Home
Preface
5 Planes of Existence
Introduction
Five Planes of Manifestation
A to Z
Contact
Related Information
BIBLE VERSES
|
ASTRAL PLANE
A medieval term for the plane of nature between
the physical plane and the mental plane. This plane is called in the
Ottoman Sufi philosophy, the world of similitudes; in the Kabbalah
the world of formation. In Indian philosophy the plane bears the
name of kama, signifying desire. The astral plane is the field, or
medium, of the desires, sensations, passions, and instincts of the
lower nature.
"Included in the subconscious region of an average healthy man are
all those automatic activities by which the life of the body is
carried on: all those uncivilized instincts and vices, those remains
of the ancestral savage which education has forced out of the stream
of consciousness; all those aspirations for which the busy life of
the world leaves no place. Hence in normal men the best and the
worst, the most savage and most spiritual parts of the character,
are bottled up below the threshold." - E. UNDERHILL, Mysticism, p.
62.
The astral plane is also the plane of formation of the physical
organisms which are built up, or grow up, in the similitude of the
patterns on the astral and mental planes. These patterns are living
patterns of growth of which a clumsy analogy may be found in the
film pictures of the cinema show. Life on the physical plane is a
mental directive agency from the astral plane which the forces of
the physical plane to build up structure according to its pattern of
growth. Death is the extrusion of this directive life of the
physical forms, which thereupon disappears entirely, being
non-physical. The origin of the astral patterns is not to be found
on the astral plane any more than on the physical. The invention of
the patterns is on the buddhic and mental planes, for high
intelligence is needed for the complexities and efficiencies of
phenomenal existence.
|
See Also
|