Chapter III: Sleep And Death

Such is the world in which the *I of man is steeped after death, with the yield he brings with him from his life in the outer world of sense. This yield, this harvest, is still united with the part of the astral body which was not cast off when the time of purification was over. For, as we saw, only part of the astral body then falls away—namely the part which with its wishes and cravings clung to the physical life even after death. The merging of the Ego into the spiritual world with all that it has gained from the sense-world may be likened to the embedding of a seed into the ripening earth. The seed draws to it the substances and forces of the surrounding soil, so that it may unfold into a new plant. In like manner, development and growth are of the essence of the I* of man when planted in the spiritual world.