The astral (emotional) body of a person. Astral body of man

The astral (emotional) body of a person.  Astral body of man
The astral (emotional) body of a person. Astral body of man

The astral body of a person is the second subtle body after. The astral body corresponds to the chakra and is controlled directly by it. Since the Manipura chakra is considered a source of strength. chakra of energy force, then the functions of the Astral body are also largely related to strength, protection, etc.

The astral body is unique in that it contains a huge potential and arsenal for fighting in and for the energy protection of a person. Many have probably heard such a term - "astral warriors" - and so, for such a warrior (emotional, energetic) and the potential and capabilities of the astral body is used.

Astral body - basic characteristics

Astral body - located at a distance of 25-40 cm from the surface of the physical body (or rather its shell), depending on its power. Strong charismatic personalities, people who constantly train physically, energetically, in their influence on others, reveal their leadership qualities - they have a powerful and developed Astral body.

Those who deny inner strength, indulge weakness, self-pity, depravity and lack of will, about whom we can say that he is spineless, slender, does not have his own opinion, spineless and irresponsible, in general, weak as a person - such people have an underdeveloped Astral body. In the worst case, it can be ripped and hung on the person like an old rag. Such a person is not able to stand up for himself psychologically and energetically.

The color of astral energy is silver with blue splashes, by the way, it also does not coincide with the bright yellow color of the energy of Manipura itself.

Functionality of the Astral Body

The main features of the Astral body:

1. Systems of energy protection, which are built into the astral body itself. Many types of defense, including combat - rotating spikes or knives outward.

2. Keeping astral weapons in the astral body: throwing, cutting, etc. Mainly aimed at punishing the evil, guilty, at damaging their subtle bodies, chakras, etc.

3. In general, the Astral body, its powerful energy - gives a person strength, confidence, the ability to influence others, travel to, etc.

4. In the Astral body, there are also phantoms of a person (in a reduced form) - for training, work in the Subtle World and warfare.

How to develop and train the Astral body?

1. Through the active development of Manipura - the study and development of its aspirations and principles: fearlessness, responsibility, discipline, energy force, etc. Read more.

2. Training of the Astral Body - occurs during verbal and emotional fights, when you have to defend your opinion, convince, influence, and show strength.

3. Of course, meditation and self-hypnosis are very widely used for the development, strengthening, restoration of the Astral body as well.

4. The astral body grows and becomes stronger - through the cultivation in life of the state of a Warrior, a strong person with principles and Honor, capable of protecting his Spiritual Values.

5. Likewise, the Astral body strengthens and grows due to the direct collection of astral energy on the body, but these techniques are considered in the corresponding lessons with

person. It manifests itself in the form of emotional experiences and states. Therefore, the astral body is often called the emotional body.

Astral body structure

Much thinner, only approximately repeats the contours of the physical body and consists of multi-colored energy substances that are in constant motion. These colored clots of energies permeate the previous denser bodies - the etheric and physical, and are also able to color the thought forms of the more subtle mental body.

They look like colored energy vortices colored in all the colors of the rainbow. In the case of balanced chakras, these colors have clear, deep shades. Each chakra has its own color:

1. Muladhara - red;

2. Svadhisthana - orange (red - orange);

3. Manipura - yellow;

4. Anahata - green (bright herbal);

5. Vishudha - sky blue;

6. Ajna - blue (indigo);

7. Sahasrara is purple (white).

In an upright person, with balanced chakras, the astral body has an ovoid shape. If the chakras are out of balance, the shape of the emotional body can be distorted, and the colors of the chakras will have dirty dark shades.

Properties of the astral body

In humans, the astral body is responsible for the emotional and sensory perception of the world. A person quite well perceives the vibrations of the astral body and quickly reacts to changes in its states, although such reactions can most often be attributed to subconscious ones.

To be aware of the reactions of the emotional body, and even more so to control them, is not an easy task and, as a rule, requires long and serious work. Many, with some diligence, manage to learn to maintain external calmness or indifference, while the astral body remains uncontrollable. Therefore, despite the external form, people perfectly feel the true attitude towards themselves from other people, however, they do not always trust their feelings - they trust their reason. But the mind (mental body), it is quite easy to instill any desired thought. This is especially true of a person with a developed mental body. Therefore, "smart is easily deceived"

Of all the subtle bodies, the astral body reacts most sharply and strongly to a person's relationship with the outside world. By changing, the emotional body causes a change in the hormonal background of the physical body, and a change in the movement of energy (qi, prana) along the energy channels of the etheric body.

In the astral body, emotions, feelings and states are manifested. If astral projections of the lower chakras (svadhisthana and manipura) are excited, then most often they talk about emotions such as fear, falling in love, anger, aggression, resentment, sadness, joy.

If the astral is excited, then more often they talk about feelings, such as love, compassion, empathy.

If the astral projections of the upper chakras (ajna, sahasrara) are excited, then most often they talk about states such as creative upsurge, pacification, serenity, ecstasy.

With his astral body, a person interacts with the astral bodies of other beings and objects using numerous astral channels. By immersing your consciousness in the astral body, you can travel to various astral worlds.

During strong emotional experiences, a person loses a lot of energy. If astral body strongly excited, then it can throw bunches of energy into space. This released energy, as a rule, has its addressee and is capable of evoking a reciprocal feeling or emotion. If emotions are positive or sublime, then the released energy clots are painted in pure, bright colors and can inspire or heal a person.

If emotions are negative, they have a dirty tint and can cause significant harm to the person to whom they are directed. However, these same emotions affect the one who allows them. No wonder there is a saying: "The evil man of the Earth is a short-lived inhabitant"

The state of the astral body, the emotions that a person experiences, have a significant impact on the scenario of his life, on current and future events.

The health of the astral body depends largely on the engrams it contains and on the presence of suppressed emotions.

Note. An engram is information that is recorded on the subconscious of a person in a state of complete or partial unconsciousness (for example, illness, painful shock, strong emotional arousal ...).

Suppressed emotions can arise if a person is not allowed to show any emotions (or he does not allow himself). For example, a child is not allowed to show love or compassion for people or animals. In this case, emotions can be suppressed, his heart chakra will close, and he may never experience these feelings for the rest of his life.

Hello dear readers of the blog site. Today we will answer the questions: what is the human astral body, what are its main functions, and how are virus programs formed?

Astral body (astral)- this is one of the subtle bodies of a person, which is part of the subconscious and is the second, after the etheric. The very space of the astral body is the space of our emotions.

Energetic protection, confidence and energetic influence on others largely depends on the astral body, as it is associated with the Manipura chakra, which is an energetic source of strength. The color of astral energy is silvery blue.

The development and periodic cleansing of the astral body allows:

  1. Improve memory and expand personal astral space;
  2. deactivate malicious programs (turn off their power supply);
  3. gradually transform and free your consciousness from various rubbish.
  4. improve intuition (be able to read feelings and emotions, not only your own, but also others). And the first thing to learn here is to determine which chakra a person has at the moment of interaction with him;
  5. establish subconscious contact with anyone;
  6. improve ;
  7. receive information from the soul and various collective levels of consciousness that is blocked.

The development and cleansing of the astral plane has a beneficial effect on all the overlying subtle bodies, since all of them, to a greater or lesser extent, are fed by the energy of the astral plane.

Consciousness viruses or how malicious programs are formed in human consciousness?

The human astral body contains low-frequency (negative emotions) and high-frequency (positive) vibrations. In most cases, low-frequency vibrations cause harm to a person, but there is a certain category of people who experience problems in the astral body when high-frequency vibrations prevail there. Before working with the Astral, you need to know exactly what kind of energy your subconscious mind feeds on.

Due to energy failures, some experienced emotions are not digested by the astral body, just like in the physical body - a problem arises called allergies. The physical body in this case, is not able to consume certain foods in the same way as the astral body - to assimilate and process certain emotions (energies).

This undigested emotion lays down on the astral as a dead weight and begins to poison it. In other words, the astral could not divide the emotion into separate parts (separate energy and information separately).

Such emotion not only takes a place in the astral space, but after a certain period of time acquires the quality of primitive consciousness (such consciousness makes the inanimate alive). Thus, the emotion turns into a virus-like living being, whose only goal is to survive.

In order to survive, this virus begins to look for patrons for itself in other overlying subtle bodies of a person and finds them, for example, in the mental body, in which there are mental programs (structures) that also want to live.

For a mental program to exist, it must have an uninterruptible power supply. That "conserved" emotion becomes such a source of nutrition. And what is called - they found each other, a mental program that does not want to be destroyed and a low vibration of the astral, which does not want to be removed.

The viability of such a virus-like program in the human mind is explained by the fact that having found an energy source of nutrition for itself, it is able to act independently, i.e. survive. To strengthen its positions, the virus also grows down to the level of the etheric body, causing unpleasant sensations in the form, malaise and an outflow of energy.

Due to the high survival rate, it is extremely difficult to remove such virus programs from the mind if you do not know the technology. The technique commonly used by psychologists and psychotherapists is very time consuming. Working at the level of the mental body, they try to disassemble the problem (program), decompose it into its components, without paying attention to the energy (etheric and astral body of a person) and informational (causal or buddhial body) sources of nutrition for this program.

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Headings

Astral body of man

Astral matter penetrates into the physical in such a way that each physical atom with its etheric shell is separated from each other atom by an infinitely more subtle and mobile astral matter. But this matter has completely different properties than physical, and it is invisible to us because we have not yet developed organs for perceiving it. We stand to to the astral world absolutely in the same position in which the born blind stands to the physical world, he does not see it, although this world still exists. Or in which we stand to the world of infinitely small quantities: they did not exist for us until such auxiliary devices were invented that greatly enhance our vision, such as microscopes. But even at our stage of development, there are people who are able to perceive subtle vibrations. astral world and to some extent see astral phenomena. Such people are called clairvoyants.

But even though we don't see astral world, we constantly live in it, since all our feelings, passions, emotions and attractions belong to this world and have their centers in our astral body... All our properties, colored by the element of passion, everything that can be called the thirst for sensual existence, the thirst for material pleasures, the greed of the flesh, has its source astral principle of man... In fact, the roughest of our beginnings is not physical matter, but this average astral principle, which is the true center of the entire animal, while the physical body is only an irresponsible vehicle through which the passionate animal principle acts during the earthly life of a person.

Most of our everyday thoughts are so closely mixed with a passionate beginning, so imbued astral vibrations that Eastern psychology strictly delimited our earthly, or small, mind, which works under the impulses of our lower, egoistic, nature, from the higher mind, which receives impulses from the higher, supra-personal, human nature. Astral body is the transmission authority between the highest principle of man, between the Thinker himself, and his physical brain. Every time we think, we evoke vibrations in mental matter, but in order to manifest at the physical level, our thought must make a circle: having caused vibrations in mental matter, it then evokes corresponding vibrations in astral matter and through astral centers comes into contact with the physical, acting primarily on the etheric substance of our body and only after that on the coarser, physical, matter, i.e. on the gray matter of the brain.

Observations made by clairvoyants are quite consistent with each other: in the waking state astral body penetrates into the physical body of a person, but it is larger in size than the latter and surrounds the person with a light cloud, which is called the human aura. Astral body an undeveloped person is a cloudy, vaguely delineated mass astral matter of the lower type, the fabric of which is relatively dense and rough and capable of responding to all stimuli associated with animal desires. Its color is dull shades: brown, dull red and dirty green are the predominant colors. They are deprived of the play of light, and various passions appear in them as heavy waves, or, if passions are strong, like lightning explosions; thus, sexual passion causes a wave of dull carmine color, and an outburst of anger - a red lightning with a bluish tinge.

Astral Body

Astral body looks like an egg-shaped cloud of energy. This is the body of emotions. All our emotional conflicts, quarrels are reflected in the physical body - it weakens. The essence of the astral body is our feelings, experiences, emotions, ideas about the world. The formation of the astral body occurs between the ages of 14 and 21. It is believed that on the fortieth day after the death of a person astral body dies.

The study astral body psychologists are engaged, tk. the neuropsychic state of a person directly depends on the state of this body. The color of the astral body is changeable - it all depends on the mood of the person.

Centers of higher astral activities bearing the name in the East chakrams, or luminous wheels, are hardly noticeable in an undeveloped person. At this stage, a person requires strong sensations of all kinds for his development, so that his inner nature does not cease to receive energetic impulses for activity. The more diverse and stronger the sensations, the better for the inner growth of a person.

Astral body constantly changing its composition under the influence of the play of passions, desires and worries. If they are benign, they strengthen the finer particles astral body and the coarse components are discarded and replaced with finer materials. All other passions cause just the opposite effect: while strengthening the coarse particles, they at the same time displace the finer ones, replacing them with a lower type. astral matter... When a person is asleep astral body frees itself from its physical vehicle, leaving it with its etheric counterpart in bed. In an undeveloped person astral body remains unconscious during sleep and hovers close to the physical.

If we go to astral body average developed person, we will find in him already a big difference in comparison with astral body primitive man. It is more significant in size, the presence of finer particles gives it a luminous appearance, and the appearance of higher emotions causes a wonderful play of colors in it. Its outlines are definite and clear, and it acquires a resemblance to its owner. While retaining great plasticity, it constantly returns to its normal form and does not stop vibrating and glowing in various changing shades, and the wheels in it are already clearly visible, although they are not yet rotating. The cleansing process occurs in the same way as in the previous case, but the construction itself astral body provided at this stage to the personal control of the person himself. By carefully observing his thoughts and feelings and the conscious direction of them, a person can most decisively influence his astral body and improve it quickly. In a dream, such a developed astral body does not linger in the vicinity of its physical counterpart, as in the previous case. It wanders into astral world, wearable astral currents, while the human consciousness (the higher Manas, which does not need mediation) is able to perceive impressions and even imprint them in the brain, such as prophetic dreams or visions.

Astral Yoga

Astral Yoga designed to eradicate karma in the Astral plane, just as it is done with the help of Jnana Yoga in the world of Appearances. An experience Astral Yoga completely different from the experience you have when you leave the physical body. A person's consciousness, as a rule, leaves the physical body and observes various phenomena.

On the contrary, a person enters the Astral world, transferring his consciousness into a body, called in Astral Yoga Body Reward... And then he can really experience the phenomena himself, and not just observe them.

Those who are loved by everyone, or those around whom there are many people who are able to declare: "Have a predisposition to Astral Yoga." I can die for him".

Astral body a spiritually developed person consists of the finest particles astral matter and is a wonderful sight in radiance and color, and shades unprecedented on earth appear in him under the influence of pure and noble thoughts. The rotational movement of the wheels indicates the activity of the higher centers. In a dream, a person with such astral consciousness does not stop as a conductor, leaving his heavy physical shell, he can freely hover in astral realm moving with great speed. The absence of coarse particles in it astral body makes him incapable of responding to vibrations coming from the lower objects of desire, and they sweep past him without being attracted to him or touching him. Such astral body obeys a person, reflects his thoughts and obeys them, which gives him the opportunity to be consciously active in astral plan.

When the physical body dies, the etheric body, being released, carries away with it prana, which, as we have already seen, is an organizing and connecting life principle within the physical body, and together with prana it carries away all the higher principles of man. All vital energies leaving the physical body are drawn into one center and collected by prana, and their release from the body is expressed by the numbness of the physical senses. The latter remain unharmed, but inner master gone, the one who saw through them, heard, smelled, tasted and touched, and without him they are just random combinations of physical matter, incapable of organized life. The sovereign, clothed in gray-lilac, is slowly removed from the body etheric body and busy with the contemplation of the picture unfolding in front of him of his whole life. This picture captures all the events of his earthly existence, all deceived expectations, all triumphs and failures, all attachments and antipathies, the meaning of his entire lived life appears before him clearly: her guiding thought is imprinted in the soul and determines the area in which the afterlife will take place. deceased. For a short moment, he sees himself as he is, learns the true purpose of life and becomes convinced that the laws of life are unchanging and just. Following this, the magnetic connection between the physical and etheric bodies is interrupted, the comrades of earthly life are separated forever, and the person, except in exceptional cases, plunges for a while into a peaceful unconscious state. In these solemn moments of death, silence should not be broken around the dying person. All manifestations of personal grief, outbursts of despair and loud crying can interfere with the view of the past life sweeping before his inner gaze, and therefore the wise prescription of religion: to read prayer prayers over the dying should be performed in complete silence.

After death, when a person is freed from physical body, and then from etheric, he remains clothed in his astral body.

During physical life astral body a person consists of particles of various qualities, after death, when a person finally passes into astral sphere, into his astral body there is such a change: previously mixed particles astral matters, gross and subtle, begin to combine according to their relative density and form a series of concentric shells, or, as they are often called, shells, around a person. Because astral matter exists in seven states, then astral body the deceased is a combination of seven compounds, in which the person remains a prisoner until the disintegration of this complex veil frees him.

Now it becomes clear how important cleansing is. astral body during earthly life. The purgatory through which the deceased passes is an extremely diverse environment, and all the experiences of the deceased are composed according to what kind astral vibrations predominated during his life astral conductor. In the lowest region of purgatory, conditions are extremely difficult: it is, as it were, filled with emanations of evil passions and brutal lusts; while the higher region of purgatory appears to be so attractive that it has earned the name among the Spiritualists countries of eternal summer... A spiritually developed person who purified his astral body so much that it contains only the finest particles, passes through purgatory without any slowdown, without entering into communication with its gross phenomena, since the vibrations of its finer composition do not at all respond to gross vibrations. Wherein astral body it collapses quickly, and a person is freed from it soon in order to enter into the limits of the highest light life.

Experience gained in astral body, affects our lives. Our dreams are work astral body at the subconscious level. Astral energies create astral plane, on which essences live (ghosts, ghosts and objects seen in dreams. The astral plane is two-level. The first level is emotions and feelings (grief, joy, anger). The second level is a state (love, happiness).

A less developed, but not bad person will pass by gross phenomena astral the world is also unconscious, and its awakening will come only when it comes into contact with vibrations corresponding to its nature, which it will now perceive directly by its liberated from the physical body astral conductor. As for people who, during their lifetime, surrendered to animal passions, they will awaken in a suitable area for them, for each person is literally directed to your own place.

Each deceased person remains in an area suitable for his passions and desires. astral the world until these passions are eliminated, until he - for the impossibility of satisfying them - will not wean from them. But for everyone - sooner or later - excluding those few who during their entire earthly life have not experienced a single glimpse of disinterested love or spiritual aspiration, the time comes when the connection with astral body finally breaks and the soul sinks into a short unconsciousness, similar to the one that occurs after the physical body is thrown off, and then the soul awakens from a feeling of bliss that is inconceivable for earthly consciousness - the bliss of the highest, or heavenly, world, to which, in its true essence, the human soul. And no matter how base the earthly passions of another soul are, there are still glimpses of its higher nature in it, and for these glimpses comes the harvest, the soul begins to transform everything that it has experienced on the earth of the disinterested and noble, into the everlasting properties and inclinations of its immortal nature ...

Astral the corpse, or shell, left after a deceased person, begins to gradually disintegrate, indefinitely wandering into astral world and automatically repeating the vibrations familiar to him. Such shells can be temporarily restored to a semblance of life and even activity - if they are not too decayed - by the magnetism of embodied souls. The magnetism of living people is absorbed astral a corpse, like water with a sponge, and then the astral shell takes on a deceptive form of vitality and mechanically repeats those vibrations that were characteristic of a deceased person during life. Such vibrations can be caused by the current of thoughts, familiar both for the deceased and for relatives and friends who have remained on earth, as a result of which such a temporarily revived shell can very satisfactorily play the role of a communicating spirit, an astral-seeing person can easily distinguish it, but, in addition to clairvoyance , it can be recognized by the automatic repetition of thoughts common to a deceased person and by the complete lack of originality and any knowledge that the deceased did not possess on earth.

    Other articles on similar topics:
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  • What is the human Etheric body?
  • What is the Mental body of a person.
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Article title author
Astral body of man Elena Pisareva 17703
Human etheric body Elena Pisareva 7044
Anahata - the fourth chakra of a person Olga Tarabashkina 6740
Seven human bodies - self-realization during life Osho 5455
Muladhara - the first chakra of man Olga Tarabashkina 5254
Human chakras Olga Tarabashkina 5057
Human mental body Elena Pisareva 4918
Aura - the eighth chakra of a person Olga Tarabashkina 4677
Hatha Yoga, Integrity and System Principles Andrey Sidersky 4589
Human energy balance 4536
Secrets of Yoga asanas 4451
Vishuddha - the fifth chakra of a person Olga Tarabashkina 4415
Manipura - the third chakra of a person Olga Tarabashkina 4392
The system of subtle bodies and karma Shanti Nathini 4098
Causal body Sergey Kirizleev 3597
Ajna - the sixth chakra of man Olga Tarabashkina 3557
Vitality and Yoga Ramacharaka 2683
Sahasrara - the seventh chakra of man Olga Tarabashkina 2634
Physical body Elena Pisareva 2597
Types of the spiritual state of Samadhi Sri Chinmoy 2589
The highest principle of man - Immortal soul Elena Pisareva 2523
Svadishtana - the second chakra of man Olga Tarabashkina 2417
Yoga, the three categories of the human mind Ramacharaka 2192
Heart Yoga. Five levels of the body. Michael Roach 1957
Five Layers - Human Bodies Osho 1927
Eight human bodies (according to Guru Ar Santem) 1862
Vedic knowledge of Ayurveda and Yoga David Frawley 1748

Anatomy of a Yoga

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Ajna - the sixth chakra of man

Sixth chakra located in the pituitary gland, behind the frontal bone. The chakra is called " Ajna"And translates as" endless power". Sixth chakra- Centre intuition, inner voice and knowledge. A well-developed talent for intuition leads us to people and places where we find the greatest personal expression of ourselves and opportunities for life and growth, both material and spiritual. It is a talent for being lucky and fearless, because we “know” everything and trust the hand that guides us.

The astral body is the world of images that make up the social personality of a person. Feelings, experiences, emotions, ideas about the world - all this is the essence of the astral body.

Astral body(or the body of emotions) consists of more subtle matter than etheric. Often the astral body is also called aura.

The astral body is the world of images that make up the social personality of a person. Feelings, experiences, emotions, ideas about the world - all this is the essence of the astral body.

This subtle body is 5-50 cm outside the physical body, depending on the wealth of the inner world of a person and the level of his spiritual development. It does not have such a clear form as the etheric one. It is a continually iridescent colored bunches of energy. In an unemotional person, this body is fairly uniform and discharged. In a very emotional person, these multi-colored clots are thicker and denser. Moreover, outbursts of negative emotions manifest themselves as clots of energies of "heavy" and dark colors - burgundy red, brown, gray, black, etc.

If a person is emotional, but easy-going, then the clots of negative energies in the emotional body dissolve relatively quickly. But if a person has lingering negative emotions such as constant resentment on people or life, or constant aggressiveness in relation to life or other people (communists, democrats, Jews, boss, ex-husband, etc.), then such emotions create long-term clots of negative emotional energy... These clots further have a negative impact on our health.

The formation of the astral body occurs between the ages of 14 and 21. It is believed that on the fortieth day after the death of a person, the astral body dies. Astral energies create a whole, so-called, astral plane, on which the essences of the astral plane live (egregors, ghosts, essences created in our dreams, etc.). The astral plane is two-level. The first level is emotions and feelings (grief, joy, anger). The second level is a state (love, happiness).

The astral body constantly changes its composition under the influence of the play of passions, desires and worries. If they are benign, they strengthen the finer particles of the astral body. By carefully observing his thoughts and feelings and the conscious direction of them, a person can most decisively influence his astral body and quickly improve it. In a dream, such a developed astral body does not linger close to its physical counterpart. It wanders into astral world, wearable astral currents, meanwhile, human consciousness is able to perceive impressions and even imprint them in the brain (prophetic dreams or visions).

The astral world is a certain area of ​​the Universe that surrounds the physical world and partially penetrates into it, but invisible and not perceived by us, since it consists of matter of a different order.

The astral body of a spiritually developed person consists of the finest particles astral matter and represents a spectacle beautiful in radiance and color, and shades unprecedented on earth appear in it under the influence of pure and noble thoughts. With our noble thoughts we cleanse our own astral body and there is no need to take any special measures in this regard.

Each person acts through the medium of the astral body, but only a few can use it apart from the physical body. If it were not for this mediating activity of the astral body, then there would be no connection between the external world and the human mind, and the signals sent by the physical senses would not be perceived by the mind. These signals are converted into sensations in the astral body and then only perceived by the mind.

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ASTRAL BODY OR BODY OF DESIRE


So; we studied the physical body of a person - both the visible and invisible parts of it - and realized that a person, a living and conscious being, being in the physical world, can manifest in a state of "wakefulness" only those knowledge and abilities that allow him to manifest it physical body. And this ability to manifest on the physical level largely depends on how perfect or imperfect this body will be; it limits a person in his manifestation in the lower world, forming a real "protective circle" around him. What is unable to pass through this circle, is not able to manifest on earth - that is why it is so important for a person to develop it. In the same way, acting outside the physical body in another area of ​​the universe - the astral world (or at the astral level), a person can manifest his knowledge and abilities (in other words, himself) only to the extent that his astral body will allow it. At this level, it is it that is at the same time its carrier and limiter.
Man is more than his bodies; and a significant part of it is unable to manifest itself either on the physical or on the astral level; but the amount of manifestation that he can afford in any particular area of ​​the universe may be mistaken for the person himself. The part of him that he can manifest here is determined by his physical body; and the amount of manifestation that he can afford in the astral world limits the astral body; therefore, we can guess that as our study progresses further to the higher worlds, we will learn that in the course of his evolutionary development, a person gets the opportunity to increasingly express himself and at the same time gradually perfects the carriers of his consciousness.
It will be useful to remind the reader that we are now approaching areas that are relatively poorly studied, and for the majority - even unknown, and therefore there can be no claims to infallible knowledge or absolutely accurate observations. When it comes to levels located above the physical, erroneous assumptions and conclusions are as possible as in the study of physical problems themselves - and this should not be forgotten. As knowledge deepens and research continues, the accuracy of the presentation will undoubtedly increase and all mistakes made here will be corrected over time. And since the author of this study himself is still only a student, the likelihood of errors in the text is very high, and they will have to be corrected in the future. However, this book can erroneously present only details, not general principles and main conclusions.
First of all, it is necessary that the reader has a clear idea of ​​what the astral level or the astral world is. The astral world is a certain area of ​​the universe that surrounds the physical world and partially penetrates into it, but is not visible or perceived by us, since it consists of matter of a different order.
If you split the primary physical atom, then it - according to the concepts of the physical world - will disappear; but in fact it consists of many particles of the grossest astral matter, solid matter of the astral world *.
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* The term astral - stellar - is not the most successful, but it has been used for many centuries to denote superphysical matter and therefore it is no longer possible to replace it. It was introduced by the first researchers, possibly because astral matter appears to be luminous, as opposed to physical matter.
We have already mentioned seven states of physical matter - solid, liquid, gaseous and four etheric ones, each of which is represented by an infinite number of different combinations that make up the physical world. Likewise, astral matter is in seven states corresponding to the physical; and innumerable different combinations in these states also form the astral world. Each physical atom has its own astral shell; astral matter, thus, is a kind of matrix of physical matter, and physical, in turn, appears to be inserted into the astral. Astral matter is the bearer of the Jiva - the ONE LIFE that animates everything; thanks to astral matter, the flows of the Jiva surround, support, nourish every particle of physical matter; these currents of the Jiva generate not only what is commonly called vital forces, but also all electrical, magnetic, chemical and other energies, forces of attraction, cohesion, repulsion, and so on - all these are varieties of ONE LIFE in which the universes swim like fish in the sea. From the astral world, so closely connected with the physical, the Jiva passes into the etheric matter of the latter, which, in turn, becomes the bearer of all these forces and transfers them to the lower sublevels of physical matter, where we can observe their action.
If we imagine that the entire physical world suddenly disappeared, but no more changes occurred in the universe, then we will still get an exact reproduction of it in astral matter; and if we also imagine that all people at the same time acquire the ability to act in the astral world, then all of them - both men and women - at first simply will not notice any changes in the world around them; “dead” people, reawakening in the lower spheres of the astral world, often feel this way and continue to believe that they are still living in the physical world.
Although most of us do not yet have astral vision, it is still necessary to try to imagine the relative reality of the astral world as part of the phenomenal universe, to look at it, if not astral, then at least mental vision. It is as real as the physical world, and given the fact that it is closer to the ONE REALITY, we can say that it is even more real than the physical; its phenomena are as accessible to the study of a competent researcher as are the phenomena of the physical level. And if here a blind person does not see anything, and even a sighted person can see many objects only with the help of special devices - a microscope, a spectroscope, etc., then the same picture is observed at the astral level.
Astral blind people are not able to see astral objects, but many things are indistinguishable even for normal astral vision, that is, clairvoyance.
Already at the present stage of evolution, many people could develop in themselves astral perception and in fact develop it to some extent and acquire, thus, the ability to capture more subtle vibrations, already related to the astral level. Some of them, of course, make mistakes quite often, as, for example, a child who is just mastering his physical senses makes mistakes, but as experience accumulates, these mistakes are corrected, and over time they begin to see and hear on the astral level just as well. as well as on the physical. It is undesirable to accelerate this process artificially, because until a certain level of physical strength is reached, a person is quite satisfied with what the physical world offers him, and the penetration of astral images, sounds and phenomena will only bother and even frighten him. But over time, a person himself will reach such a state when the relative reality of the astral part of the invisible world will become available to his waking consciousness.
But for this it is not enough just to have an astral body - and each of us has one - it is necessary that this body be fully formed and ready for work, and consciousness must be accustomed to act in itself, and not only to act through it on the physical body.
Each person acts through the medium of the astral body, but only a few can use it apart from the physical. If it were not for this mediating activity of the astral body, then there would be no connection between the external world and the human mind, and the signals sent by the physical senses would not be perceived by the mind. These signals are converted into sensations in the astral body and then only perceived by the mind.
The astral body, in which the centers of sensation are concentrated, is often called astral man, just as we might call the physical body a physical man; but it is, of course, only a carrier - or a sheath, as the Vedantists would say - in which the true man acts, through which he reaches his denser carrier, the physical body, and through which, in turn, the physical body reaches the man.
As for the structure of the astral body, it consists of 7 sublevels of astral matter, and for its construction either coarser or finer materials from each sublevel can be used.
It is not difficult to describe the fully formed astral body of a person; Imagine that a person leaves his physical body and only a more transparent, luminous copy remains of him, clearly distinguishable for a clairvoyant, but inaccessible to ordinary vision. I said - "a fully formed astral body", since an insufficiently highly developed person resembles an embryo in his astral body. Its contours have not yet been determined; the material from which it is made is dull and loose; and if you separate it from the physical body, then it will appear in the form of a shapeless cloud that changes its outlines, clearly unsuitable for the role of an independent carrier; in fact, it is rather a clot of astral matter than a formed astral body; a mass of astral protoplasm resembling an amoeba.
A fully formed astral body indicates that a person has reached a very high level of intellectual culture, or spiritual development; so that the appearance of the astral body is an indicator of the level of progress made by its owner; by the completeness of its contours, the brightness of the materials of which it consists, and the perfection of its organization, one can judge at what stage of evolution is the Ego using it.
As for the possibility of its improvement - and this issue is important for all of us - it depends, on the one hand, on the purification of the physical body, and on the other, on the purification and development of the mind.
The astral body is especially sensitive to the influence of thoughts, since astral matter reacts more quickly to impulses coming from the world of mind than physical matter. For example, if we could look at the astral world, we would see that it is filled with constantly changing forms; we would find in it "thought-forms" —forms formed by elemental essence and animated by thought; we would also notice the huge masses of this elemental matter, from which forms constantly arise and into which they then return again. If we look closely, we could also discern the streams of thoughts that cause fluctuations in astral matter: strong thoughts create from it forms that live for a long time as separate beings; weak thoughts create for themselves only fragile shells, the vibrations of which soon fade; thus, thought impulses produce permanent changes throughout the astral world.
The astral body of a person, being created from astral matter, readily responds to the influence of thought, responding to it with vibrations, regardless of whether this thought comes from outside (from the mind of another person) or from within (from the mind of the owner of the body).
Let us consider the influence on the astral body of these mental impulses, both internal and external.
As we already know, it penetrates the physical body and spreads further in all directions from it, like a colored cloud. Its color depends on the nature of a person - on his lower, animal, passionate nature, and that part of it that extends beyond the physical body is called the kamic aura, since it belongs to the body of Kama (or the body of desire), usually called the astral body of a person *.
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* The idea of ​​the possibility of separating the "aura" from a person, as if it were something different from him, is erroneous, although from the point of view of the observer it looks quite natural. In common parlance, the aura is a cloud that envelops the body; and indeed, a person lives at each level in the shell that most corresponds to this level, and all his shells or bodies interpenetrate each other; the lowest and smallest of these sheaths is usually called the "body," and the substances of the other sheaths mixed with the body are called the aura (when they extend beyond the body). The Kama aura, therefore, represents that part of the Kama body that extends beyond the physical body.
After all, the astral body is the bearer of man's kamic consciousness, the receptacle of all animal passions and desires, the center of feelings, in which, as already mentioned, all sensations arise. Vibrating under the influence of thoughts, it constantly changes its color: if a person loses his temper, it becomes covered with scarlet spots; if he is in love, pink-red waves pass over him. If a person's thoughts are lofty and noble, then they must correspond to a more subtle astral matter, and then the astral body begins to lose the coarsest and most dense particles of its astral matter of all sublevels, replacing them with more subtle and perfect particles.
The astral body of a person, whose thoughts are of a low and animal character, looks coarse, dense, opaque and has a dark color, sometimes so dark that it almost hides the contours of the physical body; while in a highly developed person, the astral body - pure, transparent, brilliant and light - is a truly beautiful sight. In this case, low passions are suppressed and purposeful activity of the mind purifies astral matter.
Thus, with our noble thoughts we cleanse our own astral body and there is no need to take any special measures in this regard.
It should also be mentioned that this internal process has a powerful influence on those thoughts that are attracted to the astral body from the outside; if the body is accustomed by its owner to bad thoughts, then from its environment it will attract to itself, like a magnet, thoughts of the same kind; whereas a pure astral body will react to such thoughts with the energy of repulsion and, on the contrary, will attract thought-forms created from the same matter as itself.
As already mentioned above, the astral body also partly depends on the physical body, and therefore it is also influenced by the purity (or, on the contrary, the impurity) of this body. We have already said that dense, liquid, gaseous, and etheric matter of the physical body can be either impure or purified; either coarse or fine. Her nature, in turn, is reflected in the nature of her astral shells.
If, showing unreasonable carelessness in relation to our physical body, we allow impure particles of dense matter to penetrate into it, then by doing so we will attract to our astral body the same impure particles of matter, which we would call dense astral.
And, on the contrary, if we build our dense body from pure particles of dense physical matter, then the same pure solid astral particles will be attracted to our astral bodies. Thus, by purifying our physical body, supplying it with clean food and drink and refusing to include unclean foods in our diet, such as animal blood (always present in meat), alcohol and the like, which pollute and coarsen our bodies, we not only improve qualities of the physical carrier of our consciousness, but we also purify to some extent our astral body, which begins to absorb finer and more perfect materials from the astral space.
The positive results of this process are important not only for the current earthly life, but also have an impact, as will be shown below, on the subsequent posthumous state when a person is in the astral world, as well as on the qualities of the body that a person will acquire in his next earthly life. life.
But that's not all: the worst types of food attract various harmful creatures from the same astral space to the astral body, since we have to deal there not only with astral matter, but also with the inhabitants of the astral world - elementals. These are beings of a higher and lower order that exist at this level and are the products of human thoughts; in the astral world there are also depraved people, whose astral bodies became the place of their imprisonment, they are called elementaries.
Elementals are attracted to those people whose astral bodies are composed of particles of a nature similar to them; and the elementaries, of course, look for people who have the same vices that were inherent in themselves when they still lived in physical bodies.
Anyone endowed with astral vision, walking through the streets, sees crowds of hideous elementals gathering around the butchers' shops; and in pubs and taverns, of course, they gather in a multitude of elementaries, literally clinging to those who consume alcohol, and if possible, then penetrating into the bodies of drinkers.
Those people who build their dense bodies from such disgusting materials attract astral beings of this kind to themselves, and their environment becomes an integral part of the astral life of these people. And so it happens on every sublevel of the astral plane; and if we cleanse our physical body, we thereby attract to ourselves the purer astral matter of all sublevels of the astral world.
The abilities of our astral body, of course, also depend on the materials from which we create it; if in the process of purification it gradually becomes more and more subtle, reacting less and less to lower impulses, he begins to pick up more and more subtle vibrations of the astral plane. Thus, we create an instrument that, although by its very nature is capable of reacting to impulses coming to it from the outside, gradually loses its ability to respond to lower vibrations, but instead acquires a new ability - to respond to vibrations of a higher order, that is, it is tuned in to perception. only high notes.
To obtain a response vibration of a certain frequency, we can take a piece of wire and calculate properly its diameter, length and pulling force; in the same way, we can tune our astral body so that a response vibration arises in it only in those cases when the sounds of high harmonies are heard in the world around us.
This is not intellectual speculation or hypothesis. This is an indisputable scientific fact. If in the first case we tune a wire or string to a certain tonality, then in the second case we can tune the "strings" of our astral body in the same way. In both cases, the same Law of Cause and Effect operates; only we turn to the Law, only in the Law we seek asylum and only trust the Law.
All we need is knowledge, and moreover - the will to translate this knowledge into reality. At first, you can simply take note of this knowledge, then you can test it, treating it exclusively as a hypothesis that does not contradict the facts that are known to you from the lower world; and later, when, following this knowledge, you cleanse your astral body, you will be convinced that this is not just a hypothesis, but real knowledge: a hypothesis will turn into a coherent theory for you, thanks to your own observations and acquired experience.
Thus, our ability to penetrate into the astral world and gain the ability to purposefully act in it depends primarily on this process of purification. Yoga knows several specific methods for the development of the astral sense organs, which are sufficiently substantiated and safe for health. But for those who follow these methods, while neglecting the simplest preparatory means of purification, it would be useful to learn about them.
Usually people with great eagerness take up the development of new, hitherto unknown methods of accelerating progress, but if people do not want to apply even these preparatory recommendations in their daily life, then it is useless to instruct them in Yoga.
Suppose someone starts teaching some simple form of Yoga to an untrained person. At first, the latter undertakes to study it with great eagerness and enthusiasm, because of its novelty and exoticism, and also because he hopes to get visible results in the very near future. But not even a year will pass, as he will get tired of the daily loads she requires and will be disappointed by the lack of momentary effect; unaccustomed to persistent efforts, which, moreover, must be repeated from day to day, he will simply break down and give up these activities; the novelty will disappear, and fatigue will more and more perceptibly manifest itself.
If a person is unable or unwilling to fulfill even the simplest and comparatively not difficult condition - to purify his physical and astral bodies at the cost of temporary self-denial, which would allow him to get rid of attachment to bad habits in eating and drinking - then he has nothing to strive for and more complex exercises, which, although they may at first attract him with their novelty, will soon inevitably be left to him as an unbearable burden.
Until these simple and modest methods are applied for at least some time, even talking about some special teaching methods will be useless; but in the process of purification, new abilities will begin to manifest themselves by themselves. The student will feel that knowledge is gradually pouring into him, his vision sharpens, he begins to feel vibrations acting on him from all sides, which he could never have felt in those days when he was deaf and blind.
Sooner or later, depending on his past karma, he will reach that state; and just as a child studying the alphabet rejoices that he can already read a book, this student will be happy to feel that he knows and now has access to such opportunities that he could not even dream of in his days of carelessness: new horizons will open up for him knowledge and new gave the universe.
Now, if we briefly consider the functioning of the astral body in a state of sleep and in a state of wakefulness, then we will immediately and without difficulty understand how it acts when it itself becomes the bearer of consciousness, already without the participation of a dense body.
If we consider the astral body of a person while he is asleep and when he is awake, we will notice one very characteristic difference: when a person is awake, all his astral activity - color change and the like - occurs within the physical body itself and in the immediate vicinity From him; but when a person sleeps, the astral and physical bodies separate from each other, and while the physical body - both the dense body and the etheric double - peacefully rest in bed, the astral body hovers above them.
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* For a more detailed description, see the "Dreams" articles linked above.
If a person has an average development, then his astral body, being separated from the physical, is a formless mass, as already mentioned above; it cannot move a considerable distance from the physical body, it cannot serve as a carrier of consciousness; and a person in it can only be in a very indefinite, half-asleep state, not being adapted to activities outside of his physical carrier. In fact, he is almost completely immersed in sleep, since he does not have an instrument at this level with which he could act: he cannot receive any specific impulses from the astral world and cannot, in turn, clearly manifest himself through incompletely formed astral body.
The centers of sensation of this body can be influenced by the thought-forms passing through it, and it will respond to those stimuli that affect the lower nature; but on the whole, it will give the impression of a sleeping and formless object, not performing any definite actions, simply floating, like a passive embryo, over a sleeping physical body. If something happens, aimed at further removing the astral body from its physical companion, the latter will wake up, and the astral body will immediately reunite with it.
But if we consider the same question, taking a highly developed person, that is, one who could act on the astral level, using his astral body for this, then we will see that when his physical body is immersed in sleep, and the astral is separated from him , then it is an exact copy of the physical body of this person, moreover, in full consciousness; his astral body is fully formed and has clear outlines, it looks exactly the same as the person himself, and can serve him as a carrier of consciousness (and I must say that this carrier is much more convenient than the physical one). At the same time, a person is awake and can act in this body more actively and more completely and is endowed with a better ability of cognition than when he was limited by the framework of a dense physical carrier; he can easily and with great speed move at any distance, without causing the slightest disturbance to the physical body sleeping in bed.
If this person is still not perfect enough to connect his physical and astral carriers with each other, then when the astral body is separated from the physical during the sleep of the latter, a break in consciousness will occur; that is, although at the astral level a person will be in a state of wakefulness and in full consciousness, he will still not be able to convey to his physical brain information about the actions he performed during the sleep of the physical body, even after he returns to his denser carrier; thus, his "waking" consciousness - as we usually call the most limited form of our consciousness - will not know anything about his stay in the astral world, but not because the person himself does not know about it, but simply because his physical organism too dense to perceive the corresponding impressions.
Sometimes, after the awakening of the physical body, there is a feeling that in a dream we experienced something, but we just cannot remember what exactly; however, this very sensation testifies to the fact that consciousness performed some actions in the astral world, outside the physical body, although our brain is not so sensitive as to retain at least an approximate memory of what actually happened.
Sometimes, however, when the astral body returns to the physical person, it is still possible to convey to the etheric double and the dense body a fleeting image of the astral world, and the latter, even after waking up, retains a clear memory of the events experienced in the astral world; however, this memory quickly disappears and then cannot be restored in any way; all attempts to restore it make the likelihood of success even more illusory, because at the same time we strain our physical brain and its strong vibrations drown out the subtle astral vibrations even more.
And again, a person will still be able to transfer new knowledge to the physical brain, but at the same time he will not be able to remember how and from where this knowledge came to him; in these cases, ideas will arise in the waking consciousness, as it were, spontaneously, by themselves: new options for solving problems will appear that a person could not have thought of before; unexpected light will be shed on questions that previously seemed very vague. If this really happens, then this can be considered an undoubted indicator of progress, indicating that the astral body is already well enough formed and can actively operate in the astral world, although the physical body has not yet reached the proper level of sensitivity.
But sometimes there are times when a person still manages to establish contact with the physical brain; in these cases, we have very clear, consistent, meaningful dreams - such dreams are sometimes seen by the most thoughtful people. These dreams look as real as the state of "wakefulness", it is even possible to acquire knowledge in them that can be useful in physical life. These are all stages of progress, marking the gradual evolution and improvement of the astral body.
But, on the other hand, one should not forget that those people whose spirituality is noticeably and very rapidly progressing, quite possibly, have long been actively and profitably acting in the astral world. At the same time, their physical brain may not retain absolutely any memory of this activity, but their lower consciousness will note an ever-increasing degree of enlightenment and an ever-deepening knowledge of spiritual truth. And yet all students, no matter how blind their physical memory is in relation to their supra-physical life, can always rely with all conviction as a source of constant encouragement on one certain fact: as we learn to work for the good others and become more and more useful to the world, as our devotion to the Elder Brothers of Humanity grows stronger and our determination to help them more actively in their great work, we undoubtedly improve our astral body and our ability to act in it, becoming this is even more helpful staff. Regardless of whether our physical memory is involved in this or not, every time we leave our physical prison, when we plunge into deep sleep and usefully work in the astral world, helping people whom we could not have helped in any other way, supporting and calming them, which we would never have succeeded if we were still in a physical body.
Such evolution is available to those whose minds are pure, whose thoughts are exalted, and whose hearts strive for service. Such people can operate in the astral world for many years and at the same time their lower consciousness will not know anything about it and will not even suspect what incredible, by its standards, abilities its owner uses, acting for the good of the world; just such people, if their karma allows it, manage to achieve an integral, continuous consciousness, freely moving between the physical and astral worlds; they manage to create a bridge over which memory passes from one world to another without any effort, and in this case, a person, returning from the astral world, again puts on his physical attire, no longer losing a particle of memory of what he just experienced ... All who have chosen the path of Service can be absolutely sure of this.
And one day they will indeed acquire this continuous consciousness; and then life for them will no longer be a series of days of work that remains in their memory and nights of oblivion, but their physical bodies will receive the rest they need, they themselves will use their astral bodies to work in the astral world; and there will be no interruption in their thoughts: not when they leave the physical body; not when they have already left him; not when they return and re-enter their physical shell. And such consciousness will remain week after week, year after year - continuous and indefatigable; and this will be the final proof of the existence of an individual true Essence and the fact that the body is for Her only a garment, which She either puts on or leaves at will, and that the body itself is in no way the only container of thought and life. This will serve as confirmation that, although the body is necessary for life and for thought, without it, both are even more active and even freer.
Having reached this stage, a person begins to understand the world and the meaning of his life in this world much better than before; begins to understand more clearly what prospects will open before him in the future and what opportunities more perfect people have. Gradually he realizes that the acquisition of physical, and then astral consciousness by a person is not the limit and that even more subtle levels of consciousness are located higher, which he can also reach - one after another, acquiring the ability to act on these higher levels, acquiring the ability to travel to more and more new worlds and discovering more and more new abilities; and he will do all this while continuing to serve the Blessed Teachers in their work of enlightening humanity. And then the physical life of a person will begin to acquire its true proportions, and nothing in this physical world will affect him as it did before, when he did not yet know about a richer, more meaningful life, and even “death” will no longer have the meaning that before, neither for himself, nor for those whom he seeks to help. Earthly life will take its rightful place, turning into a small segment of human activity, and will no longer look as gloomy as it usually looked before, since the light of the higher spheres will illuminate even its darkest corners.
Let us now digress from the study of the functions and capabilities of the astral body and consider some of the phenomena associated with it.
Astral body phenomena
The astral body can appear before other people outside its physical counterpart, both during the earthly life of its owner, and after it. Of course, one who has perfectly mastered the art of controlling his astral body can leave his physical body at any time and travel in astral form to any distance. And if the person to whom the traveler in the astral body decided to pay a visit has clairvoyance, i.e. astral vision, then he will be able to see his guest in his astral body; if this person does not possess clairvoyance, then the guest can slightly condense his astral carrier, absorbing into it particles of physical matter from the surrounding atmosphere - thus the astral body can sufficiently "materialize" so that it can be seen with physical vision. This explains the many phenomenal appearances of images of friends and acquaintances who are quite far away at this time.
Phenomena like this are far more common than many think, as shy people often choose to keep quiet about it, fearing that they will be ridiculed for believing in such "prejudices." Fortunately, this fear is increasingly weakening, and if people still have the courage and common sense to tell about what they saw with their own eyes, then we will soon hear a lot of evidence that the astral bodies of people often appear at a considerable distance from those places, where their physical carriers are at this time.
Under certain circumstances, these astral images can be seen even by those who have not yet developed astral vision in themselves, even if people appearing in astral bodies do not resort to materialization. If the physical nervous system of a person is overstrained, and the physical body is weakened (for example, by illness), then the vital energy in it pulsates weaker than usual; at the same time, the dependence of nervous activity on the etheric double increases, which sharply increases its sensitivity. In such conditions, a person can become clairvoyant for a while. For example, a mother - who knows that her son, somewhere abroad, is seriously ill, and whose strength is depleted by worry about him - may become susceptible to astral vibrations, especially during the night hours, when the vital energy is reduced to its minimum level. ; if her son is also thinking about her at this time, and his physical body is immersed in an unconscious state, then his astral body can be transferred to her, and it is quite possible that she will see him.
Most often, such movements occur immediately after the astral body is expelled from the physical by the "death" of the latter. Such phenomena occur quite often, especially when a person passionately desires to see someone with whom he is bound by the bonds of love, or if he seeks to convey to someone certain information, but dies without having time to fulfill this desire.
If we trace the released astral body after the death of the dense body and its etheric double, we will notice the changes taking place with it. At the time when it was connected with the physical body, the sublevels of astral matter in it were mixed with each other: denser and more subtle sublevels interpenetrated into each other. After "death" they are rearranged: particles belonging to different sublevels are separated from each other; there is a sort of sorting of particles according to their density. As a result, the astral body stratifies or turns into a system of concentric shells, the outermost of which is the densest. And here we again return to the need to cleanse our astral body during our earthly life, since we notice that after "death" it cannot move at will in the astral world; this world consists of seven sublevels, and a person is forced to stay on that sublevel to which the matter of his outer shell belongs. And only when this very outer shell dissipates, it goes to the next sublevel, and so on - from one sublevel to another.
The astral body of a person with a very low, animal nature will consist of the most dense and coarse astral matter, which will keep him within the lowest level of Kamaloka; and until this shell is sufficiently thoroughly destroyed, a person will have to remain a prisoner of this part of the astral world and endure all the inconveniences associated with this far from unenviable situation.
When his outermost shell collapses so thoroughly that a person can escape from it, he will move on to the next sublevel of the astral world, or, more precisely, he will be able to catch the vibrations of the next sublevel of astral matter, which will reach him, as it were, from another world; there he will remain until the shell of his sixth sublevel is destroyed and he can go to the fifth.
The duration of stay at each sublevel is determined by how strong the corresponding parts of its nature are, that is, how much astral matter of this or that sublevel is contained in its astral body. For example, the more matter it contains, corresponding to dense sublevels, the longer it will remain on the lower sublevels of Kamaloka; and the more of these elements we manage to remove from the astral body here (on earth), the shorter our delay on the other side of "death" will be.
But even in those cases when the densest astral materials have not yet completely evaporated (and their complete destruction is a rather long and complicated process), consciousness during earthly life can so stubbornly resist the influence of low passions that the matter in which they could to find its reflection, it will lose its ability to actively act as a carrier of consciousness, that is, if I put it, following a physical analogy, it will atrophy. In this case, although a person will still have to remain for some time on the lower sublevels of the astral world, he will sleep peacefully all this time and will not feel, therefore, any worries associated with these sublevels; his consciousness, having lost the ability to respond to vibrations of this kind of matter, will not be able to contact in the astral world with objects consisting of it.
For a person who has purified his astral body so much that it contains only the purest and most subtle elements of each sublevel (so subtle that raise the tone of their vibration just a little more, and they will move on to the next sublevel), the passage through Kamaloka will truly be fleeting.
Between every two adjacent sublevels of matter there is a point that is conventionally called critical; ice can be heated to such a temperature that you add even a drop of heat to it, and it turns into water; water can, in turn, be heated so that any, even the slightest increase in temperature will turn it into steam.
In the same way, the matter of any astral sublevel can be brought to such a degree of subtlety that any further refinement of it will already transfer it to the next sublevel. And if we do this with the matter of each of the sublevels of the astral body, if we purify it to the maximum possible degree, then the passage through Kamaloka will be unimaginably fast and nothing will interfere with the rapid flight of a person through this area to even higher worlds.
And one more fact related to the purification of the astral body by both physical and mental methods should be mentioned, namely: the effect that this purification has on the new astral body, which will be formed in the next incarnation after a certain period.
Passing from Kamaloka to Devachan, a person cannot carry any bad thoughts with him; astral matter cannot exist at the level of Devachan, and Devachan's matter cannot respond to coarse vibrations generated by evil passions and desires. Consequently, after a person shakes off the remnants of his astral body, he will be able to retain with himself only latent tendencies, which will again manifest themselves as bad desires and passions in the astral world, having found in it a nutrient medium (or, rather, the possibility of manifestation) ... A person has to take them with him, but throughout his life in the world of Devachan they remain in a latent state. When he is reborn, all these tendencies resume their manifestation; for this they attract to themselves - by analogy with the attraction of a magnet - those materials of the astral world that would facilitate their manifestation and, clothed in astral matter corresponding to their own nature, become part of the astral body of a person in his forthcoming birth.
Thus, the astral body is given to us not only for one earthly life, it also forms the type of astral body that will be given to us in the next birth - and this is another reason why we should try to cleanse our astral body as much as possible. ; by doing so, we will place our present knowledge at the service of our future excellence.
All our lives are interconnected, and none of them can be separated from all previous ones, as well as from all subsequent ones. In fact, we have only one life, and those periods of time that we call lives can be considered as days. We never begin a new life from a blank page on which the presentation of a completely different story begins; we are just opening a new chapter that develops the old plot.
"Death" does not free us from our karmic debts, just as tomorrow does not free us from our debts today, even if the two days are separated by a night's sleep; the debt we have taken today will remain with us tomorrow, and this will continue until we pay it in full.
Human life is continuous; and separate earthly births are firmly connected with each other, there is no emptiness between them.
The process of purification and development also continues constantly during many successive earthly lives. Sooner or later, but each of us must take action; sooner or later, but everyone will be fed up with sensations caused by the lower nature, tired of submitting to animal passions and the tyranny of feelings. And then the person will no longer want to obey and will decide that the chains that hold him down must be broken. Indeed, why should we prolong the term of our slavery, if we ourselves can end it at any moment? No one can hold us back except ourselves; but no one except us can bring us freedom.
Each of us is endowed with the right to choose and free will; and if we are all destined to one day meet each other in the upper world, then why not break the chains of our slavery right now and declare our right to the divine birthright?
The beginning of liberation from the shackles and gaining freedom is the determination of a person to subordinate his lower nature to the higher one, to begin to build his higher bodies already here, at the level of physical consciousness, and to master those higher abilities that should be inherent in him by the right of his divine origin, but cannot be realized by the animal in which he is forced to live.