Death-and After? Part 4

THE RETURN TO EARTH.

At length the causes that carried the Ego into Devachan are exhausted, the experiences gathered have been wholly a.s.similated, and the Soul begins to feel again the thirst for sentient material life that can be gratified only on the physical plane. The greater the degree of spirituality reached, the purer and loftier the preceding earth-life, the longer the stay in Devachan, the world of spiritual, pure, and lofty effects. [I am here ignoring the special conditions surrounding one who is forcing his own evolution, and has entered on the Path that leads to Adepts.h.i.+p within a very limited number of lives.] The "average time [in Devachan] is from ten to fifteen centuries", H.P.

Blavatsky tells us, and the fifteen centuries cycle is the one most plainly marked in history.[39] But in modern life this period has much shortened, in consequence of the greater attraction exercised by physical objects over the heart of man. Further, it must be remembered that the "average time" is not the time spent in Devachan by any person. If one person spends there 1000 years, and another fifty, the "average" is 525. The devachanic period is longer or shorter according to the type of life which preceded it; the more there was of spiritual, intellectual, and emotional activity of a lofty kind, the longer will be the gathering in of the harvest; the more there was of activity directed to selfish gain on earth, the shorter will be the devachanic period.

When the experiences are a.s.similated, be the time long or short, the Ego is ready to return, and he brings back with him his now increased experience, and any further gains he may have made in Devachan along the lines of abstract thought; for, while in Devachan,

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, &c.[40]

But the Ego meets, as he crosses the threshold of Devachan on his way outwards--dying out of Devachan to be reborn on earth--he meets in the "atmosphere of the terrestrial plane", the seeds of evil sown in his preceding life on earth. During the devachanic rest he has been free from all pain, all sorrow, but the evil he did in his past has been in a state of suspended animation, not of death. As seeds sown in the autumn for the spring-time lie dormant beneath the surface of the soil, but touched by the soft rain and penetrating warmth of sun begin to swell and the embryo expands and grows, so do the seeds of evil we have sown lie dormant while the Soul takes its rest in Devachan, but shoot out their roots into the new personality which begins to form itself for the incarnation of the returning man. The Ego has to take up the burden of his past, and these germs or seeds, coming over as the harvest of the past life, are the Skandhas, to borrow a convenient word from our Buddhist brethren. They consist of material qualities, sensations, abstract ideas, tendencies of mind, mental powers, and while the pure aroma of these attached itself to the Ego and pa.s.sed with it into Devachan, all that was gross, base and evil remained in the state of suspended animation spoken of above. These are taken up by the Ego as he pa.s.ses outwards towards terrestrial life, and are built into the new "man of flesh" which the true man is to inhabit. And so the round of births and deaths goes on, the turning of the Wheel of Life; the treading of the Cycle of Necessity, until the work is done and the building of the Perfect Man is completed.

NIRVaNA.

What Devachan is to each earth-life, Nirvana is to the finished cycle of Re-incarnation, but any effective discussion of that glorious state would here be out of place. It is mentioned only to round off the "After" of Death, for no word of man, strictly limited within the narrow bounds of his lower consciousness, may avail to explain what Nirvana is, can do aught save disfigure it in striving to describe.

What it is not may be roughly, baldly stated--it is not "annihilation", it is not destruction of consciousness. Mr. A.P.

Sinnett has put effectively and briefly the absurdity of many of the ideas current in the West about Nirvana. He has been speaking of absolute consciousness, and proceeds:

We may use such phrases as intellectual counters, but for no ordinary mind--dominated by its physical brain and brain-born intellect--can they have a living signification. All that words can convey is that Nirvana is a sublime state of conscious rest in omniscience. It would be ludicrous, after all that has gone before, to turn to the various discussions which have been carried on by students of exoteric Buddhism as to whether Nirvana does or does not mean annihilation.

Worldly similes fall short of indicating the feeling with which the graduates of Esoteric Science regard such a question. Does the last penalty of the law mean the highest honour of the peerage? Is a wooden spoon the emblem of the most ill.u.s.trious pre-eminence in learning? Such questions as these but faintly symbolise the extravagance of the question whether Nirvana is held by Buddhism to be equivalent to annihilation.[41]

So we learn from the _Secret Doctrine_ that the Nirvani returns to cosmic activity in a new cycle of manifestation, and that

_The thread of radiance which is imperishable and dissolves only in Nirvana, re-emerges from it in its integrity on the day when the Great Law calls all things back into action._[42]

COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE EARTH AND OTHER SPHERES.

We are now in position to discriminate between the various kinds of communication possible between those whom we foolishly divide into "dead" and "living," as though the body were the man, or the man could die. "Communications between the embodied and the disembodied" would be a more satisfactory phrase.

First, let us put aside as unsuitable the word Spirit: Spirit does not communicate with Spirit in any way conceivable by us. That highest principle is not yet manifest in the flesh; it remains the hidden fount of all, the eternal Energy, one of the poles of Being in manifestation. The word is loosely used to denote lofty Intelligences, who live and move beyond all conditions of matter imaginable by us, but pure Spirit is at present as inconceivable by us as pure matter.

And as in dealing with possible "communications" we have average human beings as recipients, we may as well exclude the word Spirit as much as possible, and so get rid of ambiguity. But in quotations the word often occurs, in deference to the habit of the day, and it then denotes the Ego.

Taking the stages through which the living man pa.s.ses after "Death", or the shaking off of the body, we can readily cla.s.sify the communications that may be received, or the appearances that may be seen:

I. While the Soul has shaken off only the dense body, and remains still clothed in the etheric double. This is a brief period only, but during it the disembodied Soul may show itself, clad in this ethereal garment.

For a very short period after death, while the incorporeal principles remain within the sphere of our earth's attraction, it is _possible_ for spirit, under _peculiar_ and _favourable_ conditions, to appear.[43]

It makes no communications during this brief interval, nor while dwelling in this form. Such "ghosts" are silent, dreamy, like sleep-walkers, and indeed they are nothing more than astral sleep-walkers. Equally irresponsive, but capable of expressing a single thought, as of sorrow, anxiety, accident, murder, &c., are apparitions which are merely a thought of the dying, taking shape in the astral world, and carried by the dying person's will to some particular person, with whom the dying intensely longs to communicate.

Such a thought, sometimes called a Mayavi Rupa, or illusory form

_May be often thrown into objectivity, as in the case of apparitions after death; but, unless it is projected with the knowledge of (whether latent or potential), or owing to the intensity of the desire to see or appear to some one shooting through, the dying brain, the apparition will be simply automatical; it will not be due to any sympathetic attraction, or to any act of volition, any more than the reflection of a person pa.s.sing unconsciously near a mirror is due to the desire of the latter._

When the Soul has left the etheric double, shaking it off as it shook off the dense body, the double thus left as a mere empty corpse may be galvanised into an "artificial life"; but fortunately the method of such galvanisation is known to few.

II. While the Soul is in Kamaloka. This period is of very variable duration. The Soul is clad in an astral body, the last but one of its perishable garments, and while thus clad it can utilise the physical bodies of a medium, thus consciously procuring for itself an instrument whereby it can act on the world it has left, and communicate with those living in the body. In this way it may give information as to facts known to itself only, or to itself and another person, in the earth-life just closed; and for as long as it remains within the terrestrial atmosphere such communication is possible. The harm and the peril of such communication has been previously explained, whether the Lower Manas be united with the Divine Triad and so on its way to Devachan, or wrenched from it and on its way to destruction.

III. While the Soul is in Devachan, if an embodied Soul is capable of rising to its sphere, or of coming into _rapport_ with it. To the Devachani, as we have seen, the beloved are present in consciousness and full communication, the Egos being in touch with each other, though one is embodied and one is disembodied, but the higher consciousness of the embodied rarely affects the brain. As a matter of fact, all that we know on the physical plane of our friend, while we both are embodied, is the mental image caused by the impression he makes on us. This is, to our consciousness, our friend, and lacks nothing in objectivity. A similar image is present to the consciousness of the Devachani, and to him lacks nothing in objectivity. As the physical plane friend is visible to an observer on earth, so is the mental plane friend visible to an observer on that plane. The amount of the friend that ensouls the image is dependent on his own evolution, a highly evolved person being capable of far more communication with a Devachani than one who is unevolved.

Communication when the body is sleeping is easier than when it is awake, and many a vivid "dream" of one on the other side of death is a real interview with him in Kamaloka or in Devachan.

Love beyond the grave, illusion though you may call it,[44]

has a magic and divine potency that re-acts 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 s.h.i.+eld, and is not limited by s.p.a.ce or time. As with this Devachanic "mother", so with the rest of human relations.h.i.+ps and attachments, save the purely selfish or material.[45]

Remembering that a thought becomes an active ent.i.ty, capable of working good or evil, we easily see that as embodied Souls can send to those they love helping and protecting forces, so the Devachani, thinking of those dear to him, may send out such helpful and protective thoughts, to act as veritable guardian angels round his beloved on earth. But this is a very different thing from the "Spirit"

of the mother coming back to earth to be the almost helpless spectator of the child's woes.

The Soul embodied may sometimes escape from its prison of flesh, and come into relations with the Devachani. H.P. Blavatsky writes:

Whenever years after the death of a person his spirit is claimed to have "wandered back to earth" to give advice to those it loved, it is always in a subjective vision, in dream or in trance, and in that case it is the Soul of the living seer that is drawn to the _disembodied_ spirit, and not the latter which wanders back to our spheres.[46]

Where the sensitive, or medium, is of a pure and lofty nature, this rising of the freed Ego to the Devachani is practicable, and naturally gives the impression to the sensitive that the departed Ego has come back to him. The Devachani is wrapped in its happy "illusion", and

_The Souls, or astral Egos, of pure loving sensitives, labouring under the same delusion, think their loved ones come down to them on earth, while it is their own spirits that are raised towards those in the Devachan._[47]

This attraction can be exercised by the departed Soul from Kamaloka or from Devachan:

A "spirit" or the spiritual Ego, cannot _descend_ to the medium, but it can _attract_ the spirit of the latter to itself, and it can do this only during the two intervals--before and after its "gestation period". Interval the first is that period between the physical death and the merging of the spiritual Ego into that state which is known in the Arhat Esoteric Doctrine as "Bar-do". We have translated this as the "gestation period", and it lasts from a few days to several years, according to the evidence of the Adepts. Interval the second lasts so long as the merits of the old [personal] Ego ent.i.tle the being to reap the fruit of its reward in its new regenerated Egos.h.i.+p. It occurs after the gestation period is over, and the new spiritual Ego is reborn--like the fabled Phoenix from its ashes--from the old one. The locality which the former inhabits is called by the northern Buddhist Occultists "Devachan."[48]

So also may the incorporeal principles of pure sensitives be placed _en rapport_ with disembodied Souls, although information thus obtained is not reliable, partly in consequence of the difficulty of transferring to the physical brain the impressions received, and partly from the difficulty of observing accurately, when the seer is untrained.[49]

A pure medium's Ego can be drawn to and made, for an instant, to unite in a magnetic(?) relation with a real disembodied spirit, whereas the soul of an impure medium can only confabulate with the _Astral Soul_, or Sh.e.l.l, of the deceased. The former possibility explains those extremely rare cases of direct writing in recognised autographs, and of messages from the higher cla.s.s of disembodied intelligences.

But the confusion in messages thus obtained is considerable, not only from the causes above-named, but also because

Even the best and purest sensitive can at most only be placed at any time _en rapport_ with a particular spiritual ent.i.ty, and can only know, see, and feel what that particular ent.i.ty knows, sees, and feels.

Hence much possibility of error if generalisations are indulged in, since each Devachani lives in his own paradise, and there is no "peeping down to earth,"

Nor is there any _conscious_ communication with the flying Souls that come as it were to learn where the Spirits are, what they are doing, and what they think, feel, and see.

What then is being _en rapport_? It is simply an ident.i.ty of molecular vibration between the astral part of the incarnated sensitive and the astral part of the dis-incarnated personality. The spirit of the sensitive gets "odylised", so to speak, by the aura of the spirit, whether this be hybernating in the earthly region or dreaming in the Devachan; ident.i.ty of molecular vibration is established, and for a brief s.p.a.ce the sensitive becomes the departed personality, and writes in its handwriting, uses its language, and thinks its thoughts. At such times sensitives may believe that those with whom they are for the moment _en rapport_ descend to earth and communicate with them, whereas, in reality, it is merely their own spirits which, being correctly attuned to those others, are for the time blended with them.[50]

In a special case under examination, H.P. Blavatsky said that the communication might have come from an Elementary, but that it was

Far more likely that the medium's spirit really became _en rapport_ with some spiritual ent.i.ty in Devachan, the thoughts, knowledge, and sentiments of which formed the substance, while the medium's own personality and pre-existing ideas more or less governed the forms of the communication.[51]

While these communications are not reliable in the facts and opinions stated,

We would remark that it may _possibly_ be that there really is a distinct spiritual ent.i.ty impressing our correspondent's mind. In other words, there may, for all we know, be some spirit, with whom his spiritual nature becomes habitually, for the time, thoroughly harmonised, and whose thoughts, language, &c., become his for the time, the result being that this spirit seems to communicate with him.... It is possible (though by no means probable) that he habitually pa.s.ses into a state of _rapport_ with a genuine spirit, and, for the time, is a.s.similated therewith, thinking (to a great extent if not entirely) the thoughts that spirit would think, writing in its handwriting, &c. But even so, Mr. Terry must not fancy that that spirit is consciously communicating with him, or knows in any way anything of him, or any other person or thing on earth. It is simply that, the _rapport_ established, he, Mr. Terry, becomes for the nonce a.s.similated with that other personality, and thinks, speaks, and writes as it would have done on earth.... The molecules of his astral nature may from time to time vibrate in perfect unison with those of some spirit of such a person, now in Devachan, and the result may be that he appears to be in communication with that spirit, and to be advised, &c., by him, and clairvoyants may see in the Astral Light a picture of the earth-life form of that spirit.

IV. Communications other than those from disembodied Souls, pa.s.sing through normal _post mortem_ states.

(a) _From Sh.e.l.ls._ These, while but the cast-off garment of the liberated Soul, retain for some time the impress of their late inhabitant, and reproduce automatically his habits of thought and expression, just as a physical body will automatically repeat habitual gestures. Reflex action is as possible to the desire body as to the physical, but all reflex action is marked by its character of repet.i.tion, and absence of all power to initiate movement. It answers to a stimulus with an appearance of purposive action, but it initiates nothing. When people "sit for development", or when at a _seance_ they anxiously hope and wait for messages from departed friends, they supply just the stimulus needed, and obtain the signs of recognition for which they expectantly watch.

(b) _From Elementaries._ These, possessing the lower capacities of the mind, _i.e._, all the intellectual faculties that found their expression through the physical brain during life, may produce communications of a highly intellectual character. These, however, are rare, as may be seen from a survey of the messages published as received from "departed Spirits".

(c) _From Elementals._ These semi-conscious centres of force play a great part at _seances_, and are mostly the agents who are active in producing physical phenomena. They throw about or carry objects, make noises, ring bells, etc., etc. Sometimes they play pranks with Sh.e.l.ls, animating them and representing them to be the spirits of great personalities who have lived on earth, but who have sadly degenerated in the "spirit-world", judging by their effusions. Sometimes, in materialising _seances_, they busy themselves in throwing pictures from the Astral Light on the fluidic forms produced, so causing them to a.s.sume likenesses of various persons. There are also Elementals of a high type who occasionally communicate with very gifted mediums, "s.h.i.+ning Ones" from other spheres.