These three phenomena that occur with the body of all living beings depend on the lesser or greater intensity of the existential consciousness of each of them.
The intensity of consciousness means unity, cohesion, stability, and indissolubility.
Just as a piece of stone coal dissolves easily, because of its low density, after being highly condensed under pressure and temperature, forming a diamond, it becomes almost indissoluble. Similarly, the body of inferior beings has little stability and unity because its vital consciousness is minimal. Unity is a guarantee of stability; lack of unity is a lack of stability.
When the physical, vegetable or non-human body dissolves through death, its vital individuality, its unity of consciousness loses its identity. It returns to the ocean of Universal Life, from which it emerged as a wave at the moment of individualization. It returns, perhaps, though this term is inaccurate because these organisms never really separated from Universal Life; it was distinguished only by the existential form they temporarily assumed, for no individual being is separate from Universal Life. Universal Life, transcendent outside of it, is immanent within its existential forms. An individual is alive precisely and only for being a participant in Universal Life, which permeates, penetrates and vitalizes it.
When the material vehicle of these organisms loses its integrity, Universal Life ceases to use them as a vehicle. Thus, the basic elements of the vehicle – iron, calcium, phosphate, nitrogen, etc., return to earth and air, but the vital unit ceases to exist as such; the wave of individual life falls into the bosom of the ocean of Universal Life. The living individual has ceased to exist, reabsorbed by Universal Life, which always is and will never cease to be. 1
With the advent of man, something unprecedented appeared, reaching the heights of personal consciousness, becoming an ego; his vibratory intensity of consciousness reached the point of creating a high degree of unity and, with it, cohesion and stability.
Universal Life, the Infinite, radiates vitality, which communicates and condenses in the Universe. Life takes on different directions, its degree of minimum intensity and unity being in the mineral zone, more significant in the vegetal and non-human zone, even greater in the intellectual zone of the ego. This ego, the first stage of evolution, represents a high degree of intensity or condensation of consciousness but does not yet reach perfect central unity: the true, essential, and divine Self.
Due to its high degree of conscious intensity, this mental ego creates an astral vehicle, an immaterial body of high energetic vibration, capable of surviving independently of the material body. According to Einstein, the matter is condensed energy, just as energy is decondensed matter. The intensity of consciousness is the more significant the further away from the passivity or condensation of matter; is vibration intensity.
This astral body or energetic of the ego, survives the destruction of the material body because the higher vibration is not affected by the lower vibration. And this surviving astral body serves as a vehicle for the human individual in his post-mortem existence. This fact of man's survival in the astral body has been known since the beginning of humanity.
But this astral body surviving the destruction of the material body is not, in itself, immortal. Depending on its lesser or greater unitary intensity, it can survive centuries and even millennia. Still, in the end, it also dissolves and, if the individual has not created another, indestructible body, it will fall back into the vast ocean of Universal Life, ceasing to exist as a particular individual.
There is enormous confusion in spiritualist literature regarding “survival” and “immortality”, which many consider identical. My friends from the astral world, who sometimes visit me in a tangible body, are the first to deny this identity. They lost their material body through physical death, claiming that one day, they will also lose their astral body through a new death; one of them states that he will die “many times”, thus confirming what I already knew from other sources. Survival in the astral body is no guarantee of immortality.
This survival, after physical death, is not a conquest of the individual but is part of his nature. It is a universal heritage of humanity. Possibly, millennia ago, when the human ego did not yet possess sufficient conscious intensity, this survival was not a universal phenomenon; today, however, the astral body is genetically transmitted from parent to child, proof that its existence dates back long periods of time. Properties newly acquired by the parents are not transferable to the children; transmission supposes the identification of these properties with chromosomes and genes – and this is what happens with the astral body, which is inherited by every human being under the paternal-maternal conception itself.
The same, however, is not the case with the body-light, which is the vehicle of the spiritual Self. Unfortunately, this vehicle is still in a very primitive state in the vast majority of humans and does not affect the elements of reproduction. This body-light has to be acquired and developed by the individual. Whoever forms in itself this vehicle of cosmic light “is reborn by the spirit”, “enters the kingdom of God”, “acquires eternal life”. Just as the mental ego temporarily needs the astral body's vehicle to survive material death, similarly, the spiritual Self needs a suitable vehicle to guarantee its survival in the face of the destruction of all previous vehicles.
The only indestructible vehicle known to science is light in its most intense state, the invisible Cosmic Light. All the elements of chemistry, and their derivatives, are, according to Einstein, reducible to light, for they are formed by light. Light, however, is not reducible to a higher element; it is the last frontier of the physical world. 2
Hence, the creation of a body-light is, consequently, the creation of an indestructible vehicle for the perpetuation of man's spiritual Self, his divine I AM. Once this body-light – the “light of the world” – is created, this individual wave of the human Self no longer dissolves or recedes into the bosom of the ocean of Universal Life because it has acquired the highest degree of unitary autonomy or individuality. Its individuality is its indivisibility. The perfect individual is undivided for he possesses the highest degree of intrinsic unity – “The Father and I are one”, according to the words of Christ Jesus.
Therefore, the immortality of the individual depends on the creation of a suitable body for his individuality. Where this does not exist, there is no perpetuation of individual life; and where there is no intense individual life, there is no individual immortality.
Auguste Comte tried to console his readers with the fragile hope of a “social immortality”; the remarkable man would survive in his works.
Others cling to the lifeline of their children and descendants as perpetuators of their parents' life and experience. And certain philosophers of the East delight in the euthanasia of nirvana (extinction of the cycle of birth and death), wishing for themselves and their disciples, eternal life in Brahman (the Absolute Reality), in a total identification of the individual life with the Universal Life.
However, these forms of immortality are precarious and unsatisfactory, for they do not console any man thirsting for eternal life. Who cares to know that I will survive in my works, my children, or the Absolute Reality? In fact, I am not the one who survives; something survives in my place. But what I want and desire, in the depths of my being, is to survive eternally, in my authentic and unmistakable individuality. If the man is his individual, he is undivided in himself and undivided from his Creator, the great Whole. But this immanent-transcendent indivisibility is precisely the highest degree of conscious unity; this unitary consciousness, this indivisible I AM, is the supreme guarantee to immortality. The Self does not separate itself from the Whole, nor does it identify itself with the Whole – but integrates into it.
The immortality of the human Self, considered from the objective and metaphysical theory of being, is a fact. However, logically and subjectively, it is the most significant problem of human life. The objective fact of immortality does not solve its subjective problem. There is in every man the seed of immortality, that is, the potentiality to immortalize himself – but from this potentiality to be dynamized, there is an immense step. Neither birth, life, nor death solves this problem because they are three conditions that happen to us through the favour or disfavour of external circumstances. Only a new experience, or spiritual experience, solves the problem of the dynamics of immortality. And once this experience is accomplished, births and deaths cease to exist, and only eternal life remains. As long as a man submits to the phenomena of birth and death, he does not yet possess the plenitude of living. Only an indestructible body-light will exempt him from birth and death and guarantee eternal life.
Some refuse to accept the idea of an “eternal death”, of dissolution of human individuality, through their fault; however, humankind's greatest spiritual masters teach that there can be "eternal death" as well as "eternal life" depending both on the free will of man. If all men ultimately acquired eternal life, and if it were only a matter of a greater or lesser amount of time, why go to so much effort to obtain eternal life? Sooner or later, everyone would arrive at the safe harbour of “salvation”.
However, these masters, especially Christ Jesus, establish and maintain the sharp disjunction between “eternal life” and “eternal death”. And this is in perfect harmony with the Cosmic Laws and impartial logic.
Some say that if eternal death is man's identification with Nothingness, then eternal life must also be his identification with the Whole, the total dilution of his individual Self in the Universal Whole, that is, the annihilation of the cycle of reincarnations. However, it's not logical. The positive can accomplish something that the negative does not. Universal Eternal Life is the Essence, the Real – the individual eternal life is Existence, the Realized. Eternal death is neither Essence nor Existence; it is neither the Real nor the Realized – but the purest Nothing, the non-Essence and the non-Existence, the Unreal Absolute.
The individual who does not integrate himself into the Real ceases to be a Realized because it is only an identity, insofar as it is united to the Whole. After being disunited, separated, from the Real, the Realized falls into the abyss of the Unreal, of Nothingness, of total disintegration, that is, of eternal death.
On the other hand, if the individual, through integration into the Universal, ceased to exist individually, with the consciousness of the I, he would practically succumb to eternal death because he would not continue to exist individually. Still, the Absolute Reality would continue to be what it always was. Individual life would cease to exist, but Universal Life would continue. And, in this case, both the separation committed by sin and the identification practised by love would be “eternal death”, for both would destroy the human individual – and then why make this constant differentiation between “eternal life” and “eternal death”? What interests the individual is not the Eternal and Universal Life of the Divinity, of the Absolute Reality, but man's eternal and individual life.
All the spiritual masters of humanity who have realized eternal life in themselves know that it is an eternal living integrated into Infinite Life. Still, it is not the identification of finite life with Infinite Life.
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1)- Jackson Mivart (1827-1900), the celebrated English naturalist, psychologically analyzing man, stated: “Man differs from other animals due to the characteristics of abstraction, intellectual perception, self-consciousness, reflection, rational memory, judgment, synthesis and intellectual conclusion, of reasoning, intellectual intuition, higher emotions and feelings, rational language, true will power.”
In this 21st century, where science and social networks reveal surprising details about the lives of non-humans, one can no longer categorically state this or that certainty. That only human beings have the privilege of possessing unique attributes, both in terms of intelligence and social interaction among their peers and other beings of nature. Prudence above all must be used, for what man knows, about himself and his non-human partners is just a drop of water in the ocean of his ignorance.
Recent scientific studies show that many non-human beings have the ability to deliver particular individual consciousness (ego consciousness), and a reason that is conditioned to their stage of existential evolution, for the soul of the Universe is present in all beings of creation. Therefore, these beings also exhibit mental states, feelings, emotions, intentional actions, intelligence, personality, spirit, free will, love, intuition, compassion, guilt, loss and possession, and territorial dominance.
According to quantum science experts, some can communicate with humans through visual messages of different characters, including complaining about their rights. They are our equals, sharing our same Universe but spread out in different aspects.
To mention an example, the brain functions of a Labrador retriever dog submitted to MRI presented the same functions that part of the human brain has. As mammals, in general, evolve in the same way as humans, only presenting different physical characteristics, it is assumed that they have the same attributes from a behavioural point of view.
Those who empathize and cultivate coexistence with animals, particularly dogs - with which human beings have almost 15 thousand years of relationship - if looking in detail, it turns out that the various species are carriers of nearly human qualities, like prudence, patience, discipline, obedience, sensitivity, intelligence, improvisation, the spirit of service, vigilance and thirst for affection. Instilling the idea that the closer they are to human beings, the more similar they become. Consequently, gradually perfecting their instincts in the pursuit of intelligence in the same way humans aspire to reach a greater stage of evolution someday.
And many other non-humans, among all forms of life, have shown surprising particularities where Universal Intelligence dwells in their existences.
For readers interested in more surprising relationships between humans and non-humans, visit Netflix, the documentary My Octopus Teacher, winner of the 2020 Academy Award for Best Documentary. Another very revealing series is Chris Packham's Animal Einsteins from London's BBC.
2)- It is worth remembering that this study, first published in 1962, and authored by the Brazilian philosopher Huberto Rohden (1893-1981), despite his studies in science at Princeton University, USA, during which he had the opportunity to meetings with Albert Einstein, may reveal some scientific inaccuracies. However, the metaphysical character of his ideas seems to be valid.
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