...after the death of the physical body, the ego steadily withdraws through plane after plane, until eventually he is clothed only in his causal vehicle. At physical death, the life web, together with prana is withdrawn into the heart, round the physical permanent atom. The physical permanent atom then rises along the Sushumna-nadi --- a canal running from the heart to the third ventricle - into the head, to the third ventricle of the brain. Then the whole of the life-web, collected round the permanent atom, rises slowly to the point of junction of the parietal and occipital sutures, and leaves the physical body - now dead.
As the ego vacates each of his bodies, the permanent atoms of those bodies pass into a dormant condition , and are retained in the causal body in that quiescent state. Wile the man is in his causal body only, he thus has within that body the physical permanent atom, the astral permanent atom, and the mental permanent molecule, or unit,as it is more usually called. These three, wrapped in the buddhic life-web, appear as a brilliant nucleus-like particle in the causal body. They are, of course, all that now remains to the ego of the physical, astral and mental bodies of his previous incarnation.
...when the life on the higher mental sub-planes comes to an end, we perceive that Trishna i.e.,desire for further experience, reasserts itself, and the ego once more turns his attention outwards, stepping over the threshold of devachan into what has been called the plane of reincarnation, bringing with him the results, small or great, of his devachanic work.
With his attention turned outwards, as said, the ego sends forth a thrill of life, which arouses the mental unit. The flow in the spirillae of this unit, and in the other permanent atoms in their turn, which during the period of repose, has been small and slow, is now increased, and the mental unit, thus stimulated, begins to vibrate strongly.
The life-web begins to unfold again, and the vibrating mental unit, acting as a magnet, draws around itself mental matter, with vibratory powers resembling, or accordant with, its own.
The devas of the Second Elemental Kingdom bring this material within reach of the mental unit, and, in the earlier stages of evolution, they also shape the matter into a loose cloud around the permanent unit: but, as evolution proceeds, the ego himself exercises an ever increasing influence over the shaping of the material.
When the mental body is partially formed, the life-thrill from the ego awakens the astral permanent atom, and a similar procedure takes place, a cloud of astral matter being drawn round the astral permanent atom.
In his descent to incarnation, we thus see that the ego does not receive ready-made mental and astral bodies: instead, he receives material out of which these bodies will be built, in the course of the life that is to follow. Moreover, the matter which he receives is capable of providing him with mental and astral bodies, of exactly the same type as those he had at the end of his last mental and astral lives, respectively.
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(from the book
The Etheric Double)
The Etheric Double is actually built in advance for the incoming Ego, by an elemental which is the joint thought-form of the four Devarajas, each of whom presides over one of the four etheric sub-planes of physical matter. The primary business of this building elemental is to construct the etheric mould into which the physical particles of the new baby-body are to be built.
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We may add, however, that during human ante-natal life the prolongation of the Sutratma is formed, consisting of a single thread, which weaves a network, a shimmering web of inconceivable fineness and delicate beauty, with minute meshes, reminding one of the closely woven cocoon of the silkworm.
Within the meshes of this web the coarser particles of the bodies are built together. Thus if the bodies are looked at with buddhic vision, they all disappear, and in their places is seen this web of life, as it is called, which supports and vivifies all the bodies.
During the ante-natal life, the thread grows out from the physical permanent atom and branches out in every direction, the growth continuing until the physical, body is full grown. During physical life the prana, or vitality, courses along the branches and meshes.
The ordinary ego is, of course, by no means in a position to choose a body for himself. The place of his birth is usually determined by the combined action, of three forces: these are: [1] the law of evolution, which causes an ego to be born under conditions which will give him an opportunity of developing exactly those qualities, of which he stands most in need; [2] the law of karma. The ego may not have deserved the best possible opportunity, and so he has to put up with the second or third best. He may not even have deserved any great opportunity at all, and so a tumultuous life of small progress may be his fate. We shall return a little later to this question, of the karma of an ego; [3] the force of any personal ties of love or hate that the ego may have previously formed.
We have seen that as the ego descends to a fresh incarnation, he has to take up the burden of his past, much of which has been stored as vibratory tendencies in his permanent atoms. These germs or seeds are known to Buddhists as Skandhas, a convenient word for which there seems to be as yet no exact equivalent in English. They consist of material qualities, sensations, abstract ideas, tendencies of mind, mental powers, the pure aroma of all these having been built into the causal body, the remainder being stored, as stated, in the permanent atoms and mental unit.
Hence it is the law of Karma which guides the man unerringly towards the race and nation herein are to be found the general characteristics that will produce a body and provide a social environment fitted for the manifestation of the general character, built up by the Ego in previous earth-lives, and for reaping of the harvest he has sown.
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