Theos-Talk Archives (December 1993 Message tl00128)

Apart from one's body, asleep or in trance, we are faced with the
question of where and what we are. Are we on another plane of
consciousness? Are we still on Globe D? Are we the same people that
we are, but just apart from our bodies, or something different,
something more? And do we experience enhanced consciousness, or a
degree of loss of consciousness, in the process?

Consider when we sleep, and dream. Is our consciousness in the body?
No. We are not conscious of the body, generally speaking, but are
experiencing something different. It is possible to still pay a bit of
attention to the body, like sitting upright in a chair or with crossed
legs in meditative posture; it is possible to lend some attention to
the body so that it stays in position. Despite this, though, our
primary focus of awareness is, for the time, in our dream experience.

During the dream, there is a definite reaction upon the body. Various
physiological changes happen, including a period rapid eye movements.
When the dream is over, the rhythms of the body change as well.

What we basically have, in sleep and dreaming, is a stilling of the
body, and a shifting of the senses away from it, elsewhere on our
globe, to perceive things on the astral light. The objectivity of
what we perceive depends upon how *close* the images are to actual
beings and happenings in the world. Something far removed from the
actual world is tremendously subjective, primarily based upon our own
consciousness, and with little karma-making interaction with others.

In a dream, we learn to experience the Globe D world with our senses
directly, apart from our bodies, and because we are untrained in the
experience, we cannot reliably depend upon what we perceive.

Because of the subjectivity of the experiences, we see and find things
to be as we would expect them, based upon our prior beliefs. If we
were to think, for instance, that Mars and Mercury were part of the
earth chain, we may see them as such--even though they are not!--and
we would not have any way of knowing that we were wrong in our
perceptions.

Likewise, if we expected to see the structure of other worlds to
follow a certain pattern, our expectations would be fulfilled, and we
would feel gratified to find that our beliefs were true, since they
appeared to be confirmed by our personal experiences. The problem is
that someone else, with entirely different beliefs, would also find
their beliefs confirmed by their experiences as well. Who is right?

The general term for the substance out of which our world is
condenced is the astral light. It has a range of materiality, from
the most elemental and root substance, Akasha, out of which the
higher globes are formed, down through various grades until it reaches
the type of stuff out of which our physical plane matter is formed.
And that is not the bottom to things! It goes even more material,
beyond our ability to follow it downwards, just as it goes even more
refined, as we trace it upwards towards its root nature.

The nature of the experience in the dream world, in the astral realms
that surround our physical earth, in the psychical atmosphere of our
Globe D, is entire mayavic. That is, it is so easily subject to
misunderstanding, and so readily does it fashion itself to match the
contents of our personalities and our expectations, that only a
trained chela might make proper sense out of it.

We can have a good time, and can have all sorts of experiences, some
of a kamalokic nature, perhaps, and others more nearly devachanic in
nature. But we are not in an truly objective world, and as we move
away from the atmosphere of the physical earth, as we move away from
fully-manifest life, we begin to lose awareness, to become sleepier
in our consciousness, to be more and more disconnected from life.

As we pull away from the earth with our psychical senses, we are
separating from the other Monads in our constitution, and withdrawing
into ourselves, and following the process, to a certain degree, of
dropping out of existence, of leaving the seven principles behind.

Were this process carried through to completion, we'd eventually end
up reappearing as a human Ego on Globe E, but we aren't really ready
for this, and can only go partway.

Given the illusive nature of astral experience, how, then, can we tell
if we are in the astral atmosphere of our earth, or really on another
globe? What are the differences in experience, and what can we use as
guidelines in our distinguishing between the two?

When in the astral light, when still in the atmosphere of Globe D, we
have a connection to all of our seven principles of this globe,
including the Sthula Sharira, the physical body. There is a
physiological basis for experiences here. Rapid eye movements during
dreaming shows that connection.

There is a sense of instability to the experience, an awareness that
a strong burst of feelings or too intensely concentrating one's mind
on what is happening would wake one up.

On the other hand, when on another globe, we are in a different self,
a different personal or lower human Ego for that globe, and memories
of the experiences on that globe do not carry back to our personalities.
It is only in the individuality that any experiences are remembered,
since it is a higher self that the one that only spans a specific globe.

We are, at the time, then, in dreamless sleep of which we have no
personal memories. It could not be otherwise, since we as personalities
do not have any established relationships nor connections with the
other beings of another globe. Those relationships represent both our
karma and our connections with others. We as personalities do not and
cannot exist on other globes, for the personalities are woven out of the
fabric of a globe itself, including its own unique attributes and
inhabitants.

On another globe, there is a sense of reality, as much so as we
experience in our waking state here on Globe D. There is a sense of
immutable law. There is a prevading sense of reality that "this is the
way that things are." The order of things seems so well-adjusted, so
naturally to fit together, so well structured, that we could not
possibly conceive of another world in which the laws of nature
functioned differently.

External laws govern what happen, and we cannot alter things and make
exceptions to how things will happen based upon what we would like.
Everything behaves in a manner that is hard as rock, immovable, always
following Law, consistent and unsympathetic to our personal wishes.
Try as hard as we might, we cannot change things, except through our
interaction with others, and following *process*, the pathways of
change laid out for us for the particular mother nature of that world.

Life on another globe has a feeling of immovability. There is an
emmence inertia to things. There is a sense of things being solid,
concrete, and subject to limitation.

We have a sense of belonging, although it is not necessarily one of
harmony. There are situations in life where animals, for instance,
prey on smaller animals. There are both constructive and destructive
karmic relationships with others on that globe.

On this globe, we have participated in its co-creation, and thereby
defined and created our personal selves. We interact with the
environment, and it is responsive to a certain extent, but it is
not fashioned and created out of ourselves, like dreams are, but
rather is populated--from our standpoint--through our karmic ties to
other beings.

Our minds contain a vast storehouse of thought and memory. And at any
moment, there is a narration going on, a mental narrator giving voice
to our thought of the moment. Associated with this narration is a
stream or sequence of images, which apart from the body in sleep we
experience directly. This stream of images continues during the day as
well, as we are awake, but we are generally unaware of it.

During sleep, when the body is at rest, we experience this stream of
images as thought it were a real sequence of events. It is our own
creation, but it seems real for the moment. It is affected to the state
of the body, and affected by any drug or illness that we may be
experiencing, since all the seven principles affect the others. It is
only apart from the human Ego and all the associated seven principles,
away from globe D, that what happens to the physical body does not
impact our experiences.

We are capable of creating and populating a world in our own mind,
and it is our own elementals that often populate our dreams. The
flexibility of circumstances in dreams is due to no others being
present to oppose our will, we completely rule what happens.

Although this is the general case for dreams, this is not to say that
the only beings on Globe D are those that have physical bodies. There
are some beings that exist near the earth, dwelling in its atmosphere,
in and around the astral light out of which our globe is formed. They
either did not have sufficient karmic ties with others in life to
come yet into birth, or are too different in nature from *what can be*
at this time. When we would have a dream go a certain way, and we push
on dream-world surroundings, they are what *pushes back* and offers
resistance rather than going along with us.

In the astral, we can have an experience where we make a try at
creation without coming into full existence. We exist in our higher
principles of the human Ego, and rather than completely clothing
ourselves in the lower ones of a globe, we direct those life energies
into making a fantasy world for ourselves, a place of make-believe.

The lower form of this experience would be to make ourselves a
kamaloka. The higher form would make us a devachan. This type of
experience includes many kinds of dream, although not all experiences
called dreams are the same.

As we distance ourselves from the earth, moving away in the astral
light, our sense of personality and personal self-consciousness fades,
since its intrinsic nature is derived from and build up from its
living bonds with other lives of the earth.

When we are in very close proximity to the earth, we see the physical
world. Somewhat removed from the earth, objects and dream circumstances
closely fashion themselves after "real" ones. Even farther removed,
objects take on wider latitude in what happens as our own will
*creates* rather than *interacts* or co-creates them. When we are not
in interaction with the world, we create and populate everything about
us--not very well, though--and there are generally no other beings
behind the forms we create except our own elementals.

We have really withdrawn our lower principles from the world, but are
still dwelling in them in a way. This has to do with another subject,
regarding clothing ourselves in seven principles outside, as opposed
to inside a world, a subject that would lead us away from the current
discussion.

When we leave the body and exist somewhere else, it's not as simple as
to say that we now are on another plane, with such-and-such
inhabitants. There is no *world*, in a sense, for disembodied men,
animals, plants, etc. There are other worlds for embodied men, etc., to
exist on, but no world for full existence without all the principles,
including the Sthula Sharira, since they are essential ingredients of
a full consciousness.

Picture the sun coming up in the morning. Its light outshines all
the stars and heavenly bodies. Its warmth and energy brings us life.
It brings us life, and is like the presence of the great being whose
existence brings about our Globe D in the astral light.

Now imagine the sun greatly dimmed, perhaps at a great distance. We
are in silence, darkness. The light of other worlds can be perceived,
but they too are far away, and not places that we can visit.

Picture ourselves far from the sun, at the far outskirts of the
solar system. It is dark, cold, and there is but a dim light from the
distant sun. Its weak influence is hardly felt, and in the vacuum of
empty space, we clearly see the stars about us, we sense the other
stars but are not affected by them.

As we move beyond a certain point, we reach the dissolution of solar
matter, where is breaks down into interstellar substance, out of
which we can make or fashion what happens through our own will.

This visual image is an analogy, a poetical metaphor, and can help us
picture what happens in moving away from Globe D, but must not be
carried too far.

When we leave the body, we can stay on this plane, and move away in
the astral light from our globe. We can also go on to another globe and
have full embodiment on it, clothing ourselves in our seven principles
of that globe. We are not, though, limited to visiting the other globes
*in full consciousness.* We can have an experience of the consciousness
of a plane, through visiting a globe on it, without having to have
embodied existence on that globe.

We can clothe ourselves just in the higher triad on that globe, and
have an experience of selfhood and pure thought. Deep in meditation,
apart from any desire to interact with beings on such a plane and
apart from any sensory connection to the objects that exist there, we
can experience the nature of the plane by dwelling in our mind and
essential self on that globe. We can take on Atman, Buddhi, and Manas
on the globe, and experience pure consciousness of its respective
plane without engaging in activity with its inhabitants.

When we take up full existence on the other globe, and take on all our
seven principles, we find a pervasive sense of reality, something
bigger than ourselves. We are under the influence of a great being that
brings the world into existence. There is an incredible complexity and
diversity to things, but they all have their own intrinsic natures as
well, and are not subject to change based upon our immediate wants.

We have a sense of self, of personality, which is a karmic web that
is woven out of our personal connections established with others on
that globe. Without this karmic web, we have and are nothing, and could
not exist.

There is a recognition by us and other lives that this, the globe, is
a very important place to be, that it is a very important state to have,
that here is where we really should be, here is where the action is.

As human Egos, our world, Globe D, is not just an important place to
be, it is the only place that we can be. Our existence and very being
is build up out of our connectedness with others on this globe. It is
not *us* that travels to another globe. Rather, we enter into a
different *us* on those globes.

When *we* go onto Globe E, for instance, we enter into another human
Ego, the one we have evolved forth for that globe, and have for the
moment left behind the human Ego of Globe D.

The globes, then, are places where life and manifestation happens. They
are *meeting places* where Monads come into existence and share the
experience of being alive. They are places of karma and causality, and
places where Egos, rays of consciousness from the Monad, can be
evolved forth, and self-consciousness attained.

The subject, although quite simple on the surface, as one might
initially think from looking at a diagram of a globe chain in "The
Secret Doctrine", is actually bottomless, without an end to it, and
like the other theosophical doctrines, it can be explored and taken as
far as we choose, where the only limit to how far we can go is
ourselves!

                       Eldon Tucker (eldon@netcom.com)