This subject of life after death is of great importance to all, not just because you all will certainly die, but far more because most of you have lost (as it is called) someone dear and near, except maybe the very young among us.

Reading the title will cause some of you to think: Can anybody be certain if there is life after death? You will have had many theories put before you, by friend or various religions, and yet even the most devoted followers of these sects seem hardly to believe it themselves. Often they surround it with mystery and sometimes horror, the black edged paper, the black cloths,  everything calculated to make it seem dark and terrible. The ancients were much wiser in this respect, for they did not associate all these nightmares of gloom with death of the body, and because they knew more, they mourned less.

It ought to be obvious to you that death is a perfectly natural incident in the course of life. If you have any believe at all in a g-d as a loving father you should know a fate which, like death, comes to all alike cannot be evil and whether we are in this life or the next we should equally be safe in his hands. This consideration by itself should have shown you that death is not something to be dreaded but simply a necessary step in your evolution.

Not the awful unknown void or the pit from where the traveller does not return. There is no such impenetrable abyss beyond the grave, but instead there is a world of light and life which can be known like the street you live in. Most of you have created this fear yourselves like children who frighten themselves with ghostly stories. If one would study the articles closely with an open heart filled with love and gratefulness then you will come to see death not as this fearful monster waiting for you but as a key to unlock a door to a higher and fuller life.

While there is much evidence for many among you who experienced either an outer body experience or near death experience, such evidence would never help you unless these become your own experience. In this you can recognize the very reason why you need to experience in this world which will further down in the article become more clear to you.

Then there is further evidence in modern spiritualism about life after death, while many will say there is nothing to be found in this direction other than fraud and deception. Yes there has been fraud and deception and still to be found today, and even when true, it will be translated by ego for his own use, while they are not even aware of ego >the devil knows you better then you know yourself<
But anyone who is willing to devote the necessary time and patience, openness, and a heart filled with love, their unfolding will be eminent. Many are not willing to take the trouble or devote the time very well. They should not judge those who have seen and know this to be true. Everyone has the ability to evolve to the ability to make the night day. Have you ever listened to a minister, imam or rabbi, from the Bible or the Koran on which he gives his version, say “This is what the Bible said, or the Koran speaks of “, but you will never hear him say: “I have seen it and know it to be true.” Yet I do not say believe this all unless it is utterly reasonable to you and logical, but investigate it yourself, read all the articles, ponder on them, practice what is taught with the passion of truth.

The truth reveals itself to you when the love in your heart reaches the state where it recognizes the source of love that is within the heart itself, for then you will see for yourself, and speak from this authority.

So now let’s move to state of affairs after so called death. First of all: there is no sudden change that takes place in man at death or that he is spirited away to some heaven beyond the stars. On the contrary, man remains after death what he was before it. The same in intellect, the same in his qualities and powers. And the conditions in which he finds himself are those he created with his own thoughts and desires. There is no reward or punishment from outside, but only the actual result of what man himself has done and said and thought while here in this world. In fact, the man makes his bed during earth life and afterwards he has to lie in it.

Another fact is that it is not a strange new life, but a continuation of this life.
We are not separated from the dead, they are here among us all the time. The only separation is the limitation of your consciousness. So in truth you have not lost your loved ones, but the power to see them. While it is possible for you to raise this consciousness and see and talk to them as before, and you all do that but only rarely remember it. You are able to learn to focus your consciousness in your astral body while your physical body is still awake but it needs special development. In the case of the average man it would take much time. But in sleep of his physical body every man uses his astral vehicle to a greater or lesser extent but frequently have no recollection of it.(also read the 3 levels of the soul in relation to this)

The intellect is not affected when you die. While I realize this is difficult for many to grasp, the reality of that which you cannot see with your physical eyes, you are as it were, locked up in a cage, and your senses are like tiny windows open to only a few directions and others completely shut.
If you were to transfer your consciousness to the astral plane, at the first glance you would notice little difference. To explain this fully you would need a whole treatise upon astral physics, so I will keep it simple for now. Just as you have different conditions of matter here, the solid, the liquid and the gaseous, so are there different conditions or degrees of density of astral matter. And each degree is attracted by and corresponds to that which is similar to it on the physical plane. So you would still see a door or wall but the physical matter they are composed of, would not be visible for you anymore. The densest type of astral matter would still outline them for you as clearly as ever, if you would examine them closely you would see that all particles were visible in rapid motion.
While people to whom you were close to, all have astral bodies which are then in the range of your vision, most of you will only realize to some degree that there is a difference. For example you will find that all physical fatigue and pain have passed away, and you will then somewhat realize what higher life means. While you can still see this world and people,  you discover you cannot talk to them or make an impression upon them, and for some time you will think that you are dreaming. While in other times they are conscious of you(this is while they are asleep). Here too, learning needs to be done. You will find that in the astral plane thoughts and desires express themselves in visible forms, though they are composed mostly of finer matter of that plane, and as your astral life proceeds, these become more prominent. You need to remember that all the while you steadily withdraw further and further into yourself.

The entire period of incarnation is in reality occupied by the ego in first putting itself forth into matter, and then in drawing back again with the result of his effort. If I were to ask you to draw a line symbolic to life, you would likely make a straight one, beginning from birth and ending at death. But those who are familiar with these teachings would draw life as a great eclipse, starting from the ego on the higher mental level and returning to him. The line would descend into the lower part of the mental plane, and then into the astral. A very small portion, comparatively, at the bottom of the eclipse, would be upon the physical plane, and the line would very soon re-ascend into the astral and mental planes. The physical life would therefore be represented only by that small portion of the curve, lying below the line which indicates the boundary between the astral and physical planes. Birth and death would simply be points at which the curve crosses the line.

The real central point would clearly be that which is furthest removed from the ego, the turning point as it were. This also means that the points which cross the line are of far less importance.
This central point or turning point as it were is what is known in astronomy as “the aphelion”. That is neither birth nor death, but should be the middle point in the physical life, when the force from the ego has expended its outward rush, and turns to begin the long process of withdrawal. Gradually your thoughts should turn upward, and care less and less for merely physical matters and eventually drop your dense body all together.

While your life becomes more and more a life in a world of thought, the counter- part will fade away from your view, not that you have changed your location in space, but your interest shifts its centre. While your desires still persists, and the forms surrounding you, which are largely the expression of these desires bringing discomfort or happiness, depend chiefly upon the nature of your interest.

A closer look at astral life would clearly show you the reason for many ethical precepts. Most of you recognize that sins which injure others are definitely and obviously wrong, but some wonder why it should be said to be wrong to feel jealousy, hatred or ambition. So long as they do not allow themselves to manifest these feelings outwardly in deed or speech. A glimpse in this after world would show you exactly how such feelings injure the man who harbours them, and how they would cause him suffering of the most acute character after death.

Let’s look at an ordinary man who is neither good or bad, colourless, such man would after his death have no special suffering and no special joy and likely find the astral plane very dull  because he has not developed any rational interests in his time on earth beyond maybe sports, his business etc. etc. He will likely find time hanging heavy on his hands when all such things are no longer possible. But the case of someone who has had strong desires of a low material type, such that could only be satisfied on the physical plane is an even worse one. Just think of a drunkard or a sensualist, who has been the slave of a overmastering craving during earth life. This will still remain undiminished after death, no, will even be stronger than ever before, since its vibrations have no longer the heavy physical particles to set in motion. But the possibility of gratifying this terrible thirst is for ever removed, because the body, through which alone it could be satisfied, ..is gone. Clearly the strong tendency to be born with a weakness for…….(karma).. just ponder on this for a while.

Only after the desire has worn out, will he be able to begin without that burden on a new road. Understand also that even in thought it would haunt him in the other plane, also therefore controlling his emotions is not enough and will trouble him after death.

And think of a man who is jealous, he will continue to suffer from his jealousy, knowing he has no power to interfere upon the physical plane, yet feeling it more strongly than ever.

Now let’s look at someone who differs from the ordinary man because of his gross and selfish desires in that he has interests of a rational nature, in order to understand how the afterlife appears to him. You must bear in mind that the majority of men spend a greater part of their walking life and most of their strength in work that they do not really like. That they would not do at all if it were not necessary in order to earn their living, or support those who are dependent upon them. Realise the condition when this grinding toil is over, since the astral body requires no food nor clothing, then he is free for the first time since childhood to do precisely what he likes, taking into account there is no physical matter. If music, then your ability is to hear more than ever before, if art, the beauty in form and colour will be so much higher. His unequalled possibilities for indulging in it. Science or biology,  how his comprehension of processes would be far greater than ever before, how you could see the inner and outer workings and many causes as well as the effects. And in all the cases there is the wonderful additional delight that no fatigue is possible. Here you realise how constantly, when you are making some progress in your studies or experiments , you are unable to carry them on because the brain will bear no more than a certain amount of strain, the brain and not the mind tires.

All this time we have been talking of mere selfish gratification, even though it be of the rational and intellectual kind. But there are those among you who would not be satisfied without something higher than this, whose greatest joy in any life would consist in serving their fellowmen, what has astral life in store for them? They will pursue their philanthropy more vigorously than ever, and under better conditions than on this lower plane.
Some for the general good, while others are especially occupied among their own friends or family either living or dead, a strange inversion of the facts, this employment of those words “living and dead”. For surely you are the dead, you who are buried in this gross cramping physical bodies, and they are truly the living.

Some might think,” well then, it is better to die”, but there is a purpose and it is a selfish act to do so, not without reason is there the instinct of self-preservation, there are these lessons to be learned on this plane that cannot be learned anywhere else. So the sooner you learn them, the sooner you will be free for ever from the need to return to this lower and more limited life.

The astral life is happy for some, unhappy for others, all is according to the preparations you have made for it, but what follows  is perfect happiness for all.

A question often asked is: “ Are we able to make progress?” Yes in proportion to your development. The man who is slave to a desire can only progress by wearing out his desire. But a man who is kindly and helpful learns much in many ways. If someone died recently then you are likely to find him on the astral plane. If someone died long ago, you will likely find him/her in the heaven life. Knowledge of truth enables you to take away the fear of death, and it makes life easier to live. This is an old saying in Latin;
” mors janua vita”
Death is the gate of life.

On the other side of the grave, as well as on this side, prevails the great law of divine justice. Christianity and Islam speak of it as a reward assigned by g-d to those who have pleased him. But most other faiths describe it rather as the necessary result of a good life correctly so.

Important is to realize whether you are a Buddhist or Hindu, all the tales about it should be seen as trying to describe what all fail to do because it is indescribable, as they all have to use “the known” to describe the great “unknown”.

Some speak of “cities of gold, a land of milk and honey, of the colours of the sunset by which no words you can ever picture it”. Heaven is not a place at all but a state of consciousness. If you would ask me where is heaven then I would have to tell you it is here around you at this very moment. The light is all about you, if only you take off the blindfolds. It is only a matter of raising consciousness to a higher level, to focus it in the vehicle of finer matter.

This is in regard to the astral plane. If you follow this a further stage to the mental plane as you have a body for that level also, he will then live in the glowing splendour of heaven while still possessing a physical body.

An ordinary man reaches such state of bliss only after death, and not immediately after except in rare cases. I have explained how after death the ego steadily withdraws into himself. The whole astral life is in fact a constant process of withdrawal, and when in course of time the soul reaches the limit of that plane, he dies to it in just the same way as he did to the physical plane. That is to say he casts off the body of that plane. Usually there is a period of unconsciousness at such times from which he gradually awakes.

Then man awakes to the plane of divine mind, the very realm of thought itself. You have the disadvantage from the habit of regarding material things as real, and those which are not material as dreamlike and therefore as unreal. Whereas the fact is that everything which is material is buried and hidden in this matter, and so whatever of reality it may possess is far less obvious and recognizable than it would be when regarded from a higher standpoint. Man has made himself an astral body by his desires and passions during earth life. Only the higher and more refined thoughts, the noble and unselfish aspirations that he poured out during earth life will cluster round him and make a sort of shell around him and become the powers by which he draws upon the wealth of heaven. There are two kinds of affection, “one hardly worthy of so sublime a name, which thinks always of how much love it is receiving in return for its investment in attachment, which is ever worrying as to the exact amount of affection which the other person is showing for it, and so is constantly entangled in the evil meshes of jealousy and suspicion”. Such feelings, grasping and full of greed, will work out its results of doubt and misery upon the plane of desire, to which it clearly belongs. But there is another kind of love, which never stays to think how much it is loved, but has only the one object of pouring itself out unreservedly at the feet of the object of its affection, and considers only how best it can express in action the feeling which fills its heart so utterly, here there is no limitation, because there is no grasping, no drawing towards the self, no thought of return, and just because of that, there is a tremendous outpouring of force, which no astral matter could express, nor could the dimensions of the astral plane contain it. It needs the finer matter and the wider space of the higher level, and so the energy generated belongs to the mental world. There is a religious devotion which thinks mainly of what it will get for its prayers, and lowers its worship into a species of bargaining, while there is also a genuine devotion ,which forgets itself absolutely in the contemplation of its deity.
You all know too well that in your highest devotion there is something which has never been satisfied, that your grandest aspirations have never been realised, and when you really love unselfishly, it will reach far beyond all power of expression on this physical plane. And whether it is in science, music or any other direction it will reach heights and depths unknown to this earth.

But the 3 levels are closed off by your own created curtains which are coloured by your emotional attachments collected on this and the astral plane. “The physical plane, the astral plane and finally the mental plane”.

You need to realize that the soul of ordinary man is in an early stage of his development. You might have learned to use your physical vehicle with relative ease and might even function relatively freely in your astral body, but you will rarely be able to carry through the memory of the activities to your physical brain from the mental plane and it is in true sense not a vehicle at all yet. He who can put forth full activity there, is already almost more than man, for he is a glorified spirit, an evolved entity. He is able to move freely in the mental plane as easyly as ordinary man uses his physical body. And through it vast fields of higher knowledge would lie open to him. But present man is less developed and is only able to look through his windows and sees only through them. In order to understand man’s heaven you need to consider two points; his relation to the plane itself, and his relation to his friends. The question of his relation to his surroundings upon the plane divides itself in two parts. First you have to consider matter of the plane as moulded by his thought, and secondly of the forces of the plane as evoked in answer to his aspirations.

I did explain how man surrounds himself with thought forms. On this plane you are in the very home of thought. Those forms are all important in connection with these considerations. There are living forces around him, mighty angelic inhabitants of the plane, and many of their orders are very sensitive to certain aspirations of man, and readily respond to them. But naturally both his thoughts and his aspirations are only along the lines which have already been prepared during earth life. It might seem that when he was transferred to a plane of such transcendent force and vitality he might be stirred up to entirely new activities along unwanted lines, but this is not possible, his mind body is not by any means the same order as his lower vehicles, and by no means so fully under his control.
Through many past lives it has been accustomed to receive its impressions and incitements to action from below, through the lower vehicles, mainly from the physical body, and sometimes from the astral. It has done very little in a way of receiving direct mental vibrations at its own level, and therefore it cannot suddenly begin to accept and respond to them. Practically then, man does not initiate any new thoughts, but those which he already formed, through the windows which he looks out on his new world. Some of you might remember previous articles, as I did explain these windows or curtains are stained/coloured and so only admit certain rays of light and therefore distort and darken the rays, while your focus may lie in a direction such as an appreciation in one direction of let’s say science, music or other. Then it will distort, but let’s assume his window/curtain is clear, what will he then receive through it?
First you will sense music which is the expression of the ordered movement of the forces of the plane, the music of the spheres. On these higher planes all movement and action of any kind produce a glorious harmony in sound and colour, it expresses itself in this way. Now just consider the math and vibration which causes the star of Bethlehem for a moment as well. All your thoughts will express themselves along these lines as well as that of others. These vivid chords of thousands of harps, this musical manifestation glowing life of heaven would for you be a kind of ever present and ever delightful background to all your other experiences.

The great order of angels you hear or read about in the scriptures have each of them a special devotion, and a man who’s soul is in tune with either music or any other will certainly attract their attention and will draw himself into connection with some of them, and so will learn with ever increasing enjoyment all the marvellous new combinations they employ.
Those who are attuned rightly like many of the great composers,  while it is in reality faint and far  off echoes of the sweetness of their songs, and this is the same for those scientists of fame. You should realize that the genius of this lower world is nothing but a reflection of those who have gone before you. You will have heard some say how it comes to them, they often say that they sometimes could hear the whole of some grand play and they really only write it down. And others have a window to art and so used the golden ratio in their paintings etc. Each man rightly attuned has his unique place in the whole, like a big orchestra.

You need to realise that the soul belongs to a higher plane and is much grander and greater than any manifestation can be. Its relation to its manifestation is that of one dimension to another, that of a line to a square or a square to a cube. No number of squares could ever make a cube, because the square has only two dimensions, while the cube has three. So no number of expressions on any lower plane can ever exhaust the fullness of the soul as it is on a higher plane. Altogether, it puts down a small portion of himself into a physical body in order to acquire experience which can only be done on this plane. He can take only one such body at the time, for that is the law. But if he could take a thousand, they would not be sufficient to express what he really is. He may only have one physical body, but if he has evoked such love from a friend, so that, that friend has a strong mental image of him always present in his thought, then he is able to respond to that love by pouring into that thought form his own life, and so vivifying it into a real expression of him on his level. Which is two whole planes higher than the physical, and therefore so much the better able to express his qualities.

If it seems still difficult to realize how his consciousness can be active in that manifestation as well as in this, then compare it with this ordinary physical experience. Each of you, when for instance driving a car is conscious of at the same time his hands on the steering wheel, his feet on the pedal and is at the same time aware of sitting on the seat while looking at the road.
All at once several physical contacts and yet his brain has no difficulty in realizing all of these, why then, should it be harder for the soul? Which is so much greater than the mere physical consciousness, to be consciousness simultaneously in more than one of these manifestations on planes so entirely below him.
It is really the one man who feels all those different contacts, it is really the one man who feels all these different thought images, and is real, living and loving in all of them, you have him there always at his best, for this is a far fuller expression than the physical plane could give, even under the best circumstances. Would this affect the evolution of the friend in any way? It certainly will, for it allows him an additional opportunity of manifestation. If he has a physical body he is already learning physical lessons through it. But this enables him at the very same time to develop the quality of affection much more rapidly through the form on the mental plane which you have given him.
So your love is doing great things for him, as I have said, the soul may manifest in many images if he is fortunate enough to have them made for him. One who is much loved by many people may have part in many heavens simultaneously, and may evolve more rapidly, but this vast additional opportunity is the direct result and reward of those loveable qualities which drew towards him the affectionate regard of so many of his fellow men. So not only does he receive love from all of these, but through that receiving, he himself grows in love, whether these friends are dead or alive, while there could be two possible limitations to the perfection of this intercourse.
First your image of your friend may be partial and imperfect, so that many of his higher qualities may not be represented and may therefore be unable to show themselves forth through it. Then, secondly, there may be some difficulty from your friends side, you may have formed a conception somewhat inaccurately: if your friend is yet not a highly evolved soul, it is even possible you might have overrated him in some direction. In that case there might be some aspect of your thought image which he could not completely fill, this however, is unlikely and could only take place when a quite unworthy object has been unwisely idolized. Even then the man who made the image would not find any change or lack in his friend, for the latter is at least better able to fulfil his ideal than he has ever been during physical life. Being underdeveloped, he may not be perfect, but at least he is better than ever before, so nothing is wanting the joy of the dweller in heaven. Your friend can fill hundreds of images with those qualities which he possesses, but when a quality is as yet underdeveloped in him, he does not suddenly evolve because you have supposed him already to have attained it. Here is the enormous advantage which those have, who form images only of those who cannot disappoint them – or since there could be no disappointment.
I would rather say, of those capable of rising above even the highest conception that the lower mind can form of them. He who forms in his mind the image of the master knows that all the inadequacy will be on his own side, for he is drawing thereupon a depth of love and power which his mental plummet can never sound. But you may ask, since the soul spends so large a proportion of his time in the enjoyment of the bliss of the heaven world. What are his opportunities of development during his stay there? This should be divided in three classes, though of each there may be many varieties. First through certain qualities in himself he has opened certain windows into his heaven world, by the continued exercise of those qualities through so long a time he will greatly strengthen them, and will return to earth for his next incarnation very richly endowed in that respect. All thoughts are intensified by reiteration, and the man who spends a thousand years principally in pouring forth unselfish affection will assuredly at the end of that period know how to love strongly and well.

Ponder on all this for a while, and I will continue with the second point in the follow-up of these articles.

 

20-04-2007

Moshiya van den Broek