Some cultures deal with death better than others, but in all cases, it is a mysterious process, shrouded in superstition. Considering it is the only event in our life that we are certain to experience, it is worth looking at this transition from an esoteric perspective.
At death, the consciousness withdraws from the dense physical body into the etheric envelope for a short period, usually a few hours, and then passes into the emotional body. Death thus consists of a process of unrobing or unsheathing. The monad, the immortal part of a person, shakes off from itself, one after the other, its outer casings, first the dense physical: then the etheric double: then even the emotional body, as we shall see later.
In almost every case, the actual passing away appears to be perfectly painless, even after a long illness involving terrible suffering. The peaceful look on the face of the dead is strong evidence in favour of this statement and it is also borne out by the direct testimony of most of those who have been questioned on the point immediately after death. There are also testimonies from those who have gone through the portal, only to find their time had not come and then come back and relate their experiences to us.
According to Arthur Powell, at the actual moment of death, even when death is sudden, a person sees the whole of their past life marshalled before them, in its minutest detail. In a moment the monad sees the whole chain of causes, which have been at work during its life; it sees and now understands itself as it is, unadorned by flattery or self-deception. The departing monad, reads their life, remaining as a spectator, looking down upon the arena they are quitting. This version of events is slightly at variance from other authors, including Lee Bladon. Why I think Powell’s simplistic rendition is inaccurate, is because some deceased individuals are not aware of that fact and wander the etheric plane as ghosts. Clearly, no recollection is occurring here. There are also others, who find themselves on the lower emotional planes, surrounded and tormented by their own negative emotions. What is correct, in my opinion, is that the monad will at some point, be confronted by the events of the incarnation they have just departed. They will experience the events of their recent life in reverse order, moving back from death to their birth. At the same time, what they experience is through the lens of those they interacted with. Ponder that the next time you upset someone.
The condition of consciousness immediately after the moment of death is usually a dreamy and peaceful one. There will also be a certain period of unconsciousness, which may last only for a moment, though often it is a few minutes, or several hours and sometimes even days or weeks. The natural attraction between the emotional counterpart and the physical body is such that, after death, the emotional counterpart, from the force of habit, retains its accustomed form. Consequently, a person’s physical appearance will still be preserved after death almost unchanged, though, for older souls, there is a memory of and maybe a preference for another representation of themselves that they present on the emotional plane. Because that emotional matter is very readily moulded by thought, a person who habitually thinks of themselves after death as younger than they actually were at the time of death, will probably assume a somewhat younger appearance. It is interesting to note that Sanat Kumara is often referred to as the “Youth of Sixteen Years”.
Very soon after death, in most cases, an important change takes place in the structure of the emotional body, owing to the actions of the desire elemental essences, which collectively are known as the desire elemental. The emotional body comprises a sack made from tertiary matter, encasing elemental essences. This essence is living, though not intelligent, being composed of secondary matter. Residing in an envelope, these essences are cut off from the general mass of emotional essences. Blindly, instinctively and without reason these essences seek their own ends and show great ingenuity in obtaining their desires and in furthering their evolution. Evolution for secondary matter is a descent into tertiary matter, it aims to become, eventually, a mineral monad, after passing through a tertiary phase. The desire elemental objective in life, therefore, is to get as near to the physical plane as it can and to experience as many of the coarser vibrations as possible. It neither does nor could know anything of the monad, in whose emotional body it is for the time being living.
It desires to preserve its separate life and feels that it can do so only by utilising its connection with the monad: it is conscious of the monad’s lower mind and realises that the more mental matter it can entangle with itself, the longer will be able to retain its emotional life. On the death of the physical body, knowing that the term of its separated life is limited and that the monad’s emotional death will more or less quickly follow, in order to make the monad’s emotional body last as long as possible, it rearranges its elemental matter in concentric rings or shells, the coarsest shell being outermost. From the point of view of the desire elemental this is a good policy because the coarsest matter can hold together longest and best withstand friction.
The re-arranged emotional body is called the Yatana, or suffering body. In the case of a very evil person in whose emotional body there is a preponderance of the coarsest matter, it is called the Dhruvam or strong body. The re-arrangement of the emotional body takes place over the surface of the counterpart of the physical body, not over the surface of the ovoid, which surrounds it. The effect is to prevent the free and full circulation of emotional matter, which usually takes place in the emotional body. In addition, the monad can respond only to those vibrations, which are received by the outermost layer of their emotional body. The monad is thus shut up, as it were, in a box of emotional matter, being able to see and hear things of the lowest and coarsest plane only. This is Hell, a hell created by us, not by a vengeful God.
Although living amid high influences and beautiful thought forms, the evil monad would be almost entirely unconscious of their existence, because the particles of their emotional body, which could respond to those vibrations are shut in where they cannot be reached. Consequently, also, being able to sense only the coarsest matter in the emotional bodies of other people and being entirely unconscious of their limitations, they would assume that the monad they were looking at, possessed only the unsatisfactory characteristics, which they would be able to perceive. Since they can see and feel only what is lowest and coarsest, the monads around them appear to be monsters of vice. Under these circumstances, it is little wonder that this tortured monad considers the emotional world Hell.
The re-arrangement of the emotional body by the desire elemental does not in any way affect the recognisability of the form within the ovoid, though the natural changes which take place tend on the whole to make the form grow somewhat fainter and more spiritual in appearance as time passes – for reasons which will presently be made clear. Over time, the outermost shell or ring disintegrates. The discarnate monad then becomes able to respond to the vibrations of the next higher level of the emotional plane and thus “rises to the next sub-plane”: and so on from one subplane to another. Their stay on each sub-plane will, of course, correspond to the amount and activity of the matter in their emotional body belonging to that sub-plane.
When we speak of a monad “rising” from one sub-plane to another, they need not necessarily move in space at all: instead, they transfer their consciousness from one level to another. In the case of a monad with a rearranged emotional body, the focus of their consciousness shifts from the outer shell to the one next within it. The monad thus gradually becomes unresponsive to the vibrations of one order of matter and answers instead to those of a higher order. Thus one world with its scenery and its inhabitants would seem to fade slowly away from their view, while another world would dawn upon them.
As the shell usually disintegrates gradually, the monad finds the counterparts of physical objects growing dimmer and dimmer, while thought forms become more and more vivid to them. If during this process they meet other monads at intervals, they will imagine that the monad’s character is steadily improving, merely because they are selves becoming able to appreciate the higher vibrations of that character. The re-arrangement of the emotional body, in fact, constantly interferes with a monad’s true and full vision of their friends at all stages of their emotional life.
This process of re-arrangement of the emotional body, which takes place with most people, can be prevented by the person setting their will to oppose it. Anyone who understands the conditions of the emotional plane should completely stop the re-arrangement of the emotional body by the desire elemental. The particles of the emotional body will then be kept intermingled, as in life and in consequence, instead of being confined to one emotional sub-plane at a time, the monad will be free of all the sub-planes, alighting on the subplane that is the average density of all the emotional matter is their emotional envelope. Remember this hack, it will save you a lot of grief! The elementals, being afraid in their curious semi-conscious way, will endeavour to transfer their fear to the monad, who is jolting them out of the re-arrangement, to deter the monad from doing so. Hence one reason why it is so useful to know these matters before death.
If the re-arrangement, or shelling, has already occurred, it is still possible for the condition to be broken up by someone who wishes to help the monad and for the monad to be, in this manner, set free to work on the whole emotional plane, up to the highest level they are objectively conscious, instead of being confined to one level.
The next topic is to look at life after death and the principles involved.