A: They will see what they have always seen—a human life, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes healthy, sometimes sick. It will be the same human life that they left here. In other words, the transition does not, in and of itself, change a person’s consciousness. The level of consciousness in which they leave here is the level of consciousness in which they find themselves there. The only exception to that is that those on the spiritual path, more especially if they have made their God-contact, often bridge over at least a thousand years of development in one hour.
In other words, by the very act of passing from this physical sense, they are released into the measure of spiritual consciousness they have attained. And that may carry them forward a thousand years from where they are now. Those who leave this plane purely as humans can only awaken purely human, but they have the same opportunity to begin their spiritual life as if they were still on this plane. In other words, everyone on this plane can start their spiritual life whenever they are ready, whether they start it at birth or whether they start it at eighty years of age. They can start at any time, but if they pass on, they still have that same opportunity. But the passing on does not spiritualize them.
On the other hand, I have witnessed that those who leave this plane far along in spiritual consciousness bridge over the entire span of the future and fulfill what the Orientals teach, that you reach samadhi, or the eternal divine state of consciousness, without any necessity of returning to physical sense. All others must still go through phases of physical sense until they have outgrown them by means of spiritual development. But any progress spirit-ward on this plane means that much further progress on the next.
And I want to tell you that that accounts for Buddha, Jesus Christ, John, Paul, and hundreds of others whom I will not name in order to come up to the present, and bring you to Mrs. Eddy, Mrs. Fillmore, Mr. Holmes, and countless others whom you may know, whom I do not personally know. That accounts for these who have become spiritual leaders, not because of anything they learned since they were born, but because of the spiritual awareness they had already developed when they came here.
Never believe for a moment that anyone goes from being an actual human being—unenlightened, unillumined—to becoming a very serious spiritual light. It can’t happen, for spiritual illumination comes slowly. You die daily in order to be reborn of the spirit, and therefore it is those who have been on the spiritual path, perhaps for centuries, who come onto this plane of existence and become the dozen or two dozen who become the spiritual lights of this age. And then remember that there will be others a hundred years, and two hundred, three hundred years from now, who are developing now, who will come to be the spiritual lights then.
1This copyrighted excerpt is from Recording 269B: 1959 San Diego Special Class, “Questions and Answers.” It is posted with kind permission from the Estate of Joel Goldsmith, which holds the copy protection on the recorded classes and the copyright on the transcripts. The full transcript of this recording is available from The Infinite Way website or by calling 1-800-922-3195.