The Human Being's Journey Through the World of the Senses, Soul and Spirit

So what does a person have in the further course of their after-death life? The person retains what we call the carrier of their ego, what we call their ego itself; but this ego is initially enveloped by what we have characterized as the third link of the human being after the physical and etheric or life body, this ego is enveloped by the astral body. We could say that the human being's astral body is the carrier of pleasure and suffering, of joy and pain, of urges, desires and passions. All that twitches through our soul during the day as lust and suffering, as urges, desires and passions, the astral body is the carrier of it, and every night I and the astral body leave the physical and the etheric or life body of the human being, which remain in bed during sleep. Now, after death, we have united the ego and the astral body with that life essence, of which we could just say that it has been extracted as a fruit or germ from the etheric or life body. With these members of his being, the human being now continues his journey through the so-called soul world. If we want to understand what the spiritual view of the human being can reveal to us about this world, then we must first realize that it is the astral body that is the carrier of everything that is enjoyment, desire, interest in the things around us. Yes, the astral body is the carrier of all pleasures, desires, all pains and sufferings, even of the basest desires, the desires that are linked, for example, to our nutrition. The physical body is a structure of physical and chemical forces and laws. It is not the physical body that feels pleasure and enjoyment in relation to food and stimulants, that is the human being's astral body. The physical body only provides the tools so that we can procure such pleasures, which take place in the astral body. Now, anyone who has gained an understanding that the human being's astral body is something real, something actual, not just a function, a result of the interaction of physical and chemical processes, will not be surprised when it is said that at the moment of death, when the physical body is discarded, the astral body does not immediately lose its desire for the pleasures. Indeed it does not. Let us take a blatant case, for my sake, of a person who was a gourmet in life, who enjoyed delicious food. What happened to him at the time of death? He lost the opportunity – because he discarded his physical tools – to obtain the pleasures in his astral body. But the craving for these pleasures remained in his astral body. The result of this is that the person is now in the same situation with regard to these pleasures – albeit for different reasons – as he would be if he were in a place in the physical life where he suffers from burning thirst and there is nothing far and wide that can quench that thirst. After death, the astral body suffers from a burning thirst because the physical organs through which this thirst can be satisfied are not there. The tools have been laid aside, but the craving for these pleasures has remained in the astral body. The consequence of this is that man is now in the same situation with regard to these pleasures, the astral body suffers a burning thirst. In the astral body are still all those instincts, desires and passions that can only be satisfied by the physical tools. Therefore, it is understandable, simply from this logical consideration, what the spiritual researcher must say in this area: After discarding his etheric or life body, the human being goes through a time in which, with regard to his innermost being, he must unlearn all longings and desires that can only be satisfied through the physical tools of the physical body. This is the time of purification, of cleansing, during which all longings for anything in the astral body must be uprooted, longings that can only be obtained by man by putting his physical tools to work.