There is always the temptation and fascination of the unknown for many persons, especially for those who are not familiar with the phenomena of the lower astral sub-planes. Such persons like fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and attract upon themselves all sorts of undesirable astral entities and conditions.
This class of investigators, in opening the doors of the minds and souls to lower astral influences run great risks. Therefore it has been very wisely said that ‘beware of the lower astral vibrations,’ keep the mind and soul centred on the higher truths and resist the temptation to dabble in the phenomena of the lower states. Live on the spiritual heights, always seek the truth, which, when known makes all other things clear. Pure and spiritually minded individuals who are the victims of accidents etc., sleep out happily the term of their natural life. In other cases they remain conscious, often entangled in the final scene of earth-life for a time, held in whatever region they are related to by the outermost layer of their astral body.
Their normal kamalokic or astral life does not begin until the natural web of earth-life is lived out and they are vividly conscious of both their astral and physical surroundings.
The karmic consequences of suicide usually affect the next life and probably more lives than one.
It is a crime against nature to interfere with the prescribed period appointed for living out the physical life. For every human has an appointed life-term, determined by an intricate web of prior causes — that is, by karma, and that term must run out its appointed time before the dissolution of the personality.
Deprived of the assistance rendered by the physical body in resolving a situation of stress, the individual who commits suicide simply hurls himself into an astral vortex which is an enormous intensification of every psychic torment and fury that drove him to self-destruction.
It is so much possible for an individual to live such a degraded, selfish and brutal life that the whole of the lower mind becomes immersed in desires that it finally separates from the higher ego.
This is possible only when every thread of unselfishness or spirituality.
Has been stifled and where there is no redeeming feature whatsoever. Such a lost entity very soon after death finds that it is unable to stay in the astral world and is irresistibly drawn in full consciousness into ‘ its own place’, the mysterious eighth sphere, there slowly to disintegrate after experiences best left undescribed.
Humans incarnate in physical bodies for a purpose which can be attained only in the physical world.
There are lessons to be learnt in the physical world which cannot be learnt anywhere else and the sooner one learns them, the sooner one will be free from the need to return to the lower and more limited life.
As wonderful as the astral life turns out to be for the majority of people, the prospect that lies beyond them is still more splendid. Progress continues into higher astral plane regions until the last earthly ties are dissolved and all links with its pain and sorrow are ended.
The article has been taken from the book Life Beyond Death by Anil Sharma