The Seven Planes of Existence

What follows is my interpretation of what I’ve read from several sources—chief among them being The Michael teachings [see the sidebar for several books in the series.]

The Tao or All that Is has divided itself into layers of existence. According to Michael, Cayce, Seth and others, there are 7 Planes:
The Ordinal Planes
1] The Physical Plane
On the Physical Plane we experience separateness in all its variety. We descend into the belief system that we are separate from one another, from animals, from rocks, from plants, from the table where I’m typing this, even from the All that Is itself.

Before we come to the planet for the first time, we spend time and energy checking out several planets. We can cohabit within several species of plants and animals—even rocks and mineral formations.
In fact, one reason for the widespread beliefs among virtually all primitive peoples regarding sprites, elves, ogres, leprechauns, fairies, totems, furies, various gods, etc. etc. etc. is a recognition, at a deep level, of the presence of these pre-infant souls investigating the planet. These new souls also help the planet rejuvenate itself and recover from problems brought about by the beings already inhabiting it.

Just about now, however, new souls are looking elsewhere for planets to move onto.
About the time a planet moves into the Mature Soul Level, most new souls lose interest in it. It’s not much fun playing catch-up when almost everyone on the planet is well ahead of you. It’s also no fun at all to get left holding the bag when the planet has been pretty well screwed up before you even got here. Someone is going to have to undertake a massive cleanup if the planet is going to survive—and the infants don’t see why they should have to do the cleanup if they didn’t participate in the mess-up. And, who can blame them?
The good news [for the planet] is that this will accelerate the growth of the population as the average soul age increases more rapidly as newer souls don't continue arriving. This means that the souls that are here will become more and more willing to accept responsibility for things like the environment generally, global warming, pollution, etc.
And here’s the bad news: since those very young souls aren’t here checking us out and, meanwhile, helping with rejuvenation and recovery behind the scenes, that leaves the rest of us on our own when it comes to cleaning up the place. Ruh-roh.

Anyhow, we’re here, we’re all pretty familiar with the physical plane already.
So, I’ll move on.

2] The Astral Plane
We go to the Lower Astral Plane every night when we’re dreaming. There we can confer with our Spirit Guides—friends we left behind when we entered this lifetime. We can also meet friends who are on-planet and are engaged in dreams of their own. All of these folks help us make sense of any knotty problems we’re currently dealing with in our lives in progress. And, of course, we return the favor to those who are currently earth-bound like us.
Those of us who learn how to travel out of our bodies also land on the Lower Astral Plane.

After we die, we return to the Lower Astral and hang out with friends. We assess our most previous life along with numerous earlier lives examining patterns we’ve developed and deciding if we want to continue down those paths or reassess and choose other, possibly more productive, methods of progress.
Those of us who are more developed might take on a job of some sort—helping younger souls reorient to the life between incarnations, say. Or working with those souls who are in something I’ve heard called The Intensive Care Unit. This is an area reserved for folks who have committed acts that are deeply evil. They need ‘time’ to recognize what they’ve done, assess their actions, comprehend the fact that they’re going to have to go through karmic reckonings, etc. Though I haven’t read that this is so, I would imagine that these folks might fall into despair and need help to get through it. After all, you can’t commit suicide after you’re dead. You have to face up to your actions. So, older souls work to help them do that.
I’m sure there are other jobs I’ve not heard of that souls engage in, as well.

After we’ve cycled off the planet we move on to the Mid-astral Plane. Here we hang out again waiting for the last souls of our Entity [a loose grouping of souls who split off from the All that Is at about the same ‘time’ (sorry about the references to time, here, but I don’t know how else to talk about this stuff. Please bear with me.)]

Our Essence Twin is probably cycling off at about the same ‘time’ and, soon after we both arrive at the Mid-astral, we fuse our two souls together. We don’t lose our separate egos yet, we’re each aware of our selves—but we’re also fully aware of our Twin’s being and of its experiences on the planet and on the astral plane during the time we’ve been separated.
When all the souls from the Entity arrive, we move to the Higher Astral Plane and continue fusing. Again we don’t lose our selves, but we do become aware of all the experiences of these entities.
At about this time, we’ve fused with about 1000 souls [what Michael calls ‘fragments’].
Then we move on to the next Plane.

3] The Causal Plane
Here we teach souls on the Astral Plane and, as mentioned in the post on Off World Soul Ages, at some point we send a representative back to the planet we left behind. There, the representative soul teaches what it has learned. It may lead a nation out of bondage as Mohandas Gandhi did—or it may act as a neighborhood organizer—or it may work to enable a group of people to assert its rights.
During a transition period like the planet is traversing now, many Causal Plane representatives come back to prepare the way for the Infinite Soul.
But, every Causal Entity sends at least one representative to its previous planet. So there are at least a few present on the planet at any given time.

Unlike the Infinite Soul manifestation, this Transcendental Soul isn’t self-aware. It doesn’t know that it is different from the other souls on the planet. It lives its entire life within the body, doesn’t perform miracles [other than those similar to the ones Gandhi was able to pull off when he convinced Hindus and Muslims to work together for their common good. Even those, though, were a major struggle—depending as they did on the good will of human beings.]

The Causal Plane is the level Michael is at now. It is at this point that we begin letting go of our egos.
In all the books, Michael is referred to as ‘they’. This is because they haven’t yet shed their egos enough to begin to think of themselves as a singular being. I find it simpler, here, to refer to Michael as ‘it’—but that’s a matter of my preference and isn’t the norm in any of the books I’ve read.

At the Higher Causal, we connect with one other entity [an entity generally consists of about 1000 souls or fragments] and begin the process of fusing. Often this is an entity with which we share a lot of Essence Twins. As this fusion begins becoming complete, we start moving toward the Mental Plane.

Michael apparently hasn't begun this process yet. First, as I said above, it hasn't yet begun thinking of itself in the singular. Also, I've read that Michael consists of about 1000 fragments. So it hasn't yet begun fusing with its twin entity.

The Neutral Plane
4] The Akashic Record
It is at the Causal Plane that we first begin to interact with the Akashic Record. Maybe that’s why teachers like Gandhi, Seth and Michael teach from the Causal—after they have made contact with the knowledge it contains.

We don’t exist on this level. Instead it is essentially a library that contains all the information in the universe. It neutrally observes all that has gone on within the universe from its inception to its completion. When the universe has completed its course and is ready to spin off a baby universe, it gives a copy of this record to the new universe.
This may not apply this time though. Michael says we’ve decided not to play the physical game again—at least for the time being. But, maybe the Akashic Record will still be needed for whatever the next game will be. Who knows?

Scholars [see the posts on the soul’s Roles] dump their accumulated knowledge into the Record when they cycle off their respective planets. Other souls or entities may do this as well if they’ve a mind to, I don’t know.

The Cardinal Planes
5] The Mental Plane
On the Mental Plane you have direct intellectual contact with the All that Is. You keep on combining with other essences and entities. At this level you grasp, at an intellectual level, the infinite universe and the All.
Lao Tsu taught from the Mental Plane of Existence.

6] The Messianic Plane
On the Messianic Plane you experience agape [complete, total love for all beings]. At this level you comprehend the oneness of all and recognize that love for the other is, in fact, love for oneself. You have direct emotional contact with the All that Is and grasp, at an emotional level, the Infinite.
You continue blending until you have enfolded about 100,000 souls.
The Christ Soul taught from the Messianic Plane of Existence.

7] The Buddhaic Plane

At the lower levels of the Buddhaic Plane, you merge with all other Essences, Entities and Cadres of sentient beings. As you rise higher you join with non-sentient beings—animals, plants, minerals, planets, suns, the space between all the matter in the universe. Here, you comprehend at the instinctive level, the infinity of the All that Is and, in the final levels, you combine with the total consciousness of the All that Is and your journey is complete.
The Buddha Soul taught from the Buddhaic Plane of Existence.

You may remain within the All that Is for as long as you wish [although here, again, language fails as you are no longer ‘you’ but are one with the Infinite]. At any time, any fragment may splinter off and begin a new journey. Or, any fragment may choose to remain within the Whole and never leave again.
If a fragment does choose to cast itself off and make the circle again it will, almost without exception, choose a new Role, a different male/female energy, a different frequency, a new Essence Twin, go to a different planet from the last time [or choose not to take the physical route and remain separate from the universe], and on and on. In this way, we continuously bring back a wide variety of experiences adding breadth and depth to the Whole.

Michael says that, on average, the souls on this planet are experiencing their third walk-about.
xxx
The entire universe, according to Michael, is based on the number 7. It also says that the number 3 is a significant number. That is why, so says Michael, people empower those two numbers. We instinctively know that they are important.
I’ve begun to wonder, lately, if this has anything to do with the discovery, by Einstein, of 11 dimensions in the universe. 7 + 4 [3 spatial + time] = 11.
Just wondering along.

What We’re Doing Here

Back when I was writing the initial post about the planes of existence [you can find the original here] I handwrote some notes and promptly lost them. OK, I’m getting old—I’m retired and everything—so I’m entitled to lose stuff. Just wait till you hit your 60’s, then we’ll talk, OK?
So, I found the notes while cleaning up today and thought I’d add em to the mix.

The Number One motivator of the Universe or the All that Is or the Tao or whatever you want to call it is Growth. The ancient Greeks recognized the need and assigned it to Apollo in his axiom to “Know Thyself.” How appropriate that they perceived the Wise God as understanding the basic fabric of the Universe.

As I said in the first post, the Physical Plane is about separateness.
As difficult as it is to believe when we look at the state of the world throughout history, we are all volunteers. We chose to take the physical route. We chose to experience karma. Of all the planets in the universe that support life, we chose to come to this one. [Not all physical beings even choose to live on planets—but that’s for another post.]
Before each lifetime we undertake we choose our parents, we create the vehicle for the experience [the body], fairly often we create a body that has some sort of ailment or deformity—in order to experience even more separateness from the other souls on the planet, to experience a specific karma or to see if we can overcome that form of separateness. We choose primary, secondary and tertiary lessons to learn during the particular lifetime, etc. etc. etc.
Michael, Seth, Lazaris, Edgar Cayce all have said, over and over, everything we do is by choice. We can even opt out any time we want to—though it’s rarely done. Almost always, once we make the initial decision, we grit it out till the end. When I learned that little tidbit, my respect for the human race climbed dramatically.

So, you’re a soul that has decided to take on a body and come to the planet Earth. Before each lifetime you have to slow your vibration way, way d-o-w-n or you’ll burn out your body before you’ve had time to learn the necessary lessons.
Even slowed down this way, eventually you’re going to use up the body. That’s what old age is all about [and I’m here to tell you, Bette Davis was right—it ain’t fer sissies.] But, again, we decided to experience old age, too, when we made up our minds to take up residence in the physical.

When we cast ourselves off from the All that Is, we each made the decision to make the arduous journey through the 7 planes of existence back to the Is. Maybe our first time out it was a leap of faith. We hadn’t done it before and we were flying blind. After that first one, though, we knew exactly what we were in for—and, as amazing as it may seem, we did it again. The average number of times the souls on this planet have gone for walkabout is 3. I’ve read that the Old King who traded places with the Infinite Logos called the Christ had been out and gone through the entire process 16 times. Now, THAT’S adventurous!

Anyway, here is the mechanism as I understand it: The All that Is seeds the physical plane with organic life in numerous environments. It watches each species develop and when the intellectual center of one of them is developed to the point of, “I know that I am,” the first sentient fragments [souls] begin incarnating within those bodies. I am assuming that the intellectual centers of all members of the species don't develop at the same rate so, early on, a planet might have a mix of some sentient beings within the species and some non-sentient ones. Eventually, they all reach that stage, though, and the planet holds only sentient beings within the species.
Whales as well as humans are the sentient beings on Earth at the moment. Some recent information regarding chimpanzees suggests to me that they may be reaching sentience right about now. They’ve changed their behavior in the wild dramatically within the last few years. Some have begun voluntarily entering water—until very recently [within my lifetime] they were, so far as humans knew, universally terrified of it. And some have begun using crude spears for hunting. I wonder if the fact that humans [and maybe whales? I don’t know] are reaching the Mature Soul Age has helped the chimps move along to their next stage of development, as well. It’s certainly an intriguing speculation.

So souls enter the bodies when the species is ready to house them. By doing so they choose separateness. They choose to forget where they came from and to take on the belief that they are separate from one another. That they are different from all the other species on the planet; and from the dirt; and from the mountains; and from the sea and all the creatures that live within it; and from space and all the creatures that live there, too.
Only by forgetting their oneness with All can they learn the lessons they set out to learn. There is no other way or, I imagine, we’d have taken it—since this one is so arduous.
Well, I take that back. There is another way—the non-physical. I don’t know if separateness and forgetting is utilized in that mode or not. I’ve heard it’s easier than the physical route but ‘takes longer’ whatever that means in this context.

But, this is what we did. We chose the physical method—and here we are. And we accepted separateness and forgetting as two of the rules of the game.
Eventually, though, after we’ve been here for a pretty long ‘time’ and learned a fair number of lessons, the separateness rule gets old. It wears thin. The Soul begins to sense the truth behind the myth and longs to reunite with the Is. It’s getting close to the end of the Old Soul awareness and just wants to shake the dust from its sandals and GET ON WITH IT, ALREADY! At that point, the Soul begins the cycling off process. It’s got a few loose ends to tie up—like finishing up the last of its karma and finding at least one younger soul to whom to teach what it has learned along the way. Then it can get off the planet for good. And good riddance.

After that it begins the process of reuniting with other souls beginning with its Essence Twin, its Entity, its Cadre of Souls, etc. etc. until, at the Buddhaic Level, it merges with all the matter of the Universe and melds with the All that Is.

At this point the cycle is complete. The fragment can remain within the Universal Consciousness for eternity or choose to make another walkabout adventure during which the Soul may or may not choose to enter the physical plane of existence again.

Personally, at this stage in my existence, I can’t imagine making that choice but, since I already have — nine times — who knows? I probably will again.