Life in 4D (The Astral Realms) Part III

Moving forward with more on the nature of the astral realms as related by guru Sri Yukteswar to his disciple, Yogananda, in "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramhansa Yogananda.

[QUOTING]

“Friends of other lives easily recognize one another in the astral world. Rejoicing at the immortality of friendship, they realize the indestructibility of love, often doubted at the time of the sad, delusive partings of earthly life.

“The intuition of astral beings pierces through the veil and observes human activity on earth, but man cannot view the astral world unless his sixth sense is somewhat developed. Thousands of earth-dwellers have momentarily glimpsed an astral being or an astral world.

“Communication among the astral inhabitants is held entirely by astral telepathy and television; there is none of the confusion and misunderstanding of the written and spoken word which earth-dwellers must endure. Just as persons on the cinema screen appear to move and act through a series of light pictures, and do not actually breathe, so the astral beings walk and work as intelligently guided and coordinated images of light, without the necessity of drawing power from oxygen. Man depends on solids, liquids, gases and energy for sustenance; astral beings sustain themselves principally by cosmic light.

“Luminous raylike vegetables abound in the astral soils. The astral beings consume vegetables, and drink a nectar flowing from glorious fountains of light, and from astral brooks and rivers. Just as invisible images of persons on the earth can be dug out of the ether and made visible by a television apparatus, later being dismissed again into space, so the god-created, unseen astral blueprints of vegetables and plants floating on the ether are precipitated on the astral plane by the will of its inhabitants. In the same way, from the wildest fancy of these beings, whole gardens of fragrant flowers are materialized, returning later to the etheric invisibility.

“The earth-liberated astral being meets a multitude of relatives, fathers, mothers, wives, husbands and friends acquired during different incarnations on earth,* as they appear from time to time in various parts of the astral realms. He is therefore at a loss to understand whom to love especially; he learns in this way to give a divine and equal love to all, as children and individualized expressions of God.

* Lord Buddha was once asked why a man should love all persons equally. “Because,” the great teacher replied, “in the very numerous and varied lifespans of each man, every other being has at one time or another been dear to him.

“Though the outward appearance of the loved ones may have changed, more or less according to the development of new qualities in the latest life of any particular soul, the astral being employs his unerring intuition to recognize all those once dear to him in other planes of existence, and to welcome them to their new astral home. Because every atom in Creation is inextinguishably dowered with individuality,* an astral friend will be recognized no matter what costume he may don, even as on earth an actor’s identity is discoverable by close observation despite any disguise.

* The eight elemental qualities which enter into all created life, from atom to man, are earth, water, fire, air, ether, motion, mind and individuality. (Bhagavad Gita: VII:4)

[END QUOTING]

End Part III

~~ g