Theosophical Society,
Death
&
How to Get Through It
Lentil burgers, a thousand
press ups before breakfast and
the daily 25 mile run may put
it off for a while but death
seems to get most of us in the
end. We are pleased to
present for your
consideration, a definitive work on the
subject by a Student of
Katherine Tingley entitled
“Man After Death”
Katherine
Tingley
1847
– 1929
Founder
& President of the
Point
Loma Theosophical Society 1896 -1929
She
and her students produced a series of informative
Theosophical
works in the early years of the 20th century
Man After Death
By
A Student of
Katherine Tingley
Chapter 6
The Preparation for
the Next Incarnation
In Devachan
the higher energies or causes set in motion in earth-life are carried to their
completion. The very nature of the manasic principle
requires the time and peaceful conditions provided in Devachan to work out the
effects of what it has stored. While in a body these higher fruitions cannot
manifest themselves, for the environment and structure of the brain are too
material.
In Devachan
the higher ego, overshadowed by buddhi -- i.e., the buddhi-manas -- by the assimilation of the lower manasic personal ideations and such consciousness of the
better things like compassion, patience, the higher side of art and music, and
ideals of service for humanity, draws up to itself the enduring part of the
former personality.
The higher ego
is the bearer of all the alter egos threaded on its silver line of successive
incarnations, which blend into one at last; but in the Devachan immediately
succeeding any one life, the spiritual aroma of the events of that particular
lifetime is what colors it with the greatest distinctness. Personal immortality
for the alter ego is so far conditional that it depends upon the quality of its
aspirations to make its union with the Father, the True Vine, possible.
Like to like
is the rule in all worlds, and the law of least resistance bears sway
everywhere; it would be obviously preposterous to imagine an utter sensualist
in the higher and more refined degrees of kama-loka
or until purged on the spiritual plane of Devachan.
The descent of
the higher ego through its shadow is symbolized in the Christian story by the
incarnation of the Christos in Jesus of Nazareth and his
subsequent ascent to his Father, after being crucified on the cross of matter.
The penitent thief stands for the higher aspiration of the past life, as he is
promised
The ego in
Devachan, now a trinity in unity, is not omniscient nor free from illusion; it
has ages of necessary experience to go through first.
We ought
really to regard Devachan from the standpoint of the lower manas,
or more properly and correctly, from the standpoint of the bridge or antaskarana, the part of the higher ego that has been the
connecting link between the two manases in life and
which now bears all that essence of the late personality which can be united
with its Father in Heaven. From this position, looking up, the mystic union
with the higher ego in Devachan will be, to the purified antaskarana
-- all that we canrecognize as worth preserving of
the personality -- a tremendous increase of life and light, of glory, of bliss
beyond anything in our most exquisite dreams.
The
imagination comes into action with a thousandfold the
power it ever had on earth, and the rich and satisfying dream, which is more
than a dream, abundantly rewards the pilgrim for those distressing events on
earth for which it may not have been responsible in that particular incarnation
and which had left a sense of injustice.
Although
Devachan is much nearer the reality of things than any ordinary dream, yet it
is sufficiently illusory for the soul to be able to build up its castles in the
air without fear of disturbance by anything outside. It is surrounded in
imagination by friends, relatives, and all it held dear; as the creative
imagination builds exactly what it desires so vividly as to appear more real
than the most intense experiences while embodied, everyone gets precisely what
is to him the highest joy.
The soul in
the Devachanic state is, in fact, practically in that wondrous condition of
rapture that the poet or the musician or even perhaps the mathematician enjoy
when absorbed in their highest creative states, in which the body, the earth,
and all other externals cease for the time to exist.
The actor [in
Devachan] is so imbued with the role be has lately played that he dreams of it
during the whole Devachanic night, and this vision continues until the hour
strikes for him to return to the stage of life to enact another part. -- The
Key to Theosophy, p. 181
Glorious as
the state of Devachan is, it is not equal in importance to the condition of
earth-life. Necessary it is, joyous exceedingly, but it is on earth that
liberation from the chains of illusion and passion has to be gained. Here,
where the whole nature of man is crying to be used wisely, is the real school,
here it is that the perfected man must arise.
When this is
done the time spent in the spiritual state of Devachan will be unnecessary;
that condition is now needed by the soul for recuperation, for without it the
strain of earthly existence could not be endured.
When the whole
nature has been purified in the fires of trial, and absolute impersonality is
gained, the divine man will be as one of the gods and will in his turn become a
fully conscious creator and guide to the unprogressed
beings below him on the upward march.
Theosophical Society,
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