We have looked at life after death in its generality so far. Let us now look at some specific examples. There is practically no difference between the consciousness of a psychic after death and that of a non-psychic person, except that the psychic, probably more familiar with emotional matter, will feel more at home in their new environment. To be psychic means to possess a physical body that is, in some ways, more sensitive than most people. Consequently, when the physical body is dropped, this inequality no longer exists, so both monads find themselves equally in the same environment.
A sudden death, such as from an accident, need not necessarily affect the emotional life for the worse. At the same time, for most people, a more natural death is preferable because the slow wasting away of the aged or the ravages of a long-continued illness is almost invariably accompanied by a considerable loosening and breaking up of the emotional particles so that when the person recovers consciousness on the emotional plane, they find some of their principal work on this plane already done for them. In most cases, when earth life is suddenly cut short by accident or suicide, the link between kama (desire) and prana (vitality) is not easily broken, and the emotional body is consequently strongly vivified. This is a significant fact to consider. Getting back to my grey hair, you can see that the prana flowing into my body is decreasing. So when I finally pop my clogs and go to the ice cream parlour in the sky, my prana levels will be low enough for me to quickly dismantle the connections between the matter in my emotional envelope and the entanglement of my emotional and my mental envelopes (kama-manas).
The withdrawal of the principal bodies, owing to the sudden death of any kind, has been aptly compared to tearing the stone out of unripe fruit. Remember, your principal envelopes are your etheric, emotional, mental and lower casual envelopes. Ripping them out of their physical encasement is bound to be dislocating. Much of the densest emotional matter still clings around the personality, which is consequently held in the seventh or lowest emotional subplane. This is somewhere you don’t want to be. The mental terror and disturbance which sometimes accompany accidental death are, of course, a very unfavourable preparation for emotional life. In certain rare cases, the agitation and terror may persist for some time after death.
The victims of capital punishment, apart from the injury done to them by suddenly wrenching their physical and emotional bodies apart, throb with feelings of hatred, passion, revenge and so forth. This constitutes a peculiarly dangerous element in the Emotional World. Unpleasant to society as a murderer in their physical body may be, they are far more dangerous when suddenly expelled from the body. Whilst society may protect itself from murderers in the physical body, it is at present defenceless against murderers suddenly projected onto the emotional plane in the full flush of their passions and resentments. Such people may well act as the instigators of other murders. It is well known that murders of a particular kind are sometimes repeated over and over again in the same community. Now you see why this may be occurring. It is also worth bearing in mind that society, collectively, bears karma for killing someone if it is done judicially.
The position of someone who has committed suicide adds a further complication to the process of the separation of the principal envelopes. This rash act has enormously diminished the power of the higher causal to withdraw its lower portion, known as the persona, into itself. Therefore, the monad has exposed itself to other significant dangers. Nevertheless, it must be remembered, as has been mentioned in previous presentations, that the guilt of suicide differs considerably according to circumstances, from the morally blameless act of Socrates, through all degrees down to that of a desperate soul who commits suicide to escape the physical results of their own crimes, and, of course, the position the monad surfaces in the Emotional World after death, varies accordingly.
The karmic consequences of suicide are usually momentous: they are certain to affect the next life and probably more lives than one. It is a crime against Nature to interfere with the prescribed period appointed for living a physical life. Every person has an appointed life term, determined by an intricate web of prior causes – i.e., by karma – and that term must run out its appointed course before the dissolution of the personality.
The attitude of the mind at the time of death determines where, as already mentioned, the person’s subsequent consciousness resurfaces in the Emotional World. Thus, there is a profound difference between someone who lays down their life from altruistic motives and one who deliberately destroys their life from selfish motives, such as fear, etc. That may sound harsh, but we don’t make the rules.
Pure and spiritually-minded people who are the victims of an accident, for example, sleep out happily the term of their natural life. In other cases, they remain conscious – often entangled in the final scene of earth-life for a time, held in whatever region they are related to by the outermost layer of their emotional body. Their normal kamalokic life begins when the natural web of earth-life is out-spun, and they are vividly conscious of their emotional and physical surroundings.
It must not for a moment, therefore, be supposed that because of the many superior properties of emotional over physical life, a person is justified in committing suicide or seeking death. People are incarnated in physical bodies for a purpose, which can be attained only in the physical world. There are lessons to be learnt in the physical world which cannot be learnt anywhere else, and the sooner we understand them, the sooner we shall be free from the need to return to the lower and more limited life afforded to us on the physical planes, 49:5-7. The monad has to go through a lot of trouble to incarnate in a physical body and live through the wearisome period of early childhood, during which it gradually and with great effort gains some control over its new vehicles. For this reason, a monad’s efforts should not be foolishly wasted. In this respect, the instinct of self-preservation should be obeyed; a person must make the most of their earthly life and retain it as long as circumstances permit.
Suppose a person who has been killed has led a low, brutal, selfish and sensual life. In that case, they will be fully conscious of the seventh emotional sub-plane (48:7). They risk developing into an evil entity. Inflamed with appetites, they can no longer satisfy; they may endeavour to gratify their passions through a medium or any sensitive person they can obsess. Such entities take a devilish delight in using all the arts of emotional delusion to lead others into the same excesses they indulged in. From this class and from the vitalised shells of monads who have moved on to the mental planes and left their emotional shell behind are drawn the tempters – the devils of ecclesiastical literature. For this reason, it is advised that you know how to dissolve your emotional envelope as you depart for the Metal World. You don’t want to be accused of a murder you did not commit, even if you are already dead.
The following is a strongly worded account of the victims of sudden death, whether suicides or killed by accident when such victims are depraved and gross. “Unhappy shades, if sinful and sensual, wander about… until their death hour. Cut off in the full flush of earthly passions, which bind them to familiar scenes, they are enticed by opportunities, which mediums afford to gratify them vicariously. They are the Pishachas, the Incubi and Succubae of mediaeval times: the demons of thirst, gluttony, lust and avarice: elementaries of intensified craft, wickedness and cruelty: provoking their victims to horrid crimes and revelling in their commission!” No mincing of words here!
Soldiers killed in battle do not entirely fall under this category because, whether the cause for which they are fighting, in the abstract, is right or wrong, they think it to be correct. It is their call of duty, and they sacrifice their lives willingly and unselfishly. Despite its horrors, therefore, war may nevertheless be a potent factor in evolution at a certain level. War is one way the Manu brings about change and directs Humanity along new paths of evolution. It also allows the Lords of Karma to settle lots of scores. This implies that there is a grain of truth in the notion that the Muslim fanatic who dies fighting for the faith goes straight to a perfect life in the next world. Don’t push the envelope here, though. Landing up in the Emotional World expecting to be greeted by 39 virgins is simply not going to be on the menu. Worse still, you have no functioning appendages capable of introducing themselves to those virgins. Imagine the frustration, being faced with all that temptation and being dick-less! If that isn’t hell, then what is?
See you at the next presentation.