The Bardo and Beyond: Using Astral Knowledge to Understand the Journey After Death

What happens when we die? It is the single greatest mystery of the human experience. For centuries, ancient texts like the Tibetan Book of the Dead have provided a detailed roadmap, describing an intermediate state between death and rebirth known as the Bardo. But what if you didn’t have to wait until death to explore this territory?

A profound and consistent insight from veteran astral projectors is that the realms they visit are not mere fantasy—they are the very same dimensions a newly disembodied soul navigates after death. Conscious astral projection, therefore, becomes the ultimate preparation for the ultimate journey. This article will use the Tibetan Bardo model as a framework to explain the afterlife process and show how the skills you develop through astral travel can lead to a conscious, enlightened, and empowered transition.

The Bardo: The 49-Day Journey Between Lives

The Tibetan Buddhist concept of the Bardo is not a place of judgment, but a state of intense opportunity and potential. It is a liminal space where the soul, freed from the body, undergoes a series of visions that are ultimately projections of its own mind and karma.

The journey is traditionally divided into three primary stages:

1. The Chikhai Bardo (The Bardo of the Moment of Death): This is the initial stage at the moment of physical death. The individual is presented with a chance to recognize the “Clear Light” of pure, primordial reality. If they can achieve liberation through this recognition, they break the cycle of rebirth. For most, the experience is too overwhelming, and they move into the next stage.
2. The Chönyid Bardo (The Bardo of the Experiencing of Reality): This is the most famous stage, lasting up to 49 days. Here, the soul encounters a succession of both peaceful and wrathful deities. These are not external gods but archetypal manifestations of the soul’s own inner state. The peaceful deities arise from refined, positive energies, while the wrathful ones manifest from fear, anger, and negative karma. The soul’s reaction to these visions—whether it is drawn to the light or flees in terror—determines the nature of its next rebirth.
3. The Sidpa Bardo (The Bardo of Becoming): Failing to recognize the visions as illusions, the soul’s consciousness begins to solidify into a new form. Driven by craving and attachment, it is pulled magnetically toward a new physical existence and a set of parents whose own karma aligns with its own, culminating in rebirth.

The Astral Projection Parallel: Training for the Bardo Now

The descriptions of the Bardo’s landscapes and beings are strikingly similar to the accounts of those who consciously astral project. This suggests that astral travel is a dress rehearsal for death, providing the awareness and skills needed to navigate the post-mortem state with mastery.

• Familiarity Breeds Fearlessness: The initial shock of being out-of-body is one of the biggest hurdles for both the projecter and the newly deceased. By regularly experiencing separation consciously, you normalize the state. The “vibrational state” of projection is nearly identical to descriptions of the energy shifts at the moment of death. Having felt it before, you are less likely to panic and more likely to recognize the opportunity.
• Navigating the Illusory Realms: The Chönyid Bardo’s wrathful deities are the direct equivalent of the lower-astral “monsters” and thought-forms projectors learn to face. The practice of psychic self-defense—using love, authority, and sacred symbols—is the exact skill set required to see through these terrifying apparitions and realize they are empty of inherent reality. You learn not to flee from a demon, but to recognize it as a manifestation of your own fear, thereby dissolving its power.
• Conscious Choice Over Karmic Compulsion: In the Sidpa Bardo, the soul is typically pulled helplessly toward rebirth by its strongest attachments. An individual trained in astral navigation, however, has practiced wielding sovereign intent. They are used to choosing their destination with commands like “Away!” or “Take me to the Hall of Records.” This practiced ability to direct one’s consciousness can allow a soul to choose its next incarnation with wisdom and purpose, rather than being swept away by karmic currents.

Practical Preparation: Living with the Bardo in Mind

You do not need to be a projection expert to benefit from this knowledge. The goal is to cultivate the right state of mind.

• Practice Non-Attachment: This is the central teaching. This doesn’t mean not loving, but rather, not clinging. Practice letting go of outcomes, identities, and material possessions in your daily life. In the Bardo, attachment is the gravity that pulls you back into a body; non-attachment is the wings that allow for liberation.
• Meditate on the Clear Light: In your meditations, don’t just seek silence. Inquire, “Who is aware?” Seek the source of your consciousness. This is a direct practice for recognizing the Clear Light in the first Bardo.
• Review Your Day as Illusion: Each night, review your day’s events and ask yourself, “How did my own mind, my own biases and emotions, create my experience of this reality?” This builds the critical habit of seeing all phenomena as mind-dependent, which is the key to navigating the hallucinatory Bardo realms.

The Grand Narrative: The Seventh Journey as the Soul’s Ultimate Transition

Robert JR Graham’s Seventh Journey Series is, at its heart, a monumental epic about the soul’s journey through the Bardo. The entire trilogy can be read as an allegory for the process of death, purification, and rebirth.

• Jacob’s ‘Death’ and Rebirth: The end of Book 1 is a literal depiction of the Bardo process. Jacob’s physical body dies in the hospital, and his consciousness is reborn into a new, mysterious body in the Arctic. This is a powerful narrative of the Sidpa Bardo—the “Bardo of Becoming”—where the soul takes on a new form.
• Nowhere Land as the Chönyid Bardo: The harrowing “Nowhere Land” from Book 2 is a perfect fictional representation of the Chönyid Bardo. It is a constructed illusion filled with deceptive entities (the Soul Collector) and challenges that test the protagonist’s psyche. James’s victory comes from seeing through the illusion, just as a soul must see through the wrathful deities.
• The Seventh Journey as the Final Liberation: The entire trilogy’s structure is built around the concept of Seven Journeys—reincarnated cycles where the same soul repeatedly faces the same cosmic challenge. This mirrors the Buddhist concept of Samsara, the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth due to karma and ignorance. The climax of Book 3 is the ultimate “Bardo choice.” James and Tamara are presented with a door to rewrite the past—a temptation born of attachment. Instead, they choose to “let go,” to accept the past with all its wounds. This act of supreme non-attachment is what finally breaks the karmic cycle, ending their need for further Journeys and allowing them to compose a new reality from a place of liberated consciousness.

The Seventh Journey Series masterfully illustrates that the purpose of exploring consciousness is not escapism, but the ultimate empowerment. It tells us that the skills we develop now—sovereignty, love, discernment, and non-attachment—are not just for improving this life. They are the essential tools for navigating the great adventure that awaits us all, transforming the final journey from a terrifying unknown into a conscious homecoming.