Echoes From The Orient: A Broad Outline of Theosophical Doctrines

by William Quan Judge

In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, chapter x describes the place where, after death, disembodied souls remain in different degrees of perfection. Some are shown as taking wheat three cubits high, while others are only permitted to glean it—"he gleaned the fields of Aanroo." Thus some enjoy the perfection of spiritual bliss, while others attain only to minor degrees in that place or state where divine justice is meted out to the soul.

Devachan is the land of reward; the domain of spiritual effects. The word spiritual here refers to disembodiment; it must only be used as relative to our material existence. The Christian demonstrates this fact by the material entourage of his heaven. In the Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky says: "Death itself is unable to deliver man from it [Karma], since death is simply the door through which he passes to another life on earth, after a little rest on its threshold—Devachan." Devachan, then, is the threshold of life. In the Hindû system it is etymologically the place of the gods, Indra's heaven. Indra is the regent of heaven, who gives to those who can reach his realm long-enduring gifts of happiness and dominion. The Bhavagad-Gîtâ says: "After enjoying felicity for innumerable years in the regions of Indra, he is born again upon this earth."

For the purpose of this article, we assume that the entire man, minus the body, goes into Devachan. This, however, is not so. The post-mortem division of our sevenfold constitution given by Theosophy is exact. It exhibits the basis of life, death and reïncarnation. It shows the composite being, man, in analogy with that other composite being, nature. Both are a unity in diversity. Man, suspended in nature, like her, divides and reünites. This sevenfold division will be treated in a future article.

Devachan, being a state of prolonged subjective happiness after the death of the body, is plainly the heaven of the Christian, but with a difference. It is a heaven made scientifically possible. Heaven itself must accord with the divine laws projected into nature. As sleep is a release from the body, during which we have dreams, so death is a complete separation and release, after which in Devachan we dream until, on being again incarnated in a new body on earth, we come once more into what we call waking existence. Even the human soul would weary of the ceaseless round of rebirths, if some place or state were not provided in which rest could be obtained; in which germinating aspirations, restricted by earth-life, could have their full development. No energy can be annihilated, least of all a psychic energy; these must somewhere find an outlet. It is found in Devachan; this realization is the rest of the soul. Its deepest desires, its highest needs are there enjoyed. There every hope blooms out in full and glorious flower. To prolong this blissful state, Hindû books give many incantations and provide innumerable ceremonies and sacrifices, all of them having for end and aim a long stay in Devachan. The Christian does precisely the same. He longs for heaven, prays that he may go there, and offers up to his God such propitiatory rites and acts as seem best to him, the only difference being that he does not do it half so scientifically as the Hindû. The Hindû is also more vivid in his conception of this heaven than the Christian is. He postulates many places or conditions adapted to the energic and qualitative differences between souls. Kama-loka and other states are where concrete desires, restricted by life in the body, have full expression, while in Tribûvana the abstract and benevolent thinkers absorb the joys of lofty thought. The orthodox heaven has no such proviso. It also ignores the fact that a settled monotony of celestial existence would exhaust the soul—would be stagnation, not growth. Devachanic life is development of aspiration, passing through the various stages of gestation, birth, cumulative growth, downward momentum and departure to another condition, all rooted in joy. There is nothing in the mere fact of death to mould a soul anew. It is a group of psychic energies, and heaven must have something in common with these, or why should it gravitate there? Souls differ as men do. In Devachan each one receives that degree of bliss which it can assimilate; its own development determines its reward. The Christian places all the snuffy old saints as high as other holy souls, sinking genius to the level of the mediocre mass, while the Hindû gives infinite variety of occupation and existence suited to grave and gay, the soul of genius or of poetry. No one sits in undesired seats, nor sings psalms he never liked, nor lives in a city which might pall upon him if he were forever compelled to walk its pearly streets. The laws of cause and effect forbid that Devachan should be monotonous. Results are proportionate to antecedent energies. The soul oscillates between Devachan and earth-life, finding in each conditions suited to its continuous development, until, through effort, it reaches a perfection in which it ceases to be the subject of the laws of action and reäction, becoming instead their conscious co-worker.

Devachan is a dream, but only in the sense in which objective life can be called such. Both last until Karma is satisfied in one direction, and begins to work in the other. The Devachanee has no idea of space or time except such as he makes for himself. He creates his own world. He is with all he ever loved, not in bodily companionship, but in one to him real, close and blissful. When a man dies, the brain dies last. Life is still busy there after death has been announced. The soul marshals up all past events, grasps the sum total, the average tendency stands out, the ruling hope is seen. Their final aroma forms the keynote of Devachanic existence. The lukewarm man goes neither to heaven nor hell. Nature spews him out of her mouth. Positive conditions, objective or subjective, are only reached through positive impulsion. Devachanic distribution is governed by the ruling motive of the soul. The hater may, by reäction, become the lover, but the indifferent have no propulsion, no growth.

XX.

It is quite evident to the unprejudiced inquirer that Christian priests for some reason or other studiously ignore the composite nature of man, although their great authority, St. Paul, clearly refers to it. He spoke of body, soul, and spirit, they only preach of body and soul; he declared we had a spiritual body, they remain misty as to the soul's body and cling to an absurd resurrection of the material casket. It became the duty of Theosophists to draw the attention of the modern mind once more to the Oriental division of man's constitution, for through that alone can an understanding of his state before and after death be attained. The division laid down by St. Paul is threefold, the Hindû one is of a sevenfold character. St. Paul's is meant for those who require broad outlines, but do not care to inquire into details. Spirit, soul, and body, however, include the whole seven divisions, the latter being a more complete analysis; and it is suspected by many deep thinkers that Paul knew the complete system but kept it back for good reasons of his own.

An analysis of body discloses more than mere molecular structure, for it shows a force or life or power that keeps it together and active throughout its natural period. Some writers on Theosophical subjects, dealing more or less accurately with the Eastern system, have called this Prâna or Jîva; others, however, call it Prâna alone, which seems more appropriate, because the human aspect of the life force is dependent upon Prâna, or breath.

The spirit of St. Paul may be taken for our purposes to be the Sanskrit Âtmâ. Spirit is universal, indivisible, and common to all. In other words, there are not many spirits, one for each man, but solely one spirit which shines upon all men alike, finding as many souls—roughly speaking—as there are beings in the world. In man the spirit has a more complete instrument or assemblage of tools with which to work. This spiritual identity is the basis of the philosophy; upon it the whole structure rests; to individualize spirit, assigning to each human being his own spirit, particular to him and separate from the spirit of any other man, is to throw to the ground the whole Theosophic philosophy, will nullify its ethics and defeat its object.

Starting then with Âtmâ—spirit—as including the whole, being its basis and support, we find the Hindû offering the theory of sheaths or covers of the soul or inner man. These sheaths are necessary the moment evolution begins and visible objects appear, so that the aim of the soul may be attained in conjunction with nature. In this way, through a process which would be out of place here, a classification is arrived at by means of which the phenomena of life and consciousness may be explained.