The Mystery of Death: Between Death and Rebirth

-“This is what it comes down to: that we learn to experience that those who have passed through the gate of death have only assumed another form. Having died, they stand before our feelings like those who, through life circumstances, have traveled to distant lands, whither we can follow them only later. We have therefore nothing to bear but a time of separation.”– Rudolf Steiner, June 17, 1915

-“Know the spiritual world! Then, among the many other blessings that humanity will gain will be this: that the living and the dead will be able to form a unity.” – Rudolf Steiner, November 17, 1915

-“It is not all of life to live, nor all of death to die, for one is the beginning of the other.”-Edgar Cayce Reading 2842-2

-"Pray often for those who have passed on. This is part of your consciousness. It is well. For, God is God of the living." -Edgar Cayce Reading 3954-1

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The finality of death is, perhaps, the greatest and most daunting mystery of life. 

In light of Anthroposophy, through the lectures and works of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, sources such as first-hand accounts of near-death experiences, the spiritual readings provided by the "Sleeping Prophet" Edgar Cayce, and other pathways, physical death is a transition to a higher stage of consciousness.  The connection to our loved ones, which can also be viewed as an enduring promise linked by karma, continues after death.  There is a river.  Life and consciousness continues.

But what happens and why?  To explore that mystery, the following summary and quotes are provided by way of Dr. Rudolf Steiner's lectures and works. Additional information is provided by way of near-death experience accounts and other sources. First-hand accounts from those who have had Near-Death Experiences are a marvelous source of information.

In the immediate years after the death of someone with whom we are connected, Dr. Rudolf Steiner observed that there is a process that applies to each human being, which is unique and yet applies to us all, and that we can continue our relationships with those who have died in a present and living way. First hand accounts of near death experiences reveals that the transition to the spiritual worlds are largely consistent in the events that a person has after death, but no two experiences are precisely alike.

While we may not be able to see the effects here, the impact with regards to prayer, love, and positive thoughts that we generate radiates in the spiritual worlds and can be perceived, and received, by our loved ones and those we are connected to. They are real forces, or waves, that can be projected and received. Love, and forgiveness, are examples of powerful forces that appear and are experienced as real forces, imbued with color and feeling, by those who have transitioned to the spiritual world. Those who possess the special ability to perceive these things, which is a latent faculty in all of us, can see and perceive the living quality of feelings, thoughts, and ideas.

Depending on what is projected, whether it be true or false or negative or positive, each thought and feeling has a unique color, or combination of colors, energy, and a form connected with its true nature.  True love, for example, emanates from the heart and the soul and has a living quality that sustains, warms, and balances. Anger, and negative thoughts, can do great harm and serve as blockages. Materialistic thoughts create impediments between ourselves and loved ones who have died.

In today's world there is often a desire to ignore and linger in a materialistic perspective which, if we are not careful, can disrupt spiritual and living streams of force, or energy, that reside within, and flow through, the heart, the soul, and the eternal nature of ourselves which, when combined with a expansion of the consciousness of the mind, can lead gradually to doorways of the spirit.  

We begin by opening ourselves up to it, then pursue a structured and informed path of study.  Meditation and prayer are vital aspects. The facts and processes of human life, and the journey of the human soul from birth to death – and rebirth – is complex, yet the concept is not difficult to grasp.

During our lives in a physical sense, and that which follows into a purely spiritual life after we shed our physical body, we are influenced and permeated by spiritual influences that emanate from beings, or groups of individuals, that are associated with seven "planes", "spheres", or "cities" of spiritual activity which Dr. Steiner associated with planets such as the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, etc. Each one serves a particular function in the life of the individual after death as one prepares for rebirth.  Some near-death experiencers inform us that the universe is inhabited by billions of worlds and souls.

All of us, however, are a part of universal family. Many who have passed through a near-death experience, speak of reconnecting to the universe, and viewing it as a living body of stars and beings, who are an eternal cosmic family. Each human being has a star in the universe. Some are astonished to learn that we are apart of that family in an eternal and living way and that existence has a cosmic aspect.

Each soul that passes through the gate of death is required to progress through a series of transformations, changes, and experiences as one moves away from physical life and into the spiritual worlds. The first step, which is repeated as necessary, is to review our lifetime in reverse, the origins of our karma, the outcomes and the effects of our thoughts, deeds, and intentions. 

Our life is reflected back upon us and is imprinted, or written, onto ourselves (our "Etheric" and "Astral" sheaths in Anthroposophical vernacular) and future karma in subsequent lifetimes which is overseen by divine guides who follow us from one lifetime to the next.
 

Dr. Steiner provided deep insights into these processes and stages at work in this transition.  He also shared a practicum for helping and aiding our loved ones, and those with whom we are connected, by way of images, prayers, meditations, and thoughts. Some of those insights are quoted here form his lectures, but certainly not all.  Many of his works can be read for free at www.rsarchive.com.

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(1) "In Anthroposophical literature I have, as you know, adopted for these Beings the names used in olden times to designate the higher Hierarchies. The first is the Hierarchy immediately above man, linked with him from above as the animal kingdom on Earth is linked with him from below. This is the Hierarchy of the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai. 

Then, above this Hierarchy, comes that of the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, and then the highest Hierarchy of all — the Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim. There are nine ranks, three times three ranks of Beings higher than man. Between each group of three higher ranks (ranging from below upwards) there is a parallelism with the three lower stages (ranking from above downwards) of animal, plant, mineral. 

Only by including all these ranks have we a complete picture of the world to which man belongs." - Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume 5, Lecture IV III https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA239/English/RSP1966/19240331p01.html

(2) "All the heavenly bodies of our solar system are interconnected, and as such they are the exterior expression of spiritual beings. The individual who knows these spiritual beings also knows the forces that are at work from one planet to another as well as in the spiritual world during the time between death and rebirth." -Rudolf Steiner, The Principle of Spiritual Economy, Lecture 3, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA109/English/AP1986/19090307p01.html

(3) "The dead look down on to the physical world just as the living (that is, the physically living) look upward into the spiritual world. But their feelings are reversed, so to speak. In the physical world between birth and death, man has a way of gazing upward, as to another world which grants him fulfillment for very many things which are either deficient or altogether lacking in contentment in this world. It is quite different between death and a new birth. 

There, there is an untold abundance, a fullness of events. There is always far too much happening compared with what man can bear; therefore he feels a constant longing to return again into the earthly life, which is a “life in the beyond” for him there. In the second half of the life between death and a new birth, he awaits with great longing the passage through birth into a new earth-existence. 

In earthly existence man is afraid of death because he lives in uncertainty about it, for in the life on earth a great uncertainty prevails for the ordinary consciousness about the after-death. In the life between death and a new birth, on the other hand, man is excessively certain about the earthly life. It is a certainty that stuns him, that makes him actually weak and faint — so that he passes through conditions, like a fainting dream, conditions which imbue him with the longing to come down again to earth." - Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume 1, Lecture 3, GA235, 23 February 1924, Dornach, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA235/English/RSP1972/19240223p01.html

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Dr. Steiner observed that there are two distinct phases, or periods, that an individual soul progresses through after death which, however, are distinct from one another; the sphere of "Kamaloca", or “soul" world, consisting of both lower and higher planes, and "Devachan", or "heaven", which also consists of lower and higher aspects.  Human existence comprises of three aspects:

"The three worlds are: 

1. The physical world, the scene of human life. 

2. The astral world or the world of soul. 

3. The devachanic world or world of spirit.
 

These three worlds are not spatially separate. We are surrounded by the things of the physical world which we perceive with our ordinary senses: but the astral world is in this same space; we live in the other two worlds, the astral and devachanic worlds, at the same time as we live in the physical world. 

The three worlds are wherever we ourselves are, only we do not yet see the two higher worlds — just as a blind man does not see the physical world. But when the “senses of the soul” are opened, the new world, with its new characteristics and new beings, emerges. In proportion as a man acquires new senses, so are new phenomena revealed to him."  -Rudolf Steiner, At the Gates of Spiritual Science, Lecture 2, The Three Worlds, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA095/English/RSPAP1986/19060823p01.html 

(4) "How long does a man remain in Kamaloka? For about one-third of the length of his past life. If for instance he has lived for seventy-five years, his time in Kamaloka will be twenty-five years." -Rudolf Steiner, At the Gates of Spiritual Science, Lecture 3, Kamaloca, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA095/English/RSPAP1986/19060824p01.html
 

(5) "...man has to wean himself gradually from these physical wishes and desires, so that the soul may free itself from the Earth, may purify and cleanse itself. When that is achieved, the Kamaloka period comes to an end and man ascends to Devachan."-Rudolf Steiner, At the Gates of Spiritual Science, Lecture 3, Kamaloca, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA095/English/RSPAP1986/19060824p01.html

(6) "How does the soul pass through its life in Kamaloka? In Kamaloka a man lives through his whole life again, but backwards. He goes through it, day by day, with all its experience's, events and actions, back from the moment of death to that of birth." -Rudolf Steiner, At the Gates of Spiritual Science, Lecture 3, Kamaloca, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA095/English/RSPAP1986/19060824p01.html 

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Dr. Steiner observed, and those who publicly provide accounts of near-death experiences in an honest way observe corroborating accounts, that during this initial period of life after death the soul relives its entire life down the minutest detail in reverse back to its birth and beyond which includes the prior in-between life period before being born. 

It is a very personal experience where whatever harm, or good, we brought forth during physical life is thrust back upon us; we live within it and experience what the other person, whom we harmed or helped, experienced. Dr. Steiner observed that if we humiliated a human being, we will experience the same humiliation twice; the first during our spiritual transitional period and the second during a subsequent lifetime. 

On the spiritual sphere of the Moon, which is the first and last sphere that we pass through during our time in the spiritual worlds after death and before rebirth, the spiritual guardians of karma inscribe our deeds onto our future karma, or pattern, which characterizes the environment, form, goals plan for our next lifetime, which was imprinted or “written” onto the record of our karma. This record is referred to esoteric terms as the “Akashic Records” or "Akasha Essence"; “Akasha” being an Eastern term. These “records” bear the entire history of the universe imprinted on the finest substance, or ether, of existence. 

Our entire soul history is imprinted onto that substance for all time thus creating a unique tapestry, or web, of karmic relationships and fulfillments. Each human being, at least from what I have observed in near-death experience accounts and esoteric works, has a “book” that contains our entire soul history; every form, thought, feeling, deed, and identity is inscribed in that book.
 

The average time that an individual spends in the spiritual worlds varies but Dr. Steiner indicated that a standard cadence is associated with the rotation of the planet Saturn around the Sun in physical terms. This requires approximately 30 years. But, since each person's karma is unique, this time period varies from person to person thus some may reincarnate rather quickly and some may hold over beyond 30 years. Some may far exceed this cadence.

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(7) "One year of the spiritual world corresponds to 30 years of the physical. Man has a way of hastening here in the physical world whereas in the spiritual world, so to speak, he always has to revolve in far larger circles. So, as one spiritual year is equal to 30 earthly years, in one year of the spiritual he experiences approximately the same piece of the world as in 30 years of the physical. He thereby experiences it more intensively, more inwardly." -Rudolf Steiner, GA168, The Influence of the Dead on the Life of Man on Earth,  https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA168/English/Singles/19161203p01.html 

(8) "The unfolding of man's life between death and a new birth takes place in successive stages. For a few days after passing through the gate of Death the whole of the past earthly life is seen in living pictures. This experience reveals at the same time the gradual severance of the vehicle of the past life from the human soul-and-spirit.
 

In a time that comprises about a third of the past earthly life, the soul discovers in spiritual experiences the effect which this life must have in accordance with an ethically just World-order. During this experience the purpose is begotten in the soul to shape the next earthly life in a corresponding way, and thus to compensate for the past.

There follows a purely spiritual epoch of existence. During this epoch, which is of long duration, the soul of man — along with other human souls karmically connected with him, and with the Beings of the Hierarchies above — fashions the next life on Earth in the sense of Karma." -Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, GA 26, On the Picture Nature of Man, Supplementary to the last set of Leading Thoughts. https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA026/English/RSP1973/GA026_a02.html

(9) "And so another world appears to him (after Kamaloca); after the world of colors (Astral world) comes the world of musical sounds which in a certain sense was there already without the significance it now has. The world of Devachan is a world of sounds the sounds which Pythagoras called the music of the spheres. The heavenly bodies as they pursue their courses can be heard resounding. Here we recognize the harmony of the Cosmos and we find that everything lives in music. Goethe as an Initiate, speaks of the Sun resounding; he indicates the secret of Devachan."-Rudolf Steiner, At the Gates of Spiritual Science, Lecture 2, The Three Worlds, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA095/English/RSPAP1986/19060824p01.html 

(10) "…when a man dies his astral body and his Ego leave the physical and etheric bodies. Then he has before him, for a certain time, the great memory-tableau of his last life in the form of a vast picture. The main part of his etheric body is then cast off as a second corpse and something like an extract or essence of this etheric body remains; he bears this extract with him through the periods of Kamaloka and Devachan and brings it back again into his next incarnation. 

While he is in Kamaloka there is inscribed into this life-extract everything he has experienced through his deeds, everything that has been incurred in the way of human Karma and for which he has to make compensation. All this unites with the extract of the etheric body which passes on from one incarnation to another and man brings it with him when he again comes into existence through birth. The term in Oriental literature for what we call ‘etheric body’ is ‘Linga Sharira’. Thus it is an extract of Linga Sharira that man takes with him from incarnation to incarnation."  -Rudolf Steiner, The Gospel of St. Luke, Lecture 3, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA114/English/RSP1964/19090917p01.html

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Dr. Steiner described four regions of "Devachan" each with its own peculiar aspect that the soul passes through and experience. From the way he describes this sphere of soul experience, it is clear that it is not easily translatable into human language because there are no comparables, or good reference points, in the physical world to use. Dr. Steiner expressed in several lectures that this is a necessary problem, but one which must dealt with in order to approach the spiritual worlds from the limitations of human perception.

Dreams and visions of a blissful retirement, idleness, and carrying on as we did in the physical world after death are seldom seen by those who have direct experience. However, based on near-death experience testimonies, it appears that there are people who group together based on their commonalities sometimes behaving as if they have not died. 

There are, based on a variety of sources, healing centers, educational centers, and constructs that service divine purposes. Dr. George Ritchie, author of “Return from Tomorrow”, provided insights into his experiences when he died and was brought back to life in 1943 where he encountered souls engaging in a common spiritual purpose, divine cities, and a great spiritual library or Hall of Records. 

Based on near-death accounts, and a variety of spiritual works written in the early 20th century, there are periods of rest and healing after death but preparations are quickly undertaken for a rebirth and expansion. The spiritual worlds are spheres, or planes, of growth, education, activity, planning, and transformation. We give back what we are to the universe, and what we were during our lives, however minute, and the universe gives back to us. Contrary to purely materialistic observations, the universe is populated by divine and intelligent beings who do not incarnate in the physical world and ray out, or project, those activities into others and the world.

Dr. Steiner observed that it is essential that each person seek to learn as much as possible about the spiritual aspects of life, which are interwoven with the physical world, so that we can build upon what have learned. Although it makes sense that one would simply “wait and see”, the reality is that the disposition of "waiting and seeing" works, in fact, to our detriment. 

As we move forward through this transition, we lose our ability to “talk” and communicate through thoughts, feelings, images, and color. In the modern world, materialism and the interference that human beings carry within us, which is harmful, which is a product of non-spiritual thoughts and antagonistic feelings of a lowly nature, makes it very difficult for our loved ones to find us after death.

Dr. Steiner revealed that by following a regular practice of "reading to the dead", or “spirit reading”, that a bridge can be formed between the reader and those with whom he or she is connected. However, it should be noted that whatever is read must be true and valid as observed in the spiritual worlds where what is inside the human being here, in turn, is outside in space and observable by those in the spiritual worlds. Anthroposophical lectures and books, for example, are very helpful to those who live in the spiritual worlds. Fictional novels, etc. are worthless. 

A lie for example, or a fiction, is described by Dr. Steiner as the equivalent, in terms of spiritual effect, of a murder in the spiritual worlds. Anything that is false simply dissipates in the spiritual worlds or causes harm. Prayers and love radiate as color, feeling, and warmth that is spiritual in nature yet is perceived as more real than the objects of the physical world. The proper method of reading to the dead, according to Dr. Steiner, is an altruistic and spiritual undertaking done as a service to humanity that does not carry with it any benefits of karma. It is purely a service to humanity.
 

Trivial concerns, such as calculator settings or our latest trip to the grocery store, will be of little, if any, concern for those who have died. The "dead" are interested primarily in living, spiritual ideas and truths that sustain and help them which, in turn, can be passed onto others and help them in their journeys. Sharing notions, as prayers, of love, forgiveness, compassion, hope and reconciliation always help.

The method of responsibly reading to those who have died is fairly simple and involves envisioning one's deceased loved one and reading to through thoughts; not words. This method is described in Dr. Steiner's lecture series "Life Between Death and Rebirth" (see link below). 

In one near-death experience that I learned of (the author and website admin speaking here), a person died and spoke of observing fireworks emerging from the world, as it turned and looked behind itself as it moved away from the earth and into the universe, and passed by her and incredible speeds moving onto different locations in space beyond her field of vision. These “fireworks” each passed by her on their way to different places. This individual realized only afterwards that these fireworks were, in fact, prayers going out to specific individuals who resided in the spiritual worlds from those who still lived on earth.

We should keep in mind, that one cannot find a way to Anthroposophy or genuine spiritual knowledge necessarily after death in the same way that they can while we are alive in physical sense. Evidently, progress is achieved much more slowly in the spiritual worlds. There are barriers and limitations to how much, and how deep, a person's experience is in the spiritual worlds based on how they lived their prior lifetimes. 

Dispositions, attitudes, and capacities are formed, and reformed, during our physical lives and carried with us after death. Thus, if one did not ever have a chance to encounter Anthroposophical topics, or initiation wisdom, then reading to those who have died regarding spiritual facts that they did not learn on earth will help them tremendously even though the reader may not be able to perceive the positive impact being achieved for some time.

Dr. Steiner provided certain meditations to his students that were specifically constructed to aid those who have died knowing the effects, and outcomes, that are experienced by the human soul after death. For example, the dead can often experience a spiritual "thirst" and "hunger" that pervades the soul. Thus, Dr. Steiner provided prayers that we can say that aid in balancing, and aiding, one's "thirst", "cold", or "warmth" that are the products of our life experiences.

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(11) "In cases of violent death and of suicide, the impressions of emptiness, thirst and burning are much more terrible. An astral body that is not prepared for existence outside the physical body, separates with great travail…” -Steiner, Rudolf. An Esoteric Cosmology, The Astral World, Lecture 9. https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA094/English/SGP1978/index.html

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(12) "How can we be of help to one of the Dead? We must be united with him by a spiritual bond. We can help, for example, by quietly reading to him; uniting ourselves with him inwardly and lovingly, we can take him with us through a sequence of thoughts, we can send ideas and imaginations up to him in the higher worlds. Such services of friendship are always helpful. Reading in this way is of benefit, although in earthly life the man may have been too indifferent, too easy-going; we can lighten his sufferings even when there was no evidence in his life that he longed for these things. 

Much blessing is often sent from the physical plane into the spiritual worlds, in spite of the great gulf which separates the life between birth and death from the life between death and a new birth. Many living people will feel that they are intimately connected with the Dead; they will also be conscious that they help the Dead. The first souls with whom we come into contact after death are those with whom we had already formed close ties on the Earth, not those who were unknown to us on Earth. A direct continuation of the earthly life takes place after death. The soul is inside whatever it perceives, fills it through and through. 

During the period of Kamaloca, the ether-form of man expands as far as the orbit of the Moon. All human beings occupy the same space; they are not “in each other's way” during the Kamaloca-period. After this period of Moon-existence we inhabit the Mercury sphere; then the Venus-sphere, then the Sun-sphere; here we live within a sphere of higher spirituality, for the astral elements of the Moon-sphere have been overcome. Life in each of the planetary spheres depends upon the mood and quality of soul acquired during the Moon-period; the life of those who have unfolded the quality of moral fellow-feeling differs from the life of those who are egoists. 

The former open themselves to humanity. Above all we shall be able to form a connection with those with whom we were together in earthly life. The nature of these relationships will depend upon whether we have been a comfort or a source of trouble to the others. A man of inferior morality will become a spiritual hermit; a truly moral man, on the contrary, a sociable inhabitant of the Mercury-sphere."  -Rudolf Steiner, The Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz, GA Unknown, VI. The Starry Heaven Above Me — The Moral Law Within Me, 19 December 1912, Munichhttps://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA130/English/RSP1950/19121219p01.html

(13) "...the dead draw nourishment from the content of our souls in sleep, then every thought that enters the spiritual world and is concerned with it and its beings can be perceived by the dead. On the other hand, if we do not cultivate such thoughts, the dead are deprived of them. Ideas related only to the material world, to things in nature, live in our souls in such a way that the dead cannot perceive them. These ideas, however scholarly or wise, are meaningless for the dead. As soon as we have thoughts about the spiritual world, not only the living but also the dead have immediate access to them. 

That is why we have often recommended that our friends read silently to an individual with whom they were closely connected and who has passed on to the spiritual world. One forms an image of the person and then, while thinking about him or her, one reads on a subject related to the spiritual world. The dead can then participate in the process, which is important. 

Although the dead are in the world we know through spiritual science, thoughts about the spiritual world must be produced on earth. The dead must perceive more than the spiritual world around them; they need the thoughts of those who live on earth, thoughts that for them are like perceptions.

The most important and the most beautiful thing we can give the dead is to read to them in the way I have just described. We can give something to the dead by reading on a spiritual subject. And if you doubt that this is useful, since the deceased is in the spiritual world anyway, just think that we can be surrounded by things and beings in the physical world, yet may not understand them. The understanding has to be acquired. 

Thus, although the deceased is in the spiritual world, thoughts from earth have to flow to him. Illuminating thoughts must flow up to those regions where the dead dwell, just as rain streams down from the clouds as a blessing to the physical world." - Rudolf Steiner, The Presence of the Dead, GA 154, 3. Awakening Spiritual Thoughts, 5 May 1914, Basel https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA154/English/AP1990/19140505p01.html

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Whatever our stage of attainment, education, or perception of our intelligence or erudition in life, whether high or low, we all benefit greatly when we begin preparing for the journey into the spiritual worlds now in an informed way so that we can expand and reach our maximum potential during the next stage of our journey. In light of Anthroposohy (in the above quote), one's attitude, disposition, and nature of relationships significantly influences his or her experiences in the life after death.

Being educated, or intellectual, does not ensure that one has prepared one’s self for the spiritual worlds. We can only accomplish this lofty task, which is accomplished by effort and patience, by learning about the true facts of the spiritual worlds which are not based on hypothesis, speculation, or ambiguity but rather genuine and objective supersensible observation. Much of what we need to know, and can attain, was given over to us, for free, through several spiritual initiates who have come before us in the modern age including Dr. Rudolf Steiner.

 
For those who enter into the spiritual worlds unprepared and in darkness, having led difficult lives of little consciousness or low morality, the spiritual worlds can be a difficult transition but the Light of the Christ, through Christ-Jesus as the Redeemer and Representative of Humanity, shines upon us all. It is hope, design, order, love, commitment, fidelity, and selfless heroism that leads humanity forward. These are Christ qualities, of a divine spiritual caliber that permeate and reside in the human soul. They shine ever brighter in he, or she, who purges their lower aspects and seeks the Light.

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"May my love

Be sacrificially woven

Into all of the protective sheaths

That surround you-

Cooling all warmth,

Warming all coldness-

Life carried by love

Light-gifted, upward!"   -Rudolf Steiner, P195, Mantric Sayings and Meditations

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No one is forgotten or passed over. Each of us is a vital part of a universal family of individuals. However, if one is prepared and informed as to the genuine nature and facts of the spiritual worlds, we can reach the highest possible consciousness of the cosmos, in both scientific and spiritual terms, and thus maximize our transformation and potential. The bridge is not just in our thoughts, but in our heart. The universe was created out of love AND wisdom...

 
Aiding those who have died, our fellows, all livings beings, and learning about the nuances of the spiritual worlds, and how the world of the spirit permeates physical life, which can be achieved by anyone, allows each one of us to mature, expand, and help each other on the long journey of physical and spiritual life which has a beginning, an apogee, a decline, and a necessary ending…

 
The transition home is one filled with marvelous reunions, epiphanies, and joyful homecomings. Then, there are painful separations, transformations, and changes which, at times and due our limited awareness, we may struggle with. It is the human experience and when one comes into contact with it, in a genuine way, the heart yearns, pangs, sings, and resonates with a certain inner and living continuity that cannot be described in human terms. It is a living stream that permeates the depths of the soul. Human life, indeed all life, is a journey of awareness, the heart, choices, thoughts, feelings, mistakes, accomplishments, and, of course, future fulfillments yet to come shaped by personal and world destiny...

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(14) “The spiritual, like the terrestrial life, has its beginning, its apogee, and its decline. When this life is exhausted (the life between death and rebirth), the soul feels itself overcome… An invincible force once again attracts it to the struggles of earth. This desire is mingled with a terrible dread and mighty grief at leaving divine life. But the time has come; the law must be obeyed. The heaviness increases, the sensation of dimness is felt. The soul no longer sees its companions of light… Then with solemn oaths, it promises to remember – to remember the light in the world of darkness, and to remember the truth in the world of falsehood…” Schure, Edouard, Pythagoras and the Delphic Mysteries. Third Degree – Perfection. The parenthesis are mine. This is an abridged quote.

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The following selected verses are from Rudolf Steiner's works including Mantric Sayings and Meditations. They were written for those who had died during his lifetime and some were delivered at funeral ceremonies.  Some meditations and mantras were written individually as letters to loved ones so that they could carry on their relationships with those who had died.

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A prayer for those who have passed through the gate of death:

"Spirits of your souls, guardian guides, 

On your wings let there be borne 

The prayer of love from our souls 

To those whom you guard in the spheres. 

Thus, united with your might, 

A ray of help our prayer shall be 

For the souls it seeks out there in love." 

-Rudolf Steiner,  The Destiny of Individuals and of Nations, GA 157, 3. The Nature of European Folk Souls, 28 November 1914, Berlin, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA157/English/RSP1987/19141128p01.html

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"May my soul's love stride toward you

May my love's understanding stream toward you.

May they carry you

May they hold you

In the heights of hope,

In the spheres of love." -P213

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"I was united with you-

Remain united with me.

We will speak together

In the speech of eternal being.

We will be active

There, where deeds produce effects,

We will weave in the spirit,

There, where human thoughts are woven

In the WORD of eternal thoughts." -P223

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"No barrier can separate

What united in the spirit

Preserves

The (our) light-shining

Love-streaming

Eternal soul-bond.

Thus, I am in your memory

Thus, are you in mine." P223

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Part 1: Mornings

Imagine the Sun. The sun sounding tones in the heart:

"Christ is with you

He fills your heart.

Christ is in you

He fills your soul.

Christ is around you

He fills your spirit.

Feel him."

Wait Quietly

Part 2: Evenings

Imagine the world of the stars against a blue sky.

"My I will be

In spirit-filled space

It will have left

Its physical body

It will weave

In the spirit of God

Filled with Strength"-P206

*Think of him or her throughout the given meditation (picturing them as vividly as possible).

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"Whatever happens to you

In the course of time and worlds

My loving heart

With all of its forces

Will be with you

   Bearing

   Helping." -P216

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"With you my soul seeks you,

Presciently divining,

Is with you

And lives in your task

With you

So we are united

Karmically for all time." -P196

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"May there be sent to you

My love just as it was

When you were hear with me.

May it ease your heat

May it ease your cold

So that you can find your way

From the soul into the spirit realm" - P197

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"That the eyes of your soul may see

The deeper force in my thoughts

Thus is my will.

May my will meet your will

In the strength of the Father

In the Mercy of the Christ

In the light of the spirit" -P209

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"May my love be with you in the spirit realm.

May your soul be found

By my seeking soul.

May your cold be lessened

And your heat be soothed

By my thinking of your being.

May we thus be bound together

I with you

And you with me." -P215

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