After-Death Choices And The Mechanics Of Transition

There are unlimited varieties of experience open to you after death, all possible, but some less probable than others, according to your development. Very generally now, there are three main areas, though exceptions and extraordinary cases can take other roads.

You may decide upon another reincarnation. You may decide to focus instead upon your past life, using it as the stuff of new experience, as mentioned previously creating variations of events as you have known them, making corrections as you choose. Or you may enter another system of probability entirely; and this is quite apart from a reincarnational existence. You will be leaving all thoughts of continuity of time behind you in such a case.

Now some individuals, some personalities, prefer a life organization bound about past, present, and future in a seemingly logical structure, and these persons usually choose reincarnation. Others naively prefer to experience events in an extraordinarily intuitive manner, with the organization being provided by the associative processes. These will choose a system of probabilities for their next main endeavor.

Some simply find the physical system not to their liking, and in such a way take leave of it. This cannot be done, however, until the reincarnational cycle, once chosen, is completed, so the last choice exists for those who have developed their abilities through reincarnation as far as possible within that system.

Some, finished with reincarnation, may choose to reenter the cycle acting as teachers, and in such cases some recognition of higher identity is always present. Now there is an in-between stage of relative indecision, a midplane of existence; a rest area, comparatively speaking, and it is from this area that most communication from relatives occurs. This is usually the level that is visited by the living in projections from the dream state.

Before the time of choosing, however, there is a period of self-examination, and your full “history” becomes available to you. You understand the nature of the entity, and you are advised by other portions of that entity, more “advanced” than yourself.

You will become aware of your other reincarnational selves, for example. There will be emotional ties with other personalities whom you have known in past lives, and some of these may supersede your relationships in the immediately past life. This is a meeting place for individuals from your own system also, however.

All necessary explanations are given to those who are disoriented. Those who do not realize that they are dead are here told of their true condition, and all efforts are made to refresh the energies and spirits. It is a time of study and comprehension. It is from this area that some disturbed personalities have those dreams of returning to the physical environment.

It is a place of commerce between systems, so to speak. Conditions and development are important, rather than the length an individual stays in this area. It is an intermediary step, but an important one. In Your dreams you have been here.

Reincarnation involves far more than a simple decision to undergo another physical existence. In this in-between period of which I am speaking, many issues therefore are considered. When most people think of reincarnation, they think in terms of a one-line progression in which the soul perfects itself in each succeeding life. This is a gross simplification. There are endless varieties of this one theme, individual variations. The process of reincarnation is used in many ways, therefore, and in this time of rest individuals must decide on the unique way in which reincarnation will be of use.

Some, for example, choose to isolate various characteristics in a given life, and work on these almost exclusively, basing a given existence upon, say, one main theme. As seen from a physical viewpoint, such a personality would appear very one-sided, and far from a well developed individual.

In one life the intellect may purposely be very high, and those powers of the mind carried as far as the individual can take them. These abilities are then studied thoroughly by the entire personality, both the benefits and the detrimental aspects of the intellect weighed carefully. Through experience in another life this same kind of individual might specialize in emotional development, and purposely underplay intel- lectual abilities.

Again, the physical picture would not be necessarily that of a well developed or balanced personality. Specific creative abilities might be specialized in the same manner. If you looked at these lives as a series of progressions in usual terms, then you would be left with many questions unanswered. Nevertheless the development does occur, but the individuals choose the way in which they prefer this development to take place.

Through denying themselves, say, intellectual development in a given life, personalities also learn the value and purpose of that which they do not possess. The desire for it is then bom within them — if, for example, earlier they did not understand the purposes of the intellect. So in the time of choosing, personalities decide upon the ways in which they will develop in the following incarnation.

Some will choose progression at an easier rate and in a more balanced manner. They will help keep all the strands of personality working at once, so to speak, and even meet again and again people they have known in other lives. They will work out problems at a rather easy rate, rather than in, say, an explosive way. They will pace themselves as dancers do.

In this time of rest and choosing, all counsel is given. Some personalities do reincarnate before they are advised to, for many reasons. This is usually unfortunate in the short run, for the necessary planning has not taken place. But in the long run great lessons will still be learned from the “error.” There is no time schedule, and yet it is very unusual for an individual to wait for anything over three centuries between lives, for this makes the orientation very difficult, and the emotional ties with earth have become weak.

The relationships for the next life have to be settled upon, and this involves telepathic communication with all those who will be involved. This is a time, then, of many projections. There are those who are simply loners, who reincarnate without any great feeling for earth’s historical periods. There are others who like to return when their contemporaries from some particular past historical time return again, and therefore there are group patterns that involve reincarnational cycles in which many, but not all, are involved.

There are personal cycles of course, in which families may reincarnate, taking different relationships to each other, and you have been involved in several of these.

There are different depths to be probed in reincarnational existences. Some choose to “go all the way.” These personalities specialize in physical existence, and their knowledge of this system is most comprehensive. For these there is a movement through each of your racial types - a requirement that is not laid upon most. There is intensive preoccupation with historical periods. Many of these personalities live comparatively short lives, but very intense ones, and they experience more lives than most other individuals. They return, in other words, in as many historical times as possible, finally helping to shape the world as you know it.

In one way or another you are all travelers before you begin even your first reincarnational cycle. To make it as simple as I can, I will say that you do not have the same backgrounds, necessarily, when you enter the physical system of reality. As mentioned earlier, earthly existence is a training period; and yet as far as possible I would like you to forget your ordinary ideas of progression.

Ideas of good, better, best can lead you astray, for example. You are learning to be as completely as possible. In one way you are learning to create yourselves. In so doing during the reincarnational cycle, you are focusing your main abilities in physical life, developing human qualities and characteristics, opening new dimensions of activity. This does not mean that good does not exist, or that in your terms you do not “progress,” but your concepts of good and progression are extremely distorted.

Now many personalities have extraordinary talents along specific lines, and these may show up again and again in succeeding existences. They may be tempered, used in various combinations, and yet overall still remain a personality’s strongest mark of individuality and uniqueness. While most people adopt different trades, occupations, and interests, for example, throughout the reincarnational cycle, with some there will be a very noticeable line of continuity. It may be broken occasionally, but it is always there. They may be priests or teachers, for example, almost exclusively.

There will be some more material in this book dwelling specifically upon reincarnation, but here I want to point out that in this time of choosing between lives, many more issues are at stake than a simple matter of proposed rebirth.

On occasion, some personalities may be given an exception to the general rule and take a sabbatical from reincarnations, a side trip so to speak, to another layer of reality, and then return. Such cases are not common, however. Such matters are also decided at this time. Those who choose to leave this system, whose reincarnational Cycles are finished, have many more decisions to make.

Entering the field of probabilities can be compared to entering the reincarnational cycle. There will be a sustained focus of awareness and existence in an entirely different sort of reality. Powers latent but barely glimpsed within the multidimensional personality are drawn upon and used when such a choice is made.

The psychological experience varies considerably from that you know, and yet there are hints of it within your own psyche. Here the personality must learn to group events in an entirely different way, and completely without any reliance upon the time structure as you know it.

In this one, as in no other reality, intellectual and intuitive abilities finally work so well together that there is little distinction between them. The self that decides upon reincarnational existence is the same self who chooses experience within the probable system. The structure of personality, however, within the system is quite different. The personality structures with which you are familiar are but one variety of the many forms of awareness available to you.

The probable system, therefore, is as complicated as the reincarnational one. Now I have told you that all action is simultaneous; therefore, on the one hand, you exist in both systems at once. However, to explain to you that decisions are involved, and to separate these events, I must simplify them to some degree. Put it this way: A portion of the whole self focuses in reincarnational cycles and handles developments there. Another portion focuses in probabilities and handles developments there.

(There is also a probable system, of course, in which no reincarnational cycles exist, and a cycle of reincarnations in which no probabilities exist.) The openness and flexibility of the personality is highly important. Doorways to existences can be opened, and the personality can refuse to see them.

On the other hand, all probable existence is open, and consciousness can make a door where there was none in those terms. There are guides and teachers in this time of choosing and decision, to point out alternatives and to explain the nature of existence. All personalities are not at the same level of development. There are therefore advanced teachers and teachers at “lower” levels.

But this is not a time of confusion, but of great illumination- and unbelievable challenge. There will be later material in this book on the god concept that will help you understand some things that remain unsaid in this chapter.

Now for those who choose to recombine, “mix or match,” events from the immediately past life - to try it over in new ways for example, lessons must also be given. In many of these cases there is a severe problem and a certain rigidity coupled with the perfectionist characteristics mentioned earlier.

The earth years will be experienced again, but not necessarily in continuity. The events may be used in any way the individual chooses; altered, played back the way they happened for contrast; the way, perhaps, an actor would play an old movie in which he appeared over again in order to study it. Only in this case, of course, the actor can change his approach or the ending. He has full freedom with the events within those years.

The other actors, however, are thought-forms, unless a few contemporaries join in the affair together.

Under these conditions the personality manipulates events consciously of course, and studies the various effects. The focus demanded is quite intensive.

He is told the nature of those who participate with him. He realize they are thought- forms, for example, and his own; but again, thought forms do possess a certain reality and consciousness. They are not cardboard actors for him to simply push around at will. He must, therefore, take them into consideration, and he has a certain respon- sibility toward them.

They will grow in consciousness and continue their own lines of development on different levels. In one way, we are all thought-forms, and this will be further explained in the material dealing with the god concept. Understand, however, that I do not mean that we lack our own initiative for action, individuality or purpose - and remember also here that you live from the inside out. Then perhaps the statement will have ‘more meaning for you.

Now in this time of choosing all of these matters are considered, and Suitable preparations made, but the planning itself is all a part of experience and of development. The in-between existence, therefore, is every t as important as the period that is chosen. You learn to plan your existences, in other words. You also make friends and acquaintances in these rest periods whom you meet again and again - and only, perhaps, during in-between existences.

With them you may discuss your experience during reincamational cycles. These are like old friends. The teachers, for example, are themselves within a cycle. The more advanced ones have already encountered the systems of reincarnation and probabilities, and are themselves deciding upon the “future” nature of their own experience. Their choices, however, are not your choices. While I may mention some other realms of existence open to them in a later chapter, we will not be involved with them here.

The time of choosing is dependent upon the condition and circumstances of the individual following transition from physical life. Some take longer than others to understand the true situation.

Others must be divested of many impeding ideas and symbols, as explained earlier. The time of choosing may happen almost immediately, in your terms, or it may be put off for a much longer period while training is carried on. The main impediments standing in the way of the time of choosing are, of course, the faulty ideas harbored by any given individual.

A belief in heaven or hell, under certain conditions, can be equally disadvantageous.

Some will refuse to accept the idea of further work, development, and challenge, believing instead that conventional heaven situations are the only possibility. For some time they may indeed inhabit such an environment, until they learn through their own experience that existence demands development, and that such a heaven would be sterile, boring, and indeed “deadly.”

Then they are ready for the time of choosing. Others may insist that because of their transgressions they will be cast into hell, and because of the force of such belief, they may for some time actually encounter such conditions. In either case, however, there are always teachers available. They try to get through these false beliefs.

In the Hades conditions, the individuals come somewhat more quickly to their senses. Their own fears trigger within themselves the answering release. Their need, in other words, more quickly opens up the inner doorways of knowledge. Their state does not usually last as long, therefore, as the heaven state.

Either state, however, puts off the time of choosing and the next existence. There is one point I would like to mention here: In all cases, the individual creates his experience. I say this again at the risk of repeat mg myself because this is a basic fact of all consciousness and existence. There are no special “places” or situations or conditions set apart after physical death in which any given personality must have experience.

Suicides, as a class, for example, do not have any particular “punishment” meted out to them, nor is their condition any worse a priori. They are treated as individuals. Any problems that were not faced in this life will, however, be faced in another one. This applies not only to suicides, however.

A suicide may bring about his own death because he rejects existence on any but highly specific terms chosen by himself. If this is the case, then of course he will have to learn differently. Many others, however, choose to deny experience while within the physical system, committing suicide quite as effectively while still physically alive.

The conditions connected with an act of suicide are also important, and the inner reality and realization of the individual. I mention this here because many philosophies teach that suicides are met by a sort of special, almost vindictive fate, and such is not the case. However, if a person kills himself, believing that the act will annihilate his consciousness forever, then this false idea may severely impede his progress, for it will be further intensified by guilt.

Again, teachers are available to explain the true situation. Various therapies are used. For example, the personality may be led back to the events prior to the decision. Then the personality is allowed to change the decision. An amnesia effect is induced, so that the suicide itself is forgotten. Only later is the individual informed of the act, when he is better able to face it and understand it.

Obviously, however, these conditions are also impediments to the time of choosing. It goes without saying that an obsession with earthly concerns also acts in the same manner. In such instances, often the personality will insist upon focusing his perceptive abilities and energies toward physical existence.

This is a psychic refusal to accept the fact of death. The individual knows quite well that he is dead in your terms, but he refuses to complete the psychic separation.

There are instances of course where the individuals concerned do not realize the fact of death. It is not a matter of refusing to accept it, but a lack of perception. In this state such an individual will also be obsessed with earthly concerns, and wander perhaps bewildered throughout his own home or surroundings. The time of choosing will, of course, necessarily be postponed.

The mechanics of transition therefore are highly variable, as the mechanics of physical life are highly variable. Many of the impediments that I have mentioned impede progress not only after death, but during your own physical existence. This should certainly be taken into consideration. An overly strong identification with the sexual characteristics can also hold back progress. If an individual considers identity strongly in terms of male or female identity, then such a person may refuse to accept the fact of the sexual changes that occur in reincarnational existences. This kind of sexual identification, however, also impedes personality development during physical life.

While, generally speaking, the issues just mentioned operate as impediments, there are always exceptions. A belief in heaven that is not an obsessional belief can be used as a useful framework, as a basis of operation in which an individual will often accept easily then, the new explanations that will be offered.

Even a belief in a time of judgment is a useful framework in many instances, for while there is no punishment meted out in your terms, the individual is then prepared for some kind of spiritual examination and evaluation.

Those who understand thoroughly that reality is self-created will have least difficulty. Those who have learned to understand and operate in the mechanics of the dream state will have great advantage. A belief in demons is highly disadvantageous after death, as it is during physical existence. A systematized theology of opposites is also detrimental. If you believe, for example, that all good must be balanced by evil, then you bind yourself into a system of reality that is highly limiting, and that contains within it the seeds of great torment.

In such a system, even good becomes suspect, because an equal evil is seen to follow it. The god-versus-devil, angels-versus-demons - the gulf between animals and angels - all of these distortions are impediments. In your system of reality now you set up great contrasts and opposing factors. These operate as root assumptions within your reality.

They are extremely superficial and largely the result of misused intellectual abilities. The intellect alone cannot understand what the intuitions most certainly know. In hying to make sense in its terms of physical existence, the intellect has set up these opposing factors. The intellect says, “If there is good, there must be evil,” for it wants things explained in neat parcels. If there is an up, there must be a down. There must be balance. The inner self, however, realizes that in much larger terms, evil is simply ignorance, that “up” and “down” are neat terms applied to space which knows no such directions.

A strong belief in such opposing forces is highly detrimental, however, for it prevents an understanding of the facts - the facts of inner unity and of oneness, of interconnections and of cooperation. A belief, therefore, an obsessional belief in such opposing factors, is perhaps the most detrimental element, not only after death but during any existence.

There are some individuals who have never experienced during physical life that sense of harmony and oneness in which such opposing factors merge. Such individuals have many stages to go through following transition, and usually many other physical lives “ahead” of them.

As you form your physical existence individually and collectively, so after the time of choosing, you join others who have decided upon the same general kind of experience. A strong cooperative venture is then begun as preparations are made. These will vary according to the type of existence chosen. There are general patterns, therefore. No indi- vidual’s reality is identical with another’s, and yet there are overall groupings.

Quite simply, a belief in the good without a belief in the evil, may seem highly unrealistic to you. This belief, however, is the best kind of insurance that you can have, both during physical life and afterward.

It may outrage your intellect, and the evidence of your physical senses may shout that it is untrue, yet a belief in good without a belief in evil is actually highly realistic, since in physical life it will keep your body healthier, keep you psychologically free of many fears and mental difficulties, and bring you a feeling of ease and spontaneity in which the development of your abilities can be better fulfilled. After death it will release you from the belief in demons and hell, and enforced punishment. You will be better prepared to understand the nature of reality as it is. I understand that the concept does indeed offend your intellect, and that your senses seem to deny it. Yet you should already realize that your senses tell you many things, which are not true; and I tell you that your physical senses perceive a reality that is a result of your beliefs.

Believing in evils, you will of course perceive them. Your world has not tried the experiment as yet which would release you. Christianity was but a distortion of this main truth - that is, organized Christianity as you know it. I am not simply speaking here of the original precepts. They were hardly given a chance, and we will discuss some of this later in the book.

The experiment that would transform your world would operate upon the basic idea that you create your own reality according to the nature of your beliefs, and that all existence was blessed, and that evil did not exist in it. If these ideas were followed individually and collectively, then the evidence of your physical senses would find no contradiction. They would perceive the world and existence as good.

This is the experiment that has not been tried, and these are the truths that you must learn after physical death. Some, after death, understanding these truths, choose to return to physical existence and explain them. Through the centuries this has been the way. In the system of probabilities that originates within physical reality, this is also the case.

There are systems of probability not connected with your own system at all, much more advanced than any you presently imagine, and in these, the truths of which I have been speaking are well known. In them individuals creatively and purposely create realities, knowing how to do so and giving full rein to the creative abilities of consciousness.

I mention this here simply to point out that there are many other after-death conditions not connected with your system. When you have learned to your capacity in this in-between period, you are ready to progress. The in-between period itself, however, has many dimensions of activity and divisions of experience. As you can see, to put it as simply as possible, everyone does not “know” everyone else.

Instead of countries or physical divisions, you have psychological states. To an individual in one, another might seem quite foreign. In many communications with those in these transitional states, messages through mediums can appear as highly contradictory. The experience of the “dead” is not the same. The conditions and situations vary. An individual explaining his reality can only explain what he knows. Again, such material often offends the intellect that demands simple, neat answers and descriptions that tally.

Most individuals from these stages who communicate with “living” relatives, have not reached the time of choosing as yet, and have not completed their training.

They may still be perceiving reality in terms of their old beliefs. Almost all communications come from this level, particularly when there is a bond of relationship in an immediately previous life. Even at this level, however, such messages serve a purpose. The communicators can inform living relatives that existence continues and they can do it in terms that the living can understand.

They can relate to the living, since often their beliefs are still the same; in fortunate circumstances they can communicate their knowledge as they learn. Gradually, however, their own interests change. They take up relationships in their new existence.

At the time of choosing, therefore, the personality is already preparing itself to leave for another existence. In your terms of time this inbetween period can last for centuries. It can last only a few years. Again, however, there are exceptions. There are cases in which a personality goes very quickly into another physical life, in perhaps a matter of hours. This is usually unfortunate, and is caused by an obsessive desire to return to physical life.

Such a quick return, however, can also be taken by a personality who is charged with a great purpose, who disregards or discards an old physical body, and is reborn almost immediately into a new one in order to finish an important and necessary project already begun.

There are some points I would like to add here. The time of choosing is somewhat more complicated if the last reincamational cycle, in your terms, is completed.

First of all you must understand, again, that now you do not realize your true identity. You identify instead with your present ego, so when you think in terms of life after death you really mean a future life of the ego that you know. At the end of the reincamational cycle you understand quite thoroughly that you, the basic identity, the inner core of your being, is more than the sum of your reincamational personalities.

You might say that the personalities then are but divisions of your self here. There is no competition between them. There never was any real division, but only a seeming one in which you played various roles, developed different abilities, learned to create in new and diverse ways. These reincarnational personalities continue to develop, but they also understand that their main identity is also yours.

When the cycle is finished, therefore, you have complete knowledge of your past lives. The information, experience, and abilities are at your fingertips. This merely means that you understand your multidimensional reality in practical terms. I have used the word multidimensional often, and you see I mean it quite literally, for your reality exists not only in terms of reincarnational existences but also in the probable realities mentioned earlier.

When the time of choosing comes, therefore, the choices available are far more diverse than those offered or possible to personalities who must still reincarnate. There is always the opportunity to teach if you have the inclination and the capabilities, but multidimensional teaching is far different than teaching as you know it now, and it demands rigorous training.

Such a teacher must be able to instruct various portions of one entity, in your terms, at the same time. Say, for example, a particular entity has reincarnations in the fourteenth century, [in] 3 B.C., in the year A.D. 260, and in the time of Atlantis. A teacher would simultaneously be in contact with these various personalities, communicating with them in terms that they could understand. Such communication demands a complete knowledge of the root assumptions of such eras, and of the general philosophical and scientific climate of thought at the time.

The entity might well be exploring several probable systems too, and these personalities would also have to be reached and contacted. The amount of knowledge and training necessary makes such a teaching communicator-career extremely demanding, but it is one of the courses available. The process of learning such information necessarily adds to the development and abilities of the teacher. A delicate manipulation of energy is required, and a constant travel through dimensions. Once such a choice is made, training immediately begins, always under the leadership of a practical expert. The vocation, for it is a vocation, leads such a teacher even into other realms of reality than those he previously knew existed.

Others, finished with reincarnations and of a different overall nature, may begin the long journey leading toward the vocation of a creator. On a much different plane, this can be compared to geniuses in creative fields within your own physical reality.

Instead of paints, pigments, words, musical notes, the creators begin to experiment with dimensions of actuality, imparting knowledge in as many forms as possible - and I do not mean physical forms. What you would call time is manipulated as an artist would manipulate pigment. What you would call space is gathered together in different ways.

Art is created, then, using time - for example - as a structure. In your terms time and space might be mixed. The beauties of various ages, the natural beauties, the paintings and buildings are all recreated as learning methods for these beginners. One of their main preoccupations is to create beauty that impinges itself in as many various dimensions of reality as possible.

Such a work would be perceived in your system as one thing, for example, but would also be perceived in probable realities, though perhaps in an entirely different way - a multidimensional art, you see, so free and elemental that it would appear simultaneously in many realities.

Such an art is impossible to describe in words. The concept has no verbal equivalent. These creators, however, are also involved in inspiring those in all levels of reality available to them. For example, inspiration in your system is often the work of such creators.

These “art forms” are often symbolic representations of the nature of reality. They will be interpreted in various ways, according to the abilities of those who perceive them.

In your terms they may be living dramas. They will always be psychic structures, however, existing apart from any given system of reality, but at least partially perceived by many. Some exist in what you might term the astral plane, and you perceive them in visits during the sleep state.

Others are perceived in glimpses or bits and pieces by your temporal mind while you are half-sleeping and half-waking, or in other periods of dissociation. There are various kinds of multidimensional art, and therefore many levels in which the creators work. The whole Christ story was such a creation.

There are also those who choose to be healers, and of course this involves far more than healing as you are familiar with it. These healers must be able to work with all levels of the entity’s experience, directly helping those personalities that are a part of it. Again, this involves a manipulation through reincarnational patterns, and here again, great diversification. A healer begins with reincarnational selves with various difficulties. The healing involved is always psychic and spiritual, and these healers are available to help each personality in your system as you know it, in your present time, and in other systems.

In a larger context, and with greater training, advanced healers deal with the spiritual maladies of vast numbers of personalities. There are those who combine the qualities of teacher, creator, and healer. Others choose lines of development that are particularly suited to their own characteristics.

I do not want to discuss the purpose of consciousness’s continuous existence or development in this chapter, however. I simply want to make it clear that vast possibilities of progress are possible, and to stress the fact that each personality has full freedom.

The developments of consciousness that take place are natural attributes, natural stages. There is no coercion applied. All of the further developments are inherent in the personality that you know, even as the adult is inherent in the child.

Now these descriptions of after-death events may sound very complicated, particularly if you have been used to a simple tale of heaven or eternal rest. Unfortunately, the words fail to describe many of the basics that I would have you understand. You have within yourself, however, the ability to release your intuitions and to receive inner knowledge.

As you read this book, the words are meant to release your own intuitional abilities. When you are reading it, your own dreams will give you added information and will be in your mind upon awakening if you are alert for them. There is no such simple end to the life that you know, [such] as the story of heaven. There is the freedom to understand your own reality, to develop your abilities further, and to feel more deeply the nature of your own existence as a part of All That Is.