Life After Death: Kamaloka and the Astral Journey

GA 94 — 30 June 1906, Leipzig

Lecture III

Yesterday we spoke about the astral world. Today we will focus on human life after death in this astral world. We will characterize the different states of human beings after death. This will lay the foundation for understanding reincarnation and karma. We saw that when a person dies, the following occurs: The physical body remains behind as a corpse. While the etheric body remains connected to the physical body during sleep, at the moment of death the etheric body, astral body, and ego leave. After death, the entire earthly life unfolds before the soul of the deceased in all its details in images. This process lasts about three days until the next separation occurs, namely that of the etheric body from the astral body and the ego. For this reason, occultists speak of two corpses. After some time, the etheric body remains behind as a second corpse.

When this second separation has taken place, the ability to remember ceases—but not forever—and a new state begins for the human being. What is this state like? The human being now experiences itself in the world it enters every night in sleep. But this state after death differs greatly from the state of sleep. In theosophical books, it is sometimes described as if it were also a kind of sleep state. But this is not the case. Rather, soon after death, the human being has consciousness in the astral world. Nevertheless, the saying “Sleep is the brother of death” is quite correct. This new state is called life in Kamaloka. As we have seen, during sleep the astral body works on the physical and etheric bodies to replace their energies. This work suppresses human consciousness during sleep and prevents them from perceiving the astral world. After death, they are relieved of this work, they no longer need to eliminate fatigue, and therefore an awareness of the astral world dawns on them. They used to use this power to rebuild the physical body. Now this power is freed and is available as consciousness. The moment the astral body has nothing to repair, it takes in the images of the astral world. This also shows why healthy sleep should be sought. Consider physical life here in this world, how everyone seeks to satisfy their senses. What humans enjoy is enjoyed in the soul, but the organ of enjoyment is physical. If humans enjoy eating, it is the palate that the soul needs for enjoyment. After death, the longing for pleasures lives on, but the organs of enjoyment are now missing. The soul thirsts for delicious food, but the organ for it is missing. The longing can no longer be satisfied. The soul is like a wanderer who, burning with thirst, searches in vain for water and finds no way to quench his thirst. This is not a permanent state; little by little, the longing fades away. Various religions have described this state as a life in purgatory. And ancient painters have sometimes depicted it pictorially through fiery embers. Indeed, the soul suffers from a burning thirst. What happens next is that the person feels their last desires and relives their entire life in reverse, back to their birth, when they had no desires. After that, the person enters Devachan. This is clearly indicated in the Gospels: “You cannot enter the kingdom of God unless you become like little children.”

Bit by bit, the person must free themselves from everything that has connected them to the sensory world. Kamaloka is the state in which the person frees themselves from everything that chains them to the sensory world. It is completely influenced by the sensory life that one has led in the physical world. If a person has been completely absorbed in the senses, their kamaloka life will be long and difficult. Usually, however, life in Kamaloka takes up the third part of the duration of earthly life. In images, as beings that torment us, the past life appears before the soul of the human being in Kamaloka. Here everything is reversed: what was satisfaction appears as deprivation. Hot sensuality brings the feeling of horrible and cold beings. Yet the burning thirst always remains. The more a person is detached from physical life before death, the easier his dying has been, the easier it will be for him to wean himself from the sensual world. This weaning is most difficult for the suicide. For he deceives himself: he does not consider that he forcibly carried out the separation from sensual life and that therefore an unspeakable greed for his physical body seizes him, holding him close to the physical world. A similar, albeit milder, fate befalls those who have suddenly lost their lives in an accident. Such a death also leaves behind a craving for the physical body, but later on, compensation takes place in devachan. Once the soul has renounced earthly desires, it enters the devachan state.

Spiritual science does not teach renunciation of life. The spiritual scientist can use the following comparison: the soul is like a bee that flies out into the fields to seek honey and bring it back. Here on earth, the soul collects the honey of life, which it brings to the altar of the deity after death. Without life in the sensual realm, the soul would never be able to do this. When a person has incarnated and begins to see, they initially perceive things simply with their eyes. Gradually, this gives rise to spiritual enjoyment. Physical pleasure is transformed into spiritual enjoyment. The savage, who has only undergone a few incarnations, rejoices only in the colorfulness of colors and the simplest sensory impressions. With each incarnation, the senses become more refined. If humans had never experienced sensual enjoyment of colors, they would never be able to rise to spiritual enjoyment. That is why sensual enjoyment is a necessary detour. We should rejoice in the beauty of the sensual world. Similarly, sensual love gradually leads to the highest, purest, spiritual love. All experience should transform the soul and then carry it up to the altar of spirituality. For nothing, absolutely nothing, is lost. Sensuality is the school without which humans would never attain spirituality. The earth is not a vale of tears; it is a gathering place, and humans are messengers sent out — God's angels, says the Bible — to gather honey.

Human beings are undergoing transformation. Think of your childhood years! How many ideas and concepts came to you, how much did you absorb! And how your ideas and concepts changed between the ages of ten and twenty! Temperament undergoes a much weaker transformation. A violent child will remain violent even in old age. Temperament is physically imprinted on the human being. The choleric, the sanguine, the melancholic, and the phlegmatic are different in their facial expressions, posture, and gait. However, the main thing is not to acquire concepts, but above all, the human being must strive to be able to change something in his temperament. Such training was taught in the secret schools. The entire direction of one's life was changed in the secret schools. What mattered was a change of will.

The spiritual relationships and bonds that people form here extend to the Devachan after death. Suppose two people form a close friendship, which takes on an increasingly spiritual character. But physical life remains a certain obstacle. In Devachan, this friendship then finds its full, pure expression.

Everything that a person has absorbed from their earthly life is incorporated internally, ensouled, spiritualized. In this way, a person creates for their next incarnation, right down to their body, the expression of what they have worked for. In the East, there is a saying: What you think today, you will be tomorrow. — Thus, we work in each incarnation for the next. Next time, I will show what human beings experience in Devachan. This Devachan life is not a dream state; human beings do not sleep through the spiritual world. Their consciousness is much higher and more alive than here. Everything appears in a brighter light. His friends have not disappeared from him there; it is only a different kind of spiritual unity, one that is much more intimate. Devachan is a much more real state than that of earthly life.