The Christian Church has traditionally accepted the commemoration of the dead on the third, ninth, fortieth day and anniversary. She also gave an interpretation of these terms in Christian categories and images.

According to the teachings of the church, for two days the soul is somewhere near the body she loves, near her home, wandering, accompanied by angels, through earthly places dear to her. And on the third day, she must worship the Lord. In the next six days - until nine days - the soul is shown heavenly abode. And in the next thirty - different branches of the underworld. After that, the Lord places her in heaven or hell.

For the first two days, the soul of the deceased is still on earth, passing along with the Angel accompanying her to those places that attract her with memories of earthly joys and sorrows, evil and good deeds. The soul that loves the body sometimes wanders around the house where the body is laid, and thus spends two days like a bird looking for its nest. The virtuous soul, on the other hand, walks in those places where it used to do the right thing.

Ninth day. The commemoration of the deceased on this day is in honor of the nine orders of angels, who, as servants of the King of Heaven and intercessors to Him for us, intercede for mercy on the deceased.

After the third day, the soul, accompanied by an Angel, enters the heavenly abodes and contemplates their inexpressible beauty. She remains in this state for six days. For this time, the soul forgets the sorrow that it felt while in the body and after leaving it. But if she is guilty of sins, then at the sight of the enjoyment of the saints, she begins to grieve and reproach herself: “Alas for me! How busy I am in this world! I spent most of my life in carelessness and did not serve God as I should, so that I too would be worthy of this grace and glory. Alas, poor me!” On the ninth day, the Lord commands the Angels to again present the soul to Him for worship. With fear and trembling the soul stands before the throne of the Most High. But even at this time, the holy Church again prays for the deceased, asking the merciful Judge to place the soul of her child with the saints.

Fortieth day. The forty-day period is very significant in the history and tradition of the Church as the time necessary for preparation, for the acceptance of the special Divine gift of the grace-filled help of the Heavenly Father. The prophet Moses was honored to talk with God on Mount Sinai and receive the tablets of the law from Him only after a forty-day fast. The Israelites reached the promised land after forty years of wandering. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself ascended into heaven on the fortieth day after His resurrection. Taking all this as a basis, the Church established a commemoration on the fortieth day after death, so that the soul of the deceased ascended the holy mountain of Heavenly Sinai, was rewarded with the sight of God, achieved the blessedness promised to her and settled in heavenly villages with the righteous.

After the second worship of the Lord, the angels take the soul to hell, and she contemplates the cruel torments of unrepentant sinners. On the fortieth day, the soul ascends for the third time to worship God, and then its fate is decided - for earthly affairs, it is assigned a place of residence until the Last Judgment. That is why church prayers and commemorations on this day are so timely. They blot out the sins of the deceased and ask his soul to be placed in paradise with the saints.

Anniversary. The Church commemorates the dead on the anniversary of their death. The basis for this establishment is obvious. It is known that the largest liturgical cycle is the annual circle, after which all fixed holidays are repeated again. The anniversary of the death of a loved one is always celebrated with at least a hearty commemoration of his loving relatives and friends. For an Orthodox believer, this is a birthday for a new, eternal life.

“The dead hope to receive help through us: for the time of doing has flown away from them; souls cry out every minute,” said Blessed Augustine in his Sermon on Piety and Commemoration of the Dead.

We know that with the death of even those closest to us in this earthly life, all the threads and bonds of sensual ties with them break. Death creates a great gulf between the living and the dead. But it only separates them sensually, physically, and not at all spiritually: the spiritual connection and communication do not stop and are not interrupted between those who continue to live in this world and those who have moved to the next world. We think about them, even talk to them mentally. We want to help them. But how? The priest will unequivocally answer this question: "Prayer." For forty days the fate of the soul has not yet been decided.

What will happen after death?

According to eyewitness reports, the first is that the spirit leaves the body and lives completely apart from it. As a rule, he observes everything that happens, including the physical body that belonged to him during his lifetime, and the efforts of doctors to revive him; he feels that he is in a position of painless warmth and airiness, as if he were swimming; he is completely unable to influence his surroundings by speech or touch, and from this he feels great loneliness; his thought processes traditionally become much faster than when he was in the body. Here are some of the short stories about this kind of experience:

“The day was very cold, but while I was in this blackness, I felt only warmth and the utmost calm that I have ever experienced ... I remember thinking: “I must have died.”

“I have amazing feelings. I didn’t feel anything but peace, calmness, airiness – just peace.”

“I watched as they tried to revive me, it was really unusual. I was not very high, as if on some kind of elevation, a little higher than them; just maybe looking down on them. I tried to talk to them, but none of them heard me.”

“People were coming from all directions towards the crash site… When they got really close, I tried to dodge to get out of their way, but they just went right through me.”

“I couldn’t touch anything, I couldn’t talk to anyone around me. This terrible feeling of loneliness, a feeling of complete isolation. I knew that I was completely alone, alone with myself.

There is amazing objective evidence that a person is actually out of the body at this moment - sometimes people recount conversations or give exact details of events that took place even in neighboring rooms or even further away while they were dead.

Dr. Kubler-Ross tells of one amazing case when a blind woman saw and then clearly conveyed everything that happened in the room where she "died", however, when she was brought back to life again, she was again blind - this convincing evidence that it is not the eye that sees (and it is not the brain that thinks, because after death mental abilities increase), but rather the soul, and while the body is alive, it performs these actions through physiological organs.

There are many such examples.

Andrei M. from Arkhangelsk recalled a car accident he had in 2007. After the jeep that rushed into the oncoming lane ended up in front of his car, Andrei felt at first a powerful blow, and then a sharp, but short-lived pain. And suddenly, to his amazement, he saw his own body, surrounded by a group of doctors who were trying to resuscitate him. Very soon, Andrey felt himself being carried away somewhere upward, while he seemed to himself unusually free and calm. Soon he realized that he was drawn to a milky white light that burned somewhere ahead.

He raced quite a long distance until he realized that some force was trying to bring him back. The realization of this at the first moment disappointed the young man, since he knew that freedom awaited him ahead: from the hustle and bustle. And a moment later, Andrey found that his motionless body was quickly moving towards him. Here it, like a vice, squeezed him from all sides, powerful pain penetrated every cell of him, and in the next second Andrei opened his eyes.

Good, evil spirits and planes of existence

First of all, if the spirit consists of psychic energy - in other words, if the spirit and the mind are a single whole - then it turns out that we refer to spirits what is actually considered part of the physical world. This is material matter, no matter how imperceptible it may seem, because energy in any form combines part of the physiological universe. We are not able to see the hydrogen atom, but despite this, it is a physical quantity. We know his real weight.

It is obvious that the material world is considered one of the especially dense worlds on the lower planes of existence, and by its own impenetrability it far exceeds. If cultured spirits have every chance of descending to lower tiers of existence, they are absolutely fit to be in the physical world. The astral torsos of the dead can stay on the earthly plane only for a short period of time, and the spirit has the opportunity to descend to a lower tier and stay for some time, if he so desires. This means that after the disintegration of the astral body, the immortal spirit, which is the receptacle of consciousness, is able to return to Earth if desired.

If this is so, then what can prevent you from being in the material world again in order to cause pain to people? On the other hand, apparently, they also have every chance to return to Earth to help their loved ones and all of humanity in overcoming difficulties and becoming a human being. These stunning predictions are based on the stories of people who had to experience communication with both evil and good spirits-inspirers.

If the spirit living in the Astral world can establish contact with our physical world, then it has the ability to influence our thoughts and actions. And such an impact can be both positive and negative, depending on the tier of the formation of a certain spirit. For this reason, many ecclesiastical and mystical schools teach that when we make a significant decision, we need to make sure that it is only our decision, in line with our personal beliefs. At the same time, impulsive actions that may be dictated by counteraction must be avoided.

So, based on the studied academic evidence and paranormal phenomena, we can draw the following conclusions.

It is possible that a person's instincts and emotions, which make up his astral body, continue to exist for some time, along with memories and basic personality traits. In the course of time this astral body is gradually destroyed. Meanwhile, the conscious personality, or ego, called the spirit, rests for some time in the Astral world, and then passes to the corresponding mental or, depending on the level of its development.

There the spirit lives, works, sometimes creating works of art similar to those that he created during his lifetime in the physical world. Sometimes these works manifest themselves in the physical world thanks to people who become objects of direct influence from the side of the spirit.

In the astral world, life seems to be just as real as on the earthly plane, because any physical or spiritual being identifies with the plane on which it lives. Since the matter of each plane corresponds to the vibrations of the beings on it, they perceive this plane as a true reality.

The mysterious and incomprehensible astral world is revealed to us in all its splendor in dreams. That is why the phantasmagoric world of dreams seems so real when we sleep. We simply travel with the help of our subtle body in the astral world, to which our spirit belongs. In the dream state, we move between the subplanes of the astral world, experiencing joyful or frightening experiences. They only help to understand that we are asleep and are able to modify the circumstances or events of the astral world at will.

According to ancient teachings, the life of the spirit in the astral world is a true life, while life on the physical plane is only a theater, training, a temporary state, a kind of journey in which the spirit goes for a certain period of time, after which it returns to its home, to the astral world.

Meeting on the other side

Those who have visited the other world often say that they met there with deceased relatives, friends and friends. As a rule, people see those with whom they were close in earthly life or were related.

Such visions cannot be considered a law, rather, they are deviations from it, which do not occur very often. Usually such meetings act as an edification to those who are still too early to die, and who need to return to earth and change their own lives.

Sometimes people see what they would like to see. Christians watch angels, Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, saints. Non-religious people see some temples, people in white, and sometimes they don't notice anything, but they feel "presence".

According to the stories of some people, during their near-death experiences they went through a dark tunnel, at the end of which they met an angel or Christ himself. On other occasions, they would meet deceased friends and relatives to escort them to the spirit's new home. This habitat is located in the astral world, woven from electromagnetic vibrations of different density and size. After death, each spirit is on a certain energy level of existence, which coincides with the level of its development and vibrations. After death, the soul remains for a very short time in its original state of loneliness.

Raymond Moody, the author of a widely acclaimed book called Life After Life, cites several facts when, even before death, people suddenly saw dead relatives and friends. Here are some excerpts from his book.

“The doctor told my relatives that I had died ... I realized that all these people were there, there were many of them, they hovered under the ceiling of the room. These are people whom I knew in earthly life, but they died earlier. I saw a grandmother and a girl whom I knew as a student, and many other relatives and friends ... It was a very joyful phenomenon, and I felt that they had come to protect and see me off.

This experience of meeting deceased friends and relatives at the onset of near-death experiences is not considered an all-time discovery these days. Nearly a century ago it became the subject of a small dissertation by the pioneer of modern parapsychology and psychological research, Sir William Barrett ("Deathbed Visions").

Dr. Moody gives an example of the meeting of a dying person not with relatives or an exalted being, but with a completely foreign person: shortly. She didn't know who it was." ("Life after life").

As we delve into this study of the experience of the perishing and of death itself, we must bear in mind the great difference between the general experience of the perishing, which is now attracting so much attention. This may help us to better understand the many mysterious aspects of death that are tracked in real time and depicted in the literature. The awareness of this difference, for example, can help us to identify the phenomena that are observed by the perishing. Do relatives and friends really come from the realm of the dead to visit the dying? And do these actions themselves differ from the last appearances of holy righteous people?

To answer these questions, let us recall that Dr. Osis and Haraldson report that many dying Hindus observe the gods of a close Hindu pantheon (Krishna, Shiva, Kali, etc.), and not close relatives and friends, as is usually the case.

They believe that the assimilation of the beings with which one encounters is mainly considered the result of personal interpretation based on ecclesiastical, civilized and private premises; this opinion seems reasonable and appropriate to the bulk of the cases.

Having stated the Orthodox teaching based on the Holy Scriptures that “the souls of the dead are in a place where they do not see what is happening and happens in this mortal life”, and his own opinion that cases of apparent appearances of the dead to the living, as a rule, turn out to be or "the work of angels", or "evil visions" induced by demons, for example, in order to create a false idea in people of the afterlife, Blessed Augustine proceeds to distinguish between the apparent appearances of the dead and the true appearances of the saints.

Indeed, let's take one example. The holy fathers of the recent past, such as Elder Ambrose of Optina, teach that the beings with whom they communicate are demons, and not the souls of the dead; and those who have deeply studied spiritualistic phenomena, if they had at least some Christian standards for their judgments, came to the same conclusions.

Therefore, there is no doubt that the saints are in fact righteous at the time of death, as is described in many lives. Ordinary sinners, on the other hand, often see relatives, friends, or "gods," according to what the dying expect or are ready to see.

The exact nature of these latter phenomena is difficult to determine; these are, no doubt, not hallucinations, but part of the natural experience of death, as if a sign to the dying person that he is on the threshold of a new kingdom, where the laws of ordinary physical reality are no longer valid. There is nothing extraordinary about this state, it seems to be the same for different times, places, religions. "Meeting with others" usually occurs just before death."

Sooner or later, every mortal thinks about the upcoming afterlife. For most people, the prospect ahead is dreadful. A detailed answer to the now popular question of what happens to the soul after death can be read below.

Structure of the Universe

The universe can be described as a construction consisting of three layers:

• Reality. Physical world. Our current location.
• rule. The world of subtlest energy. Here a new soul is born.
• Nav. A certain layer between "Reveal" and "Right". The soul that appeared in "Right" passes through this world and strives for "Reality". The soul of the deceased travels this path in the opposite direction.

The path of the soul after the death of a person:

1. Death. The soul leaves the physical body. For some time, and we will describe this period in more detail below, the entity is in the world of Yav.
2. cleansing. The soul rises to Nav. In this high world there is a cleansing going on.
3. New life. The subtlest energy rises into the world of Rule: there is a complete rebirth - reincarnation.

Separate spiritual teachings say that the way back to the birth of a new "I" will not begin as long as at least a tiny particle of the material body remains on earth.

Rotting in the ground can last for decades, and only after that the soul can finally be freed. That is why some relatives of the deceased use the services of the crematorium.

Where does the soul go after death?

Until the end of the 19th century, the answer to the question of what happens to the soul of the deceased was obvious: after death, the sinner will go to Hell, and the righteous will go to Paradise.

With the development of civilization and spiritual consciousness, many other versions have appeared:

• Medium Edgar Cayce. The souls of the dead pass into the subtle world, but are "next" to us. We cannot see them, but people with special abilities can have a dialogue with them (psychics).
• Esoterics. There are certain astral planes inhabited by supernatural beings: people, gods, demons, angels and other thought forms created by our fears and phobias.

The teachings of the church mentioned above can be divided into two theories:

1. The soul, having passed through the Private Judgment, forever remains in hell or heaven.
2. The modern interpretation is that reincarnation occurs, and the soul receives a new "shell".

Which truth to accept is up to everyone to decide. One thing can be confirmed the death of the physical body, this is the stage of the transition of the essence to a new life.

Souls of animals after death

With slight differences, the similarity of the soul of an animal is similar to that of a human, but the path after death is different:

• First days. The animal does not understand what happened. The soul of a pet follows its owner. Seeing that no one pays attention to her, she moves on to the next stage of her last journey.
• group spirit. In the subtle world, there are ethereal clouds. For each species, they are separate: cows have one cloud, dogs have another, and so on. Gradually, the soul merges into the Group spirit, and dissolves in it.
• Birth. When a new life is conceived, the seed of the soul descends from the ethereal cloud - the process is repeated anew.

It is important to understand that a person “grabs” life until the very last moment, and an animal knows about its death in advance. Therefore, it is important, in the last minutes of his life, to look his pet in the eyes - this is how he says goodbye to his master.

astral world

Traveling to the astral world, despite the condemnation of the church, became popular. What is it, let's try to explain theses:

• etheric body. Each person has two essences: the material - the physical body, the ethereal - the soul.
• Dream. During dreams, the etheric body comes out of the physical body and hangs above it at a distance of 30-35 cm.
• mindfulness. With the help of a trance, you can realize your "I" and travel in a parallel world - the astral.
• Silver cord. There is a connection between the body and the ethereal essence - a silver cord. After death, it breaks.

In some countries, there are special clinics for the terminally ill, allowing them to learn how to go into the astral world, and thus overcome the fear of their future death.

In this video, Petr Metalnikov will talk about the generally accepted theory about where the soul of a person goes after his death:

Where does the soul go after death?

Nowhere in the world are the first days of the afterlife of the deceased described in such detail as it is done in the teachings of the Christian Orthodox Church:

• 3 days. There is no understanding of what happened. Seeing his body, the soul unsuccessfully tries to return to it. After the advent of time (2 days), she notices changes in her face and leaves - she visits places where, being in physical form, she did good deeds.
• 7 days. The soul rushes from the place of its burial to the house.
• 9 days. Having adapted to a new mode of existence (without a physical body), the soul begins to rise to another world. Demons and devils stop her, and I remember her earthly sins. Prayers will help you get through these ordeals.
• 40 days. Representation before a Private Court. The question is being decided whether the soul can stay in paradise with the Lord or not.

It is worth mentioning the correct behavior of the relatives of the deceased:

• Emotions. Do not throw tantrums and cry near the body of the deceased. The soul feels guilty and suffers.
• funeral service. This ritual helps the soul to understand what is happening, and quickly adapt to its new status.
• Forgiveness. If relatives have grievances against the deceased, then everything should be forgiven as soon as possible - this will allow the soul to calmly leave the physical world.

In the period up to private court, relatives of the deceased should pray for the repose of the deceased, which will allow the soul to go through the ordeal faster.

The Underworld: Six Little-Known Facts

Do you know that:

1. For a person who ended his life by suicide, the doors of paradise are closed.
2. After the death of your relative, you should not rearrange the furniture in his house for 9 days.
3. During deep trance or hypnosis, a person can see their past life.
4. There is not a single person on earth who will not have to go through ordeals, for everyone has earthly sins.
5. After death, two angels appear before the deceased. The goal is to accompany the soul to the afterlife.
6. A person, in the last hours of his life, sees terrible pictures around him: spiders, cobwebs, fire, etc. Thus, the dark forces (demons) are trying to ensure that the dying person leaves the world of the living in despair. This phenomenon is called temptation- the representatives of hell are trying to force a person to renounce Christ.

From now on, what happens to the soul after death will be known to you: the separation of the spiritual " I »from the physical body, travel in the subtle world and further reincarnation.

Undoubtedly, Not all of the above facts are scientifically proven., and in different religions they differ markedly. But according to the testimony of people who have lived clinical death, life after the exit of the soul from the body does not end - another stage of its existence begins.

Video: what happens to our soul?

In this video, the esoteric Irina Orda will tell you what should happen to the soul after the death of the human body:

Today we will talk about what happens to the soul of a person after his death.

It’s not so scary to die if you know for sure that after the rigor of your mortal body, something else awaits you. Therefore, the question of the afterlife has been of interest to humanity throughout its existence. Numerous prophecies and philosophical and religious treatises were gradually replaced by scientific research with measurements of weight, body temperature and brain activity at the time of death. Scientists managed to fix the “weight of the soul” and even the moment it left the body, but they could not get reliable information about what happens next.

But, despite the lack of scientific confirmation, you have the right to believe in any of the hypotheses of life after death and behave in accordance with it.

Opinions of world religions: heaven, hell and reincarnation

The happiest people are believers. After all, they firmly know that after death they will meet with the creator and live in Paradise. It is there, according to Christian teaching, that the soul of the righteous ends up - people who kept the commandments of God and regularly attended church.

The departure of the soul to another world in the Bible is described as a complex, staged process:

• When the body and soul are separated, the body is supposed to be buried in the earth, and the soul is supposed to say goodbye to loved ones and earthly attachments. For three days she is next to those whom she loved and completes her earthly journey.

From 9 to 40 days after death, the soul is in purgatory, where it has two ways - repentance and sincere misunderstanding "Why am I so bad?!" In the first case, the soul can be cleansed of sins and go to heaven, in the second case, it will be cleansed by fire in 9 circles of hell.

Islam adheres to similar ideas, prescribing its believers to be cleansed of sins as much as possible during life. To avoid the torments of hell, Muslims are ordered not only to lead a righteous life, but also to make pilgrimages to holy places. Sin can also be forgiven in the right fight against the "infidels".

According to Christian ideas, paradise is a luxurious garden where peace and prosperity reign, and it is located somewhere high in the heavens. Hell, on the other hand, is underground. Many esotericists believe that this is only a figurative expression, and in reality heaven and hell are worlds that are in another dimension. At the same time, the Old Testament indicates that paradise was a very real place on Earth, from which Adam and Eve were expelled with curses: “you will give birth to your children in pain.”

Many scientists made attempts to search for paradise, but like the entrance to Shambhala, it was never found. But a potentially possible road to hell was found by miners back in the USSR. It is the deepest artificial well in the world - Kola.

« At a terrible depth, which no one in the world has yet reached, chilling sounds resounded, similar to the groans and cries of hundreds of martyrs. And then - a powerful roar and an explosion in the depths. The drillers say that they felt horror - as if something terrible had jumped out of the mine, not visible to the eye, but this made it even more frightening." - printed in the 80s by foreign media. Surprisingly, but the fact is that no one dared to further explore the road to hell. She was simply abandoned and forgotten.

Buddhism and the Feast of Death

Buddhism is one of the few religions that does not have a model of hell and heaven. The parishioners here are not intimidated by the agony of boiling in cauldrons, but everyone knows for sure that they came into this life to correct and cleanse from the sins committed in previous lives. And everyone knows that death is only part of the journey, followed by the departure of the soul to one of the 7 levels of the afterlife:

Souls who had harmful passions during their lifetime - anger, anger, the habit of eating or even crazy love, go to the lowest levels, where they go through the torment of purification from what is no longer available to them;

Enlightened souls go to higher levels, where a sweet and peaceful life awaits them.

Souls from low levels go through the karmic path and rebirth unconsciously. The place of birth and the family for them are chosen by higher powers. Thus, a soul tempted by riches and permissiveness is reborn in a family of poor and disenfranchised people.

The inhabitants of high levels have the right to end their journey and remain in peace and quiet, but many of them still return to earth to experience again love, joy, inspiration and other emotions that are not available in the afterlife. They are born into rich and creative families, but often fall into all serious and after death they already fall into levels of torment and pain.

In Buddhism, a person is not easily immortal, and in most cases is forced to constantly return to earth to correct and purify karma:

The constant desire to satisfy all emerging needs leads to disappointment, because many desires cannot be fully realized. This leads to the emergence of karma (a set of human actions, including his thoughts and actions). Karma involves a person in the process of striving for good and bad. This process gives rise to new karma. This is how the cycle of samsara arises.

Wikipedia

Therefore, Buddhists consider death to be the greatest holiday - a sign of the completion of a person's life mission on earth and departure to a better world.

Shamanism and paganism

If Christianity is 2000 years old, and Buddhism is about 4000 years old, then shamanism and paganism have existed on Earth literally from the moment the first person appeared on it. Polytheism was also adhered to by the inhabitants of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece, and many African tribes still have a similar faith.

At the same time, in each of the areas of paganism there is a cult of ancestors. It is believed that the souls of people after death go to a more subtle world, which is literally superimposed on ours. Therefore, in difficult situations, they can return and invisibly help their descendants.

Representations of modern esotericism

Modern esotericists consider the periodic appearance of ghosts and phantoms in our world to be a kind of confirmation of the existence of an afterlife.

Ghost or ghost - in traditional ideas, the soul or spirit of a deceased person, or a mythical creature, manifesting itself in a visible or other form in real life (from an invisible and intangible presence to almost realistic observations). Deliberate attempts to contact the spirit of the deceased are called séance or, more narrowly, necromancy.

Wikipedia

It is difficult to call this phenomenon far-fetched or new - ghosts have bothered mankind since time immemorial. The first literary descriptions about them date back to the 3rd century AD, when a new genre appeared in Chinese and Japanese literature - stories about the other world. Later, in good and old England, castles with ghosts appeared, and all of Europe knew that it was dangerous to buy a house in which people died a terrible death.

So what is it - a failure in the system of the soul's departure to the afterlife, fiction or another evidence of the immortality of the soul?

Modern psychics, like the masters of spiritualism of the 18th century, argue that using certain tricks and techniques, each person can contact the soul or, rather, the phantom of a loved one and get answers to their questions from him. However, they all explain the journey of the soul after death in their own way:

• The vast majority of modern psychics are sure that the soul is a stable substance and perfectly remembers its earthly life. Its rebirth, if possible, is in extremely rare cases, at the request of the righteous to God. For example, in a newborn child there may be the soul of a baby who died several years ago from an illness.
• Others believe that rebirth is a permanent process, and it is possible to contact the soul only as long as it is in the subtle worlds and undergoes a procedure of cleansing from sins and addictions. A living confirmation of this theory is the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyamtsho - this man remembers all his previous lives and is the spiritual leader of Tibet for the 14th time. According to tradition, the dying Dalai Lama instructs his disciples where, in what family and after how many years to look for his new incarnation. The boy is taken away from the family at the age of 8, subject to his story about the adventures and highlights of his past life.
• And finally, there are psychics and magicians who do not believe in either rebirth or the life of the soul after death. They explain all the mysterious manifestations of our world by recording what happened in the information space of the Earth. In their opinion, ghosts and "answers from the other world" are the actions of phantoms - energy substances that are always nearby, like records of past years.

There is another opinion that has become widespread in the circles of modern philosophers. According to him, hell is earthly life, and the physical body is the first and heaviest shell of the soul. After death, finding lightness, the soul moves to a new and more pleasant level of life, which ends with the loss of the next shell. The result is the achievement of a perfect, pure mind.

The wheel of life and the gift of the Eagle

As you have already noticed, the ideas of religions and many esoteric practices agree on one thing: death is only part of the path, and the soul is immortal and capable of correcting its mistakes. The saga of Carlos Castaneda literally blew up the world, crossing out all ideas with more solid philosophical convictions and some scientific knowledge in the study of the most mystical phenomena. Having become part of the community of magicians, the author diligently puts everything on the shelves and draws up a special teaching.

According to him, there is no life after death.

• After leaving the body, the soul rushes to the beak of the mystical giant Eagle - the universal mind, and is absorbed by it. And, despite the continued existence of the soul, as part of the general mind, it is completely depersonalized and purified.
• It is possible to avoid absorption by the Eagle, but only on condition that you adhere to the path of a warrior: keep your body healthy, learn to consciously transition to other worlds, learn to be elusive and unpredictable. In this case, you have every chance after death to “slip away” from the absorption, save your personality, and then be reborn in a new body.

Castaneda's theory is terrible and beautiful. On the one hand, it is hard to realize that after death, life, consciousness and all emotions will cease to exist. On the other hand, imminent death is the best adviser, forcing us to get rid of fear, act decisively and live with conscience and honor. Indeed, with such a balance of power, you will no longer be able to repent after death and get a warm place in paradise - you can create chances for salvation for your soul only by diligent training and struggle.

After the separation of the soul from the body, an independent life begins for it in the invisible world. The spiritual experience accumulated by the Church makes it possible to build a clear and coherent teaching about the afterlife of man.The disciple of St. Macarius of Alexandria (+ 395) tells: “when we were walking through the desert, I saw two angels who accompanied St. Macarius, one on the right side, the other on the left. One of them spoke about what the soul does in the first 40 days after death: “When on the third day there is an offering in the Church, the soul of the deceased receives relief from the angel guarding it in sorrow, which it feels from separation from the body; receives because the doxology and offering in the Church of God has been completed for her, which is why a good hope is born in her. For in the course of two days the soul, together with the angels who are with it, is allowed to walk the earth wherever it wishes. Therefore, the soul that loves the body sometimes wanders around the house in which it was separated from the body, sometimes around the tomb in which the body is laid.<…>And the virtuous soul goes to those places where it used to do the right thing. On the third day, He Who rose from the dead on the third day - the God of all - commands, in imitation of His Resurrection, to ascend to heaven for every Christian soul to worship the God of all. So it is the custom of the good Church to make an offering and prayer for the soul on the third day.

After worshiping God, it is commanded from Him to show the soul the various and pleasant abodes of the saints and the beauty of paradise. All this is considered by the soul for six days, wondering and glorifying the Creator of all this - God. Contemplating all this, she changes and forgets the sorrow she had while in the body. But if she is guilty of sins, then at the sight of the pleasures of the saints, she begins to grieve and reproach herself, saying: “Alas!” to me! How I fussed in that world! Carried away by the satisfaction of lusts, I spent most of my life in carelessness and did not serve God as I should, so that I could also be rewarded with this goodness.<…>After considering all the joys of the righteous for six days, she again ascends by angels to worship God. So, the Church does well, making services and offerings for the deceased on the ninth day.

After the second worship, the Lord of all again commands to take the soul to hell and show it the places of torment located there, the different sections of hell and the various wicked torments.<…>Through these various places of torment the soul rushes about for thirty days, trembling, lest it itself be condemned to imprisonment in them. On the fortieth day, she again ascends to worship God; and then the Judge determines a decent place for her in deeds<…>So, the Church does the right thing, making commemorations of the departed and those who received Baptism ”(St. Macarius of Alexandria. A word on the exodus of the souls of the righteous and sinners ..., - “Christian Reading”, 1831, part 43, p. 123-31; “How to conduct soul for the first forty days after leaving the body, M., 1999, pp. 13-19).

The great ascetic of our time, St. John (Maximovich) writes: “It should be borne in mind that the description of the first two days after death gives a general rule that by no means covers all situations<…>saints who were not attached to worldly things at all, lived in constant expectation of a transition to another world, are not even attracted to places where they did good deeds, but immediately begin their ascent to heaven ”(Blessed St. John the Wonderworker, M., 2003 , p. 792).

The Orthodox Church attaches great importance to the doctrine of aerial ordeals, which begin on the third day after the separation of the soul from the body. She passes through the airspace of the “outpost”, where evil spirits convict her of her sins and seek to keep her as akin to them. The holy fathers write about this (Ephraim the Syrian, Athanasius the Great, Macarius the Great, John Chrysostom, and others).

The soul of a person who lived according to the commandments of God and the statutes of St. The Church painlessly passes through these "outposts" and after the fortieth day receives a place of temporary rest. It is necessary that loved ones pray in the Church and at home for the departed, remembering that until the Last Judgment much depends on these prayers. “Truly, truly, I say to you, the time is coming, and it is already here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and when they hear, they will live” (John 5:25).

Father Afanasy Gumerov