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to regulate the separation of the lower from the higher principles: the
Soul, as Nephesh, the breath of animal life, which remains for a time in
Kamaloka, from the higher compound Ego, which goes into the state of
Devachan, or bliss.)
For this reason she is called Monogenes, only begotten, or rather begetting
one alone; for the better part of man becomes alone when it is separated by
her. Now both the one and the other happens thus according to nature. It is
ordained by Fate (Fatum or Karma) that every soul, whether with or without
understanding (mind), when gone out of the body, should wander for a time,
though not all for the same, in the region lying between the earth and moon
(Kamaloka). For those that have been unjust and dissolute suffer then the
punishment due to their offenses; but the good and virtuous are there
detained till they are purified, and have, by expiation, purged out of them
all the infections they might have contracted from the contagion of the
body, as if from foul health, living in the mildest part of the air, called
the Meadows of Hades, where they must remain for a certain prefixed and
appointed time. And then, as if they were returning from a wandering
pilgrimage or long exile into their country, they have a taste of joy, such
as they principally receive who are initiated into Sacred Mysteries, mixed
with trouble, admiration, and each one's proper and peculiar hope.
This is Nirvanic bliss, and no Theosophist could describe in plainer though
esoteric language the mental joys of Devachan, where every man has his
paradise around him, erected by his consciousness. But you must beware of
the general error into which too many even of our Theosophists fall. Do not
imagine that because man is called septenary, then quintuple and a triad, he
is a compound of seven, five, or three entities; or, as well expressed by a
Theosophical writer, of skins to be peeled off like the skins of an onion.
The principles, as already said, save the body, the life, and the astral
eidolon, all of which disperse at death, are simply aspects and states of
consciousness. There is but one real man, enduring through the cycle of life
and immortal in essence, if not in form, and this is Manas, the Mind-man or
embodied Consciousness. The objection made by the materialists, who deny the
possibility of mind and consciousness acting without matter is worthless in
our case. We do not deny the soundness of their argument; but we simply ask
our opponents,
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The Key To Theosophy - HP Blavatsky.txt
Are you acquainted with all the states of matter, you who knew hitherto but
of three? And how do you know whether that which we refer to as absolute
consciousness or Deity forever invisible and unknowable, be not that which,
though it eludes forever our human finite conception, is still universal
Spirit-matter or matter-Spirit in its absolute infinitude?
It is then one of the lowest, and in its manvantaric manifestations
fractioned-aspects of this Spirit-matter, which is the conscious Ego that
creates its own paradise, a fool's paradise, it may be, still a state of
bliss.
Q. But what is Devachan?
A. The "land of gods" literally; a condition, a state of mental bliss.
Philosophically a mental condition analogous to, but far more vivid and real
than, the most vivid dream. It is the state after death of most mortals.
On the Various Postmortem States
The Physical and the Spiritual Man
Q. I am glad to hear you believe in the immortality of the Soul.
A. Not of "the Soul," but of the divine Spirit; or rather in the immortality
of the reincarnating Ego.
Q. What is the difference?
A. A very great one in our philosophy, but this is too abstruse and
difficult a question to touch lightly upon. We shall have to analyze them
separately, and then in conjunction. We may begin with Spirit.
We say that the Spirit (the "Father in secret" of Jesus), or Atma, is no
individual property of any man, but is the Divine essence which has no body,
no form, which is imponderable, invisible and indivisible, that which does
not exist and yet is, as the Buddhists say of Nirvana. It only overshadows
the mortal; that which enters into him and pervades the whole body being [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]