The Astral Body Rajen Vakil

The Astral Body

Rajen Vakil

This will be the last article in our series on Death. We had mentioned last time that after 55 days, nothing else needs to be done. In the mother’s womb, the male and the female cell have met to make one master cell. This master cell moves in geometric progression and in nine months, a human form is ready to be born. What science cannot see is that together with the formation of the physical body, an astral body is also being formed. Time moves very fast in the mother’s womb and the amount of activity that happens in nine months is more than what we do in a lifetime of 70 years. Yoga says that with the first multiplication of the master cell into two cells on the physical level, two chakras called muladhara and swadhishthana are formed in the astral. Just as the physical body takes nine months to grow, the astral is totally ready at the seventh month. In the seventh month, the old astral body passes on all its memory to the newly formed one and then disintegrates completely. That is why in the seventh month, we do the garbha srimantha (godh bharai) ceremony. Further, it is at this time that the racial characteristics of the new mother and father are given to the soul and are thus impregnated on the new astral. These racial characteristics are what science calls DNA. As we have seen earlier, the spirit or the atma is still waiting in the svaha or electronic universe. It only enters the child after it comes out of the mother’s womb at the time of the first cry. It lights the spark of life at muladhara and swadhishthana and it is because of this that there is a loud cry. The child is now a new living human being. If for some reason the old astral decides not to disintegrate, the newly formed one will have to destroy itself in its place. In such a scenario, the child will be still-born or will die immediately on being born. In these articles, many ideas have been presented which are thought provoking. My only effort is to give an outline where we can practise to experience that very powerful finale we call death. To read all the articles in the series on death and dying by Rajen Vakil, visit www.3srb.org