the peacekeepers is all the more true because they have a correct attitude towards the future. It is impossible to fill the lower strata of the Subtle World with the horrors of imperfect Karma. One cannot think that this will not affect the state of the planet. (…).
The conclusion of the Living Ethics teaching regarding the best terms for the transition to another world sounds unambiguous: for a person of any level of development, this is, of course, natural death from old age.
Oddly enough, but a difficult death as a result of illness and physical suffering, often destined to people of advanced age, is often not only as a result of not too favorable karma, but also the best condition for both moral and subtle-energy purification of a person before his transition to another world. Such death, in general, brings considerable trials for a person, so people are most afraid of it.
But few people know that physical suffering purifies and refines not only the human soul, making it more sensitive to phenomena of a spiritual order, but also his astral body, which is especially important and necessary on the eve of his migration to the Subtle World. The cleaner the subtle body of a person becomes, the easier it is for his transition to another reality and the beginning of a new phase of his existence in another world. As Helena Roerich wrote, “Truly, suffering refines the double and contributes to its burning or dilution even during earthly life. It is said: "The emotional body manifests cooperation with these sufferings for the refinement of the double and its gradual burning, but even during earthly life." (From a letter to Helena Roerich).
"Often illness helps the subtle body to cleanse itself of many abominations, therefore a long illness sometimes contributes to a better transition." (From a letter to Helena Roerich).
So a difficult death, like a difficult life, should not be feared - fate is equally fair to everyone, and the circumstances that we are afraid of, in reality often bring us the best opportunities for spiritual improvement.
Probably, especially the bitter kind of death, with which the mind and heart of man will never reconcile, is the death of children. But nothing happens in our world by accident; everything that takes place on Earth is dictated by the omnipotent and impartial laws of karma. Despite all the inexorableness, its laws are such that parents who have lost a child have a chance to return him from another world … in a new body, that is, incarnation. Deceased children transform especially quickly. Sometimes it takes no more than a year from the death of a child to his new birth.
In the literature devoted to the problems of reincarnation, there are many cases when children born in families where a child died or died shortly before their birth, growing up, told their parents such details from the life of a deceased brother or sister that even parents who did not believe in reincarnation were forced to acknowledge that their deceased child has returned to them again in a new body. The soul of a deceased child is attracted to the previous parents by the remaining karmic ties. But in order for the soul mate to return to the former hearth, and not to go to another family, parents must give the child's soul the opportunity to reincarnate into a new body soon after his death.
The laws of fate are harsh. In their immutability, they often seem to us not only implacable, but also unjust. But no matter how bitter and ridiculous the death of a child or a young man may seem to those around him because of the tragic circumstances of fate, the most ridiculous and difficult for a person is untimely death … suicide.
N. Kovaleva