The theosophical
teachers explained that after dying, the person is divided into two parts: his
good part ascends to Devachan ("Heaven"), while his bad part remains
in Kama-Loka ("Purgatory") where it will gradually disintegrate.
And that bad
part is called in Theosophy, "Kama-Rupa", and below I transcribe the
explanations gave by William Judge (and in brackets I added my comments), but
so that you have a better understanding, I recommend you first read the
preliminary explanation that William Judge gave, which I put in this other article
(link).
The division of the person in Kama-Loka
Before the good part of Manas enters the Devachan state, the bad part of
Manas with the dregs of the Auric Envelope has formed the kama-rupa,
and this latter has in most cases been dissipated to form Taṇhic elementals.
Thus the lower Manas has no relation to the Higher in Devachan, for the Taṇhic
elementals are not existent on that plane of consciousness. This is fully
explained in book The Key to Theosophy
[Section IX, pp. 143-5, TUP ed.], where it should be studied.
(Echoes
of the Orient III, p.365)
What is kama-rupa?
Kama-rupa, the body of desire (which remains after death), is a word used loosely in exoteric writings to denote the fourth
principle (Kama), the passional nature, with its animal and sensual desires. It
is the latest developed aspect of the lower quaternary, and is found in animals
as well as in man. The word “rupa,” however, is a misnomer. Kama has no rupa
during life; vide Third Instructions.
After death the rupa is formed of
the dregs of the Auric Envelope, and these dregs, with the animal passions and emotions,
are the kama-rupa. This survives in Kama-Loka a longer or shorter time,
according to the strength of these elements in the late personality; if drawn
into the current of a medium, and obtaining from him a faint reflection of
intelligence, it becomes the “spook of the séance-room;” in case of separation
from the Higher Self, it reincarnates on earth, forming the worse type of human
being.
The Esotericist must distinguish
clearly between the Kamic principle in the personality, and the kama-rupa which
is the embodiment of that principle after death.
Note. — Many students answered
this question by merely translating kama-rupa into “body of desire” — an answer
that could have been given by any outsider who had picked up a Theosophical publication
dealing with the seven principles. Only a very small minority stated that the rupa
was formed after death — a fact which seems to imply that a great majority of
Esotericists have not taken the trouble to read the Third Instructions. Such
gross ignorance as the confounding of kama-rupa with Kama-Loka is also shown in
some of the answers.
The mistake in some cases was
probably due to the acceptation by the students of Mr. Sinnett’s classification,
without any analysis. Kama-rupa must be included in the classification, because
potentially it exists, although it is not concentrated or collected into a
definite form until death breaks up the body.
This may be understood in the
same way as when we say that in such-and-such a man’s body there are so many ounces
of carbon, which, however, we know will not reveal themselves as carbon until
released from the other elements.
(Echoes
of the Orient III, p.295-6)
Clarification on an apparent contradiction
Commentary from
R.J.N.: In Forum No. 18, p. 5, lines 27-9, W.Q.J. says, “In a
case of ordinary demise the astral body dissipates, so does kama-rupa.” Here the impression is that kama-rupa exists
before and in a case of “ordinary demise” dissipates at death.
Remarks on Examination Paper No.
I, pp. 295-6, says “Kama has no rupa during life;”. . . “The Esotericist must
distinguish clearly between the kamic principle in the personality and the kama-rupa
which is the embodiment of that principle after death,”. . . “Only a very small
minority stated that the rupa was formed after death.”
Instructions No. III, page [608n]
says, “It is erroneous when speaking of the fifth human principle, to call it
‘the kama-rupa.’ It is no rupa or form at all, except after death: but the kamic
elements, animal desires, passions, such as anger, lust, envy, revenge, etc.,
the products of selfishness and matter.”
Now how is the statement of
W.Q.J. in the Forum to be reconciled with these conflicting quotations?
Answer: I do not consider
the statements quoted to be conflicting. The Instructions and Suggestions are
written for the members of the E.S.; the Forum is intended for outsiders. The
words quoted from the Forum do not infer anything. They state that kama-rupa
dissipates after death, which is the fact, and which does not negative the
statement made in Instructions that kama has no rupa — or form — until death.
If I were writing so as to inform
the public clearly that kama-rupa dissipates after death I would say that the kama
principle assumes a form at death and afterwards dissipates. The only inference
that could be drawn from the Forum citation is that kama-rupa assumed a form at
some time not stated.
During life the kamic principle
is distributed through the whole system, and not specialized. At death the
whole lower force of the dying person centers itself in kama, draws the whole
principle together from the rest of the combination, and then assumes a
distinct form of its own.
This is clearly given in
Instructions No. III, and it is better to read that than pay much attention to
the errors or omissions of W.Q.J. in Forum or elsewhere, as he admits the
correctness of the Instructions. Pages [608-10] will settle the question
clearly and also answer the question sent lately on the same subject.
According to No. III, [609-10]:
a)
The kama-rupa fades
out in time after the death of the body;
b)
After thus fading its
Karmic record is left, as a collection of elementals, who go to make up the
astral form which —
c)
Is born within the
Auric Envelope for the purpose of forming the model around which the new human
foetus is constructed.
This is the process in broad
outline, including many details not worked out. Among others of these is the
problem: What is the fate and function of a kama-rupa which lasts many
centuries after death of the body? Does it or does it not have anything to do
with the reincarnating Ego which cast if off in a preceding life? If it does,
what effect does it produce?
These questions should be replied
to for forwarding to London.
(Echoes
of the Orient III, p.320-1)
How is kama-rupa formed?
Question: What is the process whereby the Kamic elements of man become embodied after
death in the entity known as the kamarupa? How can intangible subjective
desires, passions, and the like become “rupa” or whence comes the body or rupa?
Answer: If the process were
given it would not be understood, since it is one for which our language has no
words. It is for this reason that descriptions given by clairvoyants of various
occult things seem pure twaddle and vague mutterings to those who for
themselves cannot clairvoyantly see the same thing.
How could it be possible to describe the operations of the occult Cosmos
in the terms of materialistic science and philosophy?
That hidden Cosmos is ideal in
its fineness, and the very attempt to fully describe the process enquired of
would convey only doubt and certainly result in confusion. But it is no more hidden
than is the process by which the body builds itself up every day; nor than that
by which a thought will affect the entire nervous system. A simple thought will
bring a hot flush or a cold shiver. How?
No one knows. Certainly no scientific
terms exist to describe the mode and means whereby the thought connects itself
with the human physiological machine. And if this be so on this plane, is it
likely that an Adept’s description of the coalescence of Kama with an astral
body after death would be comprehended save in the most general way?
This general way may be gotten at
by considering the action of the magnet. It attracts, but no scientific man can
look behind that fact; it even can attract an electric flame, but there too the
process is occult. In the same way there is an attraction between the mass of
desires called Kama and the astral form which causes them to come together just
as a similar attractive force brought Ego and body together.
But desires and passions are not
intangible and subjective in the sense given by the question. They are in their
sphere — though not in this — quite tangible and objective, and those two words
must be altered when we pass beyond the consideration of this plane.
If the questioner insists that on
every plane desires and passions are intangible and subjective, that will
dispose of the question, because in such a case they certainly could never
attract anything. But it will first have to be explained how such “intangible
and subjective” things as passion and desire can and do have an objective
effect even on this plane. As on their own plane they are full of force and
tangibility, they attract to themselves the necessary quantum of astral matter,
invisible to us but still there, to form a sheath of covering.
Having their center in the
thinker they radiate from that and cause their effects until cut off from their
center, when they begin to dissipate unless linked with some other center from which
they might get activity. But the whole difficulty grows, it seems to me, out of
the prevalent habit of regarding this so-called objective world as real, and
forgetting that the mental and spiritual realms are the only real ones, this
being simply the phenomenal expression of those.
I therefore disagree from the
Editor when he says that such and such desires “are not existences apart from
the mind and capable of assuming an objective form,” for I think they are just
such existences and have the capacity to take on an objective form.
He is simply stating modern conceptions,
which are wholly erroneous and springing from a system of philosophy which does
not know that the mind is an entity, and while his illustrations are all good
for the school to which they belong, they are completely negatived by the facts
of Occultism. For instance, if a practitioner of magic — and not a very high
one either — were to fix in his mind the image of an object, it would soon
become objective to our physical senses, just as it was first in fact objective
to our inner senses.
This could not be possible if the
objective and subjective of one plane are forever on every plane subjective and
objective. That which we now from this plane call “abstract qualities” change
on another plane into “objective things.” So I regard it an error to call the
desire and passions abstract qualities, unless we say at the same time that we
mean it relatively.
(Echoes of the Orient II, p.337-9)
Kama-rupas and
spiritualism
When a man dies and is buried his
kamic body is released. The life principle is also released from these atoms to
go into others. Then the kamic body, with all the passions and desires is set
free. We will suppose the case of a suicide. His kamic body escapes full of the
idea of suicide.
Similarly, the man who has
indulged in drinking and all sorts of sensualities, goes out full of these
things. A murderer who is hung is in the same condition. Guiteau would go out
full of that last scene where he defied his accusers, and where he declared he
would destroy all the people who had anything to do with his incarceration.
What happens?
Man’s higher principles go on and
on with evolution, finally being reincarnated. If after death these lower
elements are seized by mediums and brought back to earth, infused with
additional life, not permitted to disintegrate, it is a crime. Everyone who
goes to a medium and asks that their dead may return commits a crime. It is a
crime against the person who is dead, and against the medium; it brings around
her bad influences, for the majority that can return are full of crime.
They are of the earth, earthy.
Now, when I am dead my astral body will not have my senses; it will contain
only my passions and desires, which swerve me as they swerve you also, and if I
am drawn back against my will I may do harm. If you could actually see what
occurs at a séance you would never go to another.
You would see all these vile
shapes enveloping the sitters like a huge octopus [cf. BCW XIV:489-92].
Mediumship is nothing but communicating with the astral dead; it is the worship
of the dead, and as such it has been condemned for ages.
(Echoes of the Orient III, p.191)
The kama-rupas communicating with the
mediums
Hundreds of classes of beings
communicate from the astral plane with the living through mediums and
otherwise. Of this subject the West does not know. Hence you will have to take
on faith if you believe at all what I reply. Many degrees of elementals communicate.
These are all of no use to us, but harmful. Many of them are used by black
magicians who live in the astral world in their kama-rupas.
They use the elementals, they
live thus on the living by absorption, and this is the great danger of all such
things. Some of them may be friendly, but unless you have the means and sight
of your own to tell which, no direction would be of any use. Even while friendly
they are injurious, for they must use a part of you or someone for the work,
and they thus set up the likelihood of another not friendly using you the same
way.
(Echoes of the Orient II, p.353)
The attraction of the kama-rupas to the
animal kingdom
The student of the theosophic scheme
admits that after death the astral soul either dies and dissipates at once, or
remains wandering for a space in Kama-Loka. If the man was spiritual, or what
is sometimes called “very good,” then his astral soul dissipates soon; if he
was wicked and material, then the astral part of him, being too gross to easily
disintegrate, is condemned, as it were, to flit about in Kama-Loka, manifesting
itself in spiritualistic séance rooms as the spirit of some deceased one, and
doing damage to the mental furniture of mortals while it suffers other pains
itself.
Seers of modern times have
declared that such eidolons or spooks assume the appearance of beasts or rep
tiles according to their dominant characteristic. The ancients sometimes taught
that these gross astral forms, having a natural affinity for the lower types,
such as the animal kingdom, gravitated gradually in that direction and were at
last absorbed on the astral plane of animals, for which they furnish the
sidereal particles needed by them as well as by man.
But this in no sense meant that
the man himself went into an animal, for before this result had eventuated the
ego might have already reentered life with a new physical and astral body. The
common people, however, could not make these distinctions, and so very easily held
the doctrine as meaning that the man became an animal.
After a time the priests and
seers took up this form of the tenet and taught it outright. It can be found in
the Desatīr (the Sacred Writings of
the Ancient Persian Prophets), where it is said that tigers and other ferocious
animals are incarnations of wicked men, and so on. But it must be true that
each man is responsible and accountable for the fate of his astral body left
behind at death, since that fate results directly from the man’s own acts and
life.
(Echoes of the Orient II, p.420-1)
Ordinary kama-rupas and particular
kama-rupas
Several students failed to discriminate
between what may be called the normal and the abnormal kama-rupa. The queries
related to the latter only, as the normal or ordinary kama-rupa does not cohere
for centuries after the death of the body. Almost all the replies were from
Western students; it would seem as if those of the East had not given their
attention to this matter.
When the body dies “the remains of
Antaḥkaraņa survive as kama-rupa” [Voice, p. 89, TUP ed.], and the normal kama-rupa
being thus formed, the usual result is that after the kama-rupa has been
dissipated in Kama-Loka into the Taṇhic Elementals, the Higher Ego enters the state
of Devachan.
But should the tendencies and
desires of the past life have been almost exclusively animal and material in
nature, the stronger and more coherent will be the Kama-Rupa, the less the
length of time to be passed in Devachan, and the quicker the reincarnation of
the Higher Ego. Even in this case, the kama-rupa will have been dissipated as
such previous to the reincarnation of the Higher Ego, although it may have
cohered for a very long time.
But in the abnormal cases, previous
to the death of the body, a separation is effected between the “Higher Ego” and
the “Kamic” or “Personal Soul.” In such a case the Higher Ego may be led back
again by spiritual aspiration, when no permanent separation takes place.
But should the union not be effected,
the Kamic or Personal Soul becomes a separate Entity, to reincarnate
immediately as a human animal and scourge. Depending upon its Karmic energy it
exists for centuries as such, undergoing torments in more and more debased incarnations:
it is ultimately doomed to annihilation and to “fade out in Myalba.”
Occasionally it may thus endure for centuries, and yet fade out previous to the
reincarnation of the Higher Ego.
If the degradation during the
life in which the separation occurred, has been sufficiently intense, or if it
has “become immortal in Satan,” i.e. in spiritual evil, the Kamic Soul is not
re-born, but remains in an active state of Avīchi within the terrestrial aura.
(The kama-rupa becomes a dweller of the threshold, that is, an evil astral
entity that is going to harass the new incarnated personality.)
In both cases the Kamic Soul is
ultimately doomed to annihilation after a period which varies with the energy inherent
in it.
Its effect on the Reincarnating Ego
may be very great. That Ego is led by Karma back to a new series of
incarnations. It evolves from itself a new Kama-Manasic reflection, which is at
once warred with by the Kama-Manasic spook either reincarnated as a soulless
entity, or especially if in a state of Avīchi within the terrestrial aura.
The attraction between the
“father” or Higher Ego and the doomed “son” or Kama-Manas is very great, and
the latter endeavors to force its way into “the astral current and through the
Auric Envelope of the new tabernacle of its Parent Ego, declaring war to the
lower light” [cf. 636] — the Kama-Manas newly evolved to replace it. It is thus
a “Dweller on the Threshold” to the Parent Higher Ego.
In addition to thus affecting the
parent Ego this kama-rupa declares war on all humanity, preying on the living,
such as sensitives, mediums, and all others to whom it is magnetically
attracted; through this it vicariously satisfies its gross desires [see BCW
XII:632-40].
Many members have asked how the
new personality can be formed for the separated Higher Ego when it
reincarnates, as it seems to them that there can be no personality remaining.
The new personality is formed and evolved from other Atoms within the Auric Egg,
wherein Karmic records exist from all eternity. No one personality gives manifestation
to all such Karmic atoms. The evil personality is dropped from the Sutratma and
the Reincarnating Ego, provided it resists the “Dweller,” proceeds in obedience
to the Law.
(Echoes of the Orient III, p.352-3)
A kama-rupa can become a threshold dweller
Question: R.C. said that kama-rupa becomes a form, as such, and distinct from the
body, only after death of the physical. If a human being lives and dies without
a thought higher than an animal one, or is essentially depraved and evil, his kama-rupa
becomes a Dweller on the Threshold and I would say becomes the evil genius of
the man.
The Divine Ego would reincarnate
again with a new personality. But at this point I am not clear. It seems
difficult, well nigh impossible, to escape from the kama principle. To me it is
marvelous that H.P.B. has such a vast amount of knowledge. It is not possible
for me to grasp it except a little now and then. But such is karma and it is
just.
Answer: “R.C.” is partially
right. We find that kama-rupa — formed after death — may become so dense and
compact as to last in the astral light for many years if the late departed was
a very gross person, full of earthly desires unsatisfied. Hence there is quite
a possibility that this persistent kama-rupa may become an “evil genius” for
the next personality assumed by the Ego.
The reason is that the particles of
which it is composed have an affinity (growing out of impressions made in the
last life, and all of the magnetic attractions established), for the Ego who
cast them off at the time of death. The only appropriate channel for exhausting
the energies centered in kama-rupa is through the Ego who brought them into
existence.
There is also another way in
which these degraded kama-rupas may be attracted to a person. It is done by
those who attend spiritualistic séances or who engage in “ghost hunting” in any
way. If they persistently indulge in this — as many do — they set up similar
magnetic currents to those above mentioned.
These currents are attached to
some dead man’s kama-rupa and if the latter be a long lived one then on the
next rebirth of the “ghost hunter” the kama-rupa — still floating in the astral
light — is irresistibly attracted to the one who thus sets up the magnetic
attraction, and invades his waking as well as sleeping hours.
This is especially so in cases
where the so-called spirit husbands and wives are obtained through mediums.
There the attraction set up is of the strongest possible character. If it grows
out of the strongest element in our character and feeds upon the most powerful
ones in the “spook,” on the next rebirth of these dabblers in such moral pitch,
the kama-rupa bride or groom, outlasting the other’s Devachan, flies to its
natural friend and becomes in effect a demon.
These demon is not the
theological devil, but an automatic thing with no conscience, but firmly
attached to the person through natural affinities and liable to drag down the
unfortunate sinner who thus deliberately incurred such results. This is one
reason why in the E.S. the attending of séances or “sitting for mediumship” is prohibited.
There are also many other reasons.
(Echoes of the Orient III, p.330-1)
The kama-rupa of the adepts
Question: Is any kama-rupa
formed in a case where union is made with the Higher Self?
Answer: Yes, there is,
except where Nirvana is taken. The Higher Adept has and uses a kama-rupa, which
is often called Mayavi-Rupa when acting in a certain way. But the kama-rupa in
this case is a different sort of one from those of ordinary men. It is high and
refined and harmless. It represents the purest essence of the material nature, and
is absolutely needed to work in and with nature.
Students have, so far, only
considered that phase of kama-rupa which is connected with this plane of gross
experience. Kama is a general principle, and therefore also having gradations
of high and low, fine and coarse, and so on. Understood thus, difficulties
should disappear; but further discussion is still in order.
(Echoes of the Orient III, p.385)
