Life Beyond Death
The purpose of death
The nature of life after death
How we can prepare for death
How we can assist the dying
Stage Four - The Spiritual Plane
What happens at death is so unspeakably glorious that our imagination and our feelings do not suffice to form even an approximation of it. C. G. Jung
The Spiritual Plane is the most real and eternal plane of cosmic creation. It's a plane of experience where the finest impulses of creation merge with Divine Consciousness, where duality merges with unity and time gives way to the eternal Now.
The Spiritual Plane is vast and within it are many spiritual worlds and ascending levels. In some traditions, this realm is called heaven, paradise or the celestial plane. But these concepts don't do justice to the love, beauty and truth, which are the essential features of this realm. Presiding here are Great Souls, as well as the perfect forms, which are the template for the entire order of creation.
Many people think of spirit as a subtle form of matter, or energy. But in fact, spirit represents a completely different order of reality. Everything in our experience is an object of perception. Spirit, on the other hand, is the subjective reality behind objective perception. Spirit is what we are on the most fundamental level of being. The spiritual body is this pure subjectivity, with the addition of spiritual essence, which has accumulated from many cycles of Earth life.
Up to this point in the stages of death, all experience has occurred within the framework of individual consciousness. Since individual consciousness is a reflection which has no basis in reality, all experience up to this point has been the nature of a dream; an increasingly real dream, but a dream nonetheless. By contrast, the Spiritual Plane exists in it's own right, beyond the dream of individual experience and the cycles of birth and death.
Only a body made of pure spiritual essence is refined enough to serve as a platform of conscious presence on this plane. After many cycles of Earth life, if sufficient spiritual essence has accumulated (in other words, if the spiritual body has evolved enough to sustain a conscious presence) then we awaken and resume our spiritual evolution on this highest plane of creation. Having ascended to this level, there is usually no need for further experience on the Earth plane.
Everyone has a spiritual body, or soul, in some stage of evolution, and hence some intuitive awareness (conscious or subconscious) of the Spiritual Plane. It exists within us, individually and collectively, as our conscience, inner guidance, inspiration and sense of highest good. It's this intuitive awareness of the Spiritual Plane that we reflect off when we're being courageous and true in the face of difficult circumstances. In other words, when we're in alignment with Divine Consciousness.
In truth, we already abide on the Spiritual Plane, and always have. However, at any point in evolution, we can only experience what we've evolved to, in terms of a body. In most cases, our spiritual body has not evolved sufficiently to sustain a conscious presence on the Spiritual Plane. Unfulfilled desires tend to pull awareness back to the Earth plane for another cycle of birth and death. But it's ok, because our spiritual essence is never lost. It's continuously added to our evolving spiritual body. And, when sufficient spiritual essence accumulates, we awaken as a conscious presence in the most real and eternal plane of evolution.
Many of those who are now on a spiritual path, and are taking responsibility for their lives, will be able to realize a conscious presence on the Spiritual Plane relatively soon after their present Earth experience.
