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This is just my personal views at the moment; I'm not super firm of dogmatic about it and thus it's subject to change/develop as I learn more:
Basically I believe in at least some form of reincarnation and karma, and of course that the soul is eternal. And by that, I do believe that when human individuals die their consciousness continues on after the death of their physical body.
Now, according to what I understand thus far, the afterlife experience of each individual will vary, and it will vary according to myriad conditions.
The death of the physical body technically isn't "death" per-se, rather it's just the first death, which is the physical body ceasing to be a vessel for an individual life force and various layers of subtle bodies.After the death of the physical body, usually the vital body (life force, composed of what is known in eastern traditions as Qi and Prana) is the next to go; it dissipates and then the soul sheds the last of its material form from the lifetime it is now leaving behind. And then what the individual has is their astral body and the mental sheath that connects the soul to the higher realms of spirit.
Then the astral body exists in an interim, dream-like state for a period that varies according to both the karma and the spiritual development level of the individual. In this dreamlike state, the soul gets to review imagery from its past life and if that life was particularly troubled or evil, this can be a rather unpleasant experience. However, if the life was one of relative virtue, then this experience might be quick and painless. The term "purgatory" might somewhat accurately describe this state.
After this interim state of "purifications" is the second death, then a period of rest where the soul ascends to a realm that's high enough where they can't experience mundane pain, sorrow, guilt, ect. They get to further review their past several life or so and exist in a kind of blissful state. But the immature soul in this rest state will eventually grow bored and restless and their desires for material phenomena will start bubbling up to the surface of their mental activity. And then the process of having an earthly rebirth arranged for them will begin and they will incarnate into a new body when conditions are right for whatever their karmic situation might be. And it all starts over again.
It's my belief that now with so many darn humans incarnated on the planet right now, the afterlife rest period is rather short for most human souls. As in something possibly lasting only a few months to several years in earth time.
And this could possibly be a source of lot of the collective insanity we're seeing right now.
However, some sort of catastrophe or mass population reduction even it likely on the horizon sometime within the next couple centuries, or perhaps sooner. Then most people will get the extended between-lives rest period they need to process all those crazy experiences from many lives jammed together one after another in such short succession.
Now, for those souls who are much more advanced in their spiritual development than the average human, their afterlife experience will be quite different. Instead of being in a dreamlike state after the death of their physical and vital bodies, their astral state will be fully conscious and lucid. They will have full control and agency in this state and even be able to interact/communicate with incarnate humans on earth, if they so choose (but almost always they won't do this unless it's some other advanced spiritual practitioner they're talking to, perhaps a disciple of theirs)
People who practice a lot of mysticism (like yoga, meditation, ect.) and/or ritual magic will be able to attain these types of lucid afterlife experiences; granted they are advanced along far enough in their practices.And, according to several different bodies of teachings, those souls that are super advanced will have shed all of their attachments of worldly phenomena and will become totally liberated from the cycle of rebirths.
Basically I believe in at least some form of reincarnation and karma, and of course that the soul is eternal. And by that, I do believe that when human individuals die their consciousness continues on after the death of their physical body.
Now, according to what I understand thus far, the afterlife experience of each individual will vary, and it will vary according to myriad conditions.
The death of the physical body technically isn't "death" per-se, rather it's just the first death, which is the physical body ceasing to be a vessel for an individual life force and various layers of subtle bodies.After the death of the physical body, usually the vital body (life force, composed of what is known in eastern traditions as Qi and Prana) is the next to go; it dissipates and then the soul sheds the last of its material form from the lifetime it is now leaving behind. And then what the individual has is their astral body and the mental sheath that connects the soul to the higher realms of spirit.
Then the astral body exists in an interim, dream-like state for a period that varies according to both the karma and the spiritual development level of the individual. In this dreamlike state, the soul gets to review imagery from its past life and if that life was particularly troubled or evil, this can be a rather unpleasant experience. However, if the life was one of relative virtue, then this experience might be quick and painless. The term "purgatory" might somewhat accurately describe this state.
After this interim state of "purifications" is the second death, then a period of rest where the soul ascends to a realm that's high enough where they can't experience mundane pain, sorrow, guilt, ect. They get to further review their past several life or so and exist in a kind of blissful state. But the immature soul in this rest state will eventually grow bored and restless and their desires for material phenomena will start bubbling up to the surface of their mental activity. And then the process of having an earthly rebirth arranged for them will begin and they will incarnate into a new body when conditions are right for whatever their karmic situation might be. And it all starts over again.
It's my belief that now with so many darn humans incarnated on the planet right now, the afterlife rest period is rather short for most human souls. As in something possibly lasting only a few months to several years in earth time.
And this could possibly be a source of lot of the collective insanity we're seeing right now.
However, some sort of catastrophe or mass population reduction even it likely on the horizon sometime within the next couple centuries, or perhaps sooner. Then most people will get the extended between-lives rest period they need to process all those crazy experiences from many lives jammed together one after another in such short succession.
Now, for those souls who are much more advanced in their spiritual development than the average human, their afterlife experience will be quite different. Instead of being in a dreamlike state after the death of their physical and vital bodies, their astral state will be fully conscious and lucid. They will have full control and agency in this state and even be able to interact/communicate with incarnate humans on earth, if they so choose (but almost always they won't do this unless it's some other advanced spiritual practitioner they're talking to, perhaps a disciple of theirs)
People who practice a lot of mysticism (like yoga, meditation, ect.) and/or ritual magic will be able to attain these types of lucid afterlife experiences; granted they are advanced along far enough in their practices.And, according to several different bodies of teachings, those souls that are super advanced will have shed all of their attachments of worldly phenomena and will become totally liberated from the cycle of rebirths.
