Part 11

[31] “The phantasy,” says Olympiodorus (in Platonis Phæd.) “is an impediment to our intellectual conceptions; and hence, when we are agitated by the inspiring influence of the Divinity, if the phantasy intervenes, the enthusiastic energy ceases: for enthusiasm and the ecstasy are contrary to each other. Should it be asked whether the soul is able to energise without the phantasy, we reply, that its perception of universals proves that it is able. It has perceptions, therefore, independent of the phantasy; at the same time, however, the phantasy attends in its energies, just as a storm pursues him who sails on the sea.”

[32] Namely, the body, life, passional and animal instincts, and the astral eidolon of every man (whether perceived in thought or our mind’s eye, or objectively and separate from the physical body), which principles we call _Sthula sarira_, _Pranâ_, _Kama rupa_, and _Linga sarira_ (_vide supra_).

[33] There are five _Skandhas_ or attributes in the Buddhist teachings: “_Rupa_ (form or body), material qualities; _Vedana_, sensation; _Sanna_, abstract ideas; _Samkhara_, tendencies of mind; _Vinnana_, mental powers. Of these we are formed; by them we are conscious of existence; and through them communicate with the world about us.”

[34] By H. S. Olcott, President and Founder of the Theosophical Society. The accuracy of the teaching is sanctioned by the Rev. H. Sumangala, High Priest of the Sripada and Galle, and Principal of the _Widyodaya Parivena_ (College) at Colombo, as being in agreement with the Canon of the Southern Buddhist Church.

[35] Or the _Spiritual_, in contradistinction to the personal _Self_. The student must not confuse this Spiritual Ego with the “HIGHER SELF” which is _Atma_, the God within us, and inseparable from the Universal Spirit.

[36] Even in his _Buddhist Cathechism_, Col. Olcott, forced to it by the logic of Esoteric philosophy, found himself obliged to correct the mistakes of previous Orientalists who made no such distinction, and gives the reader his reason for it. Thus he says: “The successive appearances upon the earth, or ‘descents into generation,’ of the _tanhaically_ coherent parts (Skandhas) of a certain being are a succession of personalities. In each birth the PERSONALITY differs from that of a previous or next succeeding birth. Karma, the DEUS EX MACHINA, masks (or shall we say reflects?) itself now in the personality of a sage, again as an artisan, and so on throughout the string of births. But though personalities ever shift, the one line of life along which they are strung, like beads, runs unbroken; it is ever that _particular line_, never any other. It is therefore individual, an individual vital undulation, which began in Nirvana, or the subjective side of nature, as the light or heat undulation through æther began at its dynamic source; is careering through the objective side of nature under the impulse of Karma and the creative direction of _Tanha_ (the unsatisfied desire for existence); and leads through many cyclic changes back to Nirvana. Mr. Rhys-Davids calls that which passes from personality to personality along the individual chain ‘character,’ or ‘doing.’ Since ‘character’ is not a mere metaphysical abstraction, but the sum of one’s mental qualities and moral propensities, would it not help to dispel what Mr. Rhys-Davids calls ‘the desperate expedient of a mystery’ (_Buddhism_, p. 101) if we regarded the life-undulation as individuality, and each of its series of natal manifestations as a separate personality? The perfect individual, Buddhistically speaking, is a Buddha, I should say; for Buddha is but the rare flower of humanity, without the least supernatural admixture. And as countless generations (‘four _asankheyyas_ and a hundred thousand cycles,’ Fausboll and Rhys-Davids’ BUDDHIST BIRTH STORIES, p. 13) are required to develop a _man_ into a Buddha, and _the iron will to become one_ runs throughout all the successive births, what shall we call that which thus wills and perseveres? Character? One’s individuality: an individuality but partly manifested in any one birth, but built up of fragments from all the births?” (_Bud. Cat., Appendix_ A. 137.)

[37] MAHAT or the “Universal Mind” is the source of Manas. The latter is Mahat, _i.e._, mind, in man. Manas is also called _Kshetrajna_, “embodied Spirit,” because it is, according to our philosophy, the _Manasa-putras_, or “Sons of the Universal Mind,” who _created_, or rather produced, the _thinking_ man, “_manu_,” by incarnating in the _third Race_ mankind in our Round. It is Manas, therefore, which is the real incarnating and permanent _Spiritual Ego_, the INDIVIDUALITY, and our various and numberless personalities only its external masks.

[38] It is on this transgression that the cruel and illogical dogma of the Fallen Angels has been built. It is explained in Vol. II. of the _Secret Doctrine_. All our “Egos” are thinking and rational entities (_Manasa-putras_) who had lived, whether under human or other forms, in the precedent _life-cycle_ (Manvantara), and whose Karma it was to incarnate in the _man_ of this one. It was taught in the MYSTERIES that, having delayed to comply with this law (or having “refused to create” as Hinduism says of the _Kumaras_ and Christian legend of the Archangel Michael), _i.e._, having failed to incarnate in due time, the bodies predestined for them got defiled (Vide Stanzas VIII. and IX. in the “Slokas of Dzyan,” Vol. II. Secret Doctrine, pp. 19 and 20), hence the original sin of the senseless forms and the punishment of the _Egos_. That which is meant by the rebellious angels being hurled down into Hell is simply explained by these pure Spirits or Egos being imprisoned in bodies of unclean matter, flesh.

[39] “Verily, I say unto you, that whosoever looketh at a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matt. v., 28.)

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?