IX. ON THE KAMA-LOKA AND DEVACHAN.

ON THE FATE OF THE LOWER “PRINCIPLES.”

ENQ. You spoke of _Kama-loka_, what is it?

THEO. When the man dies, his lower three principles leave him for ever;
_i.e._, body, life, and the vehicle of the latter, the astral
body or the double of the _living_ man. And then, his four
principles—the central or middle principle, the animal soul or
_Kama-rupa_, with what it has assimilated from the lower Manas,
and the higher triad find themselves in _Kama-loka_. The latter
is an astral locality, the _limbus_ of scholastic theology, the
_Hades_ of the ancients, and, strictly speaking, a _locality_
only in a relative sense. It has neither a definite area nor
boundary, but exists _within_ subjective space; _i.e._, is beyond
our sensuous perceptions. Still it exists, and it is there
that the astral _eidolons_ of all the beings that have lived,
animals included, await their _second death_. For the animals
it comes with the disintegration and the entire fading out of
their _astral_ particles to the last. For the human _eidolon_ it
begins when the Atma-Buddhi-Manasic triad is said to “separate”
itself from its lower principles, or the reflection of the
_ex-personality_, by falling into the Devachanic state.

ENQ. And what happens after this?

THEO. Then the _Kama-rupic_ phantom, remaining bereft of its informing
thinking principle, the higher _Manas_, and the lower aspect of
the latter, the animal intelligence, no longer receiving light
from the higher mind, and no longer having a physical brain to
work through, collapses.

ENQ. In what way?

THEO. Well, it falls into the state of the frog when certain portions
of its brain are taken out by the vivisector. It can think no
more, even on the lowest animal plane. Henceforth it is no longer
even the lower Manas, since this “lower” is nothing without the
“higher.”

ENQ. And is it _this_ nonentity which we find materializing in Séance
rooms with Mediums?

THEO. It is this nonentity. A true nonentity, however, only as to
reasoning or cogitating powers, still an _Entity_, however
astral and fluidic, as shown in certain cases when, having been
magnetically and unconsciously drawn toward a medium, it is
revived for a time and lives in him by _proxy_, so to speak. This
“spook,” or the Kama-rupa, may be compared with the _jelly-fish_,
which has an ethereal gelatinous appearance so long as it is in
its own element, or water (the _medium’s specific AURA_), but
which, no sooner is it thrown out of it, than it dissolves in the
hand or on the sand, especially in sunlight. In the medium’s Aura,
it lives a kind of vicarious life and reasons and speaks either
through the medium’s brain or those of other persons present.
But this would lead us too far, and upon other people’s grounds,
whereon I have no desire to trespass. Let us keep to the subject
of re-incarnation.

ENQ. What of the latter? How long does the incarnating _Ego_ remain in
the Devachanic state?

THEO. This, we are taught, depends on the degree of spirituality and
the merit or demerit of the last incarnation. The average time is
from ten to fifteen centuries, as I already told you.

ENQ. But why could not this Ego manifest and communicate with mortals
as Spiritualists will have it? What is there to prevent a mother
from communicating with the children she left on earth, a husband
with his wife, and so on? It is a most consoling belief, I must
confess; nor do I wonder that those who believe in it are so
averse to give it up.

THEO. Nor are they forced to, unless they happen to prefer truth to
fiction, however “consoling.” Uncongenial our doctrines may be to
Spiritualists; yet, nothing of what we believe in and teach is
half as selfish and cruel as what they preach.

ENQ. I do not understand you. What is selfish?

THEO. Their doctrine of the return of Spirits, the real “personalities”
as they say; and I will tell you why. If _Devachan_—call it
“paradise” if you like, a “place of bliss and of supreme
felicity,” if it is anything—is such a place (or say _state_),
logic tells us that no sorrow or even a shade of pain can be
experienced therein. “God shall wipe away all the tears from the
eyes” of those in paradise, we read in the book of many promises.
And if the “Spirits of the dead” are enabled to return and see all
that is going on on earth, and especially _in their homes_, what
kind of bliss can be in store for them?


WHY THEOSOPHISTS DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE RETURN OF PURE “SPIRITS.”

ENQ. What do you mean? Why should this interfere with their bliss?

THEO. Simply this; and here is an instance. A mother dies, leaving
behind her little helpless children—orphans whom she
adores—perhaps a beloved husband also. We say that her “_Spirit_”
or _Ego_—that individuality which is now all impregnated, for the
entire Devachanic period, with the noblest feelings held by its
late _personality_, _i.e._, love for her children, pity for those
who suffer, and so on—we say that it is now entirely separated
from the “vale of tears,” that its future bliss consists in that
blessed ignorance of all the woes it left behind. Spiritualists
say, on the contrary, that it is as vividly aware of them, _and
more so than before_, for “Spirits see more than mortals in the
flesh do.” We say that the bliss of the _Devachanee_ consists in
its complete conviction that it has never left the earth, and that
there is no such thing as death at all; that the _post-mortem_
spiritual _consciousness_ of the mother will represent to her that
she lives surrounded by her children and all those whom she loved;
that no gap, no link, will be missing to make her disembodied
state the most perfect and absolute happiness. The Spiritualists
deny this point blank. According to their doctrine, unfortunate
man is not liberated even by death from the sorrows of this life.
Not a drop from the life-cup of pain and suffering will miss his
lips; and _nolens volens_, since he sees everything now, shall he
drink it to the bitter dregs. Thus, the loving wife, who during
her lifetime was ready to save her husband sorrow at the price of
her heart’s blood, is now doomed to see, in utter helplessness,
his despair, and to register every hot tear he sheds for her
loss. Worse than that, she may see the tears dry too soon, and
another beloved face shine on him, the father of her children;
find another woman replacing her in his affections; doomed to hear
her orphans giving the holy name of “mother” to one indifferent
to them, and to see those little children neglected, if not
ill-treated. According to this doctrine the “gentle wafting to
immortal life” becomes without any transition the way into a new
path of mental suffering! And yet, the columns of the “Banner of
Light,” the veteran journal of the American Spiritualists, are
filled with messages from the dead, the “dear departed ones,”
who all write to say how very _happy_ they are! Is such a state
of knowledge consistent with bliss? Then “bliss” stands in such
a case for the greatest curse, and orthodox damnation must be a
relief in comparison to it!

ENQ. But how does your theory avoid this? How can you reconcile the
theory of Soul’s omniscience with its blindness to that which is
taking place on earth?

THEO. Because such is the law of love and mercy. During every
Devachanic period the Ego, omniscient as it is _per se_, clothes
itself, so to say, with the _reflection_ of the “personality”
that was. I have just told you that the _ideal_ efflorescence
of all the abstract, therefore undying and eternal qualities
or attributes, such as love and mercy, the love of the good,
the true and the beautiful, that ever spoke in the heart of the
living “personality,” clung after death to the Ego, and therefore
followed it to Devachan. For the time being, then, the Ego becomes
the ideal reflection of the human being it was when last on earth,
and _that_ is not omniscient. Were it that, it would never be in
the state we call Devachan at all.

ENQ. What are your reasons for it?

THEO. If you want an answer on the strict lines of our philosophy, then
I will say that it is because everything is _illusion_ (_Maya_)
outside of eternal truth, which has neither form, colour, nor
limitation. He who has placed himself beyond the veil of maya—and
such are the highest Adepts and Initiates—can have no Devachan.
As to the ordinary mortal, his bliss in it is complete. It is
an _absolute_ oblivion of all that gave it pain or sorrow in
the past incarnation, and even oblivion of the fact that such
things as pain or sorrow exist at all. The _Devachanee_ lives
its intermediate cycle between two incarnations surrounded by
everything it had aspired to in vain, and in the companionship of
everyone it loved on earth. It has reached the fulfilment of all
its soul-yearnings. And thus it lives throughout long centuries
an existence of _unalloyed_ happiness, which is the reward for
its sufferings in earth-life. In short, it bathes in a sea of
uninterrupted felicity spanned only by events of still greater
felicity in degree.

ENQ. But this is more than simple delusion, it is an existence of
insane hallucinations!

THEO. From your standpoint it may be, not so from that of philosophy.
Besides which, is not our whole terrestrial life filled with such
delusions? Have you never met men and women living for years in a
fool’s paradise? And because you should happen to learn that the
husband of a wife, whom she adores and believes herself as beloved
by him, is untrue to her, would you go and break her heart and
beautiful dream by rudely awakening her to the reality? I think
not. I say it again, such oblivion and _hallucination_—if you call
it so—are only a merciful law of nature and strict justice. At
any rate, it is a far more fascinating prospect than the orthodox
golden harp with a pair of wings. The assurance that “the soul
that lives ascends frequently and runs familiarly through the
streets of the heavenly Jerusalem, visiting the patriarchs and
prophets, saluting the apostles, and admiring the army of martyrs”
may seem of a more pious character to some. Nevertheless, it is
a hallucination of a far more delusive character, since mothers
love their children with an immortal love, we all know, while the
personages mentioned in the “heavenly Jerusalem” are still of a
rather doubtful nature. But I would, still, rather accept the “new
Jerusalem,” with its streets paved like the show windows of a
jeweller’s shop, than find consolation in the heartless doctrine
of the Spiritualists. The idea alone that the _intellectual
conscious souls_ of one’s father, mother, daughter or brother find
their bliss in a “Summer land”—only a little more natural, but
just as ridiculous as the “New Jerusalem” in its description—would
be enough to make one lose every respect for one’s “departed
ones.” To believe that a pure spirit can feel happy while doomed
to witness the sins, mistakes, treachery, and, above all, the
sufferings of those from whom it is severed by death and whom it
loves best, without being able to help them, would be a maddening
thought.

ENQ. There is something in your argument. I confess to having never
seen it in this light.

THEO. Just so, and one must be selfish to the core and utterly devoid
of the sense of retributive justice, to have ever imagined such a
thing. We are with those whom we have lost in material form, and
far, far nearer to them now, than when they were alive. And it is
not only in the fancy of the _Devachanee_, as some may imagine,
but in reality. For pure divine love is not merely the blossom
of a human heart, but has its roots in eternity. Spiritual holy
love is immortal, and Karma brings sooner or later all those who
loved each other with such a spiritual affection to incarnate once
more in the same family group. Again we say that love beyond the
grave, illusion though you may call it, has a magic and divine
potency which reacts on the living. A mother’s _Ego_ filled with
love for the imaginary children it sees near itself, living a life
of happiness, as real to _it_ as when on earth—that love will
always be felt by the children in flesh. It will manifest in their
dreams, and often in various events—in _providential_ protections
and escapes, for love is a strong shield, and is not limited by
space or time. As with this Devachanic “mother,” so with the rest
of human relationships and attachments, save the purely selfish or
material. Analogy will suggest to you the rest.

ENQ. In no case, then, do you admit the possibility of the
communication of the living with the _disembodied_ spirit?

THEO. Yes, there is a case, and even two exceptions to the rule. The
first exception is during the few days that follow immediately the
death of a person and before the _Ego_ passes into the Devachanic
state. Whether any living mortal, save a few exceptional
cases—(when the intensity of the desire in the dying person to
return for some purpose forced the higher consciousness _to
remain awake_, and therefore it was really the _individuality_,
the “Spirit” that communicated)—has derived much benefit from
the return of the spirit into the _objective_ plane is another
question. The spirit is dazed after death and falls very soon
into what we call “_pre-devachanic_ unconsciousness.” The second
exception is found in the _Nirmanakayas_.

ENQ. What about them? And what does the name mean for you?

THEO. It is the name given to those who, though they have won the right
to Nirvana and cyclic rest—(_not_ “Devachan,” as the latter is
an illusion of our consciousness, a happy dream, and as those
who are fit for Nirvana must have lost entirely every desire or
possibility of the world’s illusions)—have out of pity for mankind
and those they left on earth renounced the Nirvanic state. Such
an adept, or Saint, or whatever you may call him, believing it
a selfish act to rest in bliss while mankind groans under the
burden of misery produced by ignorance, renounces Nirvana, and
determines to remain invisible _in spirit_ on this earth. They
have no material body, as they have left it behind; but otherwise
they remain with all their principles even _in astral life_ in our
sphere. And such can and do communicate with a few elect ones,
only surely not with _ordinary_ mediums.

ENQ. I have put you the question about _Nirmanakayas_ because I read in
some German and other works that it was the name given to the
terrestrial appearances or bodies assumed by Buddhas in the
Northern Buddhistic teachings.

THEO. So they are, only the Orientalists have confused this terrestrial
body by understanding it to be _objective_ and _physical_ instead
of purely astral and subjective.

ENQ. And what good can they do on earth?

THEO. Not much, as regards individuals, as they have no right to
interfere with Karma, and can only advise and inspire mortals for
the general good. Yet they do more beneficent actions than you
imagine.

ENQ. To this Science would never subscribe, not even modern psychology.
For them, no portion of intelligence can survive the physical
brain. What would you answer them?

THEO. I would not even go to the trouble of answering, but would simply
say, in the words given to “M.A. Oxon,” “Intelligence is
perpetuated after the body is dead. Though it is not a question
of the brain only.... It is reasonable to propound the
indestructibility of the human spirit from what we know” (_Spirit
Identity_, p. 69).

ENQ. But “M.A. Oxon” is a Spiritualist?

THEO. Quite so, and the only _true_ Spiritualist I know of, though we
may still disagree with him on many a minor question. Apart from
this, no Spiritualist comes nearer to the occult truths than he
does. Like any one of us he speaks incessantly “of the surface
dangers that beset the ill-equipped, feather-headed muddler
with the occult, who crosses the threshold without counting the
cost.”[40] Our only disagreement rests in the question of “Spirit
Identity.” Otherwise, I, for one, coincide almost entirely with
him, and accept the three propositions he embodied in his address
of July, 1884. It is this eminent Spiritualist, rather, who
disagrees with us, not we with him.

ENQ. What are these propositions?

THEO.

“1. That there is a life coincident with, and independent of the
physical life of the body.”

“2. That, as a necessary corollary, this life extends beyond the
life of the body” (we say it extends throughout Devachan).

“3. That there is communication between the denizens of that state
of existence and those of the world in which we now live.”

All depend, you see, on the minor and secondary aspects of these
fundamental propositions. Everything depends on the views we
take of Spirit and Soul, or _Individuality_ and _Personality_.
Spiritualists confuse the two “into one”; we separate them, and
say that, with the exceptions above enumerated, no _Spirit_ will
revisit the earth, though the animal Soul may. But let us return
once more to our direct subject, the Skandhas.

ENQ. I begin to understand better now. It is the Spirit, so to say, of
those Skandhas which are the most ennobling, which, attaching
themselves to the incarnating Ego, survive, and are added to
the stock of its angelic experiences. And it is the attributes
connected with the material Skandhas, with selfish and personal
motives, which, disappearing from the field of action between two
incarnations, reappear at the subsequent incarnation as Karmic
results to be atoned for; and therefore the Spirit will not leave
Devachan. Is it so?

THEO. Very nearly so. If you add to this that the law of retribution,
or Karma, rewarding the highest and most spiritual in Devachan,
never fails to reward them again on earth by giving them a further
development, and furnishing the Ego with a body fitted for it,
then you will be quite correct.


A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE SKANDHAS.

ENQ. What becomes of the other, the lower Skandhas of the personality,
after the death of the body? Are they quite destroyed?

THEO. They are and yet they are not—a fresh metaphysical and occult
mystery for you. They are destroyed as the working stock in hand
of the personality; they remain as _Karmic effects_, as germs,
hanging in the atmosphere of the terrestrial plane, ready to come
to life, as so many avenging fiends, to attach themselves to the
new personality of the Ego when it reincarnates.

ENQ. This really passes my comprehension, and is very difficult to
understand.

THEO. Not once that you have assimilated all the details. For then you
will see that for logic, consistency, profound philosophy, divine
mercy and equity, this doctrine of Re-incarnation has not its
equal on earth. It is a belief in a perpetual progress for each
incarnating Ego, or divine soul, in an evolution from the outward
into the inward, from the material to the Spiritual, arriving at
the end of each stage at absolute unity with the divine Principle.
From strength to strength, from beauty and perfection of one plane
to the greater beauty and perfection of another, with accessions
of new glory, of fresh knowledge and power in each cycle, such is
the destiny of every Ego, which thus becomes its own Saviour in
each world and incarnation.

ENQ. But Christianity teaches the same. It also preaches progression.

THEO. Yes, only with the addition of something else. It tells us of the
_impossibility_ of attaining Salvation without the aid of a
miraculous Saviour, and therefore dooms to perdition all those who
will not accept the dogma. This is just the difference between
Christian theology and Theosophy. The former enforces belief in
the Descent of the Spiritual Ego into the _Lower Self_ the latter
inculcates the necessity of endeavouring to elevate oneself to the
Christos, or Buddhi state.

ENQ. By teaching the annihilation of consciousness in case of failure,
however, don’t you think that it amounts to the annihilation of
_Self_, in the opinion of the non-metaphysical?

THEO. From the standpoint of those who believe in the resurrection of
the body _literally_, and insist that every bone, every artery and
atom of flesh will be raised bodily on the Judgment Day—of course
it does. If you still insist that it is the perishable form and
finite qualities that make up _immortal_ man, then we shall hardly
understand each other. And if you do not understand that, by
limiting the existence of every Ego to one life on earth, you make
of Deity an ever-drunken Indra of the Puranic dead letter, a cruel
Moloch, a god who makes an inextricable mess on Earth, and yet
claims thanks for it, then the sooner we drop the conversation the
better.

ENQ. But let us return, now that the subject of the Skandhas is
disposed of, to the question of the consciousness which survives
death. This is the point which interests most people. Do we
possess more knowledge in Devachan than we do in Earth life?

THEO. In one sense, we can acquire more knowledge; that is, we can
develop further any faculty which we loved and strove after during
life, provided it is concerned with abstract and ideal things,
such as music, painting, poetry, etc., since Devachan is merely an
idealized and subjective continuation of earth-life.

ENQ. But if in Devachan the Spirit is free from matter, why should it
not possess all knowledge?

THEO. Because, as I told you, the Ego is, so to say, wedded to the
memory of its last incarnation. Thus, if you think over what I
have said, and string all the facts together, you will realize
that the Devachanic state is not one of omniscience, but a
transcendental continuation of the personal life just terminated.
It is the rest of the soul from the toils of life.

ENQ. But the scientific materialists assert that after the death of man
nothing remains; that the human body simply disintegrates into
its component elements; and that what we call soul is merely a
temporary self-consciousness produced as a bye-product of organic
action, which will evaporate like steam. Is not theirs a strange
state of mind?

THEO. Not strange at all, that I see. If they say that
self-consciousness ceases with the body, then in their case they
simply utter an unconscious prophecy, for once they are firmly
convinced of what they assert, no conscious after-life is possible
for them. For there _are_ exceptions to every rule.


ON POST-MORTEM AND POST-NATAL CONSCIOUSNESS.[41]

ENQ. But if human self-consciousness survives death as a rule, why
should there be exceptions?

THEO. In the fundamental principles of the spiritual world no exception
is possible. But there are rules for those who see, and rules for
those who prefer to remain blind.

ENQ. Quite so, I understand. This is but an aberration of the blind
man, who denies the existence of the sun because he does not see
it. But after death his spiritual eyes will certainly compel him
to see. Is this what you mean?

THEO. He will not be compelled, nor will he see anything. Having
persistently denied during life the continuance of existence after
death, he will be unable to see it, because his spiritual capacity
having been stunted in life, it cannot develop after death, and
he will remain blind. By insisting that he _must_ see it, you
evidently mean one thing and I another. You speak of the spirit
from the spirit, or the flame from the flame—of Atma, in short—and
you confuse it with the human soul—Manas.... You do not understand
me; let me try to make it clear. The whole gist of your question
is to know whether, in the case of a downright materialist, the
complete loss of self-consciousness and self-perception after
death is possible? Isn’t it so? I answer, It is possible. Because,
believing firmly in our Esoteric Doctrine, which refers to the
_post-mortem_ period, or the interval between two lives or births
as merely a transitory state, I say, whether that interval between
two acts of the illusionary drama of life lasts one year or a
million, that _post-mortem_ state may, without any breach of the
fundamental law, prove to be just the same state as that of a man
who is in a dead faint.

ENQ. But since you have just said that the fundamental laws of the
after death state admit of no exceptions, how can this be?

THEO. Nor do I say that it does admit of an exception. But the
spiritual law of continuity applies only to things which are truly
real. To one who has read and understood Mundakya Upanishad and
Vedanta-Sara all this becomes very clear. I will say more: it is
sufficient to understand what we mean by Buddhi and the duality
of Manas to gain a clear perception why the materialist may fail
to have a self-conscious survival after death. Since Manas, in
its lower aspect, is the seat of the terrestrial mind, it can,
therefore, give only that perception of the Universe which is
based on the evidence of that mind; it cannot give spiritual
vision. It is said in the Eastern school, that between Buddhi and
Manas (the _Ego_), or Iswara and Pragna[42] there is in reality
no more difference than _between a forest and its trees, a lake
and its waters_, as the Mundakya teaches. One or hundreds of trees
dead from loss of vitality, or uprooted, are yet incapable of
preventing the forest from being still a forest.

ENQ. But, as I understand it, Buddhi represents in this simile the
forest, and Manas-taijasi[43] the trees. And if Buddhi is
immortal, how can that which is similar to it, _i.e._,
Manas-taijasi, entirely lose its consciousness till the day of its
new incarnation? I cannot understand it.

THEO. You cannot, because you will mix up an abstract representation of
the whole with its casual changes of form. Remember that if it
can be said of Buddhi-Manas that it is unconditionally immortal,
the same cannot be said of the lower Manas, still less of
Taijasi, which is merely an attribute. Neither of these, neither
Manas nor Taijasi, can exist apart from Buddhi, the divine
soul, because the first (_Manas_) is, in its lower aspect, a
qualificative attribute of the terrestrial personality, and the
second (_Taijasi_) is identical with the first, because it is the
same Manas only with the light of Buddhi reflected on it. In its
turn, Buddhi would remain only an impersonal spirit without this
element which it borrows from the human soul, which conditions
and makes of it, in this illusive Universe, _as it were something
separate_ from the universal soul for the whole period of the
cycle of incarnation. Say rather that _Buddhi-Manas_ can neither
die nor lose its compound self-consciousness in Eternity, nor the
recollection of its previous incarnations in which the two—_i.e_,
the spiritual and the human soul—had been closely linked together.
But it is not so in the case of a materialist, whose human soul
not only receives nothing from the divine soul, but even refuses
to recognise its existence. You can hardly apply this axiom to the
attributes and qualifications of the human soul, for it would be
like saying that because your divine soul is immortal, therefore
the bloom on your cheek must also be immortal; whereas this bloom,
like Taijasi, is simply a transitory phenomenon.

ENQ. Do I understand you to say that we must not mix in our minds the
noumenon with the phenomenon, the cause with its effect?

THEO. I do say so, and repeat that, limited to Manas or the human soul
alone, the radiance of Taijasi itself becomes a mere question
of time; because both immortality and consciousness after death
become, for the terrestrial personality of man, simply conditioned
attributes, as they depend entirely on conditions and beliefs
created by the human soul itself during the life of its body.
Karma acts incessantly; we reap _in our after-life_ only the fruit
of that which we have ourselves sown in this.

ENQ. But if my Ego can, after the destruction of my body, become
plunged in a state of entire unconsciousness, then where can be
the punishment for the sins of my past life?

THEO. Our philosophy teaches that Karmic punishment reaches Ego only in
its next incarnation. After death it receives only the reward for
the unmerited sufferings endured during its past incarnation.[44]
The whole punishment after death, even for the materialist,
consists, therefore, in the absence of any reward, and the utter
loss of the consciousness of one’s bliss and rest. Karma is the
child of the terrestrial Ego, the fruit of the actions of the tree
which is the objective personality visible to all, as much as
the fruit of all the thoughts and even motives of the spiritual
“I”; but Karma is also the tender mother, who heals the wounds
inflicted by her during the preceding life, before she will begin
to torture this Ego by inflicting upon him new ones. If it may
be said that there is not a mental or physical suffering in the
life of a mortal which is not the direct fruit and consequence of
some sin in a preceding existence; on the other hand, since he
does not preserve the slightest recollection of it in his actual
life, and feels himself not deserving of such punishment, and
therefore thinks he suffers for no guilt of his own, this alone is
sufficient to entitle the human soul to the fullest consolation,
rest, and bliss in his _post-mortem_ existence. Death comes to
our spiritual selves ever as a deliverer and friend. For the
materialist, who, notwithstanding his materialism, was not a bad
man, the interval between the two lives will be like the unbroken
and placid sleep of a child, either entirely dreamless, or filled
with pictures of which he will have no definite perception; while
for the average mortal it will be a dream as vivid as life, and
full of realistic bliss and visions.

ENQ. Then the personal man must always go on suffering _blindly_ the
Karmic penalties which the Ego has incurred?

THEO. Not quite so. At the solemn moment of death every man, even when
death is sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before
him, in its minutest details. For one short instant the _personal_
becomes one with the _individual_ and all-knowing _Ego_. But this
instant is enough to show to him the whole claim of causes which
have been at work during his life. He sees and now understands
himself as he is, unadorned by flattery or self-deception. He
reads his life, remaining as a spectator looking down into the
arena he is quitting; he feels and knows the justice of all the
suffering that has overtaken him.

ENQ. Does this happen to everyone?

THEO. Without any exception. Very good and holy men see, we are taught,
not only the life they are leaving, but even several preceding
lives in which were produced the causes that made them what they
were in the life just closing. They recognise the law of Karma in
all its majesty and justice.

ENQ. Is there anything corresponding to this before re-birth?

THEO. There is. As the man at the moment of death has a retrospective
insight into the life he has led, so, at the moment he is reborn
on to earth, the _Ego_, awaking from the state of Devachan, has
a prospective vision of the life which awaits him, and realizes
all the causes that have led to it. He realizes them and sees
futurity, because it is between Devachan and re-birth that the
_Ego_ regains his full _manasic_ consciousness, and re-becomes for
a short time the god he was, before, in compliance with Karmic
law, he first descended into matter and incarnated in the first
man of flesh. The “golden thread” sees all its “pearls” and misses
not one of them.


WHAT IS REALLY MEANT BY ANNIHILATION.

ENQ. I have heard some Theosophists speak of a golden thread on which
their lives were strung. What do they mean by this?

THEO. In the Hindu Sacred books it is said that that which undergoes
periodical incarnation is the _Sutratma_, which means literally
the “Thread Soul.” It is a synonym of the reincarnating Ego—Manas
conjoined with _Buddhi_—which absorbs the Manasic recollections
of all our preceding lives. It is so called, because, like the
pearls on a thread, so is the long series of human lives strung
together on that one thread. In some Upanishad these recurrent
rebirths are likened to the life of a mortal which oscillates
periodically between sleep and waking.

ENQ. This, I must say, does not seem very clear, and I will tell you
why. For the man who awakes, another day commences, but that man
is the same in soul and body as he was the day before; whereas
at every incarnation a full change takes place not only of the
external envelope, sex, and personality, but even of the mental
and psychic capacities. The simile does not seem to me quite
correct. The man who arises from sleep remembers quite clearly
what he has done yesterday, the day before, and even months and
years ago. But none of us has the slightest recollection of a
preceding life or of any fact or event concerning it.... I may
forget in the morning what I have dreamt during the night, still I
know that I have slept and have the certainty that I lived during
sleep; but what recollection can I have of my past incarnation
until the moment of death? How do you reconcile this?

THEO. Some people do recollect their past incarnations during life; but
these are Buddhas and Initiates. This is what the Yogis call
Samma-Sambuddha, or the knowledge of the whole series of one’s
past incarnations.

ENQ. But we ordinary mortals who have not reached Samma-Sambuddha, how
are we to understand this simile?

THEO. By studying it and trying to understand more correctly the
characteristics and the three kinds of sleep. Sleep is a general
and immutable law for man as for beast, but there are different
kinds of sleep and still more different dreams and visions.

ENQ. But this takes us to another subject. Let us return to the
materialist who, while not denying dreams, which he could hardly
do, yet denies immortality in general and the survival of his own
individuality.

THEO. And the materialist, without knowing it, is right. One who has no
inner perception of, and faith in, the immortality of his soul,
in that man the soul can never become Buddhi-taijasi, but will
remain simply Manas, and for Manas alone there is no immortality
possible. In order to live in the world to come a conscious
life, one has to believe first of all in that life during the
terrestrial existence. On these two aphorisms of the Secret
Science all the philosophy about the _post-mortem_ consciousness
and the immortality of the soul is built. The Ego receives always
according to its deserts. After the dissolution of the body,
there commences for it a period of full awakened consciousness,
or a state of chaotic dreams, or an utterly dreamless sleep
undistinguishable from annihilation, and these are the three
kinds of sleep. If our physiologists find the cause of dreams and
visions in an unconscious preparation for them during the waking
hours, why cannot the same be admitted for the _post-mortem_
dreams? I repeat it: _death is sleep_. After death, before the
spiritual eyes of the soul, begins a performance according to
a programme learnt and very often unconsciously composed by
ourselves: the practical carrying out of _correct_ beliefs or of
illusions which have been created by ourselves. The Methodist will
be Methodist, the Mussulman a Mussulman, at least for some time—in
a perfect fool’s paradise of each man’s creation and making. These
are the _post-mortem_ fruits of the tree of life. Naturally, our
belief or unbelief in the fact of conscious immortality is unable
to influence the unconditioned reality of the fact itself, once
that it exists; but the belief or unbelief in that immortality
as the property of independent or separate entities, cannot fail
to give colour to that fact in its application to each of these
entities. Now do you begin to understand it?

ENQ. I think I do. The materialist, disbelieving in everything that
cannot be proven to him by his five senses, or by scientific
reasoning, based exclusively on the data furnished by these senses
in spite of their inadequacy, and rejecting every spiritual
manifestation, accepts life as the only conscious existence.
Therefore according to their beliefs so will it be unto them. They
will lose their personal Ego, and will plunge into a dreamless
sleep until a new awakening. Is it so?

THEO. Almost so. Remember the practically universal teaching of the two
kinds of conscious existence: the terrestrial and the spiritual.
The latter must be considered real from the very fact that it is
inhabited by the eternal, changeless and immortal Monad; whereas
the incarnating Ego dresses itself up in new garments entirely
different from those of its previous incarnations, and in which
all except its spiritual prototype is doomed to a change so
radical as to leave no trace behind.

ENQ. How so? Can my conscious terrestrial “I” perish not only for a
time, like the consciousness of the materialist, but so entirely
as to leave no trace behind?

THEO. According to the teaching, it must so perish and in its fullness,
all except the principle which, having united itself with the
Monad, has thereby become a purely spiritual and indestructible
essence, one with it in the Eternity. But in the case of an
out-and-out materialist, in whose personal “I” no Buddhi has ever
reflected itself, how can the latter carry away into the Eternity
one particle of that terrestrial personality? Your spiritual “I”
is immortal; but from your present self it can carry away into
Eternity that only which has become worthy of immortality, namely,
the aroma alone of the flower that has been mown by death.

ENQ. Well, and the flower, the terrestrial “I”?

THEO. The flower, as all past and future flowers which have blossomed
and will have to blossom on the mother bough, the _Sutratma_,
all children of one root or Buddhi—will return to dust. Your
present “I,” as you yourself know, is not the body now sitting
before me, nor yet is it what I would call Manas-Sutratma, but
Sutratma-Buddhi.

ENQ. But this does not explain to me, at all, why you call life after
death immortal, infinite and real, and the terrestrial life a
simple phantom or illusion; since even that _post-mortem_ life has
limits, however much wider they may be than those of terrestrial
life.

THEO. No doubt. The spiritual Ego of man moves in eternity like a
pendulum between the hours of birth and death. But if these hours,
marking the periods of life terrestrial and life spiritual, are
limited in their duration, and if the very number of such stages
in Eternity between sleep and awakening, illusion and reality,
has its beginning and its end, on the other hand, the spiritual
pilgrim is eternal. Therefore are the hours of his _post-mortem_
life, when, disembodied, he stands face to face with truth and
not the mirages of his transitory earthly existences, during
the period of that pilgrimage which we call “the cycle of
rebirths”—the only reality in our conception. Such intervals,
their limitation notwithstanding, do not prevent the Ego, while
ever perfecting itself, from following undeviatingly, though
gradually and slowly, the path to its last transformation, when
that Ego, having reached its goal, becomes a divine being. These
intervals and stages help towards this final result instead of
hindering it; and without such limited intervals the divine
Ego could never reach its ultimate goal. I have given you once
already a familiar illustration by comparing the _Ego_, or the
_individuality_, to an actor, and its numerous and various
incarnations to the parts it plays. Will you call these parts or
their costumes the individuality of the actor himself? Like that
actor, the Ego is forced to play during the cycle of necessity,
up to the very threshold of _Paranirvana_, many parts such as
may be unpleasant to it. But as the bee collects its honey from
every flower, leaving the rest as food for the earthly worms, so
does our spiritual individuality, whether we call it Sutratma or
Ego. Collecting from every terrestrial personality, into which
Karma forces it to incarnate, the nectar alone of the spiritual
qualities and self-consciousness, it unites all these into one
whole and emerges from its chrysalis as the glorified Dhyan
Chohan. So much the worse for those terrestrial personalities
from which it could collect nothing. Such personalities cannot
assuredly outlive consciously their terrestrial existence.

ENQ. Thus, then, it seems that, for the terrestrial personality,
immortality is still conditional. Is, then, immortality itself
_not_ unconditional?

THEO. Not at all. But immortality cannot touch the _non-existent_: for
all that which exists as SAT, or emanates from SAT, immortality
and Eternity are absolute. Matter is the opposite pole of spirit,
and yet the two are one. The essence of all this, _i.e._, Spirit,
Force and Matter, or the three in one, is as endless as it is
beginningless; but the form acquired by this triple unity during
its incarnations, its externality, is certainly only the illusion
of our personal conceptions. Therefore do we call Nirvana and the
Universal life alone a reality, while relegating the terrestrial
life, its terrestrial personality included, and even its
Devachanic existence, to the phantom realm of illusion.

ENQ. But why in such a case call sleep the reality, and waking the
illusion?

THEO. It is simply a comparison made to facilitate the grasping of the
subject, and from the standpoint of terrestrial conceptions it is
a very correct one.

ENQ. And still I cannot understand, if the life to come is based on
justice and the merited retribution for all our terrestrial
suffering, how in the case of materialists, many of whom are
really honest and charitable men, there should remain of their
personality nothing but the refuse of a faded flower.

THEO. No one ever said such a thing. No materialist, however
unbelieving, can die for ever in the fulness of his spiritual
individuality. What was said is that consciousness can disappear
either fully or partially in the case of a materialist, so that no
conscious remains of his personality survive.

ENQ. But surely this is annihilation?

THEO. Certainly not. One can sleep a dead sleep and miss several
stations during a long railway journey, without the slightest
recollection or consciousness, and awake at another station and
continue the journey past innumerable other halting-places till
the end of the journey or the goal is reached. Three kinds of
sleep were mentioned to you: the dreamless, the chaotic, and
the one which is so real, that to the sleeping man his dreams
become full realities. If you believe in the latter why can’t you
believe in the former; according to the after life a man has
believed in and expected, such is the life he will have. He who
expected no life to come will have an absolute blank, amounting
to annihilation, in the interval between the two rebirths.
This is just the carrying out of the programme we spoke of, a
programme created by the materialists themselves. But there are
various kinds of materialists, as you say. A selfish, wicked
Egoist, one who never shed a tear for anyone but himself, thus
adding entire indifference to the whole world to his unbelief,
must, at the threshold of death, drop his personality for ever.
This personality having no tendrils of sympathy for the world
around and hence nothing to hook on to Sutratma, it follows that
with the last breath every connection between the two is broken.
There being no Devachan for such a materialist, the Sutratma will
reincarnate almost immediately. But those materialists who erred
in nothing but their disbelief will oversleep but one station. And
the time will come when that ex-materialist will perceive himself
in the Eternity and perhaps repent that he lost even one day, one
station, from the life eternal.

ENQ. Still, would it not be more correct to say that death is birth
into a new life, or a return once more into eternity?

THEO. You may if you like. Only remember that births differ, and that
there are births of “still-born” beings, which are _failures_ of
nature. Moreover, with your Western fixed ideas about material
life, the words “living” and “being” are quite inapplicable to
the pure subjective state of _post-mortem_ existence. It is just
because, save in a few philosophers who are not read by the many,
and who themselves are too confused to present a distinct picture
of it, it is just because your Western ideas of life and death
have finally become so narrow, that on the one hand they have
led to crass materialism, and on the other, to the still more
material conception of the other life, which the spiritualists
have formulated in their Summer-land. There the souls of men eat,
drink, marry, and live in a paradise quite as sensual as that
of Mohammed, but even less philosophical. Nor are the average
conceptions of the uneducated Christians any better, being if
possible still more material. What between truncated angels, brass
trumpets, golden harps, and material hell-fires, the Christian
heaven seems like a fairy scene at a Christmas pantomime.

It is because of these narrow conceptions that you find such
difficulty in understanding. It is just because the life of the
disembodied soul, while possessing all the vividness of reality,
as in certain dreams, is devoid of every grossly objective form of
terrestrial life, that the Eastern philosophers have compared it
with visions during sleep.


DEFINITE WORDS FOR DEFINITE THINGS.

ENQ. Don’t you think it is because there are no definite and fixed
terms to indicate each “Principle” in man, that such a confusion
of ideas arises in our minds with respect to the respective
functions of these “Principles”?

THEO. I have thought of it myself. The whole trouble has arisen from
this: we have started our expositions of, and discussion about,
the “Principles” using their Sanskrit names instead of coining
immediately, for the use of Theosophists, their equivalents in
English. We must try and remedy this now.

ENQ. You will do well, as it may avoid further confusion; no two
theosophical writers, it seems to me, have hitherto agreed to call
the same “Principle” by the same name.

THEO. The confusion is more apparent than real, however. I have heard
some of our Theosophists express surprise at, and criticize
several essays speaking of these “principles”; but, when examined,
there was no worse mistake in them than that of using the word
“Soul” to cover the three principles without specifying the
distinctions. The first, as positively the clearest of our
Theosophical writers, Mr. A. P. Sinnett, has some comprehensive
and admirably-written passages on the “Higher Self.”[45] His real
idea has also been misconceived by some, owing to his using the
word “Soul” in a general sense. Yet here are a few passages which
will show to you how clear and comprehensive is all that he writes
on the subject:—

... “The human soul, once launched on the streams of evolution
as a human individuality,[46] passes through alternate periods of
physical and relatively spiritual existence. It passes from the
one plane, or stratum, or condition of nature to the other under
the guidance of its Karmic affinities; living in incarnations the
life which its Karma has pre-ordained; modifying its progress
within the limitations of circumstances, and,—developing fresh
Karma by its use or abuse of opportunities,—it returns to
spiritual existence (Devachan) after each physical life,—through
the intervening region of Kamaloca—for rest and refreshment and
for the gradual absorption into its essence, as so much cosmic
progress, of the life’s experience gained ‘on earth’ or during
physical existence. This view of the matter will, moreover, have
suggested many collateral inferences to anyone thinking over the
subject; for instance, that the transfer of consciousness from
the Kamaloca to the Devachanic stage of this progression would
necessarily be gradual[47]; that in truth, no hard-and-fast line
separates the varieties of spiritual conditions; that even the
spiritual and physical planes, as psychic faculties in living
people show, are not so hopelessly walled off from one another
as materialistic theories would suggest; that all states of
nature are all around us simultaneously, and appeal to different
perceptive faculties; and so on.... It is clear that during
physical existence people who possess psychic faculties remain in
connection with the planes of superphysical consciousness; and
although most people may not be endowed with such faculties, we
all, as the phenomena of sleep, even, and especially ... those
of somnambulism or mesmerism, show, are capable of entering into
conditions of consciousness that the five physical senses have
nothing to do with. We—the souls within us—are not as it were
altogether adrift in the ocean of matter. We clearly retain some
surviving interest or rights in the shore from which, for a time,
we have floated off. The process of incarnation, therefore, is
not fully described when we speak of an _alternate_ existence on
the physical and spiritual planes, and thus picture the soul as a
complete entity slipping entirely from the one state of existence
to the other. The more correct definitions of the process would
probably represent incarnation as taking place on this physical
plane of nature by reason of an efflux emanating from the soul.
The Spiritual realm would all the while be the proper habitat
of the Soul, which would never entirely quit it; _and that
non-materializable portion of the Soul which abides permanently
on the spiritual plane may fitly_, perhaps, be spoken of as the
HIGHER SELF.”

This “Higher Self” is ATMA, and of course it is
“non-materializable,” as Mr. Sinnett says. Even more, it can
never be “objective” under any circumstances, even to the
highest spiritual perception. For _Atman_ or the “Higher Self”
is really Brahma, the ABSOLUTE, and indistinguishable from it.
In hours of _Samadhi_, the higher spiritual consciousness of the
Initiate is entirely absorbed in the ONE essence, which is Atman,
and therefore, being one with the whole, there can be nothing
objective for it. Now some of our Theosophists have got into
the habit of using the words “Self” and “Ego” as synonymous, of
associating the term “Self” with only man’s higher individual
or even personal “Self” or _Ego_, whereas this term ought never
to be applied except _to the One universal Self_. Hence the
confusion. Speaking of Manas, the “causal body,” we may call
it—when connecting it with the Buddhic radiance—the “HIGHER EGO,”
never the “Higher Self.” For even Buddhi, the “Spiritual Soul,”
is not the SELF, but the vehicle only of SELF. All the other
“_Selves_”—such as the “Individual” self and “personal” self—ought
never to be spoken or written of without their qualifying and
characteristic adjectives.

Thus in this most excellent essay on the “Higher Self,” this term
is applied to the _sixth principle_ or _Buddhi_ (of course in
conjunction with Manas, as without such union there would be no
_thinking_ principle or element in the spiritual soul); and has
in consequence given rise to just such misunderstandings. The
statement that “a child does not acquire its _sixth_ principle—or
become a morally responsible being capable of generating
Karma—until seven years old,” proves what is meant therein by
the HIGHER SELF. Therefore, the able author is quite justified
in explaining that after the “Higher Self” has passed into the
human being and saturated the personality—in some of the finer
organizations only—with its consciousness “people with psychic
faculties may indeed perceive this Higher Self through their finer
senses from time to time.” But so are those, who limit the term
“Higher Self” to the Universal Divine Principle, “justified” in
misunderstanding him. For, when we read, without being prepared
for this shifting of metaphysical terms,[48] that while “fully
manifesting on the physical plane ... the Higher Self still
remains a conscious spiritual Ego on the corresponding plane of
Nature”—we are apt to see in the “Higher Self” of this sentence,
“Atma,” and in the spiritual Ego, “Manas,” or rather Buddhi-Manas,
and forthwith to criticise the whole thing as incorrect.

To avoid henceforth such misrepresentations, I propose to
translate literally from the Occult Eastern terms their
equivalents in English, and offer these for future use.

{ Atma, the inseparable ray of the Universal
THE HIGHER { and ONE SELF. It is the God _above_, more
SELF is { than within, us. Happy the man who succeeds
{ in saturating his _inner Ego_ with it!

THE SPIRITUAL { the Spiritual soul or _Buddhi_, in close union
_divine_ { with _Manas_, the mind-principle, without
EGO is { which it is no EGO at all, but only the Atmic
{ _Vehicle_.

{ _Manas_, the “Fifth” Principle, so called,
{ independently of Buddhi. The Mind-Principle
THE INNER, { is only the Spiritual Ego when merged
or HIGHER { _into one_ with Buddhi,—no materialist being
“Ego” is { supposed to have in him _such_ an Ego, however
{ great his intellectual capacities. It is
{ the permanent _Individuality_ or the “Reincarnating
{ Ego.”

{ the physical man in conjunction with his
{ _lower_ Self, _i.e._, animal instincts, passions,
THE LOWER, { desires, etc. It is called the “false personality,”
or PERSONAL { and consists of the _lower Manas_ combined
“Ego” is { with Kama-rupa, and operating
{ through the Physical body and its phantom
{ or “double.”

The remaining “Principle” “_Pranâ_,” or “Life,” is, strictly
speaking, the radiating force or Energy of Atma—as the Universal
Life and the ONE SELF,—ITS lower or rather (in its effects) more
physical, because manifesting, aspect. Pranâ or Life permeates the
whole being of the objective Universe; and is called a “principle”
only because it is an indispensable factor and the _deus ex
machinâ_ of the living man.

ENQ. This division being so much simplified in its combinations will
answer better, I believe. The other is much too metaphysical.

THEO. If outsiders as well as Theosophists would agree to it, it would
certainly make matters much more comprehensible.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] “Some things that I _do_ know of Spiritualism and some that I do
_not_.”

[41] A few portions of this chapter and of the preceding were
published in _Lucifer_ in the shape of a “Dialogue on the Mysteries of
After Life,” in the January number, 1889. The article was unsigned,
as if it were written by the editor, but it came from the pen of the
author of the present volume.

[42] Iswara is the collective consciousness of the manifested deity,
Brahma, _i.e._, the collective consciousness of the Host of Dhyan
Chohans (_vide_ SECRET DOCTRINE); and Pragna is their individual wisdom.

[43] _Taijasi_ means the radiant in consequence of its union with
Buddhi; _i.e._, Manas, the human soul, illuminated by the radiance
of the divine soul. Therefore, Manas-taijasi may be described as
radiant mind; the _human_ reason lit by the light of the spirit; and
Buddhi-Manas is the revelation of the divine _plus_ human intellect and
self-consciousness.

[44] Some Theosophists have taken exception to this phrase, but the
words are those of Master, and the meaning attached to the word
“unmerited” is that given above. In the T.P.S. pamphlet No. 6, a
phrase, criticised subsequently in LUCIFER, was used which was intended
to convey the same idea. In form, however, it was awkward and open to
the criticism directed against it; but the essential idea was that men
often suffer from the effects of the actions done by others, effects
which thus do not strictly belong to their own Karma—and for these
sufferings they of course deserve compensation.

[45] _Vide_ Transactions of the LONDON LODGE _of the Theos. Soc._, No.
7, Oct., 1885.

[46] The “reincarnating Ego,” or “Human Soul,” as he called it, the
_Causal Body_ with the Hindus.

[47] The length of this “transfer” depends, however, on the degree of
spirituality in the ex-personality of the disembodied Ego. For those
whose lives were very spiritual this transfer, though gradual, is very
rapid. The time becomes longer with the materialistically inclined.

[48] “Shifting of _Metaphysical terms_” applies here only to the
shifting of their translated equivalents from the Eastern expressions;
for to this day there never existed any such terms in English, every
Theosophist having to coin his own terms to render his thought. It is
nigh time then to settle on some definite nomenclature.