Ghosts, Vital Formations and the After Death Experience

0:00 The Titiria Upanishad describes the process of departure of the soul from an embodiment in the world. Quote the Spirit who is here in a man, and the Spirit who is there in the sun. It is one Spirit, and there is no other. He who knoweth this, when he hath gone away from this world, passeth to this Self which is of food. He passeth to this Self which is of prana. He passeth to this Self which is of mind. He passeth to this Self which is of knowledge. He passeth to this Self which is of bliss. End Quote.

0:42 Translated by Sri Robindo, The Upanishads, Tituria Upanishad Brahmanandavali, Chapter 8, page 273. The Tibetan Book of the Dead takes the reader through a corresponding process whereby the embodied being departs, the physical body moves into the vital world, eventually either becoming liberated or prepared to take a new birth based on the affinities that have attached to the being, the trend and momentum of the life force that has taken that birth and now departed. There are corresponding worlds that are native to the various elements that make up the being in the Earth life. Those worlds include subtle physical realms, vital worlds, and mental worlds.

1:32 The corresponding parts of the being can go to the realms to which they are related. Similarly, A formation that has taken a definitive shape may continue to abide within the Earth atmosphere, at least for a time. This has led to the experience of various types of vital presences, including the experience of ghosts. William Shakespeare was deeply familiar with the phenomena of ghosts. In his play Julius Caesar, he has the ghost of Caesar visit Brutus. Ahead of the decisive battle which led to the defeat of Brutus and his death in Richard the Third, King Richard is visited by the ghosts of a number of individuals he had arranged to be murdered so he could ascend to the throne.

2:22 In Macbeth, the ghost of Banquo appears to pressure Macbeth for his heinous deeds in the pursuit of power. In Hamlet, the story is brought forward by the appearance of the ghost of the dead King, Hamlet's father, to reveal the actions that led to his death by murder carried out by his own brother who desired the throne and the wife of the dead king to become his queen. Hamlet explains the appearance of the ghost to his friend. Quote There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. End Quote While the idea of ghosts is dismissed by many in the scientific community, it is quite clear that something exists that has provoked so much attention across the entire world and throughout human history. The appearance of ghosts represents A vital or a subtle physical manifestation of a formation that persists for some time after the death of the body, particularly in a well formed vital personality.

3:35 Shakespeare's ghosts all had a strong vital attachment and unfinished business that kept the formation together. A ghost is not the spirit or soul, despite the confusion that is attached to the word ghost by associating it with the word spirit. Once again we are tripped up by imprecise terminology to conflate 2 vastly different things under 1 concept. Srior Bindu observes quote. The ghost is of course not the soul. It is either the man appearing in his vital body or it is a fragment of his vital that is seized on by some vital force or being. The vital part of us normally exists after the dissolution of the body for some time and passes away into the vital plane, where it remains till the vital sheath dissolves. Afterwards it passes, if it is mentally evolved in the mental sheath, to some mental world, and finally the psychic leaves its mental sheath also and goes to its place of rest. If the mental is strongly developed, then the mental part of us can remain.

4:55 So also can the vital, provided they are organized by and centered round the true psychic being, for they then share the immortality of the psychic. Otherwise the psychic draws mind and life into itself and enters into an internatal quiescence. End Quote. Reference Srioro Bindo and the Mother. The psychic being soul, its nature, mission and evolution. Section 1. Meaning and Nature of the Psychic Being, page 11.