You must distinguish between the 'I', pure in itself, and the 'I'-thought. The latter, being merely a thought, sees subject and object, sleeps, wakes up, eats and thinks, dies and is reborn. But the pure 'I' is the pure being, eternal existence, free from ignorance and thought-illusion. If you stay as the 'I', your being alone, without thought, the 'I'-thought will disappear and the delusion will vanish for ever. In a cinema-show you can see pictures only in a very dim light or in darkness. But when all the lights are switched on, the pictures disappear. So also in the floodlight of the supreme atman (the real Self) all objects disappear.
— Sage Sri Ramana Maharshi Over-view of the higher planes
Beyond the causal plane are the Buddhic, Atmic, Anupadic and the Adi planes. These have been briefly described under the sub-heading - Realms of Life after Death - in chapter one. When the consciousness is raised to the buddhic vehicle, a very remarkable thing happens to the causal body; it vanishes. One is under no compulsion to take it up again, but this cannot be done until all the karma of the lower planes is exhausted. One is not free from binding results on the lower planes, until one is perfectly selfless on those planes. If when helping another, one feels perfectly the unity with the other, then one obtains the result of one’s action on the buddhic plane only and not on any of the lower planes. The buddhic consciousness gives one a realisation of the one consciousness of God, which penetrates all. Such realisation gives a sense of the utmost safety and confidence. This manifests in the form of the most tremendous stimulus imaginable though initially it might be alarming, because one may feel that one is losing oneself. When one puts aside the causal vehicle, in which one has been living for so long, then one will find the far grander and higher life.
To do this needs some courage and at first it is a startling experience being totally in the buddhic vehicle, as one finds that the causal body upon which one has been depended for thousands of years, has vanished. When the experience does come, one will know with absolute certainty that the Self is one. The idea cannot be conveyed, as it has to be experienced. It must not however be assumed that when one enters the lowest sub-division of the buddhic plane, one is at once fully conscious of one’s unity with all. That perfection of sense comes only as the result of much toil and trouble, when one has reached the highest sub-division of the buddhic plane.
Step by step, sub-plane by sub-plane, the aspirant must win one’s way for oneself, for even at that level, exertion and effort are still necessary, if progress is to be made.
The article is taken from the book Life Beyond Death by Anil Sharma