Theos-Talk Archives (July 2003 Message tt00254)

STATES AFTER DEATH

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Theosophy is that ocean of knowledge which spreads from shore to
shore of the evolution of sentient beings; unfathomable in its
deepest parts, it gives the greatest minds their fullest scope,
yet, shallow enough at its shores, it will not overwhelm the
understanding of a child.

It is not a belief or dogma formulated or invented by man, but is
a knowledge of the laws which govern the evolution of the
physical, astral, psychical, and intellectual constituents of
nature and of man.


SOUL IS IMMORTAL -- MIND

That man possesses an immortal soul is the common belief of
humanity; to this Theosophy adds that he is a soul; and further
that all nature is sentient, that the vast array of objects and
men are not mere collections of atoms fortuitously thrown
together and thus without law evolving law, but down to the
smallest atom all is soul and spirit ever evolving under the rule
of law which is inherent in the whole.


EVOLUTION THROUGH REINCARNATION

We are therefore not appearing for the first time when we come
upon this planet, but have pursued a long, an immeasurable course
of activity and intelligent perception on other systems of
globes, some of which were destroyed ages before the solar system
condensed. This immense reach of the evolutionary system means,
that this planet on which we now are is the result of the
activity and the evolution of some other one that died long ago,
leaving its energy to be used in the bringing into existence of
the earth, and that the inhabitants of the latter in their turn
came from some older world to proceed here with the destined work
in matter.


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STATES AFTER DEATH AND RELEVANT PRINCIPLES


SEVEN-FOLD CLASSIFICATION OF PRINCIPLES -- A BASIC

Theosophy places the old doctrine before western civilization

1. 1.	The Body, or Rupa.
2. 2.	Vitality, or Prana-Jiva.
3. 3.	Astral Body, or Linga-Sarira.
4. 4.	Animal Soul, or Kama-Rupa
5. 5.	Human Soul, or Manas.
6. 6.	Spiritual Soul, or Buddhi.
7. 7.	Spirit, or Atma, (This Principle synthesizes the other
6.)


The words in the 4th column (italics), are equivalents in the
Sanskrit language adopted for the English terms. This
classification stands to this day for all practical purposes, a
later arrangement places the Astral body second instead of third
in the category. It at once gives an idea of what man is, very
different from the vague description by the words "body and
soul," and also boldly challenges the materialistic conception
that mind is the product of brain, a portion of the body.

This immortal trinity is that called Atma-Buddhi-Manas in
Sanskrit, difficult terms to render in English. ATMA is Spirit,
BUDDHI is the highest power of intellection, that which discerns
and judges, and MANAS is Mind.

This threefold collection is the Real Man.

REAL MAN:
Atma,	or Spirit, [this is neither yours nor mine, but is a
"ray" of the Universal Spirit],
Buddhi, or Discernment, Discrimination, Wisdom, [accumulated
experience over eternity],
Manas, or Mind. [thought, imagination, memory, fancy, choice,
etc...]

The four lower instruments or vehicles are shown in this table:

LOWER VEHICLES:
* Kama,	or The Passions and Desires, [selfishness, ignorance,
isolation, etc...]
* Prana,	or The Life Principle, [a portion of the Universal
LIFE: Jiva]
* Linga Sarira,	or The Astral Body, [atoms and sub-atoms --
fields of force]
* Sthula Sarira,	or The Physical Body. [molecules, cells,
structure, etc...]
*

DEATH MARKS THE SEPARATION OF THE LOWER VEHICLE

When the hour arrives for their separation to begin, the
combination can no longer be kept up, the physical body dies, the
atoms of which each of the four is composed begin to separate
from each other, and the whole collection being disjointed is no
longer fit for one as an instrument for the real man. This is
what is called "death" among us mortals, but it is not death for
the real man because he is deathless, persistent, immortal. He is
therefore called the Triad, or indestructible trinity.

The Physical man is known as the Quaternary or Mortal Four.

* The visible physical man is:
*
* Brain, Nerves, Blood, Bones, Lymph, Muscles, Organs of
Sensation and Action, Skin.
*
* The unseen physical man is:
*
* Astral Body, Passions and Desires, Life Principle (called prana
or jiva).
*
It will be seen that the physical part of our nature is thus
extended to a second department which, though invisible to the
physical eye, is nevertheless material and subject to decay.
Because people in general have been in the habit of admitting to
be real only what they can see with the physical eye, they have
at last come to suppose that the unseen is neither real nor
material.


KAMA - DESIRE & PASSION ARE NOT MIND

Kama, Desire and Passion is the fourth, the balance principle of
the whole seven. It stands in the middle, and from it the ways go
up or down. It is the basis of action, and the mover of the will.
As the old Hermetists say: "Behind will stands desire." For
whether we wish to do well or ill, we have to first arouse within
us the desire for either course. Then "We" choose.


A "GOOD" MAN

The "good" man who at last becomes a sage, had at one time in his
many lives to arouse the desire for the company of holy men and
to keep his desire for progress alive in order to continue on his
way. Even a Buddha or a Jesus had first to make a vow, which is a
desire, in some life, that he would save the world or some part
of it, and to persevere with the desire alive in his heart
through countless lives. The high desires come from the influence
of and aspiration to the trinity above, of Mind, Buddhi, and
Spirit. The "God" within each of us, begins with Manas or Mind,
and it is the struggle between this "God" and the "brute" below,
which Theosophy speaks of and warns about.


A "BAD" MAN

On the other hand, the "bad" man life after life took unto
himself low, selfish, wicked desires, thus debasing instead of
purifying this principle. The low passion and desire is that
shown by the constant placing of the consciousness entirely below
in the body and the astral body. It is selfish and isolates the
man from others and his environment. It is an impossible, a
false condition, and cannot be sustained indefinitely.


MIND -- THE 5th PRINCIPLE, AND ATMA-BUDDHI [THE MONAD]

The fifth principle is MANAS, and is usually translated Mind.
Other names have been given to it, but it is the Knower, the
Perceiver, the Thinker. The sixth is BUDDHI, or spiritual
discernment; the seventh is ATMA, or SPIRIT, the ray from the
Absolute Being. The course of evolution developed the lower
principles and produced at last the form of man with a brain of
better and deeper capacity than that of any other animal.

But this man in form was not man in mind, and needed the fifth
principle, the thinking, perceiving one, to differentiate him
from the animal kingdom and to confer the power of becoming
self-conscious. The Immortal Monad, composed of Atma and Buddhi,
was imprisoned in these forms, for without the presence of the
monad, evolution could not go forward.


THE LIGHTING UP OF MANAS

Going back for a moment to the time when the races of mankind
were devoid of mind, the question arises, "Who gave the MIND,
Where did it come from, and What is it ?"

It is the link between ATMA, the "Spirit of God above" and the
"personality" below. It was given to the mindless monads by
others who had gone through this process ages upon ages before in
earlier worlds and systems of worlds, and it came from other
evolutionary periods which were completed long before our solar
system had begun. The manner in which this light of mind was
given to the Mindless Men can be understood from the illustration
of one candle lighting many. The Sons of Wisdom, who are the
Elder Brothers of every family of men on any Globe, have the
light, derived by them from others who reach back, and yet
farther back, in endless procession with no beginning or end.
They set fire to the combined lower principles and the Monad,
thus lighting up Manas in the "new men" and preparing another
great race for final initiation.


MANAS REINCARNATES

Manas, or the Thinker, is the reincarnating being. It is the
Immortal who carries the results and values of all the different
lives lived on earth or elsewhere. Its nature becomes dual as
soon as it is attached to a body. For the human brain is a
superior organism and Manas [Mind] uses it to reason from
premises to conclusions. This is the lower aspect of the Thinker
or Manas, and not, as some have supposed, the highest and best
gift belonging to man.

Its higher aspect, is the intuitional, which knows, and does not
depend on reason. The lower, and purely intellectual, is nearest
to the principle of Desire, and is thus distinguished from its
other side, which has affinity for the spiritual principles
above. If the Thinker, becomes wholly intellectual, the entire
nature begins to tend downward; for intellect alone is cold,
heartless, selfish, since it is not lighted up by the two
spiritually superior principles of Buddhi and Atma.

In Manas the thoughts of all lives are stored. The total quantity
of life thoughts makes up the stream or thread of a life's
meditation -- "that upon which the heart was set" -- and that is
stored in Manas, to be brought out again at any time.


LOWER MANS -- BRAIN-MIND

It is this lower Manas which retains all the impressions of this
life-time, and sometimes strangely exhibits them in trances or
dreams, delirium, induced states, here and there in normal
conditions, and very often at the time of physical death.

It interferes with the action of Higher Manas because at the
present point of evolution, Desire and all corresponding powers,
faculties, and senses are the most highly developed. This
obscures, as it were, the white light of the spiritual side of
Manas. It is tinted by each object presented to it, whether it be
a thought-object or a material one, and memory continually
presents pictures to Lower Manas, with the result that the Higher
is obscured.


MEMORY AS A DEATH VISION

Memory of a prior life is not needed to prove that we passed
through that existence, nor is the fact of not remembering a good
objection. We forget the greater part of the occurrences of the
years and days of this life, but no one would say for that reason
we did not go through these years. We are all subject to the
limitations imposed upon the Ego by the new brain in each life.
This is why we are not able to keep the pictures of the past. The
brain is the instrument for the memory of the soul, and, being
new in each life, has only a certain capacity. That capacity will
be fully availed of just according to the Ego's own desire and
prior conduct, because past living will have increased or
diminished its power.

By living according to the dictates of the Soul, the brain may at
least be made porous to the Soul's recollections; as the
brain-matter had no part in the life last lived, it is in general
unable to remember. And this is a wise law, for we should be very
miserable if the deeds of our former lives were not hidden from
our view until by discipline we become able to bear a knowledge
of them.



HIGHER MANAS -- INTUITION, GENIUS.

Higher Manas, if able to act, becomes what we sometimes call
Genius. If Genius is completely master, then one may become a
"God." Along the pathway of life, we do see occasionally the
marks of men who are geniuses, or great seers and prophets. In
these the Higher powers of MANAS are active and the person is
"illuminated." Such were the great Sages of the past, men in
whom Higher Manas was active. Presently, now and then, we may
see MANAS shed a bright ray on the man below, to be soon
obscured, however, by the effect of dogmatic religious education
which has always prevented Manas from gaining full activity.


THE "GOD" IN MAN = ATMA - BUDDHI - MANAS

In Man the higher Trinity, is the "God" above. This is ATMA, and
may be called the HIGHER SELF. Next is the spiritual part of the
soul called BUDDHI [Wisdom and Discrimination]; when thoroughly
united with MANAS this may be called the Divine Ego [Higher
Manas]. And when we either wholly or now and then become
consciously united with Buddhi, the Spiritual Soul, we behold
"God," as it were.

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.

The inner Ego who reincarnates, taking on body after body,
storing up the impressions of life after life, gaining experience
and adding it to the divine Ego, suffering and enjoying through
an immense period of years, is the fifth principle -- MANAS --
not united to Buddhi.


INDIVIDUALITY IS PERMANENT -- IMMORTAL

The permanent individuality gives to every man the feeling of
being himself and not some other; it bridges the gap made by
sleep; in like manner it bridges the gap made by the sleep of
death. It is this, and not our brain, that lifts us above the
animal.

The forces of thought are generated by Manas, that is, by the
thinking of the life time. Each thought makes a physical as well
as mental link with the desire in which it is rooted.

All life is filled with such thoughts, and when the period of
rest after death is ended, Manas is bound by innumerable
electrical magnetic threads to earth by reason of the thoughts of
the last life, and therefore by desire.


MATTER -- ALSO PERMANENT -- HAS BEEN THROUGH ALL FORMS

The Permanent Individuality [Manas] has been through every sort
of experience, for Theosophy insists on its permanence -- as an
Immortal -- and in the necessity for its continuing to take part
in evolution. It has a duty to perform, consisting in raising up
to a higher state of consciousness and intelligence, all the
matter concerned in the chain of globes to which the earth
belongs.

We have all lived and taken part in civilization after
civilization, race after race, on earth, and will so continue
throughout all the rounds and races until the seventh is
complete.



PERFECTION FOR ALL ASPECTS OF MAN

Although reincarnation is the law of nature, the complete trinity
of Atma-Buddhi-Manas does not yet fully incarnate in this race.
They use and occupy the body by means of the entrance of Manas,
the lowest of the three, and the other two shine upon it from
above, constituting the "God in Heaven." For that reason man is
not yet fully conscious, and reincarnations are needed to at last
complete the incarnation of the whole Godlike trinity in the
body.

When that has been accomplished the race will have become as
gods, and the divine trinity being in full possession the entire
mass of matter, will be perfected and raised up for the next
step.

Reincarnation does not mean that we go into animal forms after
death. "Once a man always a man" is the saying in the Great
Lodge. Evolution having brought Manas the Thinker and Immortal
Person on to this plane, cannot send him back to the brute which
has not Manas.



MEMORY AS A DEATH VISION

Memory of a prior life is not needed to prove that we passed
through that existence, nor is the fact of not remembering a good
objection. We forget the greater part of the occurrences of the
years and days of this life, but no one would say for that reason
we did not go through these years. We are all subject to the
limitations imposed upon the Ego by the new brain in each life.
This is why we are not able to keep the pictures of the past. The
brain is the instrument for the memory of the soul, and, being
new in each life, has only a certain capacity. That capacity will
be fully availed of just according to the Ego's own desire and
prior conduct, because past living will have increased or
diminished its power.

By living according to the dictates of the Soul, the brain may at
least be made porous to the Soul's recollections; as the
brain-matter had no part in the life last lived, it is in general
unable to remember. And this is a wise law, for we should be very
miserable if the deeds of our former lives were not hidden from
our view until by discipline we become able to bear a knowledge
of them.



UNIVERSAL LAWS AND REINCARNATION

Theosophy applies to the self -- the Thinker -- the same laws
which are seen everywhere in operation throughout nature, and
those are all varieties of the great law that effects follow
causes and no effect is without a cause.

Viewing life and its probable object, with all the varied
experience possible for man, one must be forced to the conclusion
that a single life is not enough for carrying out all that is
intended by Nature, to say nothing of what man himself desires to
do. The scale of variety in experience is enormous.

There is a vast range of powers latent in man which we see may be
developed if opportunity be given. Knowledge infinite in scope
and diversity lies before us, and especially in these days when
special investigation is the rule.

We perceive that we have high aspirations with no time to reach
up to their measure, while the great troop of passions and
desires, selfish motives and ambitions, war with us and among
themselves, pursuing us even to the door of death. All these have
to be tried, conquered, used, subdued. One life is not enough for
all this.

We come back to earth because on it and with the beings upon it
our deeds were performed; because it is the only proper place
where punishment and reward can be justly meted out; because here
is the only natural spot in which to continue the struggle toward
perfection, toward the development of the faculties we have and
the destruction of the wickedness we created, and which is
attached to us.

Justice to ourselves and to all other beings demands it, for we
cannot live for ourselves, and it would be unjust to permit some
of us to escape, leaving those who were participants with us to
remain or to be plunged into a hell where the victim receives no
compensation.

And lastly, the fact that certain Inherent Ideas are common to
the whole race is explained by the Sages as due to recollection
of such ideas which were implanted in the human mind, by those
Brothers and Sages who learned their lessons and were perfected
in former ages, long before the development of this globe began.
These Inherent Ideas -- virtues and brotherhood -- will always be
recollected as they accompany the Ego through the long pilgrimage
to Perfection.



AFTER DEATH STATES - CHRONOLOGY

In chronological order we go into kama-loka -- or the plane of
desire -- first on the demise of the body, and then, the higher
principles, the Real Man, falls into the state of Devachan.

The breath leaves the body and we say the man is dead, but that
is only the beginning of death; it proceeds on other planes. 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 minute and fleeting impression.

At this moment, the real man is busy in the brain, and not until
his work there is ended is the person gone. When this solemn work
is over the astral body detaches itself from the physical, and,
life energy having departed, the remaining five principles are in
the plane of kama loka. This process takes about half an hour.

The natural separation of the principles brought about by death
divides the total man into three parts:

* First, the visible body with all its elements left to further
disintegration on the earth plane, where all that it is composed
of is in time resolved into the different physical departments of
nature.
*
* Second, the kama rupa made up of the astral body and the
passions and desires, which also begins at once to go to pieces
on the astral plane;

Second death -- transit from Kama-loka to Devachan -- Kama-rupa
left behind in Kama-loka to disintegrate.
*
* Third, the real man, the upper triad of Atma-Buddhi-Manas,
deathless but now out of earth conditions, devoid of body, begins
in devachan to function solely as mind clothed in a very ethereal
vesture which it will shake off when the time comes for it to
return to earth.
*
Kama loka -- or the place of desire -- is the astral region
penetrating and surrounding the earth. As a place it is on and in
and about the earth. Its extent is to a measurable distance from
the earth, but the ordinary laws obtaining here do not obtain
there, and entities therein are not under the same conditions as
to space and time as we are.


DESIRES -- HAVE THEIR OWN PLACE

It is called the plane of desire because it relates to the fourth
principle, and in it the ruling force is desire devoid of and
divorced from intelligence. It is an astral sphere intermediate
between earthly and heavenly life. The fact underlying this is
that the soul may be detained in kama loka by the enormous force
of some unsatisfied desire, and cannot get rid of the astral and
kamic clothing until that desire is satisfied by some one on
earth or by the soul itself.

But if the person was pure minded and of high aspirations, the
separation of the principles on that plane is soon completed,
permitting the Higher Triad to go into Devachan.

Being the purely astral sphere, it partakes of the nature of the
astral matter which is essentially earthly and devilish, and in
it all the forces work undirected by soul or conscience. It is
the slag-pit, as it were, of the great furnace of life. In kama
loka all the hidden desires and passions are let loose in
consequence of the absence of body, and for that reason the state
is vastly more diversified than the life plane.

It is generally supposed that the desires and passions are
inherent tendencies in the individual, and they have an
altogether unreal and misty appearance for the ordinary student.
While the man is living in the world, the desires and passions --
the principle kama -- have no separate life apart from the astral
and inner man, being diffused throughout his being.

During mortal life the desires and passions are guided by the
mind and soul; after death they work without guidance from the
former master; while we live we are responsible for them and
their effects, and when we have left this life we are still
responsible, although they go on working and making effects on
others and without our direct guidance. In this is seen the
continuance of responsibility.

In kama are the really active and important tendencies and
Skandhas are being made from day to day under the law that every
thought combines instantly with one of the elemental forces of
nature, becoming to that extent an entity which will endure in
accordance with the strength of the thought as it leaves the
brain, and all of these are inseparably connected with the being
who evolved them. There is no way of escaping; all we can do is
to have thoughts of good quality, for the highest of the Masters
themselves are not exempt from this law, but they "people their
current in space" with entities powerful for good alone.


Now in kama loka this mass of desire and thought exists very
definitely. Hence it is said to remain until the being comes out
of devachan, and then at once by the law of attraction it is
drawn to the being, who from it as basis builds up a new set of
skandhas for the new life. Every atom going to make up the man
has a memory of its own which is capable of lasting a length of
time in proportion to the force given it.

In the case of a very material and gross or selfish person the
force lasts longer than in any other. Its purely astral portion
contains and carries the record of all that ever passed before
the person when living, for one of the qualities of the astral
substance is to absorb all scenes and pictures and the
impressions of all thoughts, to keep them, and to throw them
forth by reflection when the conditions permit.



DEVACHAN

Struggling out of the body Atma-Buddhi-Manas, begins to think in
a manner different from that which the body and brain permitted
in life. This is the state of Devachan, Sanskrit : "the place of
the gods." The Self in Devachan is devoid of a mortal body.
The stay in Devachan is proportionate to the merit earned by the
being in its last life [from a few year to as much as 100
centuries -- the average being about 1500 years] 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.
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.

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.



WHY 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 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.

Now the Ego clothes itself in devachan with a vesture which can
be styled means or vehicle, and it functions entirely on the
plane of mind and soul. Everything is as real then to the being
as this world seems to be to us. It has obtained 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 cares not for and knows not of either
time or objects of the world.

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. But the Ego
remains 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. That average, is fifteen hundred years in
general and not a fixed one.

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.

Existence in Devachan is an actual stage in the life of man, and
when we are there this present life is a dream. It is not in any
sense monotonous. Contrasted with the continuous strain of earth
life, 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 earth-life stronger and more a part of our nature than
before. Why should we repine that Nature kindly aids us in the
interminable struggle, why keep the mind revolving about the
present petty personality and its good and evil fortunes? "
(Letter from Mahatma K. H. See PATH, p. 191, Vol. 5.)

A 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.
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. 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.

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.


(extracts from The OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY (Judge)

DTB