Death and the Journey Between Lives
Beyond the Threshold
We have spoken of the Veil of Forgetting"”that curtain of forgetting which separates the conscious mind from its deeper knowing. This veil operates throughout your incarnation, shaping every experience, every choice. But what happens when the incarnation ends? What occurs when the physical body can no longer sustain the consciousness that has animated it?
Death is not what most of your peoples imagine it to be. It is neither an ending nor a beginning in the absolute sense. It is a transition"”a crossing from one mode of existence to another. The consciousness that you are does not cease. It cannot cease, for consciousness is the fundamental reality from which all else springs. What ceases is the particular vehicle, the yellow-ray body, through which you have been experiencing this density.
Understanding what follows death may seem abstract, perhaps even irrelevant to the concerns of daily life. Yet this understanding carries profound practical value. When you know what awaits, you can live differently. The fear that surrounds death loses much of its power. The choices you make here, in the apparent darkness of forgetting, reveal their true significance. The incarnation becomes what it was designed to be: not a prison sentence to be endured but a precious opportunity to be used.
We offer these teachings not as doctrine to be believed but as a map to be considered. Each entity will verify or refine this understanding through direct experience when the time comes. For now, let us explore what awaits beyond the threshold that every incarnate entity must eventually cross.
The Moment of Transition
When the physical body can no longer sustain life, something remarkable occurs. There is no break in consciousness"”no void, no gap, no cessation of awareness. The entity simply shifts from one vehicle to another. The yellow-ray body, which has been active throughout the incarnation, returns to potentiation. In its place, the indigo-ray body activates.
This indigo body is sometimes called the Form-Maker Body or the etheric body. It is the first body to activate upon what you call death. Unlike the dense physical vehicle you now inhabit, this body is composed of that which might be called intelligent energy in microcosm. It is, in a very real sense, an analog of the Logos itself"”capable of shaping form according to consciousness, of molding itself as the entity desires.
The transition itself is often experienced as movement toward light. Many of your peoples who have approached death and returned describe this phenomenon. They speak of tunnels of light, of warmth and welcome, of being drawn toward something ineffably beautiful. These experiences, while filtered through the expectations and beliefs of the individual, reflect a genuine metaphysical reality. The entity is indeed moving"”not through physical space but through configurations of consciousness"”toward its next mode of being.
Upon realizing its state, the entity returns to this indigo form-maker body and rests therein. This realization may come immediately or may take what seems like time, depending upon the entity's preparation and awareness. Some entities transition smoothly, recognizing the change for what it is. Others require a period of adjustment, gradually understanding that the physical life has ended.
When Transition Is Incomplete
Not all entities complete this transition smoothly. In some cases, the will remains so focused upon the physical experience that the entity cannot fully release its attachment to the yellow-ray existence. This creates what you might call an earthbound spirit"”a consciousness that lingers between modes of being, unable to move fully into the metaphysical planes.
This occurs not as punishment but as consequence. The will is a powerful thing. When an entity has concentrated its entire focus upon some aspect of physical experience"”whether possessions, relationships, unfinished tasks, or intense emotional states"”that concentration may persist beyond the body's death. The entity's shell of yellow ray, though no longer activated, cannot be completely deactivated while the will remains bound to physical concerns.
Consider the soldier who dies suddenly in battle, consciousness still engaged in combat. Consider the miser whose entire identity has become entangled with accumulated wealth. Consider the lover who cannot release the object of obsessive attachment. In each case, the will creates a kind of anchor, holding the entity in a between-state until it can find release.
This condition is temporary. Eventually, all entities find their way forward. The will cannot remain focused indefinitely upon that which no longer exists. Helpers in the metaphysical planes work with such entities, offering the love and light necessary for release. Yet the process can take considerable time, measured in your terms. This is one reason why attachment"”to things, to outcomes, to specific forms"”is addressed in so many of your wisdom traditions. Attachment binds, and binding persists beyond death.
For the living, this understanding offers guidance. The practice of releasing attachment is not merely philosophical exercise. It is preparation for transition. The entity who has learned to hold things lightly, to love without grasping, to engage fully while remaining inwardly free"”this entity will transition smoothly when the time comes.
The Seven Bodies
To understand what follows death, one must understand the nature of embodiment itself. You are not simply a physical body with a spirit attached. You are a complex of seven bodies, each corresponding to one of the seven Densities of consciousness, each offering a vehicle for experience at its respective level.
The red-ray body is the most basic"”the unconstructed material, the chemical elements from which physical form is built. It has no organization, no life of its own. The orange-ray body is the physical form that develops in the womb before the spirit enters"”organized matter, capable of biological function, but not yet inhabited by the individuated consciousness. The yellow-ray body is your current vehicle, the physical form integrated with mind and spirit that you experience as yourself.
Beyond these are the subtler bodies. The green-ray body is packed more densely with life force. It is lighter than the physical, sometimes called the astral body. Those who develop sufficient sensitivity may perceive it as ectoplasm or as an aura of vital energy. The blue-ray body is lighter still"”a body of pure light, sometimes called the devachanic body, explored by adepts of various traditions who have mapped its territories. The indigo-ray body, as we have discussed, is the form-maker, the gateway body, the analog of intelligent energy itself.
Finally, there is the violet-ray body"”the complete body, sometimes called the Buddha body. This represents the totality of the being, the sum of all that the entity has become. During the harvest, it is this body that manifests to determine the entity's graduation.
All seven bodies exist within you now, though only the yellow-ray body is fully active. The others remain in potentiation, available but not engaged. After death, different bodies activate according to the entity's development and needs. For most entities, the indigo body remains active during the period of review and healing, with the appropriate color-ray body eventually activating based on the entity's level of development.
The Nature of Time/Space
When you leave the physical body, you enter what we call Time/Space"”the metaphysical counterpart to the space/time you currently experience. Understanding this realm requires releasing some assumptions so deeply embedded in your thinking that you may not recognize them as assumptions at all.
In your current experience of space/time, space provides the framework of reality. You can move freely through space"”walking from one room to another, traveling from one city to the next. But you cannot move freely through time. Time flows in one direction at one speed, carrying you along whether you will it or not. You are, in a sense, immobile in time while mobile in space.
In time/space, this relationship inverts. Space becomes the fixed dimension while time becomes fluid. * The entity is located in a particular configuration, relatively immobile in space. But time opens up. The entity can review experiences from any point in the incarnation, revisiting moments, examining them from new angles, understanding what was hidden during the living of them. Past, present, and future lose their rigid separation.
This is why much can be accomplished between incarnations. In time/space, there is, as you would understand it, a great deal of time. The review of an incarnation is not rushed. The healing of wounds is not abbreviated. The planning of future experiences can be thorough and careful. What might seem like moments in space/time can correspond to vast periods of processing in time/space.
Your experiences of dreams offer a faint echo of this realm. In dreams, time behaves strangely. You may experience what seems like hours in what your waking self knows was minutes of sleep. You may revisit the past or glimpse possible futures. The dream state represents a partial and temporary entry into time/space, which is why dreams can carry such significance for those who learn to attend to them.
The Review of the Incarnation
Each incarnation is a course in the Creator knowing Itself. And like any course, it includes a review"”not an examination by some external authority, but a thorough revisiting of what was learned and what was missed. This review is an integral part of the process, as essential as the experiences themselves.
In time/space, the entity reviews and re-reviews the biases and teachings of the prior incarnation. Every significant moment can be revisited. Every choice can be examined not only from your own perspective but from the perspective of all others involved. The pain you caused becomes visible in its full impact. The love you gave reveals its true reach. Nothing is hidden. Nothing is forgotten. The veil that separated your conscious mind from your deeper knowing thins, and you begin to see your incarnation as it truly was.
This review is not punishment, though it may be humbling. It is not judgment, though it brings clarity. The entity evaluates its own progress, assessing the biases gained, the lessons absorbed, the opportunities used or squandered. There is no external being who audits this course. Each portion of the Creator reviews its own experience, integrating what was lived in the density of forgetting.
This understanding offers a powerful practice for the living. The wise seeker does not wait until death to review the incarnation. A daily practice of honest reflection"”examining the day's experiences, noting the moments of love and the moments of fear, observing without judgment the patterns that emerge"”this practice mirrors what will occur after death. It allows integration to happen continuously rather than accumulating for some future reckoning.
The Process of Healing
Where there has been harm, there is need for healing. * This principle operates between incarnations as surely as within them. The entity who has experienced trauma, who has caused or received suffering, who has accumulated distortions of pain and confusionthis entity requires healing before it can move forward clearly.
The form-maker body and the Higher Self work together to place the entity in the proper configuration for this healing. Just as a broken bone must be set correctly to mend, the dislocations of consciousness must be properly arranged for the healing energies to work effectively. The entity is located, in a manner of speaking, in a place suited to its specific needs.
The healing process penetrates deeply. Much can be addressed in time/space that cannot be touched during incarnation. The extreme fluidity of these regions allows wounds to be reached that were inaccessible behind the veil. Patterns of fear that persisted across lifetimes can be recognized and released. Distortions that seemed permanent reveal themselves as temporary and healable.
Sometimes, for entities who have experienced particularly difficult incarnations, a kind of rest is provided. The entity may be surrounded by an atmosphere that recalls the happiest moments of the previous life"”a healing environment where safety and peace predominate. This continues until the entity is strong enough to face the fuller review, to examine even the painful portions of what was experienced.
The healing between incarnations serves multiple purposes. It clears distortions that would otherwise be carried forward. * It integrates experiences that could not be processed during the incarnation itself. It prepares the entity for whatever comes nextwhether another incarnation or advancement to a higher density. Nothing is wasted. Every experience, properly processed, becomes wisdom. Every wound, properly healed, becomes strength.
Planning the Next Incarnation
Once healing and review are sufficiently complete, attention turns to what comes next. For entities who have not yet graduated from Third Density, this typically means another incarnation. The planning of this incarnation is more deliberate and conscious than most imagine.
Entities who have developed sufficient awareness"”those whose green-ray energy center has been activated"”participate actively in planning their next life. They choose their parents, not for comfort or ease but for the learning opportunities those parents will provide. They select the circumstances of birth, the culture, the era, the challenges. They identify the lessons still to be learned and arrange conditions likely to bring those lessons forward.
Approximately half of those currently incarnating on your planet make these choices consciously. The remaining portion"”those still operating at earlier stages of development"”are guided by beings who serve as helpers in the incarnation process. These beings, whom you might call angelic, work under the Guardians to ensure that even those who cannot choose consciously are placed appropriately for their continued learning.
There is wisdom in this understanding. When you grasp that your circumstances were chosen"”that your parents, your challenges, your very limitations were selected for purposes of learning"”everything changes. The difficult childhood becomes not a random misfortune but a chosen curriculum. The physical handicap becomes not cruel fate but accepted catalyst. The relationships that seem to cause the most pain reveal themselves as the very lessons most needed.
This is not to suggest that all suffering should be passively accepted or that injustice should go unchallenged. The choice of circumstances does not predetermine responses. But it does reframe the fundamental relationship to experience. You are not a victim of random events. You are a seeker who has set the stage for your own learning.
The Risk of Overplanning
With the total freedom to choose one's incarnative circumstances comes a particular temptation. Some entities, eager for growth, attempt to learn too much in a single lifetime. They program catalysts so intense, lessons so demanding, challenges so numerous that the incarnation becomes overwhelming.
This is analogous to a student signing up for more courses than can possibly be absorbed in a single term. The intention is admirable"”the desire to grow, to use the precious opportunity of incarnation fully. But the intensity of catalyst can disarrange rather than catalyze. The entity becomes so overwhelmed by difficulty that polarization becomes impossible. The experience, though rich in potential, proves less useful than intended.
This is one disadvantage of the total Free Will given to senior entities in choosing their incarnation experiences. Without external oversight, some overestimate what they can handle. They forget, perhaps, how dense the forgetting will be, how heavy the veil, how challenging even modest difficulties become when experienced without access to deeper knowing.
For those currently incarnate, this understanding offers perspective on overwhelming circumstances. If your life seems impossibly difficult, if you feel crushed beneath the weight of your challenges, this may reflect not cosmic cruelty but pre-incarnative ambition. The self that planned this life believed it could handle what the self living this life finds crushing. Both are you. Compassion for both is appropriate.
The remedy is not to escape the chosen difficulties but to work with them as skillfully as possible. Not every lesson must be fully learned in every incarnation. Progress, not perfection, is the goal. The entity who learns even a little from overwhelming circumstances has not failed. It has simply bitten off somewhat more than it could chew"”a forgivable error, born of eagerness.
Karma and Its Resolution
Among the factors considered in planning incarnations is what you call Karma"”the unresolved actions from previous experiences. Karma is best understood not as punishment but as inertia. Those actions put into motion continue using the ways of balancing until stopped by a higher principle.
This higher principle is forgiveness. In forgiveness lies the stoppage of the wheel of action. Karma and forgiveness are inseparable concepts"”one is the continuation of momentum, the other is the application of brakes. Without forgiveness, actions perpetuate themselves indefinitely. Harm generates response, response generates counter-response, and the wheel continues turning.
Only actions undertaken in a consciously unloving manner generate karma. Accidents do not generate karma. Harm caused without awareness does not generate karma in the usual sense. But when an entity knowingly chooses to act without love, when it deliberately harms another for self-serving purposes, then the wheel begins to turn.
Between incarnations, karmic relationships are often addressed. An entity may choose to incarnate with another toward whom it holds karmic imbalance, seeking the opportunity to bring the relationship into harmony. Sometimes the roles reverse"”the one who caused harm chooses circumstances where it may receive similar treatment, not as punishment but as education. Sometimes the approach is more direct"”seeking the one harmed and offering balanced love.
For the living, the message is clear: forgiveness is not merely a spiritual nicety. It is the mechanism by which karma is released. Every act of genuine forgiveness"”whether forgiving another or oneself"”stops some portion of the wheel. Every clinging to grievance, every nursing of resentment, every refusal to release the past keeps the wheel turning. The choice to forgive is the choice to be free.
Guides and Helpers
No entity navigates the journey between lives alone. There are guides and helpers, beings who specialize in assisting during this transition and throughout the planning process. Understanding who these beings are illuminates both the between-life experience and the support available during incarnation.
For entities who incarnate automatically"”those not yet developed enough to plan their own experiences"”there are beings directly under the Guardians who take responsibility for incarnation patterns. You may call these beings angelic if you prefer. They are local to your planetary sphere, devoted to the service of ensuring that every incarnating entity finds appropriate circumstances for continued learning.
For entities with greater development, the Higher Self takes a more active role. This being"”which is you at a future stage of development"”offers guidance and assistance in the planning process. It knows what you have learned across all incarnations. It sees what remains to be learned. It can suggest circumstances, relationships, challenges most likely to serve your evolution. Yet it cannot impose. Your free will remains paramount, even in the planning of incarnations.
There is also what might be called seniority of vibration. Entities filled with more light and love naturally, without supervision, find themselves in line for the experiences they need. It is similar to placing liquids of different densities in the same glass"”some naturally rise to the top, others sink to the bottom, each finding its appropriate level. As harvest approaches, those most prepared naturally move toward incarnative experiences that will complete their learning.
These same guides and helpers remain available during incarnation, though the veil obscures awareness of them. The sudden intuition, the dream that carries a message, the synchronicity that seems too meaningful to be coincidence"”these may be touches from those who guide. The veil makes explicit communication impossible, but the connection remains. You are not alone, whether in the body or between bodies.
Why We Do Not Remember
A question naturally arises: if we plan our incarnations, if we have guides and helpers, if we review and heal between lives"”why do we remember none of this? Why does the veil separate us so completely from this vast context?
The forgetting is not accident or error. It is the very mechanism that makes third density function as intended. Without forgetting, without the veil of separation, the choices of third density would lose their power. If you could see clearly that all beings are one, that every action toward another is an action toward yourself, where would be the challenge? Where would be the genuine choice?
The veil creates the conditions for authentic decision. In the darkness of unknowing, dependent upon faith rather than sight, the entity must choose how to love. This choice, made without certainty, carries a weight that cannot be replicated in later densities where more is known. Your third density is a valley of decision, and the forgetting is what makes that decision real.
When the forgetting has occurred, all experiences become exponentially more powerful. Compared to existence in later densities, your current experience is vivid and intense beyond imagination. The pain is more painful. The joy is more joyous. The love is more poignant for its fragility and uncertainty. This intensity serves evolution. It catalyzes growth in ways that gentler experiences cannot.
Furthermore, remembering too much could prove more burden than blessing. The details of past lives, the specifics of trauma and triumph across incarnations"”these are not necessary for the work at hand. What matters can be felt at deeper levels of awareness without cluttering the conscious mind. The entity often knows, at some level below consciousness, exactly what it needs to know. More explicit memory might distract from the lessons of the present.
The Continuity of the Self
Death, then, is not an ending but a doorway. The consciousness that you are continues"”reviewing what has passed, healing what needs healing, preparing for what comes next. The self persists, grows, evolves across incarnations that may span thousands of your years. What seems like a single lifetime is merely one chapter in a much longer story.
This perspective does not diminish the present. If anything, it enhances it. Each moment in incarnation carries weight precisely because it contributes to this larger journey. The choices made here, in the density of forgetting, shape what you are becoming. The love you learn to give, the lessons you manage to absorb, the growth you achieve against the drag of uncertainty"”all of this travels with you.
We have now explored the mechanisms of transition"”what happens when this incarnation ends and another begins. But there is more to understand about how consciousness functions during incarnation itself. The energy centers that animate your experience, the catalysts that drive your growth, the guidance that reaches through the veil"”these are the mechanisms of spiritual evolution that we shall examine next.
The journey continues. Through death and beyond it, through planning and forgetting, through learning and healing, the spark of consciousness that is you moves ever forward"”toward the light it came from, toward the unity it will one day remember, toward the love that awaits at every threshold and on every side.