The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena #230799

The first point which it is necessary to make clear in describing this astral plane is its absolute reality. Of course in using that word I am not speaking from that metaphysical standpoint from which all but the One Unmanifested is unreal because impermanent; I am using the word in its plain, every-day sense, and Imean by it that the Objects and inhabitants of the astral plane are real in exactly the same wav as our own bodies, our furniture, our houses or monuments are real — as real as Charing Cross, to quote an expressive remark from one of the earliest Theosophical works. They will no more endure for ever than will objects on the physical plane, but they are nevertheless realities from our poirft of view while they last — realities which we cannot afford to ignore merely because the majority of mankind is as yet unconscious, or but vaguely conscious, of their existence. No one can* get a clear conception ofthe teachings of the wisdom-religion until he has at any rate an intellectual grasp of the fact that in our solar svstem there exist per fectly definite planes, each with its own matter Of different degrees of density, and that some of these planes can be visited and observed by persons who have qualified them selves for the work, exactly as a foreign country might be visited and Observed; and that, by comparison Of the observations of those who are constantly working on these planes, evidence can be Obtained of their existence and nature at least as satisfactory as that which most ofus have for the existence Of Greenland or Spitzbergen. Further more, just as any man who has the means and chooses to take the trouble can go and see Greenland or Spitz bergen for himself, so any man who chooses to take the trouble to qualify himself by living the necessary life, can in time come to see these higher planes on his own account. The names usually given to these planes, taking them in order of materiality, rising from the denser to the finer, are the physical, the astral, the mental or devachanic, the buddhic, and the nirvanic. Higher than this last are two others, but they are so far above our present power of conception that for the moment they may be left out of consideration. It should be understood that the matter of each of these planes differs from that of the one below itin the same way as, though to a much greater degree than, vapour differs from solid matter; in fact, the states of matter which we cali solid, liquid, and gaseous are merely the three lowest subdivisions of the matter belonging to this one physical plane.