Theos-Talk Archives (June 2003 Message tt00242)

13

Answers at an informal OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY class

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CHAPTER XII	KAMA LOKA


T HE first state after death. Where and what are heaven and hell?
Death of the body only the first step of death. A second death
after that.

Separation of the seven principles into three classes. What is
Kama Loka? Origin of Christian purgatory. It is an astral sphere
with numerous degrees. The Skandhas. The astral shell of man in
Kama Loka. It is de void of soul, mind and conscience. It is the
"spirit" of the séance rooms. Classification of shells in Kama
Loka. Black magicians there. Fate of suicides and others.
Pre-devachanic unconsciousness.


Q. The chapter speaks of Kama loka as a place; is it a place
merely in a metaphysical sense?

A. It is a place "physically" in that it is a degree of
substance-the astral substance or atmosphere which surrounds the
earth to an appreciable distance- composed of the physical and
psychical emanations of the earth. But it is a metaphysical
"place" so far as the consciousness of the person involved in it
is concerned.


Q. Then the Kama lokic plane is the astral plane?

A. It is. We don't go to any particular locality to reach it, any
more than we go anywhere in our dreaming state. Simply, we are in
that state. And Kama loka is like the dreaming state, in that it
is temporary; when the energy that caused the dreams, whether
good or bad, is used up, the man goes into his own nature as a
person.


Q. If the Kama rupa is devoid of consciousness, how can. Kama
loka be likened to the dream-state, wherein the consciousness is
active .

A. It is not stated that Kama loka is devoid of consciousness. We
are, or may be in Kama loka right now as we feel, but we are not
Kama rupas. A man plunged into a state of gloom is in Kama loka
just as much as though he had disposed of his body. We should not
confuse the body, or vehicle, with the consciousness employing
it. Let us remember all the time that we, as Consciousness, are
working in and upon substance; we are not to mistake the forms
produced by Consciousness for the Consciousness itself.


Q. How soon does the Real Man leave the Kama lokic state ?

A. The Real Man is for only a short time after the death of the
body connected with the Kama rupa; during that time, he is tied
to it much as he may be to the physical body at the present time;
but he almost immediately lets go of this Kamic body, just as he
has let go of the physical. The Real Man, in ordinary cases, goes
practically at once into the Devachanic state. The Kama rupa
begins to disintegrate immediately, and continues to disintegrate
very quickly, if it is not reinforced by mediumistic and other
practices.


Q. Could there not be some cases in which the Real Man would be
detained in. Kama loka?

A. The higher principles of an absolute materialist, or of one
who has taken the first steps toward black magic, are still
actually connected with the Kama rupa, hut, otherwise, only some
sort of an internal desire for something, strongly held, could
detain the Ego. This would not generally be the case, for when
the body dies, the seats of the desires, that is, the organs,
lose their power of excitation. The memory of every cell and
every organ fades out, when they are no longer part of an organic
being, and so no further de sire arises. There might be a period
of only five
minutes, fifteen minutes, or a year, when our desires would run
along the lines that we had held during life, but they cannot
renew themselves very well, since there is no seat for their
operation. Only some very strong unsatisfied desire holds a Kama
arupa in being for a long time, and the desire body ma be renewed
only by some extraneous pressure. Even if a Kama rupa existed as
a coherent mass of tendencies for hundreds of years, it would not
mean that the Ego was connected with it. If he were connected, he
would have some control.


Q. Does the Kamic body exist then as an entity separate and apart
from the man who left it?

A. Let us remember first, last, and always, that the Real Man has
his visible and invisible constituents. The visible constituents
are in the body; the invisible constituents are in the astral
body. When the body is occupied. the man is there-the controlling
power. When he drops the body, the body remains what it was. When
he drops his astral body in Kama loka, it remains just as he left
it. He is not himself detained in Kamaloka, but his remains are
there, as are here his remains on the physical plane, for a
longer or shorter time or duration. The remains are not conscious
in any way; they are useless to the man and uncontrollable by
him. Even though they may have some effect on him, yet he is not
conscious of the fact. If he were so conscious, he would have
control over them; his will would be operative. But, in fact, he
is not there at all.


Q. Is there any suffering in Kama loka?

A. Not for the Ego. The desires and passions that make up the
Kama rupa go back to their own natures rendered all the happier
for the change. They belong to the animal or Kamic world, not to
astral matter.


Q. But are we not still responsible for the Kama rupa, even when
we have left Kama loka?

A. Yes; that Kama rupa is like a machine which we have not known
how to operate and control. If it does damage to others, we are
still responsible for the damage. We have to take charge of that
old machine and keep at the task until we know how to control it.


Q. Would you say that the Kama lokic condition is merely a
continuance of the physical existence, in the sense that so many
of our dreams are?

A. In the majority of cases, one who dies a natural death has a
Kama lokic existence analogous in time to the dreaming state
which precedes deep sleep, but feelings and desires, along the
lines of envy, revenge, anger, lust, are left there as forces,
which keep on operating after the man has no further touch with
them. He meets the results of these operations when he returns.


Q. Could we call the Kama rupa a thought body ?

A. No, not a thought body; it is the residuum of thought-the
effect of thought upon substance, or upon those lives which
compose the substance. Every thought we have coalesces with some
small life and gives it direction and impulse, but while that
life, of itself, is not conscious, it will repeat the impulse
given it until that energy dies out. Congeries of this kind of
lives will be coherent for some time after the death of the body,
and even after the person has gone to Devachan. The Kama rupa
exists after the personality has left it, just as the physical
body does after the soul departs from it; it still exists as a
body, in its lives, and has its effect on other organisms.


Q. Do the Kama rupas really affect or move us astrally .

A. They exist absolutely devoid of consciousness or guidance of
any kind, blown about by every attraction or repulsion. They have
no will nor consciousness, and can affect us only as we attract
them by strong feeling, exhibiting lust, anger or envy.


Q. Are the three classes of Skandhas the lives of the various
planes?

A. The Skandhas are the lives plus the impulsions that have been
given those lives. The lives all belong to the one who evolved
them, and all they know is the direction given them. They have no
power of choice; they cannot initiate impulse, but merely receive
it. So the Skandhas are our tendencies, the quality of force
which we have imparted to the various lives in the various planes
or departments of nature, physical, mental and psychical. We
impel the physical lives in our bodies; we impel the astral
counterparts which make physical expression possible; we impel
the lives that have to do with our thought processes. As they
have been impelled by us, they are connected to us by magnetic or
electrical attraction, and when we return to earth we draw them
back to us again, or energize the Skandhas of the three classes,
which, we may see, make possible the operation of several classes
of Karma at the same time.


Q. Then the whole teaching concerning the Skandhas is merely
another illustration of cause and effect?

A. Yes, we cannot think, feel, say or do anything without
starting some of the infinitesimal colorless lives, with which
the whole atmosphere pulsates everywhere, in a given direction.
We are responsible for those lives because we created them as
that kind of life. If the force put into our thought was very
little, the direction may be short-lived, but strong thoughts and
feelings energize strongly. The total of these lives is always
existent on the physical and astral planes, and we draw them back
to us as an aggregate because we were the creators and
originators of them.


Q. How is it that the person leaving the body makes the review of
his past life after the heart has stopped beating and the
breathing is over, when a drowning person makes that same review
still alive ?

A. One drowning is on the very bridge of death, and according to
the length of time he is on the bridge will be the extent of the
review, which necessarily comes from the letting go-or the
partial let ting go-of the physical life. Although the doctors
may have pronounced the death, so long as there is a spark of
animal heat in the body, the brain still thinks. Because one
cannot go forward, he must go hack, and so the scroll is rolled
up from the time of death or approaching death, and one reads the
record of all his thoughts, words, deeds and impressions from the
last moment back to the events of childhood.


Q. Would this review take place in one killed by an explosion ?

A. Such a death is not completed. The man is still alive
physically, mentally and morally, just as much as he was before
the body as blown to pieces. He is minus the physical body, only,
as are suicides and executed criminals. All those thrust suddenly
out of life in such ways are really not dead; they have their
tastes, desires and passions of every kind, which they can
gratify only through a being occupying a physical body. One
result of capital punishment is an increase in crime, because
these bodiless men stimulate with their passions the minds of men
already evilly inclined.


Q. What is the difference between the permanent and the ordinary
astral body?

A. The ordinary astral is constructed on the basis of the
skandhas, while the permanent astral is constructed during life
on the basis of the aspirations and self-induced efforts, out of
astral substance, but not exactly of the earthly astral
substance. If one building a permanent astral gives way to anger
or evil feelings in any direction, he spoils his building, but
the old skandhic astral body is left in full play. One with a
permanent astral never has a Kama loka, nor a Devachan, for he
knows too much, and cannot be drawn into those conditions. Then
he comes back, working
not only with tendencies, but with aspirations, knowledge and
effort, which are permanent.


Q. What is the process by which the lower kingdoms are affected
by our thoughts and aspirations? Is it possible to raise the
lives in our body from the animal to the human plane?

A. The lives from the lower kingdoms, which we use in our bodies,
are coming and going all the time. \ they are within our sphere
of influence, they are impressed by us, and carry those
impressions back into the lower kingdoms. Thence they are
attracted to a human body again which has within it similar kinds
of lives. Some lives, or those impressed by good, remain on the
human plane, while lives impressed by evil go back to the lower
kingdoms. We borrow our bodies from the earth, and keep renewing
them all the time, so that the lives we impress with a right
impulse will come back to us.

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