The inescapable law of kamma guarantees that each and every one of our actions — whether it be of body, speech, or mind — has consequences. The Buddha also taught that this boomerang of cause and effect extends far beyond this present life, thus determining the quality of the soul's journey towards rebirth and future rebirths, which we can expect after this death simply because most are not yet ready for moksha, liberation. We surf for aeons through this samsara, this endless cycle from one birth to the next determined by the quality of our choices and our actions in each lifetime. Imagine then all the realms of existence available to us- three distinct "worlds" (loka), listed here in descending order of refinement:
ARUPA LOKA(the immaterial world) Consists of four realms that are accessible to those who pass away while meditating in the formless jhana(a meditative state of profound stillness and concentration. An abiding in which the mind becomes fully immersed and absorbed in a conceptualized object of attention characterized by non-dual consciousness.Other times it is taught as an abiding in which mind becomes very still but does not merge with the object of attention, and is thus able to observe and gain insight into the changing flow of experience(exp.through Vipassana meditation practice))
RUPA LOKA(the fine material world) 16 realms where experience is extremely refined in degrees of mental pleasure. These realms are accessible to those who have managed to (temporarily) suppress hatred and ill-will through some level of jhana. They are said to possess extremely refined bodies of pure light. The highest of these realms, the Pure Abodes, are accessible only to those who have attained to "non-returning," the third stage of Awakening.
KAMA LOKA (the sensual world) Consists of eleven realms in which experience — both pleasurable and not — is dominated by the five senses. Seven of these realms are favorable destinations including our own human realm(I like my paradise I am in) as well as several realms occupied by devas. The lowest realms are four which include the animal(a dog's life in India) and hell realms(not for me).
The Fine Material World and the Immaterial World together constitute heaven/sagga. Such heaven realms are blissful abodes whose present inhabitants (the devas) gained rebirth there through the power of their past meritorious actions. Like all beings still caught in samsara, however, these deities eventually succumb to aging, illness, and death, and must eventually take rebirth in other realms — pleasant or otherwise — according to the quality and strength of their past kamma The devas are not always especially knowledgeable or spiritually mature — in fact many are quite intoxicated by their sensual indulgences — and none are considered worthy of veneration or worship. Nevertheless, the devas and their joyous realms stand as important reminders to us both of the happy benefits that ensue from the performance of skillful and meritorious deeds and, finally, of the ultimate shortcomings of sensuality.
kama-rupa: The desire body; the portion of the human inner constitution which adheres to the various mental and psychic energies; a kind of simulacrum or astral likeness of a human which exists after death in kama loka, an invisible plane of being, until the impulses which created it are exhausted and it finally fades away.After death the kama rupa becomes the vehicle in the kama-loka of the usually unconscious higher principles of the person that was.
"After death . . . there occurs what is called the 'second death,' which is the separation of the immortal part of the second or intermediate Duad from the lower portions of this Duad, which lower portions remain as the kama-rupa in the etheric or higher astral spheres which are intermediate between the devachanic and the earthly spheres. In time this kama-rupa gradually fades out in its turn, its life-atoms at such dissolution passing on to their various and unceasing peregrinations."
It is this kama-rupa which is Dante's 'shade,' It is the 'spook,' or 'ghost.' It is, in short, all the mortal elements of the human soul that was, an exact astral duplicate, in appearance and mannerism, of the one who dies. It will be your eidolon, your astral twin.
Meer Ghat, Varanasi
