By Steve Beckow, June 15, 2021
(Golden Age of Gaia)
Heaven, Hell, and Ascension in the Afterlife – Part 1/2
All dimensions have subdimensions. Let me rephrase that using the language of the afterlife rather than that of the Company of Heaven.
Every plane has its subplanes. The only plane I’m familiar with is the astral plane, from my study for New Maps of Heaven (NMH). I don’t consider that brief glimpses of the higher planes make me an “expert.”
There’s no agreement on nomenclature in the afterlife. What I’m giving here is what I used for NMH.
The differences in subplanes reflects the density of vibration. If we feel ourselves getting heavier, colder, coarser in every way, then we’re heading towards the Dark Plane. If we feel ourselves getting lighter and more loving, we’re heading towards the Higher Summerlands.
Moreover, there is no fixed line between subplanes. As Arnel says:
“Each sphere as you progress is blended into the next by a kind of borderland. So there is no shock to those who pass from one to another. Albeit, you will mark that each sphere is distinct in itself. Nor is the borderland between two spheres a neutral land. It partakes of the qualities of both. There is, therefore, no void, but a very real and continuous gradation all the way.” (1)
What we think of as hell is really a very dark, dense, and cold place, as I understand it, called the Dark Plane or the Winterlands. It’s the home of mass murderers, torturers, assassins, and other very malicious people.
Spirits from higher planes are constantly ministering to these souls to awaken the light in them, at which point they begin their movement out of darkness. (2)
The next higher plane – think of it as a different continent – is the Stony Plane, which is desolate. It’d be like living in a desert, without any amenities. But it would be warmer than the dark planes, with more light. (3)
The next higher would be the Lower Summerlands. They stretch all the way from the crudity of an Elizabethan pub to the decent family life of most people – very bearable, nice garden, delightful neighbors, plants that always bear fruit, etc. (4)
The Higher Summerlands are the launching ground for what? Yes! Ascension to the Mental Plane, our Fifth Dimension. (5)
Here the people are more than friendly. They’re enquiring. They’re contemplating. They’re gathering in the groves of academe and the operating theaters and the orchestra pits and producing deep research and inspiring works.
What the Christian Fathers of old thought of as heaven we would today call the Mental Plane or Fifth Dimension. Occasionally a member of the group confides that they feel the transition to that higher plane coming.
Why not give an example? T.E. Lawrence recorded the Ascension of Dr. G, which I can take from New Maps of Heaven.
That quote is large enough to merit a separate post tomorrow.
Remember: Our body goes with us; it’s not the same for Dr. G, who doesn’t wear a physical body.
If you’re wondering how the process of Ascension could change, consider what Sri Ramakrishna tells us: “He who has made the law can also change it.” (6) The Universal Law is a formalization, a concretization of the Mother’s Divine Will.
She’s at work changing the pattern of Ascension, blending realms, creating new ladders. As it happens, our Ascension differs from Dr. G’s (and from Jesus’s and from Buddha’s) and whether his Mental Plane will be our Fifth Dimension remains to be seen.
(Concluded tomorrow, in Part 2.)
Footnotes
(1) Arnel in G. Vale Owen, medium, The Life Beyond the Veil. Book III: The Ministry of Heaven. New York, 1921, 84-5.
(2) See “The Astral Plane – The Dark Plane” at http://goldengaiadb.com/index.php?title=The_Astral_Plane_%E2%80%93_The_Dark_Plane
(3) See “The Astral Plane – The Stony Plane” at http://goldengaiadb.com/index.php?title=The_Astral_Plane_%E2%80%93_The_Stony_Plane
(4) See “The Astral Plane – The Lower Summerlands” at http://goldengaiadb.com/index.php?title=The_Astral_Planes_%E2%80%93_The_Lower_Summerlands
(5) “The Astral Plane – The Higher Summerlands” at http://goldengaiadb.com/index.php?title=The_Astral_Plane_%E2%80%93_The_Higher_Summerlands
(6) Paramahansa Ramakrishna in Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1978; c1942, 817.
T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) describes an Ascension
By Steve Beckow, June 16, 2021
(Golden Age of Gaia)
Heaven, Hell, and Ascension in the Afterlife – Part 2/2
(Concluded from Part One, yesterday.)
The Ascension of Dr. G.
“There are natural periods in our time here and … I am approaching one of them. I could perhaps disregard the intimations and stay on here, but if I did so I should be perverting the pattern. So you see that even paradise may not be enjoyed for too long lest it thwart one’s proper growth. … I am growing old in this body and shall soon be done with it. Then I shall go on to explore this wonderful universe in another level.” [Spirit whom Lawrence refers to as “Dr. G” discussing his approaching ascent to a higher plane.] (1)
Even as he spoke, … the illumination of his wise spirit made a glory all around him and was more convincing than many words. [Not Ascension yet.] (2)
[Dr. G.] is continuing his usual work with his students and is always available to his friends but we watch the progressive concentration of his life into a glowing interior brightness. It is as though the light and warmth that normally flow out from him to bless his friends is being withdrawn and collected within so that this illumination burns through and is wasting away his outer lineaments. (3)
I had heard of this second death (4) and transition to the next sphere but my own development is as yet so imperfect that I had not given it any serious thought. Now it seems that I may be privileged to watch it happening to another. (4)
Death bears an aspect of gloom while one is on earth and cannot see beyond it, but now one can see that death [i.e., ascension to a higher plane] is a simple change of condition necessary for growth. As our present [spirit] body fulfils its purpose and is outworn the succeeding and more glorious form glows through it and a gradual metamorphosis begins which finishes in a period of unconsciousness and an awakening in a higher sphere (i.e., Ascension). (5)
The end came suddenly. I called on him and was told that he was sleeping. We stood around and watched his still form and the light which waxed and waned there. In a breathtaking second the change came. The light gathered itself together and burnt itself to a keen thought of light so intense and inward that we gasped and turned aside. Then it had gone and only a wraith of our friend remained which shrank away and disappeared as we watched.
We sat speechless, absorbed in the beauty and meaning of the transition. It was long before anyone broke the silence and then one said: ‘I have heard that some time is needed for a spirit to get used to the new conditions, just as we needed time to adjust when we / first came here, so we must not expect our friend to come to us yet. I suggest that when an interval has elapsed we should meet here again and wait and hope for his coming.’ We agreed to this and went off full of thought to our various occupations. (6)
Dr. G. has kept his promise to come to us but he appeared when we were least expecting him. Some few of us were sitting quietly talking when his voice suddenly took up the parable and as we looked up, startled, we saw the outlines of a form which speedily filled in and took substance and there he was among us again. He brought with him an exalted air and we felt his presence as a spiritual baptism, a stream of pure joy absorbed hungrily by our thirst beings. Light and happiness glowed up in us too with the pleasure of heightened being. He stayed only a short time, made a characteristic remark about the “sordid fug” in which we chose to live and left us again. We knew how to interpret this; his finer being could only with difficulty tolerate our conditions and to try to detain him would have been unkind. (7)
As to the questions we put to [Dr. G., from a distance], they were at first mainly to do with the conditions of his new life and he did his best to describe them to us. He had the same difficulty in conveying the differences to us as I have in making our conditions clear to an earth intelligence. (8)
In the transition from plane to plane alterations in the scope of consciousness produce baffling changes in the very framework of thought; categories of space and time are radically modified so that to an unchanged consciousness, more limited in its scope, these are almost incommunicable. His world was like ours, he said, but matter was more fluid and more easily influenced by thought. Here on this plane, as I have said before, a desire to find any person or place sets one’s feet moving in the right direction; there, Dr. G. told us, transit is swifter and more independent of the time-space factor. One’s movement is almost simul/taneous with one’s thought so that to desire to be with friends is to find oneself among them. The speed with which thought is translated into act and the lessening of material hindrances to desire is all part of the increased tempo of living and since one’s body is now far lighter and more responsive, such a speed of living feels right and natural to it.
Language is less used and thought and feeling are directly and fully apprehended. Ease in all the processes of living speeds up its rate so that even the swiftness of exchange among [Lawrence’s group] is to [Dr. G.] tedious and sluggish. Light, the concomitant of life and an index of its speed and intensity is far more keen and pure. Colour, he tells us, is less to be seen by the eye, but its essence is piercingly known by the spirit. So with all the joys of the senses; they are there in a purity of essence which makes all our slower, more outward enjoyment like a vague dream. We got here a swift glimpse of an entirely different way of sensing one’s world: by a direct and immediate spiritual awareness of its spiritual qualities. (9)
Footnotes
(1) T.E. Lawrence through Jane Sherwood, medium, Post-Mortem Journal. Communications from T.E. Lawrence. London: Spearman, 1964, 76.
(2) Loc. cit.
(3) Ibid., 78.
(4) Ibid., 77.
(5) Loc. cit.
(6) Ibid., 78-9.
(7) Ibid., 83-4.
(8) Ibid., 84.
(9) Ibid., 84-5.