7rcTIX1xP

Chapter XI: Astral Heavens and Hells2227
surface though it may be, an intuitive realization of a survival of the soul; and
every individual has a deep-seated consciousness of some sort of a moral
code. And these subconscious beliefs and opinions come to the surface on
the Astral Plane.
Those advanced souls who have given us the best and highest reports of
the life of the soul on “the other side,” agree in informing us that the highest
bliss, and the deepest sorrow, of the disembodied soul of intelligence
and culture, comes in the one case from perceiving the effect of the good
actions and thoughts of its earth-life, and, in the other case, from a similar
perception of the results of the evil thoughts and actions of its earth-life.
When the eyes of the soul are cleared so that they may discern the tangled
fabric of cause and effect, and follow up each particular thread of its own
insertion therein, it has in itself a heaven and a hell of greater intensity than
anything of which Dante ever dreamed. There is no joy of the disembodied
soul comparable to that experienced from perceiving the logical results of
a right action and no sorrow equal to that of perceiving the result of evil
action, with its sickening thought of “it might have been otherwise.”
But, even these things pass away from the soul. In fact, they often occupy
but a moment of time, which seems to the soul as an eternity. There is no
such thing as eternal bliss or eternal pain, on the Astral Plane. These things
pass away, and the soul emerges once more on earth-life, to once more
enroll itself in the School of Life, the Kindergarten of God, there to learn
and re-learn its lessons. And remember, always, that both the heaven and
the hell of each and every soul, abides in that soul itself. Each soul creates its
own heaven and hell—for neither have any objective existence. The heaven
and hell of each soul is the result of its Karma, and is purely a mental creation
of its own being. But the phenomena is none the less real to the soul, for
this reason. There is nothing in its earth-life which ever seemed more real to
it. And again, remember, that heaven and hell, on the Astral Plane, are not
given as bribe or punishment, respectively—but merely as a natural means