re: saudi...just obeying the koran -4 geo_au
Found this bit on afterdeath states which may be of interest & read in conjunction with the sight you gave the url of begins to 'make sense'.
AFTER DEATH STATES - CHRONOLOGY
In chronological order we go into kama-loka -- or the plane of desire -- first on the demise of the body, and then, the higher principles, the Real Man, falls into the state of Devachan.
The breath leaves the body and we say the man is dead, but that is only the beginning of death; it proceeds on other planes. When the frame is cold and eyes closed, all the forces of the body and mind rush through the brain, and by a series of pictures the whole life just ended is imprinted indelibly on the Inner Man, not only in a general outline, but down to the smallest detail of even the most minute and fleeting impression.
At this moment, the real man is busy in the brain, and not until his work there is ended is the person gone. When this solemn work is over the astral body detaches itself from the physical, and, life energy having departed, the remaining five principles are in the plane of kama loka. This process takes about half an hour.
The natural separation of the principles brought about by death divides the total man into three parts:
. First, the visible body with all its elements left to further disintegration on the earth plane, where all that it is composed of is in time resolved into the different physical departments of nature. . . Second, the kama rupa made up of the astral body and the passions and desires, which also begins at once to go to pieces on the astral plane;
Second death -- transit from Kama-loka to Devachan -- Kama-rupa left behind in Kama-loka to disintegrate. . . Third, the real man, the upper triad of Atma-Buddhi-Manas, deathless but now out of earth conditions, devoid of body, begins in devachan to function solely as mind clothed in a very ethereal vesture which it will shake off when the time comes for it to return to earth. . Kama loka -- or the place of desire -- is the astral region penetrating and surrounding the earth. As a place it is on and in and about the earth. Its extent is to a measurable distance from the earth, but the ordinary laws obtaining here do not obtain there, and entities therein are not under the same conditions as to space and time as we are.
DESIRES -- HAVE THEIR OWN PLACE
It is called the plane of desire because it relates to the fourth principle, and in it the ruling force is desire devoid of and divorced from intelligence. It is an astral sphere intermediate between earthly and heavenly life. The fact underlying this is that the soul may be detained in kama loka by the enormous force of some unsatisfied desire, and cannot get rid of the astral and kamic clothing until that desire is satisfied by some one on earth or by the soul itself.
But if the person was pure minded and of high aspirations, the separation of the principles on that plane is soon completed, permitting the Higher Triad to go into Devachan.
Being the purely astral sphere, it partakes of the nature of the astral matter which is essentially earthly and devilish, and in it all the forces work undirected by soul or conscience. It is the slag-pit, as it were, of the great furnace of life. In kama loka all the hidden desires and passions are let loose in consequence of the absence of body, and for that reason the state is vastly more diversified than the life plane.
It is generally supposed that the desires and passions are inherent tendencies in the individual, and they have an altogether unreal and misty appearance for the ordinary student. While the man is living in the world, the desires and passions -- the principle kama -- have no separate life apart from the astral and inner man, being diffused throughout his being.
During mortal life the desires and passions are guided by the mind and soul; after death they work without guidance from the former master; while we live we are responsible for them and their effects, and when we have left this life we are still responsible, although they go on working and making effects on others and without our direct guidance. In this is seen the continuance of responsibility.
In kama are the really active and important tendencies and Skandhas are being made from day to day under the law that every thought combines instantly with one of the elemental forces of nature, becoming to that extent an entity which will endure in accordance with the strength of the thought as it leaves the brain, and all of these are inseparably connected with the being who evolved them. There is no way of escaping; all we can do is to have thoughts of good quality, for the highest of the Masters themselves are not exempt from this law, but they "people their current in space" with entities powerful for good alone.
Now in kama loka this mass of desire and thought exists very definitely. Hence it is said to remain until the being comes out of devachan, and then at once by the law of attraction it is drawn to the being, who from it as basis builds up a new set of skandhas for the new life. Every atom going to make up the man has a memory of its own which is capable of lasting a length of time in proportion to the force given it.
In the case of a very material and gross or selfish person the force lasts longer than in any other. Its purely astral portion contains and carries the record of all that ever passed before the person when living, for one of the qualities of the astral substance is to absorb all scenes and pictures and the impressions of all thoughts, to keep them, and to throw them forth by reflection when the conditions permit.
DEVACHAN
Struggling out of the body Atma-Buddhi-Manas, begins to think in a manner different from that which the body and brain permitted in life. This is the state of Devachan, Sanskrit : "the place of the gods." The Self in Devachan is devoid of a mortal body. The stay in Devachan is proportionate to the merit earned by the being in its last life [from a few year to as much as 100 centuries -- the average being about 1500 years] and when the mental forces peculiar to the state are exhausted, "the being is drawn down again to be reborn in the world of mortals."
Devachan is therefore an interlude between births in the world. The law of karma which forces us all to enter the world, being ceaseless in its operation and also universal in scope, acts also on the being in devachan, for only by the force or operation of Karma are we taken out of devachan.
The last series of powerful and deeply imprinted thoughts are those which give color and trend to the whole life in devachan. The last moment will color each subsequent moment. On those the soul and mind fix themselves and weave of them a whole set of events and experiences, expanding them to their highest limit, carrying out all that was not possible in life.
WHY DEVACHAN ?
The necessity for this state after death is one of the necessities of evolution growing out of the nature of Mind and Soul. The very nature of manas requires a devachanic state as soon as the body is lost, and it is simply the effect of loosening the bonds placed upon the mind by its physical and astral encasement. In life we can but to a fractional extent act out the thoughts we have each moment; and still less can we exhaust the psychic energies engendered by each day's aspirations and dreams. The energy thus engendered is not lost or annihilated, but is stored in Manas, but the body, brain, and astral body permit no full development of the force. Hence, held latent until death, it bursts then from the weakened bonds and plunges Manas, the thinker, into the expansion, use, and development of the thought-force set up in life.
The whole process is remedial, restful, and beneficial. For if the average man returned at once to another body in the same civilization he had just quitted, his soul would be completely tired out and deprived of the needed opportunity for the development of the higher part of his nature.
Now the Ego clothes itself in devachan with a vesture which can be styled means or vehicle, and it functions entirely on the plane of mind and soul. Everything is as real then to the being as this world seems to be to us. It has obtained the opportunity to make its own world for itself unhampered by the clogs of physical life. Its state may be compared to that of the poet or artist who, rapt in ecstasy cares not for and knows not of either time or objects of the world.
This question while dealing with what earth-men call time does not, of course, touch the real meaning of time itself, that is, of what may be in fact for this solar system the ultimate order, precedence, succession, and length of moments. But the Ego remains in devachan for a time exactly proportioned to the psychic impulses generated during life. Now this being a matter which deals with the mathematics of the soul, no one but a Master can tell what the time would be for the average man of this century in every land.
Desperately materialistic thinkers will remain in the devachanic condition stupefied or asleep, as it were, as they have no forces in them appropriate to that state save in a very vague fashion, and for them it can be very truly said that there is no state after death so far as mind is concerned; they are torpid for a while, and then they live again on earth.
Existence in Devachan is an actual stage in the life of man, and when we are there this present life is a dream. It is not in any sense monotonous. Contrasted with the continuous strain of earth life, Nature, always kind, leads us soon again into "heaven" for a rest, for the flowering of the best and highest in our natures.
Devachan is then neither meaningless nor useless. "In it we are rested; that part of us which could not bloom under the chilling skies of earth-life bursts forth into flower and goes back with us to earth-life stronger and more a part of our nature than before. Why should we repine that Nature kindly aids us in the interminable struggle, why keep the mind revolving about the present petty personality and its good and evil fortunes? " (Letter from Mahatma K. H. See PATH, p. 191, Vol. 5.)
A question to consider is whether we here can reach those in devachan or do they come here. We cannot reach them nor affect them unless we are Adepts. The claim of mediums to hold communion with the SPIRITS of the dead is baseless, and still less valid is the claim of ability to help those who have gone to devachan. The Mahatma, a being who has developed all his powers and is free from illusion, can go into the devachanic state and then communicate with the Egos there. Such is one of their functions. They deal with certain entities in devachan for the purpose of getting them out of the state so as to return to earth for the benefit of the race. The Egos they thus deal with are those whose nature is great and deep but who are not wise enough to be able to overcome the natural illusions of devachan.
The whole period allotted by the soul's forces being ended in devachan, the magnetic threads which bind it to earth begin to assert their power. The Self wakes from the dream, it is borne swiftly off to a new body, and then, just before birth, it sees for a moment all the causes that led it to devachan and back to the life it is about to begin, and knowing it to be all just, to be the result of its own past life, it repines not but takes up the cross again -- and another soul has come back to earth.
