Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt01297)

Apl 17 2005

 
Dear Mark and Friends:
 
In regard t the separation of human principles after physical death we have
the following early teachings from the THEOSOPHIST 1880-81 (reprinted in A
MODERN PANARION -- H P B's writings) .
 
 
 
AFTER DEATH PRINCIPLES 7  
=============================
 
 
From: FRAGMENTS OF OCCULT TRUTH, Modern Panarion, pp. 439 - 443 
 
 
 
Spiritualists vs Theosophists - After Death
"spirits"
 
 
Kamaloka -- Devachan and 7 Principles
 
 
 
 
In order to understand clearly the view of the occultists, it is
necessary to glance at the constitution of the living human being. Even the
spiritualistic theory teaches that man is a trinity, composed of (1) a
higher spirit or the "spiritual soul" as ancient philosophers designated it;
(2) its envelope-the ethereal form or shadow of the body- called by the
Neo-platonists the "animal soul"; and (3) the physical body.
 
Although from one point of view this is broadly correct, yet, accord ing
to occultists, to render our conceptions of this truth clearer and follow
out successfully the course of man after death, it is necessary to further
subdivide these three entities and resolve them into their constituent
principles. This analysis being almost wholly unknown to western nations, it
is difficult in some cases to find any English words by which to represent
the occult subdivisions, but we give them in the least obscure phraseology
that we can command.
 
 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE SPIRITUALISTS.
 
 
1. The Body.
SUBDIVISIONS OF THE OCCULTISTS.
1. The Physical Body composed wholly of matter in its grossest and most
tangible form.
2. The Vital Principle (or Jivatman) a form of force, indestructible. When
it is disconnected with one set of atoms, it immediately becomes attracted
by others.
 	
  
 
 
 
 
 
2. The Animal Soul or Perisprit.	3. The Astral Body (Linga Sharira)-
composed of highly etherealized matter. In its habitual passive state the
perfect but very shadowy duplicate of the body; its activity, consolidation,
and form depend entirely on the Kama Rupa.
4. The Astral Shape (Kama Rupa) or body of desire-a principle defining the
configuration of
5. The Animal or Physical Intelligence or Consciousness or Ego-analogous to,
though proportionally higher in degree than the reason, instinct, memory,
imagination, etc., existing in the higher animals.
 	 	
 
 
 
3. The Spiritual Soul or Spirit,	6. The Higher or Spiritual
Intelligence
or Consciousness, or Spiritual Ego-in
which mainly resides the state of consciousness of the perfect man, though
the lower dimmer animal consciousness coexists in No. 5.
7. The Spirit-an emanation from the Absolute; uncreate, eternal; a state
rather than a being.
 	
 
 
Now the change that we call death only immediately affects the first
three constituents; the body decomposes to enter into new combinations, and
the vital force is dissipated to help to animate new organisms, and the
astral human form (Linga Sharira) dies with the body.
 
There remain four principles. As a rule (we except the cases of the
higher adepts), one of two things occurs in accordance with the universal
law of affinity. 
 
If the spiritual Ego has been in life material in its tendencies, placing
its main enjoyment in, and centering its desires on, material objects and
the gratification of earthly desires, then, at death, it

---------Footnote -------------
* Western science, of course, as a rule, holds that animals have no
conscious ego, but this we know to be erroneous; they possess no spiritual,
but they do possess an animal consciousness, Could men communicate with them
they would discover not only this, but also that many of the anthropoid apes
possess an intelligence, consciousness, etc., little inferior to that of
lunatics, madmen, and some desperately wicked and depraved men who have, in
fact, become animals, through the loss, temporary or permanent, of their
sixth and seventh principles, even while the combination of the other five
principles is still intact, i.e., even during life. Was it some hazy
tradition of the truth handed down through the Romish church, which has ever
possessed some secret knowledge of the teachings of the ancient mysteries,
or was it the great poet's soul's own glimpses into the Astral Light, that
made Dante represent the souls of several of his enemies as already in the
"Inferno" though the men themselves still lived upon earth? Of course this
fragment of truth was utterly distorted by the malign influence of the then
prevalent material hell superstition, but it was quite possible, as the
modern west has still to realize, that the souls of some of these evil men
might have already passed away (though not to the fabled Inferno), whilst
the men themselves still lived.
 
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--
 
continues to cling blindly to the lower elements of its late combination,
and the true spirit severs itself from these and passes away elsewhere. To
follow its course is beside the question at present, since the remaining
principles in which personal or animal consciousness remains have parted
with it for ever, and it would require a complete exposition of the entire
philosophy of occultism to fully explain its course; suffice it to say now,
that it passes away-taking with it no fragment of the individual
consciousness of the man with which it was temporarily associated-to fulfill
its mission, still guided and governed, by the irresistible cyclic impulse
which first projected it through the veil of primitive cosmic matter.
 
But if, on the other hand, the tendencies of the Ego have been towards
things spiritual, if its aspirations have been heavenwards-we use a
conventional term-if it has, when weighed, as it were, in the balance, a
greater affinity for the spiritual than for the earthly constituents, with
their accompanying desires, of the combination in which it recently took
part, then will it cling to the spirit, and with this pass into the
adjoining so-called world of effects, in reality a state, and not a place,
and there, purified of much of its still remaining material taints, evolve
out of itself by the spirit's aid a new Ego, to be reborn, after a brief
period of freedom and enjoyment, in the next higher world of causes, an
objective world similar to this present globe of ours, but higher in the
spiritual scale, where matter and material tendencies and desires play a far
less important part than here.
 
In either case, it is not a matter of judgment, of salvation and
damnation, of heaven and hell, but solely the operation of the universal law
of affinity or attraction, which makes the Ego cling in one case to the more
material, in the other to the spiritual components of the late aggregation
now separated by death. Now neither during gestation in the subjective world
of effects, nor during the temporary period of enjoyment, in its newly
evolved Ego-hood, of the fruits of good deeds, its karma on earth, nor after
its entry into the higher objective world of causes, can the Ego reenter
this present world. 
 
During the first period it is, so to speak, dormant, and can no more issue
from the state in which it is developing than a child can come out of its
mother's womb to pay a visit before the period of pregnancy concludes. 
 
During the second period, however ethereal and purified of gross matter the
regenerated Ego may be, it is still subject to the physical and universal
laws of matter. It cannot, even if it would, span the abyss that [442 ]
separates its state from ours. 
 
It can be visited in spirit by men, but it cannot descend into our grosser
atmosphere and reach us. It attracts, it cannot be attracted; its spiritual
polarity presenting an insuperable obstacle. 
 
Once reborn into the higher world, and apart from the physical impossibility
of any communication between its world and ours, to all but the very highest
adepts, the new Ego has become a new person; it has lost its old
consciousness linked with earthly experiences, and has acquired a new
consciousness, which, as time rolls on, will be interpenetrated by its
experiences in that higher sphere. The time will come, no doubt, but many
steps higher on the ladder, when the Ego will regain its consciousness of
all its past stages of existence; but in the next higher world of causes, or
activity, to our own, the new Ego has no more remembrance of its earthly
career than we here have of the life that preceded this present one.
 
Therefore it is that the occultists maintain that no "spirits" of the
departed can appear or take part in the phenomena of séance-rooms. To what
can appear and take part in these, the occultists refuse the name of
"spirits."
 
But it may be asked what is it that can appear?
We reply-merely the animal souls or perisprits of the deceased. 
 
It might appear from what we have said that, while this, according to our
previous exposition, would be true in the case of the spiritually-minded, in
that of the materially-minded we should have these and the spiritual Ego or
consciousness. But such is not the case. Immediately on the severance of the
spirit, whether at death, or, as we have already hinted is sometimes the
case, before death, the spiritual Ego is dissipated and ceases to exist. It
is the result of the action of spirit on matter, and it might, to render the
matter more clear, be described as a combination of spirit and matter, just
as flame is the result of the combination of oxygen with the substance being
oxygenized, and might loosely be described as the combination of the two.
Withdraw the oxygen and the flame ceases; withdraw the spirit, and the
spiritual Ego disappears. 
 
The sense of individuality in spirit cannot exist without combination with
matter. 
 
Thus the pure planetary spirits, when first propelled into the circle of
necessity, have no individual consciousness, only the absolute consciousness
which they share with all fragments of the spirit hitherto entirely
uncombined with matter. As they, entering into generation, descend the
ladder and grow gradually more and more hemmed in by matter and isolated
from the universal spirit, so the [ 443 ] sense of individuality, the
spiritual Ego-ship, grows. How finally, on reascending the circle, step by
step, they regain, on reunion with the universal, the absolute
consciousness, and simultaneously all the individual consciousnesses which
they have developed at each stage of their descending and ascending
progress, is one of the highest mysteries.
But to return to the spiritual Ego-ship developed on this earth; if too
tainted to follow the spirit in its upward course, it is, as it were, forth
with torn asunder from it. Left in the terrestrial atmosphere without the
sustaining spirit that gave it existence, it has to disappear as the flame
does when the oxygen is exhausted. All the material elements which, in
combination with the spirit, gave it consistency, fly by the law of affinity
to join the three other principles that constitute the perisprit or natural
soul, and the spiritual Ego ceases to exist.
Thus alike in all cases that remain, all that can appear are the shells
of the deceased, the two principles which we call the animal or surviving
astral souls or animal Ego.
 
[ Frag of Occ Truth Mod Pan, p. 439 - 443 ]
 
==================================
 
 
 
 
Dallas
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark H
Sent: Sunday, April 17, 2005 9:55 AM
To: 
Re: NDE while Brain dead
 
 
Theosophy teaches that there are actually not one, but seven parts of
man and some of them separate at death.
 
What you most likely are hearing from is the astral form. It is not
exactly the soul, but part of the lower constitutes. The higher parts
of the body are eternal and go on to be reincarnated (instantly to
about 1500 years after the death, depending on various circumstances).
However the astral form dissipates over a considerable length of time
after a person's death.
 
>From what I understand the astral form is almost an exact replica of
what you see in the physical plane. So interacting with someone's
astral body will give you nearly the same impression as if they were
really there.
 
-Mark H.

==================================
 
On 4/17/05, Niki 
> 
> Hi Perry-
> 
> That's not what my recently deceased mate/wife (we had
> a Lesbian thing) told me. She said that if I live my
> present life to the standard that we did together, she
> would be the first person to greet me on the other
> side.
> 
cut




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