Theos-Talk Archives (March 1996 Message tl00081)

OCEAN13.TXT (The Ocean of Theosophy - W.Q.Judge)

CHAPTER XIII

HAVING SHOWN THAT JUST beyond the threshold of human life there
is a place of separation wherein the better part of man is
divided from his lower and brute elements, we come to consider
what is the state after death of the real being, the immortal
who travels from life to life. Struggling out of the body the
entire man goes into Kama Loka, to purgatory, where he again
struggles and loosens himself from the lower skandhas; this
period of birth over, the higher principles, Atma-Buddhi-Manas,
begin to think in a manner different from that which the body
and brain permitted in life. This is the state of Devachan, a
Sanskrit word meaning literally "the place of the gods," where
the soul enjoys felicity; but as the gods have no such bodies as
ours, the Self in Devachan is devoid of a mortal body. In the
ancient books it is said that this state lasts "for years of
infinite number," or "for a period proportionate to the merit of
the being;" and when the mental forces peculiar to the state are
exhausted, "the being is drawn down again to be reborn in the
world of mortals." Devachan is therefore an interlude between
births in the world. The law of karma which forces us all to
enter the world, being ceaseless in its operation and also
universal in scope, acts also on the being in Devachan, for only
by the force or operation of Karma are we taken out of Devachan.
It is something like the pressure of atmosphere which, being
continuous and uniform, will push out or crush that which is
subjected to it unless there be a compensating quantity of
atmosphere to counteract the pressure. In the present case the
karma of the being is the atmosphere always pressing the being
on or out from state to state; the counteracting quantity of
atmosphere is the force of the being's own life-thoughts and
aspirations which prevent his coming out of Devachan until that
force is exhausted, but which being spent has no more power to
hold back the decree of our self-made mortal destiny.

The necessity for this state after death is one of the
necessities of evolution growing out of the nature of mind and
soul. The very nature of Manas requires a devachanic state as
soon as the body is lost, and it is simply the effect of
loosening the bonds placed upon the mind by its physical and
astral encasement. In life we can but to a fractional extent act
out the thoughts we have each moment; and still less can we
exhaust the psychic energies engendered by each day's
aspirations and dreams. The energy thus engendered is not lost
or annihilated, but is stored in Manas, but the body, brain, and
astral body permit no full development of the force. Hence, held
latent until death, it bursts then from the weakened bonds and
plunges Manas, the thinker, into the expansion, use, and
development of the thought-force set up in life. The
impossibility of escaping this necessary state lies in man's
ignorance of his own powers and faculties. From this ignorance
delusion arises, and Manas not being wholly free is carried by
its own force into the thinking of Devachan. But while ignorance
is the cause for going into this state the whole process is
remedial, restful, and beneficial. For if the average man
returned at once to another body in the same civilization he had
just quitted, his soul would be completely tired out and
deprived of the needed opportunity for the development of the
higher part of his nature.

Now the Ego being minus mortal body and Kama, clothes itself in
Devachan with a vesture which cannot be called body but may be
styled means or vehicle, and in that it functions in the
devachanic state entirely on the plane of mind and soul.
Everything is as real then to the being as this world seems to
be to us. It simply now has gotten the opportunity to make its
own world for itself unhampered by the clogs of physical life.
Its state may be compared to that of the poet or artist who,
rapt in ecstacy of composition or arrangement of color, cares
not for and knows not of either time or objects of the world.

We are making causes every moment, and but two fields exist for
the manifestation in effect of those causes. These are, the
objective as this world is called, and the subjective which is
both here and after we have left this life. The objective field
relates to earth life and the grosser part of man, to his bodily
acts and his brain thoughts, as also sometimes to his astral
body. The subjective has to do with his higher and spiritual
parts. In the objective field the psychic impulses cannot work
out, nor can the high leanings and aspirations of his soul;
hence these must be the basis, cause, substratum, and support
for the state of Devachan. What then is the time, measured by
mortal years, that one will stay in Devachan?

This question while dealing with what earth-men call time does
not, of course, touch the real meaning of time itself, that is,
of what may be in fact for this solar system the ultimate order,
precedence, succession, and length of moments. It is a question
which may be answered in respect to our time, but not certainly
in respect to the time on the planet Mercury, for instance,
where time is not the same as ours, nor, indeed, in respect to
time as conceived by the soul. As to the latter any man can see
that after many years have slipped away he has no direct
perception of the time just passed, but is able only to pick out
some of the incidents which marked its passage, and as to some
poignant or happy instants or hours he seems to feel them as but
of yesterday. And thus it is for the being in Devachan. No time
is there. The soul has all the benefit of what goes on within
itself in that state, but it indulges in no speculations as to
the lapse of moments; all is made up of events, while all the
time the solar orb is marking off the years for us on the earth
plane. This cannot be regarded as an impossibility if we will
remember how, as is well known in life, events, pictures,
thoughts, argument, introspective feeling will all sweep over us
in perfect detail in an instant, or, as is known of those who
have been drowning, the events of a whole lifetime pass in a
flash before the eye of the mind. But the Ego remains as said in
Devachan for a time exactly proportioned to the psychic impulses
generated during life. Now this being a matter which deals with
the mathematics of the soul, no one but a Master can tell what
the time would be for the average man of this century in every
land. Hence we have to depend on the Masters of wisdom for that
average, as it must be based upon a calculation. They have said,
as is well put by Mr. A.P. Sinnett in his Esoteric Buddhism,
that the period is fifteen hundred years in general. From a
reading of his book, which was made up from letters from the
Masters, it is to be inferred he desires it to be understood
that the devachanic period is in each and every case fifteen
centuries; but to do away with that misapprehension his
informants wrote at a later date that is the average period and
not a fixed one. Such must be the truth, for as we see that men
differ in respect to the periods of time they remain in any
state of mind in life due to the varying intensities of their
thoughts, so it must be in Devachan where thought has a greater
force though always due to the being who had the thoughts.

What the Master did say on this is as follows:

The 'dream of Devachan' lasts until karma is satisfied in that
direction. In Devachan there is a gradual exhaustion of force.
The stay in Devachan is proportionate to the unexhausted psychic
impulses originated in earth life. Those whose actions were
preponderatingly material will be sooner brought back into
rebirth by the force of Tanha.

Tanha is the thirst for life. He therefore who has not in life
originated many psychic impulses will have but little basis or
force in his essential nature to keep his higher principles in
Devachan. About all he will have are those originated in
childhood before he began to fix his thoughts on materialistic
thinking. The thirst for life expressed by the word Tanha is the
pulling or magnetic force lodged in the skandhas inherent in all
beings. In such a case as this the average rule does not apply,
since the whole effect either way is due to a balancing of
forces and is the outcome of action and reaction. And this sort
of materialistic thinker may emerge out of Devachan into another
body here in a month, allowing for the unexpended psychic forces
originated in early life. But as every one of such persons
varies as to class, intensity and quantity of thought and
psychic impulse, each may vary in respect to the time of stay in
Devachan. Desperately materialistic thinkers will remain in the
devachanic condition stupefied or asleep, as it were, as they
have no forces in them appropriate to that state save in a very
vague fashion, and for them it can be very truly said that there
is no state after death so far as mind is concerned; they are
torpid for a while, and then they live again on earth. This
general average of the stay in Devachan gives us the length of a
very important human cycle, the Cycle of Reincarnation. For
under that law national development will be found to repeat
itself, and the times that are past will be found to come again.

The last series of powerful and deeply imprinted thoughts are
those which give color and trend to the whole life in Devachan.
The last moment will color each subsequent moment. On those the
soul and mind fix themselves and weave of them a whole set of
events and experiences, expanding them to their highest limit,
carrying out all that was not possible in life. Thus expanding
and weaving these thoughts the entity has its youth and growth
and growing old, that is, the uprush of the force, its
expansion, and its dying down to final exhaustion. If the person
has led a colorless life the Devachan will be colorless; if a
rich life, then it will be rich in variety and effect. Existence
there is not a dream save in a conventional sense, for it is a
stage of the life of man, and when we are there this present
life is a dream. It is not in any sense monotonous. We are too
prone to measure all possible states of life and places for
experience by our present earthly one and to imagine it to be
reality. But the life of the soul is endless and not to be
stopped for one instant. Leaving our physical body is but a
transition to another place or plane for living in. But as the
ethereal garments of Devachan are more lasting than those we
wear here, the spiritual, moral, and psychic causes use more
time in expanding and exhausting in that state than they do on
earth. If the molecules that form the physical body were not
subject to the general chemical laws that govern physical earth,
then we should live as long in these bodies as we do in the
devachanic state. But such a life of endless strain and
suffering would be enough to blast the soul compelled to undergo
it. Pleasure would then be pain, and surfeit would end but in an
immortal insanity. Nature, always kind, leads us soon again into
heaven for a rest, for the flowering of the best and highest in
our natures.

Devachan is then neither meaningless nor useless.

In it we are rested; that part of us which could not bloom under
the chilling skies of earth-life bursts forth into flower and
goes back with us to earth-life stronger and more a part of our
nature than before. Why should we repine that Nature kindly aids
us in the interminable struggle, why keep the mind revolving
about the present petty personality and its good and evil
fortunes?,Mahatma K.H., Path, V, 191

But it is sometimes asked, what of those we have left behind: do
we see them there? We do not see them there in fact, but we make
to ourselves their images as full, complete, and objective as in
life, and devoid of all that we then thought was a blemish. We
live with them and see them grow great and good instead of mean
or bad. The mother who has left a drunken son behind finds him
before her in Devachan a sober, good man, and likewise through
all possible cases, parent, child, husband, and wife have their
loved ones there perfect and full of knowledge. This is for the
benefit of the soul. You may call it a delusion if you will, but
the illusion is necessary to happiness just as it often is in
life. And as it is the mind that makes the illusion, it is no
cheat. Certainly the idea of a heaven built over the verge of
hell where you must know, if any brains or memory are left to
you under the modern orthodox scheme, that your erring friends
and relatives are suffering eternal torture, will bear no
comparison with the doctrine of Devachan. But entities in
Devachan are not wholly devoid of power to help those left on
earth. Love, the master of life, if real, pure, and deep, will
sometimes cause the happy Ego in Devachan to affect those left
on earth for their good, not only in the moral field but also in
that of material circumstance. This is possible under a law of
the occult universe which cannot be explained now with profit,
but the fact may be stated. It has been given out before this by
H.P. Blavatsky, without, however, much attention being drawn to
it.

The last question to consider is whether we here can reach those
in Devachan or do they come here. We cannot reach them nor
affect them unless we are Adepts. The claim of mediums to hold
communion with the spirits of the dead is baseless, and still
less valid is the claim of ability to help those who have gone
to Devachan. The Mahatma, a being who has developed all his
powers and is free from illusion, can go into the devachanic
state and then communicate with the Egos there. Such is one of
their functions, and that is the only school of the Apostles
after death. They deal with certain entities in Devachan for the
purpose of getting them out of the state so as to return to
earth for the benefit of the race. The Egos they thus deal with
are those whose nature is great and deep but who are not wise
enough to be able to overcome the natural illusions of Devachan.
Sometimes also the hypersensitive and pure medium goes into this
state and then holds communication with the Egos there, but it
is rare, and certainly will not take place with the general run
of mediums who trade for money. But the soul never descends here
to the medium. And the gulf between the consciousness of
Devachan and that of earth is so deep and wide that it is but
seldom the medium can remember upon returning to recollection
here what or whom it met or saw or heard in Devachan. This gulf
is similar to that which separates Devachan from rebirth; it is
one in which all memory of what preceded it is blotted out.

The whole period allotted by the soul's forces being ended in
Devachan, the magnetic threads which bind it to earth begin to
assert their power. The Self wakes from the dream, it is borne
swiftly off to a new body, and then, just before birth, it sees
for a moment all the causes that led it to Devachan and back to
the life it is about to begin, and knowing it to be all just, to
be the result of its own past life, it repines not but takes up
the cross again, and another soul has come back to earth.


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