Theos-Talk Archives (April 2001 Message tt00148)

Friday, April 27, 2001

Dar Friends:
Some questions concerning Devachan (and Kamaloka) have recently
been asked. Here are some quotations from Original theosophical
sources that may prove to be helpful in reviewing the subject.
Best wishes,
DTB
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DEVACHAN

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HOW IS DEVACHAN CREATED ?

"...we ourselves create our Devachan...while yet on earth, and
mostly during the latter days and even moments of our
intellectual sentient lives. That feeling which is strongest in
us at that supreme hour, when as in a dream, the events of a long
life to their minutest detail are marshaled in the greatest order
in a few seconds in our vision, (Fn.:--That vision takes place
when a person is already proclaimed dead. The brain is the last
organ that dies.) that feeling will become the fashioner of our
bliss or woe, the life-principle of our future existence...The
real full remembrance of our lives will come but at the end of
the minor cycle,--not before..." Theos. Articles & Notes,
p. 246 [ULT Publisher]



Who Goes to Devachan


"The personal Ego, of course, but beatified, purified, holy.
Every Ego--the combination of the 6th and 7th principles--which
after the period of unconscious gestation is reborn into the
Devachan, is of necessity as innocent as a new born babe. The
fact of his being reborn at all shows the preponderance of good
over evil in his old personality...he brings along with him but
the Karma of his good deeds, words, and thoughts into this
Devachan...all those who have not slipped down into the mire of
unredeemable sin and bestiality go to the Devachan...Meanwhile
they are rewarded; receive the effects of the causes produced by
them." Theos. Art. & Notes, p. 244-5 [ ULT Publisher ]



Reason for Devachanic Experience


"The 'dream of Devachan' lasts until Karma is satisfied in that
direction. In Devachan there is a gradual exhaustion of
force..."The stay in D- is proportionate to the unexhausted
psychic [ spiritual and of the nature of the soul ] impulses
originating in earth life. Those whose attractions were
preponderatingly material will be sooner brought back into
rebirth by the force of Tanha...In such a case the average rule
has no application, since the whole effect either way is due to a
balancing of forces and is the outcome of action and reaction."
T. Art. & Notes. p.249


What is Conscious in Devachan ?


"As to the personal Soul--by which we mean the spark of
consciousness that preserves in the Spiritual Ego the idea of the
personal "I" of the last incarnation--this lasts, as a separate
distinct recollection, only throughout the Devachanic period;
after which time it is added to the innumerable incarnations of
the Ego...(108) Immortality is but one's unbroken consciousness;
and the personal consciousness can hardly last longer than the
personality itself...and such consciousness...survives only
throughout Devachan, after which it is reabsorbed, first, in the
individual, and then in the universal consciousness." KEY TO
THEOSOPHY, p. 107-8


["Manas...the Ego"] ..."It has not forgotten them [deeds in past
lives] ...it knows and remembers its misdeeds as well as you
remember what you have done yesterday." KEY 136



Death Vision - A Review


"That particular one moment which will be most intense and
uppermost in the thoughts of the dying brain at the moment of
dissolution, will regulate all subsequent moments. The moment
thus selected becomes the key-note of the whole harmony, around
which cluster in endless variety all the aspirations and desires
which in connection with that moment had ever crossed the
dreamer's brain during his lifetime, without being realized on
earth,--the theme modeling itself on, and taking shape from, that
group of desires which was most intense during life." Theos.
Art. & Notes., p. 242


"At the solemn moment of death every man, even when death is
sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshaled before him, in
its minutest details. For one short instant the personal becomes
one with the individual and the all-knowing Ego. But that
instant is enough to show him the whole chain of causes which
have been at work during his life. He sees and now understands
himself as he is, unadorned by flattery or self-deception. He
reads his life, remaining as a spectator looking down into the
arena he is quitting; he feels and knows the justice of all the
suffering that has overtaken him." KEY 162


"Life in Devachan is the function of the aspirations of earth
life; not the indefinite prolongation of that "single instant,"
but its infinite developments, the various incidents and events
based upon and outflowing from that one "single moment" or
moments." KEY, 162


"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. 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." OCEAN, p. 113


"Occult Science teaches that the frame of mind in which a man
dies, is of the utmost importance owing to the abnormal and
psychic state in which he then is. The last thought of a dying
person does much to influence his immediate future. The arrow is
ready to fly from the bow; the bow-string is abreast of the ear,
and the aim will decide the immediate fate of the arrow. Happy
is he for whom "Om" is the bow, the Self is the arrow and
Brahman--its aim!" At such a sacred moment, strong spiritual
aspirations, whether natural or induced by the earnest
exhortations of either one who has a true conviction, or better
still, of one possessed of the divine Gnosis, will protect the
Soul of him who is leaving life...at death we shall be judged by
our own Higher Self, and, under the conduct of the agents of the
Karmic Law (the Demiurgos collectively), will have to reincarnate
again into the prison of the Body, until the past evil Karma has
been exhausted. For until the last farthing of the Karmic debt
is exhausted, we can never be untied from the wheel of
"Sansara." -- Footnote by H.P.B. -- Lucifer, Vol. 8, p. 127-8


"That flash of memory which is traditionally supposed to show a
drowning man every long-forgotten scene of his mortal life--as
the landscape is revealed to the traveler by intermittent flashes
of lightning--is simply the sudden glimpse which the struggling
soul gets into the silent galleries where his history is depicted
in imperishable colors." Isis I 179


"When the frame is cold and eyes closed, all the forces of the
body and mind rush through the brain, and by a series of pictures
the whole life just ended is imprinted indelibly on the inner man
not only in a general outline but down to the smallest detail of
even the most intimate and fleeting impression." OCEAN, p. 97


"That feeling which is strongest in us at that supreme hour, when
as in a dream, the events of a long life to their minutest detail
are marshaled in the greatest order in a few seconds in our
vision, (Fn.:--That vision takes place when a person is already
proclaimed dead. The brain is the last organ that dies.) that
feeling will become the fashioner of our bliss or woe, the
life-principle of our future existence...The real full
remembrance of our lives will come but at the end of the minor
cycle,--not before..." T. Art. & Notes, p. 246


"That particular one moment which will be most intense and
uppermost in the thoughts of the dying brain at the moment of
dissolution, will regulate all subsequent moments. The moment
thus selected becomes the key-note of the whole harmony, around
which cluster in endless variety all the aspirations and desires
which in connection with that moment had ever crossed the
dreamer's brain during his lifetime, without being realized on
earth,--the theme modeling itself on, and taking shape from, that
group of desires which was most intense during life."
THEOS. ART. & NOTES., p. 242


Do Not Disturb the Dying


"No man dies insane or unconscious--as some physiologists assert.
Even a madman, or one in a fit of delirium tremens will have his
instant of perfect lucidity at the moment of death, though unable
to say so to those present...speak in whispers...lest you disturb
the quiet ripple of thought, and hinder the busy work of the Past
casting on its reflections upon the veil of the future."
Mahatma Letters, p. 170


Basis for Devachanic "Dream"


[The force of unfinished mental work]... "an intense and purely
spiritual passion for intellectual pursuit," is called "an
unsatisfied yearning which must exhaust itself before the entity
can move on to the purely a-rupa (formless-impersonal) condition.
A provision is made for every case, and, in each case it is
created by the dying man's last, uppermost desire..." [not
"thought"] Theos. Art. & Notes, p. 32



"Life in Devachan is the function of the aspirations of earth
life; not the indefinite prolongation of that "single instant,"
but its infinite developments, the various incidents and events
based upon and outflowing from that one "single moment" or
moments." KEY 162

Two Fields of Effects:


"There are two fields of causal manifestation; the objective and
the subjective. The grosser energies find their outcome in the
new personality of each birth in the cycle of evoluting
individuality. The moral and spiritual activities find their
sphere of effects in Devachan.

The dream of Devachan lasts until Karma is satisfied in that
direction, until the ripple of force reaches the edge of its
cyclic basin and the being moves into the next area of causes."
THEOS. ART. & NOTES, p. 242



Devachan -- A State of Selfishness


"...it is a state...of intense selfishness, during which an Ego
reaps the reward if his unselfishness on earth. He is completely
engrossed in the bliss of all his personal earthly affections,
preferences, and thoughts, and gathers in the fruit of his
meritorious actions. No pain, no grief, not even the shadow of a
sorrow comes to darken the bright horizon of his unalloyed
happiness: for it is a state of perpetual "Maya." Since the
conscious perception of one's personality on Earth is but an
evanescent dream, that sense will be equally that of a dream in
the Devachan--only a hundred-fold intensified...the happy Ego is
unable to see through the veil the evils, sorrows, and woes to
which those it loved on earth may be subjected...It has them near
itself, as happy, as blissful, and as innocent as the disembodied
dreamer himself..." THEOS. ART. & NOTES, p. 245



Contact with Devachanees


"It is...during such a condition [ of blissful Maya ] that the
souls of astral Egos of pure loving sensitives, laboring under
the same delusion, [ of perpetual bliss ] think that their loved
ones come down to them on earth while it is their own spirits
that are raised towards those in the Devachan." THEOS. ART. &
NOTES, p. 245


"...the new Ego, once that it is reborn (in Devachan),
retains... --proportionate to its earth life-- a complete
recollection "of his life on earth;" but it can never visit the
earth from Devachan except in reincarnation." THEOS. ART. &
NOTES, p. 244


"Two sympathetic souls will each work out their devachanic
sensations, making the other a sharer in its subjective bliss,
Yet each is dissociated from the other as regards mutual
intercourse; for what companionship could there be between
subjective entities which are not even as material as that
Ethereal body--the Mayavi Rupa ?" T. Art. & Notes, p. 243



ADEPT USING SPIRITUAL NATURE HAS
ACCESS TO DEVACHANIC STATE


"...the disembodied entity being identical in nature with the
higher triad of the living man, when obliterated as a result of
self-evolution effected by the full development of conscious and
trained will, the adept can, through this triad learn all that
concerns the Devachanee; live for the time being his mental
life, feel as he feels, and sharing thoroughly in his
super-sensuous perceptions, bring back with him on earth the
memory of the same, unwarped by mayavic deceptions..." T. Art.
& N., p. 18


"There are two fields of causal manifestation; the objective and
the subjective. The grosser energies find their outcome in the
new personality of each birth in the cycle of evoluting
individuality. The moral and spiritual activities find their
sphere of effects in Devachan.

"The dream of Devachan lasts until Karma is satisfied in that
direction, until the ripple of force reaches the edge of its
cyclic basin and the being moves into the next area of causes."
THEOS. ART. & NOTES, p. 242



Devachan a Varied State


"As many varieties of bliss on Earth there are of perception and
of capability to appreciate such reward. It is an ideal
paradise; in each case of the Ego's own making, and by him
filled with the scenery, crowded with the incidents, and thronged
with the people he would expect to find in such a sphere of
compensative bliss. And it is that variety which guides the
temporary personal Ego into the current which will lead him to be
reborn in a lower or higher condition in the next world of
causes. Everything is so harmoniously arranged in
nature--especially in the subjective world-- that no mistake can
be ever committed by the Tathagatos who guide the impulses.
Devachan is a "spiritual condition" only as contrasted with our
own grossly material condition ...[follows examples of various
instinctive and moral effects on the next incarnation] The
savage in being reborn would simply take a low place in the
scale, by reason of his imperfect moral development; while the
Karma of the other [wanton killer of animals] would be tainted
with moral delinquency..."	THEOS. ART. & NOTES, p. 245-6



Length of Devachanic Stay


[The stay in the Devachanic state] ...depends on the degree of
spirituality and the merit or demerit of the last incarnation.
The average time is from 10 to 15 centuries..." THEOS. ART &
NOTES 248 KEY 145


"...the term between two rebirths is said to extend from ten to
15 centuries, during which time the physical consciousness is
totally and absolutely inactive, having no organs to act
through..." KEY 132



Quick Rebirth


"Unless a man loves well, or hates well, he need not trouble
himself about Devachan; he will be neither in Devachan nor
Avitchi, "Nature spews the lukewarm out of her mouth" means only
that she annihilates their personal Egos (not the Shells, nor yet
the 6th principle) in the Kama-loka and the Devachan. This does
not prevent them from being immediately reborn, and if their
lives were not very, very bad, there is no reason why the eternal
Monad should not find the page of that life intact in the Book of
Life." T A & N, p. 246-7



Materialist in Devachan


"And this sort of materialistic thinker might emerge to rebirth
out of the Devachanic state in about a month, because we have to
allow for the expending of certain psychic impulses generated in
childhood before materialism obtained full sway. But as every
one varies in his force, and in respect to the impulses he may
generate, some in this class might stay in the Devachanic state
one, five, ten, twenty years, and so on, in accordance with the
power of the forces generated in earth life." T A & N p. 249



Creative Artist, Poet, etc in Devachan


"The artist, poet, musician, and day-dreamer...when rapt in
melody, composition, color arrangement, and even foolish fancy,
they are in a sort of living Devachanic state wherein they often
lose consciousness of time and sense impressions. Their stay in
that condition depends...on the impulses toward it which they
have amassed. If they were not subject to the body and its
forces they might remain years in their "dream." The same laws,
applied to the man divested of a body, will give us exactly the
results for Devachan. But no one save a trained mathematical
Adept could sum up the forces and give us the total number of
years or minutes which might measure Devachan. On the Adepts,
therefore, we have to depend for a specific time-statement, and
they have declared 1000 to 1500 years to be a good general
average...[gives the Cycle of Reincarnation for the average mass
of units in any civilization.]" T A & N p. 250


Contrast in Devachan -- Wisdom


"...first necessity: to know the esoteric views of the ultimate
nature of Spirit, of Matter, Force and Space; the
fundamental and axiomatic theories as to the Reality and
Unreality, Form and the Formless (rupa and a-rupa), dream and
waking...the distinction between the "objective" and the
"subjective" in the living man's sensuous perceptions and the
same as they appear [to a disembodied entity] to the psychic
perceptions of a...Devachanee." T. A. & N., p. 17-18



"...the Higher Triad, Manas, Buddhi, and Atma,--the real man,
immediately go into [the state] of Devachan...they are the
immortal part of us; they, in fact, and no other are we. This
should be firmly grasped by the mind, for upon its clear
understanding depends the comprehension of the entire doctrine."
OCEAN, p. 65



AWARENESS OF TIME AND SPACE IN DEVACHAN DIFFERENT


"In Devachan there is no cognizance of time, of which the
Devachanee loses all sense...The a priori ideas of space and time
do not control his perceptions; for he absolutely creates and
annihilates them at the same time. Physical existence has its
cumulative intensity from infancy to prime, and its diminishing
energy to dotage and death; so the dream-life of Devachan is
lived correspondentially. Nature cheats no more the devachanee
than she does the living physical man. Nature provides for him
far more real bliss and happiness there than she does here, where
all the conditions of evil and chance are against him...As in
actual earth life, so there is for the Ego in Devachan the first
flutter of psychic life, the attainment of prime, the gradual
exhaustion of force passing into semi-consciousness and lethargy,
total oblivion, and--not death, but birth, birth into another
personality..." THEOS ART. & NOTES, p. 242-3


"There is a change of occupation, a continual change in Devachan,
just as much and far more than there is in any life...with this
difference, that to the Devachanee this spiritual occupation is
always pleasant and fills his life with rapture. Life in
Devachan is the function of the aspirations of earth life; not
the indefinite prolongation of that "single instant," but its
infinite developments, the various incidents and events based
upon the outflowing from that one "single moment" or moments.
The dreams of the objective become the realities of the
subjective existence." T. A. & N. p. 243


"...Devachan is a state where the Ego enjoys and does not suffer,
suffering being reserved for the earth life. It is not a
question of memory strictly speaking, but is a state where the
causes generated on this earth which can exhaust in no other
state, do so exhaust themselves, leaving the causes relating to
this plane of earth life to be afterwards exhausted here, and as
it is, like this life, a state of illusion, the Ego naturally
enlarges all its conceptions of what it thought best and highest
when it was alive, for such are the causes that relate to that
state."	Practical Occultism," p. 258-9



Benevolence in Earth Life & Stay in Devachan


"The stay in Devachan is proportionate to the unexhausted psychic
impulses originating in earth life. Those whose attractions were
preponderatingly material will sooner be drawn back into rebirth
by the force of Tanha." T. A. & N., p. 243-4


"The reward provided by nature for men who are benevolent in a
large, systematic way, and who have not focused their affections
on an individual or specialty, is that if pure they pass the
quicker for that thro' the Kama and Rupa lokas into the higher
sphere of Tribuvana, since it is one where the formulation of
abstract ideas and the consideration of general principles fill
the thought of its occupant." THEOS. A. & N., p. 244


"In some cases, it is evident that the state of consciousness of
one monad whether in Devachan or yet on earth, may blend with, as
it were, and influence the ideation of another monad also in
Devachan. Such will be the case if there is strong, affectionate
sympathy between the two egos arising from participation in the
same feelings or emotions, or from similar intellectual pursuits
or spiritual aspirations. Just as the thoughts of a mesmerizer
standing at a distance are communicated to his subject by the
emanation of a current of magnetic energy attracted readily
towards the subject, the train of ideas of a Devachanee are
communicated by a current of magnetic or electric force attracted
towards another Devachanee by reason of the strong sympathy
existing between the two monads, especially when the said ideas
relate to things which are subjectively associated with the
Devachanee in question." T. A. & N., p. 26


"Even in the case of a man still living on earth, or even of one
suffering in Avitchi, the ideation of a monad in Devachan may
still affect his monad if there is strong sympathy between the
two... yet the Devachanee will remain ignorant of the mental
suffering of the other." T. A. & N. p. 26


DREAMS: IN AND OUT OF DEVACHAN


"...Devachan being "but a dream," we should agree upon a
definition of the phenomena of dreams...(20)the Occultist
[states] there is a difference between a dream produced by
outward physiological causes and the one which reacts and becomes
in its turn the producer of super-sensuous perceptions and
feelings...he divides dream into the phenomenal and the
noumenal...the physiologist is entirely unfit to comprehend the
ultimate constitution of a disembodied Ego--hence the nature of
its "dreams." T A & N pp. 19-20


"...a man may experience the devachanic condition while yet
alive, and call it delusion, if he pleases, when he comes back to
his ordinary state of objective consciousness and compares it to
the said condition. Nevertheless he will not know that it is a
dream, either when he experiences it a second time (for the time
being) while still living, or when he dies and goes to Devachan."
T. A. & N., p. 28


"...the intercourse between the monads is real, mutual, and as
actual in the world of subjectivity, as it is in this our world
of deceptive reality..." T. A. & N., p. 29


"The Devachanic condition in all its aspects is no doubt similar
to a dreamy state when considered from the standpoint of our
present objective consciousness when we are in our waking
condition. Nevertheless it is real to the Devachanee himself as
our waking state is to us... A monad in Devachan has but one
state of consciousness, and the contrast between a waking state
and a dreamy state is never presented to it so long as it is in
that condition." T. A. & N., p. 24



PRINCIPLES ACTIVE & CONSCIOUSNESS IN DEVACHAN


"...the physiologist rejects a priori WILL, the chief and
indispensable factor of the inner man. He refuses to recognize
it apart from particular acts of volition, and declares that he
known only the latter, viewed by him simply as a reaction or
desire of determination of energy outward...Hence the
physiologist would have to reject at once the possibility of
consciousness--minus memory..." T A & N p. 20


"Unfettered from the personal sensations of the manas, the
devachanic consciousness would certainly have to become universal
or absolute consciousness, with no past as with no future, the
two merging into one eternal PRESENT--but for the trammels of the
personal Ego...the ethereal atoms that act in the spiritual
consciousness of the monad, during its bliss wholly based and
depending upon the degree of its connections with only the
essence of the personal Ego." T. A. & N., p. 20



"...the spiritual consciousness...sense pertaining to the
immutable can never sleep of even be dormant per se, and is
always in the "Light" of reality [ enables the occultist ] to
perceive that reality in the subjective world which was hidden
from it in waking hours..." T A & N, p. 21


"...the participations of the manas in the Devachanic
bliss...takes away from, the reality that would fall to the lot
of the monad were it altogether free from its presence. Its
bliss is an outcome of...the delusion or "heresy of
individuality," which...together with the...chain of causes, is
necessary for the monad's future birth...all this leads the
occultist to regard the association of "intercourse" between two
disembodied entities in the Devachan...as an illusion..."
T A & N, p. 21



WHERE IS DEVACHAN LOCATED ?


"The center of Devachanic activity cannot be localized ...Monads
during that time even when connected with their five Kosas
(sheaths or principles) know neither space nor time, but are
diffused throughout the former, are omnipresent and ubiquitous.
Manas in its higher aspect is...--an eternal "substance" as well
as the Buddhi, the spiritual soul--when this aspect is developed;
and united with the Soul Manas becomes spiritual
self-consciousness, which is a...production of its original
"producer" Buddhi...Thus the higher human triad, drawn by its
affinity to those triads it loved most, with Manas in its highest
aspect of self-consciousness--(which is entirely disconnected
with, and has no need as a channel of the internal organ of
physical sense called antah-karana)--helping, it is ever
associated with, and enjoys the presence of all those it
loves--in death as much as it did in life." T A & N, p. 22


"...the highest state permitted to it (personal or animal soul)
on earth being samadhi. It is only its essence that has followed
the monad into Devachan, to serve it there as its ground-tone, or
as the background against which its future dream-life and
development will move...That which is in Devachan is...the smell
of the flower...its aroma will never die, and may be recalled and
resurrected ages thence..." T. A. & N., p 24



DEVACHANIC REST AND RECUPERATION


"Devachan...is--a blissful rest, a heavenly oasis during the
laborious journey of the Monad toward a higher evolution...One
has to sense intuitionally its logical necessity; to perceive in
it, untaught and unguided, the outcome and perpetuation of that
strictest justice absolutely consonant with the harmony of the
universal law...(27) The bliss of a Devachanee is complete..."
T. A. & N., p. 26-7



LEAVING DEVACHAN - A NEW PERSONALITY and KARMA


"Good Karma is that kind which the Ego desires and requires;
bad, that which the Ego neither desires nor requires. And in
this the Ego, being guided and controlled by law, by justice, by
the necessities of upward evolution, and not by fancy or
selfishness or revenge or ambition, is sure to choose the earthly
habitation that is most likely, out of all possible of selection,
to give the karma for the real advantage in the end...we see that
the "advantages" which one would seek were he looking for the
strengthening of character, the unloosing of soul force and
energy, would be called by the selfish and personal world
"disadvantages." Struggle is needed for the gaining of strength;
buffeting adverse eras is for the gaining of depth; meager
opportunities may be used for acquiring fortitude; poverty
should breed generosity.

The middle ground in all this, and not the extreme is what we
speak of... the Ego has drawn about itself in a former life some
tendencies which cannot be eliminated in any other
way...sometimes...a pure, powerful Ego incarnates in just such
awful surroundings, remaining good and pure all the time, and
staying there for the purpose of uplifting and helping others."
WQJ ART. Vol. I, pp. 138-9 [ULT]



"...the monad is not like a seed dropped from a tree, but its
nature is ubiquitous, all-pervading, omnipresent; though in the
subjective state time space and locality are not factors in its
experiences...there are states and states and degrees upon
degrees in Devachan, in all of which, notwithstanding (to us) the
objective isolation of the principal hero, he is surrounded by a
host of actors in conjunction with whom he had during his last
earth-life created and worked our the causes of those effects
that are produced first on the field of Devachanic or Avitchian
subjectivity, and then used to strengthen the karma to follow on
the objective (?) plane of subsequent rebirth. Earth life
is...the Prologue of the drama...mystery...that is enacted in the
rupa and arupa lokas." T A & N. p. 30


"...the devachanic mind is capable only of the highest spiritual
ideation; that neither objects of the grosser senses nor any
thing provocative of displeasure could ever be apprehended by
it--for otherwise, Devachan would be merging into Avitchi, and
the feeling of unalloyed bliss destroyed for ever." T A & N, 31


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