The All
Getting Started in
Theosophy
(And its all Free Stuff )
People outside
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
1831 – 1891
____________________
After Death
From
A Textbook of Theosophy
By
C
Death is the
laying aside of the physical body; but it makes no more difference to the ego
than does the laying aside of an overcoat to the physical man. Having put off
his physical body, the ego continues to live in his astral body until the force
has become exhausted which has been generated by such emotions and passions as
he has allowed himself to feel during earth life. When that has happened, the
second death takes place; the astral body also falls away from him, and he
finds himself living in the mental body and in the lower mental world. In that
condition he remains until the thought forces generated during his physical and
astral lives have worn themselves out; then he drops the third vehicle in its
turn and remains once more an ego in his own world, inhabiting his causal body.
There is,
then, no such thing as death as it is ordinarily understood. There is only a
succession of stages in a continuous life – stages lived in the three worlds
one after another. The apportionment of time between these three worlds varies
much as man advances. The primitive man lives almost exclusively in the
physical world, spending only a few years in the astral at the end of each of
his physical lives.
As he
develops, the astral life becomes longer, and as intellect unfolds in him, and
he becomes able to think, he begins to spend a little time in the mental world
as well. The ordinary man of civilized races remains longer in the mental world
than in the physical and astral; indeed, the more a man evolves the longer
becomes his mental life and the shorter his life in the astral world.
The astral
life is the result of all feelings which have in them the element of self. If
they have been directly selfish, they bring him into conditions of great
unpleasantness in the astral world; if, though tinged with thoughts of self,
they have been good and kindly they bring him a comparatively pleasant though
still limited astral life. Such of his thoughts and feelings as have been
entirely unselfish produce their result in his life in the mental world;
therefore that life in the mental world cannot be other than blissful. The
astral life, which the man has made for himself either miserable or
comparatively joyous, corresponds to what Christians call purgatory; the lower
mental life, which is always entirely happy, is what is called heaven.
Man makes
for himself his own purgatory and heaven, and these are not planes, but states
of consciousness. Hell does not exist; it is only a figment of the theological imagination;
but a man who lives foolishly may make for himself a very unpleasant and
long-enduring purgatory.
Neither
purgatory nor heaven can ever be eternal, for a finite cause cannot produce an
infinite result. The variations in individual cases are so wide that to give
actual figures is somewhat misleading.
If we take
the average man of what is called the lower middle class, the typical specimen
of which would be a small shopkeeper or shop-assistant, his average life in the
astral world would be perhaps about forty years, and the life in the mental
world about two hundred. The man of spirituality and culture, on the other
hand, may have perhaps twenty years of life in the astral world and a thousand
in the heaven life. One who is specially developed may reduce the astral life
to a few days or hours and spend fifteen hundred years in heaven.
Not only
does the length of these periods vary greatly, but the conditions in both
worlds also differ widely. The matter of which all these bodies are built is not
dead matter but living, and that fact has to be taken
into consideration. The physical body is built up of cells, each of which is a
tiny separate life animated by the Second Outpouring, which comes forth from
the Second Aspect of the Deity. These cells are of varying kinds and fulfill
various functions, and all these facts must be taken into account if the man
wishes to understand the work of his physical body and to live a healthy life
in it.
The same
thing applies to the astral and mental bodies. In the cell life which permeates
them there is as yet nothing in the way of intelligence, but there is a strong
instinct always pressing in the direction of what is for its development. The
life animating the matter of which such bodies are built is upon the outward
arc of evolution, moving downwards or outwards into matter, so that progress
for it means to descend into denser forms of matter, and to learn to express
itself through them. Unfoldment for the man is just the opposite of this; he
has already sunk deeply into matter and is now rising out of that towards his
source.
There is
consequently a constant conflict of interests between the man within and the
life inhabiting the matter of his vehicles, inasmuch as its tendency is
downward, while his is upward.The matter of the
astral body (or rather the life animating its molecules) desires for its
evolution such undulations as it can get, of as many different kinds as
possible, and as coarse as possible. The next step in its evolution will be to ensoul physical matter and become used to its still slower
oscillations; and as a step on the way to that, it desires the grossest of the
astral vibrations. It has not the intelligence definitely to plan for these;
but its instinct helps it to discover how most easily to procure them.
The
molecules of the astral body are constantly changing, as are those of the
physical body, but nevertheless the life in the mass of those astral molecules
has a sense, though a very vague sense, of itself as a whole – as a kind of temporary
entity. It does not know that it is part of a man’s astral body; it is quite
capable of understanding what a man is; but it realizes in a blind way that
under itpresent conditions it receives many more
waves, and much stronger ones, than it would receive if floating at large in
the atmosphere. It would then only occasionally catch, as from a distance, the
radiation of man’s passions and emotions; now it is in the very heart of them,
it can miss none, and it gets them at their strongest.
Therefore
it feels itself in a good position, and it makes an effort to retain that
position. It finds itself in contact with something finer than itself – the
matter of the man’s mental body; and it comes to feel that if it can contrive
to involve that finer something in its own undulations, they will be greatly
intensified and prolonged.
Since
astral matter is the vehicle of desire and mental matter is the vehicle of
thought, this instinct, when translated into our language, means that if the
astral body can induce us to think that we want what it wants, it is much more
likely to get it. Thus it exercises a slow steady pressure upon the man – a
kind of hunger on its side, but for him a temptation to what is coarse and
undesirable. If he be a passionate man there is a gentle but ceaseless pressure
in the direction of irritability; if he be a sensual man, an equally steady
pressure in the direction of impurity.
A man who
does not understand this usually makes one of two mistakes with regard to it:
either he supposes it to be the prompting of his own nature, and therefore
regards that nature as inherently evil; or he thinks of the pressure as coming
from outside – as temptation of an imaginary devil. The truth lies between the
two. The pressure is natural, not to the man but to the vehicle which he is
using; its desire is natural and right for it, but harmful to the man, and
therefore it is necessary that he should resist it. If he does so resist, if he
declines to yield himself to the feelings suggested to him, the particles
within him which need those vibrations become apathetic for lack of
nourishment, and eventually atrophy and fall out from his astral body, and are
replaced by other particles, whose natural wave rate is more nearly in
accordance with that which the man habitually permits within his astral body.
This gives
the reason for what are called promptings of the lower nature during
life. If the man yields himself to them, such
promptings grow stronger and stronger until at least he feels as though he
could not resist them, and identifies himself with them – which is exactly what
this curious half-life in the particles of the astral body wants him to do.
At the
death of the physical body this vague astral consciousness is alarmed. It
realizes that its existence as a separated mass is menaced, and it takes
instinctive steps to defend itself and to maintain its
position as long as possible. The matter of the astral body is far more fluidic
than that of the physical, and this consciousness seizes upon its particles and
disposes them so as to resist encroachment. It puts the grossest and densest
upon the outside as a kind of shell, and arranges the others in concentric
layers, so that the body as a whole may become as resistant to friction as its
constitution permits, and may therefore retain its shape as long as possible.
For the
man this produces various unpleasant effects. The physiology of the astral body
is quite different from that of the physical; the latter acquires its
information from without by means of certain organs which are specialized as
the instruments of its senses, but the astral body has no separated senses in
our meaning of the word. That which for the astral body corresponds to sight is
the power of its molecules to respond to impacts from without, which come to
them by means of similar molecules. For example, a man has within his astral
body matter belonging to all the subdivisions of the astral world, and it is
because of that that he is capable of “seeing” objects built of the matter of
any of these subdivisions.
Supposing
an astral object to be made of the matter of the second and third subdivisions
mixed, a man living in the astral world could perceive that object only if on
the surface of his astral body there were particles belonging to the second and
third subdivisions of that world which were capable of receiving and recording
the vibrations which that object set up. A man who from the arrangement of his
body by the vague consciousness of which we have spoken, had on the outside of
that vehicle only the denser matter of the lowest subdivision, could no more be
conscious of the object which we have mentioned than we are ourselves conscious
in the physical body of the gases which move about us in the atmosphere or of
objects built exclusively of etheric matter.
During
physical life the matter of the man’s astral body is in constant motion, and
its particles pass among one another much as do those of boiling water.
Consequently
at any given moment it is practically certain that particles of all varieties
will be represented on the surface of his astral body, and that therefore when
he is using his astral body during sleep he will be able to “see” by its means
any astral object which approaches him.
After
death, if he has allowed the rearrangement to be made (as from ignorance, all
ordinary persons do) his condition in this respect will be different. Having on
the surface of his astral body only the lowest and grossest particles, he can
receive impressions only from corresponding particles outside; so that instead
of seeing the whole of the astral world about him, he will see only one-seventh
of it, and that the densest and most impure. The vibrations of this heavier
matter are the expressions only of objectionable feelings and emotions, and of
the least refined class of astral entities. Therefore it emerges that a man in
this condition can see only the undesirable inhabitants of the astral world,
and can feel only its most unpleasant and vulgar
influences.
He is
surrounded by other men, whose astral bodies are probably of quite ordinary
character; but since he can see and feel only what is lowest and coarsest in
them, they appear to him to be monsters of vice with no redeeming features.
Even his friends seem not at all what they used to be, because he is now
incapable of appreciating any of their better qualities. Under these
circumstances it is little wonder that he considers the astral world a hell;
yet the fault is in no way with the astral world, but with himself – first, for
allowing himself so much of that ruder type of matter, and secondly, for
letting that vague astral consciousness dominate him and dispose it in that
particular way.
The man
who has studied these matters declines absolutely to yield to the pressure
during life or to permit the rearrangement after death, and consequently he
retains his power of seeing the astral world as a whole, and not merely the
cruder and baser part of it.
The astral
world has many points in common with the physical; just like the physical, it
presents different appearances to different people,
and even to the same person at different periods of his career. It is the home
of emotion and of lower thoughts; and emotions are much stronger in that world
than in this. When a person is awake we cannot see that larger part of his
emotion at all; its strength goes in setting in motion the gross physical
matter of the brain. So if we see a man show affection here, what we can see is
not the whole of his affection, but only such part of it as is left after all
this other work has been done. Emotions therefore bulk far more largely in the
astral life than in the physical. They in no way exclude higher thought if they
are controlled, so in the astral world as in the physical a man may devote
himself to study and to helping his fellows, or he may waste his time and drift
about aimlessly.
The astral
world extends nearly to the mean distance of the orbit of the moon; but though
the whole of this realm is open to any of its inhabitants who have not
permitted the redistribution of their matter, the great majority remain much
nearer to the surface of the earth. The matter of the different subdivisions of
that world interpenetrates with perfect freedom, but there is on the whole a
general tendency for the denser matter to settle towards the center. The
conditions are much like
those which obtain in a bucket of water which contains in
suspension a number of kinds of matter of different degrees of density. Since
the water is kept in perpetual motion, the different kinds of matter are
diffused through it; but in spite of that, the densest matter is found in
greatest quantity nearest to the bottom. So that though we must not at all
think of the various subdivisions of the astral world as lying above one
another as do the coats of an onion, it is nevertheless true that the average
arrangement of the matter of those subdivisions partakes somewhat of that
general character.
Astral
matter interpenetrates physical matter precisely as though it were not there,
but each subdivision of physical matter has a strong attraction for astral
matter of the corresponding subdivision. Hence it arises that every physical
body has its astral counterpart. If I have a glass of water standing upon a
table, the glass and the table, being of physical matter in the solid state,
are interpenetrated by astral matter of the lowest subdivision. The water in
the glass, being liquid, is interpenetrated by astral matter of the sixth
subdivision; whereas the air surrounding both, being physical matter in the gaseous
condition, is entirely interpenetrated by astral gaseous matter – that is,
astral matter of the fifth subdivision.
But just
as air, water, glass and table are alike interpenetrated all the time by the
finer physical matter which we have called etheric, so are all the astral
counterparts interpenetrated by the finer astral matter of the higher
subdivisions which correspond to the etheric. But even the astral solid is less
dense than the finest of the physical ethers.
The man who finds himself in the astral world after death, if he
has not submitted to the rearrangement of the matter of his body, will notice
but little difference from physical life. He can float about in any direction
at will, but in actual fact he usually stays in the neighbourhood
to which he is accustomed. He is still able to perceive his house, his room,
his furniture, his relations, his friends. The living, when ignorant of the
higher worlds, suppose themselves to have “lost” those who have laid aside
their physical bodies; but the dead are never for a moment under the impression
that they have lost the living.
Functioning
as they are in the astral body, the dead can no longer see the physical bodies
of those whom they have left behind; but they do see their astral bodies, and
as those are exactly the same in outline as the physical, they are perfectly
aware of the presence of their friends. They see each one surrounded by a faint
ovoid of luminous mist, and if they happen to be observant, they may notice
various other small changes in the surroundings; but it is at least quite clear
to them that they have not gone away to some distant heaven or hell, but still
remain in touch with the world which they know, although they see it at a
somewhat different angle.
The dead
man has the astral body of his living friends obviously before him, so he
cannot think of him as lost; but while the friend is awake, the dead man will
not be able to make any impression upon him, for the consciousness of the
friend is then in the physical world, and his astral body is being used only as
a bridge. The dead man cannot therefore communicate with his friend, nor can he
read his friend’s higher thoughts; but he will see by the change in color in
the astral body any emotion which that friend may feel, and with a little
practice and observation he may easily learn to read all those thoughts of his
friend which have in them anything of self or of desire.
When the
friend falls asleep the whole position is changed. He is then also conscious in
the astral world side by side with the dead man, and they can communicate in
every respect as freely as they could during physical life. The emotions felt
by the living react strongly upon the dead who love them. If the former give
way to grief, the latter cannot but suffer severely.
The
conditions of life after death are almost infinite in their variety, but they
can be calculated without difficulty by any one who will take the trouble to
understand the astral world and to consider the character of the person
concerned. That character is not in the slightest degree changed by death; the
man’s thoughts, emotions and desires are exactly the same as before. He is in
every way the same man, minus his physical body, and his happiness or misery
depends upon the extent to which this loss of the physical body affects him.
If his
longings have been such as need a physical body for their gratification, he is
likely to suffer considerably. Such a craving manifests itself as a vibration
in the astral body, and while we are still in this world most of its strength
is employed in setting in motion the heavy physical particles. Desire is
therefore a far greater force in the astral life than in the physical, and if
the man has not been in the habit of controlling it, and if in this new life it
cannot be satisfied, it may cause him great and long-continued trouble.
Take as an
illustration the extreme case of a drunkard or a sensualist. Here we have a lust
which has been strong enough during physical life to overpower reason,
common-sense and all the feelings of decency and of family affection.
After
death the man finds himself in the astral world feeling the appetite perhaps a
hundred times more strongly, yet absolutely unable to satisfy it because he has
lost the physical body. Such a life is a very real hell – the only hell there
is; yet no one is punishing him; he is reaping the perfectly natural result of
his own action. Gradually as time passes this force of desire wears out, but
only at the cost of terrible suffering for the man, because to him every day
seems as a thousand years. He has no measure of time such as we have in the
physical world. He can measure it only by his sensations. From a distortion of
this fact has come the blasphemous idea of eternal damnation.
Many other
cases less extreme than this will readily suggest themselves, in which a
hankering which cannot be fulfilled may prove itself a torture. A more ordinary
case is that of a man who has no particular vices, such as drink or sensuality,
but yet has been attached entirely to things of the physical world, and has
lived a life devoted to business or to aimless social functions. For him the
astral world is a place of weariness; the only things for which he craves are
no longer possible for him, for in the astral world there is no business to be
done, and, though he may have as much companionship as he wishes, society is
now for him a very different matter, because all the pretences upon which it is
usually based in this world are no longer possible.
These
cases, however, are only the few, and for most people the state after death is
much happier than life upon earth. The first feeling of which the dead man is
usually conscious is one of the most wonderful and delightful freedom. He has
absolutely nothing to worry about, and no duties rest upon him, except those
which he chooses to impose upon himself. For all but a very small
minority, physical life is spent in doing what the man
would much rather not do; but he has to do it in order to support himself or
his wife and family.
In the
astral world no support is necessary; food is no longer needed, shelter is not
required, since he is entirely unaffected by heat or cold; and each man by the
mere exercise of his thought clothes himself as he wishes. For the first time
since early childhood the man is entirely free to spend the whole of his time
in doing exactly just what he likes.
His
capacity for every kind of enjoyment is greatly enhanced, if only that
enjoyment does not need a physical body for expression. If he loves thebeauties of Nature, it is now within his power to travel
with great rapidity and without fatigue over the whole world, to contemplate
all its loveliest spots, and to explore its most secret recesses. If he
delights in art, all the world’s masterpieces are at his disposal. If he loves
music, he can go where he will to hear it, and it will now mean much more to
him than it has ever meant before; for though he can no longer hear the
physical sounds, he can receive the whole effect of the music into himself in
far fuller measure than in this lower world. If he is a student of science, he
not only can visit the great scientific men of the world, and catch from them
such thoughts and ideas as may be within his comprehension, but also he can
undertake the researches of his own into the science of this higher world,
seeing much more of what he is doing than has ever before been possible to him.
Best of all, he whose great delight in this world has been to help his fellow
men will still find ample scope for his philanthropic efforts.
Men are no
longer hungry, cold, or suffering from disease in this astral world; but there
are vast numbers who, being ignorant, desire knowledge – who, being still in
the grip of desire for earthly things, need the explanation which will turn
their thought to higher levels – who have entangled themselves in a web of
their own imaginings, and can be set free only by one who understands these new
surroundings and can help them distinguish the facts of the world from their
own ignorant misrepresentation of them. All these can be helped by the man of
intelligence and of kindly heart. Many men arrive in the
astral world in utter ignorance of its conditions, not realizing at first that
they are dead, and when they do realize it fearing the fate that may be in
store for them, because of false and wicked theological teaching. All of these
need the cheer and comfort which can only be given to them by a man of common
sense who possesses some knowledge of the facts of nature.
There is
thus no lack of the most profitable occupation for any man whose interests
during his physical life have been rational; nor is there any lack of
companionship. Men whose tastes and pursuits are similar drift naturally
together there just as they do here; and many realms of Nature, which during
our physical life are concealed by the dense veil of matter, now lie open for
the detailed study of those who care to examine them.
To a large
extent people make their own surroundings. We have already referred
to the seven subdivisions of this astral world.
Numbering these from the highest and least material downwards, we find that
they fall naturally into three classes – division one, two and three forming
one such class, and four, five and six another; while the seventh and lowest of
all stands alone. As I have said,although they all
interpenetrate, their substance has a general tendency to arrange itself
according to its specific gravity, so that most of the matter belonging to the
higher subdivisions is found at a greater elevation above the surface of the
earth than the bulk of the matter of the lower portions.
Hence,
although any person inhabiting the astral world can move into any part of it,
his natural tendency is to float at the level which corresponds with the
specific gravity of the heaviest matter in his astral body. The man who has not
permitted the rearrangement of the matter of his astral body after death is
entirely free of the whole astral world; but the majority, who do permit it,
are not equally free – not because there is anything to prevent them from
rising to the highest level or sinking to the lowest, but because they are able
to sense clearly only a certain part of that world.
I have
described something of the fate of a man who is on the lowest level, shut in by
a strong shell of coarse matter. Because of the extreme comparative density of
that matter he is conscious of less outside of his own subdivision than a man
at any other level. The general specific gravity of his own astral body tends
to make him float below the surface of the earth. The physical matter of the
earth is absolutely non-existent to his astral senses, and his natural
attraction is to that least delicate form of astral matter which is the
counterpart of that solid earth. A man who has confined himself to that lowest
subdivision will therefore usually find himself floating in darkness and cut
off to a great extent from others of the dead, whose lives have been such as to
keep them on a higher level.
Divisions
four, and six of the astral world (to which most people are attracted) have for
their background the astral counterpart of the physical world in which we live,
and all its familiar accessories. Life in the sixth subdivision is simply like
our ordinary life on this earth minus the physical body and its necessities
while as it ascends through the fifth and fourth divisions it becomes less and
less material and is more and more withdrawn from our lower world and its
interests.
The first,
second and third sections, though occupying the same space, yet give the
impression of being much further removed from the physical, and correspondingly
less material. Men who inhabit these levels lose sight of the earth and its
belongings; they are usually deeply self-absorbed, and to a large extent create
their own surroundings, though these are sufficiently objective to be
perceptible to other men of their level, and also to clairvoyant vision.
This
region is the summerland of which we hear in
spiritualistic circles – the world in which, by the exercise of their thought,
the dead call into temporary existence their houses and schools and cities.
These surroundings, though fanciful from our point of view, are to the dead as
real as houses, temples or churches built of stone are to us, and many people
live very contentedly there for a number of years in the midst of all these
thought creations.
Some of
the scenery thus produced is very beautiful; it includes lovely lakes,
magnificent mountains, pleasant gardens, decidedly superior to anything in the
physical world; though on the other hand it also contains much which to the
trained clairvoyant (who has learned to see things as they are) appears
ridiculous – as, for example, the endeavors of the unlearned to make a thought
form of some of the curious symbolic descriptions contained in their various
scriptures. An ignorant peasant’s thought image of a beast full of eyes within,
or of a sea of glass mingled with fire, is naturally often grotesque, although
to its maker it is perfectly satisfactory. This astral world is full of
thought-created figures and landscapes. Men of all religions image here their
deities and their respective conceptions of paradise, and enjoy themselves
greatly among these dream forms until they pass into the mental world and come
into touch with something nearer to reality.
Every one
after death – any ordinary person, that is, in whose case the rearrangement of
the matter of the astral body has been made – has to pass through all these
subdivisions in turn. It does not follow that every one is conscious in all of
them. The ordinary decent person has in his astral body but little of the
matter of its lowest portion – by no means enough to construct a heavy shell.
The redistribution puts on the outside of the body its densest matter; in the
ordinary man this is usually matter of the sixth subdivision, mixed with a
little of the seventh, and so he finds himself viewing the counterpart of the
physical world.
The ego is
steadily withdrawing into himself, and as he withdraws
he leaves behind him level after level of this astral matter. So the length of
the man’s detention in any section of the astral world is precisely in
proportion to the amount of its matter which is found in his astral body, and
that in turn depends upon the life he has lived, the desires he has indulged,
and the class of matter which by so doing he has attracted towards him and
built into himself. Finding himself then in the sixth section, still hovering
about the places and persons with which he was most closely connected while on
earth, the average man as time passes on finds the earthly surroundings
gradually growing dimmer and becoming of less and less importance to him, and
he tends more and more to mould his entourage into agreement with the more
persistent of his thoughts. By the time that he reaches the third level he
finds that this characteristic has
entirely superseded the vision of the realities of the
astral world.
The second
subdivision is a shade less material than the third, for if the latter is the summerland of the spiritualists, the former is the material
heaven of the more ignorant orthodox; while the first or highest level appears
to be the special home of those who during life have devoted themselves to
materialistic but intellectual pursuits, following them not for the sake of
benefiting their fellow men, but either from motives of selfish ambition or
simply for the sake of intellectual exercise.
All these
people are perfectly happy. Later on they will reach a stage when they can
appreciate something much higher, and when that stage comes they will find the
higher ready for them.
In this
astral life people of the same nation and of the same interests tend to keep together,
precisely as they do here. The religious people, for example, who imagine for
themselves a material heaven, do not at all interfere with men of other faiths
whose ideas of celestial joy are different. There is nothing to prevent a
Christian from drifting into the heaven of the Hindu or the Mohammedan, but he
is little likely to do so, because his interests and attractions are all in the
heaven of his own faith, along with friends who have shared that faith with
him. This is by no means the true heaven described by any of the religions, but
only a gross and material misrepresentation of it; the real thing will be found
when we come to consider the mental world.
The dead
man who has not permitted the rearrangement of the matter of his astral body is
free of the entire world, and can wander all over it at will, seeing the whole
of whatever he examines, instead of only a part of it as the others do. He does
not find it inconveniently crowded, for the astral world is much larger than
the surface of the physical earth, while its population is somewhat smaller,
because the average life of humanity in the astral world is shorter than the
average of the physical.
Not only
the dead, however, are the inhabitants of this astral world, but always about
one third of the living as well, who have temporarily left their physical
bodies behind them in sleep. The astral world has also a great number of
non-human inhabitants, some of them far below the level of man, and some
considerably above him. The nature spirits form an enormous kingdom, some of
whose members exist in the astral world, and make a large part of its
population.
This vast
kingdom exists in the physical world also, for many of its orders wear etheric
bodies, and are only just beyond the range of ordinary physical sight. Indeed,
circumstances not infrequently occur under which they can be seen, and in many
lonely mountain districts these appearances are traditional among the peasants,
by whom they are commonly spoken of as fairies, good people, pixies or
brownies.
They are protéan, but usually prefer to wear a miniature human form.
Since they are not yet individualized, they may be thought of almost as etheric
and astral animals; yet many of them are intellectually quite equal to average
humanity.
They have
their nations and types just as we have, and they are often grouped into four
great classes, and called the spirits of earth, water, fire and air.
Only the
members of the last of these four divisions normally reside in the astral
world, but their numbers as so prodigious that they are everywhere present in
it.
Another
great kingdom has its representatives here – the kingdom of the angels (called
in
We are neither
the only nor even the principal inhabitants of our solar system; there are
other lines of evolution running parallel with our own which do not pass
through humanity at all, though they must all pass through a level
corresponding to that of humanity. On one of these other lines of evolution are
the nature spirits above described, and at a higher level of that line comes this great kingdom of the angels. At our present level
of evolution they come into obvious contact with us only very rarely, but as we
develop we shall be likely to see more of them - especially as the cyclic
progress of the world is now bringing it more and more under the influence of
the Seventh Ray.
This
Seventh Ray has ceremonial for one of its characteristics, and it is through ceremonial
such as that of the Church or of Free-masonry that we come most easily into
touch with the angelic kingdom.
When all
the man’s lower emotions have worn themselves out – all emotions, I mean, which
have in them any thought of self – his life in the astral world is over, and
the ego passes on into the mental world. This is not in any sense a movement in
space; it is simply that the steady process of withdrawal has now passed beyond
even the finest kind of astral matter; so that the man’s consciousness is
focused in the mental world. His astral body has not entirely disintegrated,
though it is in process of doing so, and he leaves behind him an astral corpse,
just as at a previous stage of the withdrawal he left behind him a physical
corpse. There is a certain difference between the two which should be noticed,
because of the consequences which ensue from it.
When the
man leaves his physical body his separation from it should be complete, and
generally is so; but this is not the case with the much finer matter of the
astral body. In the course of his physical life the ordinary man usually
entangles himself so much in astral matter (which, from
another point of view, means that he identifies himself so closely with his
lower desires) that the indrawing force of the ego cannot entirely separate him
from it again.
Consequently,
when he finally breaks away from the astral body and transfers his activities
to the mental, he loses a little of himself, he leaves some of
himself
behind imprisoned in the matter of the astral body.This
gives a certain remnant of vitality to the astral corpse, so that it still
moves freely in the astral world, and may easily be mistaken by the ignorant
for the man himself – the more so as such fragmentary consciousness as still
remains to it is part of the man, and therefore it naturally regards itself and
speaks of itself as the man. It retains his memories but is only a partial and
unsatisfactory representation of him. Sometimes in spiritualistic séances one
comes into contact with an entity of this description, and wonders how it is
that one’s friend has deteriorated so much since his death. To this fragmentary
entity we give the name “shade”.
At a later
stage even this fragment of consciousness dies out of the astral body, but does
not return to the ego to whom it originally belonged.
Even then the astral corpse still remains, but when it is quite without any
trace of its former life we call it a “shell”. Of itself
a shell cannot communicate at a séance, or take any action of any sort; but
such shells are frequently seized upon by sportive nature spirits and used as
temporary habitations. A shell so occupied can communicate at a séance and
masquerade as its original owner, since some of his
characteristics and certain portions of his memory can be
evoked by the nature spirit from his astral corpse.
When a man
falls asleep, he withdraws in his astral body, leaving the whole of the
physical vehicle behind him. When he dies, he draws out with him the etheric
part of the physical body, and consequently has usually at least a moment of
unconsciousness while he is freeing himself from it. The etheric double is not
a vehicle, and cannot be used as such; so when the man is surrounded by it, he
is for the moment able to function neither in the physical world nor the
astral. Some men succeed in shaking themselves free of this etheric envelope in
a few minutes; other rest within it for hours, days or even weeks.
Nor is it
certain that, when the man is free from this, he will at once become conscious
of the astral world. For there is in him a good deal of the
lowest kind of astral matter, so that a shell of this may be made around him.
But he may be quite unable to use that matter. If he had lived a reasonably
decent life he is little in the habit of employing it or responding to its
vibrations, and he cannot instantly acquire this habit. For that reason, he may
remain unconscious until that matter gradually wears away, and some matter
which he is in the habit of using comes on the surface. Such an occlusion,
however, is scarcely ever complete, for even in the most carefully made shell
some particles of the finer matter occasionally find their way to the surface
and give him fleeting glimpses of his surroundings.
There are
some men who cling so desperately to their physical vehicles that they will not
relax their hold upon the etheric double, but strive with all their might to
retain it. They may be successful in doing so for a considerable time, but only
at the cost of great discomfort to themselves. They are shut out from both
worlds, to find themselves surrounded by a dense grey mist, through which they
see very dimly the things of the physical world, but with all
the colour gone from them. It is a terrible struggle to them to maintain
their position in this miserable condition, and yet they will not relax their
hold upon the etheric double, feeling that that is at least some sort of link
with the only world that they know. Thus they drift about in a condition of
loneliness and misery until from sheer fatigue their hold fails them, and they
slip into the comparative happiness of astral life.
Sometimes
in their desperation they grasp blindly at other bodies, and try to enter into
them, and occasionally they are successful in such an attempt. They may seize
upon a baby body, ousting the feeble personality for whom it was intended, or
sometimes they grasp even the body of an animal. All this trouble arises
entirely from ignorance, and it can never happen to anyone who understands the
laws of life and death.
When the
astral life is over, the man dies to that world in turn, and awakens in the
mental world. With him it is not at all what it is to the trained clairvoyant,
who ranges through it and lives amidst the surroundings which he finds there,
precisely as he would in the physical or astral worlds. The ordinary man has
all through his life been encompassing himself with a mass of thought-forms.
Some which are transitory, to which he pays little attention, have fallen away
from his long ago, but those which represent the main interests of his life are
always with him, and grow ever stronger and stronger. If some of these have
been selfish, their force pours down into astral matter, and he has exhausted
them during his life in the astral world. But those which are entirely
unselfish belong purely to his mental body, and so when he finds himself in the
mental world it is through these special thoughts that he is able to appreciate
it.
His mental
body is by no means fully developed; only those parts of it are really in
action to their fullest extent which he has used in this altruistic manner.
When he awakens again after the second death his first sense is one of
indescribable bliss and vitality – a feeling of such utter
joy in living that he needs for the time nothing but just to live. Such bliss
is of the essence of life in all the higher worlds of the system. Even astral
life has possibilities of happiness far greater than anything that we can know
in the dense body; but the heaven life in the mental world is out of all
proportions more blissful than the astral. In each higher world the same
experience is repeated. Merely to live in any one them seems the uttermost
conceivable bliss; and yet, when the next one is reached, it is seen that it far
surpasses the last.
Just as
the bliss increases, so does the wisdom and the breadth of view. A man fusses
about in the physical world and thinks himself so busy and so wise; but when he
touches even the astral, he realizes at once that he has been all the time only
a caterpillar crawling about and seeing nothing but his own leaf, whereas now
he has spread his wings like the butterfly and flown away into the sunshine of
a wider world. Yet, impossible as it may seem, the same experience is repeated
when he passes into the (Page 90) mental world, for this life is in turn so
much fuller and wider and more intense than the astral that once more no
comparison is possible. And yet beyond all these there is still another life,
that of the intuitional world, unto which even this is but as moonlight unto
sunlight.
The man’s
position in the mental world differs widely from that in the astral. There he
was using a body to which he was thoroughly accustomed, a body which he had
been in the habit of employing every night during sleep. Here he finds himself
living in a vehicle which he has never used before – a vehicle furthermore
which is very far from being fully developed – a vehicle which shuts him out to
a great extent from the world about him, instead of enabling him to see it.
The lower
part of his nature burnt itself away during his purgatorial life, and now there
remains to him only his higher and more refined thoughts,
the noble and unselfish aspirations which he poured out during earth life.
These
cluster round him, and make a sort of shell about him, through the medium of
which he is able to respond to certain types of vibrations in this refined
matter.
These
thoughts which surround him are the powers by which he draws upon the wealth of
the heaven-world, and he finds it to be a storehouse of infinite extent, upon
which he is able to draw just according to the power of those thoughts and
aspirations; for in this world is existing the infinite fullness of the Divine
Mind, open in all its limitless affluence to every soul, just in proportion as
that soul has qualified itself to receive. A man who has already completed his
human evolution, who has fully realized and unfolded the divinity whose germ is
within him, finds the whole of this glory within his reach; but since none of
us has yet done that, since we are only gradually rising toward that splendid
consummation, it follows that none of us as yet can grasp that entirety.
But each
draws from it and cognizes so much of it as he has by previous effort prepared
himself to take. Different individuals bring different capacities; they tell us
in the East that each man brings his own cup, and some of the cups are large
and some are small, but small or large every cup is filled to its utmost
capacity; the sea of bliss holds far more than enough for all.
A man can
look out upon this glory and beauty only through the windows which he himself
has made. Every one of these thought-forms is such a window, through which
response may come to him from the forces without. If during his earth life he
has chiefly regarded physical things, then he has made for himself but few
windows through which this higher glory can shine in upon him. Yet every man
who is above the lowest savage must have had some touch of pure unselfish
feeling, even if it were but once in all his life, and
that will be a window for him now.
The
ordinary man is not capable of any great activity in this mental world; his
condition is chiefly receptive, and his vision of anything outside his own
shell of thought is of the most limited character. He is surrounded by living
forces, mighty angelic inhabitants of this glorious world, and many of their
orders are very sensitive to certain aspirations of man and readily respond to
them. But a man can take advantage of these only in so far as he has already
prepared himself to profit by them, for his thoughts and aspirations are only
along certain lines, and he cannot suddenly form new lines. There are many
directions which the higher thought may take – some of them personal and some
impersonal.
Among the
latter are art, music and philosophy; and a man whose interest lay along any
one of these lines finds both measureless enjoyment and unlimited instruction
waiting for him – that is, the amount of enjoyment and instruction is limited
only by his power of perception.
We find a
large number of people whose only higher thoughts are those connected with
affection and devotion. If a man loves another deeply or if he feels strong
devotion to a personal deity, he makes a strong mental image of that friend or
the deity, and the object of his feeling is often present in his mind.
Inevitably
he takes that mental image into the heaven world with him, because it is to
that level of matter that it naturally belongs.Take
first the feeling of affection. The love which forms and retains such an image
is very powerful force – a force which is strong enough to reach and to act
upon the ego of his friend in the higher part of the mental world. It is that
ego that is the real man whom he loves – not the physical body which is so
partial a representation of him. The ego of the friend, feeling this vibration,
at once and eagerly responds to it, and pours himself
into the thought form which has been made for him; so that the man’s friend is
truly present with him more vividly than ever before. To this result it makes
no difference whatever whether the friend is what we call living or dead; the
appeal is made not to the fragment of the friend which is sometimes imprisoned
in a physical body, but to the man himself on his own true level; and he always
responds. A man who has a hundred friends can simultaneously and fully respond
to the affection of every one of them, for no number ofrepresentations
on a lower level can exhaust the infinity of the ego.
Thus every
man in his heaven life has around him all the friends for whose company he
wishes, and they are for him always at their best, because he himself makes for
them in the thought-form through which they manifest to him. In our limited
physical world we are so accustomed to thinking of our friend as only the
limited manifestation which we know in the physical world, that it is at first
difficult for us to realize the grandeur of the conception; when we can realize
it, we shall see how much nearer we are in truth to our friends in the heaven
life than we ever were on earth. The same is true in the case of devotion. The
man in the heaven world is two great stages nearer to the object of his
devotion than he was during physical life, and so his experiences are of a far
more transcendent character.
In this
mental world, as in the astral, there are seven subdivisions. The first, second
and third are the habitat of the ego in his causal body, so the mental body
contains matter of the remaining four only, and it is in those sections that
his heaven life is passed. Man does not, however, pass from one to the other of
these, as in the case in the astral world, for there is nothing in this life
corresponding to the rearrangement. Rather is the man drawn to the level which
best corresponds to the degree of his development, and on that level he spends
the whole of his life in the mental body. Each man makes his own conditions, so
that the number of varieties is infinite.
Speaking
broadly, we may say that the dominant characteristic observed in the lowest
portion is unselfish family affection.
Unselfish
it must be, or it would find no place here; all selfish tinges, if there were
any, worked out their results in the astral world. The dominant characteristic
of the sixth level may be said to be anthropomorphical
religious devotion; whilst that of the fifth section is devotion expressing
itself in active work of some sort. All these – the fifth, sixth and seventh
subdivisions – are concerned with the working out of devotion to personalities
(either to one’s family and friends or to a personal deity) rather than the
wider devotion to humanity for its own sake, which finds its expression in the
next section. The activities of this fourth stage are varied. They can best be
arranged in four main divisions: unselfish pursuit of spiritual knowledge; high
philosophy or scientific thought; literary or artistic ability exercised for
unselfish purposes; and service for the sake of service.
Even to
this glorious heaven life there comes an end, and then the mental body in its turn drops away as the others have done, and the
man’s life in his causal body begins. Here the man needs no windows, for this is
his true home and all his walls have fallen away. The majority of men have as
yet but very little consciousness at such a height as this; they rest dreamily
unobservant and scarcely awake, but such vision as they have is true, however
limited it may be by their lack of development. Still, every time they return,
these limitations will be smaller, and they themselves will be greater; so that
this truest life will be wider and fuller for them.
As this
improvement continues, this casual life grows longer and longer, assuming an
ever larger proportion as compared to the existence at lower
levels.
And as he
grows, the man becomes capable not only of receiving but also of giving. Then
indeed is his triumph approaching, for he is learning the lesson of the Christ,
learning the crowning glory of sacrifice, the supreme delight of pouring out
all his life for the helping of his fellow-men, the devotion of the self to the
all, of celestial strength to human service, of all those splendid heavenly
forces to the aid of the struggling sons of earth. That is part of the life
that lies before us; these are some of the steps which even we who are still so
near the bottom of the golden ladder may see rising above us, so that we may
report them to those who have not seen as yet, in order that they too may open
their eyes to the unimaginable splendor which surrounds them here and now in
this dull daily life. This is a part of the gospel of Theosophy – the certainty
of this sublime future for all. It is certain because it is here already;
because to inherit it we have only to fit ourselves for it.
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