Theosophy teaches that when
humans die, they ascend to the divine World (Heaven, Devachan) and there they
spend it sleeping and dreaming about what makes them happier for an average of
about 1500 years, before descending back to Earth to reincarnate in a new physical
body, and thus work on his evolution for approximately 70 years, and then the
cycle is repeated.
And this is what has motivated
some students to consider that our stay in Heaven is a tremendous waste of time
for our cosmic evolution.
As, for example, a person wrote
to William Judge this:
« Since the time spent during physical life is the time of real
progress, while the time spent in the Devachan is simply a time of rest. So why
does the evolutionary process require such a large proportion of time wasting
thousands and thousands of years at rest on Devachan for less than a hundred
years of evolutionary work? »
To which William Judge responded
as follows:
« A letter to the
editor from Holland upon this subject deserves reply, as it must give utterance
to the questions of many other students.
The complaint in this letter is
that when one goes to Devachan much time is lost away from earth life, where
otherwise unselfish work for others might be continued by instantly returning
to it after death.
The reason given is that Devachan
is an illusion, while the so-called illusions of earthly existence are in such
a sense real that they are preferable to those of Devachan. In illustration of
this, the supposed case is given of a parent in Devachan imagining that the
beloved child is also there, when, in fact, the child not yet physically dead
remains on earth perhaps in misery or leading a life of vice.
This is the root of the objection
— the supposed illusionary character of Devachan as compared to earth-life.
Now these feelings are always due
to the thirst for life in the form which presently is most known to us, — that
is, in a physical body. We cannot argue Devachan away any more than we can the
necessity of incarnation upon this earth; the one is as philosophically
necessary as is the other.
A very easy way out of the
difficulty — which arises almost wholly from our feelings — would be to calmly
accept the law as it stands, being willing to take whatever may be our fate,
whether that be in Devachan or in this earth-life. Our likes and dislikes can
have no effect on the course of nature, but they may have an effect on
ourselves which will be far from beneficial. For the dwelling upon pleasure or
the constant desire to fly from "pain not yet come" will inevitably
create Karmic causes which we would wish to avoid.
But perhaps there are some
considerations on the subject of Devachan which may be of use.
In the first place, I have never
believed that the period given by Mr. Sinnett in Esoteric Buddhism of fifteen hundred years
for the stay in that state was a fixed fact in nature. It might be fifteen
minutes as well as fifteen hundred years. But it is quite likely that for the
majority of those who so constantly wish for a release and for an enjoyment of
heaven, the period would be more than fifteen hundred years.
Indeed, the Hindu Scriptures give
many special ceremonies for the attainment of heaven, or the regions of Indra,
which is Devachan; and those ceremonies or practices are said to cause a stay
in Indraloka "for years of infinite number."
The first question, however, must
be:
"What is the cause for passing into Devachan?"
Some have said that it is good
Karma or good acts that take us and keep us there, but this is a very
incomplete reply. Of course, in the sense that it is happiness to go into that
state, it may be called good Karma. But it does not follow that the man whose
life is good, passed in constant unselfish work for others without repining,
and free from desire to have somewhere his reward, will go to Devachan.
Yet his Karma must be good; it
must act on him, however, in other lives, for the earth life is the place where
such Karma has its operation. But if at the same time that he is thus working
for others he wishes for release or for some place or time when and where he
may have rest, then, of course, he must go to Devachan for a period which will
be in proportion to the intensity of those desires.
Again, it should not be forgotten
that the soul must have some rest. Were it, before becoming bright as the
diamond, hard as adamant, and strong as steel, to go on working, working
through earth-life after earth-life without a break between, it must at last
succumb to the strain and come to nothing. Nature therefore has provided for it
a place of rest — in Devachan: and that we should thankfully accept if it falls
to our lot.
But does Devachan suffer in the comparison made between it and this life
on earth?
To me it seems not. Human life is
as great an illusion as any. To the sage Ribhu, Vishnu said it was the
longest-lived reign of fancy. To say that it is a terrible thing to think of a
mother in Devachan enjoying its bliss while the child is suffering on earth, is
to prefer one illusion over another, to hug a philosophical error to the breast.
Both states are not of the true, while the Ego, who is the real witness, sees
the lower personality struggling with these phantoms while it, whether the body
be living or its other parts be in Devachan, enjoys eternal felicity. It sits
on high unmoved, immovable.
The great verse in the
Isa-Upanishad settles this matter for me in these words:
"What room is there for
sorrow and what for doubt in him who knows that all spiritual beings are the
same in kind, though differing in degree."
Therefore if I believe this, I
must also know that, no matter whether I and my best beloved are in Devachan or
on earth, they and I must forever partake of the highest development attained
by the greatest of sages, for, as they and I are spiritual beings, we must have
communion forever on the higher planes of our being.
Then, again, the fact seems to be
lost sight of that each night we go into a sort of Devachan — the dream state
or sleep without dream. The loving mother, no matter how unfortunate or evil
her child, must sleep, and in that state she may have dreams of her loved ones
around her in just the very condition of mind and body she would have them
enjoy.
If Devachan be objectionable, why not also rebel against our necessary
sleep which acts on our physical frame to give it rest, as Devachan does upon
our more ethereal parts?
Lying unnoticed at the foot of
this matter is the question of time. It goes to the very root of the objection,
for the aversion to the stay in Devachan is based upon the conception of a period of time.
This period — given or supposed
as 1,500 years — is another great illusion which can be easily proved to be so.
What we call time, measured by our seconds and minutes and hours, is not
necessarily actual time itself. It is not the ultimate precedence and succession
of moments in the abstract.
For us it depends on and flows
from the revolutions of our solar orb, and even with that standard it can be
shown that we do not apprehend it correctly. We speak of seconds, but those are
such as our watchmakers give us in the watch. They might be made longer or
shorter.
They are arrived at through a
division of a diurnal solar revolution, the observation of which is not
necessarily mathematically accurate. If we lived on Mercury — where we must
believe intelligent beings live — our conception of time would be different.
From our childhood's experience
we know that even in this life our appreciation of the passage of time rises
and falls, for in early youth the 12 months from one Christmas to another
seemed very, very long, while now they pass all too quickly. And from watching
the mental processes in dreams we know that, in the space of time taken for a
bell to drop from the table to the floor, one may dream through a whole
lifetime, with all the incidents of each day and hour packed into such a
limited period.
Who can tell but that in a Devachanic state of three months the person
may go through experiences that seem to cover thousands of years?
If so, why not say for him — since time as we know it is an illusion —
that he was in Devachan for those thousands?
Devachan, however, is not a
meaningless or useless state. 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 another life stronger and more a part of our nature than
before; our strength is revived for another journey between deaths. Why shall
we repine that nature kindly aids us in the interminable struggle; why thus
ever keep the mind revolving about this petty personality and its good or evil
fortune? »
(The Path, September 1890, p.190-192; Echoes of the Orient I, p.167-169)
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