World Period
(See Planetary Chains.) Worlds, Planes, or Spheres: According to theosophists, these are seven in number and are as follows: The older Sanskrit names, which are now superseded, being given for reference :- Divine, or Adi; Monadic or Anutadaka, Spiritual or Nirvana, Intuitional or Buddhi, Mental or Manas, Astral or Kama, and Physical or Sthula. These worlds are not physically separate in the manner which planets appear to be, but interpenetrate each other, and they depend for their differences, on the relative density of the matter which composes them, and the consequent difference in the rates at which the matter of each world vibrates.
Except for the physical world (the densest) our knowledge of them, so far as it extends, is dependent on clairvoyance, and the more exalted the vision of the clairvoyant the higher the world to which his vision can pierce. Each world has its appropriate inhabitants, clothed in appropriate bodies, and possessing appropriate states of consciousness. The two highest worlds, the Divine and the Monadic are at present incapable of attainment by human powers, the remaining five are in greater or less degree. The monad for the purpose of gathering experience and for development, finds it necessary to pass downwards into the material sphere, and, when it has taken possession of the spiritual, intuitional, and higher Mental Worlds, it may be looked on as an ego or soul embodying will, intuition and intellect, continuing eternally the same entity, never altering except by reason of increasing development, and hence being immortal. These Worlds, however, do not afford sufficient scope to the Monad and it presses sill farther down into matter, through the lower Mental, into the Astral and Physical Worlds. The bodies with which it is there clothed form its personality and this personality suffers death and is renewed at each fresh incarnation. At the death of the physical body, the ego has merely cast aside a garment and thereafter continues to live in the next higher world, the Astral.
At the death of the Astral body in turn, another garment is cast aside, the ego is clear of all appendages and as it was before its descent into denser matter, having returned to the Mental World, the Heaven World. The ego finds itself somewhat strange to this owing to insufficient development, and it again descends into matter as before. This round is completed again and each time the ego returns with a fresh store of experience and knowledge, which strengthens and perfects the mental body. When at last this process is complete, this body in turn is cast aside and the ego is clothed with its casual body. Again it finds itself strange and the round of descents into matters again begins and continues till the casual body has been fully developed. The two remaining worlds are but imperfectly known but the intuitional, as it's name indicates is that where the ego's vision is quickened to see things as they really are, and in the Spiritual World the divine and the human become unified and the divine purpose is fulfilled. (See the articles on the various Worlds and bodies Theosophy, Monad, Evolution, Reincarnation.) 66