“We can open our minds - or close then - to the many delectable perfumes that spirit nature casts abroad for our happiness, and contentment. They act like a tonic upon the mind, but they are not forced upon us - we merely help ourselves to them as we wish. It must ever be borne in mind that the spirit lands are founded upon law and order. But the law is never oppressive nor the order irksome, because the same law and order have helped to provide all the countless beauties and wonders of this heavenly realm.” — Life in the World Unseen
We are Family
“Any thoughts I had entertained, of personal grandeur and a celestial paradise, were quickly dispelled. Reunion with family and friends is a far more satisfying and normal step forward as it is in accordance with natural law.” — Letters from Mother
Do families over there stay together? If there is a real and natural affection between family members, they spend time together - and might even live together. But not out of a sense of duty or because someone else believes they should. For example, a family ex-Matriarch, or ex-Patriarch, or any family member who wanted to encourage the family to spend time together can only do so by making it pleasant and enjoyable for them. Otherwise they would not be interested.
If there is love between the family members, they would genuinely want to spend time together and nothing would be more natural for them to do so. They can then help and support each other. They can welcome family members who are New Arrivals and help them integrate into their new environment and so on.
Many people do not live as part of a group composed of their earth family, but instead mainly congregate with those of similar interests of similar disposition. Since distance is not an issue, people can visit each other easily where there is mutual interest in meeting.
Mind and Body
As you adjust to your new life there, you adjust the added powers and abilities of your mind and body. One of those powers is an infallible memory and, as this gradually awakens, you begin to realize that your new body is actually very familiar to you. For example, you probably used it in the sleep state to travel to meet loved ones in the Afterlife. In fact, many people learn things during their sleep time, and these influence them during their waking hours even if they do not remember the details. Some in the sleep state even congregate in groups, go to the equivalent of conferences to share experiences, and others work with teams of Afterlifers to help the Earth Bound and so on. After being over there a short while, you will start to recall such experiences and have much more a sense of continuity and flow in your life.
“When you sleep, your soul enters your [non-physical body] and… you commune with your [loved ones] or they make contact with you. There is then a sharing of experience. Such experience may not be [remembered] within the bounds of your physical body… But after death, you will find this life that was known to you only in the depths of sleep registered in the memory of your [non-physical body], the body your soul retains after your final farewell to earth. So, though a generation of years may have parted you from your loved one, you will come together again not as strangers but as those who have enjoyed companionship with each other through the years.” — Beyond Human Personality
Your spiritual body will gradually take on the appearance of the ‘prime of life’. If you are older than your prime years, your body will start to look younger; if you are younger, then your body will gradually look more mature.
“Age differences melt away, as our consciousness expands; I am no longer their wrinkled old Grannie. But [the family], still pay me the respect they did on earth and I love them dearly, as my beloved children and children’s children.” — Letters From Mother
“No one seems to be old. We are young, with what seems to be immortal youth. We can, when we please, assume the old bodies, or their immortal spiritual counterparts, as we can assume our old clothes for purposes of identification, but our spiritual bodies here are young and beautiful. There is a semblance between what we are and what we were.” — Beyond Human Personality
The spiritual body is highly sensitive and able to respond far more rapidly and more intensely than we experience in a physical body. Yet, we would not normally find anything overwhelming as the Astral Body is more influenced by the mind and we can close down our senses at will.
We can, with a some practice, travel vast distances in an instant. Or walk tirelessly for a long time if we prefer. The need for sleep or food largely fades away, in a very natural way, except on the lower levels where these things continue. Though many types of wonderful fruits are enjoyed, even on the higher planes, and are especially given to help New Arrivals.
In the lower levels, they are more likely to continue to sleep and to eat. They are also more likely, in some parts, to refuse to believe that they are ‘dead’ and cling to living a life as close as they can manage to what they had on Earth.
The character of the person shows in the appearance of their body in the Afterlife. However, as the person’s character changes for the better, their appearance changes for the better too.
“Those who have led vicious, brutal lives bring over their evil characteristics, and these are, as it were, written upon the countenance, making it repulsive to look upon. On the other hand, those who lead good and pure lives, those with gentle dispositions, who are kind hearted, well pleased in helping others, are beautiful to behold. There can be no mistake on this side; no one can pretend to be different from what he is.” — Secret of Death
Clothing
“What will I wear?” you might wonder. Clothing over there matches the person’s sense of themselves, subject to their level of spiritual development. When you first awaken to your new life, you will most likely, automatically find yourself in the clothes you habitually wore (or rather a replica of them). You automatically create such clothes. The soul force we learned to generate on earth, to ensure that we are clothed properly for different situations, automatically takes over and the appropriate clothes appear when we move to living over there.
Most people near the earth-like planes wear similar clothes to those they had on Earth. However, once they have been over there a while, people tend to wear more “flowing robe” type of clothes, but there are many exceptions to this. In any event, the clothes a person wears depends to a large extent on what they want to wear.
However, clothes, as also in the case of bodily appearance, reflects a person’s spiritual development. Therefore, someone ‘very poor’ in spiritual development, and therefore living on the lower levels, will tend to have stained or even very ragged looking clothes reflecting their spiritual poverty.
Who’s the Boss?
There are all these different levels of the Afterlife and lots of people, so you probably wonder how it is all organized? Each of the “levels”, “spheres” or “realms” (whatever word you prefer) has someone that many of the communicators refer to as a “Ruler”, for lack of a better term. However, the Afterlife is a hierarchy of the most kind and most compassionate. Only those who truly love their fellow human beings reach any level of ‘authority’ and they are not in the least interested in posturing or ‘lording it’ over other people.
The Ruler of a realm is someone who has an overview, organizes whatever is necessary and offers help and advice where needed. The Ruler is usually someone who has the right, owing to their wisdom, intelligence and compassion, to live on a higher level than the one they are presently on, but they stay on at a lower level to serve the people there. A keynote of these Rulers are the ways they generously, kindly and whole-heartedly serve others. They are usually well loved and respected for their wisdom and insight by the inhabitants of that level.
“The position [of Ruler] is such that it calls for high attributes on the part of its holder, and the office is held only by those who have had long residence in the spirit world. Many of them have been here thousands of years.” — Life in the World Unseen
"They who serve most are the greatest here. There is no computing of place or position excep
t by service or wisdom. Service may be of the intelligence, or of the spiritual gifts, or the more common activities; but the wiser the service, or the more loving and unselfish the giving of one's self:—these are the things that give prominence in spirit life.” — Spirit World and Spirit Life
The knowledge and scope of these Rulers is immense, though their modesty, humor and easy manner, makes them very accessible. Also, along with all inhabits of the Afterlife, they are not limited to the capacities of a physical brain so they have no problem remembering anything they have learned. Some of them have been there for thousands of years, yet have all the appearance of youthfulness, with experience and wisdom also present.
“In the spirit world, we have no physical brain to hamper us, and our minds are fully and completely retentive of all knowledge that comes to us. We do not forget those things we have learnt in the spirit world, whether they be spiritual lessons or plain facts. But it takes time, as you would say, to learn, and that is why the rulers of realms have spent many thousands of earthly years in the spirit world before they are placed in charge of so many people.” — Life in the World Unseen
Language
Language issues, for people from different countries trying to communicate together, are not a problem. Although they can and often do speak aloud in the normal way that we do, they can also transmit thoughts to each other. The thought arrives in a picture form (this can include sounds, smells, tastes, and even encapsulate a full experience) and the mind of the recipient receives and understands the message by experiencing it.
If someone wants to learn a language, for whatever reason, they can do so far more quickly than we can as the spirit brain never forgets anything, and everything they ever learn is easily remembered.
“Mind moves here with a quickness not to be expressed in words. We use pictures and symbols largely because a thought can be more quickly expressed in that way... We do not need to talk to convey our ideas, but we can speak whenever we wish, and oratory and poetry and lessons are given in word language. But ordinarily… ideas flash from mind to mind without need for words. We speak with spirit organs as we use other spirit perceptions, and our language is beautiful and the speech musical.” — Spirit World and Spirit Life
Nationality
On the lower levels, people of different nations tend to congregate together and likewise their environment, buildings, types of flowers and trees, etc. will somewhat mirror what they are used to. They will be more comfortable with the type of people, the type of landscape and the type of buildings they are familiar with - even if it is often presented to them in a more beautified form.
As people progress, they lose interest in maintaining national and racial characteristics. They may retain their visible distinctions for a while longer, as things like skin color, are seen as adding to the variety and interest of those realms.
Travel
"Travel is a wonderful educator and lays the foundation for larger perceptions. Even here we see and feel the beneficent results of travel to other planes, the coming in contact with other conditions, and the influences that form other lives and character.” — Spirit World and Spirit Life
There is a sense of space and distance there, though not so much on the higher levels, and each Afterlife level covers a vast area. They can freely travel throughout their own level, or sphere, and to any level below their level. They can travel to the higher levels too sometimes if they receive an invitation to do so. The invitation is only necessary so that someone from that Higher Level will be available to help them cope with the more intense level of light there.
“Standing at the window of one of the upper rooms of my house, I can see across huge distances where there are many houses and grand buildings. In the distance, I can see the city with many more great buildings. Dispersed throughout the whole wide prospect are woods and meadows, rivers and streams, gardens and orchards, and they are all occupying space, just as all these occupy space in the earth world… And I know, as I gaze out of my window, that far beyond the range of my vision, and far beyond and beyond that again, there are more realms and still more realms that constitute the designation infinity of space.” - Life in the World Unseen
However, things like distance mean a lot less to them, especially above the lowest levels, as they can move instantaneously from one place to the other, using the power of thought.
“I can stand before my house and I can think to myself that I would like to visit the library in the city which I can see some "miles" away in the distance. No sooner has the thought passed with precision through my mind than I find myself - if I so desire it - standing before the very shelves that I wish to consult. I have made my spirit body - and that is the only body I have! - travel through space with the rapidity of thought, and that is so rapid that it is equivalent to being instantaneous.” — Life in the World Unseen
Time
“Normally, we have none of the customary means of measuring time because we have no need to do so, we can - and we do - return to make contact with the earth-plane, where we ascertain the exact time of day, the day of the year, and the year itself.” — Life in the World Unseen
Just like we do when we are enjoying ourselves, ‘time flies’ and when we are not ‘time drags’ they also experience time in a similar way, only more so.
They don’t use clocks or generally have the usual things we use to mark the passage of time such as day and night and seasons. However, there are exceptions to this. Some spheres, near the Earth, may follow the corresponding Earthly seasons and even respond to day and night. They don’t have to eat or sleep; though they can if they want to.
If they need to be somewhere, such as a special event happening in their realm, or a loved one from Earth coming over soon, they get an inner sense of ‘invitation’ and can choose to go if appropriate or not.
“In the spirit world, we have no clocks or other mechanical contrivances to indicate the passage of time. It would be the simplest thing in the world for our scientists to provide us with such if we felt the need for them. But we have no such need.” — Life in the World Unseen
However, some of them keep in touch with what is happening on Earth especially around special times of the year such as Christmas, Diwali, Vesak, Ramadan, Hanukah, and similar important events. This enables them to join their efforts to ours to raise the energy of the Earth at those crucial times and when people are more open to the other worlds. They don’t notice time passing much as they are happily living in the moment.
“Christmas… We celebrate this festival in the spirit world at the same time as do you. Whether December 25th is the correct date, historically, is a question we are not concerned with for our present purposes. What matters is that the two celebrations, yours and ours, are synchronized and recurrent year by year…The celebration of Christmas is always preceded by thoughts of pleasant anticipation. If there were nothing else to guide us, these alone would be sufficient to tell us that the time was drawing near.” — Life in the World Unseen
Time is more an issue for those who are regular visitors to Earth, because they have work there or they are keeping an eye on loved ones. When they are in the Earth environment they can, if they have the skills, see what the time and date is at their location. Even without visiting Earth, they can receive thought impressions from loved ones still on Earth, and this can give them a sense of Earth time.
“Some people, who would not otherwise have done so, have returned to the earth world for the very purpose of satisfying their curiosity as to the number of years they have been in the spirit world. I have spoken to some who have made this journey, and they were all amazed to discover the unsuspected scores of years that had passed by since their transition.” — Life in the World Unseen
There are those who can see somewhat into the future of what is about to take place on Earth if need be.
“Personages from those [higher] realms have more than astonished me with the accuracy of their foreknowledge of event
s that were to take place upon the earth-plane. Their means of acquiring this information is far beyond the comprehension of us in this realm.” — Life in the World Unseen
Buildings
Buildings are of many styles all depending on the needs of the occupants and the purpose of the building. These are usually created by thought except sometimes in the lower spheres where the substance is not so responsive.
“There are beautiful buildings here that have a translucent radiance, and reflect rainbow colors of light, in an ever-changing shimmering kaleidoscope of patterns, very beautiful to behold… I see that your mind has flashed to a vision of neon signs and glaring lights…I do assure you, it is nothing like that, dear. This is a harmonious blending. Sound produces color and color blends with sound; the effect is not only beautiful, but restful as well. I will not go into boring details. You must just wait until you can see it yourself.” — Letters from Mother
Soil
Strange as it may seem, if we tend to think of those realms as nebulous and ethereal, they do have a kind of soil. After all, what else would people walk around on? What would the grass, trees and plants grow in? However, the plants are nourished directly from the Great Source of all life (as do the people) and do not need to get nourishment from the soil. Nor do the plants usually need water. However, again there are exceptions to this and some spheres even experience ‘rain’ as the inhabitants expect it. The soil is not uniform in color or consistency and just like earthly soil, it varies from place to place.
“It is simply that the color of the soil is complementary to the colour of the flowers and trees, and the result, which could not be otherwise, is that of inspiring harmony - harmony to the eye, harmony to the mind…” — Life in the World Unseen
Since the plants there do not need watering or any of the care and maintenance that plants on Earth need, the soil there is - as you might imagine - unusual in comparison to what we are used to.
Afterlife Adventures Page 8