Theos-Talk Archives (November 1993 Message tl00059)

One teaching we find in *The Mahatma Letters* is regarding spheres of
causes and spheres of effects. We read how, in the globe chain, that one
follows the other, like alternating beads on a necklace.

The spheres of causes are where we make new karma, where we are active
in manifest life, where we interact with other beings, where our
relationships with others, our karmic links, grow and change. That is,
they are places of manifestation, places where we take actions.

In the spheres of effects, new karma is not made. This is where we
experience the results of our actions. Our state is unconscious and
dream-like here, and we create and populate our surroundings out of our
own consciousness. Some friends we know in life may, for example,
appear to us here, but we have created them, creating the living images
of them and animated the images. The friends are not there; they are
of these images of themselves and do not live in, do not inform the
images.

We are related to others, and each relation is a karmic link of living
experience. Like a rope with no one to pull on the other side, such a
relationship is not active now. What we experience of another now is
a memory, an image inside ourselves of the other. An example of this
state is in devachan, where we, between lifetimes, have beautiful
dreams of gread deeds, of wonderous experiences, of living life with
people we know and love. These are *dreams*, though, and not actual
experiences where the other people are actually, consciously present,
interacting with us.

Our earth, Globe D of the earth chain, is a sphere of causes. It is a
staging area for manifestation. It is created by the informing life of
a higher being's incarnation, by it taking on a form. Apart from such
staging areas, things cease to exist. That is, they drop off into
unmanifestation.

As we move between one globe and the next, we drop our seven principles
and then clothe ourselves in seven principles appropriate to the next
globe that we are coming to. This process of dropping of the seven
principles, takes us out of manifestation. It happens at night when we
sleep. It happens in our after-death states. And and happens as the
grand sweep of evolution takes the human kingdom from one globe to the
next.

As we die, we let go of the seven principles in stages. The first to
go is the vital-astral-physical, the very lowest principles. At each
stage, we must exhaust the unspent energy in the principles. The
unspent desire energy, for instance, is dealt with and dissipated over
time, as we release ourselves from Kama. And the unspent spiritual
energy is dealt with as we release ourselves from still higher
principles. We go through a process of letting go until we are freed
of existence in one world, one sphere of causes, and then move on to
the next.

We have really entered a sphere of effects upon death of the physical
body. Our personal self-consciousness is blown out like the flame of
a candle being extinguished. There is continued consciousness, but it
is not self-aware, there is no objectivity nor is there the clarity
that we had before. We no longer sense that we are in life and that
it is happening. There is but a sense of passive awareness.

After we have dropped our lower principles, our experiences are based
upon exhausting the unfulfilled energies of our prior life. We are
living out the effects of the life that has just finished. We are not
doing new things and making new karma. Any unfulfilled energy that we
carry in ourselves, in whatever principle, will have its turn in
being worked on, fulfilled in our mind's eye, and ultimately released
and let go of.

It is much better to give personal, tangible, concrete expression to
the impulses of our nature in life. Constructive, or at-least
non-destructive ways should be found to live out our harmful impulses.
Noble, helpful, uplifting impulses should also be expressed. To dream
grand dreams, but not take action to live them out in life, is to
create a long, happy devachan, but does not make the world a better
place!

There are many examples of where we experience spheres of effects.
One is in the after-death states, in the stages of giving up our
principles of consciousness. This is our between-globe experience, as
we transition from one world to the next. Another experience is in a
part of our nature that watches, experiences, observes our life, taking
in and experiencing what has happened, the experiencer. A third is in
alternating cycles of activity and growth with cycles of inactivity
and rest, periods of evolution and quiet. Another is when we
are inactive in the human Ego, when we are elsewhere on the Outer
Rounds. And another is in the moving horizon of the future, racing
ahead, as the effect that follows the dynamic nature of the present,
the causal realm.

We exist in a golden chain of light, reaching endlessly upward, a
causal hierarchy of being without end. It is life itself. This tree of
life is existence itself, causality itself, and outside it, watching
it, moving in response to it, is the passive, receptive, reflective,
root nature of being.

Our manifestation is due to the courtesy of the world at one scale,
and of the universe at still a higher scale, due to the courtesy of
the beings whose existence provide the staging area for life to
come about. Nothing exists outside such areas, outside the organizing
influences of such lives.

We are both the guests of great beings, beings that in one sence are
our gods and creators. But at the same times we play the same role to
lessor beings, to beings of a smaller scale, to our lifeatoms, who
owe their existence to our informing life, to our coming into being.
We all participate in the golden tree of life on an equal basis, as
both creation and creator, and share in the grand scheme of existence!

Life follows the same universal pattern, regardless of scale, and our
contributions are as important, as far-reaching, as ultimately valuable
as those of the smallest lifeatom or grandest parent star! When we
gaze upon this magnificent panorama of life, we cannot help but be
changed, enobled, uplifted.

There is mystery beyond mystery to life, level after level of deeper
understanding of how things are. We must always be looking, searching,
reaching for what lies just beyond. Even in taking a simple phrase such
as "spheres of causes and spheres of effects", we can push back the
limites to what we know and go deeply into the Teachings, and find
that we've discovered things therein that we never knew existed.

                           Eldon Tucker (eldon@netcom.com)