[Smittoh]

Thanks very much, I'll take your advice, Three_Nails! BTW, I'm intrigued as to what the energy body actually IS - is it part of the astral/etheric? What happens to it after death? Does it fuse with the Higher Self/Soul aspect? Or become a shell like the astral? Probably silly considerations but I'd still like to know if anyone has any ideas/facts? There is no energy body work in any of the Indian traditions, & I wonder why. . . . .?

Do you really think so? I don't think so.

I think the idea of an energy body is a simplification. As we shift our consciousness from physical to etheric to emotional/astral to mental etc. we just switch our point of view. Our consciousness at any level can be in many places and always is. Robert's concepts of the energy body IMO explain how all of this gets reintegrated in our wake, physical, conscious mind and gets stored back into our brain.

We exist at all levels of consciousness all the time, but reattaining our capabilities is part of why we're here, plus for learning the lessons that can be had here. The same restrictions we experience now are here so that we do actually learn something instead of opting out in the face of problems.

It seems at first glance that the Indian traditions have no energy body concepts, or the Chinese ones ignore projection and so on. In the end it seems to me all talk about the same and order their steps differently in which seekers undertake their spiritual journey.

In the end the Taoists believe is that you can transcend the human condition by removing the ego limitations, cleaning up the first six energy bodies (physical, emotional, mental, psychic, karmic/causal) and then merge back into your Higher Self, unifying your human aspects with your Higher Self aspects, so that you permanently attain the 7th energy body, called the "spirit body" or "body of individuality". This is identical to breaking the cycle of reincarnation and becoming a permanent, fully integrated spirit entity.

Oliver