Prince Hafed from Persia describes his own experience after leaving the body:
When I woke up, I felt as if I had come out of a troubled dream.
The past few hours seemed like a kind of dreamy unreality to me, and yet I knew that what had happened was completely real.
A fact-
It should not be presented as mere fantasy.
I gradually began to consider:
I couldn’t detect any difference in myself –
Not even in the clothes I was covered with.
This is something you need to think about.
Where did these clothes come from?
The spirits did not bring them to the spirit land with me.
How?
But-
As the scales fell from my eyes…
When I began to realize the fact of my translation…
I noticed that although my clothing was similar to those that covered me on earth, it was not the same.
I then began to examine my body, and there too everything seemed as usual:
There were my hands – my feet – the shape of my body – the bones themselves – yes, even the swollen blue veins in my arms and hands, and the nails on my fingertips –
All there!
But-
As I wondered and stared, everything became transparent –
There was no density in what I was looking at.
I kept looking at myself and my surroundings, and as I looked I thought:
Is this then the great change that has absorbed the attention of philosophers of all ages and countries?
Has the veil finally been lifted?
Now I see things as they really are.
Now I stand out in a permanent form—
Sturdy and more substantial than the everlasting rocks –
These can crumble into sand over time—
The mortal body may dissolve in the elements and be blown about by the wind, but here is the indestructible body.
Man can do that – and unfortunately! How many times does he destroy his earthly body, but this spiritual system will never be destroyed.
O glorious change! of earth—with everything his sins, sorrows and diseases—to heaven—with its abiding rest, peace and joy!
So I meditated, and so I pondered in wonder, and as I did so the truth – like rays of light – entered me.
What I had been accustomed to regard as substantial realities, even the great rocks, mountains, and seas of the earth, now seemed to me but shadows in contrast with the great and magnificent objects upon which my vision rested.
It was not, however, until the figures of my wife and son, with my beloved parents, and long-departed friends and companions, stood around me that I realized the fact of my transition:
I had indeed passed from death to life –
From the mortal to the immortal.
Furthermore, I could now perceive the hearts of the loved ones I came into contact with.
Of course I am not talking about the body’s heart – that great power pump of the blood (if you examine that blood carefully you will perceive the magnetic spark so necessary for the proper functioning of the heart) – not that, but something different from, and yet corresponding to that great organ of the body – I mean the mind-heart –
The affection-
The thoughts projected from within the Inner Man.
Note that the mind has what I might call an inner mind.
If only you could understand it!
You look at man, wrapped in his wonderful human form, and you see in that form only the temple of the spirit – the dwelling place of man – so beautifully adapted to all his needs, as an inhabitant of the earth –
You fix your eyes on the spirit form –
The heavenly body, but that is not man –
That’s not all –
In that celestial body there is the Inner man—
The thinking – feeling – acting being – the divine part –
The eternal, indestructible offspring of God.
Do you see it?
There is—First—the body-
Than—the ghost-
And then—the divine part—
All this together forms the individual – the human being.
In earthly life the inner or divine part – the soul – can be so obliterated – made so illegible by worldliness and sin, that there seems to be nothing left but the spirit.
By breaking the law, man excludes God.
If he comes here in such a state, he will be driven…
He cannot help but be driven into the dark regions of despair –
There he remains without hope and abandoned by God, as he thinks.
But still there is hope, because he is not forgotten:
The angels of mercy and love are looking for an opening through which they can do this work upon the inner part of this darkened immortal, and when this opening takes place, in consequence of the discipline undergone –
When the little crack appears, the door is thrown open to the influences of the ministers of love and truth—
The light flows into the dark cells of his being—initially gradually and slowly—but increasing and increasing, and as the light enters, the degraded one also emerges from his wretched condition and rises –
It always rises upward and further.
We, in our beloved missions, are ever vigilant in such cases, and when the opportunity arises, it is our delight and delight to work for goodness and truth.
To lift the poor helpless, hopeless one from the filthy waters of his sins into God’s pure stream of truth, and thus propel him forth into our sphere of light and love.
In those who come here in a renewed state, the divine part of their nature becomes the thinking, acting part, and as they continue on this course they become more and more like Jesus, who is the Image of the Invisible God.
–Hafed, Prince of Persia
