{ "meta": { "schema_version": "1.1", "endpoint": "/api/sources/ancient-wisdom/06-chapter-v.json" }, "work": { "slug": "ancient-wisdom", "name": "Ancient Wisdom" }, "parents": [], "chapter": { "num": 7, "slug": "06-chapter-v", "title": "CHAPTER V.", "of": 12, "words": 11262, "text": "## CHAPTER V.\n\nDevachan.\n\nThe word Devachan is the theosophical name for\nheaven, and, literally translated, means the Shining\nLand, or the Land of the Gods.* It is a specially\nguarded part of the mental plane, whence all sorrow\nand all evil are excluded by the action of the great\nspiritual Intelligences who superintend human evo-\nlution; and it is inhabited by human beings who\nhave cast oflE their physical and astral bodies, and\nwho pass into it when their stay in Kamaloka is\ncompleted. The devachanic life consists of two\nstages, of which the first is passed in the four lower\nsubdivisions of the mental plane, in which the\nThinker still wears the mental body and is condi-\ntioned by it, being employed in assimilating the\nmaterials gathered by it during the earth-life from\nwhich he has just emerged. The second stage is\nspent in the \" formless\" world, the Thinker escaping\nfrom the mental body, and living his own unencum-\n\n♦Devasthan. the place of the Gods, is the Sanscrit equiva-\nlent. It is the Svarga of the Hindus ; the Sukh&vati of the\nBuddhists; the Heaven of the Zoroastrians and Christians,\nand of the less materialized among the Mahommedans.\n\n138 THE ANCIENT WISDOM.\n\nbered life in the full measure of the self -conscious-\nness and knowledge to which he has attained.\n\nThe total length of time spent in Devachan depends\nupon the amount of material for the devachanic life\nwhich the soul has brought with it thither from its\nlife on earth. The harvest of fmit for consumption\nand assimilation in Devachan consists of all the pure\nthoughts and emotions generated during earth-life,\nall the intellectual and moral efforts and aspirations^\nall the memories of useful work and plans for hu-\nman service — everything which is capable of being\nworked into mental and moral faculty, thus assist-\ning in the evolution of the soul. Not one is lost,\nhowever feeble, however fleeting; but selfish animal\npassions cannot enter, there being no material in\nwhich they can be expressed. Nor does all the evil\nin the past life, though it may largely preponderate\nover the good, prevent the full reaping of whatever\nscant harvest of good there may have been; the\nscantiness of the harvest may render the devachanic\nlife very brief, but the most depraved, if he has had\nany faint longings after the right, any stirrings of\ntenderness, must have a period of devachanic life in\nwhich the seed of good may put forth its tender\nshoots, in which the spark of good may be gently\nfanned into a tiny flame.\n\nIn the past, when men lived with their hearts\nlargely fixed on heaven and directed their lives with\na view to enjoying its bliss, the period spent in\nDevachan was very long, lasting sometimes for\nmany thousands of years: at the present time,\n\ntfeKGTH OF DEVACHANIC LIFE. 1^0\n\ntnen's minds being so much more centred on earth,\nand so few of their thoughts comparatively being\ndirected towards the higher life, their devachanic\nperiods are correspondingly shortened. Similarly,\nthe time spent in the higher and lower regions of\nthe mental plane* respectively is proportionate to\nIhe amount of thought generated severally in the\nmental and in the causal bodies; all the thoughts\nbelonging to the personal self, to the life just closed\n—with all its ambitions, interests, loves, hopes and\nfears^ — all these have their fruition in the Devachan\nwhere forms are found ; while those belonging to the\nhigher mind, to the regions of abstract, impersonal\nthinking, have to be worked out in the ** formless\"\ndevachanic region. The majority of people only\njust enter that lofty region to pass swiftly out again ;\nsome spend there a large portion of their devachanic\nexistence ; a few spend there almost the whole.\n\nEre entering into any details let us try to grasp\nsome of the leading ideas which govern the deva-\nchanic life, for it is so diflEerent from physical life\nthat any description of it is apt to mislead by its\nvery strangeness. People realize so little of their\nmental life, even as led in the body, that when they\nare presented with a picture of mental life out of the\nbody they lose all sense of reality, and feel as though\nthey had passed into a world of dream.\n\nThe first thing to grasp is that mental life is far\nmore intense, vivid, and nearer to reality than the\n\n• Called technically the Arupa and Rfipa Devachan— exist-\ning on the arCipa and rtipa levels of the mental plane.\n\n140 tHE A^fC!ENT WISDOM.\n\nlife of the senses. Everything we see and touch anc\nhear and taste and handle down here is two removes\nfarther from the reality than everything we contact\nill Devachan, We do not even there see things as\nthey are, but the things that we see down here have\ntwo mere veils of illusion enveloping them. Our\nsense of reality here is an entire delusion; we know\nnothing of things, of people, as they are ; all that we\nknow of them are the impressions they make on our\nsenses, and the conclusions, often erroneous, which\nour reason deduces from the aggregate of these im-\npressions. Get and put side by side the ideas of a\nman held by his father, his closest friend, the girl\nwho adores him, his rival in business, his deadliest\nenemy, and a casual acquaintance, and see how in-\ncongruous the pictures. Each can only give the im-\npressions made on his own mind, and how far are\nthey from the reality of what the man is, seen by\neyes that pierce all veils and behold the whole man.\nWe know of each of our friends the impressions they\nmake on us, and these are strictly limited by our\ncapacity to receive; a child may have as his father a\ngreat statesman of lofty purpose and imperial aims,\nbut that guide of a nation's destinies is to him only\nhis merriest playfellow, his most enticing story-\nteller. We live in the midst of illusions, but have\nthe feeling of reality, and this yields us content.\nIn Devachan we shall also be surrounded by illu-\nsions — though, as said, two removes nearer to real-\nity — and there also we shall have a similar feeling\nof reality which will yield us content.\n\nMUTUAL CRITICISM. I4I\n\nThe illusions of earth, though lessened, are not\nescaped from in the lower heavens, though contact\nis more real and more immediate. For it must\nnever be forgotten that these heavens are part of a\ngreat evolutionary scheme, and^ until man has found\nthe real Self, his own unreality makes him subject\nto illusions. One thing, however, which produces\nthe feeling of reality in earth-life and of unreality\nwhen we study Devachan, is that we look at earth-\nlife from within, under the full sway of its illusions,\nwhile we contemplate Devachan from outside, free\nfor the time from its veil of maya.\n\nIn Devachan the process is reversed, and its in-\nhabitants feel their own life to be the real one and\nlook on the earth-life as full of the most patent illu-\nsions and misconceptions. On the whole, they are\nnearer the truth than the physical critics of their\nheaven- world.\n\nNext, the Thinker — being clad only in the mental\nbody and being in the untrammelled exercise of its\npowers — manifests the creative nature of these\npowers in a way and to an extent that down here we\ncan hardly realize. On earth a painter, a sculptor,\na musician, dreams dreams of exquisite beauty,\ncreating their visions by the powers of the mind;\nbut when they seek to embody them in the coarse\nmaterials of earth they fall far short of the mental\ncreation. The marble is too resistant for perfect\nform, the pigments too muddy for perfect color.\nIn heaven, all they think is at once reproduced in\nfprm, for th^ rare and subtle matter of the heaven-\n\nTHE Ancient wisdom.\n\nworld is mind-stuff, the medium in which the mind\nnormally works when free from passion, and it takes\nshape with every mental impulse. Each man, there-\nfore, in a very real sense, makes his own heaven,\nand the beauty of his surroundings is indefinitely\nincreased, according to the wealth and energy of his\nmind. As the soul develops his powers, his heaven\ngrows more and more subtle and exquisite; all the\nlimitations in heaven are self-created, and heaven\nexpands and deepens with the expansion and deep-\nening of the soul. While the soul is weak and sel-\nfish, narrow and ill -developed, his heaven shares\nthese pettinesses ; but it is always the best that is in\nthe soul, however poor that best may be. As the\nman evolves, his devachanic lives become fuller,\nricher, more and more real, and advanced souls\ncome into ever closer and closer contact with each\nother, enjoying wider and deeper intercourse. A\nlife on earth, thin, feeble, vapid, and narrow, men-\ntally and morally, produces a comparatively thin,\nfeeble, vapid and narrow life in Devachan, where\nonly the mental and the moral survive. We cannot\nhave more than we are, and our harvest is according\nto our sowing. \" Be not deceived ; God is not\nmocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that,\" and\nneither more nor less, \"shall he also reap.\" Our\nindolence and greediness would fain reap where we\nhave not sowed, but in this universe of law the Good\nLaw, mercifully just, brings to each the exact wages\nof his work.\n\nThe mental impressions, or mental pictures, W9\n\n- rf- * • rf '««■ <■ t\n\nOUR FRIENDS IN HEAVEN. I43\n\nmake of our friends will dominate us in Devachan.\nRound each soul throng those he loved in life, and\nevery image of the loved ones that live in the heart\nbecomes a living companion of the soul in heaven. .\nAnd they are unchanged. They will be to us there\nas they were here, and no otherwise. The outer\nsemblance of our friend as it affected our senses, we\nform out of mind-stuff in Devachan by the creative\npowers of the mind; what was here a mental picture\nis there — as in truth it was here, although we knew\nit not — an objective shape in living mind-stuff, abid-\ning in our own mental atmosphere; only what is\ndull and dreamy here is forcibly living and vivid\nthere. And with regard to the true communion,\nthat of soul with soul? That is closer, nearer,\ndearer than anything we know here, for, as we have\nseen, there is no barrier on the mental plane be-\ntween soul and soul; exactly in proportion to the\nreality of soul-life in us is the reality of soul-com-\nmunion there ; the mental image of our friend is our\nown creation; his form is as we knew and loved it;\nand his soul breathes through that form to ours just\nto the extent that his soul and ours can throb in\nsympathetic vibration. But we can have no touch\nwith those we knew on earth if the ties were only of\nthe physical or astral body, or if they and we were\ndiscordant in the inner life; therefore into our\nDevachan no enemy can enter, for sympathetic ac-\ncord of minds and hearts can alone draw men to-\ngether there. Separateness of heart and mind\nmeans separation in the heavenly life, for all that is\n\n144 THE AJ^rCIENT WISDOM.\n\nlower than the heart and mind can find no means of\nexpression there. With those who are far beyond\nus in evolution we come into contact just as far as\nwe can respond to them ; great ranges of their being\nwill stretch beyond our ken, but all that we can\ntouch is ours. Further, these greater ones can and\ndo aid us in the heavenly life, under conditions we\nshall study presently, helping us to grow towards\nthem, and thus to be able to receive more and more.\nThere is then no separation by space or time, but\nthere is separation by absence of sympathy, by lack\nof accord between hearts and minds.\n\nIn heaven we are with all whom we love and with\nall whom we admire, and we commune with them to\nthe limit of our capacity, or, if we are the more ad-\nvanced, of theirs. We meet them in the forms we\nloved on earth, with perfect memory of our earthly\nrelationships, for heaven is the flowering of all\nearth's buds, and the marred and feeble loves of\nearth expand into beauty and into power there. The\ncommunion being direct, no misunderstandings of\nwords or thoughts can arise ; each sees the thought\nhis friend creates, or as much of it as he can re-\nspond to.\n\nDevachan, the heaven-world, is a world of bliss,\nof joy unspeakable. But it is much more than this,\nmuch more than a rest for the weary. In Devachan\nall that was valuable in the mental and moral ex-\nperiences of the Thinker during the life just ended\nis worked out, meditated over, and is gradually\ntransmuted into definite mental and moral faculty.\n\nNOT MEMORY BUT FACULTY. 1 45\n\n/nto powers which he will take with him to his next\nrebirth. He does not work into the mental body\nthe actual memory of the past, for the mental body\nwill, in due course, disintegrate ; the memory of the\npast abides only in the Thinker himself, who has\nlived through it and who endures. But these facts\nof past experiences are worked into mental capacity,\nso that if a man has studied a subject deeply the\neffects of that study will be the creation of a special\nfaculty to acquire and master that subject when it is\nfirst presented to him in another incarnation. He\nwill be bom with a special aptitude for that line of\nstudy, and will pick it up with great facility.\nEverjrthing thought upon earth is thus utilized in\nDevachan; every aspiration is worked up into\npower; all frustrated efforts become faculties and\nabilities; struggles and defeats re-appear as ma-\nterials to be wrought into instruments of victory;\nsorrows and errors shine lumin^^us as precious\nmetals to be worked up into wise and well-directed\nvolitions. Schemes of beneficence, for which power\nand skill to accomplish were lacking in the past, are\nir Devachan worked out in thought, acted out, as it\nwere, stage by stage, and the necessary power and\nskill are developed as faculties of the mind to be put\ninto use in a future life on earth, when the clever\nand earnest student shall be reborn as a genius,\nwhen the devotee shall be reborn as a saint. Life\nthen, in Devachan, is no mere dream, no lotus-land\nof purposeless idling; it is the land in which the\n\nmind and heart develop, unhindered by gross matter\n\n146 THE A\\-CIENT WISDOM.\n\nand by trivial cares, where weapons are forged for\nearth's fierce battle-fields, and where the progress of\nthe future is secured.\n\nWhen the Thinker has consumed in the menta]\nbody all the fruits belonging to it of his earthly life,\nhe shakes it off and dwells unencumbered in his own\nplace. All the mental faculties which express them-\nselves on the lower levels are drawn within the\ncausal body — ^with the genns of the passional life\nthat were drawn into the mental body when it left\nthe astral shell to disintegrate in Kamaloka — and\nthese become latent for a time, lying within the\ncausal body, forces which remain concealed for lack\nof material in which to manifest.* The mental\nbody, the last of the temporary vestures of the true\nman, disintegrates, and its materials return to the\ngeneral matter of the mental plane, whence they\nwere drawn when the Thinker last descended inbj\nincarnation. Thus the causal body atone remains,\nthe receptacle and treasure-house of alt that has\nbeen assimilated from the life that is over. The\nThinker has Inished a round of his long pilgrimage\nand dwells for a while in his own native land.\n\nHis condition as to consciousness depends entirely\n\n*Tht! thoughtful student may here find a fruitful suggestion\non the problern of continuing consciouauess after tlie cycle o£\nthe universe is trodden. Let liini pi nee I sh vara in ihe place\nof the Thinker, and let the faculties that are the fruils of «\nlife represent thehmnan lives that are the fruits of a Universe.\nHe may then catch some glimpse of what is necessary for con-\ni, during the interval bot\\v(\n\nSELFr CONSCIOUS AT LAST. 1 4/\n\non the point he has reached in evolution. In his\nearly stages of life he will merely sleep, wrapped in\nnncohsciousness, when he has lost his vehicles on the\nlower planes. His life will pulse gently within him,\nassimilating any little results from his closed earth-\nexistence that may be capable of entering into his\nsubstance ; but he will have no consciousness of his\nsurroundings. But as he develops, this period of\nhis life becomes more and more important, and oc-\ncupies a greater proportion of his devachanic exist-\nence. He becomes self-conscious, and thereby con-\nscious of his surrotmdings^ — of the not-self — and hia\nmemory spreads before him the panorama of his life,\nstretching backwards into the ages of the past. He\nsees the causes that worked out their effects in the\nlast of his life-experiences, and studies the causes\nhe has set going in this latest incarnation. He as-\nsimilates and works into the texture of the causal\nbody all that was noblest and loftiest in the closed\nchapter of his life, and by his inner activity he de-\nvelops and co-ordinates the materials in his causal\nbody. He comes into direct contact with great\nsouls, whether in or out of the body at the time, en-\njoys communion with them, learns from their riper\nwisdom and longer experience. Each succeeding\ndevachanic Hfe is richer and deeper; with his ex-\npanding capacity to receive, knowledge flows into\nhim in fuller tides ; more and more he learns to un-\nderstand the workings of che law, the conditions of\nevolutionary progress, and thus returns to earth-\nlife each time with greater knowledge, more effec-\n\n148 THE ANCIENT WISDOM.\n\ntive power, his vision of the goal of life becoming\never clearer and the way to it more plain before\nhis feet.\n\nTo every Thinker, however unprogressed, there\ncomes 2i moment of clear vision when the time ar-\nrives for his return to the life of the lower worlds.\nFor a moment he sees his past and the causes work-\ning from it into the future, and the general map of\nhis next incarnation is also unrolled before him.\nThen the clouds of lower matter surge round him\nand obscure his vision, and the cycle of another in-\ncarnation begins with the awakenings of the powers\nof the lower mind, and their drawing round them,\nby their vibrations, materials from the lower mental\nplane to form the new mental body for the opening\nchapter of his life-history. This part of our sub-\nject, however, belongs in its detail to the chapters on\nreincarnation.\n\nWe left the soul asleep,* having shaken oflf the\nlast remains of his astral body, ready to pass out of\nKamaloka into Devachan, out of purgatory into\nheaven. The sleeper awakens to a sense of joy un\nspeakable, of bliss immeasurable, of peace that pass-\neth understanding. Softest melodies are breathing\nround him, tenderest hues greet his opening eyes,\nthe very air seems music and color, the whole being\nis suffused with light and harmony. Then through\nthe golden haze dawn sweetly the faces loved on\nearth, etherealized into the beauty which expresses\ntheir noblest, loveliest emotions, unmarred by the\n♦See Chapter III., on Kamaloka. p. S3.\n\nTHE LOWER HEAVEKS. I49\n\ntroubles and the passions of the lower worlds. Who\nmay tell the bliss of that awakening, the glory of\nthat first dawning of the heaven- world?\n\nWe will now study the conditions in detail of the\nseven subdivisions of Devachan, remembering that\nin the four lower we are in a world of form, and a\nworld, moreover, in which every thought presents\nitself at once as a form. This world of form be-\nlongs to the personality, and every soul is therefore\nsurrounded by as much of his past life as has entered\ninto his mind and can be expressed in pure mind-\nstuff.\n\nThe first, or lowest, region is the heaven of the\nleast progressed souls, whose highest emotion on\nearth was a narrow, sincere, and sometimes unsel-\nfish love for family and friends. Or it may be that\nthey felt some loving admiration for some one they\nmet on earth who was purer and better than them-\nselves, or felt some wish to lead a higher life, or\nsome passing aspiration towards mental and moral\nexpansion. There is not much material here out of\nwhich faculty can be moulded, and their life is but\nvery slightly progressive; their family affections\nwill be nourished and a little widened, and they will\nbe reborn after a while with a somewhat improved\nemotional nature, with more tendency to recognize\nand respond to a higher ideal. Meanwhile they are\nenjoying all the happiness they can receive; their\ncup is but a small one, but it is filled to the brim\nwith bliss, and they enjoy all that they are able to\nconceive of heaven. Its purity, its harmony, play\n\nISO\n\nTHE ANCIENT WISDOM,\n\non their undeveloped faculites and woo them to\nawaken into activity, and the inner stirrings begin\nwhich must precede any manifested budding.\n\nThe next division of devachanic life comprises\nmen and women of every religious faith whose\nhearts during their earthly lives had turned with\nloving devotion to God, under any name, under any\nform. The form may have been narrow, but the\nheart rose up in aspiration, and it here finds the ob-\nject of its loving worship. The concept of the Di-\nvine which was formed by their mind when on\nearth here meets them in the radiant glory of\ndevachanic matter, fairer, diviner than their wildest\ndreams. The Divine One limits Himself to meet\nthe intellectual limits of His worshipper, and in\nwhatever form the worshipper has loved and wor-\nshipped Him, in that form He reveals Himself to\nhis longing eyes, and pours out on him the sweet-\nness of His answering love. The souls are steeped\nin religious ecstasy, worshipping the One under the\nforms their piety sought on earth, losing themselves\nin the rapture of devotion, in communion with the\nObject they adore. No one finds himself a stranger\nin the heavenly places, the Divine veiling Himself\nin the familiar form. Such souls grow in purity\nand in devotion under the sun of this communion,\nand return to earth with these qualities much in-\ntensified. Nor is all their devachanic life spent m\nthis devotional ecstasy, for they have full opportu-\nnities of maturing every other quality they may\npossess of hear* and mind.\n\n• HEAVENLY MUSIC. I5I\n\nPassing onwards to the third region, we come to\nthose noble and earnest beings who were devoted\nservants of humanity while on earth, and largely\npoured out their love to God in the form of works\nfor man. They are reaping the reward of their\ngood deeds by developing larger powers of useful-\nness and increased wisdom in their direction. Plans\nof wider beneficence unroll themselves before the\nmind of the philanthropist, and, like an architect,\nhe designs the future edifice which he will build in\na coming life on earth; he matures the schemes\nwhich he will then work out into actions, and like a\ncreative God plans his universe of benevolence,\nwhich shall be manifested in gross matter when the\ntime is ripe. These souls will appear as the grea*\nphilanthropists of yet unborn centuries, who will\nincarnate on earth with innate dower of unselfish\nlove and of power to achieve.\n\nMost varied in character, perhaps, of all the\nheavens is the fourth, for here the powers of the\nmost advanced souls find their exercise, so far as\nthey can be expressed in the world of form. Here\nthe kings of art and of literature are found, exercis-\ning all their powers of form, of color, of harmony,\nand building greater faculties with which to be re-\nbom when they return to earth. Noblest music,\nravishing beyond description, peals forth from the\nmightiest monarchs of harmony that earth has\nknown, as Beethoven, no longer deaf, pours out his\nimperial soul in strains of unexampled beauty,\nmaking even the heaven-world more melodious as\n\nIS3\n\nThe ancient wisuom.\n\nhe draws down harmonies from higher spheres, and\nsends them thrilling through the heavenly places.\nHere also we find the masters of painting and of\nsculpture, learning new hues of color, new curves\nof undreamed beauty. And here also are others\nwho failed, thouph greatly aspiring, and who are\nhere transmuting longings into powers, and dreams\ninto faculties, that shall be theirs in another life.\nSearchers into Nature are here, and they are learn-\ning her hidden secrets; before their eyes are unroll-\ning systems of worlds with all their hidden mech-\nanism, woven series of workings of unimaginable\ndelicacy and complexity ; they shall return to earth\nas great \"discoverers,\" with unerring intuitions of\nthe mysterious ways of Nature. In this heaven also\nare found students of the deeper knowledge, the\neager, reverent pupils who sought the Teachers of\nthe race, who longed to find a Teacher, and patiently\nworked at all that had been given out by some one of\nthe great spiritual Masters who have taught hu-\nmanity. Here their longings find their fruition, and\nThose they sought, apparently in vain, are now\ntheir instructors; the eager souls drink in the\nheavenly wisdom, and swift their growth and prog-\nress as they sit at their Masters' feet. As teachers\nand as Hght-bringers shall they be bom again on\nearth, born with the birthmark of the teacher's high\noffice upon them.\n\nMany a student on earth, all unknowing of these\nsubtler workings, is preparing for himself a place in\nthis fourth heaven, as he bends with a real devotion\n\nSA^E HOME. 15$\n\novejr the pages of some teacher of genius, over the\nteachings of some advanced soul. He is forming a\nlink between himself and the teacher he loves and\nreverences, and in the heaven-world that soul-tie\nwill assert itself, and draw together into communion\nthe souls it links. As the sun pours down its rays\ninto many rooms, and each room has all it can con-\ntain of the solar beams, so in the heaven- world do\nthese great souls shine into hundreds of mental\nimages of themselves created by their pupils, fill\nthem with life, with their own essence, so that each\nstudent has his master to teach him and yet shuts\nout none other from his aid.\n\nThus, for periods long in proportion to the ma-\nterials gathered for consumption upon earth, dwell\nmen in these heaven- worlds of form, where all of\ngood that the last personal life had garnered finds\nits full fruition, its full working out into minutest\ndetail. Then, as we have seen, when everything is\nexhausted, when the last drop has been drained from\nthe cup of joy, the last crumb eaten of the heavenly\nfeast, all that has been worked up into faculty, that\nis of permanent value, is drawn within the causal\nbody, and the Thiniier shakes off him thje then dis-\nintegrating body through which he has found ex*\npression on the lower levels of the devachanic world.\nRid of this mental body, he is in his own world, to\nwork up whatever of his harvest can find material\nsuitable for it in that high realm.\n\nA vast number of souls touch the lowest level of\nthe formless world as it were but for a moment.\n\ni 54 THE ANCIENT \\V151)OM.\n\ntaking brief refuge there, since all lower vehicles;\nhave fallen away. But so embryonic are they that\nthey have as yet no active powers that there can\nfunction independently, and they become uncon-\nscious as the mental body slips away into disintegra-\ntion. Then, for a moment, they are aroused to con-\nsciousness, and a flash of memory illumines their\npast and they see its pregnant causes; and a flash of\nforeknowledge illumines their future, and they see\nsuch effects as will work out in the coming life.\nThis is all that very many are as yet able to experi-\nence of the formless world. For here again,\never, the harvest is according to the sowing, j\nhow should they who sowed nothing for that loftjrj\nregion expect to reap any harvest therein?\n\nBut many souls have during their earth-life, by\ndeep thinking and noble living, sown much seed, the\nharvest of which belongs to ihis fifth devachanic\nregion, the lowest of the three he;.vens of the form-\nless world. Great is now their reward for having sO'\nrisen above the bondage of the flesh and of passion, ^\nand they begin to experience the real life of man,\nthe lofty existence of the sou' itself, unfettered by\nvestures belonging to the lower worlds. They team\ntruths by direct vision, and see the fundamental\ncauses of which all concrete objects are the results;;\nthey study the underlying unities, whose presem\nis masked in the lower worlds by the variety of\nrelevant details. Thus they gain a deep knowled]\nof law, and leai'n to recognize its changeless work-\nings below results apparently the most incongruoii!\n\n;ee\n\nThe worr of tME stRONo. 155\n\nthus building\" into the body that endures firm un-\nshakable convictions, that will reveal themselves in\nearth-life as deep intuitive certainties of the soul,\nabove and beyond all reasoning. Here also the\nman studies his own past, and carefully disentangles\nthe causes he has set going; he marks their interac-\ntion, the resultants accruing from them, and sees\nsomething of their working out in lives yet in the\nfuture.\n\nIn the sixth heaven are more advanced souls, who\nduring earth-life had felt but little attraction for its\npassing shows, and who had devoted all their ener-\ngies to the higher intellectual and moral life. For\nthem there is no veil upon the past, their memory is\nperfect and unbroken, and they plan the infusion\ninto their next life of energies that will neutralize\nmany of the forces that are working for hindrance,\nand strengfthen many of those that are working for\ngood. This clear memory enables them to form\ndefinite and strong determinations as to actions\nwhich are to be done and actions which are to be\navoided, and these volitions they will be able to im-\npress on their lower vehicles in their next birth,\nmaking certain classes of evils impossible, contrary\nto what is ielt to be the deepest nature, and certain\nkinds of good inevitable, the irresistible demands of\na voice that will not be denied. These souls are\nbom into the world with high and noble qualities\nwhich render a base life impossible, and stamp the\nbabe from its cradle as one of the pioneers of hu-\nmanity. The man who has attained to this sixth\n\n156 THE ANCIENT WISDOM,\n\nheaven sees unrolled before him the vast treasure*\nof the Divine Mind in creative activity, and can\nstudy the archetypes or all the forms that are being,\ngradually evolved in the lower worlds. There he\nmay bathe himself in the fathomless ocean of the\nDivine Wisdom, and unravel the problems connected\nwith the working out of those archetypes, the partial\ngood that seems as evil to the limited vision of men\nencased in flesh. In this wider outlook, phenomena,\nassume their due relative proportions, and he sees\nthe justification of the divine ways, no longer to him\n\"past finding oiit\" so far as they are concerned with,\nthe evolution of the lower worlds. The questional\nover which on earth he pondered, and whose an-\nswers ever eluded his eager intellect, are here solved\nby an insight that pierces through phenomenal veila\nand sees the connecting links which make the chain,\ncomplete. Here also the soul is in the immediate\npresence o£, and in full communion with, the greater\nsouls that have evolved in our humanity, and, es-\ncaped from the bonds which make \"the past\" of.\nearth, he enjoys \"the ever-present\" of an endless\nand unbroken life. Those we speak of here as \" the.\nmighty dead\" are there the glorious living, and the\nsoul enjoys the high rapture of their presence, and\ngrows more like them as their strong harmony\nattunes his vibrant nature to their key.\n\nYet higher, lovelier, gleams the seventh heaven,\nwhere Masters and Initiates have their intellectual\nhome. No soul can dwell there ere j-et it has passed\nwhile on earth through the narrow gateway of Ini-\n\nONE WILL, ONE LIFE. IS/\n\ntiation, the strait gate that \"leadeth unto life\"\nunending.* That world is the source of the strong-\nest intellectual and moral impulses that flow down to\nearth; thence are poured forth the invigorating\nstreams of the loftiest energy. The intellectual life\nof the world has there its root; thence genius re-\nceives its purest inspirations. To the souls that\ndwell there it matters little whether, at the time,\nthey be or be not connected with the lower vehicles;\nthey ever enjoy their lofty self -consciousness and\ntheir communion with those around them ; whether,\nwhen \"embodied,\" they suffuse their lower vehicles\nwith as much of this consciousness as they can con-\ntain is a matter for their own choice — they can give\nor withhold as they will. And more and more their\nvolitions are guided by the will of the Great Ones,\nwhose will is one with the will of the Locos, the will\nwhich seeks ever the good of the worlds. For here\nare being eliminated the last vestiges of separate-\nnessf in all who have not yet reached final emanci-\npation — all, that is, who are not yet Masters — and,\nas these perish, the will becomes more and more\nharmonized with the will that guides the worlds.\n\nSuch is an outline of the \" seven heavens\" into one\nor other of which men pass in due time after the\n\n•See Chapter XL, on \"Man's Ascent.\" The Initiate has\nstepped out of the ordinary line of evolution, and is treading\na shorter and steeper road to human perfection.\n\nf Ahamk^a. the \"I\" making principle, necessary in order\nthat self -consciousness may be evolved, but transcended when\nits work is over.\n\n158 THE ANCIENT WISDOM.\n\n\"ciianye that nieii call death.\" For death is only a\nchange that gives the soul a partial liberation, re-\nleasing him from the heaviest of his chains. It is\nbut a birth into a wider life, a return after brief\nexile on earth to the soul's true home, a passing\nfrom a prison into the freedom of the upper air.\nDeath is the greatest of earth's illusions; there is\nno death, but only changes in life-conditions. Life\nis continuous, unbroken, unbreakable; \"unborn,\neternal, ancient, constant,\" it perishes not with the\nperishing of the bodies that clothe it. We might as\nwell think that the sky is falling when a pot is\nbroken, as imagine that the soul perishes when the\nbody falls to pieces. *\n\nThe physical, astral, and mental planes are \"the\nthree worlds\" through which lies the pilgrimage of\nthe soul, again and again repeated. In these three\nworlds revolves the wheel of human life, and souls\nare bound to that wheel throughout their evolution,\nand are carried by it to each of these worlds in turn.\nWe are now in a position to trace a complete life-\nperiod of the soul, the aggregate of these periods\nmaking up its life, and we can also distinguish\nclearly the difference between personality and indi-\nviduality.\n\nA soul, when its stay in the formless world of\nDevachan is over, begins a new life-period by put-\nting forth the energies which function in the form-\nworld of the mental plane, these energies being the\n•A simile used in the BJ-a^avad Purdiia.\n\nTHE CYCLE OF LIFE. 1 59\n\nresultant of the preceding\" life-periods. These,\npassing outwards, gather round themselves, from\nthe matter of the four lower mental levels, such ma-\nterials as are suitable for their expression, and thus\nthe new mental body for the coming birth is formed.\nThe vibration of these mental energies arouses the\nenergies which belong to the desire-nature, and these\nbegin to vibrate ; as they awake and throb, they at-\ntract to themselves suitable materials for their ex-\npression from the matter of the astral world, and\nthese form the new astral body for the approaching\nincarnation. Thus the Thinker becomes clothed\nwith his mental and astral vestures, exactly express-\ning the faculties evolved during the past stages of\nhis life. He is drawn, by forces which will be ex-\nplained later,* to the family which is to provide him\nwith a suitable physical encasement, and becomes\nconnected with this encasement through his astral\nbody. During pre-natal life the mental body be-\ncomes involved with the lower vehicles, and this\nconnection becomes closer and closer through the\nearly years of childhood, until at the seventh year\nthey are as completely in touch with the Thinker\nhimself as the stage of evolution permits. He then\nbegins to slightly control his vehicles, if sufficiently\nadvanced, and what we call conscience is his moni-\ntory voice. In any case, he gathers experience\nthrough these vehicles, and, during the continuance\nof earth-life, stores the gathered experience in its\nown proper vehicle, in the body connected with the\n*See Chapter VII., on \"Reincarnation.\"\n\nr60 THE ANCIENT WISDOM.\n\nplane to which the experience belongs. When tho (\nearth-life is over the physical body drops away, and m\nwith it his power o£ contacting the physical world,\nand his energies are therefore confined to the astral\nand mental planes. In due course, the astral body-\ndecays, and the outgoings of his life are confined to\nthe mental plane, the astral faculties being gathered\nup and laid by within himself as latent energies.\nOnce again, in due course, its assimilative work \\\ncompleted, the mental body disintegrates, its ener-\ngies in turn becoming latent in the Thinker, and he 1\nwithdraws his life entirely into the formless de-\nvachanic world, his own native habitat. Thence,\nall the experiences of his life-period in the three \\\nworlds being transmuted into faculties and powers\nfor future use, and contained within himself, he I\nanew commences his pilgrimage and treads the ' I\ncycle of another life-period with increased power ]\nand knowledge.\n\nThe personality consists of the transitory vehicles ■\nthrough which the Thinker energizes in the physi-\ncal, astral, and lower mental worlds, and of all the\nactivities connected with these. These are bound\ntogether by the links of memory caused by impres-\nsions made on the three lower bodies; and, by the\nself- identification of the Thinker with his vehicles,\nthe personal \" I\" is set up. In the lower stages of\nevolution this \" I\" is in the physical and passional |\nvehicles, in which the greatest activity is shown,\nlater it is in the mental vehicle, which then assumes\npredominance. The personality, with its transient\n\n^ THE CONFLICT OF LIFE. l6l\n\nfeelings, desires, passions, thus forms a quasi-inde-\npendent entity, though drawing all its energies from\nthe Thinker it enwraps, and as its qualifications, be-\nlonging to the lower worlds, are often in direct an-\ntagonism to the permanent interests of the ** Dweller\nin the body,\" conflict is set up in which victory in-\nclines sometimes to the temporary pleasure, some*\ntimes to the permanent gain. The life of a person-\nality begins when the Thinker forms his new mental\nbody, and it endures until that mental body disin-\ntegrates at the close of its life in the form-world of\nDevachan.\n\nThe individuality consists of the Thinker himself,\nthe immortal tree that puts out all these personalities\nas leaves, to last through the spring, summer, and\nautumn of human life All that the leaves take in\nand assimilate enriches the sap that courses through\ntheir veins, and in the autumn this is withdrawn\ninto the parent trunk, and the dry leaf falls and\nperishes. The Thinker alone lives forever; he is\nthe man for whom \"the hour never strikes,\" the\neternal youth who, as the Bhagavad Gttd has it, puts\non and casts oflE bodies as a man puts on new gar-\nments and throws oflE the old Each personality is a\nnew part for the immortal Actor, and he treads the\nstage of life over and over again, only in the life-\ndrama each character he assumes is the child of the\npreceding ones and the father of those to come, so\nthat the life-drama is a continuous history, the his-\ntory of the Actor who plays the successive parts.\n\nTo the three worlds that we have studied is con-\n\n1 62 THE ANCrcNT WISDOM.\n\nfined iL^ life of the Thinker, while he is treading the\nearlier stages of human evolution. A time will\ncome in the evolution of humanity when its feet will\nenter loftier realms, and reincarnation will be of the\npast. But while the wheel of birth and death is\nturning, and man is bound thereon by desires that\npertain to the three worlds, his life is led in these\nthree regions.\n\nTo the realms that lie beyond we now may turn,\nalbeit but little can be said of them that can be either\nuseful or intelligible. Such little as may be said,\nhowever, is necessary for the outlining of the\nAncient Wisdom.\n\nCHAPTER VT\nThe Buddhic and NirvAnic Planes.\n\nWe have seen that man is an intelligent self-con\nscions entity, the Thinker, clad in bodies belonging\nto the lower mental, astral, and physical planes ; we\nhave now to study the Spirit which is his innermost\nSelf, the source whence he proceeds.\n\nThis Divine Spirit, a ray from the Logos, partak-\ning of His own essential Being, has the triple nature\nof the Logos Himself, and the evolution of man as\nman consists in the gradual manifestation of these\nthree aspects, their development from latency into\nactivity, man thus repeating in miniature the evolu-\ntion of the universe. Hence he is spoken of as the\nmicrocosm, the universe being the macrocosm: he is\ncalled the mirror of the universe, the image, or re-\nflection, of God ;* and hence also the ancient axiom,\n\" As above, so below. *' It is this infolded Deity that\nis the guarantee of man's final triumph ; this is the\nhidden motive power that makes evolution at once\npossible and inevitable, the upward-lifting force that\nslowly overcomes every obstacle and every difficulty.\nIt was this Presence that Matthew Arnold dimly\n\n*\"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. '*—'\nGen, i. 26^\n\nr64 THE ANCIENT WISDOM.\n\nsensed when he wrote of the \" Power, not ourselves,\nthat makss for righteousness,\" but he erred in think-\ning \" not ourselves,\" for it is the very innermost Self\nof all — ^truly not our separated selves, but our Self.*\nThis Self is the One, and hence is spoken of as the\nMonad,! and we shall cecd lo remember that this\nMonad is the outbreathed life of the Locos, contain-\ning within itself germinally, or in a state of latency,\naU the divine powers and attributes. These powers\nare brought into manifestation by the impacts aris-\ning from contact with the objects of the universe into\nwhich the Monad is thrown; the friction caused by\nthese gives rise to responsive thrills from the life sub-\njected to their stimuli, and one by one the energies\nof the life pass from latency into activity. The hu-\nman Monad — as it is called for the sake of distinction\n— shows, as we have already said, the three aspects\nof Deity, being the perfect image of God, and in the\nhuman cycle these three aspects are developed one\nafter the other. These aspects are the three great\nattributes of the Divine Life as manifested in the\nuniverse, existence, \"bliss, and intelligence, J the\nthree Locoi severally showing these forth with all\n\n• Atma. the reflection of Paramatraa.\n\nf It is called the Motiad. whether it be the Moaad of spirit-\nmatter. Atma; or the Monad of form. Atma-Baddhi ; or tho\nhuman Monad, Atma-Buddht-Manas. In each case it is a unit\nand acts as a unit, whether the unit be one-faced, two-faced,\nor three-faced.\n\nt SatchitSnanda is often -used in the Hindu Scriptures as tbe I\nabstract name of Brahman, the Trimfirti being the concretA'J\nmanifestations of thes&\n\nDUAL BUT INSEPARATE. 1 65\n\nthe perfection possible within the limits of manifes-\ntation. In man, these aspects are developed in the\nreversed order — intelligence, bliss, existence — *' ex-\nistence\" implying the manifestation of the divine\npowers. In the evolution of man that we have so\nfar studied we have been watching the development\nof the third aspect of the hidden Deity — the develop-\nment of consciousness as intelligence. Manas, the\nThinker, the human Soul, is the image of the Uni-\nversal Mind, of the Third Locos, and all his long\npilgrimage on the three lower planes is devoted to\nthe evolution of this third aspect, the intellectual\nside of the divine nature in man. While this is pro-\nceeding, we may consider the other divine energies\nas rather brooding over the man, the hidden source\nof his life, than as actively developing their forces\nwithin him. They play within themselves, unmani-\nfest. Still, the preparation of these forces for mani-\nfestation is slowly proceeding ; they are being roused\nfrom that unmanifested life that we speak of as\nlatency by the ever-increasing energy of the vibra-\ntions of the intelligence, and the bliss-aspect begins\nto send outwards its first vibrations — faint pulsings\nof its manifested life thrill forth. This bliss-aspect\nis named in the theosophical terminology Buddhi, a\nname derived from the Sanskrit word for wisdom,\nand it belongs to the fourth, or buddhic, plane of\nour universe, the plane in which there is still duality,\nbut where there is no separation. Words fail me\nto convey the idea, for words belong to the lower\nplanes where duality and separation are ever con-\n\n1 66\n\nTHE ANCIENT WISDOM.\n\nnected, ^ et some approach to the idea may be gamed.\nIt is a state in which each is himself, with a clear-\nness and vivid intensity which cannot be approached\non lower planes, and yet in which each feels himself\nto include all others, to be one with them, inseparate\nand inseparable.* Its nearest analogy on earth is\nthe condition between two persons who are united\nby a pure, intense love, which makes them feel as\none person, causing them to think, feel, act, live as\none, recognizing no barrier, no difference, no mine\nand thine, no separation. \\ It is a faint echo from\nthis plane which makes men seek happiness by union\nbetween themselves and the object of their desire,\nno matter what that object may be. Perfect isola-\ntion is perfect misery; to be stripped naked of\neverything, to be han^ng in the void of space, in\nutter solitude, nothing anywhere save the lone indi-\nvidual, shut out from all, shut into the separated self\n— imagination can conceive no horror more intense.\nThe antithesis to this is union, and perfect union is\nperfect bliss.\n\nAs this bliss-aspect of the Self begins to send out-\n\n•The reader should refer back to the Introduction, p. 36, ftnd\nre-read the description given by Plotinus of this state, com-\nmeacing : \" They likewise see all things. \" And he should cote\nthe phrases, \"Each thing likewise iseverything.\"and \"In each,\nhowever, a different quality predominates. \"\n\nt It is for this reason that the bliss of divine love has in mauy\nScriptures been imaged by the profound love of husband auti\nwife, as in the Bhagavad Pur4na of the Hindus, Ihe Seiix\nnf Solomon of the Hebrews and Christians. This also is ina\n:oTe of the Sufi mystics. an