During one’s investigations into the regions of life after death one comes across many examples which illustrate the principle that Nature is consistent and uniform in her methods, and that Nature has a few fundamental methods of manifestation on the various planes of being.
One of these methods of Nature is that by which she always interposes a period of rest or recuperation between the end of one period of activity and the beginning of another.
On the physical plane one can see many instances of this, from the momentary pause of the pendulum between its forward and backward swing; the period of sleep between the close of one day and the beginning of another; the period of rest of the unborn child between its formative period and its birth into the world and so on.
In the astral world one finds the same phenomenon in the Soul-Slumber which occurs between that which one calls death and the beginning of the new existence on the astral plane. Now, reasoning from analogy, one would naturally expect that a similar phase or period exists between the close of activities of the soul on the astral plane and its passing on to higher spheres of spiritual life. Indeed such a phase does exist and it forms a very distinct feature of the soul’s existence on the other side. Such a phase or period is known to the spiritualists as the ‘second soul sleep’, or slumber.
The second soul sleep is preceded by a transition stage of gradually declining activity and consciousness, and a corresponding desire for rest on the part of the soul. The natural processes on the astral plane nearing their close, the soul begins to experience a feeling of weariness, and instinctively longs for rest. It finds that it has lived out the greater part of its desires, ambitions, and ideals, and in many cases has also outlived them. There comes to it that feeling of having fulfilled the purpose of its destiny and a premonition of the coming of some newer phase of existence. The soul does not feel pain at the approach of the second soul-sleep, but, on the contrary, experiences satisfaction and happiness as the coming of something which promises rest and recuperation
The article is taken from the book Life Beyond Death by Anil Sharma