Part 72 (2/2)
”The astral body is an exact counterpart of the last physical fors retain the same appearance which they possessed in youth in their previous earthly sojourn; occasionally an astral being chooses, like e appearance”
Master, e the very essence of youth, chuckled merrily
”Unlike the spacial, three-dinized only by the five senses, the astral spheres are visible to the all-inclusive sixth sense-intuition,” Sri Yuktesent on ”By sheer intuitional feeling, all astral beings see, hear, smell, taste, and touch They possess three eyes, two of which are partly closed The third and chief astral eye, vertically placed on the forehead, is open Astral beings have all the outer sensory organs-ears, eyes, nose, tongue, and skin-but they eh any part of the body; they can see through the ear, or nose, or skin They are able to hear through the eyes or tongue, and can taste through the ears or skin, and so forth {FN43-4}
”Man's physical body is exposed to countless dangers, and is easily hurt or maimed; the ethereal astral body may occasionally be cut or bruised but is healed at once by ”
”Gurudeva, are all astral persons beautiful?”
”Beauty in the astral world is known to be a spiritual quality, and not an outward confors therefore attach little ie, however, of costu themselves at ith new, colorful, astrally ala events, so astral beings find occasions to bedeck thened forher astral planets like Hiranyaloka take place when a being is liberated froh spiritual advancement, and is therefore ready to enter the heaven of the causal world On such occasions the Invisible Heavenly Father, and the saints who are ed in Him, materialize Themselves into bodies of Their own choice and join the astral celebration In order to please His beloved devotee, the Lord takes any desired forh devotion, he sees God as the Divine Mother To Jesus, the Father-aspect of the Infinite One was appealing beyond other conceptions The individuality hich the Creator has endowed each of His creatures makes every conceivable and inconceivable dehed happily together
”Friends of other lives easily recognize one another in the astral world,” Sri Yuktesent on in his beautiful, flutelike voice
”Rejoicing at the immortality of friendshi+p, they realize the indestructibility of love, often doubted at the tis of earthly life
”The intuition of astral beings pierces through the veil and observes human activities on earth, but man cannot view the astral world unless his sixth sense is somewhat developed Thousands of earth-dwellers haveor an astral world
”The advanced beings on Hiranyaloka re astral day and night, helping to work out intricate probleal sons, earthbound souls When the Hiranyaloka beings sleep, they have occasional drearossed in the conscious state of highest NIRBIKALPA bliss
”Inhabitants in all parts of the astral worlds are still subject to s on planets like Hiranyaloka feel keen pain if any mistake is s endeavor to attune their every act and thought with the perfection of spiritual law
”Co the astral inhabitants is held entirely by astral telepathy and television; there is none of the confusion andof the written and spoken hich earth-dwellers must endure Just as persons on the cineht pictures, and do not actually breathe, so the astral beings walk and work as intelligently guided and coordinated i power froy for sustenance; astral beings sustain theht”
”Masterin his marvelous elucidations with the receptivity of all my faculties-mind, heart, soul Superconscious perceptions of truth are per sense experiences and impressions are never more than temporarily or relatively true, and soon lose in uru's words were so penetratingly i that at any ti my mind to the superconscious state, I can clearly relive the divine experience
”Luetables abound in the astral soils,” he answered
”The astral beings consulorious fountains of light and froes of persons on the earth can be dug out of the ether anddisain into space, so the God-created, unseen astral blueprints of vegetables and plants floating in the ether are precipitated on an astral planet by the will of its inhabitants
In the saardens of fragrant flowers arelater to the etheric invisibility Although dwellers on the heavenly planets like Hiranyaloka are alher is the unconditioned existence of almost co save themeets a multitude of relatives, fathers,different incarnations on earth, {FN43-5} as they appear from time to time in various parts of the astral realms He is therefore at a loss to understand whoive a divine and equal love to all, as children and individualized expressions of God Though the outward appearance of loved onesto the development of new qualities in the latest life of any particular soul, the astral being enize all those once dear to him in other planes of existence, and to welcome them to their new astral houishably dowered with individuality, {FN43-6} an astral friend will be recognized no matter what costume he may don, even as on earth an actor's identity is discoverable by close observation despite any disguise
”The span of life in the astral world is er than on earth
A nore life period is from five hundred to one thousand years, measured in accordance with earthly standards of time As certain redwood trees outlive is live several hundred years though s live er than the usual span of astral existence Visitors to the astral world dwell there for a longer or shorter period in accordance with the weight of their physical karma, which draws them back to earth within a specified ti does not have to contend painfully with death at the tis nevertheless feel slightly nervous at the thought of dropping their astral form for the subtler causal one The astral world is free froe These three dreads are the curse of earth, where man has allowed his consciousness to identify itself al constant aid from air, food, and sleep in order to exist at all
”Physical death is attended by the disappearance of breath and the disintegration of fleshly cells Astral death consists of the dispersey which constitute the life of astral beings At physical death a being loses his consciousness of flesh and beco astral death in due ti thus passes from the consciousness of astral birth and death to that of physical birth and death These recurrent cycles of astral and physical encases Scriptural definitions of heaven and hell someti series of experiences in the blitheso terrestrial worlds”
”Beloved Master,” I asked, ”will you please describe more in detail the difference between rebirth on the earth and in the astral and causal spheres?”
”Man as an individualized soul is essentially causal-bodied,” uru explained ”That body is a matrix of the thirty-five IDEAS required by God as the basic or causal thought forces from which He later forross physical body of sixteen elements
”The nineteen elements of the astral body are mental, eence; ego; feeling; mind (sense-consciousness); five instruments of KNOWLEDGE, the subtle counterparts of the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch; five instruments of ACTION, the mental correspondence for the executive abilities to procreate, excrete, talk, walk, and exercise manual skill; and five instruments of LIFE FORCE, those e, eli functions of the body This subtle astral encasement of nineteen elements survives the death of the physical body, which is ross metallic and nonmetallic elements