Astral planes
Beyond the line of earthly existence
It is not only immoderate physical needs and desires that become the source of suffering for disembodied souls on the Astral plane. The lower layers of the astral plane also become the lot of those who, during their life on the physical plane, poisoned their consciousness with negative feelings and thoughts: anger, hatred, envy. Any feeling and thought are energies of a certain quality that affect primarily their source - the person who radiates them. And therefore, everyone who is accustomed to living "in loose nerves", constant discontent, anger and irritability, who do not consider it necessary to control and restrain their negative emotions - such people already during their earthly life become real "generators" of negative energy. And what happens to them after death?
Naturally, they take all their "energy baggage" into another world. After crossing the line of the earthly plane, the consciousness and astral body of each individual undergo spatial purification. The negative karma burdening the astral body of the deceased must be cleansed and reworked. And therefore, as soon as the astral body deprived of a physical shell passes into the Subtle World, the spatial energies surround the subtle-material complex "polluted" with dark energy in order to cleanse it, thus preparing it for the subsequent incarnation. If the astral body of a person is not heavily burdened with negative energy, then the processes of purification for him are painless and fast. But angry and irritable people, as well as everyone who often experienced negative emotions and thoughts during their earthly life,in the full sense of the word, they burn in the spatial energies approaching them, as in hell.
The most difficult feeling, causing special suffering in the otherworldly existence, is the feeling of anger, hatred. The fate of an evil person is unenviable, to be sure. The transition to the subtle world for him will mean, in the full sense of the word, hellish torment, and this fire, on which their anger is destined to burn, was not caused by someone, but by themselves.
It is no coincidence that the spiritual teachings of antiquity paid so much attention to the ethical norms of human behavior and thinking. The ethics of a person's life position completely determines his subsequent being in a different phase of existence, his spiritual level and the circumstances of his future incarnation.
Three main areas of the Astral plane
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Astral plane, what is the meaning of a person's stay there, and is there any meaning at all, except for the inevitable reward for the life lived on the earthly plane? But everything in Cosmos has a meaning and purpose of its being. The very phenomenon of death and the presence of a person in certain layers in the Subtle World is designed not only to help him redeem his karma, but also to give him knowledge about the Cosmos and about himself, as well as new creative opportunities, if he deserves them. In other words, the posthumous being of a person has the same goal as his earthly being, namely, to accelerate the process of his individual spiritual development. But it goes without saying that in different layers the posthumous processing of karma and the further development of a person are carried out in completely different ways.
The astral plane can be divided into three main areas, each of which has 7 main and many intermediate layers and divisions, in accordance with the subjective states of the consciousnesses in them. The three main spheres of the astral plane are the lower, middle and higher strata.
The subtle world is also different from the earthly one in that all its inhabitants live in strictly delimited layers of space, differing from each other in the structure of subtle matter and energy. Only on earthly life can saints and villains exist next to each other. In the Subtle World, each soul is assigned the place that it itself deserves. The law of posthumous retribution is completely fair and is based on purely physical laws of the correspondence of the subtle-material complex of a person to the energy of a particular sphere of another world.
Astral is the same world as the earthly one, with its flowers, birds, animals, mountains and forests. It was created in the same way as ours, the earthly world, by the Highest cosmic will, and it exists according to its own laws, in something similar to the laws of earthly existence, in something different from it. Just like in the physical world, man saturates the astral space with the products of his creativity. The only difference is that on Earth a person creates objects surrounding him from physical, dense matter, which must be physically processed, melted, cast into molds. And astral matter can obediently form into any forms under the influence of another force - the energy of thought. And passing into the Subtle World, a person creates the atmosphere of his future life, starting from clothes and ending with a house (if he wants to live in one place of the astral plane),with his power of thought and imagination.
Imagination and the ability to visualize - clearly visualize an object - are determined by the strength and discipline of thinking. Agni Yoga constantly repeats how important it is to have a developed, trained mindset. This is necessary not only for life on Earth, but also for the subsequent existence of a person. The posthumous being of a person is completely determined by the level of his spiritual, moral and intellectual development. As already mentioned, people who are not accustomed to active, creative work on Earth, inclined to a half-asleep "vegetable" existence in the physical world, are doomed to drag out an equally sleepy and gray posthumous existence. The whole stay in the Subtle World between incarnations will seem to them like a monotonous long sleep, because their imagination and power of thought are not developed, the spiritual vision of their soul has not opened. Such an existence is called semi-conscious precisely because human consciousness, his creative abilities are inactive. A person vaguely perceives, as if through a dream, the outlines of a new environment, but does not want to "wake up", to awaken to an interesting, active being precisely because of his earthly habits. The inertia of earthly habits to an enormous, perhaps even to say, determining degree affects the posthumous life of people.
Here is what Helena Roerich wrote about the existence of consciousness in another world and the dependence of posthumous existence on the level of a person's spiritual development: “The number of people who maintain the continuity of clear and waking consciousness during the transition to the Subtle World, at least in the middle layers of it, is not so overwhelmingly large. Many, during the transition, fall asleep or drag out a semi-conscious and painful existence there. Variations in states of consciousness are endless. There are exactly as many stages of consciousness as there are steps in Infinity, and vice versa. Only those in the Subtle World are fully conscious who, during their lifetime, created a connection with the higher worlds through a heartfelt striving for evolution and the preservation of such consciousness.
Thus, a materialist with the most developed intellect, but denying any spirituality, any possibility of existence in the higher worlds, may not have a conscious life in the higher strata of the Subtle world, for, without creating, without fixing the higher attractions, he will almost immediately be drawn into the vortex of the earthly attraction and in a semi-conscious or unconscious state will wait for a new incarnation. Of course, it is possible to imagine what this new birth will be like, for, except in cases of high spirits, such an almost immediate return to Earth is undesirable. As you know, being in the Subtle World is of great importance for nourishing and strengthening and transforming the accumulated energies into spiritual forces. Therefore, it is possible to imagine how the decomposition of the spiritual essence occurs in the absence of such nutrition for a long time.
(…) The achievement of conscious existence, or the preservation of full consciousness in all shells and in all spheres, is the greatest achievement of an Arhat. This is Amrita, or true immortality. Therefore, all the efforts of the great Teachers are aimed at expanding the consciousness of humanity, at the development of the mental body, at awakening the highest aspiration to create a magnetic current or vortex that attracts the spirit to the higher spheres.
Since the development of consciousness is the most difficult and longest process in the Cosmos, the achievement of the preservation of the continuity of consciousness in the thinner shells or on the higher planes of the Subtle World would greatly speed up evolution.
The spiritual essence, having passed into the Subtle World, continues its conscious or semi-conscious existence, depending on the development of its higher manas or spirituality. Here on Earth, are there many people who live a completely conscious life? As below, so above. Only with the difference that everything is brighter, more definite, and, therefore, more intense, both in that (conscious) and in the other (unconscious) side. One must firmly understand: what was not realized during life on Earth will not be realized in the Subtle World. Remember, it is said that in the Subtle World it is almost impossible to gain new consciousness. Here, in earthly life, it is necessary to plant the seeds of aspirations, which in the Subtle World will be transformed into knowledge. Otherwise, there would be no need for us to return to Earth. (From a letter to Helena Roerich)
N. Kovaleva