Dictionary of all Scriptures & Myths

JUDGMENT-DAY

A symbol of the summing up of progress at the end of the cycle, when the vast multitude of souls have arisen from their lower nature (the dead) and are ready to become united with the Higher Self in the causal-body. Insufficiently progressed souls have to await on the mental plane the opening of another cycle. The desires and lower qualities attached to centres on the astral plane are destroyed as illusion by “unquenchable fire,” buddhi.

“The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the day of judgment.” – 2 Peter ii. 9.

“Here, at the bridge Kinvat, Ormazd holds a tribunal and decides the fate of souls. The good pass the bridge into the mansions of the blessed, where they are welcomed with rejoicing by the Amshaspands; the bad fall over into the gulf of Dusahk, where they are tormented by the daevas. The duration of the punishment is fixed by Ormazd, and some are redeemed earlier by means of the prayers of their friends, but many must remain till the resurrection of the dead.” – Zoroastrian System, Clarke.

The supreme Divine Power manifesting as Will now exercises its spiritual function on the higher-mind plane, and sifts the good from the bad; that is, it liberates those purified souls which have already allied themselves with the Higher Self, and it puts due pressure upon those who are still full of the things of the personality. The “good” are able to rise to the abode of Bliss, the buddhic plane, and there they are met by those inner intelligences which are bringers of glad tidings, and so serve to evolve the inner capacities inherent, or potential, within the soul. The “bad,” however, are said to fall; and this means that, being insufficiently developed, they are disqualified from rising beyond those lower levels whereon they have sown, and where they are detained and tortured (as it seems to them) by the karmic results of their works. The duration of this term of probation is determined according to the scope of the more or less effective will. The earlier redemption merely refers to the fact that some souls are in a position, from having acted in the past in accordance with their knowledge, to receive aid from the upper planes, and so even then to rise and enter into the joy of the Higher Life. Many souls, however, must remain upon these lower planes during the interval between two cycles, and until the new manvantara arrives, when they shall again have opportunities to progress.

“The visible is the ladder up to the invisible; the temporal is but the scaffolding of the eternal. And when the last immaterial souls have climbed through this material to God, the scaffolding shall be taken down and the earth dissolved with fervent heat—not because it was base, but because its work is done.” – H. Drummond, Natural Law, etc., p. 57.

See Also

AAT
AKESI
AMSHASPANDS
BRIDGE (kinvat)
BUDDHI
CHRIST'S 2nd COMING
CONFLAGRATION
DAEVAS
DEAD
DUSAHK
FIRE (destr.)
HELL
HORSE, WHITE
KALKI
Khabit
Man (bad)
PAHAD
PERSONALITY
REGNAROK
RENOVATION
SHENIT
SOSIOSH
THEMIS
UNRIGHTEOUS
VISCERA