Each soul is a portion of the one Divine Being. Therefore, each soul is part of the same Greater Being, which is God. We can also understand this in terms of divine substance. The essence/substance of each soul is the same one Divine Essence; all souls share in the same Greater Essence, the Beingness of God. Yet each soul is just a portion or degree of the Whole Divine Being, not the whole infinite totality of God. Each soul, though, is on a spiritual journey towards greater wholeness and totality. This journey towards a more complete wholeness and conscious unity with God is called the soul progression – progressing into greater wholeness, completeness and integration. This soul journey is in, through, and towards God, and it involves ever-greater realizations and experiences of Divine Being. But this great spiritual journey requires many lifetimes. One single lifetime would not be enough. The journey is over many lifetimes and millions of years, and no one knows how long it is. The soul spends some of its time in incarnation and other times out of incarnation, similar to the alternating times of waking life and dreaming sleep.
Each soul is a microcosmic hologram, or reflection, of the Divine Being; and thus, each progressing soul has three primary attributes of spiritual will, love and intelligence, in reflection of the Divine Being. The soul's purpose is to realize these in ever-greater ways and to manifest all of this. These can also be understood as three aspects of the soul – knowingness, inclusive-being, and creative-power, all of which is meant to grow and expand over many years and lifetimes. Manifestation is necessary for each soul, because this is central to the Divine Purpose. Living in a world is also necessary – because the challenges of world, manifestation, and interrelationships are essential for soul learning and development. Each physical lifetime is an opportunity for soul learning and soul development. The soul develops its integral-holistic understanding and self-knowing. The soul develops inclusive love and other love-qualities. And the soul develops its inherent divine powers, its creative will and will-to-serve life. The purpose of soul incarnation is to develop and express all these divine qualities in life, through each incarnation – through the three aspects of a person.
The soul can be understood as the inner spiritual seeds within each person. These are our inner spiritual potentials. The degree of a soul, or the advanced evolution of a soul, determines the range of possibilities for that lifetime, and the unique qualities of a soul determine the inner influencing traits of that person.
The soul incarnates and manifests as a living person, through three energy bodies, or vehicles. These are the mental, emotional, and physical bodies; also known as the lower bodies, or the three aspects of a person. Each of these also correspond to the three lower worlds of manifestation: the mental, emotional, and physical worlds. Each of these worlds have their respective kinds of energies and manifesting forms. For instance, our emotional body, its energies and forms of emotions, combine and interact with others to make up the emotional world of this planet. Any emotions are interacting with many other emotions, all across the whole world. The same is true of our thoughts and the mental world in which our thoughts collectively reside and interact. Similar to how our physical bodies live in this larger collective physical world and interact and mutually affect one another.
So we are, as an individual person, a totality of three aspects: our physical body, our emotions and feelings, and our mind (or mental body). But all that is not all we are, because each person also has an inner spiritual soul, the soul within each person, which can be understood as one's inner spiritual potential, the divine seed within, to be realized and expressed through that person, through those three vehicles. In this way, the soul can experience self-understanding and life understanding, the soul can experience feelings and the emotional energies of relationships, and the soul can experience the physical world and actual manifestation. And as well, the soul can express through these three aspects of the person.
The soul is also an energy body and sometimes referred to as the 'soul body' or body-of-light'. Though each soul has attributes of will and love, as well as light, all of which are developing, progressing, and evolving through its incarnations. The soul re-incarnates with its three primary seeds or essences – knowingness, love, and will; along with three corresponding samskaras of thinking patterns, emotional patterns, and physical patterns, as distilled from the previous life content and events.
So in each soul incarnation, the soul qualities are present during the lifetime and will spiritually condition the lower three bodies – to some extent, if sufficiently allowed. The soul qualities can evolve further in this lifetime; though not necessarily. Some lifetimes work out better than others, and some lifetimes don't work out much at all, but the soul carries on through each trial, learning and developing however it can, and also manifesting its spiritual qualities as best it can through the particular personal vehicle in each lifetime. After this present lifetime, the soul will carry on its developed qualities and realizations, and soon in time it will again incarnate through a new set of developing mental, emotional and physical bodies. Each time incarnated will be a new experience, a new opportunity, and new challenges.
Through each lifetime, and by way of the lifetime, the soul further develops its spiritual qualities and realizations; while simultaneously, the living person is developing and expressing their inner spiritual qualities as provided by their soul. Each person will have their own unique challenges in developing and expressing spiritual qualities, because a lot of the work will be to overcome personality conditionings acquired from the outer world. The soul will influence and guide this three-fold personality vehicle, as best it is capable to do, but it is not so easy nor predetermined, because the mental, emotional and physical parts of the person are often more inclined to be conditioned by their world at hand, by the culture, the parents and teachers of their immediate world. Persons tend to be influenced by outside world forces more than by their inside soul. The soul influences and guides the person from within; the world influences the person from without. This can sometimes make a person feel pulled from both directions, and this can feel like an internal conflict. Outer circumstances and social pressures can be very influential on the person, enough that the inner soul gets drowned out in all the other noise or else subdued by the person's conditioned mind and desires. Therefore, some lifetimes end up being somewhat of a waste of time for the soul development, because the soul never really enters into the person's character and choices.
Our soul brings to us, as thinking and emotional persons, an inner intuition of our spiritual purpose. Our soul is who we really are at the core, in our essence. This thinking mind, this emotional self, and this physical body – all of which I call myself – are really just the outer layers of who I am. Our innermost essence is our soul, our spiritual potential – the spiritual being in us which has been progressing through time, through millions of years on Earth and through many lifetimes. Our soul brings to each incarnation its known purposes, its being-potentials and virtues, and its developed creative abilities. The soul's intention is to have a mind for thinking and understanding, emotions for feeling the qualities of relationship, and a physical body to express spiritual beauty and creativity. Yet the soul cannot develop this mind, emotions and physical body in a vacuum; this all has to develop in the current physical and social world, which consequentially has a powerful influence and conditioning on how that three-fold person develops. The soul can only hope to influence the growing person from within, but cannot control the person's outer world and how it conditions. But in the long run, (and most of evolution happens in the long run), the inner soul gradually works its way into living being, expression and manifestation, through each incarnation and consequentially into the whole world as well, thus bringing spiritual qualities, virtues and values into our world, which is spiritually evolving the world, bringing the Divine Potential into manifestation.
Our soul comes into physical incarnation with the same general purposes as other souls, which is to self-discover, love and serve, be creative, and develop its divine manifesting abilities. Of course there are more purposes, but these are some good examples of soul purposes. Then as well, each soul incarnates with its somewhat unique purposes. These are the unique soul interests, which a large group of souls may share together, while other souls have different 'interests'. Groups of souls having similar interests are called group-souls... with group interests. This is different, though, from personality groups, cultural, ethnic, or national groups. These soul groups and soul interests transcend nations, race, cultures, and personality glamors. This more specific soul interest will then influence various decisions and directions a person goes in, but only if the person is listening to and following their inner soul, guidance and interest, which does not always happen. The soul creates an inner influence upon the personality – which can help shape that person's interests, thinking, and emotional character. Yet this is only an influence and is not absolutely determinating the personal life; for it is quite possible that influences from the outer world and world culture are more powerful and determinating. It is for this reason that each person must be able to detach some from their particular world conditioning, while listening inside for their own soul direction and the real qualities of their inner soul core.
Consciousness continues after physical death, but consciousness is now just in the emotional and mental bodies, not in the physical. Consciousness itself is an energy of the soul. The three lower bodies only have consciousness if the soul is sending, or has given, its conscious energy into those bodies, which it does in order to have experience in them. But after physical death, and sometimes even years before, the soul withdraws its consciousness, though still remaining conscious emotionally and mentally. Consciousness then remains in the emotional body until its usefulness has diminished and it is withdrawn from this energy body, to be now centered in the mental body. At some point the soul consciousness withdraws finally from the mental body as well, once its usefulness in that body is over. Then at this point the soul exists just in its own light-consciousness body, though it can communicate and world with other souls in the realm of spiritual intuition. The soul also takes time reflecting on lessons learned in the previous life. Then at some point, the soul intentionally returns to our earthly life, to once again work in the three lower bodies.
So at death the physical body dies. It will not continue anymore and will not return later on. But the emotional and mental bodies still continue on in their respective dimensions (emotional and mental worlds). These continue on as long as there is consciousness left in that energy body. Consciousness is what energizes the continuing experience of the emotional and mental body, and with all their contents. And thus, the emotional and mental contents of experience will continue after physical death, except that now there is no more a physical anchor nor a physical world context. This means that people and circumstances in the physical world are no longer impacting the self's emotional and mental experience. This has huge implications, since so much of our ordinary emotional and mental experience is based on reactions or responses to the physical world and to those significant to us in that world. But this context is no longer present. Therefore, the emotional and mental experience will now be different, as it is ungrounded and un-impacted by the physical world. The experience will now be in what is called the astral world, a non-physical world of emotions, images, dream-like drama. The mental body will still play a role in this, providing a thinking and belief aspect to the astral reality. Other emotional bodies populate this astral-emotional world, and so there is still interaction, relations, and events. This kind of experience continues on until its usefulness is depleted, or until its energy is either depleted or sacrificed to the mental body.
When someone physically dies, their physical consciousness is released and the person's experience is no longer physical. So if a person's only consciousness and experience is simply physical, then when the physical body dies, that person no longer exists since that was the extent of them as a person and as an experience. But if a person's experience and identity is somewhat in their emotional body, then that kind of experience and identity will continue on after consciousness leaves the physical body. Consciousness energies will still remain in the emotional body (as an energy field with emotional content and pattern). Thus, experience will still continue in the emotional body. Yet all emotional experience depends a lot on a context of which it is in relation and to which it is often reacting. This context will no longer be the physical world and its physical inhabitants; instead, the new context will be the astral-emotional world. The astral world is shared with others; it is a real world of interacting entities, and not merely a personally isolated dream.
The astral world is the sum total of individual astral contents and patterns, which when interacting creates events. Each astral experience is in a context – a world, composed of all the other astral-emotional contents and energies of both people in the world and those passed on from this world. In effect, it includes all who are involved in and working through their emotional experience. Included in this astral-world context are emotions and desires, mixed with images and beliefs and labels (a belief is a label referring to what an image means to the person). Each emotion has its particular associated images, and each image has its associated and triggered emotion, and thus a connection with the mental world of beliefs and ideas.
Moving on, once the emotional body ceases, meaning the emotional psychic energies of this afterlife body have been used up in the astral world, after the process of review and distillation is over for the emotional energies, then there is no more emotional body left and no more emotional-astral experience. This then means that only the mental body (of thoughts, ideas, beliefs, labels, and self identifications) is left to be experienced, and of course consciousness is still left (but it just has no more emotional content and energy in it). So now there is just this mental body, or what can be understood as the mind, and this continues on until its contents and energies are distilled or transmuted back to the soul. In this period of just being in the mental world, the experience is not so colorful and dramatic as in the astral world. Instead, it is more like a thinking kind of experience, sort of like meditation but without any emotional content nor any physical sensations. The content just involves thought, ideas and beliefs, thinking and reasoning; for these are the mental contents. Yet there is possible conversation – either with the soul knowing (the spiritual intuition), or with other mental bodies in the review or meditation process, or just mental conversation with oneself. There is interaction in the mental world with other mental bodies – it is an interactive and inter-related world – but these are thought and thinking interactions.
But if, in the physical life just passed, the person had not much developed their mental body, or if there had never been much mental consciousness, then there will be almost no afterlife mental experience, since there isn't much mental energy to experience and process through. For instance, if the consciousness and experience of the person was almost always emotional or physical, then there would be very little of the mental body to review, distill and transmute. In fact, it could be that there really is no mental body for some people, that is, nothing mentally developed or actualized, and therefore no real content. This would be an extreme case, but it is possible and perhaps true for many in the world. Yet this does show how a mental body might range - from being full of ability, content and consciousness to being virtually empty or nonexistent. It could be possible, though, that there is a mental reincarnating seed, which was brought from previous incarnations, yet it was simply not actualized or developed in that life; in which case, that unchanged mental seed will continue along with the soul into the next lifetime. Now the same basic story could also be true for the emotional body, because it could be possible that the person had little or no emotional consciousness during that lifetime, in which case the afterlife emotional experience will be little to none.
Note also for instance, that if a person had only a physical consciousness, with no emotional nor mental consciousness, then after physical death and the cessation of physical consciousness, there really would be no more person left, at least as one knew oneself to be, for there would be no more personal consciousness left; meaning then that there would be no after-death experience. This does not mean, though, that the soul had died. That person had an inner soul, but the soul consciousness and potentials were never developed into emotional and mental bodies. That is, the emotional and mental body (with its contents) was never developed. There probably were seeds to be developed, but the seeds never got actualized. This would be true, for example, when a baby or fetus dies prematurely. The emotional and mental body potentials never got growing, and the physical body also ended before being further actualized; and thus, the soul's venture into that particular incarnation was brought to a premature end. This does not effect the soul itself though, because the soul will simply incarnate through another vehicle, being born elsewhere at a later time. Note that the above examples can be helpful in understanding less extreme cases as well; for to some extent, most everyone passes away without fully actualizing all that the soul brought with it. Most persons fall short, as it were, in actualizing their soul seed potentials, yet others are able to actually improve and evolve their emotional/mental seeds, as well as increase and evolve their soul potentials.
Our next subject of inquiry is to do with what the soul carries on into the next lifetime, from the previous lifetime. We would rightly assume that the soul carries on itself – the degree of its own beingness, its own love and other spiritual qualities, its consciousness, its knowingness and realizations, and also its degree of spiritual power and spiritual will. Each of these soul attributes have influence in corresponding aspects of the personal vehicle meant to express the soul. So the spiritual goodness of the soul is carried on, as well as its developed consciousness, knowingness, lovingness, and its will to express spiritual qualities. These soul qualities are carried into the next incarnation, and these qualities can be further developed and expanded during that incarnation.
Soul development is one of the purposes for incarnation, besides as well the purpose of spiritual expression and contributing to world evolution. But there is no guarantee nor predestination that these purposes will be fulfilled, or how well things will work out, because each lifetime is full of indeterminate possible influences and events that come from other people acting in non-spiritually inspired ways. Neither the soul nor even God can absolutely determine all world events and circumstances. If all lifetimes and events were determined, then there would be no freedom and we would all be simply living out a predetermined drama.
At the core of our soul are our soul essences, also known as the inner seeds or petals of the soul. These can further evolve and expand from our life experiences, though not necessarily in every life, and these carry on into the next lives. Surrounding this soul nucleus are the mental, emotional, and physical layers, each with its own complex energy pattern/structure, which are also known the seeds. And on the edges of each of these three energy layers are any denser energy patterns, also known as negative karmas or residues, or as unresolved issues. All of this is carried on into the next incarnation. The more positive and higher energies are closer to the soul core, while the denser or most negative energies are furthest from the core.
One of the purposes of the afterlife process is to work more on transforming the negatives, in order to distill positive learning essences and virtue essences, but some of these negatives are not successfully transformed or resolved, so they will have to continue onto the next lives. Thus, one purpose of afterlife process is like a final cleansing and transforming period, before moving into the next circumstances and beginning the next project. It is a time, without any worldly forces to intervene nor any physical body issues to interrupt, for the soul's consciousness to bring a more concentrated light to all of the current emotional and mental contents and patterns, in order to transformatively process through all of this, which will hopefully dissolve much of the petty stuff and distill the positive energies into seed essences that can carry on into the next lives. As much as possible, the soul hopes to avoid carrying on negative or un-useful patterns and traits.
So besides soul qualities carrying on, other layers are also carried on through soul transmigration. These can be thought of as layered shells surrounding the soul essence itself, and they are related to our karmas being carried on. There are three layers of this shell: the mental, emotional and physical layers. These are also known as mental, emotional and physical seeds, which are carried on from one lifetime to the next, but they can be transmuted or evolved at anytime. These karmas are patterns that have been carried on through previous lifetimes, but any kind of karma can be transmuted or changed at any moment, if one can consciously change the pattern or the direction of personal expression. In other words, these seeds, carry the manifesting patterns that the soul is still working on to evolve and improve. Each lifetime presents new opportunities to create better patterns, more evolved and more expressive of spiritual values.
The physical seed, as carried on into the next incarnation, is simply the sum total of the physical body intelligence and mastery-talents, which have been gradually improving over lifetimes. It doesn't mean that the next lifetime will have the same kind of body or racial genes; it just means that in the proceeding lifetimes the physical body will carry on an evolved physical intelligence, mastery and talents. Though as well, this physical seed will also carry on any negative physical dispositions that have not yet been solved or improved. The physical seed also carries on human physical urges and desires.
The emotional seed, as carried on into the next incarnation, is the sum total of emotional patterns and qualities, which comprise the emotional subconscious, the intrinsic sub-structure of the emotional body. The emotional seeds carry forth the intrinsic sub-structure of the emotional body, from previous incarnations to the next. In other words, the emotional seeds carry forth the underlying patterns and predispositions of the emotional energy body. This intrinsic structure of predispositional patterns then tends to pattern our emotional sensitivities, reactions, moods and expressions. The intrinsic structure is an energy structure, or energy pattern, which functions like a resonating field to generally condition how emotional content is received, experienced and expressed. It's also like an underlying layer of programming which generally patterns the content. This all functions subconsciously, underneath normal consciousness. It is possible to consciously peek into these sub-structures, these predispositions, by the power of insight introspective meditation, but seeing these in the light of consciousness requires inner work and is not easy. Impressions from past lives are even more deeply hidden in our emotional subconscious.
However, it is not necessary to see all of this, because actual change and transformation can be made in the intrinsic structure by way of our present conscious decisions and efforts to make positive emotional changes. In short, positive changes can be made in the intrinsic structure (and thus in the seeds which are then carried forth into future lifetimes) by simply making positive changes in one's outward emotional expression. Any positive changes in one's present emotional energy field, or in one's emotional patterns and expressions, will effectively transform the intrinsic emotional structure, and thus the emotional seeds that are carried on into the next lifetimes. This is called conscious evolution, which is an evolution for both the individual soul and the interrelated world. All personal transformations, at any layer of being, create world transformations as well, by being positive resonances and influences for everyone sharing in that world of energies.
Also very significant in this discussion is the influence of world and culture upon the present emotional body. The outer world provides actual content to the emotional body, which is the sum of emotional reactions and desires that are learned and conditioned by the world at hand. Thus, one's emotional energy body is conditioned by the outer world, as much as it is conditioned from the inner intrinsic structure. In fact, for the average person, the outer world conditioning far exceeds any intrinsic conditioning. Except that the intrinsic structure is what 'frames' the outer-given conditioning. The intrinsic provides underlying patterns of emotional predilections and also provides a kind of pervading quality to whatever patterns are received from the world and how these are experienced and expressed. Moreover, the inner intrinsic structure influences how outer content (outer conditioning) is received, processed, and then expressed. Later in this discussion will be further analysis of differences between implicit structures and explicit contents.
In discussing the mental body structure, the insights gained from understanding the emotional intrinsic structure, (as explained above), will correspond to the mental seed structure as well; so there is less need for the same in-depth explanations. The mental seed, as carried on into the next incarnation, is the sum total of mental patterns and qualities, which comprise the mental subconscious, the intrinsic sub-structure of the mental body. The mental seeds carry forth the intrinsic sub-structure of the mental body, from previous incarnations to the next. In other words, the mental seeds carry forth the underlying patterns and predispositions of the mental body. This intrinsic structure of predispositional patterns then tends to pattern our mental thinking and how we receive new ideas. The intrinsic mental structure tends to condition our mental abilities and the range of our integral understanding. It conditions and also limits our present mental abilities and understandings.
However, we can consciously work to break through any such limits in our abilities and expand our understandings beyond what was previously possible. The underlying intrinsic structure of our mental capacities has been provided from previous lifetimes, in the process of soul evolution and transmigration, but it is important to understand that the limits and range of these given capacities are not fixed in stone. The intrinsic structure provides underlying predispositions and a range of capacities, which then conditions the kinds of mental impressions received from the world and also from higher spiritual intuition (a level just above the thinking analytical mind), and which also then conditions (or predisposes) how one thinks and applies mind, and these predispositions can also influence one's unique mental interests and curiosities. However, the intrinsic structure, its patterns and predispositions, do not finalize the extent of what is mentally possible in this present incarnation. All dispositions and limits can be surpassed through conscious effort and intentional work. The intrinsic structure cannot absolutely determine nor limit one's present possibilities. Metaphysically, what makes this possible, this potential for surpassing the limits and predispositions underlying one's incarnationally-given mental body, is that the soul can at any time break through present limitations and expand its self-qualities. The soul can receive from greater sources, from greater beingness, and then transmit this into the mental body. Simultaneously, the soul can provide an inner power and inspiration to break free of any present mental limitations or any fixated boundaries of mind and understanding.
Now, similar to what was already said about the emotional body, each mental body will acquire its own unique content. The implicit structure of the mental body, as within the transmigrating mental seed, might well be about the same in one incarnation as it was in the previous. It might have evolved somewhat, or perhaps not much. Yet the actual mental content of these two incarnations will be quite unique and different. In other words, the totality of mental content (the content in one's mind) can be quite different in back-to-back incarnations, even if the intrinsic mental structure is nearly the same in both. Same is true for emotional content, because the content is not the exact same as the intrinsic seed structure. For example, two persons (or two different incarnations) might have the same basic intrinsic structure, yet have very different and unique contents, and thus quite different extrinsic self experiences, including different ways of reacting and unique emotional expressions. The same principle is true for the mental body; the two persons might have very different mental contents, such as different thoughts, ideas and beliefs; even though their intrinsic structures are nearly the same or even exactly the same.
This is because we acquire actual explicit content from the world we live in – from our unique parents, teachers, culture, media, as well as our particular circumstances and personal experiences. All of this builds our content. We also acquire particular patterns of thinking and emotion, and these can be further molded by personal choices and efforts, sometimes towards improved ends and sometimes not. These particularly acquired patterns and also our personal-created patterns are included in what we'll call 'content', as distinct from the 'implicit structure' or 'underlying pattern' or 'inner seed structure'. The inner implicit structure conditions (somewhat) the outer explicit content (such as what contents are more likely to be accepted and acquired, and also how these are generally expressed). Yet the implicit structure can be transformed, or evolved, through new conscious choices and changes in expressed patterns.
Let us review some of the differences between the seed structure (the implicit structure) and the actual particular content of the emotional and mental bodies.
The content is the sum of one's particular emotional reaction-patterns and the sum of one's particular mental ideas and beliefs. This would also include our habits and patterns in each of those bodies. But the content also includes what we have actualized by our own efforts – such as the positive emotional qualities and mental abilities we develop. As well, the content includes positive qualities and abilities as given by the soul. The content is what we can experience, emotionally and mentally, and it is also what we can consciously develop and positively transform. Again, the emotional and mental bodies have two basic layers – the content that is experienced and expressed, then beneath this is the intrinsic structure which conditions how the content is experienced and expressed, yet it can also be positively shaped by any positive emotional and mental work.
The contents are mostly acquired by the outer world or self-created in reaction to the outer world. In each lifetime, the experiences and content of the emotional and mental bodies will vary; the content is different, as it is predominantly developed and conditioned by the world at hand. Though also we have emotional and mental content that is not merely derived from the outer world nor conditioned by what we learn from the outside; for there can be content that has been created and inspired by our soul and by higher levels of spiritual impression. The image of clay might be a helpful metaphor for understanding, if we imagine the outer world being one set of hands molding our emotional and mental contents, while also the hands of our soul can also mold and contribute to the contents, and thirdly the self-will can also work to build and shape the contents. This content is not carried over into the physical next life. Exact contents acquired in both the emotional and mental bodies are not carried into the next incarnation.
Yet the actual content, including the positive qualities actualized during the lifetime, is what builds and remolds the intrinsic seed-structural pattern. The soul had already brought an intrinsic structure from previous lifetimes, then during the present lifetime this underlying seed-structure can evolve further through positive inner work and by actualizing spiritual potentials given from the inner soul. The distillation process involves everything in the content, which could include content acquired mostly from the outer world, as well as content integrated from soul energies and inspirations, and as well as positive qualities and abilities that the self successfully actualized in the lifetime.
Intrinsic structure and seed structure mean about the same thing. The seed structure is the underlying pattern and general predisposition, underneath and conditioning what is consciously experienced, the content. The seed structure conditions the range and quality of our sensitivity, what we receive, and the form and quality of our expressions. It's really an energy structure, which influences and patterns content through energy resonance. This seed structure is mostly subconscious and implicit, rather than particularly evident. The seed structure has been given at birth, carried on from previous lifetimes of the soul's journey. As the soul enters physical life, it carries the seed essences of the emotional and mental bodies from previous lifetimes, which over each lifetime has been gradually maturing-developing. In each lifetime, the seed structure can develop further, which will then be carried forward to the next lifetime, though this furthering development doesn't always or necessarily happen in each lifetime.
Actual contents are not carried over into the next life. Instead, they are distilled into essences which then contribute to the evolution of the overall intrinsic structure. In other words, one's exact emotional reactions, desires and habits are not carried over into the next life, nor are one's exact ideas and beliefs; yet all of this present content (including the memories of our actions in life) are distilled into pattern essences which evolve the intrinsic structure of that energy body. Thus, the emotional and mental seed structures are what carry on to other lives, not the particular contents from that life. The mental and emotional patterns from the particulars of that life then contribute to the pattern of the intrinsic structure. That is, what we do and how we are in this life then patterns the intrinsic energy structure for the next lives. The energy structure first present at that lifetime will mostly continue as it was, but each lifetime contributes to how it is. Consequentially, the mental and emotional bodies can either progress somewhat or regress somewhat. In other words, each life matters, but any particular mess ups of one life will not regress too much the positives of all the preceding lives. It's just that everything, both positive and negative, help shape the preceding intrinsic of the energy bodies. This is the principle of karmas, carried forth into the next lifetime. Exact events and actions are not the karma that is carried into next lives; it's the patterns underlying those previous life actions or choices. The karma is that we are still stuck in the same recurring patterns, though the content of what happens from this will be different depending on the unique next life circumstances.
Consciousness remains in the emotional body and then in the mental body for important useful purposes, which are to:
a) Review the life experiences, seeing what was usefully gained, what was challenging, and what to let go of
b) Process through unresolved emotional and mental experiences, or issues
c) Distill learning essences, virtue qualities, or other patterns
from the particular contents
Both the emotional and mental bodies have a variety of content – which is what that energy body is comprised of. The emotional body will of course have emotions, such as feelings about this and that, reactions to this and that, desires for this and that, fears about this and that, and other kinds of emotions as well. Some of these would be regarded as positive and others as negative. Negative emotions can be distinguished by being non-useful, dysfunctional, illusionary, or harmful. Positive emotions are truthful, beneficial, functional, helpful, and part of Love, a central essence of our spiritual being. Negative emotions are distortions of natural positive emotions, and they are usually based on selfishness, self-centeredness, or exaggerated fear. Content of the emotional body will also usually have memories or events associated with each content.
The mental body will be comprised of thoughts, ideas, beliefs, arguments, discussions, and fixed categories. The mental apparatus loves to generalize and categorize, so there is probably a lot of that. Some of this content will be negative, in the sense of being illusionary, unsubstantiated, or simply confused. Many ideas and beliefs of a person are, in fact, contradictory; they only seem to get along due to staying away from one another, though in the mental process of afterlife, they will in deed have to meet up and probably fight. Many beliefs and thoughts are merely excuses for doing whatever. On the other hand, positive mental content are truths, larger holistic ideas, universal principles, and reasonable-coherent thinking.
During the physical waking life a person might not introspect very much into their emotional and mental contents; emotions just come up whenever triggered by certain events or memories, and thoughts just seem to arise on their own or triggered by associations. People tend to use their mental abilities only when it serves them to reach a desired goal. Yet few people intentionally view into their working mind or consciously think just for the sake of discovering truth.
However, during the afterlife process, everything in the emotional and mental contents will be reviewed; all emotions and thoughts will have to come into the light of consciousness. In our ordinary physical life, a large amount of our emotional and mental contents are sub-conscious. These subconscious contents influence our waking choices, reactions, and thoughts; yet mostly they hide away in the darkness of our subconscious and are thus unknown to us except at those moments when they jump out. But in the afterlife process, these previous subconscious contents cannot hide, because the light of our soul consciousness will find them out, or they will naturally emerge into our astral experience. All parts of our self will emerge into our consciousness and experience. All will be seen and reviewed. Of course, this review and distillation process can also be done in the physical waking life. In the afterlife process it cannot be avoided.
An important purpose of the afterlife process is to work through (process through) blocks, resistances, fixations, and disturbing emotions, working through all the content energies still unresolved and upsetting. These are the energies or content still emotionally stuck, or mentally stuck in one's mind, or whatever in mind that is disturbingly confused. These stuck energies need to be released. But if they cannot be released or transmuted in the reviewing process, then these will become residue karmic blocks or fixations or disturbances going into the next life ...until they are released or transmuted in that lifetime. And if not, they keep going on.
Also important to remember in regards to this afterlife process is that all of this can just as well be worked on before passing on from the physical life. Everything that is being explained about the afterlife process is possible to accomplish at any time during one's life; though this will require some conscious effort and self introspection, and meditation is also very helpful. Then, if some of this is done in our earthly life, the afterlife process doesn't need to take as long because so much has already been resolved, understood, transformed, and distilled. In fact, during the physical lifetime many people naturally review, re-experience, and process through unresolved or negative emotions, as well as resolve confusions, delusions, and inner conflicts. Negative emotions and dysfunctional personality patterns can be transformed at any time. And for many people, their soul is consciously guiding and giving light to such inner work. Furthermore, the positive virtues and true understandings created during physical life are already being distilled into soul essences and evolving the mental and emotional energy structures.
The primary purpose of the whole afterlife process is to gradually process through, resolve and transmute the emotional and mental contents that really could have been worked on during physical life. But because most people don't really work on these things, or don't want to, this process then has to happen after-life, before the energies are clear enough to enter into life again, clear enough of excessive debris and problems.
So one important purpose of this afterlife processing is for those emotional and mental blocks, fixations and disturbances to be released and purified. Many of these can be unblocked, purified or transformed in the process, because now the conscious-knowingness of our soul has no resistance and is fully present, whereas in the physical lifetime there may have been resistances and blockages put up by the distorted personality-ego. This consciousness light of our soul will help our mental reasoning see more clearly and also will ease the resistances often caused by a fear. The light of soul helps the mental energies clear and the soul's love can often be felt in the emotional experience. This all contributes to healing and transformations. But not all blocks and unresolved issues can be solved. Some things have to return to the situations and tensions of worldly life, in order to be released and purified. Therefore, most incarnations will carry forward various blocks and stuck places – that were not purified or resolved during the past life, nor in the afterlife purifying process.
One of the important purposes of the Review Process is to distill from each content a general essence – a learning or a quality essence. This distillation is a process of discovering the essence of a learning or the essence of a self-quality. The distillation takes a content (or related set of content) and gathers an essence from it. This essence is like a concentrated substance of that content. It removes the particulars (the names, places, the personalities), the non-essentials, such that this particular content returns back to its more general substance. This is the process of distilling a learning or quality essence from any particular content. This is also the process for creating emotional and mental seeds – seeds that will form the underlying implicit structure of the next emotional and mental bodies. For it would be inefficient and burdensome if all the emotional and mental contents, for each person/lifetime, were to carry on and on. The pool of personal content would keep on growing and carrying on, until it got ridiculously not useful. So instead, the learning and quality essences from each lifetime of experience is distilled in this between-life period, which is then either added to or integrated with the present seed-structure of the emotional and mental energies of the transmigrating soul. In other words, in each lifetime the soul brings forth its previous emotional and mental seed-structures, to be worked with in that new lifetime; and then after that lifetime, the contents from those emotional and mental bodies are reviewed and distilled into seed essences, which will then be either added to or integrated with the seed structure already present, to then be carried on to the next life.
The purpose of reviewing previous life memories of experiences and actions is to, first of all, learn something from these, which is to distill learning essences. These go into the mental seed essences, either adding to those seed qualities or strengthening what is already there. The second purpose of reviewing the emotional and mental content is to distill essences of positive spiritual qualities, which add to the emotional seed essences. As well, all of these positive distillations further the development and advancement of the soul itself, strengthening the three inner petals of the soul lotus: the will-to-serve, inclusive compassion, and integral intelligence. All positive-quality distillations from the emotional body (from its content of what has been actualized during the preceding lifetime) further evolve the emotional body energy structure and seeds. The purpose of processing through unresolved issues or experiences is to finally discover solutions to these issues. Also it is a time to consider alternative ways of being that could have resolved these issues and what one would do the next time around. Once an experience, action or memory has been sufficiently reviewed, processed and distilled, it looses its recurring energy and will not keep coming up from the subconscious. The purpose of distilling seed quality essences is to further evolve the mental and emotional seeds for future lives. These more evolved seeds will help the person think more clearly and intuit the truth more easily, and also help the person feel love more directly and express love more beautifully, as well as facilitate other spiritual virtues in life. In addition, more evolved learning-essences and soil-qualities are distilled.
So, in the afterlife process there is a distillation of seed-essences from the emotional and mental contents and memories. These essences then combine and integrate with the existing mental and emotional structure. Some of the emotional contents can even be distilled into greater soul qualities of being, such as a greater inclusive love and compassion. Some of the mental contents can be distilled into greater soul understandings. These qualities and understandings, distilled from the emotional and mental bodies, will then further develop and expand the soul itself, adding to its soul-seeds and expanding its own 12-petaled lotus. These higher essences also evolve the emotional and mental seeds that will form the intrinsic structure for the next lives.
Thus, as part of the review and distillation process, some of the learnings and qualities distilled from emotional and mental body content will also further build and expand the soul itself. For the soul itself, as a soul body, is continually developing and expanding, and progressing in its full realization of God. Each soul body (soul individual) has three inner aspects – its realization (its divine gnosis), its love-being (its composite of love qualities), and its spiritual will (its power to serve divine purpose and world-needs) (or its power to manifest divine goodness, love and truth). The soul can further develop and expand each of these three soul aspects by way of its work in each lifetime, its learning in each lifetime, and the spiritual qualities it is able to actualize and express in that lifetime. Therefore, the soul consciousness can review this previous lifetime and distill essences for its own soul being, in any of these three aspects or in all of them; while at the same time, these essences also develop further the emotional and mental seeds.
The only kind of essence that the soul cannot further develop from the review process is the essence of soul-will (or soul-power), because the further development of soul-will requires efforts and successes of the soul-will in the living personal life. It requires a personal life, with its opportunities for soul-will, soul-power, and soul-manifestation. This is one reason why soul-consciousness and soul-will are needed in any personal life. But the soul-will is often suppressed by our personal desire-will. Soul-will should be understood as different from mere personal desire-will. Often what we think is will-at-work is really just a personal desire seeking fulfillment, so it can be difficult to discern the difference between soul-will and mere desire-will. Yet this difference is important. The soul-will always seeks to initiate and complete good things – that is, the soul-will aims for more love, more intelligence, more harmony, more health, and service towards spiritual values. It is a will for expressing and manifesting spiritual values and . These values may include benefits for oneself, such as good personal health and personal learning. Personal needs, interests and aims are included in spiritual aims, since each of us are as divine as everyone else. So, spiritual will is not simply a renunciation of self-needs and interests. However, spiritual will does not neglect the needs of others in pursuit of personal aims; spiritual will does not harm others nor the environment, in its pursuit of personal aims.
Our soul develops further, in its aspect of will, by exercising its spiritual will and power in the incarnation, through the living person, which also has a positive effect in the world. The soul even develops further by successfully bringing its spiritual consciousness, love and will into the personal mind, emotions and actions. In other words, one of the great challenges of each soul is how to successfully bring soul qualities into the person – into that personality and their patterns of expression. This is a huge challenge for the soul – how to bring itself (the soul) into personal experience and expression, and into the world at hand. This is the spiritual work going on inside us – towards the aim of being a soul-infused person and with soul consciousness and with soul identification. Less advanced souls have more trouble with this work, while more advanced souls have a greater spiritual power to be more successful in this. The more advanced souls can foster this soul-infusion more easily, also solving inner conflicts and battles more quickly; which then enables the advanced soul to proceed on to world-service – bringing more spiritual qualities and energies to others and into the world, and without having to be so burdened with just trying to solve personal problems and inner conflicts. Any soul-will or soul-work in the personal life and in the world will increasingly build the soul's spiritual aspect of power (its first ray), which will then be carried on into future lifetimes. By the way, these spiritual aspects and qualities of the soul, once they have been built into the soul being, will never diminish nor regress. Yet, there will be lifetimes when failures come and the soul qualities do not successfully infuse into that incarnation, into that personality; which could be caused by unfortunate and unexpected circumstances which end up blocking soul integration into the person. This possibility is more or less true in many lifetimes.
The afterlife process is being called a review and the image one might have is like watching a movie about one's life, to review it and discover what can be learned and what goodness can be used from it for the next lives. This is a helpful understanding, but it is only partly correct. Because like in dreams, it is not always just like watching a movie; most of the time one is right in the drama, rather than just watching it. And so this is mostly how it is in this afterlife process, you are right in the very middle of it, as the central character and as the one experiencing what is going on to you and everyone. You will experience the dramas from your own perspective, and also from other perspectives. In this way, you will experience and feel the many characters involved in each drama. Sometimes the drama will be new and the characters different from any people you ever knew; except that the plot theme and the character patterns will be repeating the same as from other times, yet the details will be new. This often happens with certain patterns that were repeated over and over in one's life; the pattern was the same, yet it occurred each time with different people and circumstances. The people, the props, and the circumstances might change, but the same patterns show up.
Sometimes the drama will be a re-experience of a previous event. This often happens with very powerful events or traumas in the previous life, when certain first-hand events lodge into one's emotional body and hold that psychic energy in a kind of frozen state. So in the afterlife process it gets repeated over and over, until the energies are either used up, distilled into essences, or transmuted with forgiveness. Later in the just mental experience, each belief-pattern will be repeatedly thought over and over, and conflicts in belief will be suffered mentally; until fixations are released, contadictions resolved, and an open-mindedness is achieved. All of this emotional and mental re-experiencing can, of course, be a suffering in itself; but after enough repeats, the energies do eventually dissipate, get transmuted or distilled. There will be many re-experiences of things that happened or things you did, and the reason these are being re-experienced and repeated is because either: a) there are essences or to distill from this experience, or b) there are unresolved feelings and confused thoughts in this happening of the past.
So, the review process is more than merely an observed review of past events and actions. We have to actually experience and re-experience the events and actions of our life, and will have to keep repeating this until the emotional energies are resolved – through distillation of a useful essence from it, or else releasing the energy in some way, or else letting the energy dissipate by itself. Yet, however this is eventually resolved, the bottom line is that we will have to go through and move through the experiences, which means experiencing once again those emotions involved and perhaps suffering some through this. This is what would be called processing the emotions. And this keeps repeating and being re-experienced until some kind of learning essence is distilled from it, or until we can detach from the emotions involved and dis-identify from it and thus let it go. So we have to re-experience through all of our emotional body content, all of these emotions energies, patterns, and even emotional memories.
The afterlife processing can therefore be understood as a purgatory period, because it is a purification process – purifying our emotional and mental bodies, as best as possible, for the next incarnations. This concept of purgatory tends to evoke images of suffering, because the Church focused so much on developing that theme; but although there may be some experiences of suffering in this, the main reason for the process is to process-through, which means to re-experience, re-view, and eventually transmute the negative emotions and come into a more positive emotional experience regarding that past event or pattern of being. There may be suffering along the way, but usually due to a resistance for letting go and fluidly being open to change. Also, if one accepts those moments of suffering, then very often the energies change towards being more compassionate and loving. The real purpose of this afterlife period is not suffering but rather purification, which is more to the point of what purgatory and purgation actually mean. It is a process of purification and transmutation, so if seen from this perspective the process overall is joyfully releasing. In short, some of this will be a time of emotional suffering, having to re-experience over and over again all that was repressed and pushed down deep into our subconscious because of not wanting to acknowledge and process through it. Yet some of this time will be a re-experience and distillation of quite positive things, experiences of joy and times to be proud in life.
The purification process is by way of distillation and transmutation. The process of re-experience and re-view is intended to be an opportunity for distillation of some sort of learning from this pattern, this content, and also a transformation of unresolved, unsettled, or negative emotional reactions. There might even be a whole positive transformation of the event or pattern, whereby a more positive alternative to this will present itself in the astral experience, much like a re-creation of the story or the reaction-pattern into a positive emotional event. Unresolved emotions and upsetting events of the previous life are re-viewed, yet now with the light of soul present, as well as the developed intelligent reasoning of the mental body. For understand that the mental body (to the extent that it was developed) and also the soul-consciousness are both present in the emotional purification process, which adds in the needed transforming and distilling power (from beyond the emotional patterns themselves).
First of all remember that one of the problems in regular life, in regards to our emotional and mental experience, is that these energy bodies are often fragmented into separate little parts, and each of these parts tend to avoid interacting with certain other parts, kind of like groups that don't really get along too well. For example, an emotional complex of angry-self avoids the complex of happy-self, and vice versa. If one comes forth, the other retreats back into the subconscious, or perhaps gets suppressed back. An example for the mental body might be how one belief avoids a contradicting belief, all within the same personal mind. One day the person believes x and the next day believes y, even though the two beliefs completely contradict one another; but the person maintains this without any questioning, because the two beliefs avoid one another. Habits also survive in the same way, because the habit complex successfully suppresses the part of self that wants to change. But in the afterlife process – these avoidances, suppressions, and separations of various emotional and mental parts can no longer be successful. The doors all open, the light of consciousness penetrates into every dark corner, and nothing can hide or avoid consciousness. These little parts can no longer separate themselves. The boundaries are no more, and so a dialogue and interaction has to ensue. This creates confrontations and conflicts in the dream experience, all within one's own emotional body and mental body. Yet only through this process of internal interaction can resolutions of conflict be achieved, lessons learned, and patterns transformed.
In addition to this coming together and possible resolution of previously disparate emotional and mental parts (nations within), the various energy parts can also help one another in the afterlife process. For example, in a certain conflict, struggle, or unresolved issue repeating itself over and over in the astral dream experience, a positive character virtue in our emotions or mind will come to help in this particular drama. In other words, our positive virtues or character traits can come to aide in difficult processes involving our negative character patterns and unresolved emotions; the better parts of ourself coming to help the troubled parts of ourself. Also, the higher developed abilities of our mental body, such as a broad intelligence and coherent reasoning, can help resolve and transform various emotional issues and negative patterns.
Also adding to help in the process is the soul light wisdom, which was always available to help throughout regular life, but was often neglected or not allowed into one's thinking or feelings. Yet in this afterlife process the contents of emotions and thoughts can no longer avoid or neglect the soul light wisdom; and even if certain emotional or mental complexes work at this avoidance, the soul light is persistent in the process and cannot really be suppressed. This is very good, because the soul wisdom can now help in the process of resolving upsetting issues or past experiences.
This is all to do with the dramas, the dreams of astral experiences, each of which is an attempt to resolve the previously unresolved, to free the previously stuck, to heal to the previously hurt, or to positively transform the previously negative. So in this process, the dreams, the experiences will either keep repeating the same patterns, or else they will transform because of the extra added soul light or because of the added interactions between our previous disparate and fragmented parts or because of how the positive virtue parts come to the aide of other parts in need of healing and transformation. This is another way in which the afterlife process helps to evolve the emotional and mental energy-structures for the next lives.
These issues and patterns can finally get transformed by a re-experiencing of them. This often happens on its own accord, just as all dramas eventually change with time, and so too with the astral dreams. Yet it is possible for the soul to intentionally re-create the dream experience. This is a way to transform a recurring negative experience, or past guilt, or past hurt. This is way to transform disturbing dreams or past experiences, or irritations or any troubling emotion. If the drama or pattern can be re-created or at least re-experienced (or enacted) in a more positive, intelligent, or loving way; then it is transformed.
A related aspect of the afterlife process is a using up of the energies until there is no more emotional body – until there is no more emotional content left. And thus, the emotional body itself ceases to be. There is no more consciousness needing to be there, because there is nothing left there. At this point, just the mental body now remains and consciousness is just present there. During the predominately emotional purification and distillation, there can be simultaneous distillations of mental body content as well. So already, after the emotional body passes away, the mental body has already been transmuting to some degree, yet there will still be more to process in it. And thus, the purification, distillation and transmutation process is now solely focused in the mental body, and as such there will now be just mental experience, without emotional experience.
Content and energies of these bodies are being used up, so to speak, but then where does the content and energy go? First understand that all emotional and mental content is essentially energy (of a particular rate or level or kind). Second, the content is being distilled and transmuted into more compact and generalized energy-forms; this is the process of particular contents becoming generalized seed structures. In other words, the content turns into generalized patterns, which then become the seeds and then the intrinsic structure of the next incarnating energy bodies. The particular names, places, and other details from the life story are stripped away, so to speak. The particulars are purified-distilled into more generalized structures, or integrated into the generalized structures already transmigrating as emotional and mental seeds. As well, the soul itself can integrate any generalized spiritual virtues and abilities, from that previous life, into its eternally developing soul-being.
Thus for instance, the contents of the emotional body, including all its patterns and memories, will be re-experienced in various ways in a process whereby generalized learnings, qualities and virtues are being abstracted from the contents, or from the re-experiences; until eventually all the energy of these contents have been abstracted out, distilled out, or else transmuted to a higher form of energy, all of which will now go into the seed structures that the soul has been carrying through incarnations, and thus those seed structures will have added virtues in them (if that previous lifetime actually produced virtues) or at least those seed structures will further evolve (if that lifetime actually produced positive qualities or at least new things learned). This is what happens with transmuted energies and with distilled positive qualities. But once all that good and useful stuff is distilled into essences, and in addition much of the unresolved and negative stuff was transformed and transmuted through the process; there might still remain un-transmuted negative content and energies.
Usually the emotional contents are transmuted first and then the mental contents, but distillation can occur for the mental body and the emotional body at the same time. If transmutation is unsuccessful, or if there is nothing more to learn or positively distill from the content, then the soul withdraws its consciousness back to itself, which effectively ends the processing work. So, when the soul-consciousness withdraws from the positive distillation process, then the leftover content (patterns or energies) carry into the next lives as negative patterns or unresolved issues. Most usually, there will be residues and unresolved energies and negative patterns, which cannot be distilled or transmuted during this afterlife process. These then continue on into the next lifetime. They can also be understood as the negative karmas, because they open a door for negative content to develop in the next incarnation, though these can still be transformed with the power of self-work in that next lifetime.
Therefore, contents and experiences that do not have positive qualities, nor can be transformed into positive qualities, will then remain at the end of the distillation process as unused residue. In other words, after positive essences have been distilled, the other less-than positive stuff then remains. These denser energies have to go through a more difficult processing, which is intended to either positively transform the energies or discover positives in them to be distilled. But at some point, all is done that can be done for the better. At this point, what's left over has to be added to the seed structure, which then reincarnates as bits of denser residues in the next emotional and mental bodies. These will manifest as unresolved issues or as slightly inharmonious patterns; though, like any karmas, they can be positively transformed at any time in that lifetime or in the next ones. These become the personal issues that will require a re-solution, a change or a new transformation. In any life, whatever has not changed into a positive, will have to keep going on until it is.
It would be easy if the soul were to simply transform all negatives and resolve all emotional and mental conflicts, confusions and spiritual blocks. But it is not so easy. The soul can help and encourage the process of transformation, but any negative content has to see itself in the mirror, as it were, and then be willing to sacrifice itself – which essentially means to voluntarily give up its existence to the Light of the soul. It has to willingly surrender its selfish and self-centered existence, and thus forever be no more. If any part of the emotional or mental self-identity is willing to sacrifice itself in this way, then there is transformation (or more rightly called transmutation).
So, the review and distillation process goes on for the emotional body and then the mental body, until no more contents can be distilled. The Process continues until it is no longer any use. A certain amount of transformation can occur in the afterlife process, but not all negatives can turn into positives. So there comes a point in which the process looses energy, in regards to any particular pattern or content; thus at this point, whatever is unresolved, stuck, too fixated or too identified, will have to simply carry on with the soul into the next lives, until worked out in pressures of relational life. Therefore, these left-over contents or unresolved patterns are roughly distilled and combined into the overall energy structure of that emotional or mental body.
Another aspect in the afterlife process is that the soul consciousness is gradually withdrawing its consciousness energy from being involved in and wrapped up in all of these contents and dramas of the emotional body. The emotional experience itself, the dream itself, the astral drama of these moments, has consciousness wrapped up in this and self-identified in this. In other words, experience and re-experience within the emotional and mental bodies all requires consciousness energy, and the energy of consciousness is providing the energy for these dream-like afterlife experiences. From the perspective of the experience itself, consciousness is wrapped up and identified in it; even though from the perspective of our soul, it's consciousness is nonetheless free.
Much of what needs to be transformed is self-identification with the content. Our consciousness needs to become free from self-identifications and attachments, which are the glue holding together much of the emotional and mental contents. Yet some of this identification and attachment is very powerful and deeply embedded in the emotional and mental energy structures; which is why there are deeper patterns, identifications and attachments that carry on over many many lifetimes until resolved, sacrificed, transformed.
The best result in the afterlife process is to distill positive learning essences and being-quality essences from the contents, but this cannot always happen. For there will also be unresolved contents, stuck energies, and negative dysfunctional patterns, which need to be resolved before any positive essences can be distilled from these. This then demands more processing – more re-experiencing (in various ways) and transforming, before any positive distillations can come forth. And much of this re-experiencing and processing-through is to break through the stuck energies, the hardened blockages, and the fixations, which keep the psychic energy trapped in that particular reactive pattern or memory. This trapped energy is a frozen energy of consciousness; the energy of consciousness got stuck in that fixed pattern or in that unresolved traumatic moment. This is what energizes this content, but this energy is now stuck.
So the process of re-experiencing and reviewing, the processing, starts to rattle that stuck content and loosen up its fixed, frozen condition. Through this, the stuck energies begin to become released and free, which then allows resolution and transformation. This then shows one aspect of the process, which is the freeing up of blockages and fixations. In effect, it is a freeing of self-attachment and a freeing of consciousness from this fixated involvement. In this sense, the soul is withdrawing its consciousness energy from these psychic fixations and attachments. The soul is regaining its self-sufficient freedom, from its consciousness being trapped in these unresolved and fixated emotions to being free from it all, so to not have to carry over these problems into the next life. Yet, some of these fixations and blockages have become too hardened, which means they do not completely unravel and transform during the purgatory process. These then become the karmic residues and the patterns that will have to continue on into the next life and into further lives, until worked through and resolved by way of the circumstances, challenges and efforts in that life.
The astral afterlife experience is mostly a review and resolution of one's emotional contents from the previous life, of all that is continuing on in the emotional body after physical death. But these emotions are also intertwined with memories and interactions with other people known or met in the previous life. Therefore, many of the afterlife resolution experiences will involve memories and interactions, as well emotional content. In most cases all of these factors are inseparably intertwined, but sometimes the experience involves just one of these factors.
These 'contents' are the kinds of emotions and emotional patterns that one is carrying on. Some may be quite positive, but others could be negative and in need to transformation. Also, memories are a part of this content. Most memories become assimilated with groups of memories, and these become distilled into learning-essences – the learning distilled from our memories of events, self-actions or reactions. Yet some memories remain in themselves as specifically unresolved, or as troubling when reviewed or remembered. These are stuck memories – stuck events, or stuck emotions about an event, or stuck reactions. Yet all our emotional content, in need of review and resolution, are in someway connected to memories, past events or actions. So is this a review and resolution process of emotional contents or of memories? The answer is both, because our unresolved emotions will be inseparably tied with specific memories or events.
Yet in addition, the review and resolution process often involves actual present-made actions, which can come from the personal soul will and intelligence. That is, the resolution process has to also involve intentional actions – which come from one's developed intelligence (existing in one's mental body, if yet developed) or from one's soul. And thus the overall experience of this afterlife emotional review and resolution process will involve emotional content (such as patterns, reactions), plus memories, plus actual dynamic action. It is not merely just memories interacting, nor just contents interacting; it includes both together, plus the potential in each moment for an actual response either from one's developed intelligence or from one's soul wisdom-love-power.
Often as well, the afterlife experience-process of review and resolution will not only involve the contents and memories from our continuing emotional and mental bodies, but will also involve actual interactions with other emotional bodies. These other emotional bodies and energies might be from other afterlife personalities or might be from other personalities still in physical life but dreaming. For the astral world, in which these interactions take place, is populated with both afterlife bodies and dream bodies (of those still physically alive).
There is also an ongoing interrelationship between people of the physical world and those in the astral world, which is evident both in dreams and in the afterlife experience. For instance, people who are physically alive can meet and interact with those not physically alive (those who have passed on from the physical world). This can happen in meditation, in trance states, and also in ordinary dreams. This is possible because many dreams happen in the astral world, so those in the astral afterlife can meet with physically living people in the dream world.
Experiences in the afterlife are like being in dreams. This is because dreams and the afterlife co-exist in the astral world. The astral is a world of interacting personalities, desires, emotions, images, thoughts, self-identifications and attachments. It can be a place of many conflicts and even violence, or it can be a place of harmony and love; just like in our physical world and so too in the dream world. So, experiences in the astral world can be suffering and nightmarish; or they can be wonderfully enjoyable. In fact, our physical world is much a reflection of the astral world. For remember that the astral world is mostly comprised of the emotions and desires of our world; it is that world – which coexists with the physical world; whereby we live in both worlds together.
So even in everyday living, we are all partly in the astral world as well as in the physical world. In other words, most people are partly living in the dream world, even though they don't notice this or believe this. And this dream world is the astral world – in which afterlife personalities are working through their own karmic and emotional processes. So, in the afterlife and also in many dreams, physically living personalities meet and interact with afterlife personalities, and vice versa. For in the astral-dream world, it doesn't really matter about a physical body, since the physical body is unnecessary in this astral-dream world of interacting emotions and mental images.
Remember that the astral world contains all emotional bodies, including those of physical alive personalities as well as afterlife personalities. So the physically-alive emotional bodies interact with afterlife emotional bodies often throughout daily life, but the interactions are most concentrated and most 'real-like' for physical personalities when they are asleep in dreams, because in dreams the physical body disappears from the experience and thus in dreams there really isn't any difference between the emotional body experiences of afterlife and dream. They both occur in the same 'world of experience', which is the astral world.
So in the astral world, where most of the afterlife process is worked out, different emotional bodies are interacting, just like different physical bodies interact in the physical world. And in the mental world of thoughts and ideas, different mental bodies interact. In all dimensions there is interaction and interrelationship, for nothing nor anyone is ever absolutely alone. Interaction is part of all process of life, and thus interaction is also essential in the afterlife process.
But who interacts with whom? Or who shows up in one's afterlife process? Or who shows up in one's dreams? Past interactions, mostly in the previous life but also from past lives, will often return in the afterlife-dream process – especially if these interactions were important in one's life, and also if certain interactions were left unresolved or unsettled. The afterlife-dream process, then, is to resolve what is unresolved, and to settle what is unsettled. And because those others were probably feeling the same way, you and they meet again in the astral-dream world to process it, to re-solve it, or to settle it by bringing the past into peace or into the release of forgiveness. This is how one's unresolved or stuck energies get resolved or released. There has to be this real, actual interaction between those involved; because for each personality involved there are unresolved issues and karmas, until resolved or released with forgiveness and peace. So each of the personalities involved in any past unresolved interaction or drama will eventually have to meet up again with the others involved, in order for all all of the involved to process through a resolution and thus transform the energies. This is all part of the afterlife process.
However, not all issues will be resolved in this process. That is, in any afterlife process, there may still be some unresolved issues, emotions and karmas. Each afterlife process can only succeed so much. Also, for instance, one of the involved interacting personalities might resolve an issue in their own emotional body, while the other might not yet; in which case, the one who is resolved (and can forgive) can move on, but the unresolved (and unforgiving) personality will need to work this out later on – within just their own content and memory. So each can resolve and transform energies and move on, without being necessarily bogged down by those who cannot yet do this. Then, if an issue or previous experience is still unresolved, or cannot get completely resolved in the afterlife process, this will then carry on into the emotional seeds for the next life incarnation. The same basic reality also applies to the mental body afterlife process.
Let us now consider the relation between individual afterlife experience and the energies of the whole world. The emotional and mental bodies of the person, along with the soul, continue on after the death of the physical body. These carry on emotional patterns and energies, or what we've labeled as its contents, and likewise the mental body carries its own kind of energy contents. But these patterns and energies, for both the emotional and mental, are not exclusively isolated from the emotional and mental energies of all others in the world. Rather, the patterns and energies of each person resonate out into the whole world, being shared with all the world, and to some extent being influential throughout the world, whether this be positive or negative, or somewhere in between.
Likewise, the energies and patterns of other people are also resonating and potentially influencing everyone in the world, including oneself. The degree of influence-from-others to which one is effected, depends on how openly passive one is compared to how self-determined one is; some people are more influenced by others, while other people are more influential on others. Yet understand that these influences could be quite positive, just as well as they could be quite negative. The basic principle is that we each potentially affect and influence one another, emotionally and mentally, by the resonance and radiating influence of our emotional and mental energies, patterns and qualities. This is true while we are physically alive and also in the afterlife process. The energies and qualities of each soul, the core being which actually transcends emotional and mental contents, also has resonance and subtle influence through the whole world.
Therefore, in the afterlife process the emotional and mental bodies of each individual is still an influence in the world, while also being potentially influenced by other emotional and mental bodies, whether these come from physical lives or afterlife bodies. Note that in the realm of emotional and mental energies and patterns, it doesn't really matter whether the physical body is present or not. Physical existence will of course contribute to emotional and mental experiences, while a lack of physical existence will tend to create different emotional and mental experiences; but the energies and patterns in the emotional body itself, for instance, will have the same world effect no matter if physically incarnated or not. In the same principle, a physically incarnated soul and an out-of-incarnated soul will have equal potential influence in the world. The spiritual radiance and influence of a soul is the same, whether it is at present physically incarnated or not.
So, there is resonance and influence between all emotional bodies in the world, as well as resonance and influence between all mental bodies in the world. Understand though, that 'in the world' is not limited to just the physical world, but rather includes the physical and non-physical world. More precisely, 'the world', in which emotional energies and patterns are transpersonally influential, is the shared emotional world of our planet, which in-itself is non-physical and transcends the physical world. Likewise can be said for the mental energies, thought forms and patterns, which comprise our commonly shared mental world. Therefore, in terms of the afterlife process, that particular emotional and mental body will be subject to influences from other such energies, coming from both the physical and afterlife realms. And likewise, the energies and patterns of that particular energy body will be affecting other energy-bodies in the whole world it is participating in. Transformations of energies will also be affective throughout the world.
Thus, each emotional body, with its emotional energies and patterns, is within a larger shared emotional world. As well, whatever emotional energies we have then go into the overall emotional world pool of energies; either adding to what's there, displacing what's there, or transforming what's there. The same truth applies with the mental body and its world. And all that has been discussed about the emotional world and energies also corresponds likewise with the mental world and experience.
This then means that each emotional body, in its experience in the afterlife, is actually interacting with emotional energies outside of its own body. This is besides its own intra-actions – within its own internal relations. In other words, in the afterlife period of emotional experience and process, there is interactive experience with other emotional beings (or more precisely, with their emotional energies, patterns, forms, etc); meaning that the afterlife emotional experience involves others within the shared emotional world, which includes others still physically alive-but-dreaming and also others in the afterlife dream themselves. So one may be astrally interacting with others, as well as with parts of oneself.
In summary, emotional energies interact with and mutually influence other emotional energies. Emotional patterns and forms interact with and mutually influence other emotional patterns and forms. No experience or process, emotional nor mental, is completely isolated from the larger world of those corresponding resonating and interacting energies. And thus, the afterlife process is interactive with others in the world, just as our physical life existence. Though the afterlife process is more introspective, intra-active, and internally transforming; which tends to balance our physical world time of avoiding such a process.
Each emotional and mental body is like a particular container of contents or field of energies. Each container has individually unique contents, experiences, patterns and qualities. But not all of this is actually unique, maybe some or maybe not much, because much of this content is essentially the same kinds of energies, contents, patterns and qualities that are commonly shared with many others in humanity, especially if the exact-particular details of the contents are removed. That is, most of the particular contents in any emotional or mental body are essentially made of more general patterns commonly shared by much of humanity. In other words, on the surface level or on the particulars-details level, each of us is uniquely different, with different exact emotional and mental mental contents and experiences; but on the more fundamental level or the energy-essences level, our emotional and mental contents are made of commonly shared essences.
Therefore, our individual emotional and mental relationship with others throughout the world, in the whole world of energy-interactions, is much more inter-connected than one might first think, since we are all experiencing and resonating much of the same essences and patterns, anyways. Also, by the principle of resonance, subtle changes in one place have immediate influential effects in many other places, without there even having to be inter-actions in the sense of actually meeting in the same place. Thus, when we understand our emotional and mental relationships with others in the world as mutual resonances, our shared relationships are then seen as vastly more complex and intricate, than the image of actual particular entities meeting together and interacting in a certain place, like in a certain dream or dream body.
Thus, understand that experiences and dream dramas are going on in the afterlife emotional body, in that individual locality; yet all of this can just as well be rightly understood as going on in the whole commonly shared astral-emotional world. It can thus be understood that, in one sense, a certain process (or processing) of experience is going on in that particular emotional or mental body, while in another sense and equally true, that same process of experience is going on in the shared astral world and it involves many more individual/places than anyone could completely know. We are each interacting with many more individuals and dreams than actually appear to be in any one dream-like experience. Furthermore, all experiences and all transformations have resonating effects in all the emotional and mental world of humanity.
Each kind of content, or pattern, is itself part of a larger shared pattern and is of that part of the shared energy world. If we ask, for instance, where does an emotional content or part of my emotions go after the physical death? The answer could be that it continues and remains in one's emotional body, to be re-experienced and perhaps transformed in the afterlife process. This is along the explanations already described. Yet just as true, the answer could be that it continues and repeats in the astral world – it continues to live on the shared astral world as one of the many common patterns. It might add to or strengthen similar patterns in the astral world, or it could be part of a larger ongoing evolution of emotions in humanity. Thus, these contents also continue as world-shared patterns, or karmas, to be repeatedly incarnated, experienced and expressed, until further evolved or transformed. In short, we are each part of the larger shared world of emotional energies, patterns, reactions, desires and feelings, and also part of the shared world of mental energies, thoughts, beliefs, and ideas. And as well, we are each part of and participating in an ongoing shared transformation and evolution of these energies.