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The physical processes of dying - life after death

SPIRITUAL TOPICS > Life after Death
The physical processes of dying

So let's turn straight to the third question:

What happens to us after we die? Are there laws that determine our further way in the Other World?

If practically all religions point to the necessity of a good and virtuous life, there is a deeper reason for this. For according to the laws of justice it cannot, of course, be irrelevant whether we have spent our lives building up, peacemaking or as villains.



physical-dying-processes - our physical bodies

A picture of the three coarse material bodies.
The spirit, our spiritual core, is represented in this case as a yellow dot in the area of the solar plexus.

From a purely physical point of view, we have three bodies from the lowest region of creation of the coarse matter alone: the body of heaviest coarseness and greatest density, which we can all see, and which remains as a corpse at death, the body of medium density, also known as the astral body, and an etherical body of fine coarse matter. In addition, there are several even finer bodies, which are thus even more etheric, as coatings of our real ego, of our spirit, which is the real human being, i.e. ourselves. Everything else are only sheaths.

physical-dying-processes - death-processes


In the process of death, the transition takes place in such a way that the weakened body can no longer hold the soul at a certain point in time; it detaches itself and strives away from the body. The astral body, i.e. the body of medium coarseness, is not pulled far away, but remains close to the coarse body, i.e. the corpse, and disintegrates with it.

The soul with its now coarsest, heaviest shell of the body of fine coarse matter must therefore detach itself from the astral body with it, and this takes different lengths depending on the spiritual orientation of the human being.

Here it is best if I quote again from the Grail Message:

"The process of dying in itself is nothing but birth into the Ethereal World, similar to the process of birth into the Gross Material World. After the separation the ethereal body remains attached to the physical body for a time as if with a navel cord. The higher the soul now born into the Ethereal World has already developed itself towards this Ethereal World during its life on earth, the looser this cord will become.

The more a man’s volition has chained him to this earth, i.e., to gross matter, indicating thereby a refusal to acknowledge any continuation of life in the Ethereal World, the more firmly will this volition bind him with this cord to his physical body and consequently also bind the ethereal body, which he needs as a garment for his spirit in the Ethereal World.

The denser his ethereal body is the heavier it becomes according to the prevailing laws, and the darker it must appear. Such great resemblance and close relation to matter makes it very hard for the ethereal body to detach itself from the physical body, so that it happens in such cases that it must still undergo and feel the last physical pains as well as the whole process of decay. Neither does it remain insensible with cremation.  

It is different with those people who during their life on earth have begun to strive for all that is noble. Because they bear within themselves a living conviction about the step into the Ethereal World, the severance is much easier. The ethereal body of such a person and its connecting cord are not dense. Their texture is alien to that of the physical body, and this permits the severance to be very quickly effected. Thus during the entire so-called death struggle or the last muscular twitchings of the physical body, the ethereal body is already standing beside the latter, if indeed one can speak of a death struggle at the normal death of such a person. The loose and slender condition of the connecting cord prevents the ethereal being standing beside the body from feeling any pain because, being so frail and light in substance, this cord cannot transmit pain from the physical body to the ethereal body.


The further way after death

So we see that according to the likewise central Law of Creation of Gravity after our death and after the solution of our gross material body we arrive at the fine-material plain which corresponds to our real being, not our wishful thinking. There we then meet all like-minded people and therefore everything that is not yet right in us comes to experience, so that we can free ourselves from it by recognizing the harmful thing that lies in it.

To put it simply: The more harmful and problematic our character traits are that we have cultivated or not discarded in life on earth, the deeper we sink and the more unpleasant are the plains in which we have to live at first. However, the more bad qualities we have discarded down here, the higher we can ascend after our separation and the more pleasing life on the other side will be there.

So we actually determine daily through our attitudes, through our thoughts, speeches and actions where we have to go after our earthly death! This should always be an encouragement for us to gradually put off all harmful, inhibitory and oppressive behaviour, because it is of no use and is only harmful!

And if we have the opinion that a harmonious and peaceful life is not possible today, with the nature of our fellow human beings, it is because we have applied too few strict standards to ourselves. Because if we try it with the work on ourselves, then we will be able to observe an amazing phenomenon: To the extent that we ourselves become more harmonious again, we increasingly attract fellow human beings who also want to live harmoniously and peacefully, and so we then support each other. -

I hope that the information presented here is suitable to take away the fear of death and to consolidate the conviction of survival after earthly death and to see in death itself a transition that represents unconditional progress and opens up a new way for us.

Nevertheless, there is a deep seriousness in it, because already today, in the here and now, we are building on this path. If we build on it in a constructive, loving way, we will not have the benefit only after death, but already in our very next future. Let us therefore rejoice in this possibility and use it for our own well-being as well as for the well-being of all creation! -


Valuable insights into the chances of our present life on earth in relation to the first time of life after death, i.e. in the afterlife, are finally provided by an excerpt from the lecture "Ascent" from the Grail Message:

"Bear in mind that every life on earth is a short time of schooling, and that you yourselves do not cease to exist when you lay aside your physical body. You will continually live or continually die! Continually enjoy bliss or continually suffer!

Whoever imagines that with earthly burial everything is also ended and balanced for him, may turn and go his own way; for he is only trying to delude himself thereby. Horrified, he will come face to face with the Truth and … will have to begin his path of suffering! His true self, deprived of the protection of his body, whose density surrounded him like a wall, will then be attracted, enveloped and held fast by what is homogeneous.

It will be more difficult for him, and for a long time impossible, to arouse the earnest volition for what is better, which could liberate and help him to ascend, because he is entirely subject to the influence of the homogeneous surroundings, which does not carry the kind of light-thought that might awaken and support him. He must suffer doubly under everything he has created for himself.

For this reason ascent is much harder than when he was in the flesh, where good and evil dwell side by side, which only the protection of the physical body makes possible because ... this earth-life is a school in which every “ego” is given the opportunity of further development according to its free will.

Therefore rouse yourselves at last! The fruit of every thought will return to you, here or there, and you have to taste of it! No one can escape this fact!

Of what use is it to try and bury your head timidly in the sand like an ostrich, to evade this reality? Face the facts boldly! You thereby make it easy for yourselves; for here progress is quicker.

Make a start! But realise that all old debts must be settled. Do not expect blessings to rain down upon you immediately, as many fools do. Perhaps some of you still have a long chain to expiate. But he who despairs on that account only harms himself, because it cannot be spared and remitted him. Through hesitation he only makes everything more difficult for himself, perhaps for a long time impossible.

This should spur him on not to delay another hour; for he only begins to live when he takes the first step! Happy is he who plucks up the courage to do so, for link by link he will be released. He can rush ahead with giant strides, jubilantly and gratefully overcoming also the last obstacles; for he becomes free!"

(Grail-Message, lecture "Ascent")


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