Our form in the hereafter is shaped by our inner life.

If we still feel like on earth, then our spiritual body will show a resemblance to the material body that we had on earth.

The more unselfish love we feel, the more beautiful, younger and more ethereal our spiritual body will become.

On the other hand, dark feelings can distort the spiritual body into inhuman forms.

In the books by Jozef Rulof our deeper core being is not referred to by the term ‘spirit’, but by the term ‘soul’.

In the hereafter, the soul has a spiritual body.

During a life on earth the soul has both an earthly body and a spiritual body.

On earth the spiritual body is the link between the soul and the material body.

The soul steers the material body via the spiritual body.

Upon death the soul leaves the material body along with her spiritual body.

In the hereafter, the soul has her spiritual body for being able to gain experiences, for being able to communicate with other people, for being able to manifest herself at the spiritual level of existence.

Because the soul in herself does not have a concrete form, she is more rarefied than the spiritual body.

We can also speak of three levels of condensing.

The soul is the most rarefied, the least condensed.

At the spiritual level the soul condenses into a spiritual body which is more condensed and has more form.

And on earth the soul condenses via the spiritual body into the material body, which is the most condensed, formed and tangible of the three levels.

People speak of ‘spirits’ in the hereafter.

A spirit is then in fact a soul with a spiritual body.

Every spirit has previously lived as a human being on earth.

In other words: upon death, the soul has withdrawn from the material body along with her spiritual body.

During the earthly life, with her spiritual body she can also temporarily leave the material body during an out-of-body experience.

Since the form of the spiritual body is determined by the inner life, the physical defects that a number of people had on earth disappear.

The human being who had an arm or leg missing on earth sees this body part again as a spiritual arm or leg after death.

As a result he can become quickly convinced in the hereafter that he no longer lives on earth.

The age in appearance of the spiritual body reflects the inner level of love.

The more unselfish love, the younger the spiritual body looks.

For instance, someone can look thirty years old, but have already spent hundreds of years in the hereafter.

However, someone can look more than a hundred years old because he possesses little spiritual love.

When an inhabitant of the spheres of light in the hereafter goes to the earth to collect a loved one, he can concentrate on his own earthly life and allow his spiritual body to assume the last age that he was when his loved one knew him.

As a result, he can be recognized by his loved one.

For that same reason, he can allow his spiritual body to wear the clothing that his loved one on earth remembers.

However, that is only possible when he has the required spiritual concentration.

An inhabitant of the hereafter who does not yet possess this concentration cannot change his age and clothing.

When that inhabitant still feels earthly, his spiritual clothing will reflect this.

Thanks to our spiritual body, after dying on earth we can enter the sphere of light or the dark sphere to which we have attuned ourselves due to our grade of love.

As a spiritual personality, we can also remain in the ‘sphere of the earth’ temporarily, as a ‘spirit on earth’.

All these possibilities are introduced in the article ‘Spheres in the hereafter’.

Spirit and spiritual body -- Sources