Part 73 (2/2)

A master who achieves this final freedo other hus back to God, or like myself he may choose to reside in the astral cosmos There a savior assumes some of the burden of the inhabitants' karma {FN43-11} and thus helps them to tero on permanently to the causal spheres Or a freed soul s to shorten their span in the causal body and thus attain the Absolute Freedom”

”Resurrected One, I want to know more about the karma which forces souls to return to the three worlds” I could listen forever, I thought, to my omniscient Master Never in his earth-life had I been able at one time to assimilate soa clear, definite insight into the enigmatic interspaces on the checkerboard of life and death

”The physical karma or desires of man must be completely worked out before his peruru elucidated in his thrilling voice ”Two kinds of beings live in the astral spheres Those who still have earthly karross physical body in order to pay their karmic debts could be classified, after physical death, as temporary visitors to the astral world rather than as pers with unredeeo to the high causal sphere of cosmic ideas, but must shuttle to and fro from the physical and astral worlds only, conscious successively of their physical body of sixteen gross elements, and of their astral body of nineteen subtle elements

After each loss of his physical body, however, an undeveloped being from the earth remains for the most part in the deep stupor of the death-sleep and is hardly conscious of the beautiful astral sphere

After the astral rest, such a radually accustoh repeated journeys, to the worlds of subtle astral texture

”Nor-established residents of the astral universe, on the other hand, are those who, freed forever froross vibrations of earth

Such beings have only astral and causal kars pass to the infinitely finer and ht-form of the causal body at the end of a certain span, deters then return to Hiranyaloka or a sih astral planet, reborn in a new astral body to work out their unredeemed astral karma

”My son, you may now comprehend more fully that I am resurrected by divine decree,” Sri Yukteswar continued, ”as a savior of astrally reincarnating souls co back from the causal sphere, in particular, rather than of those astral beings who are co up froes of h astral planets like Hiranyaloka

”Just as h meditation-acquired vision to appreciate the superior joys and advantages of astral life and thus, after death, desire to return to the lis, during the norration of their astral bodies, fail to picture the advanced state of spiritual joy in the causal world and, dwelling on thoughts of the audy astral happiness, yearn to revisit the astral paradise Heavy astral kars before they can achieve after astral death a perht-world, so thinly partitioned fro has no further desires for experiences in the pleasing-to-the-eye astral coso back there, does he re there the work of redee all causal karma or seeds of past desires, the confined soul thrusts out the last of the three corks of ignorance and, eles with the Eternal

”Now do you understand?” Master srace I a or story had I ever received such inspiring knowledge

Though the Hindu scriptures refer to the causal and astral worlds and to es compared with the warm authenticity of le ”undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns”!

”The interpenetration of h his threefold nature,” uru went on ”In the wakeful state on earth a hu is conscious more or less of his three vehicles When he is sensuously intent on tasting, s principally through his physical body Visualizing or willing, he is working h his astral body His causaldeep in introspection or enius come to the man who habitually contacts his causal body In this sense an individual etic man,' or 'an intellectual man'

”A man identifies himself about sixteen hours daily with his physical vehicle Then he sleeps; if he drea any object even as do the astral beings If man's sleep be deep and dreamless, for several hours he is able to transfer his consciousness, or sense of I-ness, to the causal body; such sleep is revivifying A drea his astral and not his causal body; his sleep is not fully refreshi+ng”

I had been lovingly observing Sri Yukteshile he gave his wondrous exposition

”Angelic guru,” I said, ”your body looks exactly as it did when last I wept over it in the Puri ashram”

”O yes, my new body is a perfect copy of the old one I materialize or dematerialize this form any time at will, much more frequently than I did while on earth By quick deht express from planet to planet or, indeed, frouru sh youyou at Bo so deeply about your death!”

”Ah, wherein did I die? Isn't there so with love and a on earth; on that earth you saw e Now my finer fleshly body-which you behold and are even now e rather closely!-is resurrected on another finer dream-planet of God Someday that finer dream-body and finer dream-planet will pass away; they too are not forever All dream-bubbles must eventually burst at a final wakeful touch Differentiate, ananda, between dreams and Reality!”

This idea of VEDANTIC {FN43-12} resurrection struck me onder

I was ashamed that I had pitied Master when I had seen his lifeless body at Puri I couru had always been fully awake in God, perceiving his own life and passing on earth, and his present resurrection, as nothing more than relativities of divine ideas in the cosananda, the truths of my life, death, and resurrection Grieve not for me; rather broadcast everywhere the story of my resurrection from the God-dreaarbed souls! New hope will be infused into the hearts ofdrealy would I share with others my joy at his resurrection!

”On earth h, unsuited to the natures of most men Often I scolded you more than I should have

You passed h the clouds of all reprimands” He added tenderly, ”I have also coaze of censure I shall scold you no more”