Theos-Talk Archives (June 2004 Message tt00078)

May 14 2004

Dear Friends and S:

Questions are "grist to our mill." THEOSOPHY is always open to
question, scrutiny and verification. So always feel free to ask away.
There are quite a few students of this ancient lore that are open to
new views and the periodical review of ideas and statements.  

I append below a couple of source statements that might be of help.

In regard to young children having some recollections of a past life.
This is explained by the young brain-mind being still unencumbered
with the beliefs and attitudes of the present family environment,

Here are a couple of incidents:

-----------------------
DO WE REMEMBER?


Mozart composed minuets before he was four years old. 

Beethoven gave successful concerts before he was eight, and published
compositions when he was ten. 

Chopin played in public before he was nine. 

Mendelssohn was already famous at twelve, while 

Brahms excited attention from babyhood. 

Richard Strauss was a successful composer at six, while

Samuel Wesley was an organist at three and composed an oratorio at
eight.

Ruth Slenczynski-a child of eight years- was acclaimed in New York
City in 1933 for her piano recital of Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn,
and Chopin. She came simple and smiling upon the stage, but when she
sat down to play, her appearance was that of a mature woman in a
child's body. One was forced to realize that only the Soul present
could so command the nature and body.


Christian Heinrich Heinecken was born in Denmark in 1721. At ten
months of age he could converse as freely and intelligently as an
adult. By the time he was a year old he knew the Pentateuch
practically by heart-knew it not only in a memorial sense, but
understood it as well as his elders who read and told the Old
Testament stories to him. By the end of his second year he was as well
versed in sacred history as those who taught him, had decided opinions
on the many moot theological questions of the time, and could hold his
own in discussion with the numerous learned divinity men who sought
him out for the sake of what they could learn from him. At three years
of age he was as much of a marvel in geography and in world history as
the greatest travelers and university professors. He was by this time
proficient in German as well as Danish, and could talk well in French
and Latin. His parents' home became a kind of place of pilgrimage to
which men and women of standing and repute from many distant places
came with reverence and respect to meet and consult with this
phenomenal babe. The child died at a little over four years of age.


Horace Greeley, the famous American newspaper editor, was the third
child of parents who wrestled for a meager existence on a stony
hillside Vermont farm. Horace was weak, sickly, and from the first
uninterested in the things that attract and amuse babies. That he
learned to read before he could talk in other than "baby language" is
told by more than one biographer. His own mother related that she
observed before he was two years old how he seemed fascinated to see
his father reading from a paper. Overburdened with family duties, it
occurred to her to give him an old newspaper to play with while she
was absent from the room. Coming into the house one day she started
toward the door of the room in which she had left Horace. Astonished
to hear a voice speaking as an adult might, and thinking some visitor
must have entered during her absence, she paused by the door and
looked in. Horace was reading aloud from the sheet before him! No one
had ever taught him even his A B C's.


Elmer J. Schoneberger, Jr., born at Los Angeles in 1929, at six months
of age could con verse plainly; at a year old he had learned the
alphabet; at three, he was able to talk with ease and understanding on
such subjects as "electricity, engineering, economics, history,
aviation and sports."

-----------------------------

My sister was born and married abroad. On arrival in England she and
her husband set off to visit at an old manor house in Wiltshire. On
entering the lodge gates, my sister turned to her husband and said,
"Why, this is my old home," and to his surprise, she pointed out
landmarks on the way.

The experience was related at dinner, and the host, somewhat
incredulous, playfully said, "Perhaps you will discover the Priest's
Hole 1" It was mentioned in the history of the place that one existed
in Tudor times, but it had never been discovered.

After dinner the guests adjourned to the gallery to see some old
pictures, and it was noticed my sister was missing. They found her in
a room nearby, counting the panels on the wall, and looking somewhat
dreamy. Suddenly she exclaimed, "This is the one," and asked her
husband to press a leaf in the carving very hard as she could not
manage it.

He did so, the panel moved stiffly, and a tiny room was revealed,
dusty with age, and empty save for a broken piece of pottery and a
pallet, which had evidently been used for a bed.

----------------------------------------


The first year of little Jackie's life we called him our little
Chinaman, because his features-particularly his eyes-were Chinese.
After his first year, he began to lose that Oriental look. But he was
always different from the other children-silent, he preferred to play
alone, and would play for hours with one object.

As he grew older, it was noticed that Jackie was the one who did
things. If he started a thing, he always finished it. Often we would
hear the others say, "Jackie can fix it!" And always Jackie fixed it.

It was when he was five years old that I made the boys each a pair of
navy blue pants. Immediately, Jim tried his on. 

When I asked Jackie if he wanted to put his on, he said, No-he would
put them in his drawer until I got his shirt made. 

"But Jackie," I said, "I just made you some shirts."

"I know," he answered, "but they are not the right kind."

"What is the right kind?"

"The right kind is long, like this," he said, and he measured with his
little hand down to his knees.

"But boys don't wear shirts like that!"

"I know. But they don't wear the right kind of shirts. I want you to
make mine black with lots of pretty colors on it."

"Daddy," said I, "doesn't wear that kind of shirt."

"No, Daddy doesn't wear the right kind of shirt, nor Ned Lane,
either." (Ned Lane is a friend of his father.)

I asked Jackie if he would wear this long black shirt with the pretty
colors to school, and he said yes, he would; because it was the right
kind of shirt!

And then we say, we don't "remember."

----------------------------------

(I send a few more separately)

-------------------------

May I also offer: 


Most of us may seem to be short of time. But Karma in its broad sweep
offers us all opportunities to do several things:

1	to review what we have stored in our memories as being
valuable and justified.

2	to try to understand another's view point

3	to always be able to regard independently any proposition or
question, and compare it with some few basic concepts.

Question: What may those basic be?

Possibly these are a few which to me make sense:  

1.	I know I exist. I am a "mind-being." I live in a very
sensitive and responsive body, but do not yet fully understand how it
works. I am learning new things about myself all the time. Mater and
mind in me seem to be interconnected by a bridge which I could call
"feeling, emotion, passion." 

2	The world I live in, the solar-system, the Milky Way, and the
whole Galaxy is generally called (when taken altogether) the
"Universe." It is clear that it runs under very systematic and
universal, impersonal Laws.  

>From the sub-atomic particles to the most distant systems of stars,
there is a supportive unity and while there appears to be chaos and
"war" at times, (ill-health in the physical body, and systems
invading, and apparently swallowing other systems) the preponderance
in Nature (another word for the Universe or Deity -- as some term it)
is cooperative and supportive of LIFE everywhere. 

In my case I consider that my body is the supportive element or
vehicle for my mind and also, my mind observes both my body and the
feelings I have -- which to me appear to be independent of the mind.
That is, if one considers the mind to be overlooked all the time by
the "REAL ME" - so that it too, is subject to being 'changed.' This
is ultimate SELF in Man and it is called the MONAD, or the
"Perceiver," "Witness," and the "On-Looker." [ If this is the noblest
and highest factor in me, (and inn others) then why should it not be
allied with the same superior quality in all other beings in the
Universe? May we assume that this is what is termed "Spirit?" If so,
may we assume there is a great "spiritual" "intellectual, emotional,'
and even physical 'unity?'

3. The third factor is the on-going continual relation that exists
between me and my environment. As environment is vague, and can be
enormous as well as minute, may we assume that the continual
interchange of physical atoms and molecules, of emotional influences
and atmospheres, and of mental concepts and ideas is indicative of
another kind of "unity," -- one that depends on the faculties
(universal apparently) of attraction and repulsion ?

I take time to say that which you probably also know well, only to
explain what happens in the period between lives for the Spirit and
the Mind, which , when conjoined are the immortal Man of Mind, -- or,
THAT which uses and lives in his / our many thoughts, emotions and
sensations. 

It is That which transmigrates and spends time in an intra-life state
called "DEVACHAN" where it is taught that the SPIRIT / MIND reviews in
great detail the noble and cooperative aspirations of a whole life
time. This period is said to average 1,500 years, but there are many
far shorter, as the time needed for such consideration depends
entirely on the impression garnered and retained of that level of
superior aspiration, or virtue and thought

One of the interesting things is that as time and study progress we
all gain new insights. But the fundamental concepts on which doctrine
and history are based remain the same for all. 

Someone once observed that there are no "dumb questions" but there are
plenty of "dumb answers." Which means as I understand it that we
ought to take nothing for granted and also be very flexible in the
matter of our conclusions. New Fact, new perspectives open a flow of
review and we ought to welcome that.  

You have in the SECRET DOCTRINE a wonderful of the Theosophical
doctrines and a survey of world history from its very beginnings to
the present. It is a good idea o persist in re-reading.  

An Index (a separate book) can help you locate related statements on
specific studies.

As a prelude to the study of the SECRET DOCTRINE I would recommend
reading Mme. Blavatsky's The KEY TO THEOSOPHY (308 pages) .This
surveys the main doctrines of THEOSOPHY and includes the teachings of
the after-death states, and also explains the reason for 1,500 years
average interval between rebirths.   

Also if you wish to see a reliable synopsis of the SECRET DOCTRINE
read through Mr. Judge's The OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY (180 pages)

I hope this may prove of help 


Dallas


PS This may prove helpful: to your specific query:

------------------------------------------ 

A QUICK ANSWER


Q.:	Since the time spent in physical life is the time of actual
progress and the time spent in Devachan is merely a time of rest, or,
at most, digestion, why should the law of evolution require such a
vast disproportion of time to be wasted in Devachan- a disproportion
of something like eight thousand years of rest to less than one
hundred years of work?

W.Q.J.-The general proportion as I have always known of it between
earth life and Devachan is that between 70 years of life and 1500
years in Devachan. 

Further it is known that many persons emerge from the Devachanic state
very soon after entering it. A reflection on the fact that the years
of our life are full of thoughts attached in vast numbers to every
single act will show why Devachan is so much longer than earth-life. 

The disproportion between the act done and the thoughts intimately
belonging to it is enormous, and, compared with Devachan as related to
earth-life, it is vast. In Devachan these thoughts, which could never
find but the very smallest fraction of expression in this life, must
exhaust and can be exhausted no where else. This is what is required,
not by evolution, but by thought itself. And those who have but little
aspiration here, who indulge in act more than thought, lay but little
basis for Devachan, and hence emerge from it sooner than others." 
FORUM ANSWERS, pp. 56-7 ( Judge) 


-------------------------------------------------------

Here is a reasoned explanation to be fund in The OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY .


WHY DEVACHAN ?

Having shown that just beyond the threshold of human life there is a
place of separation wherein the better part of man is divided from his
lower and brute elements, we come to consider what is the state after
death of the real being, the immortal who travels from life to life. 

Struggling out of the body the entire man goes into kama loka, to
purgatory, where he again struggles and loosens himself from the lower
skandhas; this period of birth over, the higher principles,
Atma-Buddhi-Manas, begin to think in a manner different from that
which the body and brain permitted in life.

This is the state of Devachan, a Sanskrit word meaning literally "the
place of the gods," where the soul enjoys felicity; but as the gods
have no such bodies as ours, the Self in devachan is devoid of a
mortal body. In the ancient books it is said that this state lasts
"for years of infinite number," or "for a period proportionate to the
merit of the being"; 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." 


KARMA DETERMINES THE LENGTH OF TIME SPENT 

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. 

It is something like the pressure of atmosphere which, being
continuous and uniform, will push out or crush that which is subjected
to it unless there be a compensating quantity of atmosphere to
counteract the pressure. In the present case the karma of the being is
the atmosphere always pressing the being on or out from state to
state; the counteracting quantity of atmosphere is the force of the
being's own life-thoughts and aspirations which prevent his coming out
of devachan until that force is exhausted, but which being spent has
no more power to hold back the decree of our self-made mortal destiny.


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 impossibility of escaping this necessary state lies in man's
ignorance of his own powers and faculties. From this ignorance
delusion arises, and Manas not being wholly free is carried by its own
force into the thinking of devachan. But while ignorance is the cause
for going into this state 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 [Atma-Buddhi-Manas] being minus mortal body and kama,
clothes itself in devachan with a vesture which cannot be called body
but may be styled means or vehicle, and in that it functions in the
devachanic state 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 simply now has gotten 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 ecstacy of
composition or arrangement of color, cares not for and knows not of
either time or objects of the world. 


WHAT CAUSES DEVACHAN?

We are making causes every moment, and but two fields exist for the
manifestation in effect of those causes. These are, the objective as
this world is called, and the subjective which is both here and after
we have left this life. The objective field relates to earth life and
the grosser part of man, to his bodily acts and his brain thoughts, as
also sometimes to his astral body. The subjective has to do with his
higher and spiritual parts. In the objective field the psychic
impulses cannot work out, nor can the high leanings and aspirations of
his soul; hence these must be the basis, cause, substratum, and
support for the state of devachan. What then is the time, measured by
mortal years, that one will stay in devachan? 

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. It is a question which may be
answered in respect to our time... nor, indeed, in respect to time as
conceived by the soul. 

As to the latter any man can see that after many years have slipped
away he has no direct perception of the time just passed, but is able
only to pick out some of the incidents which marked its passage, and
as to some poignant or happy instants or hours he seems to feel them
as but of yesterday. And thus it is for the being in devachan. No time
is there. 

The soul has all the benefit of what goes on within itself in that
state, but it indulges in no speculations as to the lapse of moments;
all is made up of events, while all the time the solar orb is marking
off the years for us on the earth plane. This cannot be regarded as an
impossibility if we will remember how, as is well known in life,
events, pictures, thoughts, argument, introspective feeling will all
sweep over us in perfect detail in an instant, or, as is known of
those who have been drowning, the events of a whole life time pass in
a flash before the eye of the mind. 

But the Ego remains as said 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. Hence we have to depend on the Masters of
wisdom for that average, as it must be based upon a calculation. They
have said...that the period is fifteen hundred (1,500) years in
general. 


1,500 years SPENT IN DEVACHAN by the AVERAGE HUMAN ?

>From a reading of his book [A P Sinnet's ESOTERIC BUDDHISM], which was
made up from letters from the Masters, it is to be inferred he desires
it to be understood that the devachanic period is in each and every
case fifteen centuries; [ 1,500 years] but to do away with that
misapprehension his informants wrote at a later date that that is the
average period and not a fixed one. Such must be the truth, for as we
see that men differ in respect to the periods of time they remain in
any state of mind in life due to the varying intensities of their
thoughts, so it must be in devachan where thought has a greater force
though always due to the being who had the thoughts. 

What the Master did say on this is as follows: "The 'dream of
devachan' lasts until karma is satisfied in that direction. In
devachan there is a gradual exhaustion of force. The stay in devachan
is proportionate to the unexhausted psychic impulses originated in
earth life. 

Those whose actions were preponderatingly material will be sooner
brought back into rebirth by the force of Tanha." Tanha is the thirst
for life. He therefore who has not in life originated many psychic
impulses will have but little basis or force in his essential nature
to keep his higher principles in devachan. About all he will have are
those originated in childhood before he began to fix his thoughts on
materialistic thinking. 

The thirst for life expressed by the word Tanha is the pulling or
magnetic force lodged in the skandhas inherent in all beings. In such
a case as this the average rule does not apply, since the whole effect
either way is due to a balancing of forces and is the outcome of
action and reaction. And this sort of materialistic thinker may emerge
out of devachan into another body here in a month, allowing for the
unexpended psychic forces originated in early life. But as every one
of such persons varies as to class, intensity and quantity of thought
and psychic impulse, each may vary in respect to the time of stay in
devachan. 

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. This general average of the stay in devachan
gives us the length of a very important human cycle, the Cycle of
Reincarnation. For under that law national development will be found
to repeat itself, and the times that are past will be found to come
again. 

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. Thus expanding and weaving these
thoughts the entity has its youth and growth and growing old, that is,
the uprush of the force, its expansion, and its dying down to final
exhaustion. 

If the person has led a colorless life the devachan will be colorless;
if a rich life, then it will be rich in variety and effect. Existence
there is not a dream save in a conventional sense, for it is a stage
of the life of man, and when we are there this present life is a
dream. It is not in any sense monotonous. We are too prone to measure
all possible states of life and places for experience by our present
earthly one and to imagine it to be reality. But the life of the soul
is endless and not to be stopped for one instant. 

Leaving our physical body is but a transition to another place or
plane for living in. But as the ethereal garments of devachan are more
lasting than those we wear here, the spiritual, moral, and psychic
causes use more time in expanding and exhausting in that state than
they do on earth. If the molecules that form the physical body were
not subject to the general chemical laws that govern physical earth,
then we should live as long in these bodies as we do in the devachanic
state. But such a life of endless strain and suffering would be enough
to blast the soul compelled to undergo it. Pleasure would then be
pain, and surfeit would end but in an immortal insanity. 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.) 

But it is sometimes asked, what of those we have left behind: do we
see them there? We do not see them there in fact, but we make to
ourselves their images as full, complete, and objective as in life,
and devoid of all that we then thought was a blemish. We live with
them and see them grow great and good instead of mean or bad. The
mother who has left a drunken son behind finds him before her in
devachan a sober, good man, and likewise through all possible cases,
parent, child, husband, and wife have their loved ones there perfect
and full of knowledge. This is for the benefit of the soul. 

You may call it a delusion if you will, but the illusion is necessary
to happiness just as it often is in life. And as it is the mind that
makes the illusion, it is no cheat. Certainly the idea of a heaven
built over the verge of hell where you must know, if any brains or
memory are left to you under the modern orthodox scheme, that your
erring friends and relatives are suffering eternal torture, will bear
no comparison with the doctrine of devachan. But entities in devachan
are not wholly devoid of power to help those left on earth. 

Love, the master of life, if real, pure, and deep, will sometimes
cause the happy Ego in devachan to affect those left on earth for
their good, not only in the moral field but also in that of material
circumstance. This is possible under a law of the occult universe
which cannot be explained now with profit, but the fact may be stated.
It has been given out before this by H. P. Blavatsky, without,
however, much attention being drawn to it. 


CAN WE CONTACT A DEVACHANEE ?

The last 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, and that is the only school of the
Apostles after death. 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. Sometimes also the
hypersensitive and pure medium goes into this state and then holds
communication with the Egos there, but it is rare, and certainly will
not take place with the general run of mediums who trade for money. 

But the soul never descends here to the medium. And the gulf between
the consciousness of devachan and that of earth is so deep and wide
that it is but seldom the medium can remember upon returning to
recollection here what or whom it met or saw or heard in devachan.
This gulf is similar to that which separates devachan from rebirth; it
is one in which all memory of what preceded it is blotted out. 


RETURN TO REBIRTH UNDER KARMA

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.
 
=================================
-----Original Message-----
From: spow
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2004 3:23 AM
Subject: digest: June 12, 2004


Hi ... everyone...


I have been a lurker for many years on this list...though I have
really enjoyed the ones I've read (and somewhat understood). ...

I would just like to thank you for being kind to this
"not-quite-so-enlightened" being who mostly just sits here and marvels
at the astounding insight that you all have, by sending something in
terms that even I can "understand"- at least on the surface....

One question that may not be so offbase is about reincarnation. From
what I understand from the SD, reincarnation is something that takes
quite a bit of time between one incarnation and the next, not
something that you can do quickly (ie. coming back as your own
grandson etc.). 

What I am wondering then, is why people have personal recollections
about previous lives that are not so far in the past. I understand
that may be due to tapping into the "Universal consciousness" but why
only particular memories, 
and why do they always seem to have a direct bearing on karmic lessons
that the person is working on in their present life?

Thanks,

S