When a person dies, the body and the spirit separate. The body stays with the physical earth and the spirit returns to the astral plane and is debriefed. According to John U.K., my Spiritual Guide and teacher, the length of time of the debriefing depends on what the person expects in the afterlife and what type of life they lived. For those who expect a heaven or a hell, they will experience such. After the debriefing, the soul and their Higher Self rejoin to one.

This is what John U.K. said about what happens when you die. “At death, those who expect a heaven or a hell, experience such. But not through their Higher Self, which understand the true nature of their life’s experiences. It is the energy body’s experiences or experiences that dwell in the lower astral levels and as they gain awareness may migrate upwards to eventually join their Higher Self. The soul can be greeted by other souls who are also deceased. Usually it is the souls the person knew on earth who may be there to greet the person back "home". But if the person who died expects nothing, they will see and experience nothing for a period of time. For those who expect a heaven or a hell, they will have that experience. But after the person experiences what they expected to experience, a debriefing can occur to help them acclimate back to the astral plane.”

I asked, “How long does the debriefing last?”
 
John U.K.’s responded, “the debriefing period is dependent upon many factors. Younger souls tend to take longer to debrief than old souls. Also, souls who acquired a lot of karmic debt will need to review and accept each and every soul who was harmed due to their actions. For example, Adolph Hitler is still going through the debriefing process. You can picture the debriefing area like a hospital bed, where a soul is able to comfortably transition from one reality to another reality and family and friends can come and provide comfort and support.”

“What do Souls do on the astral plane?” I asked.
 
John U.K. said, “life on the astral plane is similar to what it is like on the physical plane, but spiritual. Souls interact with each other, communicate with each other, travel, socialize, have fun, experiment, develop new ideas, plan, learn, grow, love, have astral sex, etc. When a soul is ready for another physical incarnation (because they want to learn something new, bring a new idea to the world, experience what it would be like growing up in a different country, be a different gender, try a life with a different sexual orientation, experience a life partnered with a soul mate, be the parent of a certain soul, or perhaps repay some karmic debts acquired from previous incarnations, etc.) the soul will then start to plan and prepare for their next incarnation.  This is the cycle of life: a process of living, having experiences, learning, growing, loving, feeling, dying, then, eventually living again but now a bit more experienced and wiser.”
 
“Upon death, the soul will return and combine back to your Higher Self, adding a new layer to the Higher Self. It is that most recent layer of life experience that is now how you project yourself on the astral plane.  For example, if you were “Sally Smith” in the 1600s, but in the 1800s you were “Joe Blow”, you will display yourself as “Joe Blow” on the astral plane because it was your most recent incarnation.”

“A soul can project different ages or stages of their last life in the image they display. (If they died when they were 80 years old, they may project themselves as 30 years of age, for example, on the astral. Or if they died at 3 months of age, they may project themselves as 18 years old on the astral).”

“The process of incarnating, living, growing, making our own decisions, and then dying, happens over and over, with each incarnation giving each of us new opportunities to develop knowledge, wisdom, and insight. But does this process ever end? “

“Eventually the fragment has learned and experienced all they set out to do and then the fragment combines with another fragment, becoming a duo – a combined fragment with another fragment. This combined duo fragment then continues with their progression and combines with a trio, etc., and in this process the fragment joins with other fragments experiencing life in and through a myriad of levels. Eventually, they recollect back to the Tao, having a very diverse set of things they learned and experienced in this vast journey.

The idea of joining with other fragments in this process of progression gave me new insights about the phrase “we are all connected”. We start off as being one with the Tao, then fragment, live a series of incarnations, and at some point, all recombine into one energy – the Tao. At that point, the Tao really has learned and experienced everything that was desired.”

You are a fragment of the Tao. You are subtle, spiritual energy. But when you incarnated on the earth, a large portion of that subtle energy took up residence within a physical body. The physical body is physical energy so you as a person on earth are composed of both spiritual and physical energies. 

If this is your first incarnation on earth, all of your subtle, spiritual energy is being housed in that physical body. But if this is NOT your first incarnation (and most people on earth have had many incarnations) you have a portion of your subtle, spiritual energy being safely housed on the Higher Self Plane - one of the levels (or floors) or the astral plane (aka heaven). Your  “Higher Self” is still a part of your energy body - just not on the earth. 

The Energy Body
The energy body is a subtle anatomy, or you may prefer to think of it as a spiritual anatomy of the body. The basic concept is that each living person at each visit to a life on earth has a separate energy anatomy that is distinct from what is called the physical body. The effect of this energy body is to give life to the physical.
 
Question: How does the energy body and the physical body relate?
Answer: It, the energy body, is affected by the physical body. The physical body is also affected by the energy body. In other words, the two are by nature intertwined and only death causes separation. What happens to one affects the other.
 
Question: What does the energy body look like?
Answer: It looks as you would imagine. In other words, your mind does not relate to the plane on which the energy body is associated with. By its nature it is part of the lower astral.

The Higher Self
An energy body, in its first experience with life, is the original entity fragment from the Tao and has no Higher Self as of yet.  After the first life experience on earth, however, part of the energy body remains as a Higher Self.  In your next incarnation, a part of your energy remains on the astral plane and a part of your energy body is sent to experience a life on the physical plane. As more lives are experienced, more energy bodies are accumulated within the Higher Self. This accounts for the Higher Self’s increase of knowledge and wisdom. 

At the later stages of lives, smaller energy fragments are sent as an energy body and more energy is retained by the Higher Self.  This process can therefore influence your earthly life because it is a stronger energy force than ever before. That is why in the older life stages, people will intuitively know about things, and they do, because that knowledge is within their Higher Self and is being transmitted by that strong 

Question: Is the Higher Self different from the energy body? If so, how does the higher self relate to the energy body?
Answer: First, you should understand that the energy body is a spiritual body or an unseen energy field or as you would say a subtle and distinct different aspect of the human form. You can call it an energy body. It relates to the higher self, the same as a life experience does. The Higher Self is made up of many experiences of lifetimes. As it gains experience, it gains knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. As it desires to increase that understanding, it allows part of it to gain that experience in a life and then return to itself so that its self may experience that growth. Therefore, one may say that an energy body is similar to a fragment, but an energy body in its first experience with life, is the original entity fragment, and has no higher self as of yet, but after the first life experience, part of the energy body remains as a higher self and part is sent to experience a life. As more lives are experienced, more energy bodies are accumulated. You may think, and this accounts for the Higher Self’s increase of knowledge and wisdom. Also, at the later stages of lives, smaller energy fragments are sent as an energy body and more energy is retained by the higher self, which can therefore influence your earthly life, because it is a stronger energy force than ever before. That is why in the older life stages, they seem to intuitively know about things. This knowledge is transmitted by a strong higher self. 

Question: Is there then a difference between a person’s Higher Self and the energy body?
Answer: Yes there is. At death, those who expect a heaven or a hell, experience such. But not through their Higher Selves, which understand the true nature of their life’s experiences. It is the energy body’s experiences or experiences that dwell in the lower astral levels and as they gain awareness may migrate upwards to eventually join their higher selves.

The Soul
The Soul is an extension of your Higher Self as well as your Physical Self. This extension and combination allows special communication to occur. This allows the Soul to be instructed not only by the Higher Self, but also by the Physical Self as well.  The Soul is the representative of the Physical Self during travel to the astral plane and communion with the Higher Self. The soul and the Higher Self of course are very closely related, working very much as a single unit, but separate. Therefore, the Higher Self automatically perhaps produces the feelings, sensations, information, insight that the soul desires. 

Questions: But then what is a soul?  
Answer: All your energies.  

Question: What does this entail?  
Answer: Your life forces, your mental abilities, your aspirations, and your desires.
In summary, the soul is an extension of the higher self as well as the physical self.  This allows special communication to occur. This allows the soul to be instructed not only by the Higher Self, but by the physical self as well.  

Relationship of the Energy Body, the Higher Self, and the Physical Body
Your physical body, your energy body, and the Higher Self share a unique relationship. This relationship allows the soul and the mental aspect of the human body to be able to communicate. However, the Higher Self can also give guidance that it feels is necessary to the soul without the human or physical person realizing that the instructions are needed.
 
Spiritual energy and physical energy are not the same. They can be related, but are not the same. Your physical mind and body does not and cannot recall or visualize the energy body. It does not feel it, nor does it really understand it. Therefore, different systems of helping the mind accept the spiritual aspects or energies are taught by different teachers. No matter how many autopsies a person does, for example, they will never find an energy body. It does not physically exist in the body. But energy flows through the body and it helps one to understand the relationship between the energy body and the physical body because it can help one gain insight. And it therefore becomes part of your reality. You have created it and therefore are able to gain its benefits. One could devise another system, but what use would it be? It is better to keep things simple, easily understood, and therefore more useful.
 
How to Affect Change in Your Personality
Question: How do people affect change in their personalities or abilities or attributes?
Answer: Desire starts the process. What allows the change to proceed? Is it not visualization or creating the image of the completed change, therefore reinforcing the desire? And is that not creating your own reality? How you visualize yourself is how your soul then perceives itself. This perception then is continued through to the Higher Self which if the perception is incorrect, will correct the information.  If the perception is correct, then the higher self reinforces the perception. 

In this respect, a travel projection (astral travel) experience is always beneficial, but the greater benefit comes from the Higher Self being able to go beyond the rectifying of self perception in soul and allowing the guidance to be given that the soul may need for life’s events in the present or the future.

This correcting process requires time and energy that could be utilized receiving more important information.  However, the techniques of this correcting can be useful as well.  For example, suppose your self perception is “I am fat and always will be so.  This is my destiny.  It is in my genes.”  The higher self will correct the misinformation, allowing the soul to provide a clearer picture to the person. They will find it easier to change their lifestyles to become more what the Higher Self instructed the soul that is the persons reality.  In other words, the soul returns with positive feedback from the Higher Self which provides a greater level of confidence to the whole personality which reinforces the concept that improvements are easy and can be accomplished quickly. 

And so if a the person wishes to affect a change, then by programming the soul that a change is desired, the soul during travel experiences (such as projection to the astral plane) can bring back a correct perception that will accelerate the change if the change is beneficial and in harmony with the Higher Self. If, for example, one desires to increase the evil powers of forceful leadership, this being contrary to the Higher Self, the Higher Self will not allow the reinforcing to occur but will block the process. The way then to see if your motives and personal desires are therefore in harmony with the Higher Self and the principles of humanity, the soul will rectify any misconceptions during travel (projection to the astral plane).  The information is meant to assure you that through astral travel experiences one can usually maintain a proper balance between personal desires and correct human principles. 

Summary
In summary, the soul is an extension of the Higher Self as well as the physical self.  This allows special communication to occur. This allows the soul to be instructed not only by the Higher Self, but by the physical self as well.  By visualizing on the physical level, this programs the soul for travel experiences (projection to the astral plane) that may reinforce those positive attributes one wishes to experience and create.

The soul and the Higher Self share a unique relationship.  This relationship allows the soul and the mental aspect of the human body to be able to communicate with the astral level. Communication can take place either during an astral travel projection experience or after experiencing much astral travel, the soul may be able to communicate directly with the Higher Self. This is called communing. The soul being the extension of both the physical and the spiritual always undertakes the correct or positive phase. If an error in visualization or understanding occurs, through communing or traveling, the soul can rectify this situation.  The soul, also during astral travel episodes, takes with it the emotional feelings that the physical body is experiencing at that time. Therefore, help can be obtained during times of stress and pressure by the use of soul travel.  Also the soul can be programmed by mental thoughts and visual pictures.  Previous to an astral travel experience to obtain the benefits the physical person desires.  However, the Higher Self can also give guidance that it feels is necessary to the soul without the human or physical person realizing that the instructions are needed.

Before we incarnate, we have the opportunity to identify and plan the types of experiences and lessons we want to have in our upcoming life on earth. This preplanning does not guarantee results - it only creates the potential for the certain types of experiences. It essentially creates an "energy of purpose" to present itself during your physical life. It can sometimes come as a type of pull, or certain types of feelings, or even alerts - all designed to help steer you towards a certain direction. It has a way of providing prompts towards decisions and behaviors that may be aligned to what your pre-planned before you were born.  

Your Very First Incarnation has Limited Choices
If this is your very first incarnation on earth, you pretty much don't have any experience on earth except on what you have heard. As a result, you don't do much planning. You don't have a "Higher Self" until after you have had your first incarnation. You don't have any physical life experience to help you make assessments, judgements, and comparisons. For the most part, you will incarnate based on opportunity and what is available at the time you are ready.
 
Personal Choice and Personal Responsibility
If you have incarnated before, the fragment (or soul) may choose a type of body or a type of situation that has predisposed physical traits and qualities you desire. A certain type of body type may even include certain societal features to help that fragment obtain the life experience it desires. But physical abilities for a large part are determined by the gene pool of its parents and social and economic ability are determined by the society. Therefore, if a person has a talent of physical ability to perform or learn, this comes from the physical body. The obvious example of this is physical strength, but other talents are also developed through this manner.

Choosing a Body
Now the fragment who was known as Mozart desired to experience musical ability for whatever reason, and therefore as a fragment chose a life or physical body that would help it obtain this start. But fragments who desire to obtain things that not necessarily physical in nature, such as insight, or to be able to communicate with other fragments, or to develop ESP, these are things that  would have to be programmed into the personality that will inhabit the physical body. The fragment would then choose a physical body that can enhance or compliment those desired nonphysical gifts.

Choosing a Personality 
As people are born, the chromosomes of the male and the chromosomes of the female join crating a separate and distinct individual. This individual has certain predisposed abilities and features. How does the fragment program the personality to develop its gifts or talents it desires to obtain in its life? It instills a desire. It is not a whim nor is it a passing fancy. The desires one finds in this life can be used to lead a soul or fragment to its intended purpose in a given life. The question then is how does one decide which desire is proper to follow?

Choosing a Gender
A fragment will also choose the gender they wish to incarnate into for each life. Everyone has experiences in being a male as well as a female. Often the female gender is selected when a fragment wants to have a more spiritual growth path because the female gender is the more spiritual of the genders. As you think about it, even in organized religions, it is the female who has the spiritual or religious experiences. It is the female who feels strongly about religion.The male can tune in and tune out of this, but the female is generally more willing to see the subtleness of life. Her whole ability to conceive life in her is part of that.

Paying Back Karma
Another thing that can impact ones life is the desire to become balanced and reach harmony. If one has done wrongs and misdeeds in previous life experiences, karma or karmic debts are carried forward with that fragment until the debt is paid and balance is restored. In order for a fragment to rid themselves from that baggage, one must pay off those karmic debts in someway during the physical life experience. 

Paying back those karmic debts can be programmed into a physical existence as they plan their upcoming life. Certain opportunities can be programmed into the physical existence to meet and interact with certain fragments (people)for example and then do good deeds for those people in order to repay those debts. Paying off the karmic debts through good acts will remove the “baggage” one accumulates through misdeeds in prior incarnations. It restores the balance and harmony within that fragment.

Different Paths May Provide Same Outcome
There are many pathways which will take you to the same goal. A dark brown skin man wearing a loin cloth and carrying a spear in a third world country could be on the same path and journey as a man in a business suit on Wall Street in New York City. Both could have the same understanding. Both could get to the same destination in this life and gain the same information. It’s obvious they would have different experiences and a different life, but their life path could be the same. Their understandings could be the same, and yet they are vastly different, but also the same.

There is not a single path that takes people to where they want or need to be. There are multiple paths, multiple types of people, and multiple experiences. To say there is one way and only one way is a falsehood. Totally different directions can take people to the exact same location. They are all the same. They are all different. Both are facts.

People come to earth to gain experience. They also experience the joys and pains along their chosen pathway. But all of this will eventually take them to the Tao. All choices are good for the individual. It may not be your choice but it is their path. Accept the fact there are many other journeys which will take a person to the same destination

Many live lives that may seem plain and ordinary and others live lives that impact greatly. But the life program is decided by the fragment before they incarnate so as to accomplish its desires and goals. Some fragments will desire notoriety more than others. Those who desire the “big splash” may progress faster, but enjoy less. Those who progress more slowly develop deeper understandings and insights but may require many multiple lives on the same level to achieve the impact of one life. 

Conclusion
The important thing to be aware of is that we chose the type of life we have. If we find we don't like our life or realize we made a mistake and this path is not what we want, we can choose to make changes. Personal choice and personal responsibility is one of the big rules of life. We can either accept and work with what we have, or we can decide to change it. The life we are living is pretty much based on our choices and decisions.