Page:Philosophy of bhagawad-gita.pdf/63

Rh impulse when the karana sharira is separated from it. When once its source of life and energy is thus removed from it, it is naturally deprived of the only spring of life that can enable it to subsist. But astral matter being of a far finer constitution than physical matter, energy once communicated to it subsists for a longer time than when communicated to physical matter. When once separated from the astral body, the physical body dies very rapidly, but in the case of the astral body some time is required before complete dissolution can take place, because the impulses already communicated to it still keep the particles together, and its period of post mortem existence is proportionate to the strength of those impulses. Till this strength is exhausted the astral body holds together. The time of its independent existence on the astral plane will thus depend on the strength of its craving for life and the intensity of its unsatisfied desires. This is the reason why, in the case of suicides and those who die premature deaths, having at the time of death a strong passion or a strong desire that they were unable to satisfy during life, but on the fulfilment of which their whole energy was concentrated, the astral body subsists for a certain length of time, and may even make desperate efforts for the purpose of descending into the physical plane to bring about the accomplishment of its object. Most of the spiritualistic phenomena are to be accounted for upon this principle, and also upon the principle