Source Text
The simple act of thinking about college friends we haven’t heard from in years shortly before getting an e-mail or phone call from them often passes unnoticed. We call it a coincidence instead of an instance of precognition.
Buhlman wasn’t able to perceive the third energy body, except that it seemed “lighter (less dense)” than the second.12 Subsequent adventures taught him not only that we have multiple energy bodies, but also that they “become progressively less dense” over time.13
From such evidence, it appears that the longer we spend in nonphysical reality, either in a particular experience or cumulatively over many years, the less likely it is that our energy bodies will retain a human form.
What’s a Plane? The word plane is tricky to define. As theosophists use it, the term translates the Sanskrit word loka, which can mean realm, place, plane, or planet. In Hinduism and Buddhism, loka often appears as a suffix in the names of heavens, hells, and nonphysical realities visited in deep meditative states. For example, Svargaloka is heaven-realm. In Paramhansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, however, Hiranyaloka, where Yogananda’s guru goes after death, is translated as Illumined Astral Planet.16
First, a plane is a state of consciousness. Like a place, it has a range or extent. It’s defined by that range or extent, in the same way we might define the dimensions of a plot of land with a property line.
Third, a plane is defined—which is to say created—by the action of some force. In theosophy, the seven primary planes of existence have been created by a godlike being called the Logos (Greek for word).
The spiritual sun is the Logos, the heart of the system. I call it the Source.18
This is my thesis: When we achieve a certain level of consciousness (state), we have access to a set of abilities (senses) that can function like a separate self (energy body), uniquely attuned to an environment (plane) that would otherwise be imperceptible.
Theosophist Arthur E. Powell says that the astral body has the same shape as the physical body, as do most contemporary astral projectors. He claims that this shape is a result of habits of mind and behavior—how we perpetually think of ourselves. We recreate that self-image on the astral plane, where our thoughts create our reality.8 Some projectors, like Buhlman, perceive the astral body as energy in the form of a human body. We can generate this image with or without clothes. It seems to be enormously pliable. Monroe says that we can even travel by reaching our hands over our head like divers and stretching toward a location on the physical or astral plane until we reach it.9
Multiply that sense of bliss times ten and you have some idea of how much more ecstatic it is to access the mental body. For me, the rush usually lasts two or three days. And so it goes, on up the ladder. My one brief experience of buddhic consciousness generated a sense of bliss that lasted several weeks.20 Leadbeater writes about how surprising this continual multiplication of bliss is as we move from one plane to the next: At every step the same surprise comes over again, and no thought beforehand can prepare one for it, because it is always far more stupendous than anything we can imagine, and life on all those higher planes is an intensity of bliss for which no words exist.21
AI Summary
The Multidimensional Human by Kurt Leland presents key insights from the Yoga tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
- [To be expanded]
Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
This entry was generated from Readwise highlights. Expand with additional context as appropriate.