Review of Death and After

By Annie Besant

I seem to be a professional reader of books these days, starting to dream of owning a book store; in about 100 years I feel like an actual book held in hand will be somewhat rare and be considered an antique, therefore a collectible item.

This book, or model of reality, more aptly put, I want to discuss is on my Kindle reader for example. Owning a reader is becoming all the rage at this time in history. These tiny, slim computers that hold book data can be carried anywhere most conveniently. I have 48 books on it and it will hold much more. It takes up much less space if space is a concern where owning a library would present a problem with where to put them all.

The current book I'm into is "Death And After? by Annie Besant. It was a free book to download if you own a Kindle.

Some thoughts from the 192 pages follow: "As to the terrestrial life, owing to it's changeability and shortness, it is nothing but an illusion of our senses." Here, Annie is backing up *J in *ACIM, whereby ACIM declares everything here to be an illusion. So many students of ACIM have the utmost difficulty dealing with that thought. I have no difficulty with it, if you look at the changes, and the temporary nature of our *ELS life time (s) you can get a glimmer of the unreality of solid materialism, as well as space/time as an illusion that we work within, while our true home is the eternal nature of our higher manos, not the human form we take here with it's various personalities.

Next thought: "The man can only assimilate in Devachan (*focus 27 to some of us) that which he has been gathering in terms of experience" in *ELS. Note: we make our own afterlife this way. Continuing..."he must work out the effects of his earth life in his Devachanic life. He cannot eat and assimilate more food than he has gathered, he cannot reap more harvest than seeds he has sown."
My note: Earth life is the field of sowing as an experience gatherer. No new reflection there but in general confirmation I'm thinking along the same lines as Annie.
Kamaloka is referred to as the lower astral, where all manner of astral shells (disintegrating desire bodies of mankind) and elementals abound. (Elementals are like nature spirits, like the fairy kingdom or the living thought forms of a man projected on an illusory screen back drop; that is the best I can do with a description of an elemental, as well to point to it's temporary life span in the ethers and planes and that it is not like a soul that is immortal within the highest planes of being. As well we may view a cell of our body to be living, imbued with life essence and a certain programed intelligence, and so we may see an elemental, as like a cell of the body, which expired and is replaced by another new cell.

Kamaloka, the nearest substrata to the earth, also called the astral planes is not *Focus 27, it's more like a bus station where you go to catch a bus to Focus 27. Some miss their bus, so they remain there until retrieved or they get stuck there for a time. As I see it, Kamaloka is a real place mirroring the ELS physicality, as well all manner of crazy things are encountered, things not applying to logic, just as on ELS, only more startling in form and detail; for instance in Kamaloka, it would not be irregular to view a half man, half beast walking by, yet this is not a being with immortality nor soul substance. It has been given life by it's creator, a man, by his thoughts while he was a living man. Therefore I see Kamaloka as having been created by the entire collective mind of mankind, in a place where thoughts indeed, become things.

In this part of the book we are look at two fields of causal manifestation (IE: creation- to refer to cause and effect in a way)
1) Objective
2) Subjective

So we may understand that Kamaloka, those that are stuck there, as in needing retrieval perhaps, would be residing in an area where it is subjective environment. Where for instance, they may feel to be a subject of the area, the same as a peasant might feel to be a subject of the King. Like things are acting upon them, instead of acting upon things as a co-creator of God, they feel things are acting upon their selves.

Therefore on Focus 27, the level is a higher one as there becomes an objective type of behavior, within positive means of course, such as on ELS, it is basically an opportunity land to embrace objectivity and escape the Kamaloka mentality where everything is subjective and sometimes stagnant in a man's perception.

Also I may mention certain layers of Kamaloka would include some of the belief system territories of TMI, for a belief system can indeed create many illusions of reality to include, the good, the bad, and the ugly! And although they are unreal for the more highly evolved among us, to the wayfarer there, in a temporary type of reality, it is considered real until it is seen through as a mere fabrication, for a purpose.

*Focus 27: a state of consciousness where one focuses within certain thought patterns of a positive, nonjudgmental reflection. Focus 27 is just beyond the boundary of the belief system territories, where the being is governed and influenced by a program in the mind, such as a set of rules that one believes and is not ready to discard or replace. Focus 27 can also be regarded as a way station where the analogy applies in Kamaloka as well, you can catch a bus to a higher level of being/evolvement, depending on what has been garnered within the earth life.

* J: stands for Jesus
* ELS: earth life system
*ACIM A Course In Miracles