Other Dimensions

      

     "Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over,

it became a butterfly."  Anonymous

     What will life be like for us in the next dimension? You can pick up five or more books that describe what it is like in other dimensions and you will get five or more very different perceptions because there are so many dimensional levels to contact and visit.  Jesus said, in John 14:2 in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, "In my Father's house are many mansions."  Paramhansa Yogananda in Autobiography of a Yogi interprets this: "These many mansions include comprehensively the Infinitude of Spirit, the Christ Consciousness sphere, and the diverse higher and lower planes of the causal and astral realms.  In general, however, the designation of heaven is relegated to the astral world, the immediate heaven relevant to beings on the physical plane."  "These many mansions are the many subtle planes in the spiritual world," explains Barborka (The Divine Plan). 

     Birth and death in the astral world are merely a change in consciousness.  "Everything existing in nature is energy in a more or less compact stage of vibration, exhibiting weight according to its mass or distinguishing gravitation." The subtle astral body or level of consciousness is the seat of the mental and emotional natures of a human being. "The powers of the astral body enliven the physical body, much as electricity illumines a bulb." Yogananda, The Second Coming of Christ.  When our powers of will and visualization are exercised, we are working mainly through our astral bodies.  The astral world is made up of subtle vibrations of light and color and is hundreds of times larger than the material cosmos, and this is the dimension in which our loved ones who have made their transition reside.

     Robert Moss, in Dreamgates, tells us, "The Persian mystic philosophers teach that there are three kingdoms of experience.  The first is our physical universe, the realm of sensory experience and space-time.  There is also a realm of pure spirit, presided over by higher intelligences.  Between the physical and spiritual realms is the third kingdom: the immense realm of soul, where cities and temples, heavens and hells, are formed by the power of active imagination, which is the faculty of soul.  This faculty is the imaginative power, the one we must avoid confusing with the imagination that modern man identifies with 'fantasy' and that, according to him, produces only the 'imaginary.'  In this order of reality, imagination is not passing fancy, the fabricator of what is merely 'made up.'  It is maker and creator.  To know the world of true imagination, you must go there, yourself."

     "A man identifies himself about sixteen hours daily with his physical vehicle; then he sleeps.  If he dreams, he remains in his astral body, effortlessly creating any object even as do the astral beings."  (Sri Yukteswar in Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi).

     So according to these teachers/authors we each hold the key to our experience in the afterlife.  We are creating our experience now.  What do we want to see?  What do we want to experience?  The parts of the astral dimension that I've personally been privileged to visit have reminded me of exquisite versions of scenes on Earth and architecture rendered of finer materials than we can imagine.  The conscious embraces of my loved ones there have convinced me that when I'm there in my subtle body that vibrates to the frequency of that dimension, everything seems as solid to me as it does in the physical dimension.  So a shift in vibratory frequency can create a shift in consciousness of the dimension we happen to be occupying at any given time.  It is our responsibility to learn to make that shift.

     Birthday Blessings to Tom West in his dimension:

November 19, 1925 - March 13, 2010



Creativity

     "When we discover or give birth to our true Selves, the Creator also comes into our lives.  When we become aware of our connection with the creative source of the universe, we also begin to become aware of our part in creation."

     "As we create our own individual Souls, we are also contributing to the creation of the world Soul.  As we create our own lives, therefore, we are co-creating the universe."

     " However, it is our Souls, not our egos that create our lives.  For instance, our Souls may choose to experience sickness or other kinds of loss or suffering as a way to be initiated into deeper wisdom so that we might grow.  Such choices are anathema to the ego, whose function is to help keep us healthy and well functioning, and consequently the ego feels victimized when such events occur (just as the Soul feels victimized when the ego makes security and status its main priorities)."
Awakening the Heroes Within, Carol S. Pearson

     "It is art (visual, music, theatre, poetry, writing, dance, etc.) which makes us the true creators of life.  Until art comes into our lives, we are the playthings of Nature's forces, of a destiny, of a Providence.  When a man senses the sublime things of art, then he stands in eternity, not time, with death merely as a vague inconceivable concept.  He is a creator himself of the great forces of life, he is life's master not its tool. The artist must therefore cease to consider his art as merely an embodiment of his own creative energy.  He has to realise that, while he is so creating, he must also release the capacity of creation in others.  When all are artists, then the work of the artist is over; but not till then."
Art As Will and Idea, C. Jinarajadasa