An important feature of the astral plane consists of what are often, though mistakenly called the Records of Astral Light. These records (which are in truth a sort of materialisation of the Divine memory, a living photographic representation of all that has happened) are really and permanently impressed upon a very much higher level and are only reflected in a more or less spasmodic manner on the astral plane.
One whose power of vision does not rise above this, will be likely to obtain only disconnected pictures of the past instead of a coherent narrative. Nevertheless, these reflected pictures of all kinds of past events are constantly being reproduced in the astral world and form an important part of the surroundings of the investigator.
During the time of purification on the astral plane one lives one’s life in the reverse order. One passes again through all that one has experienced in life since birth. One begins with the events that immediately preceded death and experiences everything in reverse order back to childhood. During this process everything that has not arisen out of the spiritual nature of the ego during life passes spiritually before one’s eyes. For example, a person who died in his sixtieth year and who in his fortieth year had done someone a bodily or soul injury, will experience this event again when passing through his life’s journey in reverse order after death, when he reaches the point of his fortieth year. He now experiences not the satisfaction he had in life from his attack upon the other person, but the pain he gave him. From what has been said above, it is at the same time also possible to see that only that part of such an event can be experienced painfully after death that has arisen from passions of the ego having their source only in the outer physical world. In reality, the ego not only damages the other person through the gratification of such a passion, but itself as well; only the damage to itself is not apparent to it during life. After death this whole damaging world of passion becomes perceptible to the ego, and the ego then feels itself drawn to every being and every thing that has enkindled such a passion, in order that this passion may again be destroyed in the same way it was created. Only when man in his backward journey has reached the point of his birth have all the passions of this kind passed through the fire of purification that nothing hinders him from complete surrender to the spiritual world.
Thus one enters upon a new stage of existence. Just as at death, one threw off the physical body, then soon after, the ether body, so now that part of the astral body falls away that can live only in the consciousness of the outer physical world.
The article is taken from the book Life Beyond Death by Anil Sharma
