Theos-Talk Archives (August 1995 Message tl00194)

Dear Martin,

I think what I'd like to write you about the astral plane, as I
know it, is a mix of what I've read in Leadbeater, & what I've
heard from pupils & followers of Leadbeater, & hopefully the
info will be of some use to you.

First off, the astral plane in which you find yourself while
asleep, and the one you go to after passing over are thought to
be one & the same. Also the earth is said to have an astral
component. When GdP talks about most people not being fully
conscious on the astral after they die, that agrees with my
sources. It seems it takes training/meditation to be able to
be conscious on the astral, to understand what is going on
around you, because, for instance, you have to orient yourself
to that you can see through every object & person you
encounter, including their thoughts; and then, if you went
there in your sleep, you need to somehow learn to be able to
remember what you did after you come back to your every day.
It seems that it takes the same training & skill after death.
Besides, whatever thoughts & beliefs you have colors what you
perceive on the astral. When you read accounts of near death
experiences, it seems that the person always encounters a
sacred figure, but it may be Jesus or the Buddha, or Tibetan
Devas, depending upon your beliefs. CWL tells one story that
happened on the astral, which I love. An overfriendly lady was
very intent on trying to welcome a newly dead man as he arrived
on the astral. Her enthusiastic solicitude manifested itself by
her giving off lots of bright red & yellow flashes, with which
she just about engulfed the man. He thought she was the devil
come after him, & tried to flee, while she persisted in
pursuing him with her gushy red & yellow flashes, trying to
make him welcome. ... If you've ever read up on Edgar Cayce, he
did much of his healing in his sleep, which leads me to believe
that he must have worked in his astral body. It seems that CWL
& pupils sometimes did something similar ... they lay down, put
their bodies to sleep, & then went off to heal people from the
astral plane. ... It also seems to be one of the functions of
shamans to accompany newly dead souls to the astral, & to help
them become better oriented to their new surroundings. I'm not
quite sure whether they actually accompany, or whether they
somehow contact someone they know, like a dead family member
who's already on the astral, to help with the newly deceased. I
think that's a really nice kind of a service, whether you
believe in it or not. I know that I myself appreciated the
thought of this being done for my relatives on several
occasions.

I'm not quite sure about creating karma on the astral. What I
thought took place is that you work out some of the karma
you've accumulated during your earth life, and as you're able
to work through it, you get to finer & finer planes (maybe more
rarefied, maybe with faster vibes). By the time you get to
Devanchan, which, I think is part of the upper mental, you've
worked out a lot of the negative stuff, & all that surrounds
you is the pluses from your life, the things & peole you loved
& cherished; you do what you most enjoy ... like that. Anyway,
that's how I picture it from what I've read. Incidentally, I
once read some of CWL's descriptions of Devachan to a friend
who'd gone on LSD trips during his college days. He said that
the CWL descriptions sounded very much like some of his good
trips. Which leads me to believe that there must be something
to what CWL experienced during his clairvoyant/meditative
experiences.

Martin, I like & agree with your whole section which starts
with "Both your statements & Ruelle's imply a dichotomy between
order & chaos & Ruelle doesn't solve the problem of free will
in that connection ... There seems to be mising the notion of
relatedness of chaos & causality ..." I got the impreession
from "Turbulent Mirror" that causality arises from chaos under
certain conditions, & causality from chaos, under certain
conditions. The 2 interplay. Choices come during the chaos
periods. As long as there are ordered happpenings you just go
along sedately with what there is, but when a turbulence
arises, & there's the inevitable fork in the road (my book says
'bifurcation') then you need to make choices. That leads me to
something both Harry & Serge King said ... that anyone who
tries to predict the future is a fool. You can predict
tendencies,but you cannot predict the choices individuals will
make. From another source, I know there is such a thing as a
predicting dream, but you can never be sure that you had one,
until the event actually happens. Nevertheless I know that
Harry told his wife, Marie, about certain things he thought
might happen, but I (we) could never get either one of them to
tell us about them. I guess because that might have influenced
the free choices.

I hope the above gives you something relevant.
Liesel

PS I thought of a technique Serge King taught us, which has to
do with choices ... several ways of casting stones. You'd
think that casting stones wouldn't have choices, but the way he
taught it, it did.

I have 7 small stones in a little bag.
white stand for awareness (it's also the main stone, the kumu)
red, for freedom
orange, for focus.
yellow, for peristsence.
green, for love
blue, for confidence
violet, for flexibility
You ask something like "What's the best way for me to get what
I want?" & expect your answer from the one stone which falls
nearest to the white when you cast. Or you say something like
"give me a 3-step plan of action to reach my goal." and you
read the 3 stones closest to the kumu. You ask out loud,
because that way your unconscious can hear clearly. It's your
Ku - Hawaiian for unconscious - which gives you the answer.
After you've thrown the stones, you need to use your
imnagination or intuition to figure out what your Ku is trying
to tell you. Here you already are dealing with choices. Most
often, you accept it as is & interpreted, & act on it. But it
might happen that you just don't want to accept the answer you
got. Serge told us that if you cast over again to get a
different answer, this is confusing to the Ku. What's done is
to accept the answer you got as the present state of affairs,
change the stones around to suit your conscious self, & tell
your Ku loudly "Here's the new pattern, Ku, remember it well."
& then you go by the new pattern. Here you've got another
choice, & with that many choices, casting stones works really
well.
LFD