Sri Yukteswar Explains Astral Planets

There are many astral planets, teeming with astral beings.

The inhabitants use astral planes, or masses of light, to travel from one planet to another, faster than electricity and radioactive energies.

The astral universe is:

• made of various subtle vibrations of light and color
• hundreds of times larger than the material cosmos

The entire physical creation hangs like a little solid basket under the huge luminous balloon of the astral sphere.

There are also countless astral solar and stellar systems just as many physical suns and stars roam in space.

Their planets have astral suns and moons, more beautiful than the physical ones.

The astral luminaries resemble the aurora borealis-the sunny astral aurora being more dazzling than the mild-rayed moon-aurora.

The astral day and night are longer than those of earth.

The astral world is infinitely beautiful, clean, pure, and orderly.

There are no dead planets or barren lands. The terrestrial blemishes- weeds, bacteria, insects, snakes-are absent.

Unlike the variable climates and seasons of the earth, the astral planets maintain the even temperature of an eternal spring, with occasional luminous white snow and rain of many-colored lights.

Astral planets abound in opal lakes and bright seas and rainbow rivers.

The ordinary astral universe-not the subtler astral heaven of Hiranyaloka-is peopled with millions of astral beings.

• Some have come, more or less recently, from the earth
• There are also myriads of fairies, mermaids, fishes, animals, goblins, gnomes, demigods and spirits, all residing on different astral planets in accordance with karmic qualifications.

Various spheric mansions or vibratory regions are provided for good and evil spirits.

Good ones can travel freely, but the evil spirits are confined to limited zones.

In the same way that human beings live on the surface of the earth, worms inside the soil, fish in water, and birds in air, so astral beings of different grades are assigned to suitable vibratory quarters.

Among the fallen dark angels expelled from other worlds, friction and war take place with lifetronic bombs or mental mantric vibratory rays.

These beings dwell in the gloom-drenched regions of the lower astral cosmos, working out their evil karma.

In the vast realms above the dark astral prison, all is shining and beautiful.

The astral cosmos is more naturally attuned than the earth to the divine will and plan of perfection.

Every astral object is manifested primarily by the will of God, and partially by the will-call of astral beings.

They possess the power of modifying or enhancing the grace and form of anything already created by the Lord.

He has given His astral children the freedom and privilege of changing or improving at will the astral cosmos.

On earth, a solid must be transformed into liquid or other form through natural or chemical processes, but astral solids are changed into astral liquids, gases, or energy solely and instantly by the will of the inhabitants.

The earth is dark with warfare and murder in the sea, land, and air.

But the astral realms know a happy harmony and equality. Astral beings dematerialize or materialize their forms at will.

Flowers or fish or animals can metamorphose themselves, for a time, into astral men.

All astral beings are free to assume any form, and can easily commune together.

No fixed, definite, natural law hems them round.

For example, any astral tree can be successfully asked to produce an astral mango or other desired fruit, flower, or any other object.

Certain karmic restrictions are present. But there are no distinctions in the astral world about desirability of various forms.

Everything is vibrant with God’s creative light.

No one is born of woman. Offspring are materialized by astral beings through the help of their cosmic will into specially patterned, astrally condensed forms.

The recently physically disembodied being arrives in an astral family through invitation, drawn by similar mental and spiritual tendencies.

The astral body is not subject to cold or heat or other natural conditions.

The anatomy includes an:

• astral brain, or the thousand-petaled lotus of light
• 6 awakened centers in the sushumna, or astral cerebro-spinal axis

The heart:

• draws cosmic energy and light from the astral brain
• pumps it to the astral nerves and body cells, or lifetrons

Astral beings can affect their bodies by lifetronic force or by mantric vibrations.

The astral body is an exact counterpart of the last physical form.

Astral beings retain the same appearance which they possessed in youth in their previous earthly sojourn.

Occasionally, an astral being chooses, like myself, to retain his old age appearance.

Unlike the spacial, three-dimensional physical world cognized only by the 5 senses, the astral spheres are visible to the all-inclusive sixth sense called intuition.

By sheer intuitional feeling, all astral beings see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.

They possess 3 eyes, two of which are partly closed.

The third and chief astral eye, vertically placed on the forehead, is open.

Astral beings have all the outer sensory organs-ears, eyes, nose, tongue, and skin.

But they employ the intuitional sense to experience sensations through any part of the body.

They can see through the ear, or nose, or skin.

They are able to hear through the eyes or tongue, and can taste through the ears or skin, and so forth.

Man’s physical body is exposed to countless dangers, and is easily hurt or maimed.

The ethereal astral body may occasionally be cut or bruised but is healed at once by mere willing.

Beauty in the astral world is a spiritual quality and not an outward conformation.

Astral beings therefore attach little importance to facial features.

They have the privilege, however, of costuming themselves at will with new, colorful, astrally materialized bodies.

Just as worldly men don new array for gala events, so astral beings find occasions to bedeck themselves in specially designed forms.

Joyous astral festivities on the higher astral planets like Hiranyaloka take place when a being is liberated from the astral world through spiritual advancement, and is therefore ready to enter the heaven of the causal world.

On such occasions, the Invisible Heavenly Father, and the saints who are merged in Him, materialize Themselves into bodies of Their own choice and join the astral celebration.

In order to please His beloved devotee, the Lord takes any desired form.

If the devotee worshiped through devotion, he sees God as the Divine Mother.

To Jesus, the Father-aspect of the Infinite One was appealing beyond other conceptions.

The individuality with which the Creator has endowed each of His creatures makes every conceivable and inconceivable demand on the Lord’s versatility!”

Friends of other lives easily recognize one another in the astral world,” Sri Yukteswar went on in his beautiful, flutelike voice.

Rejoicing at the immortality of friendship, they realize the indestructibility of love, often doubted at the time of the sad, delusive partings of earthly life.

The intuition of astral beings pierces through the veil and observes human activities on earth.

But man cannot view the astral world unless his sixth sense is developed.

Thousands of earth-dwellers have momentarily glimpsed an astral being or an astral world.

The advanced beings on Hiranyaloka remain mostly awake in ecstasy during the long astral day and night.

They help to work out intricate problems of cosmic government and the redemption of prodigal sons, earthbound souls.

When the Hiranyaloka beings sleep, they have occasional dreamlike astral visions.

Their minds are usually engrossed in the conscious state of highest nirvikalpa bliss.

Inhabitants in the astral worlds are still subject to mental agonies.

The sensitive minds of the higher beings on planets like Hiranyaloka feel keen pain if any mistake is made in conduct or perception of truth.

These advanced beings endeavor to attune their every act and thought with the perfection of spiritual law.

Communication among the astral inhabitants is done entirely by astral telepathy and tele-vision.

There is none of the confusion and misunderstanding of the written and spoken word which earth-dwellers must endure.

The persons on a movie screen appear to move and act through a series of light pictures and do not actually breathe.

Likewise, the astral beings walk and work as intelligently guided and coordinated images of light, without needing to draw power from oxygen.

Man depends upon solids, liquids, gases, and energy for sustenance.

Astral beings sustain themselves principally by cosmic light.*

Luminous raylike vegetables abound in the astral soils.

The astral beings consume vegetables, and drink a nectar flowing from glorious fountains of light and from astral brooks and rivers.

A television on Earth can take the invisible electromagnetic images of persons and make them visible.

Likewise, the unseen, God-created, astral blueprints of vegetables and plants floating in the ether are precipitated on an astral planet by the will of its inhabitants.

The wildest fancy of these beings can materialize whole gardens of fragrant flowers, returning later to the etheric invisibility.

The dwellers on the heavenly planets like Hiranyaloka are almost freed from any necessity of eating.

But the completely-liberated unconditioned souls in the causal world eat nothing but the manna of bliss.