95 FROM DEATH TO REBIRTH

same one you are in right now at this very moment.

'There is, however, one important difference between the material and the psychic realms. When we find ourselves in the psychic environment, feelings acquire a greater intensity. For example, feelings of hatred and jealousy can become like fire that burns. In this life such sentiments can be tempered by the limitations of the material brain. On the psychic plane limits do not exist. That is why in the psychic worlds life is experienced with such intensity. But you should never assume that the so- called hells are some kind of psychic torture chambers. The hells and purgatories are schools and workshops for the acquisition of experiences so that human entities may ascend towards their perfection. In reality there is no punishment. There is only experience. If there is suffering it is not because the Absolute wishes to punish us for our transgressions but so that we can find out who we really are. The purpose of such experiences is to help us shake off our illusions and ignorance.

'Hell and paradise are relative terms. One person's hell may be another person's paradise. To help someone in the psychic plane move out of his hell, for example, you must show him an alternative condition to the one he is in. If he was a querulous person during his life on Earth, he will find himself in a similar situation after he leaves his body. To help him you will have to expose him to the immediately better condition that he can move into. If he is not receptive to your suggestions, let him remain where he is. He lives in his paradise even though it may be the most tortuous hell. Let me give you an example. I have tried to help someone who during his life was a gambler and a very quarrelsome person. He died from tuberculosis forty-five years ago. He has been living in the psychic world exactly the same way as he did when he was in the gross material plane. He has created with others the same environment analogous to the one they knew on Earth; dirty windows, dirty clothes and tables, fights, arguments, just like the environment of the coffee houses they knew before. They did not even have the imagination to build them any better. One day I said to him, "Come, my friend, let's go somewhere." I took him away from his situation and created the vibrations of a Beethoven symphony that I like very much, specifically that of Joy. I told him. "Charilae," that was his name, "look!" And I showed him

a beautiful forest, with colors, water, flowers, everything. I harmonized the sounds with the sights and created for him what I considered to be a paradise. He gazed at me for some time and then he said, "Aren't you tired? Let's go back and play some poker with my friends. How long are you going to keep me here listening to these tin drums of yours?" What could I tell him? He lived in his paradise which for me was an intolerable hell. How could I explain to that man the difference between hell and paradise?

'Here is another case. A peevish woman spent her entire life accusing, gossiping and cursing her neighbors. When she died she continued the same kind of life, only more intensely. Instead of the real human beings she left behind, she created and quarreled with their elementals which she brought along with her; the elementals of Maria, of Eleni, of Efterbe. We tried in vain to show her that she lived in a hell and that she ought to dissolve those elementals so that she could see more clearly. Only after she is exhausted from her condition will she voluntarily ask for change. Those of you who will one day become invisible helpers will encounter such difficulties.. You must know that unless a person seeks change himself you cannot help him. Each person will develop gradually. The most we can do under such circumstances is to create a benign elemental and place it on the aura of the person to work. When he is ready for change, that elemental will be there to assist him.'

'Daskale,' I asked, 'do the psychonoetic planes and subplanes have an objective existence independent of the individual's subjective perception of them?'

'I have said before that the psychic worlds have trees, mountains, oceans, rivers, everything that exists on the planet, everything that has ever existed and everything that can exist. What you consider as the real world is actually the shadow or the reflection of other more luminous worlds within which everything material that is considered real exists. In the various planes and subplanes of the psychic worlds there exist not only whatever exists on this planet which was created by archangelic forces, such as water, mountains, forests, but also whatever humans have created either while they are still alive or after they depart. The psychic world is a much richer world.