What happens depends upon you...
The death of the dense physical body begins when the soul withdraws its energy from its vehicle. As soon as death takes place, the subtle bodies - the astral and the mental bodies within the etheric vehicle - withdraw from the dense physical body.
The individual consciousness concerned is then left in the etheric body which in its turn will also be discarded. The particles of substance making up the etheric vehicle will then stream back into the ocean of etheric energy which surrounds us. The speed of that disintegration process depends upon the individual’s karma. When the etheric vehicle has been cast off, the astral sheath gives the person consciousness on the astral plane, where he will remain for a time on one or other of the seven astral planes which best corresponds with his astral nature. There he will once again have to deal with the desires carried over from his earthly life, and often remains so enmeshed in these that life on that plane becomes a reality to him. If the consciousness is very much focussed on the astral, with very little mental focus, such a person could remain on the astral plane for a long time - 'long' to our way of thinking, for outside the realm of the physical brain there is no such thing as time.
On this astral plane one does what, normally, one would have been doing in incarnation on the physical plane. And though life on the astral plane is a fact, as it is a fact on the dense-physical plane, it is nevertheless only an illusion. All our hopes, fears and aggression, our hatreds, jealousies and vices, form powerful thought-forms which must, sooner or later, be dissolved. Therefore the only hell which exists is that which we have created ourselves on the astral planes. The hell which we encounter is the hell of our own desires, our atrocities, our own separation and our own grudges and fears which inhabit the astral realm.
However if you took notice of my first sentence you can have a different experience.
On the higher astral levels this direct experience is of a more ecstatic kind, of a higher, more refined emotional nature, corresponding to the higher astral levels of the heart centre. A person who has attained a certain level of development before death experiences an almost constant ecstasy and joy on those levels, a sense of beauty and splendour which is the reflection on that plane of Buddhi or Love-Wisdom. Buddhi is actually a state of rapture which can be expected on the physical plane when a high degree of buddhic contact is achieved during meditation.
When a person has achieved a certain degree of mental focus he will not stay on the astral plane for very long for the astral vehicle would by then be relatively refined and harmonious. It will be able to dissolve more rapidly so that its particles can return to the reservoir of astral matter or energy, as did the etheric vehicle to the etheric plane. Incidentally, all these planes - the etheric, the astral and the mental levels - are only sub-levels within the cosmic-physical (and are, of course, really states of consciousness).
The experience on the mental plane is of an entirely different, more mental kind. Here it is less a matter of rapture than of knowledge or wisdom; not only the rapture but the great significance and meaning underlying it can be known on that level. Someone sufficiently evolved, intuitively aware, understands this and the purpose and the Will of God.
For more advanced people existence on the mental plane would be the last experience before coming into incarnation once again. But it is possible that the mental body in its turn might be dissolved, after which the individual concerned would live in a state of pralaya, in Devachan. This is a non-mental, non-astral, non-material state of existence somewhere between death and life. It is a state of being, out of incarnation, where the life impulse is in abeyance. It is a state of unending bliss, an experience of perfect peace. To live in pralaya does not mean that one is unconscious but no conscious learning process takes place prior to taking incarnation again. It is being taken up into the Absolute, from whence one returns under law when group need demands it.
In pralaya the soul lives in its own realm with no other purpose than to be the soul. Because there are no lower vehicles in this state of existence, the soul will not gain any experience, as it does on the other levels. Progress of a specific kind can only be made on these other levels. The soul comes into incarnation directed by the Logos in accordance with group purpose and the Plan of God. It is a great sacrifice for the soul to descend onto the physical plane and take incarnation, which takes place under the self-sacrificing will of the soul. This self-sacrificing power of soul-will is a great driving force. In pralaya there is no will to incarnate. It is possible to remain in pralaya for a few dozen to thousands of years until such time as a group of souls is sent out of pralaya into incarnation because the time is right and the circumstances suitable. The soul body, or causal body, gains experience in this manner. The causal body receives more soul-knowledge, soul-consciousness, as its vehicles become more refined.
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