Life, Death and Life after Death
When we have lived a good life, we have no guilt, if we have loved to the best of our ability, then we have no fear of dying. Our transition into the afterlife becomes an easy passage, a journey to be enjoyed and embraced lovingly.
My Mother Pearl (Margaret) Campbell passed into the Spirit world in January 2009. Mum had no fear of dying and was ready to go. She had asked for us all to be there that morning, stating she was going to die that day. She wanted to say goodbye to each of us. Mum very calmly said her goodbyes to each of us individually. Before she passed she casually said “ Look Patrick is here” (My brother who passed away when he was twenty) then she waived to us all in farewell.
As you would expect with a cheerful, loving person, Mum was no sooner gone when she was back in Spirit, giving loving advice and wisdom.
Anything we love, that loves us in return, never dies.
"The only difference in the death state and the dream state is that the silver cord, which is much like an umbilical cord connecting the soul with the body, is severed in death. This cord allows the spirit to travel in realms and planes beyond the physical at night, and to receive higher teachings. As you go to sleep at night and your consciousness leaves the physical body, you are experiencing the same thing as death. As you gain more control of the dream state you will realize that there is no such thing called death, only a change of awareness."
The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
And after your death, when most of you for the first time realize what life here is all about, you will begin to see that your life here is almost nothing but the sum total of every choice you have made during every moment of your life. Your thoughts, which you are responsible for, are as real as your deeds. You will begin to realize that every word and every deed affects your life and has also touched thousands of lives.
We run after values that, at death, become zero. At the end of your life, nobody asks you how many degrees you have, or how many mansions you built, or how many Rolls Royce’s you could afford. That’s what dying patients teach you.
Dying is nothing to fear. It can be the most wonderful experience of your life. It all depends on how you have lived.
If you live each day of your life right, then you have nothing to fear …
Throughout life, we get clues that remind us of the direction we are supposed to be headed … if you stay focused, then you learn your lessons.
There is no joy without hardship. If not for death, would we appreciate life? If not for hate, would we know the ultimate goal is love? … At these moments you can either hold on to negativity or look for blame, or you can choose to heal and keep on loving. When you learn your lessons, the pain goes away.
When we have passed the tests we are sent to Earth to learn, we are allowed to graduate. We are allowed to shed our body, which imprisons our souls …
We make progress in society only if we stop cursing and complaining about its shortcomings and have the courage to do something about them.
Those who learned to know death, rather than to fear and fight it, become our teachers about life.
Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose....
You can grow if you sit in a beautiful flower garden. We can grow spiritually in good times and bad, It all depends on our attitude to life.
It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth -- and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, we will then begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.
Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon. It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh and to grow.
For those who seek to understand it, death is a highly creative force. The highest spiritual values of life can originate from the thought and study of death.
I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime.
People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.
There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.
The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well.
We need to teach the next generation of children from day one that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind's greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.
Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms, you would never see the beauty of their carvings.
Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.
There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub.
“And when the Earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance." - Kahlil Gibran
People who read the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg very soon find themselves judging everything from the point of view of the spiritual world and the life after death. He was able to convince us that we shall all be there in our own eternity in the not-too-far-distant future; and then we shall be regarding our temporary life spent on this earth in rather a different way from what most of us tend to do here and now. Actually that was the reason why the Lord opened Swedenborg's inner vision and gave him this broader and deeper consciousness; it was just so that he could help us to obtain a truer perspective on life here and now.
Some years ago, the main focus of the Christian ministry was on the Social Gospel. The church existed, it was supposed, for the sole purpose of improving conditions of life in this world. If a minister so much as mentioned the life after death, he was almost made to feel ashamed of himself! He was regarded as a cop-out, evading the real issues of this real material world, by talk of a happy but unreal land, far, far away, where everything would be O.K. Karl Marx called religion "The opiate of the poor," and it is regrettably true that many members of the upper class regarded religion in that light, promising the working classes "pie in the sky when you die," so as to keep them content. Even spiritually minded people have adopted this attitude, saying: "We don't believe in hell (how could our loving heavenly Father torture His own children?); and if there is a heaven, with rewards offered for well-doing on earth, why not leave it as a pleasant surprise for those who qualify?" "One world at a time," people were saying; "If there is a future life, we shall know all about it when we get there. It does not concern us here and now." The Chinese sage Confucius seems to have held this view, five hundred years before Christ. We are told that there was only one thing which made the old philosopher lose his cool, and that was if he was asked about a life after death.
Well, Swedenborg's own experiences in the other world, and his reports on the people he met there and their way of living, make most of these speculations sound rather ridiculous. Actually, many spirits who had confirmed themselves, while on earth, that there was no continuation of life after death, still believe this, even though they may have been living in the spiritual world for hundreds of years, as measured by earthly time. Their idea of a future life was that it would be entirely different from the life on earth: sitting on clouds and playing a harp, or being pitch-forked into a fire by horned devils. Some of the spirits Swedenborg met were still waiting for the "last day," when the trumpet would sound and the dead would rise from the graves and be carried up on high, to be judged before the Great White Throne. Since this had not happened, they assumed they were not yet dead!
I think that an exclusive concern for the Social Gospel has been abandoned somewhat by the churches in recent years, especially since experience has proved that better living conditions do not necessarily produce better people, as used to be thought. There are corruptions in an affluent society, even among the elite, just as much as there are in the city slums, or under conditions of extreme poverty such as we find in undeveloped countries. The churches are now realizing that social improvement is not the answer, but what is needed is a national conscience which concerns itself with spiritual values; a change of motivation, from expedience ("What profit do I get out of it?") to dedication ("How can I best serve the Lord, and extend the kingdom of heaven in our midst?")
So the questions arise: What is the kingdom of heaven? What are its values? How would a society function if its members wholeheartedly adopted those values? And here Swedenborg makes his invaluable contribution, by showing us in detail how people are living in heaven; and, by contrast, how they are living in hell. For, as he explains, death does not introduce any new element. All it does is to strip a man of his externals, together with his physical body. The man himself continues to live as before, but now he is more essentially himself, motivated and governed by his "Ruling Love," the dominant love he developed during his life on earth. To die is only like leaving school and going out into the world. Death is an important stage in our development, of course; but it is only a stage. In this respect it is like birth; there is continuity from the foetus to the living child. So, after a life of trial and error and experimentation and innumerable choices in this physical world, we pass on by another birth, as it were, into the life of eternity in the spiritual world, a much more real world (not less real) than the one in which we are living here.
It is for this final life in eternity that God has been preparing us from the beginning. I can imagine Him thinking: "I should like to have a society of human beings who are perfectly happy together, loving one another and loving Me. They must be active, busily occupied. There must be arts and sciences among them, to stretch their minds and imagination; there must be joy and dancing and all kinds of self-expression. Each individual must be a self-conscious person, an ego; and they must love one another as from themselves, and love Me (God) as from themselves. They must be mature people, so secure on their own feet that they have no need to think about themselves but can devote their attention entirely to loving and serving one another."
Such creatures are what we call the angels in heaven: not paragons of virtue, just ordinary folk who love the Lord their God with heart and soul and mind and strength, and their neighbour as themselves. Angels can be defined as "fully developed people"; though there is always plenty of room for further development to eternity. They are the graduates from the school of life. The angels are not a separate creation, exempt from human frailties and needs; every one of them was once in this world, or on some other planet. Only when we have grasped this idea of the on-going process of life, from conception in the womb, through birth into this world, and then through death and rebirth into eternity - only then can we rightly assess conditions here on earth, this little section of the whole process, a few hours (as it were) during which we must prepare ourselves for the next and vastly more important stage. Life here must be lived, in fact, "for Heaven's sake."
When we die, we don’t leave and go somewhere else.
Our mind and spirit - the real us - is in the spiritual world already. That world is all around us even though we are not conscious of it. For now, our body drives around in this physical world like a person drives a car. However, our body is not our mind or spirit - is not us - any more than a car is its driver. Our mind can look out at the physical world through the body’s senses, but our mind is never a part of that world. Our mind and spirit live in the spiritual world, which is on a higher plane than physical existence.
To help understand how different the world of the mind and spirit is from the world of the body, think of how free the world of our mind is from the rules of time and space that limit our body. In our mind, we can travel instantaneously in our imagination to anywhere, in this world or far beyond it. In memory we can travel back in time to our childhood, or venture far into the future. We can think of things too small for our eye to see or things as big as the universe. We can even think of abstract things like truth and love that exist only in our mind and can’t be detected by our body’s senses at all.
Once we come to see that our mind and spirit are different from our body even while they “drive around” in the physical world, death is quite simple to understand, and not at all frightening. For all that death involves is a simple transition, in which our spirit becomes directly aware of the realm in which it has lived all along. Instead of looking out through the dim and limited senses of a physical body into the physical world, our spirit can then look out from the senses of our spiritual body into the wide and beautiful expanses of its own world, a world surpassing the physical world in every respect. And, far from being the sort of ghostlike experience that people often associate with the word “spirit,” life in the spiritual world is far more real and vivid than life here.
The death transition itself is a beautiful and peaceful experience, closely guarded by high angels and conducted with the utmost gentleness, however abrupt or painful the beginning of the process may be for the body. Indeed, “For some people, days after death [a person is]… totally unaware that he or she is no longer living in the same world as formerly. The time that has passed is like a sleep, and when anyone wakes from it, they feel they are exactly where they were.” (True Christian Religion 160)
So similar to the natural world does the spiritual world look when we first wake up there that some people do not believe they have died and have to be convinced! There follows a very happy time as we meet friends and family who have gone on before and, if our spouse has gone on before us, we have a reunion with him or her.
Where we first awake after death it is neither Heaven nor Hell but a place intermediate between these two known as the World of Spirits.
That world serves as a sort of reception centre. It is there that we initially adjust to spiritual existence and then go through the discovery process that spiritually clarifies what kind of person we really are, good or not so good. This clarification takes place over a period of time and is based on the fundamental fact of the spiritual world that we can no longer hide anything about our moral and spiritual character from anybody, including, especially, ourselves. “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, beware of their hypocrisy. The time is coming when everything will be revealed; all that is secret will be made public. Whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops for all to hear” (Luke 12: 2, 3).
”In the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie” (Ecclesiastes 11: 3). We have decided by the way we lived our life in the physical world who we are, morally and spiritually speaking, and this can no longer be changed. But since no one is all good or all bad, even a fundamentally good person typically has some evil traits left and those on the way toso called hell may have some good qualities. This inconsistency, in the nothing-hidden setting of the spiritual world, is painful. So the next step in the process is to have those inconsistencies in effect put to sleep so that we mercifully are no longer troubled by thoughts and feelings contrary to our main spiritual inclination. If we are going to heaven, we are also taught any basic spiritual truths we didn’t have a chance to learn in the physical world so we will feel comfortable as we enter heaven. This process is what Jesus was referring to, in the parable of the talents, when He taught that “To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have in abundance. But from those who are unfaithful, even what little they have will be taken away.” (Matthew 25: 29, 30)
The important point here is that there is no judgment chair, no fierce judgmental God, just each of us finishing the destiny that we chose - in free will - by our life in the external physical world. In other words, there is no punishment for past deeds involved in this process. God is ever-merciful and ready to forgive us for any wrongs.
An understanding of near-death experiences and early Christian history transforms religion into spirituality
The gospel of Jesus
Love is God and loving everyone is the way to eternal life.
That is all there is to it! That is the entire gospel of Jesus in a nutshell! It means allowing the love from the kingdom of heaven within you to flow to everyone around you. Then you will have heaven within you and heaven outside you. Eternal life is about living forever in love with everyone and never having to die again.
The gospel of Jesus is about LOVE: For God so loved the world that he gave us his beloved son that whoever "believes in him" will have eternal life and never die anymore.
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However, the question before us now is this: What does Jesus mean by whoever "believes” in him? Does he mean those who believe he is the Messiah? Does he mean those who believe he is Lord? Does he mean those who believe he is God? Does he mean those who believe he is Savior? Does he mean those who believe everything in the Bible about him? Does he mean those who believe in his sacrifice on the cross? Does he mean those who believe his teachings?
A full study of the gospels will show the answer to all these is "no." In the gospels, Jesus taught that mere mental or verbal allegiance or lip service to him does not get you into the eternal kingdom. "Believing in him" does not mean having blind faith in my opinion. It is about living in accordance with the behavioural requirements of practicing, inhabiting, and embodying the unconditional love taught by Jesus and other great teachers. This can be proven further down in the John 3:16 text to John 3:19-21 where Jesus refers to those who come into the light and live by the truth of that light as opposed to those who fear going into the light because of their fear of judgment. It is about coming into the light now and not waiting until death. It means putting aside your fear of judgment living in eternity right now in the light of unconditional love. This is the same message brought back from people in NDEs. Near death Experiences.
Therefore, believing and knowing love is not enough. Love must be lived, practiced, experienced, embodied, until "I AM." This is a very high standard for us. This is why we are here in this World-School. We are growing to heaven right here on Earth. We are here not just to attain heaven. We are here to bring heaven into this world. Unfortunately, this may take many lifetimes of soul and bodily evolution to achieve. I personally do not expect we will achieve heaven on Earth until humanity has evolved enough to become immortal, walk on water, raise the dead and heal the sick. Fortunately, we are getting closer to this goal.
The following is my understanding of the scientific, metaphysical, and religious foundation for this gospel of love
The following is my understanding of reality based upon the higher knowledge found in NDEs and their application toward the understanding of science, religion, metaphysics, and philosophy.
How we began: In the beginning, there was nothing but one universal, collective consciousness, which people refer to as "Spirit" or "God." Within this one Collective Consciousness are infinite points of consciousness. All things that ever existed in the past, and all things existing now in the present, and all things which will ever exist in the future, currently exists in an eternal spirit form as one of these infinite points of consciousness within the Collective Consciousness. Our spirit is a fractal of God. This means our spirit is both a part of the Whole and the Whole itself. Like a drop of water from the ocean, we are part of the ocean. Like a drop of water from the ocean, the very essence of the ocean is contained within us.
The origin of species and dawn of humanity: Then, at some moment outside of time, came the desire for individuality and self-expression. This led to the creation of the cosmos and souls. The vehicle for our spirit is our soul. In the same way, the vehicle for our soul is our physical body. Our spirit is the eternal part of God. Our soul is a temporary vehicle for our spirit to experience individuality of existence between the physical realm and the spirit realm. The human body evolved from ape-men millions of years ago and it will continues to evolve until it is able do those things which fully evolved people from our past, such as Jesus and Buddha, have achieved. At some point millions of years ago, souls descended upon these ape-men and began influencing to come down out of the trees and eventually form societies. Then souls began inhabiting the bodies of these ape-men. Thus, the dawn of humanity arose on this planet.
Humans were created in the image of God: Humans are three-dimensional beings: body, soul, spirit. The divine nature is as a manifestation of life, light, and love. The Bible mentions a trinity of personalities: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The Bible also mentions a trinity of human-divine unity: Body of Christ, Mind of Christ, and Spirit of Christ. Science and metaphysics describe human awareness in terms of consciousness (mind), subconsciousness (soul), and the collective unconsciousness or superconsciousness (spirit).
What happens when we die: After death, our soul body leaves our physical body. The physical body decays and is lost forever. As a soul, we can then experience in various soul realms as we did every night on Earth in our dreams. While in the soul realms, our soul body is the vehicle for our spirit. Our soul mind functions as our conscious awareness and our spirit mind plays the role of the subconscious mind. Ultimately, we will want to leave the soul realms and enter into the higher spirit realms. When that choice is made and the soul actually enters into the light, the soul merges fully with the light and soul body is shed much like the physical body was shed at death. The memories of the soul remain forever in the mind and the individual is now once again a pure spirit in the spirit realms. As a pure spirit, we once again regain our awareness of being a pure extension of the mind of the one enormous and fantastic reality called "God."
Humanity is evolving in mind, body, and soul: As human beings, we have been evolving on a biological level for millions of years. Between Earth lives, we spend "eternities" in spirit form in various spirit realms. We also return to these spirit realms every night during our dreams. The reason we choose to come to Earth for another relatively brief human experience is because we are also evolving at the soul level. Through the cycle of birth, death, life in the spirit realms, and rebirth into flesh, we are learning valuable lessons that only Earth lives can give. The goal for every human being is to evolve into perfection in a manner similar to that attained by Jesus, Buddha, and other great spiritual leaders. Ultimately, the day will come when the world will be filled with perfected human beings. It will be a time when humans will be able to live as long as they want and perform feats which today we would call "miraculous" - like walking on water. In such a state of perfected evolution, humans will have become "liberated" from this evolutionary cycle and will no longer be subjected to reincarnation. As taught in the mystical forms of the great world religions, liberation is attained by "becoming one" with all things and all people (i.e., "God") through the practice of unconditional love. This spiritual state of one-ness occurs when a person "awakens" their higher spirit-self and brings it into their conscious awareness. In Christianity, this liberation is referred to as spiritual resurrection or spiritual rebirth or being born again. In Buddhism, the state of liberation is known as Nirvana. In Hinduism, it is known as Moksha. In Gnosticism, this liberation occurs through attaining gnosis. All these concepts describe the same thing. It is the liberation of the spirit from the flesh. It is also the symbolism behind the crucifixion of Jesus.
Practicing love for one another is the way to heaven on Earth and heaven within: Jesus taught people that the way to attain liberation is through the practice of unconditional love. Love brings about a one-ness between people and is necessary to attaining the higher dimensions of consciousness. Practicing unconditional love leads to the manifestation of the spirit within us and in our lives and brings our spirit into conscious awareness. It is an awakening of unconditional love within us and is the manifestation of our holy spirit within us. However, it is not enough to merely believe in love. Nor is it enough to merely know about love. To be spiritual beings living in a physical world, we must live love, manifest love, and become the embodiment of love. We do not get there by focusing only on the love and sacrifice of Christ nor through worshipping him.
The Christian life involves taking up our own cross and following in Jesus' footsteps by practicing unconditional love: We can practice unconditional love by crucifying our self-centeredness through self-sacrifice and self-denial for the sake of serving others. " Crucifying the flesh" also means to put to death the desires of the lower self - the animalistic desires - to allow our higher self, our spirit, to come through.
The "beast" we are evolving away from: This lower nature within human beings is the unevolved animal nature within humanity that humans have been slowly shedding for millions of years through evolution and reincarnation. The nature of this unevolved beast within humanity is manifested as self-gratification, self-indulgence, self-centeredness, selfishness, self-importance, self-righteousness, self-delusion, self-condemnation, and the constant clamouring for self - ego (symbolically known as the "false god," the "devil," and the "beast.").
Discovering a higher reality and the supremacy of love: It is the illusion of separation (i.e., that we are not, in fact, all part of one giant Whole), which is the source of many of the problems humanity has faced. This constant desire for self apart from the Whole must be overcome in order to become the spiritual beings we really are. We are actually spirit beings having a highly evolved human experience. Everything on the physical and soul level is slowly evolving toward perfect unity with the Whole. Here in the physical realm, we are "enrolled" in a "World-School" for a class called Introduction to Eternal Life 101 to learn how to live with and love the people around us forever. NDE research reveals an open secret about our lives on Earth. Life is a test. It is a gigantic examination that we will be graded on after death. There is no judgment except self-judgment and we should not even do that. There is no condemnation but self-condemnation and we should not do this either. The life review after death is for our educational benefit, enlightenment, and soul evolution. The life review is where we discover what we have been filling the void within us our entire life. The more we fill our void with love for others, the more we have evolved as soul. The love we have found within our void is what draws us into the light.
However, not everyone enters the light immediately after death. There are many reasons for this and they can be found within the NDE testimonies. In general, it requires many human experiences (i.e., lifetimes) until our higher spiritual nature is brought into our consciousness awareness. In the end, no one is lost. There is no eternal damnation. Nobody completely "flunks out" of God's University of Higher Knowledge. God's love is ours as well as unconditional. Not wanting anyone to be lost but to attain at the physical level what we are at the spirit level.
Life is about loving everyone and everything unconditionally forever as individuals and collectively as a Whole which is God.
"Love as much as you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, at all the places you can, during all the times you can, for as many people as you can, for as long as you can."
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Edgar Cayce had more near-death experiences than anyone ever documented. Using hypnosis to induce a near-death experience, Cayce made over 14,000 journeys into the spirit realm and was able to access virtually unlimited information by visiting the so-called Hall of Records described by a large number of near-death experiences. Cayce revealed that his subconscious mind (which he identified as the "soul") would leave his body and explore the dimension where all subconscious minds are connected - a dimension similar in description to Carl Jung's Collective Unconsciousness. It is the realm of thought, imagination, dreams, after-death, and near-death states where all things are possible.
Edgar Cayce went on record three separate times to describe his out-of-body journeys to people. Here they are:
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A Verbatim Account
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of Cayce's Afterlife Journeys
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The following is the only waking description of his journey in the trance state, taken
verbatim from comments he made at a public lecture:
"I see myself as a tiny dot out of my physical body, which lies inert before me." [out-of-body] [orbs]
"I find myself oppressed by darkness and there is a feeling of terrific loneliness." [the void]
"Suddenly, I am conscious of a white beam of light, knowing that I must follow it or be lost." [the light]
"As I move along this path of light I gradually become conscious of various levels upon which
there is movement." [the tunnel] [various afterlife realms]
"Upon the first levels there are vague, horrible shapes, grotesque forms such as one sees in
nightmares." [hell realm]
"Passing on, there begins to appear on either side misshapen forms of human beings with
some part of the body magnified." [another hell realm]
"Again there is change and I become conscious of gray-hooded forms moving downward.
Gradually, these become lighter in color." [heavenly realm] [guides]
"Then the direction changes and these forms move upward and the color of the robes
grows rapidly lighter." [higher heavenly realms]
"Next, there begins to appear on either side vague outlines of houses, walls, trees, etc.,
but everything is motionless." [I believe this realm is the physical realm which would appear outside of time.]
"As I pass on, there is more light and movement in what appear to be normal cities and towns.
With the growth of movement I become conscious of sounds, at first indistinct rumblings,
then music, laughter, and singing of birds. There is more and more light, the colors become
very beautiful, and there is the sound of wonderful music. The houses are left behind; ahead
there is only a blending of sound and color." [cities of light] [heavenly music]
"Quite suddenly I come upon a Hall of Records. It is a hall without walls, without ceiling, but
I am conscious of seeing an old man who hands me a large book, a record of the individual
for whom I seek information." [a good description of the Temple of Knowledge that
people refer to in other NDEs]
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Edgar Cayce's Journeys
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through the NDE Tunnel
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Cayce scholar Henry Reed states that Cayce "went up and up through a very large column, passing by all the horrible things without coming in contact personally with them, and came out where there was the house of records. Cayce stated that as he ascended the column, there would be beings on either side of him calling out to him for help or trying to get his attention. Cayce knew that any deviation from the column and the beam of light would mean he would not be able to return to his body. It, the column, wound around on a wheel like the Rotarians have." [see the graphic above]
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Cayce mentioned that he felt very secure travelling this way.
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Edgar Cayce Meets
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the Angel of Death
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While preparing to undergo one of his otherworldly journeys, Edgar Cayce had lost consciousness and had a dream. Usually, he would travel through a tunnel toward the light. But in this instance, he met the so-called
"Angel of Death" and learned about the silver cord. The following is his experience described in his own words:
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As I went out, I realized that I had contacted Death, as a personality, as an individual or as a being. Realizing this, I remarked to Death:
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"You are not as ordinarily pictured - with a black mask or hood, or as a skeleton, or like Father Time with the sickle. Instead, you are fair, rose-cheeked, robust - and you have a pair of shears
or scissors."
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In fact, I had to look twice at the feet or limbs, or even at the body to see it take shape. He replied:
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"Yes, Death is not what many seem to think. It's not the horrible thing which is often pictured.
Just a change - just a visit. The shears or scissors are indeed the implements most representative of life and death to man. These indeed unite by dividing - and divide by uniting.
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"The cord does not, as usually thought, extend from the center - but is broken from the head,
the forehead - that soft portion we see pulsate in the infant. Hence we see old people, unbeknowing to themselves, gain strength from youth by kissing there; and youth gains
wisdom by such kisses.
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"Indeed the vibrations may be raised to such an extent as to rekindle or reconnect the cord,
even as the Master did with the son of the widow of Nain. For he did not take him by the hand (which was bound to the body as was the custom of the day), but rather stroked him on the
head - and the body took life of Life itself!
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"So, you see, the silver cord may be broken - but the vibration ..."
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Edgar Cayce did not experience clinical or brain death, but he was able to control his mind to travel
consciously through the identical process of the near-death state. This can be done by anyone,
according to Cayce, if the proper attunement is made.
Cayce also mentions that this is done by everyone when they fall asleep and enter the realm of
dreams, only it is done subconsciously not consciously. The same is true for death.
Cayce's experience reveals more aspects about the nature of the tunnel so often described in
near-death experiences and more about the structure of the afterlife. One of the afterlife levels
that Cayce observed while in the tunnel appears to be like our own except it is motionless. In
my opinion, this motionless afterlife level is our physical universe. While Cayce journeys through the
tunnel and the eternal now, time on Earth stands still. This principle can even be found in
Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.
The afterlife level that Cayce saw where human beings appear with some body part magnified has
been described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead and other religious traditions as being hell. It is a place
where a particular desire has been overemphasized while in physical life. The level where hooded
monk-like beings appear has also been described by many other near-death experiencers such
as Dr. George Ritchie and Betty Eadie. Cayce was able to describe very accurately some of the various
levels of the afterlife that appear in near-death accounts.
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"Life is continuous, and is Infinite." - Edgar Cayce
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Edgar Cayce on the Soul Realms
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The First Region
As we move further from the review process, we become more fixed in the mental realms. We leave the mental-material overlap and move more into that part of the mental which we will call the First Region of reality after death. Rudolf Steiner, in his book Theosophy, discussed at great lengths successive realms he called the First Region, Second Region, and so forth. Now, we are fully invested in reality beyond physical materiality, and those periods of rest in which we approximate sleep are behind us. We will, from here and throughout the spiritual realms, now experience ceaseless activity, since life, like the spirit which it animates, is continuous. This region is ruled by those things which comprise such emotions as our urges, passions, sensual love, and all that is connected with them. Here in the First Region we begin to deal with our unfinished emotional business left over from our past incarnation. Those who lived by and were ruled mostly by their emotions will have more difficulty in this realm than those who were not. Those who are still fixated on Earthly desires will feel an expansion of those yearnings and will suffer by virtue of the inability to satisfy them directly. In any event, the souls will not move on until all of their material fixations are laid aside. Some of the desires, Steiner notes, will be purged permanently and others will be left aside in "safe keeping" to be dealt with at a more appropriate time.
This laying aside is a concept which may be alien to some because we think of spiritual progression as an overcoming rather than a continuous experience. In the First Region, as in others, we deal with those parts of ourselves which are ruled by forces which emanate throughout that realm. We are not required to deal successfully with all of those things; we will pass this way more than once, so we can set aside those things that can better be dealt with some other time and return later to deal with it. We may not pass from the First Region carrying our emotional ties to materiality; so we will deal with what we can and move on. We cannot choose to set aside that which we are able to successfully deal with simply because the challenges are difficult; our soul forces united with this region will not permit us to delude ourselves in such a way. Here in the First Region we live in communities with those with whom we share a like sympathy.
Helen Greaves, Ruth Montgomery, Edgar Cayce, Rudolf Steiner, Emanuel Swedenborg, and Ruth Matteson Taylor all discuss these groups, communities, or societies at length. We share relationships with souls with whom we have done so throughout our travels through reality. There are those in every realm who are part of our soul group, those with whom we have shared experiences, and those who will remain our soul family throughout our experiences.
Our communities in the First Region appear to us much the same as they did in the Earth realm. But they appear slightly different to each inhabitant. As we grow in a region, its appearance changes, but this is so gradual it goes largely unnoticed. All experiences are for learning; here we deal largely with our choices in our most recent Earth incarnation. We do not merely deal with observation but we actually inhabit the experience in all of its potential. This may be difficult to understand, so let us again explain by illustration. In the Earth realm we may have had an experience of helping another to grow. This choice may have caused us difficulty to a varying degree and may have opened the door to countless choices along our journey. The experience could have been complicated and spread over a long period of time. In the First Region we may experience the glory of growing fields of magnificently beautiful flowers. Such flowers would not only be attractive in appearance but beautiful beyond explanation to our soul. We may experience the radiance, the peace, the glorious symphony of creation at play in the fields and then we may find ourselves the keeper of those fields. The flowers, whose beauty we now experience on every level, find their growth and nourishment at our hand. We are the gardeners of the fields, the symphonic conductors of beauty; we share an exclusive relationship with what they represent. Likewise, we deal with our not so glorious choices by having the opportunity to be changed by their true essence.
For those who chose to experience materiality more passively, the First Region is more difficult than for those who made inappropriate choices. As much can be learned from unsuitable choices as from correct ones; but nothing can be learned from making no choice. If we lived a life of indifference in the Earth realm, Steiner notes that in the First Region we experience a helpless and useless state of being where we cannot participate in life around us. We have a burning desire to associate, to experience, but we are not guided by impelling forces that draw us into such experiences. We experience our own indifference and then see the possibilities all around us from which we may make choices. The desire to participate in any of our possible choices wells up inside of us because we see the full potential of those options never taken. We may not see the earthly potential of the choices not made, instead we see the emotional, mental, and spiritual possibilities. For a while, or what may seem like a thousand years, we find our experience very difficult. Then finally, when we have fully experienced our indifference, we begin to set it aside to be combated after we have gained more protective light for the task.
As we deal with our earthly experiences, good and bad, unfolding in their full potential, we glean the best and overcome or set aside the worst. All with whom we associate help us in our relationships to reality. We meet those with whom we feel close and others with whom we feel distant. Our clarity of vision and our relationships are in proportion to our affection; we have only the most limited use of the laws of cause and effect at this time. Life here is accented by the fact that we cannot change one aspect of our relationships with others. The lack of the full force of cause and effect seems so natural that we do not question it or even lament its absence. As in the Earth realm, we are surrounded by angels and other spirits. But their presence is somewhat more discernible to the senses in this dimension. Swedenborg and Steiner agree that as we rise into finer dimensions, those permeating from yet higher dimensions are more apparent to us. We all work together to experience the spiritual potential of our activities and are protected, guided, and healed by the angels of mercy.
From the First Region we take trips, as described by Helen Greaves, into higher dimensions and return again to use those experiences in our communities. This is not so unusual when one realizes that the same things are experienced in our sleep state in the Earth realm. Frequently we move out of our earthly bodies in sleep and travel to spiritual realms. This is accomplished under the guidance and protection of souls and spirits who have taken this as their ministry. The only difference is that after death, we do not sleep and we vividly recall the experience of having traveled to another dimension. Greaves notes that, when appropriate, those who minister to us always come to us; they change their own vibrations to be sympathetic with the realm to which we are to travel. Like two tuning forks, we are drawn to their resonance and eventually vibrate at the same rate. This process transports us to that realm with which we have been helped to develop a sympathy, where we are ultimately instructed and refreshed. When our experience is complete, we return to the First Region where we once again resonate to this dimension. Such a form of travel is not limited to the First Region and, in fact, exists in almost all dimensions of reality. It may seem hard to conceive of, but before we leave we expand to fill out all of the First Region. Each individual in the region occupies the same time and space but interacts only in accord to those with whom each has had a relationship.
The Second Region
Passing on from one region to another is not as traumatic as the exit from the physical Earth. It is not as outwardly abrupt nor are we as likely to become as fixed in these regions as we did in materiality. When our experiences in the First Region are complete we leave behind those karmic memories we will again reclaim and move to the Second. Here we now find ourselves in a balanced state of sympathy and antipathy. In such a balanced state we no longer are gripped by regrets of unfulfilled potential and are much more objective in our experiences. Here in the Second Region we are also divided into communities but are as unaware of those outside of our community as we were in the First Region. Swedenborg mentioned that those who led indifferent lives in the Earth are still relatively isolated from others; but their need for being part of the soul family is no longer as burning as it may have been in the First Region, nor does it last as long. Here, in this region, sympathy and antipathy are general laws and do not attach themselves to things as they do in the Earth, the lower realms, or the First Region. Because of this, emotions triggered by situations and things pass very quickly. We have now begun to move away from the relationship of experiences and the emotions they arouse, and likewise we have begun to deal with creation in a more balanced fashion. Here in the Second Region we begin to appear much younger if we lived past middle age in the Earth. This is not a physical youth but an internal youth. If we were to appear to others in materiality at this time we would project that image we had at the height of our physical vitality. The further we move through the regions outward from materiality, the younger and more vital we appear internally. We are illumined by those great ministers of mercy, and we receive life, light, and wisdom through this irradiation. In this region we are much more aware than ever before of those influences which work upon us; life becomes much more instructive for us. We still deal largely with our Earth choices and potentials, but because sympathy and antipathy are in balance, we do so much more objectively.
Rudolf Steiner noted that in the Second Region we interact more with spirits, souls, and angels from higher realms, and our travels to other dimensions continue at the same rate as they did in the First Region. Like before, our travels are to give us that which we need to better grow in the Second Region as we continue to work with the elevation and true nature of our lives just lived in the Earth. We feel just as close to those in our communities as we did in the First Region and we find that we possess a striking familiarity with all of those we contact.
All activity in the Second Region is mental and we are present by force of our mental energy. We can easily find ourselves anywhere we wish just by thought and can even be in more than one place at a time. Omnipresence is a concept we find difficult to relate to in materiality, but it is far more natural a state in other regions. We have shadows of omnipresence in the Earth, where we can be several places by force of our influence. We are aware of how mechanical communication devices can lend an aura of omnipresence to our being in the Earth, but these are only the poorest reflections of the true omnipresence which is a normal attribute in other regions ruled by mental or spiritual energy. Helen Greaves wrote that in the Second Region we have just to think of something and it is reality. However, we cannot change things as they exist; we can only experience them. Essentially reality works on us rather than us on it, and although we can move into any or all aspects of reality, we cannot in any way modify what we experience.
The pattern is the same; as we grow in experience, we expand to fill more and more of the region we occupy, until we embody it all. Nonetheless, we do not crowd out the countless others who occupy the same time and space as we do, for we have left time and space far behind us in the Earth.
When leaving the Second Region we leave behind those illusions created by our mental activities in the Earth. But by contrast with the First Region, we do not return to pick up anything left behind in this realm. Anything of a karmic nature is left in the First Region, and all that we shed thereafter is totally discarded.
The Third Region
The Third Region is that from which our desires emanated and one in which Rudolf Steiner notes we experience all of our earthly wishes. This includes our ambitions, our yearnings, our hopes, and all else connected with them. Here in this realm we work with the unfoldment of all we had aspired to in the Earth and see these aspirations blossom in their full purity. We are relatively unaffected emotionally, because we have left such a capacity behind in the First Region. We experience not what we had aspired to, but rather the combination of our earthly motivation and our expectation, raised to their ultimate expression.
Those who were particularly religious in the Earth spend the longest time or experience more in the Third Region than others, as also do those with very strong faith. Those whose lives were more mental in their attitudes spend far less time in this region than those who were not. As in other realms, we live in community in the Third Region and work together as well as with the angelic kingdom as described by Emanuel Swedenborg. Also, we cannot change what we experience in the Third Region. We travel out of this region from time to time as in the others which preceded it. There are striking similarities between the First, Second, and Third Regions. One deals with the mental, another the emotional, and another with the aspirations.
The Fourth Region
The Fourth Region is the region of attraction and repulsion. When passing through this region we have the opportunity to deal with our earthly likes, dislikes, and our attachment to them. Steiner notes that here, in the Fourth Region, growing souls complete purging themselves of remaining earthly attachments before moving on. Community is especially important because of the help and support it can give in the overcoming of those last great material weights we still carry. Because we are digging deep into our consciousness, this process can make for a difficult journey. Both the angels of grace and mercy are present in abundance to protect us from being overcome by more than we can deal with.
As in other realms we are not resident but transient in the Fourth Region, and we also take leave of this region occasionally to visit others. We never travel alone but are guided and helped by spirit guides in our journeys. When visiting another realm we take on the form of that realm, or we could not exist fully within it.
As an example, if we were to visit the physical Earth we would probably go as far as what we earlier called the outer fringes of the borderland. Here we would take on the form we had just after leaving material life, only it would be modified by our interior changes which have since taken place. We would probably look younger, healthier, more vibrant, and remarkably like we would have looked under such conditions in a physical body. Our exteriors would be comprised of finer matter which we have conformed to our interior reflection. One of the functions of our guardian would be to adjust our vibratory patterns so that we could attract and take on the matter of the borderland. The adjustment would come about your guardian's establishing and drawing us into a sympathetic resonance to this region as described by Helen Greaves in her work. The same process holds true when we visit any realm in which we are not currently anchored.
As in the Second and Third Realms, we discard what we leave behind in the Fourth Region without returning to reclaim any of it. It cannot be repeated frequently enough that our transition from one level of reality to another is gradual and without the trauma we may have suffered in leaving the Earth. The reason separation from the Earth is so traumatic is because of our fixation resulting from such an extremely narrow focus.
The Fifth Region
In the Fifth Region we find that our sympathy with our community and all of those who inhabit it reaches its highest point. Here, Steiner notes, one grows from a stage similar to attachment to earthly things for their sensory values to attachment to them because they are representative here of God and life in higher realms. We work largely on our sympathy here, so that before we leave it will resonate to all here that is representative of what is holy. From the Fifth Region we begin to perceive life being resonated and held together by the harmonies which the Pythagoreans called the Music of the Spheres. This becomes the first region since leaving the material Earth where we begin to appreciate the creative force of harmonies. At first we are overwhelmed by the magnificence of the harmonies, the awesomeness of the "music"; then when we gradually overcome our initial wonder, we begin to work with the harmonies. As part of our learning process we witness symphonies of life unlike anything we could ever have imagined. With the help of our more experienced fellow souls as well as the ministers of grace, we mix with the harmonies; we vibrate to their resonance and become almost as one with them.
We are not allowed to go too deeply into mixing with the "music" because we are not yet ready to do so. If we were not kept toward the outer edges of the harmonies, we would risk becoming spiritually paralyzed and being permanently lost at this stage of our growth. All reality is the result of the combined activity of seemingly countless sources, acting together, transforming spirit to give it form. In this way manifest spirit can be said to have compound form, which we do not even begin to understand until we blend with the musical harmonies where we find the combined creative process, or compounding, in a much more primal state of existence. Subsequently, the benefit gained from our experience with the harmonies is that we learn through experience more of how compound reality is manifest. The experience in this region is to move ever closer to our awareness of oneness with our surroundings and to renew this attribute within ourselves. As in the other regions discussed, we cannot cause anything to happen to ourselves or our surroundings. We are changed as is our relationship with our surroundings by being acted upon by the realm and all whom we encounter there.
The Sixth Region
In the Sixth Region we find those impulses which move us into material action. Void of those things which were acquired in and tied us to the Earth, we are able to use this impulse in truly creative fashion. Steiner observed that former artists, musicians, poets, and scientists are especially at home in the Sixth Region where they learn how to move their creative focus from materiality to spirituality. In the Sixth Region we are active, but active only with experience. Our experience is transforming but has no external effect. Consequently, we still cannot change anything we find about us, because we left cause and effect a long, long way behind. From here on we are less likely to visit lower regions or the physical Earth. In the Sixth Region we have now moved so far from physical manifestation that we have little interest in the affairs of the Earth. We have learned by experience in all of the realms since leaving the Earth, but here is where we learn of the blessings of continuous activity for God's sake.
The Seventh Region
In the Seventh Region where we complete the first stage of growth after a material life lived in the Earth, we finally become free of all earthly impulses. Here we find ourselves in a community with all of those who are on the same level as ourselves. We find ourselves in surroundings which are entirely of our own true nature. There are no emblems of materiality here nor are there any resemblances between the forces we encounter and materiality. Here in this final level of growth in this first series of regions, we no longer have any desire to visit the Earth nor any preceding realm through which we have traveled. When we first arrived in the Seventh Region we were certain that we had reached our eternal home. So in tune were we with it that there was not even a hint of internal conflict. We could not conceive of any higher order of life than here, from where we were certain the Music of the Spheres originated. Gradually we learn that there are higher realms of life, and we are in yet another stage of growth.
After the Seventh Region we will reverse the flow to which we have grown accustomed. Instead of releasing, we will begin acquiring. In the first six regions we had to release our fixations to become refreshed and allow for the influx of spiritual gifts. Now, as Swedenborg observed, we will experience influx continually.
Here in the Seventh Region we are prepared for such a condition by the harmonies and every energy which embraces us. We are modified so that we may again receive internal energies more continually. We no longer live in the result of our earthly activities. We live in a region made up of that which is sympathetic to our soul essence.
From the Soul Land to the Spirit Land
When we have been sufficiently prepared, we leave the entire set of regions in which we released our earthly ties. Rudolf Steiner called the first group of seven regions the Soul Land and the next seven regions the Spirit Land. The next seven regions are made up of the same substance of which thought consists. This is not thought as we had in the material body but a truer, unadulterated, and primal thought. In the Spirit Land there is ceaseless creating which takes place. Rest, immobility, and stillness do not exist in these regions, nor are they necessary. In these regions are found the archetypes which are creative beings and the builders of all that comes into being in the material and soul realms. They draw upon spirit from yet higher realms and transform it into a seemingly endless variety of forms which take shape in other realms. Shapes of infinite variety flow from the archetypes and no sooner does one end than a completely different one begins. The archetypes work together in unison and share a very close relationship. They cannot operate alone and even though each appears to be creating separately, the archetypes are totally dependent one on the other.
Steiner wrote that each archetype is visible to the senses of the realm in which it resides and it emits a sound as it creates. The sound of each archetype mixes with the sounds of the others, as they interact, expressing themselves in a variety of harmonies and spiritual music. The melodies and rhythms which result are not only the by-product of creation but they are creative in themselves. All that is seen here can be heard as well. The lights and colours correspond to the harmonies and melodies which likewise correspond to the creative process. All is creative, all is in motion, visible, audible, and all can be perceived by the senses of that realm. The Spirit Land is one of brilliant lights, colors, harmonies, and melodies, all in concert with one another.
As we enter the regions of the Spirit Land we lose ourselves in the life of these realms. We lose our sense of personal identity, but not our individuality, and take on the characteristics of each of the Spirit Regions we pass through. Our being is permeated with the life in each sphere, and we will use as faculties in our next earthly incarnation what we experience here. Unlike the regions of the Soul Land, here we do not work on or even experience ourselves. We are however worked on by the forces of each region, and we experience the essence of each dimension in which we find ourselves.
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"The spirit is life. The mind is the builder. The physical is the result." - Edgar Cayce
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Edgar Cayce on Spirit Realms
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The First Region
In the First Region of the Spirit Land we are surrounded by archetypes of material things. From this realm matter is transformed from the mental to the material. There is life and activity everywhere in this, the lowest region of the Spirit Land. Here in the First Region all activity is heard as music and all of the music blends together in magnificent harmonies. The physical forms created here appear more as a presence than as fixed. Gradually the presence is seen as a distortion and finally as dark outlines against the colors which emanate from the harmonies.
Steiner commented that what is considered to be just thoughts in lower realms become reality in this First Region. Here we move among the thoughts and we experience their essence. The thoughts have form, and as we pass through them we experience the full potential of each one. We now have the opportunity to see how reality arises in the Earth and how our thoughts work upon the fabric of reality. Although we live in community, we no longer have a sense of personality. We have a much greater sense of membership than we do of self. We feel a growing unity with our community, our society, and the entire region. We feel an inseparable union with the archetypes, all that they transform into reality, and one with the primordial spirit.
Those in the Earth who eventually feel one with nature and one with the material region draw this awareness from the First Region of the Spirit Land. It is in this First Region we have the opportunity to see and experience our thoughts as ultimate reality.
In the Earth we experience thought on a continuum of time and space. This means that our experience takes place gradually and in measured amounts. In this First Region of the Spirit Land we experience primal creative thought in its fullest sense from origin through manifestation.
In the Earth what sets clairvoyants apart from others is the ability to perceive and understand potentials which arise from thought. From this First Region and onward we experience and are fully aware of just such potential.
As in the regions of the Soul Land, there are those in the Spirit Land who are permanent residents in each realm we pass through. As we work in each region we are as unaware of their presence as they are of ours. Those souls that we commune with in each region are part of our eternal family with whom we have always been connected. Many souls that we encounter are those we have lived with in most of our earthly incarnations, while others have moved with us through successive realms, and many are members of our soul family with whom we have never lost touch throughout creation.
The Second Region
In the Second Region of the Spirit Land we find the archetypes of life. Steiner noted that these archetypes transform thought matter into living things in the Earth. Here in this region we see the relationship of life in the human family and all other living creatures. We develop an appreciation and respect for the oneness of all life and how any one life affects all other life. Unity takes on a whole new meaning for us in the Second Region where we experience not only the commonness of all life but the interdependence of all forms of it. We mix with the life forms as they flow, and we gain our understanding in part from personal experience. Our communities are now becoming wider, and we are more likely to live with members of our larger soul family than only those with whom we shared earthly experiences. The capacity to know ourselves as one with all living things arises from this Second Region.
It should be born in mind that as we move from region to region we do not go anywhere in a time and space sense of the words. All of life interpenetrates, as all realms do. Our movement takes place in consciousness rather than in a time and space perspective.
We have noted that as we grow in awareness we embody more and more of a single region and eventually all of the region. This does not crowd out anyone or anything else and ultimately all of creation occupies the same space but not the same consciousness of proximity. If this is difficult to understand let us look at two individuals in the same automobile. One is driving and the other is not. The longer one drives the car, the more opportunity one has to use all of one's driving skills, the more familiar one becomes with how the automobile reacts to one's skills, the more intimate a part of the machine one will feel. Likewise, the longer one remains a passenger in the automobile, the more comfortable one gets, the more one enjoys the experience, the more a part of the purpose of the auto one feels he or she has become. Further, each occupant is approximately in the same area but because of the focus each views differently all that is within and all that each passes through. By virtue of each individual focus each rider of the automobile can be said to occupy the same point but differ in proximity to the reality of the journey. In reality our awareness can occupy the same time and space as some one else but each individual awareness would exist in its unfettered purity.
The Third Region
As we enter the Third Region we experience the archetypes who are transforming mental substance into soul qualities as used in the Earth. Passions, instincts, desires, wishes, sensations, and feelings within the incarnate soul all arise in the Third Region of the Spirit Land. These soul qualities not only arise from this region but their expression in the Earth can be seen here in their true essence. One may be startled by light storms here which give off discordant sounds and disrupt the harmony of the archetype's creation. This is the counterpart of sorrow, vengeance, and jealousy, when soul qualities are lifted up in the expressions to the Third Region.
Here in the Third Region we learn how to use the pulls on our souls. We learn to direct our instincts and desires of every kind in a totally unselfish manner. Those who have used their aspirations as benefactors in the Earth have drawn this knowledge from the Third Region of the Spirit Land. Ultimately anything of a selfish nature will be lost in the Third Region, transformed by the archetypes and sent into the Earth to be used for good.
The Fourth Region
When we leave the Third Region and have rid ourselves of our last traces of any self-centeredness, we are now prepared for what Steiner described as the Fourth Region of the Spirit Land. Here we no longer participate directly in the affairs of materiality but in the care and maintenance of the archetypes in other realms. At the same time spirit from higher realms is drawn into the Fourth Region and transformed into usable substance for archetypes to work on in other lower regions. In the transformed spirit sent from the Fourth Region the very creative forces of the archetypes may be found, and even within those forces exists the pattern for creativity.
In the material world each creation is imbued with the pattern for its perfect manifestation. The pattern may be found as a fiber in the life which emanates from higher realms. It is not fed once into each living thing or even renewed periodically.
As spirit, life is permanently flowing new into all living things; so too is the pattern for its perfect manifestation. As creatures in the Earth we draw upon this spirit and use it to meet the daily challenges of material manifestation, as well as to build creatively in the many realms intimately connected with materiality. It must be borne in mind here that the Earth is not an inferior realm. It is in fact where all realms representatively come together. There is nothing in any of the realms we experience that cannot be compared to its representation in materiality, and that includes life in the Fourth Region of the Spirit Land and beyond.
Here in the Fourth Region we find an opportunity, previously unequaled, to selflessly devote our lives to the care and maintenance of all living things that do not owe their existence to us. Those gifts for genius in arts, science, and government are drawn from the Fourth Region; one who manifests any of these talents well in the Earth has previously worked in this region. If we did not pass through the Fourth Region between incarnations, we would have no interest in things common to all of humanity.
The Fifth Region
The Fifth Region of the Spirit Land is bound up mostly in intentions and purposes. Having discarded all earthly imperfections, we exercise judgment differently than we formerly had imagined possible. Now we truly fill the spirit region with our lives, loves, and hopes. In the Fifth Region prophecy is an integral, inseparable part of life; we are free to view as many of our future incarnations as we wish. If one does not experience this region between material incarnations, the person will be found to be lacking direction in the next Earth life.
The Sixth and Seventh Regions
The Sixth and Seventh Regions of the Spirit Land are also intimately involved in creation by drawing spirit from higher realms and transforming it so it can be used by the archetypes for an infinite variety of manifestations in the lower realms. In the Seventh Region of the Spirit Land we reach the very center of the three realities of Spirit Land, Soul Land, and Materiality. Here we live in the presence of the seeds of life which Steiner and Swedenborg called "life kernels" (or "soul-seeds"). We now recognize ourselves as our own life kernel. From the Seventh Region we have a complete view of life unfolding in each successive realm; the Spirit Land, Soul Land, and Materiality.
Returning to Materiality
As we discussed, there is a certain order in which we move through realms and that order is dictated by sympathetic resonance as well as proximity. Sympathetic resonance is the overriding factor in our journey through reality, and proximity is the shading influence. The timing for our return is first and foremost a personal choice, while the influence which makes this a longer or shorter, a more difficult or easier journey is proximity. All throughout our spiritual journey between earthly incarnations we live and grow in communities with those we consider to be our soul family, with whom we have shared experiences. There is no level of reality where we do not have members of this soul family of ours, and we commune with them wherever in creation we go. We even plan together for our next incarnation and this, of course, greatly influences our return. We do not plan our return with certain members of our soul family simply because we like them or they like us. Such plans are conceived because of karmic considerations and because such a relationship is vital to what we hope will be accomplished in our next earthly life.
We do not sit down at a certain point in creation, take a view of what is in Earth, assisted or otherwise, with the options, and make an instant decision regarding our next incarnation. We do not make informed decisions in the Earth that way nor do we do so outside of the Earth. We take into consideration relationships with those who have preceded us into materiality as well as those who will follow us. It would be foolish to think that decisions of such magnitude for each of us would be so poorly planned. Such a choice is made little by little as one grows in reality, and the final step is a small one indeed. Gradual planning to be part of a family unit, a community, and a nation takes place over what we would conceive of as time from an earthly perspective. The Edgar Cayce discourses make a very strong case by insisting that we choose our families, our parents, and even make agreements, where possible, to choose our spouses and children. This is not to infer that changes in plans will not occur, but we should be aware of the vast amount of planning that is done before our earthly incarnation.
When we are making most of our plans and agreements for our next incarnation, we do not have physical details before us. Instead we have before us relationships to others, to situations, and to those forces which have prepared us.
In our decision-making process about our next material incarnation we deal largely with two factors. First we work with motivation, then with potential, and all the rest is the great adventure we call life. Let us not think that we incarnate for the adventure alone. For life and its living can be just as exciting for all who incarnate, whatever their goals may be. For life to be truly constructive we must deal with the motivation and potentials which are best for us at the time; thus we not only experience the adventure our God has prepared for us, but we do so for our greatest good. As we move through the realms around the Earth, motivation is laid bare before us. Soon it is the most obvious condition and the framer of all experience. We learn to identify motivation very easily and accept it as the creative essence of the soul. Respect for this primal motivational cause becomes inescapable early on in our journey between Earth lives, and we learn that motivation is the first condition in reality. In the realm ruled by cause and effect, motivation is the fulcrum through whose action all things come into being.
So here we have it; we made plans bit by bit, as we traveled through reality, regarding our next material incarnation, and we were drawn to the proper timing just as we were drawn by correspondence to the realms in which we resonate. When the proximity is correct, when conditions are best, we then make a final decision and in so doing we gain immeasurably. Half the gain in life is "showing up"; consequently, according to Edgar Cayce, half the gain in an earthly incarnation is in deciding to do it. Throughout the whole of the experience the angels of grace are there to give us all that we have need for at any time. They are likewise ever present to help us in our decisions regarding our next material incarnation.
There are those of us who have so squandered our opportunities that we do not have the fullness of freedom as do others. In such situations our route through spiritual realms is not full enough for us to enjoy the lessons which would be learned by a slower, more wholesome period of recovery. As a result, some of us cannot clearly see motivation and potential while others may not even care. There are those of the angelic ministry who guide such myopic souls toward their next incarnation, but it is always the decision of the individual to incarnate or not.
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"You grow to heaven. You don't go to heaven." - Edgar Cayce
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