The dialectical stratum consists of two spheres: the earthly sphere and the hereafter. Death does not liberate man from the dialectical stratum, but he passes from one sphere to the other.
And just as it is certain that death catches up with us in the physical sphere, the development in the other sphere compels (necessitates) us – that is, as a microcosm – to the inclusion of a new personality, because on the other side the human being merely disposes of an incomplete organism.
In esoteric circles one speaks in this context usually of reincarnation or re-embodiment, thereby suggesting that there would be such a thing as a continuation of existence after death. Totally incorrect!
When you later on die of your nature-being, your entire personality-being will fade over time, and only the fundamental fire-principle that gave you life, will return to the higher self, the auric being.
Just as the being of a dog volatilizes within a few days after death, so it goes with us in a somewhat longer period of time, if we keep on stopping at this nature.
Can we then say that the higher self has known a previous existence? No! It only existed once! This existence occurred at the dawn of the profaneness and continues, albeit with innumerable changes and shape changes, till this moment.
The higher self, the auric being, is a blind, driving power, the personification of a power structure escaped from guidance, the result of which – the planet within the microcosm, that is, the human revelation – is always and ever destroyed.
So there is no reincarnation, no re-embodiment of the personality. Nothing remains of the mortal soul after death. The mortal soul, your I-being, completely evaporates. Nothing remains of you as a mortal being.
Just as the physical body perishes into dust and ashes, so does the mortal soul perish: the soul that sins must die. And something that is dead is in that sense completely dead.
Only if your soul has become immortal, is born through water and spirit, that is through transfiguration, you may, if you can be of use, voluntarily return to birth, to be of service in the great, never-ending work of redemption of the Universal Brotherhood, in the service of all mankind. However, the birth procedure will then be different.
In this connection, the question may arise as to what is meant by the wheel of birth and death.
The wheel of birth and death can only be understood in its activity if you start to look at it in its connection with the entire microcosm.
Let us for now suffice to remind you that the microcosm is constantly being emptied again, because of the mortality of the soul-being and its personality. The microcosm, therefore, wanders in the nature of death, as in a wheel rotation, and has to incorporate time and time again a soul, a mortal soul, in its system, in order that once, out of and through this soul, the possibility will be released that the microcosm, by restoring the original unity of spirit , soul and body, through the process of transfiguration can regenerate to its original, God-intended glory.
Finally, we note that these things are clear to a gnostic person. This is due to the fact that the development process of the Gnosis leads to higher good and thus to first hand knowledge. Only direct, first hand knowledge here is liberating, but reasonable-moral philosophical insight and a pure practical religiousness of the deed must be the basis here.
Gnostic esoteric research, moreover, proves the truth of all the foregoing: reincarnation, re-embodiment, of the microcosm, through a mortal personality, is a fact! The entire microcosmic reincarnation process can be followed by the trained gnostic.
Such research shows that microcosmic reincarnation is an emergency law, a consequence of our fall. It is a hard law, but nevertheless a very gracious law, because it keeps man in revelation and places him for a task that is not too heavy.
The repeated perishing in death shows that the great lesson for which we exist here has not yet been learned and that man has not yet begun the regeneration process. The lesson must be learned here, because here it gives us a complete threefold physicality as to consciousness, soul and body.
In this state the new body, the heavenly body, must be built. The old body is therefore the equipment with which the immortal body must be erected. That is where the regeneration process should begin, where the degradation was committed.
That is why man – that is the microcosm – is bound to the wheel. That is why a new personality revelation follows again and again on death. That is why every new personality revelation is a new liberation opportunity for the microcosm.
Only when man has learned to build his heavenly body, and in doing so he has made progress, the moment will come for him to be liberated from the wheel. His death is then a resurrection in the heavenly kingdom, the divine order, and not an arrival in the other sphere of the dialectical stratum, which then at most forms a passage for his entry into the true freedom of the divine order.
Source: Elementary philosophy of Jan van Rijckenborgh