The phase in the astral plane is primarily needed to enable disentanglement of the desire nature which was the main feature during the phase on the physical plane. Also it must be remembered that in each case the individual soul is immortal; and even though one’s recent efforts one’s life has been a dismal failure, one is not thereby doomed. More accurately understood, the individual is cleaning away the debris during his sojourn on the astral plane. This is a preparation for fresh opportunities and renewed effort when one returns to the physical plane at a later time.
Suppose a person while on earth wanted to paint or to express joyously and creatively in some way but could not do so, nothing now will prevent one from turning one’s full attention in such a direction. Compared to the physical, the astral world is a place of exhilarated consciousness.
One is engaged in a metamorphosis of one’s nature from the relatively mediocre condition of the life on earth, into a closer resemblance to the god-like nature of the Inner Self. The process of etherealisation induces every possible intensification of the refining impulses and freedom generating characteristics that have been awakened in the astral nature. There is a stepping up of the emotional life to highest levels. It may be recalled that every facility of the astral world invites creativity. One creates naturally and readily in astral matter, for it is mobile and plastic and responds instantly to feeling, thought and will. Creative people, artists particularly, can anticipate the delights of unhampered inventiveness and expression of beauty through original impulses. From the limitations that we experience in the physical form, there has now come release to relatively limitless, free expression of feeling in astral matter. There is still limitation in the sense that every one is limited by the desire-habits and emotional patterns that have been one’s customarily during one’s lifetime on earth. With these boundaries being non-existent, the liberations that follow seem miraculous. An example would be that of a cripple who hobbled about on crutches for many years prior to his death and who continued the same for a time in his astral body. Once he was told that there was no need to walk but that all he had to do was to visualise clearly where he wanted to go and that was all that was needed to get there. On the astral plane there is no longer self-aggrandisement for ‘getting somewhere in the world.’ Anxiety and fear regarding the necessities for survival are foreign to this place. With the death of the physical body, food and shelter, fine clothes and a new automobile, cease to be of any concern. Education of the finer aspects of one’s emotional capabilities has the continuous attention of the dweller in astral regions.
The astral plane is composed of numerous planes and sub-planes, and divisions of sub-planes. At the lowest level they touch the higher material planes and at the highest they blend into the lower strata of the great spiritual planes. Between these two extremes is to be found the greatest possible variety of phenomena and phases of existence.
The astral plane may be divided into seven great sub-divisions or sub-planes which will be discussed in some detail in the next section. On the lower planes of the astral are to be found certain forms of the ghosts, spooks, and other apparitions of disembodied souls which occasionally are perceived and sensed by humans and some of the lower animals.
The article is taken from the book Life Beyond Death by Anil Sharma