Theos-Talk Archives (September 2008 Message tt00041)

http://www.anandgholap.net/Theosophy_Pamphlet-Anand_Gholap.pdf
" The Devachanic Plane, or the Heaven -World which no words can ever picture, though every man one day shall see it and know it for himself. For this heaven is not a dream; it is a radiant reality; but to comprehend anything of it we must first change one of our initial ideas on the subject. Heaven is not a place, but a state of consciousness. If you ask me 'Where is heaven?' I must answer you that it is here - round you at this very moment, near to you as the air you breath. The light is all about you, as the Buddha said so long ago; you have only to cast the bandage from your eyes and look. But what is this casting away of a bandage? Of what is it symbolical? It is simply a question of raising the consciousness to a higher level, of learning to focus it in the vehicle of finer matter. I have already spoken of the possibility of doing this with regard to the astral body, thereby seeing the astral world; this needs simply a further stage of the same process, the raising of consciousness to the mental plane, for man has a body for that level also, through which he may receive its vibrations, and so live in the glowing splendour  of heaven while still possessing a physical body though indeed after such an experience he will have little relish for the return to the latter. The ordinary man reaches this state of bliss only after death, and not immediately after it except in very rare cases. I have explained how after death the Ego steadily withdraws into himself. The whole astral life is in fact a constant process of withdrawal, and when in course of time the soul reaches the limit of that plane, he dies to it in just the same way as he did to the physical plane. That is to say, he casts off the body of that plane, and leaves it behind him while he passes on to higher and still fuller life. No pain or suffering of any kind precedes this second death, but just as with the first, there is usually a period of unconsciousness, from which the man awakes gradually. Some years ago I wrote a book called The Devachanic Plane, in which I endeavoured to some extent to describe what he would see, and to tabulate as far as I could the various subdivisions of this glorious Land of Light, giving instances which had been  observed in the course of our investigations in connection with this heaven-life. For the moment I shall try to put the matter before you from another point of view, and those who wish may supplement the information by reading that book as well. Perhaps the most comprehensive opening statement is that this is the plane of the Divine Mind, that here we are in the very realm of thought itself, and that everything that man possibly could think is here in vivid living reality. "

Complete book can be read at

http://www.anandgholap.net/Life_After_Death-CWL.htm

In Christ.

Anand Gholap




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