As a rule, in his ascent to the eternal Truth, an aspirant first becomes subtle-conscious and then mental-conscious before realizing the Truth. The subtle-conscious soul generally does not come back to the gross world. This does not mean that the subtleconscious soul does not take a gross form
or dwell in the gross world with his gross body. It means that the consciousness of the soul is no longer entangled with the gross form or the gross world, and that it is chiefly engrossed in the subtle world.
The condition of the subtle-conscious soul is an interesting contrast with the condition of ghosts. Ghosts are departed spirits who have been too much attached to the gross world. After dropping the physical body they still desire to live in close contact with the gross. They continue to gravitate in the lower subtle and astral planes. Their astral sheath or envelope is automatically actuated by the impressions concerning the gross and keeps them tied down to the gross for long periods. Their tendencies are directly opposed to the tendencies of the subtle-conscious aspirants. The subtle-conscious aspirant, though linked up with the gross world, gets wafted to the subtle planes and experiences and moves upwards toward the Truth. The ghosts, though severed from the gross body, gravitate to the gross world with its experiences, owing to their actuating gross impressions. Thus, in a sense, the subtle-conscious soul is an inverted ghost.
The mental-conscious soul, even while retaining a gross body, remains stationed on its higher planes, without getting entangled even with the subtle planes. It keeps waiting till it merges with God or Truth in the seventh plane. After merger, the soul may remain immersed in the bliss of God-Realization and become a Majzoob or come down to the lower planes of duality for work (without losing its realization of the unitary Truth) and become a Perfect Master. Whether a particular God-realized soul becomes Majzoob or a Perfect Master is a matter decided by the initial urge in creation. These varieties of terminal states are not subject to sanskaric or impressional determination. In both terminal states there is no trace of any binding impressions. However, the entire fabric of the universe serves but one purpose, viz., Realization of God.
-Beams, p16
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“Take life lightly where material affairs are concerned and seriously where spiritual development is in question.”
(Sparks of Truth, p94)