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We speak of one world but the Vedic literatures describe three intertwined
dimensions of existence, triloka, the physical world, the world of our ancestors
and the light-filled world of the Gods as the primary hierarchical division of the
cosmos. The First World is the Bhuloka "Earth world," the physical plane
universe; the Second World is Antarlok, "Inner or in-between world," the
subtle or astral plane or mental plane of existence in which the devas, angels and
spirits live and this plane is also referred to as devaloka or deva loka; and the
Third World is the causal plane Shivaloka, "World of Shiva," and of the Gods
and highly evolved souls, also called Karanaloka which is the spiritual universe
of the Mahadevas, "great shining beings," the Hindu Gods.
The Inner world is quite blissful from the perspective of someone who has
reached a higher stage of maturity, and life on the inner planes for him is more
blissful. For some it may be a time of communicating with those on the Earth,
learning how to channel messages to them. This sojourn in the in-between is
similar to sleep, which is an earned time of rest for the physical body. Within the
inner worlds, there are realms far more subtle than the astral plane. Advanced
souls residing on the astral plane are able to access those higher worlds at will,
there to learn from and receive blessings from great devas. For most, in order to
do this, the astral body would not "die," but simply be left behind temporarily.
Similarly, here on the physical plane, you can go into meditation and get
"beamed up" into the higher world from your purusha (Earthly) body. Your
physical body and astral body are temporarily left behind. However, there are
beings in the inner world who reside fully in these higher planes in their mental
body, having dropped off their lower astral body long ago. But the law is that
after death you won't be able to go any higher in the inner worlds than the level
you had attained in a physical birth, because it is only in physical birth that all
twenty-one chakras are available. In physical birth, the lowest ones become
attainable, and the highest become attainable as well. Whatever your attainment
on Earth is, you carry that with you into the astral worlds unchanged. Whatever
your accomplishments are of living in the gamut of the chakras, lower or higher,
you can't go lower and you can't go higher in the inner planes. That is why you
need a physical birth.
According to Vedic literature, occasionally a great soul will know before his grand
departure, his death, that he will not be reincarnating again. In this case the
astral body has to be totally absorbed by the causal body while he is alive in his
physical body. That means all the lower chakras have to be closed off. When this
has occurred, the soul body takes over the physical body and there is very little
astral body present, just a shell. Eliminating the astral body and the chakras it is
attached to is accomplished through yoga and tapas in a physical birth. This is a
process that goes on in the First World. Through dharma and following the
principles of Saivism, they are to be slowly closed off and systematically put to
rest. The nature of the chakras is what makes one individual different from
another, other than the personal vibratory rate.
The astral plane is within this world as its etheric counterpart, and when you drop
off the physical body, you are in it. You are in it now but are not aware of it as
yet. It is a world just like this one. Because the astral plane is of a higher rate of
vibration, or a more intense rate of vibration, prana flows within it a little freer
and faster. We have everything there that we have on the physical plane.
However, things there are manifested by the mind quickly, whereas on the
physical plane they are created more slowly. This is because the physical body
needs the muladhara chakra in order to function, and this brings us into a
different dimension of time. The first chakra is not so dominant on the astral
plane. On the astral plane, we see other people -- other people that have died
and do not have a physical body and therefore, it is a more populated plane than
this Earth. We do not usually remember our astral experiences, because the
astral brain and the physical brain are of two different rates of vibration.