Theosophy - Heaven and Hell - by Alice Leighton-Cleather - A paper read before the Blavatsky Lodge of the T.S. in 1892
HEAVEN AND HELL
by Alice Leighton-Cleather, F.T.S.
[A paper read before the Blavatsky Lodge of the T.S.]
1892
reprinted from “Theosophical Siftings” - Volume - 5 -
[Page 3] THE last time I had the honour of opening the discussion
for the Lodge, it fell to my lot to endeavour to trace the
septenary nature of consciousness in man as in the universe;
and curiously enough our subject for this evening will also
resolve itself into terms of consciousness, as I think we
shall find, when we come to enquire briefly into the nature
and origin of the two poles or aspects of consciousness commonly
termed heaven and hell.
In elucidating the subject, I propose to first examine a
few of the various meanings attached to these terms in the
exoteric books of ancient religions, before coming to more
modern times, and finally to Madame Blavatsky's own teachings
on the states called heaven and hell; teachings which show,
I think, at least one very vital point of difference from
anything definite that can be found in the recorded utterances
of other and older teachers who have preceded her, although
it often seems hinted at; only the key is needed, and then
the reading between the lines shines out clear and unmistakable.
First, then, let us turn back to the ancient Scriptures
of India, the "sacred books of the East" (how ancient
we can scarcely realize); we therein find Manu enumerating
twenty-one hells, or places of torture to which the souls
of the wicked were sent, Naraka being the term used for hell;
and observe, in passing, that we have in the number twenty-one
a multiple of that ever-present and mysterious factor, the
number seven. The Vishnu Purâna, in which the word
Pâtâla stands for hell, gives seven hells, with
their respective names and inhabitants; but as these names
vary in different authorities, to give any detailed catalogue
of them would merely result in confusion, the Sanskrit terms
being as a rule somewhat stiff and unfamiliar to Western
ears. It will, however, prove interesting to notice one or
two points, especially in the enumeration of the seven infernal
regions and their respective rulers, as given in the Padma
Purâna; for instance, the first hell is said to be
subject to Mahâ-Mâyâ, which literally translated
means "great illusion", or delusion; from "Mahâ", great,
and "Mâyâ", illusion. [Page 4] Surely
this, if it has any meaning, is a term of consciousness;
and we find Mâyâ, again, given as the ruler of
the fourth hell, thus carrying on the idea that these hells
are probably intended to symbolize states of consciousness
resulting from illusion.
In the Shiva Purâna eight hells are given, and we
are told that "the sage Narada paid a visit to these
regions, and on his return to the skies gave a most glowing
account of them, declaring them to be far more delightful
than Indra's heaven, and abounding with every kind of luxury
and sensual gratification". [Dowson’s Classical
Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, etc.] This, I
venture to think, scarcely conveys the idea of a place of
punishment, torture, or torment.
Another term much used in these classifications is the word
Loka, which appears to stand variously for a division of
the universe, a world, or a place merely. In general the
Tri-loka, or three worlds, are heaven, earth, and hell; and
this division seems more nearly to resemble (or prefigure)
the modern idea of heaven, purgatory, and hell; a triple
division. Again another classification gives seven Lokas — exclusive
of the infernal regions, which are also given as seven in
number and classed under Pâtâla — and in
a description of the inhabitants of the seven Upper Worlds,
or Lokas, we find the fifth to be the abode of Brahmâ's
sons, Sanaka, Sananda, and Sanat-Kumâra. [Students
of the Secret Doctrine will be interested in comparing what
is there stated to be, the, real meaning and functions of
these sons of Brahmâ — and also of the sage Narada — with
the exoteric accounts of them to be found in the Purânas] The seventh or highest Loka is described
as the abode of Brahma himself, and translation to this world exempts beings
from further birth, which in Theosophical phraseology would
mean that the Nirvanees inhabit this region, those who when
offered the "Great Choice" elect selfish bliss
and "entire oblivion of the world of men for ever", [Voice
of the Silence, H.P. Blavatsky] rather than selfless and
unceasing toil for struggling Humanity.
The Sânkhya and Vedânta schools of philosophy
recognize, I believe, eight Lokas, or regions of material
existence; which recall the allusions to the mysterious eighth
sphere in Mr. Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism.
We will now pass without present further comment to an examination
of the conceptions held on this subject by the ancient Egyptians,
who also taught a threefold division of the other worlds: — Amenti,
or Hades; Karr, or Hell; and Elysium, or Heaven. Amenti with
them signified "the Dark", "the Secret Place", "the
Land of no return", "the House with no exit";
to quote the words of a translation made by [Page 5] Lepsius
from a papyrus: — "The Amenti is a land of heavy
sleep and darkness; a house of grief for those who stay there;
they sleep in incorruptible forms, they walk not to see their
brethren, they no more recognize father and mother, their
hearts have no more feeling towards their wife and children.
This is the dwelling of a god named All-Dead; he calls everybody
to him, and all have to submit trembling before his anger.
Great and little are the same to him. Each trembles to pray
to him, for he hears not. Nobody can praise him, for he pays
no regard to those who adore him. He notices no offering
that any may bring to him". [Bonwick’s Egyptian
Belief and Modern Thought] What a terribly graphic picture
these words of an ancient record bring before our minds of
the inevitableness, the silence, the almost despair, of the
dwelling-place of the god named All-Dead. This sort of Amenti
is, however, more after the character of the Jewish Sheol (to which I shall presently refer), a region
of stillness and inactivity. Other accounts give the active side, in which
it is recognized as being simply the continuation of this
life after death. As Bonwick says: — "The departed
were not, as with us moderns, something removed out of sight,
to be mourned over awhile, and then almost forgotten, as
not being of us. . . . Hades, the Amenti, was only the other
side of the river, it was near at hand. . . . Upon removal
from this earth the man at once enters upon a fresh series
of mental conflicts" (note the term, mental conflicts).' "He
is confronted by dangers, and tortured by demons: the whole
story is one of trial. The Ritual [of the Book of the Dead] lays down the procedure most
clearly. There must be suffering for expiation of guilt. There must be tests to bring out
the character". And here I would suggest that if the
framers of the Ritual had nothing more in their minds than
states or places after death, it surely seems strange that
these tests to bring out the character should, be kept for
a post-mortem condition; and — inferentially, at least — not
imposed during earth-life.
Elysium, or heaven, the Egyptians termed "the kingdom
of the blessed"; and there was a gate by which souls
ascended to it from Hades, called Ammah. This Elysium is
described as a condition of the most perfect bliss and happiness,
where dwell the souls of the blessed; not apparently, however,
in the repose of idleness, for Lenormant makes the following
interesting observations on the sixth chapter of the Ritual
of the Dead (which bears upon the state of Elysium): — "It
is there that we learn that knowledge is as necessary as
virtue to obtain the happy destination of the human soul;
and the work of the soul, it may be in this life, it may
be in the other, it, ought to accomplish, in [Page 6] order
to acquire knowledge, has for its symbol the exercise of
agriculture. Knowledge is food for the soul, as barley for
the nourishment of the body. One obtains barley only by sowing
grain in the earth, and in reaping while it is ripe the new
harvest produced by the seed. It is by a series of similar
operations that the soul must pass to procure knowledge,
the condition of happiness".
The Egyptian hell, or Karr, consisted of ten halls, or fourteen
abodes, and was in no want of flames; indeed I must confess
that until I came to look this subject up, I really had no
idea how much similarity there is between the traditional
hell of the middle ages, with all its accompanying crude
horrors, horned devils with pitchforks, various instruments
of torture, etc., and the Egyptian hell; the resemblance
is almost absurdly accurate, even to minor details. In the
Egyptian hell it was that the god Ra was to be seen as "Lord
of the Furnace", and a record of the eighteenth dynasty
says of some one, "He shall be miserable in the heat
of infernal fires"; while there are perfectly awful
pictures drawn of devils thrusting bad Egyptians into hell.
Another record describes the place as "the bottomless
pit" and "the lake of fire", terms doubtless
sufficiently familiar to many of us who have received the
orthodox Christian education! Devils, too, figure largely
in the scene, "they move about with instruments of torture,
bastinadoing, cutting, burning, boiling, beating, or tearing
hearts and tongues out" — truly infernal employments,
which sufficiently and graphically foreshadow similar performances
recorded of the infamous Torquemada and his myrmidons.
It is significant to find allusions even to final annihilation,
to which Mariette Bey refers when he says: "For these
a second death, that is to say a definitive annihilation,
is reserved". Indeed annihilation appears to furnish
the subject of many prayers, e.g., " Let me not be annihilated";
and Lenormant asserts that the wicked "before being
annihilated, are condemned to suffer a thousand tortures,
and, under the form of an evil spirit, to return here and
disturb men, and exert themselves for their injury", adding
that "annihilation of being was held by the Egyptians
as being the punishment reserved for the wicked". Recent
Theosophic teaching on this terrible doctrine of final annihilation
will here furnish the needed clue, the state described being
of course that in which the Higher Ego breaks off from the
hopelessly debased-lower personality entirely, and that man
becomes a soulless being. Than this I cannot conceive of
any more terrible form of annihilation — absolute annihilation
from the point of view of the Higher. [Page 7]
I have been
unable to collect very much information as to the Babylonian
tenets on heaven and hell; the god Hea and his wife were
said to preside over their Hades, as Osiris and Isis did
over the Egyptian. The Bit-edie, or "House of Eternity", as
it was called, had seven spheres, realized in their seven
stages of towers which showed, or rather exemplified, the
seven stages of progressive existence in Hades. From this
idea of progression we may infer, I think, that post-mortem states were not looked upon as in any sense final.
The Zoroastrian, and its later form the Mazdean religion,
next claims notice, which very distinctly teaches that it
is only in heaven and hell that the righteous and the wicked
will have their recompense and their punishment. The adventures
of the soul after death form the favourite subject of the
descriptions of the Mazdean — or Mazdayasnian — literature,
and may be found in the Avesta. Immediately after death the
soul, separated from, though still near, its former tenement
the body, lives over again in review all the past actions
of its life; this apparently continues for three days, on
the fourth it is said to "quit its place". [The
Philosophy of the Mazdayasnian Religion under the Sassanids,
translated from the French of L.C. Casartelli.] in the act
of doing which it sees advancing towards it an embodiment
of its good thoughts, words, and deeds, if the past life
has been that of a good man, or of its evil ones, if that
of a bad man. The interview, which is described at some length,
between the soul and, so to say, its own creation takes place
close to the bridge of Chinvat, called "The Bridge of
the Soul"; here the good and evil of the soul's past
life are weighed in the balance for judgment, upon the character
of the past life depending the soul's easy or difficult passage
over this bridge. The souls whose sins exceed their good
deeds are said to go to hell, while those whose good deeds
predominate go to heaven. This heaven is described as surrounding "the
whole creation, just as the egg surrounds the bird";
it is of a triple nature, and above it again is the supreme
heaven, dwelling of God and of the good spirits. Hell is
also said to be triple, and there are three primary hells
and a yet deeper place, from whence groans and cries come
up from tormented souls; and although the souls are figured
as standing as close to each other "as the ear is to
the eye, " yet each soul thinks, "I am quite alone" — a
most graphic touch.
These hells are not represented as being eternal, but as
to be finally destroyed, for Praise be to Him, "cry
out the faithful , "who makes the final retribution .
.. . . and who will at the end deliver the wicked from hell,
and restore the whole creation to purity. [Page 8]
I think
we may fairly gather from much of the foregoing, that scarcely one idea on this subject appearing in the teachings
of modern religions can be said to be actually new; the older
philosophies are found to contain them all, of course under
varying forms, suited to their surroundings, and the state
of civilization of the times in which they flourished.
Turning next to the teachings of Confucius, we find in his
canonical works — the Yê-King, I believe, is the
one — that Tien, or heaven, is spoken of in the same
terms as the Supreme Being, as pervading the universe and
awarding moral retribution; sometimes, however, the term
is applied to the visible sky only. Heaven and earth, it
is said, produced man, but the work was incomplete, men were
to be taught the principles of reason, which heaven and earth
could not do. The work of the sages was equally great, so
therefore heaven, earth, and the sages form a triad of powers
equal among themselves. In fact, the Chinese division of
human knowledge is into heaven, earth, and man.
This, read in the light of the Secret Doctrine, is most
explicit, especially when it is added that Confucius taught
virtue to be rewarded and vice punished in the individuals,
or in their posterity, on earth; which, by the way, would
be a most unjust proceeding if this word posterity be not
here taken to mean themselves, reincarnated. Very little
definite teaching is given of any post-mortem states, hence
the charge of materialism often brought against the teachings
of Confucius.
Sir John Davis, writing on China in 1857, says that the
hell of the Chinese Buddhists may be very well described
from a translation — made by Dr. Morrison — of the
explanatory letterpress of ten large woodcuts which are exhibited
in the temples on certain occasions. According to this account, " Prior
to their final condemnation the souls are exposed to judgment
in the courts of She-ming-wâng ('the ten kings of darkness').
The proceedings in these courts are represented exactly after
the manner of the Chinese judicial trials, with the difference
in punishments, which in these pictures of the infernal regions
are of course sufficiently appalling. In one view are seen
the judge with his attendants and officers of the court,
to whom the merciful goddess Kwân-yin appears, in order
to save from punishment a soul that is condemned to be pounded
in a mortar. (!) Other punishments consist of sawing asunder,
tying to a burning pillar of brass, etc.; liars have their
tongues cut out; thieves and robbers are cast upon a hill
of knives, and so on. After the trials are over, the more
eminently good ascend to Paradise; the middling class return
to earth to other bodies, to enjoy riches and honour; while
the wicked are [Page 9] tormented in hell, or transformed
into various animals whose dispositions and habits they imitated
during their past lives". [China, etc, by Sir John
Francis Davis. 2 Vols. 1857] All which inevitably suggests
the idea that hell and earth life may have been considered
as synonymous.
The Greek conceptions of post-mortem states must be sufficiently
familiar to you, as also the fact that it is their Hades,
or "place of the departed", which has been rendered "hell" in
many passages in our translation of the New Testament. Indeed,
I would refer you to an article in the Nineteenth Century for October last, on "Ancient Beliefs in a Future State", in
which Mr. Gladstone enters very fully into the ideas held
by the Greeks on this subject. It is easier, however, to
show that the Greeks had definite conceptions of heaven and
hell than it is to prove that the Jews possessed any. Their
word translated hell comes, I believe, from a root meaning "to
hide", so that the original sense would be "the
hidden or secret place"; it serves as the translation
of the two words Sheol and Gehenna; the latter, I am told,
being the Greek form of the Hebrew Gehinnom, the valley of
Hinnom, the dark gorge on the west side of Jerusalem, where
was the furnace (Topheth) through which children were passed "through
the fire to Moloch," and in which persons convicted
of aggravated wilful murder were put to death. Hence it was
synonymous with "a place of torment" — "hell
fire," in fact. [Matt. v. 22]
Sheol is rendered, in several passages in the Old Testament, [Genesis xlii,
38, and xliv 31. I
Kings ii 9, Job xvii, 13 and 19.
Psalms xlix, 15 and lxxxix, 46, Isaiah xiv, 9 and 11.] in
the sense of the invisible state of the dead, "the place
and state of those who are hidden, or sought after". As
a place beyond the tomb it is distinguished from Queber,
which is the burial place of the body. That Sheol was not
looked upon by the Jews as an exactly desirable place may
be inferred from the passage where the Psalmist exultantly
sings: "Thou didst not leave my soul in hell". Any
conception that the Jews may have had of a pleasurable state
after death was of a purely material character, a place in
which the soul was delighted by gardens and orchards, similar
to Eden, but which they called Paradis. [Nehemiah ii,
8 and Eccles, ii. 5] This name has, however, no Hebrew root,
so we may conclude that the idea was borrowed from some older
religion, probably the Persian or Assyrian. The only heaven — Shemmin — of
which they had formed any idea was that expanse which divided "the
waters from the waters" (Genesis i. 6 and 7), and to
which the Psalmist refers in the passage, [Page 10] "Praise
the Lord, O ye heavens, and ye waters that are above the
heavens". The word firmament — Rakìo — in
the Hebrew is evidently intended to refer to a solid expanse
capable of supporting waters or seas above it. It had gates,
and stars in it, as well as the sun and moon, and its movements
were supposed to carry these bodies along; it was further
supposed to have three planes, or divisions, by which it
may be presumed that they accounted for the different motions
of the sun, moon, and stars. But this evidently could not
have been a place for departed souls.
The Mohammedan ideas on the states after death are, if possible,
still more material. From Sale's translation of the Korân,
I find that Mohammed taught an intermediate state both of
soul and body, as also of a heaven and hell; but the descriptions
given are really so ludicrous that it is quite impossible
to quote at any length from them, suffice it to say that
the crassest materialism reigns supreme, all the images used
in describing both heaven and hell, with their various denizens,
being taken from purely physical material existence — a
mere reproduction of earth-life, in fact, and that in the
most grossly material sense of the term.
The early church Fathers seem to have held varied opinions
on the intermediate post-mortem state. Chrysostom wrote: "The
very apostles and patriarchs are not yet crowned"; and
Ambrose: "The judgment is not at once after death". Several
of the Fathers call it Paradise; and Basil refers to "Heaven
and Paradise." The Council of Florence in 1439 even
declared that the just were "received presently into
heaven".
It is of course needless to refer in detail to the current
orthodox Christian teachings, either of the Roman, Greek,
or Protestant churches, on these post-mortem states. Equally
familiar must Dante's Divine Comedy be to most; but, as it
is possible that Swedenborg's book, the title of which is
identical with the subject for our discussion this evening,
may be unknown to some present, I would just draw your attention
to the fact that from Swedenborg's eminently mystic teachings
on the true nature of heaven and hell, we learn that we are
not separated from heaven "by distance of place, but
only by condition of state" Heaven, he says, is as near
to the heavenly as the soul is to the body; and in a note
to paragraph 191 of the Rev. T. Hartley's translation of
Heaven and Hell (printed in 1778), we find the following
concerning space in heaven: "Places and spaces in the
Word, signify states of life. .... Motion and changes of
place in the spiritual world are changes of the state of
life"; and again (paragraph 193), he says: "Changes
of place [Page 11] being" only change of state . . .
hence . . . those are near to each other who are in a similar
state, and distant, who are in a dissimilar state; and that
spaces in heaven are merely external states corresponding
to internal . . ." and so forth.
You may perhaps remember that our own poet, Milton has,
in Paradise Lost, the following suggestive lines: —
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, or Hell of Heav'n;
— a view which bears a strong resemblance to Swedenborg's
ideas upon the subject.
Upon the Norse Edda or Scandinavian mythology; and the great
epic poem of Finland, the Kalevala; and many others, we have
no time to touch; and indeed it would prove but a wearisome
repetition of the same root ideas, bearing a greater or less
resemblance to each other, according to the character of
the people, and the times, which gave birth to the particular
form of religion or philosophy best suited to express their
own genius and evolution.
And now let us, at this point, ask ourselves what may be
the real meaning of much that at first sight must appear
as almost childishly absurd, in these endless repetitions
of hells, heavens, and purgatories; with their, divisions
and subdivisions, their rulers and various inhabitants, and
the more or less appropriate tortures, penances; and employments
indulged in and imposed upon the dwellers in these regions
of departed souls. From the Theosophic standpoint I would
answer that I cannot for a moment believe it to be possible
that the older Eastern philosophies and religions are intended
to be accepted, or read, in the dead-letter sense of their
sacred books; for it must surely be unmistakably clear to
us, as students of the Secret Doctrine that beneath all this
apparently unnecessary, often meaningless jumble, there lies
concealed a profoundly philosophical conception of the states
of the soul after death — and indeed for that matter,
during life, incarcerated in the flesh — and that these
oft-repeated enumerations of places, etc., are simply intended
to symbolize varying states of consciousness, experienced
either during life, or upon the dissolution of the body.
In Fitzgerald's well-known and incomparable translation
of the poem known to us as The Rubáiyát of
Omar Khayyám — the work of the astronomer-poet
of Persia in the first quarter of our twelfth century — there
occur the following remarkable verses:
I sent my soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that after-life to spell:
And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answer'd, "I myself am Heav'n and Hell";
Heaven but the vision of fulfill'd Desire,
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
So late emerg'd from, shall so soon expire.
[Page 12] Upon
that darkness the teachings of Madame Blavatsky have indeed, for us, shed a great light; but Omar's highly
metaphysical conception: — "I myself am Heav'n
and Hell", may very well be taken, I think, as the key-note
of the whole Theosophic teaching on this subject — states
of consciousness, neither more nor less. It has always seemed
to me that the words of Jesus of Nazareth, "The kingdom
of heaven is within you", have never had sufficient
stress laid upon them in this connection, for precisely the
same conclusion may surely logically be drawn therefrom.
The point I now wish specially to bring before you, as showing
wherein Theosophical teachings differ materially from those
of contemporary religions, is this: that whereas heaven,
although not a final condition, as will be seen on further
examination, can be looked upon as a post-mortem state of
consciousness, there is no hell recognized for man but such
states as can be, and are, experienced on earth here and
now. In the Glossary to The Seven Portals, one of the fragments
from The Book of the Golden Precepts, Madame Blavatsky says: "Myalba
is our earth, pertinently called 'hell', and the greatest
of all hells, by the esoteric school. The esoteric doctrine
knows of no hell or place of punishment other than a man-bearing
planet or earth", and in the Secret Doctrine we find
her using the terse but forcible phrase: "the infernal
regions, our earth". It seems therefore very evident
that if all the hells recognized by the esoteric doctrine
are "man-bearing planets or earths", such a state,
or states, of consciousness clearly cannot be post mortem;
and indeed this is very plainly laid down in The Key to Theosophy,
where the Ego is spoken of as being cast down from Devachan,
a state of bliss and enjoyment, into hell again, there, or
rather here, to suffer in another body. To quote the words
of the Key: "We do not admit of any punishment outside
of this earth . . . (for) crimes and sins committed on a
plane of objectivity and in a world of matter, cannot receive
punishment in a world of pure subjectivity." Do we not
obtain a hint of this in the story told in the Shiva Purâna of the sage Narada, which I have already quoted; and also,
again, in the teachings of Confucius?
I fancy no thinking person will dispute the fact, recognized
as such by Milton, that we do indeed make our own hell or
heaven. Truly so, and we may realize the various gradations
of misery, or hells, in our [Page 13] own persons during
any one lifetime; and over and over again, through many lives
it may be, if we persist in creating the appropriate conditions,
by reckless pursuit of pleasure or gain for self, regardless
of the happiness and well-being of our other selves, our
brothers and sisters, whom we cannot injure or neglect without
its sooner or later reacting on ourselves. Is not remorse,
too, a veritable hell? And has not the phrase, "the
hell of fruitless longing and of unsatisfied desire", become
quite a commonplace in literature? Yes, indeed, we are in
hell whenever we suffer misery or unhappiness; and there
surely can be no hell other than a man-bearing planet, for
it is difficult to conceive of any place, the present conditions
of which are more suited to produce the deepest possible
hell than this earth; the lowest of our chain of seven globes.
There, is yet another aspect to this question, and one which
touches us very nearly as thinking, responsible beings. This
is the fact that if —as the Esoteric Philosophy teaches — our
thoughts are living, though invisible, things, each endowed
with a separate life of its own, a life longer or shorter
in proportion to the intensity of the initial mental impulse
that gave it birth; then it inexorably follows that we must
each one of us perforce aid in creating, a hell (or heaven — but
this, alas! more rarely) not only for ourselves, but also
for our fellow-men. A hell invisible, it is true, yet none
the less real — a hell the character of whose denizens
must often be most terrible in its influence on, and consequences
to, sensitive and mediumistic natures. Doubtless it is to
these unseen dwellers in our mental atmosphere that allusion
is made in The Seven Portals (already mentioned) where the
candidate for initiation is adjured to "harmless make
thy own creations, the children of thy thoughts, unseen,
impalpable, that swarm round humankind", etc. [The
Voice of the Silence, p 55]
I venture to submit that a study of our prisons and lunatic
asylums, on these lines, would throw considerable light on
many vexed, and hitherto insoluble social problems; such
a study would as surely lead us to some terrible conclusions,
but could only serve to deepen; and intensify a hundredfold
the sense of the very grave and responsible position in which
we all of us stand — in regard to our thoughts — towards
our fellows.
Before considering briefly the Devachanic state of consciousness
it may be as well to mention, for the sake of those who are
unfamiliar with our teachings, that when the separation of
the principles takes place at death, it is — roughly
speaking — the three higher which go into Devachan, while
the four lower remain on earth, passing into other [Page
14] forms, and states of latency or activity; but eventually
gathering together to form the materials for the building
up of the next vehicle to be inhabited by the returning Devachanic
entity, the reincarnating principle.
The state of Devachan I will take to be synonymous with
heaven, in the sense ordinarily attached to the term. In
the Key to Theosophy it is called "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". And its bliss
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". How indeed could it be otherwise? For if the
Devachanic condition implied one of knowledge, or of omniscience
even in a limited sense, then — as Mrs. Besant once declared
from this platform — "all heaven would soon be moving
hellwards", and any state of bliss would be rendered
absolutely impossible, in view of the helpless misery and
sufferings of those left behind, and whom the soul had loved,
on earth. On the contrary, the Devachanee "lives throughout
long centuries an existence of unalloyed happiness", and
this "intermediate cycle between two incarnations is
one in which the soul is surrounded by everything it had
aspired to in vain, and in the companionship of every one
it loved on earth".
So then, we find after death no hell awaiting the soul,
but only heaven; rest and peace in an intensely vivid though
absolutely subjective state of consciousness. As Madame Blavatsky
says: "All such undying and eternal qualities as love
and mercy, the love of the good, the true, and the beautiful,
that ever spoke in the heart of the living personality, cling
after death to the Ego, and therefore follow it to Devachan", where
it is, for the time being, "the ideal reflection of
the personality that was".
This condition, or state of consciousness, is, however,
as said, but a period of rest between two incarnations, by
no means a final state; and in this again, we find another
vital difference between the Theosophic and all other contemporaneous
teaching on the states of the soul after death. Devachan
is often called a world of effects, the result of causes started here on earth, towards which the Ego is once more
drawn when those effects — experienced in the Devachanic
condition — are exhausted.
But I do not think that we must, or indeed can, draw too
hard and fast a line between the states of consciousness
that it is possible to experience during earth-life, and
the Devachanic states. For a spiritual, pure-minded person — and
indeed for most of us in our best [Page 15] and highest
moments — I believe it to be quite possible to enter
the Devachanic state of consciousness while in the body.
May we not, relatively, be said to enter heaven — the
very highest — when we renounce something, it may be
great, it may be little, that matters not, for the sake of
another? give up, that others may benefit by our self-denial,
our self-sacrifice ?
It is noteworthy to find the recurrence of the number seven
and its multiples, in the enumeration of the hells and heavens
in the ancient Hindu and other Scriptures; for Theosophy
teaches us that the states of consciousness are seven in
number, these being subdivided again almost indefinitely,
keeping always to the sevenfold classification and analogy.
Of these seven primary states of consciousness the lowest
one is given as the ordinary normal waking state (Jagrat),
and we are bound to infer a wide range of minor states of
consciousness, included under this term; such indeed as we
actually find to be the fact. We are continually shifting
our states of consciousness, "moods" we call them,
happy, unhappy, depressed, elated, miserable, wretched, and
so forth; and even when we close our eyes in sleep and enter
the world of dreams (Svapna, the dreaming state of consciousness),
we carry with us the impressions and experiences of waking
life, and live over again in the dream-world familiar and
often long-forgotten scenes.
Now there yet remains a view of the question which I have
purposely left for our consideration to the last, as being
in reality the most important of all. This is the fact, given
as such in the teachings of Eastern Esotericism, that all the states of consciousness included under the terms heaven
and hell are the result of illusion — Mahâ-Mâyâ,
the great illusion — for even in Devachan, where every
man has his paradise around him, this paradise is said to
be erected by his own consciousness. Nor is this any new
idea, for allusion to it is to be found in so old a book
as the Mahâbhârata. There, Yudhishtíra,
after enduring numerous trials and emerging victorious from
them all; after the final supreme test — in which he
conquers by refusing to abide with his foes in heaven, electing
rather to share the fate of his friends in hell — he
is shown that the whole of the scenes through which he has
passed are but the effect of Mâyâ, or illusion.
And in the Bhagavad Gîtâ, a portion of the same
great drama, Krishna teaches Arjuna that above those places
to which "the self within" goes when the body is
dissolved, is that place "from which" — to
quote from Mr. Judge's edition — "those who there
take refuge never more return to rebirth, for it is the primeval
spirit, from which floweth the never-ending stream of conditioned
existence ..... Neither the sun nor the moon nor the [Page
16] fire enlighteneth that place; from it there is no return;
it is my supreme abode". It is, in truth, that Nirvanic
condition which is so infinitely higher and more sublime
a state of consciousness than the Devachanic state; and "to
be fitted for which the soul must have lost entirely every
desire or possibility of the world's illusions". In
Nirvâna the purified individual consciousness is fully
blended with the universal consciousness, "It is my
supreme abode", says Krishna. We cannot even faintly
conceive what such a glorified, beatific state may be, limited
and conditioned as are our conscious Egos ("the Watcher
and the Silent Thinker" within) by the brain-consciousness
of the body, and its five senses or avenues of sensation.
Krishna, teaching Arjuna of the after-states of the soul,
describes Devachan as being "the spotless spheres of
those who are acquainted with the highest place", and
says that "the man whose devotion has been broken off
by death goeth to the regions of the righteous, where he
dwells for an immensity of years, and is then born again
on earth in a pure and fortunate family . . ." for "never
to an evil place goeth one who doeth good". To this
place, this "spotless sphere", goes "the self
within". when the body is dissolved at such time as
the Sattva quality prevails; and as this quality, of the
nature of light or truth, is said (by reason of its "lucidity
and peacefulness") to "entwine the soul to rebirth
through attachment to knowledge and that which is pleasant", the
state of Devachan clearly cannot be identical with Nirvana,
from which no return — to earth-life — is possible
for those who have fully entered it.
Yet there are those, Nirmanakayas the Esoteric Philosophy
calls them, Who although They have won the right to enter
Nirvâna, Who are past all illusion, and for Whom therefore
the comparatively selfish bliss of Devachan is not possible; Who having, through unimaginable sufferings and
by Their own personal exertions, won vast knowledge and power which
lifts Them high above the world of mortals — do yet choose,
of Their own free will, and out of Their divine compassion
for this world of suffering men, to renounce Their glorious
birthright; deeming "it a selfish act to rest in bliss
while all mankind groans under the burden of misery produced
by ignorance", and electing to toil till every child
of man is emancipated from its yoke. This is "The Great
Renunciation", one which it is absolutely impossible
for us to adequately understand or appreciate; to gauge its
immensity, to measure the heights and depths of its divine
love and pity, we must be able to realize what it is these
great ones have renounced, and this we cannot do, it is entirely
beyond the possibility of our conception. [Page
17]
Surely,
however, the little that we can understand places before us a sufficiently high ideal? A higher than
this I do not believe man can conceive of; yet it is one
which we, here and now, can begin to try and follow, though
it may be but afar off; for in acts of renunciation and deeds
of compassion, often repeated, daily and hourly, till the
inner attitude of renunciation for the sake of others becomes
the keynote of our lives — surely even we may begin to
tread that "small old Path which leadeth far away". It
is absolutely and entirely in our own hands. "The kingdom
of heaven is within you", said Jesus; and that now is
the appointed time, now is the day of salvation", is
most inexorably true. There is, there can be no other time;
the past has gone for ever, the future — as such — exists
but in imagination; for, in the words of a sage — known,
says Madame Blavatsky, only to a few Occultists — "The
present is the child of the past; the future the begotten
of the present. And yet, O present moment! knowest thou not
that thou hast no parent, nor canst thou have a child; that
thou art ever begetting but thyself! Before thou hast even
begun to say, 'I am the progeny of the departed moment, the
child of the past', thou hast become that past itself. Before
thou utterest the last syllable, behold thou art no more
the present but verily the future. Thus are the past, the
present and the future; the ever-living Trinity in One" [Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, p 446] — the
eternal Now.
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