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The Tenth Lesson: The Astral World161
The plane of the chamber of slumber is sacred to those occupying it, and
those higher souls just mentioned, and is in fact in the nature of a distinct
and separated state rather than one of the series of planes just mentioned.
The soul awakens on just the plane for which it is fitted—on just the subplane
of that plane which its highest desires and tastes naturally select for
it. It is surrounded by congenial minds, and is able to pursue that which the
heart of the man had longed for during earth life. It may make considerable
progress during this Astral World life, and so when it is reborn it is able
to take a great step forward, when compared to its last incarnation. There
are planes and sub-planes innumerable, and each finds an opportunity to
develop and enjoy to the fullest the highest things of which it is capable at
that particular period of development, and as we have said it may perfect
itself and develop so that it will be born under much more favorable
conditions and circumstances in the next earth life. But, alas, even in this
higher world, all do not live up to their best, and instead of making the
best of their opportunities, and growing spiritually, they allow their more
material nature to draw them downward, and they spend much of their
time on the planes beneath them, not to help and assist, but to live the less
spiritual life of the denizens of the lower planes—the more material planes.
In such cases the soul does not get the benefit of the Astral World sojourn
and is born back into just about the same condition as the last earth-life—it
is sent back to learn its lesson over again.
The very lowest planes of the Astral World are filled with souls of a gross
type—undeveloped and animal like—who live as near as possible the lives
they lived on earth (about the only thing they gain being the possibility of
their “living-out” their gross tastes, and becoming sick and tired of it all, and
thus allowing to develop a longing for higher things which will manifest in
a “better-chance” when they are reborn). These undeveloped souls cannot,
of course, visit the upper planes, and the only plane below them being the
plane of shells and the astral sub-plane immediately above the material
plane (which is one of the so-called anterooms of the Astral World) they