Q. What occurs when the panorama terminates at death?
A. When the endurance of the vital body has reached its limit, it collapses in the way described when we were considering the phenomenon of sleep.
Q. How does this collapse compare with sleep?
A. During physical life, when the Ego controls its vehicles, this collapse terminates the waking hours; after death the collapse of the vital body terrninates the panorama and forces the ego to withdraw into the Desire World.
Q. How does this differ from the sleep state?
A. When the silver cord breaks at death the same division is made as during sleep, but with this important difference, that though the vital body returns to the dense body, it no longer interpenetrates it but hovers over it.
Q. Is this true after burial also?
A. Yes, it remains floating over the grave, decaying synchronously with the dense vehicle. Hence, to the trained clairvoyant, a graveyard is a nauseating sight, and if only more people could see it as he does. little argument would be necessary to induce them to change from the present unsanitary method of disposing of the dead to the more rational method of cremation, which restores the elements to their primordial condition without the objectionable features incident to the processes of slow decay.
Q. What occurs when the vital body is discarded?
A. In leaving the vital body the process is much the same as when the dense body is discarded. The life forces of one atom are taken to be used as a nucleus for the vital body of a future embodiment. Thus upon his entrance into the Desire World the man has the seed atoms of the dense and the vital bodies, in addition to the desire body and the mind.
Q. Does he remain long in the Desire World?
A. If the dying man could leave all desires behind, the desire body would very quickly fall away from him, leaving him free to proceed into the heaven world, but that is not generally the case.
Q. What generally is the situation?
A. Most people, especially if they die in the prime of life, have many ties and much interest in life on earth. They have not altered their desires because they have lost their physical bodies. In fact, often their desires are even augmented by a very intense longing to return. This binds them to the Desire World in a very unpleasant way although they do not realize it.
Q. What is the state of elderly people?
A. Old and decrepit persons, and those who are weakened by long illness and are tired of life pass on very quickly.
Q. When may the deceased leave the Desire World?
A. As long as the man entertains the desires connected with Earth life he must stay in the desire body and as the progress of the individual requires that he pass on to higher regions, the existence in the Desire World must necessarily become purgative, tending to purify him from his binding desires.
Q. Must he be so purged of all earthly desires before he ascends farther?
A. Yes, he must be purged of all evil habits and binding desires, only then
is he ready to leave this state of "purgatory" and ascend into the heaven
world.
— Ref: The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception
— Rays from the Rose Cross Magazine, February, 1980, p. 64
