You cannot choose Life without rejecting Death. Happiness is merely a temporary absence of unhappiness; Life is merely a temporary absence of Death. The awareness of this also brings suffering. Whenever you choose, you choose for something and against something.

If you are for something, then you are already against something: you cannot be only "for," nor can you be only "against." When "for" enters, "against" immediately follows as a shadow. When there is "against," there must be "for" — hidden or not hidden. When you choose, you divide: this is good, and that is bad.

But Life is Unity! Here is one of the most fundamental Truths to understand: opposites are not opposites. Look deeper, and you will feel them as one Energy. If you choose Love, then you also choose Hatred. Hatred is inherent in Love; it is always hidden within it. And by sometimes hating those you love, you will inevitably suffer. The Truth is in the middle!

Become non-choosing; just BE! This is difficult; it seems impossible, but still — try. In all cases where you have two choices, try to be in the middle.

Those who stray from the Path can still return and start anew, but those who go nowhere are already dead. If you know how to die — laughing, rejoicing, welcoming Liberation — then you have destroyed Death.

We have established that there are two alternatives to the physical Death as we imagine it, and both are linked to the functioning of Consciousness. (In truth, there is also a third alternative, described by Carlos Castaneda, which we will not dwell on here, as it is still only available to some very highly developed initiates. This is Ascension, where one no longer needs to die, because a person consciously transitions from the material World to the Subtle World, taking their body with them).

When you see someone dying, you never actually see Death itself — the process that occurs within the dying person. You cannot see this because this process is not only invisible to your physical eyes but is also always exclusively, absolutely individual. From my many observations of dying people, which I conducted (by Oris and later) outside the physical body and in various situations, I concluded that no two Deaths are alike, and the process of dying is very difficult, practically impossible to reduce to any common denominator.

Each time, following in the astral body behind the deceased, I found myself in a completely new and unfamiliar World, having ABSOLUTELY nothing in common with our familiar physical World. This unknown World was even less like what, according to various descriptions I had read, should be a continuation of our earthly existence. I could not even imagine that this new experience would differ so drastically from everything we are accustomed to here on Earth that it would have nothing in common with it.

All existing descriptions of the so-called “afterlife” or “beyond” turned out to be absolutely incorrect and erroneous; they are all too pale, poor, monotonous, and artificial compared to what is actually observed.

Firstly, in the Subtle World, everything, absolutely everything, exists in an inseparable connection and unity with each other; each phenomenon and object is not separate and independent but necessarily explains something and is explained by something. Everything is so interconnected that no phenomenon can be described separately, in isolation from EVERYTHING else. You must either convey EVERYTHING AT ONCE or convey nothing separately, because nothing separate, as here, simply does not exist "THERE" and cannot.

All things and events in the Astral are closely and incomprehensibly linked together in a single chain of causes and effects. Everything necessarily depends on something or someone, and any thing or phenomenon exists as if inside one another. "There," everything you encounter is astonishingly alive; "there," nothing is dead, unconscious, or inanimate; there is nothing devoid of the opportunity for its vigorous self-expression through Thoughts and feelings.

With everything, as well as with each thing individually, you can communicate, talk, argue, and discuss for as long as you want:

It is utterly impossible to convey in words the emotional element of uncaused joy, boundless wonder, unrestrained delight, all-consuming terror — and the constant intermediate state of transition of these feelings into one another.

"There," you can experience the full range of emotions that simply do not exist in our ordinary earthly Life. In the Subtle World, it is simply impossible to remain indifferent or apathetic to anything or anyone; "there," you can either love what you encounter or burn with wild hatred towards it; you can either strive for something or be in awe of someone, but you cannot simply remain indifferent.

I am not even mentioning that immediately after the release of Consciousness from the dense shell, the sense of time instantly changes qualitatively: often it incredibly stretches—seconds feel like years, and minutes like decades.

In the Subtle World, absolutely any of your thoughts, even the most involuntary, instantly come to life, acquiring the reality to be and act AS IF independently, AS IF regardless of you and your desires. Although desires, feelings, emotions, impulses, likes, and dislikes transform visually and sensually, the more energy invested in them, the more concrete and “real” they become, AS IF gaining the ability to logically act and respond to the constant and tumultuous changes in your surroundings.

In the Astral, no walls, no “objective” conditions can constrain or hinder the realization of any of your fantasies, limit or prevent your imagination from manifesting. Every image, as soon as it appears in your Consciousness, instantly begins to objectify into a completely “real” substantial form, indistinguishable in its qualities from the forms of other objects, which also constantly disappear, spread out, dematerialize, transform, reappear, strive to remind you of themselves in some way, attract your attention, rejoice, sadden, become jealous, and behave like “living” beings.

Raise all this to the tenth degree, and you will still receive a very pale semblance of what happens in the Subtle World with Consciousness that has entered it for the first time and has not yet mastered even a small part of its amazing Laws. Personally, it took me long months of persistent work under the guidance of my Spiritual Mentor, who accompanied me initially in each of my astral exits. The most challenging aspect was learning to THINK IN DIFFERENT CATEGORIES.

The World we transition to after our physical Death has none of the independent sides, traits, or characteristics, and therefore it is impossible, as we are accustomed to, to first describe one of its characteristic sides, then another, and so on. Everything in it is seen at once, from any of its points, and this EVERYTHING is constantly changing, transforming, moving, disintegrating, and perfecting itself. And all these processes can, if desired, be observed simultaneously and at once.

Here, everything and everyone exists in logical, and mostly illogical, interconnections, where nothing and no one can exist separately, and all relationships between different things have real existence, independent of the things themselves. Indeed, the things themselves AS IF do not exist at all; instead, there are only the “relationships between them” or only the motives. The same applies to Thoughts.

A Thought that we, in our current physical position, may simply overlook or ignore, instantly acquires reality in the Subtle World and the ability for “independent” expression, movement, synthesis, transmutation, etc. There are no barriers or distances for Thought; it can freely and easily penetrate into any form of seemingly impenetrable objects and immediately reveal in the most detailed way their innermost aspects, composition, and principles, down to the structure of atoms, the chemical state of any star, the population of any planet at any period of its Evolution. All of this is immediately specified in the form of completely real holographic images, moving diagrams, four-dimensional models, etc.

Secondly, this ALL, which literally overwhelms you, immediately astounds with its grandeur, power, incredibility, incomprehensibility, and uniqueness. The higher the vibrations of the Astral, the more the Consciousness immerses itself, the more an extraordinary Music begins to manifest and create a sensory, that is, tangible and truly perceivable background, which in lower overtones is perceived merely as a continuous sound of a few very simple notes.

Starting from the sixth overtone, this Music of the Spheres transitions into extraordinarily pleasant harmonious combinations of sound vibrations, expressed in the most diverse visible and perfect forms, allowing Consciousness attuned to the same frequency of vibrations to literally dissolve in their grace, bliss, and beauty of Harmony. At higher overtones, the Music of the Spheres becomes one with everything that exists at that level, which explains the state of elevated Love, extraordinary spirituality, childlike wonder, and infinite altruism that fills any Consciousness residing here, whether after physical Death or for the purpose of spiritual exploration of the Subtle World.

However, after such a futile attempt to describe what is beyond any description, let us, dear reader, approach the very subject of our conversation today and try to understand as concretely as possible what REALLY happens to a person on the eve of and at the very moment of their departure from this World.

Each person lives their Life, and each dies their Death. The Death of any of us is as unique as our Life. It often seems to us, the external observers, to be painful, terrifying, and grotesque, but in reality, behind all its seemingly horrific repulsiveness and ruthlessness lies the simplicity and naturalness of the logical completion of God's Design.

The Truth is always simple; it is we who often — due to our ignorance and the degree of our evolutionary immaturity — make it complex and inaccessible to understanding. Thus, Death is always simple and always unique.

As a person approaches old age, their Mind, still not having discovered a deeper Reality beyond the material values most people pursue — worldly pleasures, sex, power, financial and material well-being, fame, and so on — remains in a state of mental depression and hopelessness, as the dying dense body can no longer fulfill any of its desires.

At the moment of Death, the vague and ever-increasing inner anxiety associated with the realization that their Mind has hopelessly entangled itself in the Illusions of the material World does not disappear with the separation from the physical body; rather, it transitions along with the personality of the deceased into the afterlife, becoming the true cause of all their individual so-called “hellish torments.”

These desires in the physical World lead to the degradation of mental abilities, while in the Subtle World, they manifest in the intensification of all our vices: selfishness, greed, hatred, anger, lust, and other manifestations that firmly hold undeveloped Consciousness in the strong chains of the lower energies of the Astral.

No deceased person can escape this terrible, often deadly struggle if their Consciousness during Life was under the sway of the Illusions of the Physical World, seduced by temporary goods to satisfy the needs of the lower "ego," to the detriment of the expectations of the Spirit.

Moving through the Spheres of the Astral and following the path of reason, the deceased, first in the most difficult moments, and then more and more frequently, begins to turn to the better part of themselves, trying to find support, advice, and wisdom in their Higher "Self," which they did not know during Life. Gradually, as the hardened crust of the lower "ego" dissolves with the corresponding vibrations of the Astral, innate Wisdom begins to replace the manifestations of reason, and prudence follows the experiences of doubt, reflection, and immersion in the nature of Truth.

Very often, after losing the physical body — the main conduit of Illusions into the Consciousness of the personality — the lower "self" of the deceased stubbornly refuses to obey the dictates of Wisdom, but sooner or later, as the astral body is cleansed of coarse energies, Consciousness begins to gradually elevate itself, experiencing personally its own baseness and ignorance. Eventually, when the Consciousness of the deceased begins to come into agreement with the greater part of Divine Forces, the lower "self" ceases its struggle. The all-conquering power of the Divine leads the astral personality to the highest energy level it reached during Life in its further disembodied existence.

I have also repeatedly encountered this state in those of the deceased whose Consciousness during Life was not adequately prepared to understand and accept the reality of the fourth dimension. During their time in an unconscious state, the Souls of such people indeed resembled something akin to a gray, misty mass.

Most of the deceased still refused to understand what had happened — especially those who died suddenly, unexpectedly, for example, in an accident. These often did not even want to listen to their Death and did not accept any advice, preferring to stay near the place where they lived before their demise.

These unfortunate souls experienced truly hellish mental torments, observing the events from one-sided perspectives, unseen and unheard by the living, flailing and weeping in their hopelessness, until the etheric body, having decomposed into numerous misty rags, deprived them of the ability to visually observe what was happening in the physical World.

Very often, many of the deceased took us — me and my Mentor, shining with clear Light — for Angels or gods, obediently listening to our advice, shedding the barely noticeable, enveloping their astral bodies, etheric shell, and then, joining the Souls of other deceased, calmly departed to the Spheres of higher vibrations, trying to keep their distance from those who were thrashing about and completely immersed in the astral whirlpool of karmic delusions, perceiving nothing external except their internal experiences, passions, and Thought forms...

Some of the deceased, barely having died, immediately shot upwards like arrows released from a bow into the "heavens," and moments later, disappeared from my astral sight, dissolving into the golden glow of the higher layers of the Astral Sphere. It is always so joyful to observe such perfect Souls, whom nothing can stop in their spiritual aspiration and desire for unity with their Source.