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 Sanscrit 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”.
_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 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.
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, but not certainly in respect to the
time on the planet Mercury, for instance, where time is not the same
as ours, 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, as is well put by Mr. A. P.
Sinnett in his _Esoteric Buddhism_, that the period is fifteen hundred
years in general. From a reading of his book, 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; 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 Reïncarnation. 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?”[2]
[2] Letter from Mahatma K. H. See _Path_, p. 192, 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.
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.
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.