LIST OF ARTICLES

DEVACHAN DETAILS MENTIONED BY WILLIAM JUDGE




Here, I compiled several explanations that William Judge gave about the Devachan and in brackets I added my comments.



The wheel of reincarnations

In these this earth is the turning point where the soul of man begins its conscious career. Here, after having passed through all forms of animate and inanimate life he begins to come consciously under the operation of the law of Karma, which is a law demanding complete compensation for every act, word, and thought, and which results in removing the idea of the possibility of a vicarious atonement; and here he is born over and over again, reaping in each life the exact results due to him from the life preceding, and being therefore at any one instant of time the exact product or resultant of all his previous lives and experiences.

So that these two doctrines of Karma and Rebirth, are interwoven one with the other.


After death the real man — the ego — (the inner being) goes to what the Christians call Heaven, and which in the East is called Devachan. The words of the Bhagavad-Gītā will best enunciate this. In Chapter VI [vv. 37, 40-1, 43], Arjuna asks:

-      “Whither O Kṛishṇa, doth the man go after death, who although he be endowed with faith, hath not obtained perfection in his devotion?”

To which Kṛishṇa replied:

-      “His destruction is found neither here nor in the world above. A man whose devotions have been broken off by death, having enjoyed for an immensity of years the rewards of his virtues in the regions above, is at length born again. . . . Being thus born again he resumes in his new body the same habit he had before acquired and the same advancement of the understanding and here he begins again his labor (where he left it off).”


This law applies to all, righteous or not, and the period of rest which is had in Devachan is the exact length of time the spiritual energy stored up in earth life will last.

The length of time one stays in Devachan has been put by one or two English writers at fifteen hundred years, but this is erroneous, for the stay there depends in each particular instance upon the application of the immutable law to the facts of that case.

The Devachanic period is the great resting spell for all, and is one of the means provided by Nature for preventing a total degradation. During that state the Ego acquires some goodness for the next earth life, and when the Ego of a man who had before been extremely wicked is reborn, the new personality has to feel the consequences of all the evil done in that preceding life but comes to the task with the aid of the good influences of the rest in Devachan.
(Echoes of the Orient III, p.252-3)






What happens after death?

Theosophy teaches, as may be found in all sacred books, that after death the soul reaps a rest. This is from its own nature. It is a thinker, and can not during life fulfill and carry out all nor even a small part of the myriads of thoughts entertained.

Hence when at death it casts off the body and the astral body, and is released from the passions and desires, its natural forces have immediate sway and it thinks its thoughts out on the soul plane, clothed in a finer body suitable to that existence.

This is called Devachan. It is the very state that has brought about the descriptions of heaven common to all religions, but this doctrine is very clearly put in the Buddhist and Hindu religions.

It is a time of rest, because the physical body being absent the consciousness is not in the completer touch with visible nature which is possible on the material plane. But it is a real existence, and no more illusionary than earth life; it is where the essence of the thoughts of life that were as high as character permitted, expands and is garnered by the soul and mind.

When the force of these thoughts is fully exhausted the soul is drawn back once more to earth, to that environment which is sufficiently like unto itself to give it the proper further evolution.

This alternation from state to state goes on until the being rises from repeated experiences above ignorance, and realizes in itself the actual unity of all spiritual beings. Then it passes on to higher and greater steps on the evolutionary road.
(Echoes of the Orient II, p.139)






Memory after dying

Question: How is it that after the death of the physical body, the entity survives and takes with her to the Devachan the memories she had during her stay on Earth?

Answer: In the book The Key to Theosophy in [Section] IX describes the process in general to which the question refers. There it appears that at death the body, life-force, and astral body are lost, and the middle principle (Kāma-rūpa), together with Manas, Buddhi, and Ātma, is in Kāma-Loka, which is a state or condition and not a place. Then the separation between Kāma-rūpa and the higher triad begins, after the completion of which Manas-Buddhi-Ātma fall into the Devachanic state.

Turning to page 92 of the same book, we find in the column “explanatory” that if the Manas naturally gravitates to Buddhi and away from Kāma-rūpa, the “Ego goes into Devachanic bliss.” This gives the process. It cannot be said to be suffering or painful. The only point left, then, is as to memory.

T.E.K. rightly says “recollections.” [Section] VIII of The Key makes this clear. “Memory” is the physical brain-memory; rem iniscence is the “memory of the soul.” Each new brain makes a new physical memory used by Manas in each life, but Manas itself is the seat of memory proper, called by H. P. Blavatsky “reminiscence.”

It is not meant that Manas takes into Devachan the remembrance of every circumstance in life, but only the efflorescence of its life, the reminiscence of its best hours, leaving the painful and evil portions to the dying brain and to Kāma-rūpa.

If the questioner desires, as a help, an objective illustration of what happens to Manas through the separation from Kāma-rūpa, this may do: Imagine Manas as attached on its lower side to Kāma-rūpa just as a photograph may be attached to a glass plate. When dry, the paper can be taken from the plate, leav ing on it the film of the picture.

Thus when Manas is separated, its lower film may be left attached to Kāma-rūpa, its higher portion going into Devachan. And it is in Higher Manas that real memory is.
(Echoes of the Orient II, p.281-2)






Where is the Devachan located?

I understand Devachan is a state and not a locality; but evidently there must be some sort of locality in which the Devachanic state can take place. Is there any information as to the whereabouts of this particular locality?

Answer: Inasmuch as the doctrine of Devachan is postulated and declared only in respect to the inhabitants of our world, it must follow that those of us who go into that state must keep within the attractive limits of the earth’s chain of planets.

This would give the “place” in space in which the Ego undergoes Devachanic experience, but as the earth and its “companion globes” are always moving through space, it is evident that this loka (the subtle region) is moveable.

Imagine a huge hollow ball containing the earth and rolling through space. The hollow ball may stand for the attractive limits of the Ego who belongs for the time to the race, and within those limits — fixed in themselves but ever moving in space — the being goes into and remains in the Devachanic state. And as there the weight of the physical is not felt nor its density perceived, the Devachanic state may as well be on the earth as anywhere else outside up to the limits of attraction spoken of.

(The subtle planes of Earth occupy the same space as the physical plane, but they are in other "dimensions.")
(Echoes of the Orient II, p.318-9)







Who goes to Devachan and what he experiences there?

In Devachan, the soul pursues its highest ideals spiritually, and, seeming to carry those all out to highest perfection, it is benefited, enlarged and strengthened. Devachan is for rest and recuperation and not for action.

Not alone do evil and mediocre people go to Devachan, but preeminently those who have high and deep — though unfulfilled — aspirations. These are artists, musicians, dreamers, religious enthusiasts. And they, having impetuous thoughts, stay there longer than others.

But those who have been through all those experiences here and in Devachan, and who have triumphed over illusion through self-conquest, do not need Devachan because they have grown to their full strength and cannot against their wish be thrust into it by natural force. So they do not become subject to it. But that is the Adept.

(The Adepts having reached a high development, they can immediately reincarnate if they wish, or they can also ascend to the divine world as others do, but they will no longer fall into the devachanic dream.)

And the Adepts can also enter into the Devachanic state of another so as to help and benefit the other.

(While ordinary humans can only do that very sporadically and unconsciously.)

We are not such as yet, but may perhaps some day, in the distant future, be able to do such great and altruistic work.
(Echoes of the Orient II, p.381-2)






What is the difference between dream on Devachan and dream on Earth?

Forms seen in dreams and visions are almost always pictures; those on the Kāma-Mānasic are more often actual forms of that sort of matter.

(The person creates his own reality with the manasic substance of the mental plane.)

The difference — when existing — is that which there is between a photograph of a form and the form itself. The “forms” of Devachanic consciousness are not objective to us, but are to the being in the Devachanic state of consciousness. As the entity is not free — hence in Devachan — the mind creates for itself all its surround ings in every detail, and also thereby cultivates departments of the nature which could not be cultivated to the same extent elsewhere.

The connection with the Higher Ego, as to which F.J.D.’s ideas are vague, is the same connection as in earth-life, only operating by a different channel.
(Echoes of the Orient II, p.248)






Can one reincarnate again without having to go Devachan?

To skip a period in Devachan is possible, but it is exceedingly exceptional, and seldom advantageous. It occurs, we are told, in two instances.

First in certain rare cases when the Adepts, in order to hasten the development of a chela, aid him in passing at the moment of death into some other and younger body, which is at that instant in the act of losing its own tenant, but which is not so diseased as to prevent full recovery of health after the advent of the new vitality.

Secondly in the case of the higher Lamas, when, at the death of the old Lama his spirit enters the new body while it is still unborn.
(Echoes of the Orient II, p.450)






The desire to reincarnate again

Question: Does the devachani have aspects or propensities which draw it back to incarnation here?


Answer: A careful study of the philosophy will show that it is held that the Ego in Devachan, consisting of Ātma, Buddhi, and Manas, must contain within it the seeds, qualities, or propensities which will draw it back to life on earth again.

If this is not so, then there would never be any reincarnation whatever. If this be so, as I believe it is, then all the rest of the discussion seems to be merely discussion in a circle about nothing, but that which will lead to mental confusion.

The last part of the discussion is settled by reflecting that if the Ego using Manas in Devachan keeps itself in a state or condition which is connected with earth-life, it will inevitably return to earth-life be cause of the attraction which it retains for that state of existence.

(In Sanskrit this connection is called Tanha and it is the desire of the soul to have new experiences on Earth.)
(Echoes of the Orient II, p.330-1)






Who has already freed themselves from the Devachan?

Not the masters, because although they are already conscious and awake throughout their post-mortem journey (contrary to ordinary humans), but they are still subject to the cycle of reincarnations, and therefore they still have to go periodically to the Devachan (although they stay awake while the rest of the humans stay asleep).

There is much confusion in this question, and hence I infer a similar state in the mind of the questioner as to the matter propounded. Two states or kinds of development are mixed together, one the free or liberated state of a Jīvanmukta, and the other that of a being who is obliged to reincarnate.

Only those are free who are Jīvanmuktas; having reached that state they are no more confined to mortal birth, but may take up a body or not as they see fit. A Jīvanmukta participates in the souls of all creatures and works for the good of the human family.

To take a known case, it should be remembered that the Adept who is helping the Theosophical Society is a Jīvanmukta, but is all the time engaged in the great work of assisting the great orphan, Humanity.

(Note: perhaps this Jīvanmukta mentioned by Wiiliam Judge is Chohan Serapis or Lord Bouddha.)
(Echoes of the Orient II, p.272)









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