Introduction to the Basics of Theosophy

GA 111 — 23 September 1907, Hanover

III. The Place of Purification and Devachan

When a person has laid aside his body, a time of purification begins for him on the astral plane. The desires, cravings and passions follow him, but he lacks the tools - tongue, palate and so on - to satisfy them. This state can be compared [with] the increase of burning thirst until [the person] gets out of the habit of satisfying his desires.

Man must seek the spiritual during his lifetime [-, that,] which shines through the sensual pleasures. On the other hand, it is wrong to despise the physical life. It has its great task in the sensual world. Without senses, we could not experience the beauty of nature, the processes of life, the relationships of love and friendship that flow from person to person, which spirits could not do without. The physical-sensual life is a necessary point of transition in our development and should not be confused with a sensualistic asceticism. We only have to give up the pleasures that the ego wants for its own sake. It is necessary to enjoy food. What is to be frowned upon is the desire for pleasure for the sake of pleasure, which plunges the human being deeper into the material world.

The stay in Kamaloka lasts on average a third of the lifetime, counting backwards from death to birth, so three times as fast as in the physical life.

At this level, we see everything as in a mirror image. The sight is confusing because, for example, numbers appear upside down. Indeed, the chicken eventually disappears into the egg. Human passions are reflected there as animal images, all selfish urges as monsters or snakes. There are enough people in physical life who can see such animal images because the spiritual life is seeking a way out due to the prevalence of materialism. To reach devachan, a person must truly become like a child and discard everything that is selfish. This is the reason for the words of Jesus Christ: “Unless you become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

All the religious scriptures gradually reveal their true meaning to us in a theosophical way. Kamaloka is the place of effects. Man is exposed to all that to which he gave rise. If, in the course of time, he has given another a blow and he returns to that time, he feels the pain of the other, he crawls into his soul, as it were. He must experience the consequences of exaggerating selfishness as well as his good deeds.

The spiritual world is a permeable sphere and is not limited to three dimensions, but to four and more. The laws of this space require that two or a thousand things, which do not need to be spatially together, for example, are located on another continent, find themselves united here as mirror images through the wishful thinking.

When the soul sheds the etheric body, it has the sensation of expansion into the immeasurable.

The repercussions of all events in the place of purification remain as a mark, as a feeling that desires and so on are obstacles to development. The essence in the etheric body, the desire to balance everything, goes as an overall desire on the further pilgrimage.

Just as there is land, sea, air and fire in the physical world, so it is in the world that man reaches after his time of purification.

In Devachan, physical things appear in a spiritual way as a foundation, as land. Just as one walks on rocks here, one walks on archetypes there. Let us think of a rock crystal; in Devachan it appears as a black cavity, with glowing masses around it. The flowing light is the blood in the spiritual. In the case of plants, one will see their etheric body in the hollow space. The radiations around a red rose blossom, for example, would be yellowish, those of the stem would be peach-red. Light radiates around the objects, and inside is the etheric body; in the case of animals, the astral body is also present. The blood vessel system and the like can be clearly recognized. As rocks are on earth, so are the beings who are here in the physical body in Devachan as archetypes; they are there the skeleton.

As the sea and rivers, like human blood, the flowing, flooding life appears, which on earth is distributed into individual organisms.

What feels on the earthly world appears there as clouds and lightning; a battle as a thunderstorm, when passions clash on earth. All emotional upheavals, joy and pain appear as wonderful atmospheric effects. An all-pervading warmth can be perceived. Warmth is not just a state, but a force. There are four states to be distinguished:

1. The earth is solid, like the archetypes in Devachan.
2. Water is liquid; in occult terms, however, everything that is liquid, including mercury, is considered water; in Devachan it is the flowing life.
3. Air is gaseous; comparable to the sensations whose precipitation we see in Devachan.
4. Heat is the fire of Devachan. When a body gets warmer, it has also become softer.

In the air circle of Devachan, the harmony of the spheres can be heard; pleasure and pain become sounds.

The fire region becomes sound that expresses the inner meaning. Everything has a name. There is a true name for every thing. In this region, the essence of a being resounds; they express themselves. Here at the fire region of the word is an important boundary. Those who are clairvoyant or in a post-mortem state can see the Akasha Chronicle shining from higher regions. A record remains of everything that happens. The power of the spiritual remains in the spiritual, this is almost indestructible. The Akasha image remains; the mortal, the related matter disappears. To interpret the images correctly, a strong sense of orientation is needed. An example: let us think of Goethe at the end of the eighteenth century and look at the relevant image in the Akasha Chronicle. We want an explanation about Faust. The image can provide an answer in terms of the spirit that Goethe had at the time. The images have an inner life without being the subject.

Just as the stars shine through, so does the Budhi plane shine through the astral plane. Here man has shed his astral corpse and has a significant experience. He sees his physical body and has the feeling: “That's you!” the core of Indian Vedanta philosophy.