Course XXXVI - Teaching 5: Astral Divisions

The universe is based on a sevenfold plan.
Material, energetic and mental states respond to seven divisions and sub-divisions.
Men already know five material elements: earth, water, fire, air and ether. Still they need to find other two; so they will be owners of the material world and knowers the Cosmic Element as a whole.
Soon afterwards there are seven energetic elements constituting not a familiar energy but certain super-energy.
Later there are seven astral elements.
Every one of these fundamental elements has seven sub-divisions, and likewise these sub-divisions have countless sub-divisions.
Every element differentiates from the r by its vibrational tonic. Therefore, even staying at the same site, they keep themselves perfectly separate one from the other. It happens like between the world of man and the world of ants, which even while they stay on the same place, develop entirely different lives.
Then, the astral states has nothing to do with a determined place outside or inside the stratosphere of the Earth; but is so much or more real than the physical state, but this difference: as it is composed of far subtler vibrations than those that are familiar to us, its abode is certain space that cannot be limited and is beyond earthly dimensions.
Also, the astral time can rather be called duration than time, because as this world is ruled by emotions, the duration of the time depends upon the personal mood experienced.
Many times, human beings undergo tests and trials with this duration, because one hears: “To me, this moment of sorrow has lasted an eternity”, or “This while of joy has passed swiftly”.
Also the size of the astral world and that of its dwellers grows and diminishes quickly; this depends upon how long and how persistently their dwellers keep their thoughts because their high vibrations do not admit a determined dimension.
Then, nothing can be defined there as high or low or as big or small; measures can only be taken in relation to mental matter used to see.
Students find this difficulty when they start visiting astral planes.
For instance, they see and observe curiously an ugly animal, but as they observe it, such animal is bigger and bigger; it is then when the soul is afraid and, by concentrating this fear on the animal, as the result of such violent effort, increases the size of the beast.
Other example: they find a dear person and as they see him, they are moved and their emotion wears strength away and removes serenity, and in front of this psychical state, the individual being quickly reduces his size.
Beings of a lower plane cannot communicate with those of higher planes, while those of higher planes can communicate with others, although they do only to achieve certain work.
The astral world has seven main planes with numberless subdivisions.
Needless to say these divisions are arbitrary and used to give an explanation, because we are told that the only astral separation is constituted by the vibrational tonic.
In the First Plane of the astral world: there are leading entities, higher beings that leave voluntarily the mental world and work in the astral world.
In the Second Plane of the astral world: there are extremely advanced beings that, following the lead of high entities, prepare inventions, works and social treaties that they will develop on Earth. The Initiates of Fire work here before their reincarnation.
In the Third Plane of the astral world: there are strong and brave men; fearless souls who sacrificed their lives and passions for the sake of an ideal, but that were too much attached to this ideal. But not in vain, because at a next incarnation, this ideal previously tried, will be widened by them on Earth.
In the Fourth Plane of the astral world: there are evolved souls but that did not have their passions under control. There they prepare themselves to work again in life, and to devote their efforts to arts. In the Fifth Plane of the astral world: there are souls insufficiently developed; those souls that, after a short rest, have to return quickly to Earth; they are beings who do not realize sufficiently the place where they are, because they believe rather to be in the place assigned to them, while being still alive, by their religions or creeds. A grayish hue of perennial melancholy is around this plane. In the Sixth Plane of the astral world: there are those who sleep; those who in peace and astral rest, dispose of their gross astral body and go up to their relative planes.
In the Seventh Plane of the astral world: there are savage beings, criminals, retarded people, elementals, spirits of Nature and those who have just passed away. These are those beings that are more in contact with the physical world; they are ectoplasms manifested in spiritualistic seances; they are images of apparitions of which old religious legends are full.