There are many sub planes which make up the astral world. Religious faiths are different as they support particular peoples at their level of development.
Departed souls are in contact with other souls who held the same religious beliefs. The soul is its own judge after death and leads itself to its own reward and punishment. An individual’s astral body is the field of manifestation of desire and thought.
Man’s astral body consists not only of astral substance but also of a separate entity known as the desire elemental which is opposed to man’s interests.
An unimaginable intensity of suffering is possible in the astral realm that is not possible on the physical plane. The desire elemental arranges one’s astral body in accordance with one’s physical life.
An individual on the astral plane can see their astral bodies with their associated feelings and emotions — love, hate etc.
The sojourn in the astral world is known as karmaloka — the place of burning desire. Many individuals, after they die, find themselves in a state of uneasiness. The astral life is an intermediary stage for the mental plane. A life of purity on earth allows one’s astral body to quickly dissolve.
The length of time and to the degree of consciousness spent on each sub plane of the astral world depends on one’s life on Earth.
Unless one has made efforts on earth to purify one’s cravings then one will suffer in the astral planes until one has weaned oneself off these cravings and passions to pass into the next plane. Even an intellectual knowledge of life after death is helpful.
Those individuals with coarser instincts spend only a short time between incarnations. There can be great suffering on the astral plane if one had physical addictions and cravings. One creates one’s own heaven or hell but these are temporary states. One elaborates karma after death.
Earth life is experienced on the astral plane in reverse order as one had lived on earth and from the perspective of the effect of one’s deeds on the other person.
When one’s earthly passions and attachments have been purified then one passes into the next plane. Injury may occur if one dabbles with the lower astral plane by the use of psychic phenomena.
The hells of the astral plane are not eternal. Each soul creates its own heaven and hell. The karmic consequences of suicide are monumental. There are lessons to be learnt in the physical world which cannot be learned elsewhere.
Astral sub-planes: One resides on a higher or lower astral sub plane depending on how one lived here on earth.
Group souls - each species of plants or animal has a group soul and get its experiences from each individual animal or plant. Each human soul is an individuality in its own right. The group soul can, after a long time, divide and become two group souls i.e. two new species.
Devas assist the group souls of plants in their evolution. The group souls, over very long periods of time, evolve from minerals, to plant, to animal. Eventually particular animals of a group soul individualise.