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9/03/2008

LIFE AFTER DEATH

Following thoughts are gathered mostly from Pekka Ervast.

THEORIES
What would Masters say about life after death? - "Everybody's right; Materialists are right, Christians are right, Buddhists are right, Sceptics are right and Theosophists are right; everybody's right, because all these theories represent some aspect of the truth and they all fit into reality itself. Man is such a complex and remarkably composed creature, that there is both life and death in him, and also everlasting life. There is something that will be born again and something that will not. Therefore all theories are right, but right within the limits of their own; they are not right alone but all together. Alone they only solve small part of the riddle of man's everlasting life, but together they give more complex picture of this everlasting life.

SLEEP
Death has been compared to sleep, dream is a younger brother of death, it is said, and there is a clear analogy between sleep and death in perspective of death and our physical or bodily consciousness. When laying down to sleep at night, man as a conscious being vanishes out of the visible life - his consciousness is transferred to astral body while asleep - and waking up in the next morning he comes back here in the visible life, as if he was born again here, yet this rebirth is not complicated for he's still got the same body - he will soon become conscious to continue his life from yesterday. When a man dies he leaves the visible life but will be born again after some time. Reincarnation and going back to Spiritual World is same as change between daily work and rest at night. If a man could stay "awake" - conscious from one life to another - he would remember being in Spiritual World and what life after death was like.

SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY
St. Paul says man is spirit, soul and body. Spirit is the third one, practically unknown for most of us. It's not of this materiality but of higher source of life. When we keep in mind that man is threefold in nature, and all these aspects are independent in him, we understand we're spirits, souls and bodies at the same time. Life after death is life as a soul, life without visible body. But if it's not life as a spirit it cannot be eternal because only one is eternal and it is spirit. Life after death as a soul is temporal, it will vanish. When a physical body dies, man is wearing another body that is nowadays called an astral body. St. Paul calls it flesh, sarks; When he speaks of physical body he uses a word soma. In flesh dwell all our desires and feelings. Therefore we understand how St. Paul could speak of the physical body with respect, calling it the temple of the Holy Spirit. Sarks, this flesh, is evil spirit, tempter, devil at everyone's heels.
In death man departs from the temple of the Holy Spirit and is torn by his own flesh. We are not angels. In this body we may very well cover up many things - it takes awhile until we can turn it into such a dwelling place of demon that all might see it. On the contrary, when a physical body - the temple - suffers, it is great reconciliation, a blessing. After death man lives in sarks, he is what he is. Man is like possessed by his own thoughts, mental images and feelings. He cannot satisfy his lust.
Man is a soulful being, he thinks, he feels and he wills, and even though he does all this through his body, he himself is other than this body. When a man dies, there is no more thought, feeling or willing; no more soulful life left in the body. As long as we live in the body, we live as soulful being, souls. If something exists after death, it cannot be anything else but this soulfulness of ours, which has to be objective in its own way, because it's not same as universal life, which is formless, eternal and infinite. Ability to say "I" suggests that man is formal and limited being. If we have a body in afterlife, it is woven of "thoughts and feelings", thus much closer to consciousness than this physical body - so close that thought immediately affects it. If we have such an organism then, we must already have it as mediator between body and soul. Consciousness in itself would be unconscious and thus not existing unless it had a form in which and through which it would manifest. It is a metaphysical axiom that our thoughts, our beliefs, are thousand times stronger in that world than ever here.

"PHANTOM"
We have a spiritual-physical body, invisible "phantom" which grants us the form and keeps the sunbstance together - substance which is only burrowed form nature and same essence as for instance the mineral kingdom. All cells of the body are renewed from time to time, but the body remains the same. Man loses his body in death.
This phantom was originally created for support to his spirit and base for his soul. In consequence of the fall it has ended up in too close connection with the material substance and goes the way of natural destruction. This body and its karma must be carried til it's all accomplished, til immortal body has been born and formed out of that body. We don't have immortal body yet, we only have a body in which we can live in another world, until the second death in astral level. Without the force of phantom keeping together and giving form, man is threatened before long by "vanishing" into the infinity of the Spiritual World. This forces him to look for another incarnation on earth to strengthen the power of his ego and to experience a sense of a body. Christ Jesus spiritualized his body, his phantom, inside out; he conquered it form the grip of death to make it possible for all of us one day: that is the resurrection of the body on the last day.

LAST JUDGMENT AND RESURRECTION
As H.P. Blavatsky taught, man is not perfect until he's made himself perfect. Though he forgets his vices after death, entering heaven, it's not his own before he has truly overcome himself in this visible world. Therefore it is grace of nature, God's grace, that man may be born again here on earth. Death is like a last judgment for everyone, for each personality. That last judgment concerns man as a personality. It cuts man in half with a big sword. On one side there is left evil, on the side of damnation, and good goes to heaven. But then comes the resurrection. Man is born back in his flesh and receives new temple of the Holy Spirit for a loan.

SUN AND MOON
Just as we, the living, live on the face of the earth, yet we may work in the mines underground or rise up to the sky on airplanes, so are the dead, so to speak, "underground", on earth, and high in the sky "until the moon". In Spiritual World "far" is that which repels, is disagreeable or makes no difference. "Near" is that which attracts, makes you feel sympathy or makes you interested. Symbolically speaking we may say, that first the life after death is spent in the Moon and then in the Sun. In purgatory man's soul is under the influence of the Moon. We live in the middle of the Moon where everything glows (the word "astral" comes from aster, a star); It's a star world where everything glows with weak but clear light like stars and moon. That astral life is like a night life. Life in heaven is transferring from moon and its influence to the Sun.

HEAVEN
Everyone has definitely deserved heaven on the basis of years one has spent on earth, where life - despite of dreams - so far is all but rosy. Short earthly life is followed by shorter heaven, rich earthly life is followed by weaker heaven. But spirituality and goodness naturally lead to long and intense life in heaven, even if one was happy also on earth, because then one's happiness was inward and spiritual by its quality. Selfish and evil person is preparing for oneself thin and short heaven, because on the fields of bliss evil is not feeling at home. Whatever good man has willed during his earthly life, it is there for him in heaveanly life. Heaven is wonderful: Man's personality is like enormously wiser - even though he won't begin anything new, everything old he got in earthly life, developes as far as it can.
Heaven is the innermost mystery of life after death; It is man's real life. It is as if a man lived his earthly life over again, but this time without its sorrows, disappointments, contradictions. He is what he was at his best on earth, when he loved, willed good, did good. Heaven is also a state of soul which can be compared to most wonderful moments of happiness one has tasted on earth. Everything he dreamed on earth will come true to him in heaven, without earthly sorrows and concerns. Heaven is a thought-world, manifestation of ideals. Wise men say, earthly life is more real: In heavens we reap the fruit, but on earth we sow. Part of us - the best of us - always abides in heavens, whether we were on earth or in hell.
Heavens are like great batteries, thoughtforms, hovering above our humanity in its secret consciousness and inspiring still the modern people. It is right that people remember the dead with love, but if it is only manifested by decorating their graves, that is for ourselves, that's our vanity. The dead are pleased only when we remember them with love. They know nothing about tombstones and material flowers, but our loving thoughts are roses going up to them.

PURIFICATION
In earthly time hell is much shorter than physical life, just as heaven is much, much longer. Purification only applies to evil which was manifested in man during his life. It won't dig up any latent evil out of his being. Man's inner possibilities for good and evil will eventually rise up on the surface through the course of lifes; today this and tomorrow that. After Jesus Christ came to earth, everyone who's heard of him, every Christian, has had a kind of "mark of Cain", he's been marked, so that he knows in his heart that the secret of life is selfless love. And when a Christian dies he meets his Judge - the Christ: "I did not follow love at all, didn't understand anything about love. I have been a selfish man; my life has gone to waste; it was a lost life."
Thus man judges himself. But he won't be lost. He will go to heaven and be born again on earth. When a man comes to life beyond, feeling only a sinner, when he's been scared to tremble before the justice of God, he's possessed with suffering and pain. Man can overcome death by dying here and now away from his selfishness and ignorance and becoming a spiritual being he in fact is, conscious citizen of another world. And when a man follows the footsteps of a Master, growing brighter and brighter in this spirit-being, he will arrive at the psychological state we call eternal life, nirvana, tao.

LIKE LITTLE CHILDREN
The Kingdom of heaven is for those who become like little children. Little child is the most sensitive about the truth; as long as he sees his parents telling the truth, he believes them. But he always wants to explore and try everything by himself, making mistakes too. Besides, a child who lives "in heaven" here and now, at the same time enjoys the world and life through his senses and cannot see anything essentially bad about that. Child-likeness is a quality of soul, not a matter of reason. Souls who are like innocent children feel that there is so much sorrow and misfortune in the world that they don't want to increase it in any way. On the contrary, they would like to carry the cross of others, to lighten the heavy burdens of others, to do anything for others, but never cause anything bad in the world.
Child symbolizes the developing aspect of man. Jesus says: "Their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven" (Mt.18:10). If we mean by "child" forces of human soul, then an angel in heaven is the spiritual core of the soul: Through the eyes of our spiritual Self we always see the face of Father, because it is one with His essence. Spirit of God is living and affecting in us, we are His children and we receive fatherly help, guidance, comfort, forgiveness from Him, as in the story of the Prodigal son. But child grows and Father expects us to become adults some day.
Marko Pogacnik has explained the parable of the lost sheep (Mt.18:12-13) so that the 99 sheep faithfully following the pack are people not awakened spiritually, who won't listen to their innermost being but "go with a flow." The sheep which wandered away symbolizes man's individualizing process: The one who walks his own way must be ready to get lost too. "The Shepherd of humanity" supports man's personal independence.
What do children have what adults don't have? (Mt.18:3, 19:14) Children are open, trusting and honest. They accept the words of their parents as absolute. Adults are introverted, suspicious, and dishonest. We hold things and don't share our feelings, our mind or our heart. We tend to question everything and accept very little. You must learn not to care for the head when it comes to spiritual matters; Only listen to your heart, for heart is a center of love. Spirit dwells in hearts of us all, expecting us to notice and to listen to it.

LOSE YOUR LIFE
One must lose his life to find life - to lose selfishness to find his true Self. Selfishness is that which darkens man (Mt.6:23). We won't be released from our faults by analyzing darkness but bringing them into the light of understanding. Whatever we wish to keep for ourselves, we'll lose. What you give, you get. We have to live, let life flow through us, help others to live while constructing our own life. There is no life without death, no regeneration without death of the old. Grapes must be crushed to make wine. We must let go of old thoughts and make space for new concepts, to die away from ignorance and illusion, before we can be born again in spirit.
The last sacrifice of Christ on the cross - "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" - the last sacrifice we must offer, is my God - ego's image of itself expanded to God. Old Rosicrucian confession says: We were born of God, We die in Christ, and through the Holy Spirit we are born again; That is, We die while living and are born again in the Spiritual World. Salvation has two meanings, says Paul Brunton: To free you from your destiny and rebirths to physical body caused by that, and to lift you up from spiritual ignorance you are in.
Grace is very misunderstood word; Usually we have an image that it is a favor the Higher One can do to the lower one, as if it was an opposite to cruelty. It's not an amnesty granted by Tyrant for a criminal. It is just bliss, happiness, harmony hidden in the universe, which everyone misses and everyone is called to participate with. Religion isn't actually more than shouting at the people: "You don't have to live in the darkness and suffer all these things without knowing what they are, because you can be set free, to be free from both all suffering and all ignorance. You can overcome that suffering by knowing what it is, where it comes from, and what is its purpose. When you take right attitude to all suffering you will discover you may keep inner bliss, happiness - in the middle of all suffering."

HIGHER SELF
In order to be able to understand this everlasting life and life after death, one must first of all get the idea that there is in man something called "Higher Self", divine aspect, real immortal ego etc. Whatever name is used, even if we said Christ, Saviour, they mean there is within man something hidden in him, which is higher, eternal, immortal. It is this Higher Self that makes man a man. It's manifested first as a conscience. Secondly, it's manifested by man's search for truth, his dreaming and philosophizing, and his love for beauty. Thirdly, it's manifested through pure, selfless, noble love that wants the best for others. During physical life we have along this companion, an angel. In death this true Inner Self which was tied up with visible personality, is released and lives its own life. After death man is not free as he is here. If you don't look for God now, it's nearly impossible to begin after death. Man is inwardly bound, or forced to continue life he lived here.
It is a natural fact that in death we lose connection with our Higher Self. We are not connected with it in this visible world just like that, without any effort. The light of Higher Self is not far. It is hidden in our heart. Sincere and devoted effort will open for us the gates of the kingdom of light. But after death it may take hundreds of years; However, ultimately man will reach this connection in life after death, but often after such an intense efforts that almost whole past personality will vanish. Man forgets all bad when he's purified. He walks through the lonely, hot desert of soul until he becomes more and more like a child. From darkness to light! He has had to give up selfishness completely - and then there is nothing much left of the personal human being. His own personal consciousness becomes thinner and thinner, and more transparent; the radiance, the light of truth, the beauty attracting him there is so intense that he will in a way fall asleep out of himself. Therefore we cannot remember anything when we are born again on earth; We have a whole new soulful personality. Heavenly state will end with last judgement when Divine Ego of man draws to itself from personality that which is holy and high.

TREASURES IN HEAVEN
It is extremely significant for the development of human soul that men gather the treasures which no moth and rust will corrupt, not for any external causes, not in order to do better here on earth or after death, but just because truth and goodness are worth it.
The most of his life man spends after death and therefore his natural life must be that in the Spiritual World. He should prepare for that life where weight and length and money etc. don't matter, but only the spiritual values. That's the life we were created for, that's what we exist for! In our real human life only the truth, goodness and beauty - ideas that cannot be measured in dollars and cents - do matter. This visible life is so short and transient that it would not be worth while to exist for.
People who had a clear idea of life after death during their physical life, are in different position after death than others. It's like a man who travels to foreign country and has read many books about it, perhaps discussed with someone from that country, and knows the language. We are unwise if we don't want to find out about the world we're going to.
A man who keeps his eyes open while entering a state after death, who tries to keep his awareness, is in such a special position that he can be helped more than the other deceased, he can even be taught in such a way that he may be useful in invisible world. He may become a helper for the deceased who come poorly prepared or through a sudden death.

MANY ROOMS IN FATHER'S HOUSE
"There are many rooms in my Father's house" said Jesus and he meant: "In my Father's kingdom there are rooms of all religions." All religions have as if their own conditions after death, Christian religion is not special in invisible world, no more "favored by God" than any other. The faithful deceased of religions and churches form equal worlds of their own in the life after death. And there are also conditions outside of religions for those who didn't want to belong to any of them.
All religions are like roads to Christ. In old religions there was highly moral world view which did not pay so much attention to evil or which emphasized more goodness. No religion takes man to Christ or God just like that. Man must take a real position on his religion. It cannot be like a cloth he takes off or it's nothing. His religion, his faith must be his life. Not all religions are equally suitable for anyone, that Christian might as well become a Muslim. Equality of religions doesn't mean this at all.
Jesus Christ has his own heaven, outside and independent of heaven of Christians, above all other heavens. Yet in this particular room in Father's house there are all other great teachers, Buddha, Zoroaster, Muhammad, Moses etc. None of the wise men in the old covenant or saviors of the religions had loved men as much as Jesus of Nazareth... Jesus brought Father's love to humanity so that the Son of God lives in our humanity and it is immediately close to each individual human being. By the power of his love Jesus Christ had a chance to change immensely those so called mysteries concerning physical life and life in purgatory, hell and heaven after death. He brought something new into all that.
Invisible worlds and life after death are closer to his conscious influence and so it is natural that in the invisible world he's able to do more than in the visible one. Therefore, he has brought a new stream of force, new impulse to the life after death and karma after death. Faith St. Paul was preaching to so called heathens was faith in Jesus Christ being a friend of humanity, a lover and miraculous helper, that whoever believes and trusts in him will be helped by him after death.
While Christ's heaven is above other heavens of the atmosphere, at the same time it is also within, around and outside of them. Heaven after Christ's death is the heaven of love embracing everyone. The deceased who enter Christ's heaven, come through heavens of groups of all different religions and those outside of religions. They are not Christians alone, not all of them have even heard of Jesus Christ. Some of them have even denied all supernatural. Those who enter Christ's heaven have got in touch with Christ in their souls during life, often without knowing. God has always been the God of all people.
But in new covenant Christ through Jesus has descended into the physical world, so that the consciousness of Christ is living already behind this visible life, and anyone of us may in one's soul get in touch with Christ-Consciousness or the Son of God. It is now required that man in one way or another, will forget his own tiny personal ego and at least momentarily is filled with human feelings, for example hearty love for another one or something higher. New covenant is just that: "Covenant with God" nowadays is closer to humanity than before.

PRAISE THE GOD OF LIFE!
We feel how in our souls we go down on our knees. We cannot but praise life and God of life, who is so infinitely higher than our ideas of him. We are used to think here in this physical world that one religion is more right than the other, and ours is perhaps the only right one... Life itself, God, is above all, life won't make difference between people. Life loves everybody. Jesus says: "He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good." We truly humble in the spirit before the great neutrality of life. No one is blessed more specially with mercy before life, just because he belongs to certain religion. If a man is an atheist but he - even in secret from himself - listens to the language of his heart and obeys its command to be merciful, helpful and gentle, then he in fact is connected with Christ and is taken after death to the gate of the Kingdom.
The help religions wish to give people during their final hours can be compared to sleeping pills. Man has lived in the visible world mostly without remembering the death and life after death - death has been a distant issue for him. The younger he is, the more impossible death seems to him. Therefore, it is good Churches have developed these sleeping pills of death to calm human soul, to turn the mind of dying one away from visible life, to attach his mind to blessed thoughts of peace.

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