The Persian mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273) wrote:
“ I died from minerality and became vegetable;
And from vegetativeness I died and became animal.
I died from animality and became man.
Then why fear disappearance through death?
Next time I shall die
Bringing forth wings and feathers like angels;
After that, soaring higher than angels -
What you cannot imagine,”
I shall be that.
Rumi,
like many other mystics, maintains that the spirit or soul takes many
births in the material world. Mystics also make a clear distinction between
body,
mind and soul or spirit. The body is needed to function in the material
world and
we leave it here when we die. The mind originates in the causal planes
of
consciousness and works through the brain in the physical body. The spirit
or
soul is the true and eternal essence.
The spirit is as 'a drop of the ocean of divine consciousness' and has,
as Rumi
indicates, been coming into this material plane for countless ages, not
only in
human forms, but in a variety of forms suited to it's desire to express
itself. It is
believed by the Indian sages that there are 84 thousand species of life
on this
planet and we have or could have experienced them all.
Impressions of our experiences of this world are etched into the surface
of the
mind, which returns with the soul each time we take a physical form. These
impressions are built up in layers, not unlike the layers of images found
on the
many cave walls painted by our ancestors on all the continents of the
earth.
The body is limited in it's scope for expression, the mind less so, while
the spirit
or soul has unlimited creative potential. Through long association with
the mind
and various bodies, the soul has become bound to these lower levels of
consciousness. It no longer realizes it's true and essential self. Only
when the
spirit takes leave of the mind and body, crosses the turbulent oceans
of the
phenomenal world, passes through the 'tenth gate' and soars into higher
realms
of consciousness, does it experience true bliss. The soul then realizing
its true
nature, it's divine essence, dances for joy