Theos-Talk Archives (July 2004 Message tt00257)

July 21 2004

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DEVACHAN and 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.


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.


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