Each of these worlds or planes of existence has a different rate of vibration or frequency. The matter in the world just beyond the physical is at so high a frequency that a person living there could easily pass through walls, mountains, and even people here. The highest sounds here, beyond detection by Earth scientists, are the lowest sounds in the plane beyond the physical universe. This explains why the existence of these worlds is a religious matter on Earth, rather than a scientific matter of personal experience.
The worlds beyond have very much in common with the physical world, but they are all much more beautiful and heavenly. They too have all kinds of people, cities and villages, animals, plants, mountains, oceans, deserts, and sunsets; but in every imaginable way, these worlds are vastly more beautiful than the most advanced planets here. The colors are out of this world, so radiant and breathtaking that words cannot do justice to them. The universe just one step beyond ours is so beautiful that many people who live there after “death” mistakenly believe it is the ultimate Heaven.
I use a familiar analogy to help explain how these worlds are designed. First let us take a centrifuge, which is a scientific instrument that spins liquids at high speeds. If we take a mixture of water, mud, sand, and stones and spin it at high speed in the centrifuge, the heavier materials will collect at the outer edge in the order of their heaviness. As we look toward the center, we will see less and less gross materials, until in the innermost area we find only air.
The outermost layer can be thought of as the physical universe, the densest and most material of all the universes. As we look toward the center, we will find the layers having finer and finer materials. These are like the worlds of time and space, where everything is at the higher frequencies. To a person living there, things are as real and solid as to us in the physical world. This is because the senses used there are at the same higher frequencies. Likewise, our physical senses cannot record objects and people there because physical senses were designed for use in the physical universe only.
The very center of the spinning liquid, where there is only air, can be compared to the pure spiritual worlds beyond time and space. These worlds are the home of Soul and what religions call God, the Ultimate Reality. Soul originates in the pure, positive spiritual worlds beyond time and space, but It was born as an unconscious atom in this cosmic sea.
The Supreme Deity Itself is actually a void. It has no relationship to anything outside of It. This is why nothing can be said about It. But It can be experienced. The best thing to say is, “It just is!”
Issuing forth from the Supreme Deity, sustaining and giving life to all worlds including the physical is the audible life stream of Spirit. Matter and energy in our physical world are nothing more than this universal energy whose vibrations have been stepped down. It is within this sea of Spirit that Soul exists. It is a part of Spirit. As an unconscious atom when it was first created Soul did not know who It was, what the Supreme Deity was, why It existed, and what the power is that It can control. It was asleep in this ocean of Spirit and somehow needed to be awakened to the fact that It even existed.
In order to provide Soul an opportunity to wake up, the Supreme Deity created the worlds of form where the opposite of Spirit exists, which we call the Kal or negative power. There Soul could be tested and purified in polarity until it became aware. There it could acquire the experience necessary to awaken and then be a conscious atom separate from the body of God, and yet a part of it. It will then remain an individual being for all eternity.
Soul exists naturally in the pure, positive spiritual worlds, where there is no matter, energy, space, or time. Not a trace of the negative power exists here. These worlds are very real, but it is almost impossible to describe them with words, because they are beyond the realm of the mind and its workings. To know them a person must experience them for himself.
The denser worlds are constructed as a school for Soul through the creation of polarity between the positive and the negative forces. Soul remains in these worlds of polarity, positive and negative, only temporarily, until the schooling is accomplished and the Soul graduates. The lower world with the most Spirit is that level Soul first entered on its way down into the Physical Plane eons ago. This most heavenly plane of the lower worlds is called the Etheric Plane. In spiritual terminology it is the crossing over line, between the denser planes and the higher Spirit levels.
As Soul came in touch with these denser worlds, It needed to protect Itself with sheaths or bodies. The best protection for Soul in a lower plane happens to be a body made of the same materials as are found naturally on that plane.
The first body you took is more or less a clear sheath or light that surrounds the Soul. On Earth it is known as the subconscious mind, one of Soul’s most powerful instruments in the denser worlds. The limitless resources of man’s subconscious mind exist on the Etheric Plane, where many saints and mystics received the cosmic consciousness. As a world of being, it is as real as the Physical Plane; in many ways more real. The Etheric Plane has people, cities, beautiful landscapes and sights that can be seen and remembered by those of us on physical planets who have trained ourselves in the art of leaving the body.
The next lower plane that Soul entered on its way into the physical universe is called the Mental Plane. It also is a world of glorious sights and sounds, some of which are recorded in the religious literature of Earth. Your St. John is one individual who visited the Mental Plane during an out-of-body experience and described what he saw there, which included the capital city that was called Kailash. On this plane are the heavens of many of the world religions.
To exist in this rarified density, Soul must protect Itself with a coarser body, called the mental body or mind. Our mind is actually this body, and its energy appears as thought. Each of us has that body, for it is a tool that Soul uses to operate in the lower worlds. It has no life of its own, but depends on the energy Soul allows it to have.
Just below the Mental Plane is the Causal Plane, where Soul picked up the still coarser causal body. It allows Soul to have recall of past lives in the lower worlds. Some teachings on Earth call it the seed body because the karmic seeds of our actions are planted here to be reaped later.
On the Causal Plane is a region often called the Akashic. Although the true Akashic records really exist beyond the lower worlds, those who visit the Causal Plane have the chance to learn of our past lives on the planes below the causal. The famous American psychic, Edgar Cayce did just that. He viewed these records in his investigations of past lives. Any person can in time learn to visit the Causal Plane and discover facts about his own past lives on Earth and other planets.
Below the Causal Plane in frequency is the plane which plays the greatest part in people’s physical lives – the Astral Plane. This is where you, as Soul, picked up the astral body, and with it the ability to register what you call emotion. For this reason the Astral Plane is also called the emotional plane. When a person experiences emotion, this is really an energy flowing through the astral body. In any lifetime, your astral body is an exact duplicate of the physical body, only more beautiful and perfected to behold.
The Astral Plane as well as the other worlds of time and space is a very real world. In fact, everything we know in the physical world, such as people, mountains, trees, homes, and cities existed first in the astral world. The Physical Plane was created with the astral in mind, but in a less colorful and luminous way. People living on the Astral Plane have more powers, such as telepathy, manifesting things with the mind, and traveling at fantastic speeds without vehicles or devices. The astral body is luminous and does not have physical pain as we know it in the physical, which explains why people sometimes confuse this astral body with Soul.
Having all these bodies, Soul entered the lowest plane to begin the experiences which one day would lead to becoming a conscious co-worker with the Supreme Deity. We all know it as the physical universe, where Soul picked up the physical sheath or body which was needed to survive here and begin Its experiences.
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