E X P L O R E T H E S E L I F E C H A L L E N G E S . . . |
7. The Planes of ExistenceAfter death a person enters a second, intermediate plane of existence. This is familiar from descriptions of near-death survivors who pass through a tunnel towards the light that is the third plane. As they go, memories of their entire past lives flash before them. If this contains sinister episodes and terrifying experiences, these will drift by the person's vision along with the more joyful happenings. Some persons begin at this stage to feel what is called "the earth pull, the birth pull" and the person may decide immediately to return to the earth plane. For others, they may not reach the light and remain in unconsciousness. But for most, stage two is brief and is followed by entry into a more stable world called "the plane of illusion." According to Myers, after death, most of us can expect to enter this realm. Although extraordinary, this world will not seem strange, for our dreams and our earth life will have prepared us for it. Dreams, although manufactured mysteriously by our minds, seem very real. The world of the third plane is similar, except that the 'dreams' are completely objectified. The third plane, according to Myers, consists of a subtle form of matter which is responsive to the individual's emotion and thought. And because human beings come there after years of mental and emotional immersion in earth life, the worlds their minds create are based entirely on earthly memories and desires.The worlds of the third plane are created by thought, and so are at the same time subjective and objective. The process may be either conscious or unconscious, depending on the state of awareness of the being. In either case, what is created is based on one's deepest desires - for pleasure, for beauty, for the familiar, and the fulfillment of one's beliefs. According to Myers, people who are close to one another, and who have similar tastes and inclinations, come together in little communities where their entire world is mutually constructed. Those of a more solitary temperament may build their own worlds. Often the real nature of these thought creations is completely unknown to their creators, who simply find themselves in a world where every desire is gratified. This world, then, is a depiction of the 'heaven' or 'paradise' of the ancient theologies. Sometimes living persons have had a preview of this plane in out-of-the-body experiences, maybe during sleep or at times of extreme threat to the body's survival. Because this 'heaven' is based on earth desires, it is a far cry from the pallid and etherealized afterlife depicted in conventional religious prints. For example, a recently-dead alcoholic may find himself surrounded by liquor in a favourite drinking environment, surrounded by congenial companions who may be other dead alcoholics or simply self-created thought-forms. Because such a person desires prolonged drunkeness, this is exactly what he will experience. Thus the third plane is a paradise for voluptuaries. Those with intense sexual interests may have their desires gratified, surrounded by orgiasts similarly committed to the pleasures of sexual adventure. Ascetics are generously supplied, by their own minds, with bread and water. The newly-dead are utterly enchanted by this paradise. And because on this plane what is created depends entirely upon earthly tatstes, wedded to the scope and power of the creator's imagination, an almost infinite variety of different worlds can be effortlessly formed and dwelt within. This if course explains the tremendous variety of after-death descriptions received through mediums and near-death experiences related by survivors. But there is a strange kind of limitation to this world. The effortless satisfaction of any desire can enchant for a time, but eventually it begins to bore. A sense of dissatisfaction arises, a desire for some kind of effort or challenge in contrast to this world lacking in adventure beyond trivial games, because one is not fulfilling one's higher goals. And this, in fact, seems to be the major evolutionary purpose of the third plane - to partially exhaust the possibilities of creation and desire at the level of earthly matter. At this point - which may be arrived at very quickly or after a great deal of 'time' - the individual may choose to ascend to the fourth plane, if it has become real for him due to his further development and insight, attained through experience of earthly life, bodily death and life on the third plane. Before leaving, however, the more enterprising souls may choose to experience one of the great wonders of this plane of consciousness - to view desired sections of The Akashic Record. Just as on earth one may go to a library and see newsreels of important earth events of history, so on the third plane, one may witness any event that occurred from the beginning of existence. Everything that has ever happened has been recorded by the cosmic memory. Of course, great lessons are there to be learnt. The alternative is to choose to reincarnate again on earth because of needs that can only be fulfilled there. To help him clarify this decision, the individual undergoes a kind of karmic 'review' - similar to and yet in a way crucially different from - the 'life review' he experienced immediately following death. The individual relives the incidents of his previous life once again but this time re-experiences the emotions he felt at the time; and simulataneously he experiences the emotions of the other persons who were involved. In other words, the torturer becomes, simultaneously, both torturer and victim. It would be difficult to imagine a more instructive and chastening experience than this. He is assisted in this by a spiritual guide, who being from a higher plane, is able to perceive the subject's experiences and repressed feelings, and project them back to him. Myers writes:
"The individual is a spectator and perceives the episodes in the past existence. He becomes aware of all the emotions roused in his victims by his acts. No pain, no anguish he has caused has perished. All has been registered. His soul becomes gradually purified through his identification with those who suffered as a result of his acts or inactions." This experience appears to result in enlightened decisions about the nature of the next life the individual will live, with new purposes based on the lessons he has leaned from all his experiences. This, then, is taken into the next incarnation.
Since Myers had not progressed beyond the fourth plane at the time of his communication, his accounts of the higher levels of consciousness beyond this are less detailed and more speculative. He seems to have picked up enough hearsay, however, to outline with some confidence the general nature of the further advance. If on the fourth plane the soul becomes free from the earth pull, the soul is qualified to experience cosmic ranges beyond earth's confines. One of these ranges is the next plane, the "plane of flame," in which the being explores the physical universe beyond the earth, and thus completes its knowledge of matter. In the fifth plane, one acquires a body of flame, enabling him to tour the stellar universe without being harmed by its temperatures and turbulence and to return with a fuller experience of these cosmic reaches. The sixth plane is the "plane of light". Individuals on this plane are matured spirits, having lived through, with conscious understanding, all the aspects of the created universe and wrought every variety of mentally-created form. They are capable of passing beyond matter and form, of existing as white light, as pure thought. But one step now remains - the final passage to the ultimate plane of being, the achievement of the last goal on an infinitely long path of personal evolution. It is important to remember at this point that Myers was not a religious man. His lifelong commitment was to experience, and to the teachings of experience. What he reports from beyond the grave he has either experienced himself or been told of by those more highly evolved than he. Myers called this last goal the seventh plane, and he said that when one enters it, he becomes a part of God. He writes: "The final stage of evolution baffles description. It is heart-breaking even to attempt to write of it. You dwell not only outside of time but outside of any universe, on this last plane of being. It might be described as the passage from form into formlessness, an existence which has no need to express itself in a shape, however tenuous, however fine. The soul who enters that seventh state passes into the Beyond and becomes one with God." It is clear that Mankind still has a long way to go to achieve the required enlightenment for the game on earth to move on to a higher level. Indeed, in some ways, we in Western cultures have gone backwards. But for the individual there is a unique personal choice: to remain a human being or to undertake spiritual development and attempt to achieve - in this lifetime - a transcendence of the human state. The tools of The Insight Project are intended to accelerate the process of development, so instead of many lifetimes of roller-coaster struggle, you can learn the lessons necessary to evolve to higher planes, even to the Godhead, within this life.
These pages are closely based on the final chapter of the excellent book, "You Cannot Die: The Incredible Findings of a Century of Research on Death" by Ian Currie. The complete texts of the books by Geraldine Cummins (the primary channel of Frederick Myers) are available online here: "The Road to Immortality", "Beyond Human Personality", "The Childhood of Jesus" and "The Manhood of Jesus". Frederic Myers wrote the classic book, "Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death".
Articles of Interest by Chris Carter:
Past Lives Of Children
Further recommended links: Past Life Regression | Past Lives
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