On what happens when the human ascends
to Heaven, William Judge explained
the following
(and I added my comments in brackets to
make his explanation more explicit):
« 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.
(So that the good part of the human can
ascend to the divine world, while its bad part of the human slowly
disintegrates into the Kama-Loka.)
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.
WHAT FACTOR TAKES US TO
DEVACHAN?
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.
(In summary, positive karma ascends us
to Devachan and negative karma brings us back to Earth.)
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.
(I compare it with a balloon. All the positive psychic
impulses we generate during our reincarnation, is like the hot air we put in
our balloon and that will lift us to Devachan during our post-mortem period.
And when that ascending force has been exhausted, the
negative karma we have, but also our desires to experience more about earthly
life, that will push us back down to Earth to have a new reincarnation.
But keep in mind that there are also other factors
involved. For example,
Master Pasteur explained that those humans who had already reached a very high
level of social development during the Atlantean civilization, such as great
scientists, great academics, etc. Those humans had to wait until
civilization came back on Earth because if they had reincarnated before, that
would have hurt them in their evolution.)
WHY HUMANS NEED ASCEND TO
DEVACHAN?
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.
(At the time of death, we fall into a
deep sleep, and the more evolved we are, the more we will be able to remain
awake, first in the astral plane, then in the Kama-Loka, and finally also in
the divine world.)
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.
HOW LONG DOES THE HUMAN
REMAIN IN THE 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.
(When you dream, you lose track of
time.)
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 life time 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 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
proportioned to the unfinished psychic impulses originating in earth-life:
those whose attractions were preponderatingly material will be sooner drawn
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.
(This applies especially to people who
have been very bad.)
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.
(Master Kuthumi pointed out that
materialistic people spend their time sleeping but not dreaming during their
stay at Devachan.)
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.
WHAT DOES THE HUMAN
EXPERIENCE IN DEVACHAN?
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.
(And the human will believe that he is
awake and active, although in reality he is asleep and dreaming in the divine
world.)
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 ecstasy 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.
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.
(For example, a woman whose great
happiness would have been to marry, in the devachanic dream, she will create a
beautiful story related to marriage.)
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 another life stronger and more a part of our nature than
before; . . . Why shall we repine that nature kindly aids us in
the interminable struggle; why thus keep the mind revolving about this petty
personality and its good and evil fortunes?"
(Letter from Mahatma K.H. See Path, p.192, Vol. 5.)
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.
CAN PEOPLE ON EARTH
INTERACT WITH THE PEOPLE WHO ARE IN DEVACHAN?
The 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.
(And I suspect that was the case of
Blavatsky, since certain indications make me assume that perhaps she was
Paracelsus in her previous life, and if so, that would mean that she was only
290 years in the Devachan.)
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.
(And it is also the case that humans
submerged in a deep state of sublimation ascend to Devachan, but those cases
are very rare and the person who experiences it does so very unconsciously.)
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.
RETURN TO EARTH
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. »
(The Ocean of
Theosophy, chapter 13)
No comments:
Post a Comment