The After-life
according to Paramahansa Yogananda
Yogananda explains the after-life. What happens after death? The Hindu take on life after death.
At Death We Are Still Encased in the Astral and Causal
Bodies
When you die, your physical body of 16 elements disintegrates,
but the 19 elements of your astral body remain intact. Where,
then, are all those souls who have left this earth? They
are roaming in the ether. "That is impossible,"
you say. So let us make a comparison. If a primitive tribesman
came here and I told him that music is audible in the ether,
he would laugh at me, or perhaps become frightened; but
if I then brought a radio and tuned in a station where music
was playing, he would no longer be able to deny the truth
of my statement. I could simi-larly show you right now that
astral beings are roaming in the ether, and you couldn't
deny it. The astral world is right here, just behind the
gross vibration of the physical cosmos.
If you were to behold the multitude of astral beings in
the ether around you at this moment, many of you would be
afraid; and some of you would try to seek among them your
departed loved ones. If you concentrate deeply at the spiritual
eye you can view with inner vision that luminous world in
which are living all the souls who have gone on to the astral
plane. In human beings the heart acts as a receiving instrument
and the spiritual eye as a broadcasting station. Even if
you cannot see yo
ur lost beloved ones, if you can calmly
concentrate your feel-ing on the heart, you can become aware
of the reassuring pres-ence of those dear to you who are
now in astral form, enjoying their freedom from flesh thralldom.
I see many astral beings who have left the material plane,
but they cannot see me. I don't make myself visible to them,
but I can behold them if I so desire.~
Therefore, we are not fully released at death when we de-part
from the physical form. Our souls are still encased in the
subtle astral and ideational bodies. It is only when man
dons a physical form that he becomes a visible being in
this world. After the death of his physical body, he remains
in the astral form as a "ghost":
an intelligent, invisible being, with essen-tially the same
mentality and characteristics he had on earth. Inhabitants
of the astral realms can of course see one another in their
luminous bodies. But astral beings are not ordinarily visible
to us on earth unless we know how to perceive the as-tral
world through the spiritual eye. When souls shed the astral
body and go into a mental form in the causal world they
are not nonentities, but they do become truly invisible,
even as ideas are invisible. (When souls are free from physical
desires, they need no longer reincarnate on earth. Such
souls then migrate between the astral world and the causal "heaven," reincarnating in the astral until spiritual
freedom is attained from that state also. When all causal desires are overcome, one becomes a liberated or free soul.)
Jesus said, "Destroy this [body] temple and in three
days I will raise it up."t He meant that he had to
divest himself of the physical, astral, and mental bodies
(by casting out all vestiges of attachment to a form) to
become one with Spirit. It took three distinct efforts to
do this.
If a departed soul has unfinished desires created while
on the earth plane, it continues to feel in the astral those
desires and the wish to express itself through a material
body. And so that soul in its astral vehicle is drawn again
into a united sperm and ovum cell and is once more in a
physical form.
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The Intelligence in Prana Creates the Physical Body
The prana that permeates the physical body is intelligent
life force ("lifetrons"). The electricity that
illuminates the light bulb does not create the bulb1 but
the electricity or life force in the united human sperm
and ovum cells guides the embryonic and subsequent development
of the entire human body. Manifesting as the aforementioned
five life forces of the astral body, it is an intelligent
or consciously directed force.
It is unwise to ascribe to yourself permanently any defect
of your body. Suppose you have lost an arm in this life,
and the thought of that loss becomes so impinged on your
consciousness that you think you can never again have the
use of that arm. When you are reborn the next time, you
bring with you that consciousness of a missing arm; and
if that negative thought is strong enough it may inhibit
the creative action of the intelligent life force that grows
the arms of your new body. You should therefore never identify
yourself with the flaws of your physical form. They do not
belong to you, for you are the pure, perfect image of God-the
soul.
So you see, before you took on this physical form you were
a ghost, and when you die you will become a ghost again.
We are also ghosts when we sleep, for in sleep we are not
aware of ourselves as a physical body at all. Since you
are a ghost when you are asleep, and you will be one after
death, why be afraid of ghosts? That is what you were and
that is what you are going to be. The only difference is
that when you enter the astral world at death you cannot
create at will a physical body like the one you now have.
Only great masters who have attained oneness with the Divine
Creator can do so. Spiritually advanced souls can condense
the subtle vibrations of the astral vehicle into a tangible
body.
MORE ABOUT YOGANANDA IN OUR YOGA SECTION
Extract from Man's Eternal Quest by Paramahansa
Yogananda (ISBN 0-87612- 232-2) Available from Barnes
& Noble.
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