Avici

Avīci (also Avitchi, Sanskrit and Pali "without waves"; Chinese and Japanese: 無間地獄 Wújiàn dìyù and 阿鼻地獄 Ābí dìyù) is the Buddhist term for the lowest regions of Naraka (Sanskrit: नरक), for that region of the underworld or hell in which such dead are "reborn" in the course of the transmigration of the souls who have committed the most serious offences, for example by shedding the noble blood of a Buddha or deliberately killing their father or mother. From an anthroposophical point of view, Avitchi gives rise to the so-called eighth sphere, which will one day remain as the dross of earth evolution.

„Now, however, a being can grow together with what is actually to remain as dross. Something must remain from the Earth that is later to be what the Moon is today. Man must overcome this. But man can like it, then he connects with it. A man who is deeply interwoven with the merely sensual, the merely instinctive, connects himself more and more with that which is to become the dross. That will be when the number 666 is fulfilled, the number of the beast. Then the moment will come when the Earth must move out of the continuous evolution of the planets. When man has become too closely related to the sensual forces that are to emerge, then that which is related to it and has not found the connection to pass over to the next globe will go with the dross and become inhabitants of this dross, just as such beings are now inhabitants of the present Moon.

There we have the concept of the eighth sphere. Man must pass through seven spheres. The seven planets correspond to the seven bodies:

Saturn corresponds to the physical body

The Sun corresponds to the etheric body

The Moon corresponds to the astral body

The Earth corresponds to the I

Jupiter corresponds to the Manas

Venus corresponds to the Buddhi

The Vulcan corresponds to the Atma

In addition, there is an eighth sphere where everything goes that cannot join this continuous development. This is already formed in the devachanic state. If man uses life on Earth only to gather what serves him alone, to experience only an elevation of his own egoistic self, this leads in Devachan to the state of Avitchi. The person who cannot get out of specialness comes to Avitchi. All these Avitchi people once become residents of the eighth sphere. Avitchi is the preparation for the eighth sphere. The other human beings become inhabitants of the continuous evolutionary chain. The religions have formulated 'hell' from this concept.“ (Lit.:GA 93a, p. 112)

Literature

• Rudolf Steiner: Grundelemente der Esoterik, GA 93a (1987), ISBN 3-7274-0935-5 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

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