“It is simple really.
When you die you go to the Pearly Gates, the lunar dimension, we call Yesod. You can think of this as the 32nd Path on the Tree of Life. Just don’t be too concrete about it. There you are met by St. Peter, or the “stone” of faith as it is also symbolized by the cubic stone in some schools. It is these psychic energies that are the foundation of what everything we do is built upon or rather from. So, here, an angel or messenger reads a book, the Book of Life, wherein all you have done is written. Think of it as a tally sheet of your various actions, or karmas, and what they come to in the end. Quite literally in fact. If there is enough to warrant you pass through. If not, you are redirected towards a sort of purgatory or purification process. This would be something like the 31st Path, or the Path of Fire between Malkooth and Hod, but also the 29th Path between Malkooth and Netzach, a Path of Water. It is less fire and water and more an effort to re-ballance one’s inner state or energies to some limited degree. Strong attachments and emotions keep one ‘earth bound’ so-to-speak, that is why these paths are described as not presenting one to or passing through the Pearly Gates of the moon, or Yesod.
If we pass through, as most do, then we are presented with several choices. Although choices is a relatively strong word. Most people act in life from habit patterns, and these habits, or karma, strongly influence them after death as well. So, the pull towards what one is familiar and comfortable with is still very strong.
After Yesod we experience some brighter light, and maybe attracted to the beautiful psychic dimensions or heavens of Netzach, and there risk drinking from the fountain of forgetfulness to ease our memories of the pains of the life just passed. Or, we may find ourselves moving towards a path of memory and realization, of conscious choices, towards Hod. Some may find themselves heading into a dimension of profound realization, of awakening so profound it shatters the dimensions of identity and reorients us into a deep identification with Beingness itself. This would be Tiphareth, and with it, the so-called Second Death. Of course, this experience is giving us a glimpse if you will of our Alpha, or Basic nature, our seed essence or Kether.
The Second Death can be avoided, with great effort, through various practices, the most important being, a realization of these states while still alive so as to more easily navigate them when dead. In this way, our memories are not lost, or rather reduced to seed potentials, and our capacities are brought forth more fully, and we can consciously make a decision about where, when, how, and why, we take a new life experience, rather than leaving it up to habituated patterns, likes and dislikes, or in a word, karma.
Meditation on the paths mentioned is helpful. Meditation on one’s Alpha seed nature more helpful. Working on the Body of Life is of course the most helpful, particularly when combined with the previous two.
Another way is to attach yourself to a powerful egregore. But of course this is very tricky as you must be certain of what you are getting involved with as it will then dominate your postmortem journey and whatever comes AFTER that.”
For more information see: Oral Commentary on Between the Gates
