The Spirit World.txt

There are few ways in which one can visit the spirit world. The first is the most common one. Every night when we are asleep, we go to the spirit world, especially when we are in deep sleep and in delta wave. However, we do not remember our visits to the spirit world most of the time. If we have had a wonderful night�s sleep including periods of dreamless sleep, we will wake up feeling thoroughly refreshed: this is a good indication that our energy has been recharged in the astral. It will be most fortunate if one can remember an astral dream. If we dream of somebody who has died, and he appears in his prime and years younger, this is the surest sign that we are in the astral. If we have a recurrent dream of visiting a house, which is being modified, or altered, it would signify that we are preparing our future house in the astral. Whenever you dream of yourself flying you are in the astral. All these dreams are very clear and lucid and we remember them for years after that. The second way we visit the astral is by having a near-death-experience. In this instance, the scenes depicted are also very vivid and extremely realistic: we meet dead relatives and friends with vistas of lovely countryside plus personages of white light, which exudes tons of love. The next method of arriving at the astral is by the practice of out of body experience (OBE). OBE can, and often do, land you in this physical world, like in another country or in your relative�s place in the same town. But a skilful traveller can project himself to the next realm without much difficulty and this would be the astral. Of course, the surest way to arrive at the astral is to have a physical death, and this is the subject of this article.

The Dying Process
When we are about to die our energy levels become lower and lower, and our consciousness goes in and out of our physical bodies, i.e. the spirit leaves the physical body intermittently. This goes on until the final departure, when the silver cord is severed. This cord connects the physical body to the spirit body. When the cord is finally severed, all the subtle bodies will involute and aggregate at the heart chakra. To clairvoyant eyes a light is seen hovering over the heart chakra. Then after a short while the total spirit with all its attendant auric bodies will depart from the physical body through the 7th chakra i.e. at the top of the head where the anterior fontanelle used to be. While the spirit is congregating at the heart chakra, life will slowly withdraw from the body, starting at the toes and the feet. This paralysis will slowly move up to the legs, thighs and the torso. Then the final total paralysis will coincide with the withdrawal of the spirit from the body. At the final departure, the face usually depicts calmness and peace, especially if the body has hitherto been subjected to much pain. To clairvoyant eyes this cloud of smoke emitting from the top of the head will then reform into a figure that looks exactly like the dead body on the bed.

The Spirit World
After the spirit leaves the corpse for good, several things may happen. Some of them will be met by spirit guides in their earthly bedrooms, and they are quickly led away to the spirit world by these guides. At this point they may or may not be met by relatives or friends. After some greetings and catching up of events, the individual is then led away by the guides to a place for a rest. If the subject has been ill for a long time on earth, he will be sent to a convalescent home for a prolonged rest and healing. Some, however, will either go through a dark tunnel or climb up a flight of stairs towards the white light. Here, he will meet loved ones, i.e. dead relatives or friends who will happily greet him and explain the situation he is in. Then a life review will take place: it is at this juncture that the individual will see his good deeds or his mistakes throughout the life that has just passed. Or this review may take place at a later date, when the deceased has completely recovered from the ordeal of crossing over. Little acts of kindness appear to be of importance. Then he is taken to the realm where he has earned the right to reside. This entirely depends on how the individual performed in the recent life just passed. Each of the countless realms has its own specific vibration, and the spirit will go only to that pigeonhole that he deserves. During this period, he is looked after by his guide, and this looking after may go on for some time. For those who have died a violent death, quite often they do not realise that they are dead, and are therefore very confused. The deceased sees a crowd gathering around a dead body and he goes across to find out what the commotion is all about. He sees his loved ones crying and moaning away over his own corpse, and then he begins to shout to his loved ones to say that he is all right. But, alas, it is to no avail. They cannot hear him. This scenario repeats itself in his home until finally he gets the message that he is dead. So that when the guides come to help him cross over, there may be some difficulty here because the deceased may not realise that he is dead. It will take some time before the truth sinks in. Some of these individuals will remain earth bound for a long time. The spirits who tend to be earth bound are those who are very attached to their families, their homes, their business empires or other attachments. Some stay behind because they believe that they deserve to go to hell, due to wrong religious indoctrination. The most recalcitrant are those who continue to believe that they are not dead. These earth bound spirits will appear as ghosts to those who are able to see them. Some individuals who are spiritually developed may go straight to the right realm without a guide. These individuals die with full awareness, and the trip to his rightful realm is also taken with full awareness by himself.

The Astral and Higher Realms
The spirit world is composed of innumerable interpenetrating realms around the physical world. It is not geographically far away or way up from earth. It is interpenetrating and just around us. The spirit world of China is next to the physical China. The spirit world of America is just where physical America is and so on. There are numerous men-made classifications of the spirit world. Let us use the commonest classification, namely the astral, mental and spiritual: (a) the lower astral, (b) the middle astral, (c) the higher astral, (d) lower mental, (e) higher mental, (f) the lower spiritual, (g) the higher spiritual and so on.

The Lower Astral World (Hell or Purgatory)
Whoever goes to the middle astral must pass through to the lower astral. The guides accompanying the new spirit usually ask the spirit to close his or her eyes until they reach the middle astral. An occasional individual may stumble onto the lower astral on his own when not accompanied. He may see fearful things like depressed people cowed in a dark, dank atmosphere, crowded together feeling miserable and moaning and groaning. This place is not for him, but stumbling into this realm by mistake can give him quite a scare. These regions are usually called "hell or purgatory" by Christians and others. The punishment here is more an emotional and mental affair. If one has killed someone else by stabbing, this stabbing scene will be repeated over and over again. But this time the murderer will suffer the pain of the stabbing and not the victim. This scene will continue until the murderer is contrite and asks for forgiveness from the victim, and the suffering will cease when the period of retribution is over. The murderer can then be released from the lower astral. Imagine if one is a Hitler or a Stalin, the forgiving may take a long time. We have been informed that Hitler is still there (The Testimony of Light). During the whole period while one is suffering in the lower astral, there are many guardian angels or other higher beings who will continue to go down to help these sufferers to repent and to make them ask for forgiveness. Higher spirits as well as living beings are conducting this form of rescue throughout the day and night. For the latter, the work is most arduous, dangerous and harrowing. These living helpers are truly performing a Herculean task of servicing the dead.
What is the environment of the lower astral like? This "hell" is not a place of perpetual burning fire, as what the theologians would want us to believe. Instead, the territory is dark, damp and slimy. There is no warmth. In fact, it is decidedly cold. The atmosphere is shrouded with mist, and it appears as if there is a constant cloud over the place. There is no vegetation. Flowers and trees do not grow there. Most of the terrain is rocky and uneven. There is a great danger of sliding down the rocks to pools of muck, but one cannot drown in it. Nobody can die in the spirit world. Interspersed sparsely are small shanty shacks, which contain a few sticks of furniture that are most uncomfortable to use. Here and there are groups of bent, gnarled decrepit old bodies planning evil deeds to torture their fellow residents. There is an occasional isolated person who is seen crouched miserably by himself filled with anger. There are no birds or animals present. Most of them were humans before, but up to now they have remained unrepentant. Their crimes on earth keep coming back through their minds with constant regularity, but they still remain far from contrite. The atrocities they inflicted on their fellow men and women on earth are indeed heavy, and their stay here is the result of their earthly activities. As most of them are utterly hypocritical, they maintain an air of righteous anger at the way they are treated here, not realizing that they themselves are the authors of their own plight. Amongst them were prominent religious figures, politicians and multimillionaires, who dispensed...