William Judge wrote a series of articles for the Kate Field’s Washington newspaper, and in article 19, he talked
about the Devachan saying the following:
« In the Egyptian Book
of the Dead, chapter X describes the place where, after death, disembodied
souls remain in different degrees of perfection. Some are shown as taking wheat
three cubits high, while others are only permitted to glean it — “he gleaned
the fields of Aanroo.”
Thus some enjoy the perfection of
spiritual bliss, while others attain only to minor degrees in that place or
state where divine justice is meted out to the soul.
Devachan is the land of reward;
the domain of spiritual effects. The word spiritual here refers to
disembodiment; it must only be used as relative to our material existence. The
Christian demonstrates this fact by the material entourage of his heaven.
In The Secret Doctrine [I:39], H.P. Blavatsky says:
-
“Death itself is
unable to deliver man from it [Karma], since death is simply the door through
which he passes to another life on earth, after a little rest on its threshold
— Devachan.”
Devachan, then, is the threshold
of life. In the Hindu system it is etymologically the place of the gods,
Indra’s heaven. Indra is the regent of heaven, who gives to those who can reach
his realm long-enduring gifts of happiness and dominion.
The Bhagavad-Gītā [9:20-1] says:
-
“After enjoying
felicity for innumerable years in the regions of Indra, he is born again upon
this earth.”
For the purpose of this article,
we assume that the entire man, minus the body, goes to Devachan. This, however,
is not so. The post-mortem division of our sevenfold constitution given by
Theosophy is exact. It exhibits the basis of life, death and reincarnation. It
shows the composite being, man, in analogy with that other composite being,
nature. Both are a unity in diversity. Man, suspended in nature, like her,
divides and reunites. This sevenfold division will be treated in a future
article.
Devachan, being a state of
prolonged subjective happiness after the death of the body, is plainly the
heaven of the Christian, but with a difference. It is a heaven made
scientifically possible. Heaven itself must accord with the divine laws
projected into nature.
As sleep is a release from the
body, during which we have dreams, so death is a complete separation and
release, after which in Devachan we dream until, on being again incarnated in a
new body on earth, we come once more into what we call waking existence.
Even the human soul would weary
of the ceaseless round of rebirths, if some place or state were not provided in
which rest could be obtained, in which germinating aspirations, restricted by
earth-life, could have their full development.
No energy can be annihilated,
least of all a psychic energy; these must somewhere find an outlet. It is found
in Devachan; this realization is the rest of the soul. Its deepest desires, its
highest needs are there enjoyed. There every hope blooms out in full and
glorious flower. To prolong this blissful state, Hindu books give many
incantations and provide innumerable ceremonies and sacrifices, all of them
having for end and aim a long stay in Devachan.
The Christian does precisely the
same. He longs for heaven, prays that he may go there, and offers up to his God
such propitiatory rites and acts as seem best to him, the only difference being
that he does not do it half so scientifically as the Hindu.
The Hindu is also more vivid in
his conception of this heaven than the Christian is. He postulates many places
or conditions adapted to the energic and qualitative differences between souls.
Kāma-loka and other states are where concrete desires, restricted by life in
the body, have full expression, while in Tribhuvana the abstract and benevolent
thinkers absorb the joys of lofty thought.
The orthodox heaven has no such
proviso. It also ignores the fact that a settled monotony of celestial
existence would exhaust the soul — would be stagnation, not growth. Devachanic
life is development of aspiration, passing through the various stages of
gestation, birth, cumulative growth, downward momentum, and departure to another
condition, all rooted in joy.
There is nothing in the mere fact
of death to mould a soul anew. It is a group of psychic energies, and heaven
must have something in common with these, or why should it gravitate there?
Souls differ as men do. In
Devachan each one receives that degree of bliss which it can assimilate, its
own development determines its reward.
The Christian places all the
snuffy old saints as high as other holy souls, sinking genius to the level of
the mediocre mass, while the Hindu gives infinite variety of occupation and
existence suited to grave and gay, the soul of genius or of poetry.
No one sits in undesired seats,
nor sings psalms he never liked, nor lives in a city which might pall upon him
if he were forever compelled to walk its pearly streets.
(Note: Here William Judge is referring to how the cleric says the life is
in heaven.)
The laws of cause and effect
forbid that Devachan should be monotonous. Results are proportionate to antecedent
energies.
The soul oscillates between
Devachan and earth-life, finding in each conditions suited to its continuous
development, until, through effort, it reaches a perfection in which it ceases
to be the subject of the laws of action and reaction, becoming instead their
conscious co-worker.
Devachan is a dream, but only in
the sense in which objective life can be called such. Both last until Karma is
satisfied in one direction, and begins to work in the other. The Devachanee has
no idea of space or time except as he makes for himself. He creates his own
world. He is with all he ever loved, not in bodily companionship, but in one to
him real, close and blissful.
When a man dies, the brain dies
last. Life is still busy there after death has been announced. The soul marshals
up all past events, grasps the sum total, the average tendency stands out, the
ruling hope is seen. Their final aroma forms the keynote of Devachanic
existence.
The lukewarm man goes neither to
heaven nor hell. Nature spews him out of her mouth. Positive conditions,
objective or subjective, are only reached through positive impulsion.
Devachanic distribution is governed by the ruling motive of the soul. The hater
may, by reaction, become the lover, but the indifferent have no propulsion, no
growth. »
(Echoes
from th Orient III, p.41-43)
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