question about levels above astral

[Gandalf]

Adrian,
Would you like to comment on any of the above questions?

Regards,
Douglas

[Adrian]

Greetings Gandalf,

These are indeed complex and of course most important matters!

The first fact that we all have to be mindful of is that everyting in the Universe is actually a vibrational and density degree of the Akasha Principle, and is totally progressive from "The One and All" ("God")at the very highest/innermost level, to the physical three dimensional world at the lowest/outermost level. So the notion of "planes" or "realms" etc. is symbolic to the extent that the Universe is a continuum. There are however, as you have noted, various accepted levels to which we refer - often known as "planes", "realms", "spheres" and other nomenclature and which define the notional borders. How these are symbolically represented depends largely upon the tradition or order representing them.

In the very broadest of all terms in this respect, there exists the three dimensional physical world of which we are currently a part, the Astral realms, spheres or planes, and finally the Mental realms spheres or planes. These are then sub-divided in various ways.

The Astral spheres are often considered to be seven in number, the first great Mental spheres three in number, the next great Mental spheres, or "Celestial" spheres (at which point reincarnation is no longer necessary" three in number, and then finally the highest/innermost sphere - the "Cosmic" sphere. Members of the higher spheres always assist the members of the lower spheres in their ascent. At Celestial level and below, the members are primarily concerned with mankind on this planet Earth, whereas the exalted beings of the Cosmic spheres are concerned with all planets in the Universe. A notable exception was the incarnation from the Cosmic sphere to the physical Earth however was Master Jesus, one of the, if not the highest of the ascended Masters.

Sometimes, as you have noted, these various spheres are referred to with general names such as e.g. "Buddhic" and so on, but these are just notional nomenclature - "Buddhic" for example derives from the fact that Buddhist meditation is rooted in the third mental sphere.

It seems that reincarnation can occur from any sphere below the Celestial spheres. Many will never equilibrate their material desires and other crude traits e.g. materialism, sexual desire, etc., or indeed their "belief system" i.e. religions in teh Astral sphers, and accordingly cannot progress on to the Mental spheres. These people then reincarnate from the Astral. It seems likely however that those who on Earth were very religious, and are stuck in "belief system" territories, or other low levels of the Astral, can be rescued either by another being, or by themselves - all personalities of a person, past, present and future exist at the same time. The Astral bodies of people who reincarnate from the Astral are sometimes taken over by other beings to fool people, e.g. mediums mostly, on Earth and for other mischief depending on the motive of the being. Those incarnating from the Astral will of course acquire a new Astral body associated with their new physical body. Those who are able to see "desires" and "passions" for what they are will find that their Astral body gradually dissolves and becomes more rarified until such time as they move on the the Mental spheres in accordance with their level of perfection. Place of residence in all spheres is dependant of level of perfection and accordingly vibration of the Astra-mental in the Astral or Mental bodies in the Mental realms - a person will reside in the vibrationary level of the Akasha principle that corresponds exactly with the vibrational level of their subtle bodiy - that is why everything is always totally solid and real - just as the physical body vibrates at the same level as the physical world. The entire Universe vibrates, and even the physical world, and the atomic and sub-atomic particles of which it comprises vibrate in strict accordance with these highest of Laws.

Getting back to the spheres - the Astral is the next highest sphere after the physical world - the Etheric is an extension of the Astral. By Astral projection, it is impossible to travel further than the Astral spheres due to the density and vibrational level of the Astra-Mental body. One high profile way of symbolically depicting the sheres is the Kabbalistic "Tree of Life" and which spheres are sometimes analogously depicted as the "planetary spheres". These spheres have nothing to do with the planets per se, but simply symbolic and analogous to them, the Tree of Life spheres are as follows:

Malkuth (Earth) - The Astral realms
Yesod (Moon sphere)
Hod (Mercury sphere)
Netzach (Venus sphere)
Tiphareth (Sun sphere)
Geburah (Mars sphere)
Gedulah & Chesed (Jupiter sphere)
Binah (Saturn sphere)
Chokmah
Kether

Kabbalists usually subdivide each of these into 10 sub-planes in the same way, so there would be a "Yesod of Malkuth", a "Hod of Malkuth", a "Netzach of Malkuth" for the Astral realms, and, e.g. for the Mental realms it would start with a "Malkuth of Yesod", "Yesod of Yesod", "Hod of Yesod" etc.. Again, these are symbolic representaions.

In terms of out own evolution, the Mental planes can also be considered as seven main planes, all of which are sub-divided into the seven sub-planes. In consideration of the Mental plane, we have:

1) The Plane of the mineral mind
2) The Plane of the elemental mind - A
3) The Plane of the plant mind
4) The Plane of the elemental mind - B
5) The Plane of the animal mind
6) The Plane of the elemental mind  - C
7) The Plane of the Human mind

As ever, the Plane of the Human mind is sub-divided into seven levels, and most of mankind today has progressed to the fourth level, with the most Spiritually advanced having reached the fifth level. It has taken Earth man millions of years to attain this stage, and will take millions more to progress further to the higher levels and beyond.I say "Earth" because there are beings from other planets in the Universe who have advancd well in advance of those of Earth.

I hope this has gone some way towards answering your questions []

With best regards,

Adrian.

[Maya]

Adrian,

The information you presented was interesting and in line with much of what I have read.

I am new to this forum, do not know who you are, and find myself wondering something. My question is not intended to be disrespectful.

You present this information as fact rather than opinion. Can you tell me your source, that leads you to believe it is fact?

Maya

[Adrian]

Greetings Maya,

Thank you for your question, and it is certainly not disrespectful.

These are the facts as I understand them to be in accordance with my own extensive research and personal involvement in these matters. I cannot really elaborate on that I am afraid - I don't mean to be evasive []

I should add that although these are the facts as I understand them to be, that does not necessarily mean that they are the absolute facts (none of us know to that extent), and of course I will always modify my own understanding in accordance with any new facts.

For now though,in broad terms, I believe my overview as presented in the post is accurate enough for the purposes of answering the question.

With best regards,

Adrian.

[Gandalf]

Thank you for your extensive reply Adrian - very interesting!

The the idea that we can also re-incarnate from the astral is interesting. If some people were stuck for long periods of time on the astral but managed to find some way to re-incarnate again, this would give them a crucial chance to improve their situation, especially if they had been stuck in an emotional loop for a long period of time..
In fact, we don't really know how many of *us* might have got here from such a situation, it makes you realise how important it is to try to make progress while we're here now, otherwise we might find ourselves stuck once again.

Regards,
Douglas

[Adrian]

Greetings Gandalf,

Yes, this presents some interesting, even mind boggling possibilities. For example, it might well be possible, probable even, for a future person to rescue a previous personality (incarnation) of themselves from a low level of the Astral, e.g. a belief system territory. In this case, the person is stuck in a belief system, reincarnates, and the reincarnation, or even several reincarnations hence, then embarks on a mission to rescue that incarnation from the belief system territory. The Astral is without space and time.

This might be necessary because, in all probability, in order to ultimately progress, all personalities of an individual, i.e. representing their higher self, need to be united as a single individual with all personalities incorporated to make the whole.

With best regards,

Adrian.

[Frank]

quote:Originally posted by Adrian

Greetings Gandalf,
This might be necessary because, in all probability, in order to ultimately progress, all personalities of an individual, i.e. representing their higher self, need to be united as a single individual with all personalities incorporated to make the whole.

With best regards,

Adrian.

Adrian: I'm only just recently getting my head around the "higher self" stuff. It has caused some mind-boggling Astral-situations to come about over the past couple of months. I haven't posted anything of my experiences because I'm still floundering in the dark to a great extent (Ginny has been a great help). But from what I have gathered thus far you are right on track with the above quote. In fact, I'm almost certain you could drop the phrase, "in all probability" and substitute "might be" for "is". Alright, I'm not dead sure on that yet but my experiences in the "retrievals" aspect are very much pointing in that direction, let's say.

Yours,
Frank

 

[Adrian]

Greetings Frank,

Please do keep us posted on your progress and experiences!

I personally believe that each incarnation, being a member of the "higher self" has the mission to ensure that all members (personalities) of "self" are "integrated" for the next stage in an individual "I" evolution. An individual being the sum of their personalities including all experiences and Karma. It would of cource be possible for a future self to help an existing or past self, because all selves except for the last self are previous selves of each other. Each personality is autonomous in its own space/time, but ultimately, when progressing, it is the complete "I", the sum of all of the personalities,  that progresses to the Mental realms.

It is indeed mind boggling, in particular trying to figure at how all ones selves can exist at the same time as the "higher Self".  

Thanks again for sharing your experiences with us!

With best regards,

Adrian.

[Frank]

quote:
It is indeed mind boggling, in particular trying to figure at how all ones selves can exist at the same time as the "higher Self".

This makes me chuckle because I've poured over this point for the past 3 months, or so. I reckon there must be a simple explanation but the details of such escape me big time.

Yours,
Frank

[wildbank]

Adrian,
Great posts! How come you are smart? Would you please list as many of the books you have read pertaining to these spheres that you might find helpful for us? I did think that your answer was abit evasive in question where you got these facts or opinions, or both? We'd love to know!  My guess is that you have read Bailey's, Swedenborg's and Steiner's works as well.
Thanks! Hope this is not much of a chore, we'll do the bookfinding ourselves on Amazon.com upon your reply.

[Gandalf]

Hey Frank - what Adrian has been saying about aspects of the self and so on, fits in with the Bruce Moen concept of 'disks' that you have been looking at recently. I wasnt sure what Moen was going on about at first but it later twigged that disks are described in 'traditional' mystical terminology (which I prefer actually - personal bias!) as your 'soul family' or your 'group soul'. The idea behind the higher self stems from this too. I Agree that it takes some getting used to though!

Douglas

[Frank]

Douglas: yes, I too was not overly struck on the word "disk". But the word "soul" has been abused to the extent where I find it unusable. To me it's like the word God. Even if it were discovered beyond a doubt that there really was one almighty creator I, for one, still couldn't call whoever (or whatever) he, she, it was: God. Anyhow I've currently settled for the description (for want of a better one) Astral Family.

Though I'm not overly struck by it. The word family gives a good description. It's just the "Astral" word I need a good replacement for. Problem is, Higher Selves do not reside within the Astral realms. Though other members of the Astral Family or Soul Family could be resident there.

Yours,
Frank

[Gandalf]

Higher Selves do not reside within the Astral realms. Though other members of the Astral Family or Soul Family could be resident there.
------------------------------------------------------------


Yes, it seems that in each incarnation we channel or manifest an aspect of ourSelves (ie higher Self), we're still *us* but a part of us, restricted by our current personality and bodily incarnation (the word 'persona' is greek for 'actors mask').

I think it shows us how restricted we are in many ways due to being here and gives us a glimpse of our potential and also our danger.

I am reminded of my name sake-here, Gandalf from Tolkien's world.
Gandalf along with the rest of the 'wizards' (5 in total) were not human but were powerful maia spirits sent to Middle-earth to assist in the struggles of the free peoples of Middle-earth.

However, in order to function here they had to be embodied in humanoid forms. Many of their powers were lost in this state and much of their past was forgotten, also, because of their humanoid form they were open to the same corruptions and distractions that plaque the rest of us, hense some lost their way and forgot their mission, Saruman being one of them - instead he used his powers for personal gain and attempted to become a Power in his own right, to rival Sauron.

In a similar way, I think we are sent here with a 'mission' to learn and experience different things, but being embodied, our world view is restricted, as well as our past, and we can get distracted, or  too enamoured of this world (like Saruman) and end up losing our way.

Douglas

[Gandalf]

Higher Selves do not reside within the Astral realms. Though other members of the Astral Family or Soul Family could be resident there.
------------------------------------------------------------


Yes, it seems that in each incarnation we channel or manifest an aspect of ourSelves (ie higher Self), we're still *us* but a part of us, restricted by our current personality and bodily incarnation (the word 'persona' is greek for 'actors mask').

I think it shows us how restricted we are in many ways due to being here and gives us a glimpse of our potential and also our danger.

I am reminded of my name sake-here, Gandalf from Tolkien's world.
Gandalf along with the rest of the 'wizards' (5 in total) were not human but were powerful maia spirits sent to Middle-earth to assist in the struggles of the free peoples of Middle-earth.

However, in order to function here they had to be embodied in humanoid forms. Many of their powers were lost in this state and much of their past was forgotten, also, because of their humanoid form they were open to the same corruptions and distractions that plague the rest of us, hense some lost their way and forgot their mission, Saruman being one of them - instead he used his powers for personal gain and attempted to become a Power in his own right, to rival Sauron.

In a similar way, I think we are sent here with a 'mission' to learn and experience different things, but being embodied, our world view is restricted, as well as our past, and we can get distracted, or  too enamoured of this world (like Saruman) and end up losing our way.

Douglas

[Gandalf]

Sorry, posting error!

Douglas

[Maya]

Commentary on the "disk", Higher Self, and God:
Robert Monroe's Ultimate Journey had a very strong impact on me; his writing is too intellectual for some but a good fit for me. I like his terminology of "I There" because I think it is the best description of "who" the higher self is. He also describes how it is necessary to gather up all the parts before the I There can move on to the next level of existence.

Hank Wesselman's 3rd book, Vision Seeker, also describes a journey to what certainly seems to be his I There, with the now-familiar feelings of intense joy and being "back home again."

I haven't read very much of ancient religious literature, although I am familiar with some of Swedenborg. Much of the religious literature is so colored with belief that it is hard to make any sense of it from the post-modern rational point of view. But I continue to think that the only good way to really know is to do your own exploring, and don't accept anything as blind fact, even your own conclusions.

Maya

[Hephaestus]

Basically by my point of view there are 7 major dimensions all of which have 7 sub-dimensions, the world we live in (the physical world) is a major dimension and the astral and above (there are 7) are sub-dimensions.
I personally dont believe the astral is where we go when we die, it may be a temporary housing of our soul when we die, but only until the opening to the next higher major dimension opens (the tunnel of light) - I believe this will only open if we are spiritually evolved and if not we get reincarnated in this major dimension until we spiritually evolve to a point where we are ready for the higher dimension, unless of course our Karma is low therefore we get reincarnated onto one of the two lower planes from this one.

[brianspuk]

Greetings everyone

Are the Mental Planes described by Adrian here the same thing as the Rainbow Level, also sometimes called the Mental Plane, that Robert Bruce describes visiting in Astral Dynamics?  Robert describes this as being like a kaleidoscope of rainbow colours.  Interesingly, the only time in which I managed to get an oobe type experience through the Gateway exercises, this is the area I experienced.  It was like being in a kaleidoscope of many colours.  I assume that, if you get to this place, it is not considered to be an astral projection?

Brian

[Adrian]

Greetings brainspuk,

quote:Originally posted by brianspuk

Greetings everyone

Are the Mental Planes described by Adrian here the same thing as the Rainbow Level, also sometimes called the Mental Plane, that Robert Bruce describes visiting in Astral Dynamics?  

There many mental "planes" although any sort of notional divisions are somewhat arbitary as the Akasha is a continuum from the "All" down to the physical Universe.

There are many ways of arbitarily descibing the Mental planes, and indeed they can also be referred to as Mental, Celestial and Cosmic planes - all of which are part of the total Mental sphere, but with different implications. The Celestial sphere is the level that, upon achieving it, humans no longer need to reincarnate.

These planes are not accessible by Astral projection, only by Mental projection (travelling in Spirit) or meditation. These higher spheres are described to become progressively more light, blissful and altogether amazing and incomprehensible to physical minds the higher they are, and which is one reason most humans wish to escape the physical and eventually Astral worlds forever and attain these levels of existence on the long journey back to our creator. The people of the higher spheres can manifest out of choice in any of the lower spheres, but those in the lower spheres cannot travel higher.

Upon physical death, humans first progress to the level of the Astral that is analogous to level of development, and remain there until all desires are seen them for the illusion they really are, and then progress to the Mental realms before reincarnating if necessary. I believe many people, who's thoughts are very materialisic and therefore gross, and/or are fixed in a belief system, and/or inhabit the lower Astral due to the type of lives they led will reincarnate directly from the Astral. Many people remain in the Astral for hundreds or even thousands of years as we count time, simply because they are infatuated with the illusions of their desires, and become a part of it until such times as they realisation finally dawns and they can make some progress.

With best regards,

Adrian.
 

[Gandalf]

Concerning the belief centre zones, I think these can be a real problem as they contrbute to re-inforcing religious dogma and other beliefs here in the physical. Sometimes you hear of fundamentalists (and sometimes mainstream religious people) who report contact with 'higher forces' who go on to re-inforce their original beliefs, say you were a christian fundamentalist preaching hellfire and damnation and you started recieving meesages confirming your beliefs, from some spititual source.
These messages will confirm their beliefs but what they won't realise is that they stem from belief centre zones. I think that this highlights a major problem at the moment where people take messages from higher levels as fact, just because they are from higher levels, however, some of these sources are just as deluded as everyone else!


Douglas

[Adrian]

Greetings Gandalf,

Yes indeed I think this could well be a problem.

The human residents of the Astral realms are everyday people that have passed on from the physical world. They have their own personalities and beliefs - the self same ones they held while they lived in the physical world, and are now directly responsible for where they now reside in the Astral realms.

These people in the Astral believe that their "reality" is the true reality, not considering the possibility that their own beliefs have created that "reality". Accordingly they go about trying to contact people who are still in the physical world and say "hey, were were right!", and go about reinforcing the belief further still, and so it goes on.  

As you say, the people in the physical world believe that as the messages are coming from the "spirit worlds" they must be true, whereas they are really only true of their own limited "reality".

The real messages concerning Universal truths and realities are from much higher spheres beyond the Astral, and where the Spirits there are truly connected to the true nature of the Universe, and who's message is true and accurate. However, messages from these higher realms are not common as it is so difficult to establish and maintain a contact from the higher spheres. Silver Birch for example had to use the "Astral body" of a native American (who had either moved on to the Mental realms or reincarnated) as an "interface" to the physical world from. White Eagle was able to communicate through Grace Cooke with the assistance of light projected by another advanced Being. Generally speaking however, all "spirit" contact is from the Astral, and more significantly  from the lower Astral where the message is often influenced by the situation of the being - e.g. from a belief system territory, or often the lower "hell" like levels.

The great scheme of things has shifted over the last few decades, the emphasis now being on humans still in incarnation visting the Astral worlds to meet the residents and obtain information, and that is why we are seeing this great upsurge of interest in Astral projection.

With best regards,

Adrian.

[brianspuk]

Thanks, Adrian

So this means, therefore, that this particular experience was essentially different from an astral projection, possibly therefore using a different skill than required for a normal projection?  This is interesting to know as I'm not really getting too far with attempts at projection at the moment. Also, during the last few weeks I seem to have hit a bad patch with the exercises; my mind seems to resist going into the focus 10 state with the result that it feels uncomfortable and I'm forced to move my feet before the exercise finishes.

Brian

[Gandalf]

I've been doing some reading about the higher levels above astral ie Astral - mental - buddic and so on..

Basically these levels equate to lowest vibration/highest density (the material world) - highest vibration/lowest density (the top end of the scale to which we aspire to).
All the realms that we explore with phasing etc (these include all of Monroe's focus levels and so on) are on the astral, this includes all the belief zones all the way up to the higher regions of the astral (f27 and above) where people have mastered their desires and are making good progress.

This brings me on the the question of re-incarnation. is it possible to re-incarnate from the astral or do you have to master the astral for you to re-incarnate? From what I read, people go to the astral to work of all their fear and desires and once they do this they shed their astal body and move up to the mental plane (often what is called 'the second death'.
Many writings say that the mental plane is open to us for as long as we can handle it at which point we re-incarnate again, hopefully, with each subsequent incarnation we can progress further into the mental plane and beyond.

It just makes me wonder about all the people stuck on varous areas of the astral, such as the belief centre zones. If the above is true then these people are trully stuck there indefinatly until they find their own way out of it, they cant escape by re-incarnating again as this require progression to the mental level.

I welcome anyone who has more information to contribute here as I find this area facinating.
As an aside, a lot of mystical literature that I read contains many elements that are described by Bruce Moen such as 'disks' for example. Only in mystical terminology disks are refered to as 'the group soul' or your 'soul family' which I prefer actually as 'disk' sounds a bit corny!

All the best,
Douglas