| Chapter | Page | |
| 1 | Is there any Certain Knowledge? | 1 |
| 2 | The True Facts | 6 |
| 3 | Purgatory | 12 |
| 4 | The Heaven-World | 23 |
| 5 | Many Mansions | 32 |
| 6 | Our Friends in Heaven | 39 |
| 7 | Guardian Angels | 47 |
| 8 | Human Workers in the Unseen | 54 |
| 9 | Helping the Dead | 61 |
[Page
1]This subject of life after death is one of great interest to
all of us, not only because we ourselves must certainly one day die, but
far more because there can
scarcely be any one among us, except perhaps the very young, who has not lost (as
we call it) by death some one or more of those who are near and dear to us. So
if there be any information available with regard to the life after death, we are
naturally very anxious to have it.
But the first thought which arises in the mind of the man who sees such a title
as this is usually "Can anything be certainly known as to life after death?" We
have all had various theories put before us on the subject by the various religious
bodies, and yet even the most devoted followers of these sects seem hardly to believe
their teachings about this matter, for they still speak of death "as the king
of terrors", and seem to regard the whole question as surrounded by mystery
and horror. They may use the term "falling asleep in Jesus," but they
still employ the black dresses and plumes, the horrible crape and the odious black-edged
notepaper, they still surround death with all the trappings of woe, and with everything
calculated to make it [Page 2] seem
darker and more terrible. We have an evil heredity behind us in this matter; we
have inherited these funeral horrors from our forefathers,
and so we are used to them, and do not see the absurdity and monstrosity of it
all. The ancients were in this respect wiser than we, for they did not associate
all these nightmares of gloom with the death of the body — partly perhaps because
they had a so much more rational method of disposing of the body - a method which
was not only infinitely better for the dead man and more healthy for the living,
but was also free from the gruesome suggestions connected with slow decay. They
knew much more about death in those days, and because they knew more they mourned
less.
The first thing that we must realize about death is that it is a perfectly natural
incident in the course of our life. That ought to be obvious to us from the first,
because if we believe at all in a God who is a loving Father we should know that
a fate which, like death, comes to all alike, cannot have in it aught of evil to
any, and that whether we are in this world or the next we must be equally safe
in His hands. This consideration alone should have shown us that death is not something
to be dreaded, but simply a necessary step in our evolution. It ought not to be
necessary for Theosophy to come among Christian nations and teach that death is
a friend and not an enemy, and it would not be necessary if Christianity had not
so largely forgotten its own best traditions. It has come to regard the grave "the
bourne from which no traveller returns," and the passage [Page
3] of it as
a leap in the dark, into some awful unknown void. On this point, as on many others,
Theosophy has a gospel for the Western world; it has to announce that there is
no gloomy impenetrable abyss beyond the grave, but instead a world of light and
life, which may be known to us as clearly and fully and accurately as the streets
of our own city. We have created the gloom and the horror for ourselves, like children
who frighten themselves with ghastly stories, and we have only to study the facts
of the case, and all these artificial clouds will roll away at once. Death is no
darksome king of terrors, no skeleton with a scythe to cut short the thread of
life, but rather an angel bearing a golden key, with which he unlocks for us the
door into a fuller and higher life than this.
But men will naturally say "This is very beautiful and poetical, but how can
we certainly know that it is really so?" You may know it in many ways; there
is plenty of evidence ready to the hand of any one who will take the trouble to
gather it together. Shakespeare's statement is really a remarkable one when we
consider that ever since the dawn of history, and in every country of which we
know anything, travellers have always been returning from that bourne, and showing
themselves to their fellowmen. There is any amount of evidence for such apparitions,
as they have been called. At one time it was fashionable to ridicule all such stories;
now it is no longer so, since scientific men like Sir William Crookes, the discoverer
of the metal thallium and the inventor of Crookes's radiometer, and Sir Oliver
Lodge, [Page 4] the great electrician,
and eminent public men like Mr. Balfour, the late Premier of England, have joined
and actively worked with a society instituted
for the investigation of such phenomena. Read the reports of the work of that Society
for Psychical Research, and you will see something of the testimony which exists
as to the return of the dead. Read books like Mr. Stead's "Real Ghost
Stories",
or Camille Flammarion's "L'Inconnu", and you will find there plenty of
accounts of apparitions, showing themselves not centuries ago in some far-away
land, but here and now among ourselves, to persons still living, who can be questioned
and can testify to the reality of their experiences.
Another line of testimony to the life after death is the study of Modern Spiritualism.
I know that many people think that there is nothing to be found along that line
but fraud and deception; but I can myself bear personal witness that this is not
so. Fraud and deception there may have been — nay, there has been - in certain
cases; but nevertheless I fearlessly assert that there are great truths behind,
which may be discovered by any man who is willing to devote the necessary time
and patience to their unfolding. Here again there is a vast literature to be studied,
or the man who prefers it may make his investigations for himself at first-hand
as I did. Many men may not be willing to take that trouble or to devote so much
time; very well, that is their affair, but unless they will examine, they have
no right to scoff at those who have seen, and therefore know that these things
are true. [Page 5]
A third line of evidence, which is the one most commending itself to Theosophical
students, is that of direct investigation. Every man has within himself latent
faculties, undeveloped senses, by means of which the unseen world can be directly
cognised, and to any one who will take the trouble to evolve these powers the whole
world beyond the grave will lie open as the day. A good many Theosophical students
have already unfolded these inner senses, and it is the evidence thus obtained
that I wish to lay before you. I know very well that this is a considerable claim
to make - a claim which would not be made by any minister of any church when he
gave you his version of the states after death. He will say, "The Church teaches
this", or "The Bible tells us so", but he will never say, "I
who speak to you, I myself have seen this, and know it to be true". But in
Theosophy we are able to say to you quite definitely that many of us know personally
that of which we speak, for we are dealing with a definite series of facts which
we have investigated, and which you yourselves may investigate in turn. We offer
you what we know, yet we say to you "Unless this commends itself to you as
utterly reasonable, do not rest contented with our assertion; look into these things
for yourselves as fully as you can, and then you will be in a position to speak
to others as authoritatively as we do." But what are the facts which are disclosed
to us by these investigations? [Page 6]
The state of affairs found as actually existing is much more rational than most
of the current theories. It is not found that any sudden change takes place in
man at death, or that he is spirited away to some heaven beyond the stars. On the
contrary, man remains after death exactly what he was before it - the same in intellect,
the same in his qualities and powers; and the conditions in which he finds himself
are those which his own thoughts and desires have already created for him. There
is no reward or punishment from outside, but only the actual result of what the
man himself has done and said and thought while here on earth. In fact, the man
makes his bed during earth life and afterwards he has to lie on it.
This is the first and most prominent fact — that we have not here a strange new
life, but a continuation of the present one. We are not separated from the dead,
for they are here about us all the time. The only separation is the limitation
of our consciousness, so that we have lost, not our loved ones, but the power to
see them. It is quite possible for us to raise our consciousness, that we can see
them and talk with them as before, and all [Page 7] of us constantly
do that, though we only rarely remember it fully. A man may learn to focus his consciousness
in
his astral body while his physical body is still awake, but that needs special
development, and in the case of the average man would take much time. But during
the sleep of his physical body every man uses his astral vehicle to a greater or
lesser extent, and in that way we are daily with our departed friends. Sometimes
we have a partial remembrance of meeting them, and then we say we have dreamt of
them; more frequently we have no recollection of such encounters and remain ignorant
that they have taken place. Yet it is a definite fact that the ties of affection
are still as strong as ever; and so the moment the man is freed from the chains
of his physical encasement he naturally seeks the company of those whom he loves.
So that in truth the only change is that he spends the night with them instead
of the day, and he is conscious of them astrally instead of physically.
The bringing through of the memory from the astral plane to the physical is another
and quite separate consideration, which in no way affects our consciousness on
that other plane, nor our ability to function upon it with perfect ease and freedom.
Whether you recollect them or not, they are still living their life close to you,
and the only difference is that they have taken off this robe of flesh which we
call the body. That makes no change in them, any more than it makes a change in
your personality when you remove your overcoat. You are somewhat freer, indeed,
because you have less weight to carry, and precisely the same is the case with
them. [Page 8] The man's passions, affections, emotions and intellect are not
in the least affected when he dies, for none of these belong to the physical body
which he has laid aside. He has dropped this vesture, and is living in another,
but he is still able to think and to feel just as before.
I know how difficult it is for the average mind to grasp the reality of that which
we cannot see with our physical eyes. It is very hard for us to realize how very
partial our sight is — to understand that we are living in a vast world of which
we see only a tiny part. Yet science tells us with no uncertain voice that this
is so, for it describes to us whole worlds of minute life of whose very existence
we should be entirely ignorant as far as our senses are concerned. Nor are the
creatures of those worlds unimportant because minute, for upon a knowledge of the
condition and habits of some of those microbes depends our ability to preserve
health, and in many cases life itself. But our senses are limited in another direction.
We cannot see the very air that surrounds us; our senses would give us no indication
of its existence, except that when it is in motion we are aware of it by the sense
of touch. Yet in it there is a force that can wreck our mightiest vessels and throw
down our strongest buildings. You see how all about us there are mighty forces
which yet elude our poor and partial senses; so obviously we must beware of falling
into the fatally common error of supposing that what we see is all there is to
see.
We are, as it were, shut up in a tower, and our senses are tiny windows opening
out in certain directions. In [Page 9] many other directions we are entirely shut
in, but clairvoyance or astral sight opens for us one or two additional windows,
and so enlarges our prospect, and spreads before us a new and wider world, which
is yet part of the old one, though before we did not know of it.
Looking out into this new world, what should we first see? Supposing that one of
us transferred his consciousness to the astral plane what changes would be the
first to strike him? To the first glance there would probably be very little difference,
and he would suppose himself to be looking upon the same world as before. Let me
explain to you why this is so — partially at least, for to explain fully would
need a whole treatise upon astral physics. Just as we have different conditions
of matter here, the solid, the liquid, the gaseous, so are there different conditions
or degrees of density of astral matter, and each degree is attracted by and corresponds
to that which is similar to it on the physical plane. So that your friend would
still see the walls and the furniture to which he was accustomed, for though the
physical matter of which they are composed would no longer be visible to him, the
densest type of astral matter would still outline them for him as clearly as ever.
True, if he examined the object closely he would perceive that all the particles
were visible in rapid motion, instead of only invisibly, as is the case on this
plane; but very few men do observe closely, and so a man who dies often does not
know at first that any change has come over him. [Page 10]
He looks about him, and sees the same rooms with which he is familiar, peopled
still by those whom he has known and loved - for they also have astral bodies,
which are within the range of his new vision. Only by degrees does he realize that
in some ways there is a difference. For example, he soon finds that for him all
pain and fatigue have passed away. If you can at all realize what that means, you
will begin to have some idea of what the higher life truly is. Think of it, you
who have scarcely ever a comfortable moment, you who in the stress of your busy
life can hardly remember when you last felt free from fatigue; what would it be
to you never again to know the meaning of the words weariness and pain? We have
so mismanaged our teaching in these Western countries on the subject of immortality
that usually a dead man finds it difficult to believe that he is dead, simply because
he still sees and hears, thinks and feels. "I am not dead", he will often
say, "I am alive as much as ever, and better than I ever was before". Of
course he is; but that is exactly what he ought to have expected, if he had been
properly taught.
Realization may perhaps come to him in this way. He sees his friends about him,
but he soon discovers that he cannot always communicate with them. Sometimes he
speaks to them, and they do not seem to hear; he tries to touch them, and finds
that he can make no impression upon them. Even then, for some time, he persuades
himself that he is dreaming, and will presently awake, for at other times (when
they are what we call [Page 11] asleep)
his friends are perfectly conscious of him, and talk with him as of old. But gradually
he discovers the fact that he is
after all dead, and then he usually begins to become uneasy. Why? Again because
of the defective teaching which he has received. He does not understand where he
is, or what has happened, since his situation is not what he expected from the
orthodox standpoint. As an English general once said on this occasion, "But
if I am dead, where am I? If this is heaven I don't think much of it; and if it
is hell, it is better than I expected!" [Page 12]
PURGATORY
A great deal of totally unnecessary
uneasiness and even acute suffering has been caused by those who still continue
to teach the world silly fables about non-existent
bugbears instead of using reason and common sense. The baseless and blasphemous
hell-fire theory has done more harm than even its promoters know, for it has worked
evil beyond the grave as well as on this side. But presently the "dead" man
will meet with some other dead person who has been more sensibly instructed, and
will learn from him that there is no cause for fear, and that there is a rational
life to be lived in this new world, just as there was in the old one.
He will find by degrees that there is very much that is new as well as much that
is a counterpart of that which he already knows; for in this astral world thoughts
and desires express themselves in visible forms though these are composed mostly
of the finer matter of the plane. As his astral life proceeds, these become more
and more prominent, for we must remember that he is all the while steadily withdrawing
further and further into himself. The entire period of an incarnation is in reality
occupied by the ego in first putting [Page 13] himself
forth into matter, and then in drawing back again with the results of his effort.
If the ordinary man
were
asked to draw a line symbolical of life, he would probably make it a straight one,
beginning at birth and ending at death; but the Theosophical student should rather
represent the life as a great ellipse, starting from the ego on the higher mental
level and returning to him. The line would descend into the lower part of the mental
plane, and then into the astral. A very small portion, comparatively, at the bottom
of the ellipse, would be upon the physical plane, and the line would very soon
re-ascend into the astral and mental planes. The physical life would therefore
be represented only by that small portion of the curve which lay below the line
which
indicated the boundary between the astral and physical planes, and birth and death
would simply be the points at which the curve crossed that line — obviously by
no means the most important points of the whole.
The real central point would clearly be that furthest removed from the ego — the
turning point, as it were — what in astronomy we should call the aphelion. That
is neither birth nor death, but should be a middle point in the physical life,
when the force from the ego has expended its outward rush, and turns to begin the
long process of withdrawal. Gradually his thoughts should turn upward, he cares
less and less for merely physical matters, and presently he drops the dense body
altogether. His life on the astral plane commences, but during the whole of it
the process of withdrawal [Page 14] continues. The result of this
is that as time passes he pays less and less attention to the lower matter of which counterparts
of physical objects are composed, and is more and more occupied with that higher
matter of which thought-forms are built - so far, that is, as thought-forms appear
on the astral plane at all. So his life becomes more and more a life in a world
of thought, and the counterpart of the world which he has left fades from his view,
not that he has changed his location in space, but that his interest is shifting
its centre. His desires still persist, and the forms surrounding him will be very
largely the expression of these desires, and whether his life is one of happiness
or discomfort will depend chiefly upon the nature of these.
A study of this astral life shows us very clearly the reason for many ethical precepts.
Most men recognize that sins which injure others are definitely and obviously wrong;
but they sometimes wonder why it should be said to be wrong for them to feel jealousy,
or hatred, or ambition, so long as they do not allow themselves to manifest these
feelings outwardly in deed or in speech. A glimpse at this after-world shows us
exactly how such feelings injure the man who harbours them, and how they would
cause him suffering of the most acute character after his death. We shall understand
this better if we examine a few typical cases of astral life, and see what their
principal characteristics will be.
Let us think first of the ordinary colourless man, who is neither specially good,
nor specially bad, nor indeed [Page 15] specially
anything in particular. The man is in no way changed, so colourlessness will remain
his principal characteristic
(if we call it one) after his death. He will have no special suffering and no special
joy, and may very probably find astral life rather dull, because he has not during
his time on earth developed any rational interests. If he has had no ideas beyond
gossip or what is called sport, or nothing beyond his business or his dress, he
is likely to find time hang heavy on his hands when all such things are no longer
possible. But the case of a man who has had strong desires of a low material type,
such as could be satisfied only on the physical plane, is an even worse one. Think
of the case of the drunkard or the sensualist. He has been the slave of over-mastering
craving during earth-life, and it still remains undiminished after death — rather,
it is stronger than ever, since its vibrations have no longer the heavy physical
particles to set in motion. But the possibility of gratifying this terrible thirst
is for ever removed, because the body, through which alone it could be satisfied,
is gone. We see that the fires of purgatory are no inapt symbols for the vibrations
of such a torturing desire as this. It may endure for quite a long time, since
it passes only by gradually wearing itself out, and the man's fate is undoubtedly
a terrible one. Yet there are two points that we should bear in mind in considering
it. First, the man has made it absolutely for himself, and determined the exact
degree of its power and its duration. If he had controlled that desire during life
there would [Page 16] have been just so much the less of it to trouble
him after death. Secondly, it is the only way in which he can get rid of the vice. If he
could pass from a life of sensuality and drunkenness directly into his next incarnation,
he would be born a slave to his vice — it would dominate him from the beginning,
and there would be for him no possibility of escape. But now that the desire has
worn itself out, he will begin his new career without that burden, and the soul,
having had so severe a lesson, will make every possible effort to restrain its
lower vehicles from repeating such a mistake.
All this was known to the world even as lately as classical times. We see it clearly
imaged for us in the myth of Tantalus, who suffered always with raging thirst,
yet was doomed for ever to see the water recede just as it was about to touch his
lips. Many another sin produces its result in a manner just as gruesome, although
each is peculiar to itself. See how the miser will suffer when he can no longer
hoard his gold, when he perhaps knows that it is being spent by alien hands. Think
how the jealous man will continue to suffer from his jealousy, knowing that he
has now no power to interfere upon the physical plane, yet feeling more strongly
than ever. Remember the fate of Sisyphus in Greek myth — how he was condemned for
ever to roll a heavy rock up to the summit of a mountain, only to see it roll down
again the moment that success seemed within his reach. See how exactly this typifies
the after-life of the man of worldly ambition. He has all his life been in the
habit of forming selfish plans, and [Page 17] therefore he continues to do so
in the astral world; he carefully builds up his plot until it is perfect in his
mind,
and only then realizes that he has lost the physical body which is necessary for
its achievement. Down fall his hopes; yet so ingrained is the habit that he continues
again and again to roll the same stone up the same mountain of ambition, until
the vice is worn out. Then at last he realizes that he need not roll his rock,
and lets it rest in peace at the bottom of the hill.
We have considered the case of the ordinary man, and of the man who differs from
the ordinary because of his gross and selfish desires. Now let us examine the case
of the man who differs from the ordinary in the other direction, who has some interests
of a rational nature. In order to understand how the after-life appears to him,
we must bear in the mind that the majority of men spend the greater part of their
waking life and most of their strength in work that they do not really like, that
they would not do at all if it were not necessary in order to earn their living,
or support those who are dependent upon them. Realize the condition of the man
when all necessity for this grinding toil is over, when it is no longer needful
to earn a living, since the astral body requires no food nor clothing nor lodging.
Then for the first time since earliest childhood that man is free to do precisely
what he likes, and can devote his whole time to whatever may be his chosen occupation
— so long, that is, as it is of such a nature as to be capable of realization without
physical matter. Suppose that a man's greatest [Page 18] delight is in music;
upon the astral plane he has the opportunity of listening to all the grandest music
that earth can produce, and is even able under these new conditions to hear far
more in it than before, since here, other and fuller harmonies than our dull ears
can grasp are now within his reach. The man whose delight is in art, who loves
beauty in form and colour, has all the loveliness of this higher world before him
from which to choose. If his delight is in beauty in Nature, he has unequalled
possibilities for indulging it; for he can readily and rapidly move from place
to place, and enjoy in quick succession wonders of Nature which the physical man
would need years to visit. If his fancy turns towards science or history, the libraries
and the laboratories of the world are at his disposal, and his comprehension of
processes in chemistry and biology would be far fuller than ever before, for now
he could see the inner as well as the outer workings, and many of the causes as
well as the effects. And in all the cases there is the wonderful additional delight
that no fatigue is possible. Here we know how constantly, when we are making some
progress in our studies or our experiments, we are unable to carry them on because
our brain will not bear more than a certain amount of strain; outside of the physical
no fatigue seems to exist, for it is in reality the brain and not the mind that
tires.
All this time I have been speaking of mere selfish gratification, even though it
be of the rational and intellectual kind. But there are those among us who [Page
19] would not be satisfied without something higher than this — whose
greatest joy in any life would consist in serving their fellow-men. What has the
astral
life in store for them? They will pursue their philanthropy more vigorously than
ever, and under better conditions than on this lower plane. There are thousands
whom they can help, and with far greater certainty of really being able to do good
than we usually attain in this life. Some devote themselves thus to the general
good; some are especially occupied with cases among their own family or friends,
either living or dead. It is a strange inversion of the facts, this employment
of those words living and dead; for surely we are the dead, we who are buried in
these gross cramping physical bodies; and they are truly the living, who are so
much freer and more capable, because less hampered. Often the mother who has passed
into that higher life will still watch over her child and be to him a veritable
guardian angel; often the "dead" husband still remains within reach,
and in touch with his sorrowing wife, thankful if even now and then he is able
to make her feel that he lives in strength and love beside her as of yore.
If all this be so, you may think, then surely the sooner we die the better; such
knowledge seems almost to place a premium on suicide! If you are thinking solely
of yourself and of your pleasure, then emphatically that would be so. But if you
think of your duty towards God and towards your fellows, then you will at once
see that this consideration is negatived [‘negated’: to cancel,
nullify, invalidate, reverse]. [Page 20] You are here for a purpose — a
purpose which can only be attained upon this physical plane. The soul has to take much
trouble, to go through much limitation, in order to gain this earthly incarnation,
and therefore its efforts must not be thrown away unnecessarily. The instinct of
self-preservation is divinely implanted in our breasts, and it is our duty to make
the most of this earthly life which is ours, and to retain it as long as circumstances
permit. There are lessons to be learnt on this plane which cannot be learnt anywhere
else, and the sooner we learn them the sooner we shall be free for ever from the
need of return to this lower and more limited life. So none must dare to die until
his time comes, though when it does come he may well rejoice, for indeed he is
about to pass from labour to refreshment. Yet all this which I have told you now
is insignificant beside the glory of the life which follows it — the life of the
heaven-world. This is the purgatory — that is the endless bliss of which monks
have dreamed and poets sung — not a dream after all, but a living and glorious
reality. The astral life is happy for some, unhappy for others, according to the
preparation they have made for it; but what follows it is perfect happiness for
all, and exactly suited to the needs of each.
Before closing this chapter let us consider one or two questions which are perpetually
recurring to the minds of those who seek information about the next life. Shall
we be able to make progress there, some will ask? Undoubtedly, for progress is
the rule of the Divine [Page 21] Scheme. It is possible to us just in proportion
to our development. The man who is a slave to desire can only progress by wearing
out his desire; still, that is the best that is possible at his stage. But the
man who is kindly and helpful learns much in many ways through the work which he
is able to do in that astral life; he will return to earth with many additional
powers and qualities because of the practice he has had in unselfish effort. So
we need have no fear as to this question of progress.
Another point often raised is, shall we recognize our loved ones who have passed
on before us? Assuredly we shall, for neither they nor we shall be changed; why,
then, should we not recognize them? The attraction is still there, and will act
as a magnet to draw together those who feel it, more readily and more surely there
than here. True, that if the loved one has left this earth very long ago, he may
have already passed beyond the astral plane, and entered the heaven-life; in that
case we must wait until we also reach that level before we can rejoin him, but
when that is gained we shall possess our friend more perfectly than in this prison-house
we can ever realize. But of this be sure, that those whom you have loved are not
lost; if they have died recently, then you will find them on the astral plane;
if they have died long ago, you will find them in the heaven-life, but in any case
the reunion is sure where the affection exists. For love is one of the mightiest
powers of the universe, whether it be in life or in death. [Page 22]
There is an infinity of interesting information to be given about this higher life.
You should read the literature; read Mrs. Besant's "Death and After",
and my own books on "The Astral Plane" and "The Other
Side of Death".
It is very well worth your while to study this subject, for the knowledge of the
truth takes away all fear of death, and makes life easier to live, because we understand
its object and its end. Death brings no suffering, but only joy, for those who
live the true, the unselfish life. The old Latin saying is literally true — Mors
janua vitae — death is the gate of life. That is exactly what it is — a gate into
a fuller and higher life. On the other side of the grave, as well as on this, prevails
the great law of Divine Justice, and we trust as implicitly there as here to the
action of that law, with regard both to ourselves and to those we love. [Page 23]
All religions agree in declaring the
existence of heaven and in stating that the enjoyment of its bliss follows upon
a well-spent earthly life. Christianity
and Mohammedanism speak of it as a reward assigned by God to those who have pleased
Him, but most other faiths describe it rather as the necessary result of the good
life, exactly as we should from the Theosophical point of view. Yet though all
religions agree in painting this happy life in glowing terms, none of them have
succeeded in producing an impression of reality in their descriptions. All that
is written about heaven is so absolutely unlike anything that we have known, that
many of the descriptions seem almost grotesque to us. We should hesitate to admit
this with regard to the legends familiar to us from our infancy, but if the stories
of one of the other great religions were read to us, we should see it readily enough.
In Buddhist or Hindu books you will find magniloquent accounts of interminable
gardens, in which the trees are all of gold and silver, and their fruits of various
kinds of jewels, and you might be tempted to smile, unless the thought occurred
to you that after all, to the Buddhist [Page
24] or Hindu, our tales of streets
of gold and gates of pearl might in truth seem quite as improbable. The fact is
that the ridiculous element is imported into these accounts only when we take them
literally, and fail to realize that each scribe is trying the same task from his
point of view, and that all alike are failing because the great truth behind it
all is utterly indescribable. The Hindu writer had no doubt seen some of the gorgeous
gardens of the Indian kings, where just such decorations as he describes are commonly
employed. The Jewish scribe had no familiarity with such things, but he dwelt in
a great and magnificent city — probably Alexandria; and so his conception of splendour
was a city, but made unlike anything on earth by the costliness of its material
and its decorations. So each is trying to paint a truth which is too grand for
words by employing such similes as are familiar to his mind.
There have been those since that day who have seen the glory of heaven, and have
tried in their feeble way to describe it. Some of our own students have been among
these, and in the Theosophical Manual No. 6 ["The Devachanic
Plane, or
the Heaven-World."] you may find an effort of my own in that direction. We
do not speak now of gold and silver, of rubies and diamonds, when we wish to convey
the idea of the greatest possible refinement and beauty of colour and form; we
draw our similes rather from the colours of the sunset, and from all the glories
of sea and sky, because to us these are the more heavenly. Yet those [Page
25]
of us who have seen the truth know well that in all our attempts at description
we have failed as utterly as the Oriental scribes to convey any idea of a reality
which no words can ever picture, though every man one day shall see it and know
it for himself.
For this heaven is not a dream; it is a radiant reality; but to comprehend anything
of it we must first change one of our initial ideas on the subject. Heaven is not
a place, but a state of consciousness. If you ask me "Where is heaven?" I
must answer you that it is here — round you at this very moment, near to you as
the air you breathe. The light is all about you, as the Buddha said so long ago;
you have only to cast the bandage from your eyes and look. But what is this casting
away of a bandage? Of what is it symbolical? It is simply a question of raising
the consciousness to a higher level, of learning to focus it in the vehicle of
finer matter. I have already spoken of the possibility of doing this with regard
to the astral body, thereby seeing the astral world; this needs simply a further
stage of the same process, the raising of the consciousness to the mental plane,
for man has a body for that level also, through which he may receive its vibrations,
and so live in the glowing splendour of heaven while still possessing a physical
body — though indeed after such an experience he will have little relish for the
return to the latter.
The ordinary man reaches this state of bliss only after death, and not immediately
after it except in very rare cases. I have explained how after death the [Page
26] Ego steadily withdraws into himself. The whole astral life is in
fact a constant process of withdrawal, and when in course of time the soul reaches
the limit of
that plane, he dies to it in just the same way as he did to the physical plane.
That is to say, he casts off the body of that plane, and leaves it behind him while
he passes on to higher and still fuller life. No pain or suffering of any kind
precedes this second death, but just as with the first, there is usually a period
of unconsciousness, from which the man awakes gradually. Some years ago I wrote
a book called "The Devachanic Plane", in which I endeavoured
to some extent to describe what he would see, and to tabulate as far as I could the various
subdivisions of this glorious Land of Light, giving instances which had been observed
in the course of our investigations in connection with this heaven-life. For the
moment I shall try to put the matter before you from another point of view, and
those who wish may supplement the information by reading that book as well.
Perhaps the most comprehensive opening statement is that this is the plane of the
Divine Mind, that here we are in the very realm of thought itself, and that everything
that man possibly could think is here in vivid living reality. We labour under
a great disadvantage from our habit of regarding material things as real, and those
which are not material as dream-like and therefore unreal; whereas the fact is
that everything which is material is buried and hidden in this matter, and so
whatever of reality it may possess is far less [Page 27] obvious
and recognizable than it would be when regarded from a higher standpoint. So that
when we hear of
a world of thought, we immediately think of an unreal world, built out of "such
stuff as dreams are made of", as the poet says.
Try to realize that when a man leaves his physical body and opens his consciousness
to astral life, his first sensation is of the intense vividness and reality of
that life, so that he thinks "Now for the first time I know what it is to
live." But when in turn he leaves that life for the higher one, he exactly
repeats the same experience, for this life is in turn so much fuller and wider
and more intense than the astral that once more no comparison is possible. And
yet there is another life beyond all this, unto which even this is but as moonlight
unto sunlight; but it is useless at present to think of that.
There may be many to whom it sounds absurd that a realm of thought should be more
real than the physical world; well, it must remain so for them until they have
some experience of a life higher than this, and then in one moment they will know
far more than any words can ever tell them.
On this plane, then, we find existing the infinite fullness of the Divine Mind,
open in all its limitless affluence to every soul, just in proportion as that soul
has qualified himself to receive. If man had already completed his destined evolution,
if he had fully realized and unfolded the divinity whose germ is within him, the
whole of this glory would be within his reach; [Page 28] but
since none of us has yet done that, since we are only gradually rising towards
that splendid consummation,
it comes that none as yet can grasp that entirely, but each draws from it and cognises
only so much as he has by previous effort prepared himself to take. Different individuals
bring very different capabilities; as the Eastern simile has it, each man brings
his own cup, and some of the cups are large and some are small, but, small or large,
every cup is filled to its utmost capacity; the sea of bliss holds far more than
enough for all.
All religions have spoken of this bliss of heaven, yet few of them have put before
us with sufficient clearness and precision this leading idea which alone explains
rationally how for all alike such bliss is possible — which is, indeed, the keynote
of the conception — the fact that each man makes his own heaven by selection from
the ineffable splendours of the Thought of God Himself. A man decides for himself
both the length and character of his heaven-life by the causes which he himself
generates during his earth-life; therefore he cannot but have exactly the amount
which he has deserved, and exactly the quality of joy which is best suited to his
idiosyncrasies, for this is a world in which every being must, from the very fact
of his consciousness there, be enjoying the highest spiritual bliss of which he
is capable — a world whose power of response to his aspirations is limited only
by his capacity to aspire.
He had made himself an astral body by his desires and passions during earth-life,
and he had to live in it [Page 29] during his astral existence, and that time
was happy or miserable for him according to its character. Now this time of purgatory
is over, for that lower part of his nature has burnt itself away now there remain
only the higher and more refined thoughts, the noble and unselfish aspirations
that he poured out during earth-life. These cluster round him, and make a sort
of shell about him, through the medium of which he is able to respond to certain
types of vibration in this refined matter. These thoughts which surround him are
the powers by which he draws upon the wealth of the heaven-world, and he finds
it to be a storehouse of infinite extent upon which he is able to draw just according
to the power of those thoughts and aspirations which he generated in the physical
and astral life. All the highest of his affection and his devotion is now producing
its results, for there is nothing else left; all that was selfish or grasping has
been left behind in the plane of desire.
For there are two kinds of affection. There is one, hardly worthy of so sublime
a name, which thinks always of how much love it is receiving in return for its
investment of attachment, which is ever worrying as to the exact amount of affection
which the other person is showing for it, and so is constantly entangled in the
evil meshes of jealousy and suspicion. Such feeling, grasping and full of greed,
will work out its results of doubt and misery upon the plane of desire, to which
it so clearly belongs. But there is another kind of love, which never stays to
think how much it [Page 30] is loved,
but has only the one object of pouring itself out unreservedly at the feet of the
object of its affection, and considers
only
how best it can express in action the feeling which fills its heart so utterly.
Here there is no limitation, because there is no grasping, no drawing towards the
self, no thought of return, and just because of that there is a tremendous outpouring
of force, which no astral matter could express, nor could the dimensions of the
astral plane contain it. It needs the finer matter and the wider space of the higher
level, and so the energy generated belongs to the mental world. Just so, there
is a religious devotion which thinks mainly of what it will get for its prayers,
and lowers its worship into a species of bargaining; while there is also a genuine
devotion, which forgets itself absolutely in the contemplation of its deity. We
all know well that in our highest devotion there is something which has never yet
been satisfied, that our grandest aspirations have never yet been realized, that
when we really love unselfishly, our feeling is far beyond all power of expression
on this physical plane, that the profound emotion stirred within our hearts by
the noblest music or the most perfect art reaches to heights and depths unknown
to this dull earth. Yet all of this is a wondrous force of power beyond our calculation,
and it must produce its result somewhere; somehow, for the law of the conservation
of energy holds good upon the higher planes of thought and aspiration just as surely
as in ordinary mechanics. But since it must react upon him who set it in motion,
and [Page 31] yet it cannot work upon the physical plane because of its narrowness
and comparative grossness of matter, how and when can it produce its inevitable
result? It simply waits for the man until it reaches its level; it remains as so
much stored-up energy until its opportunity arrives. While his consciousness is
focussed upon the physical and astral planes it cannot react upon him, but as soon
as he transfers himself entirely to the mental it is ready for him, its floodgates
are opened, and its action commences. So perfect justice is done, and nothing is
ever lost, even though to us in this lower world it seems to have missed its aim
and come to nothing. [Page 32]
The keynote of the conception is the
comprehension of how man makes his own heaven. Here upon this plane of the Divine
Mind exists, as we have said, all beauty
and glory conceivable; but the man can look out upon it all only through the windows
he himself has made. Every one of his thought-forms is such a window, through which
response may come to him from the forces without. If he has chiefly regarded physical
things during his earth-life, then he has made for himself but few windows through
which this higher glory can shine in upon him. Yet every man will have had some
touch of pure, unselfish feeling, even if it were but once in all his life, and
that will be a window for him now. Every man, except the utter savage at a very
early stage, will surely have something of this wonderful time of bliss. Instead
of saying, as orthodoxy does, that some men will go to heaven and some to hell,
it would be far more correct to say that all men will have their share of both
states (if we are to call even the lowest astral life by so horrible a name as
hell), and it is only their relative proportions which differ. It must be borne
in mind that the soul [Page 33] of the ordinary man is as yet but at an
early stage of his development. He has learnt to use his physical vehicle with comparative
ease, and he can also function tolerably freely in his astral body, though he is
rarely able to carry through the memory of its activities to his physical brain;
but his mental body is not yet in any true sense a vehicle at all, since he cannot
utilize it as he does those lower bodies, cannot travel about in it, nor employ
its senses for the reception of information in the normal way.
We must not think of him, therefore, as in a condition of any great activity, or
as able to move about freely, as he did upon the astral levels. His condition here
is chiefly receptive, and his communication with the world outside him is only
through his own windows, and therefore exceedingly limited. The man who can put
forth full activity there is already almost more than man, for he must be a glorified
spirit, a great and highly evolved entity. He would have full consciousness there,
and would use his mental vehicle as freely as the ordinary man employs his physical
body, and through it vast fields of higher knowledge would lie open to him.
But we are thinking of one as yet less developed than this — one who has his windows,
and sees only through them. In order to understand his heaven we must consider,
two points: his relation to the plane itself, and his relation to his friends.
The question of his relation to his surroundings upon the plane divides itself
into two parts, for we have to think first of the matter of the plane as moulded
by his thought, and [Page 34] secondly of the forces of the plane as evoked in
answer to his aspirations.
I have mentioned how man surrounds himself with thought-forms; here on this plane
we are in the very home of thought, so naturally those forms are all important
in connection with both these considerations. There are living forces about him,
mighty angelic inhabitants of the plane, and many of their orders are very sensitive
to certain aspirations of man, and readily respond to them. But naturally both
his thoughts and his aspirations are only along the lines which he has already
prepared during earth-life. It might seem that when he was transferred to a plane
of such transcendent force and vitality he might well be stirred up to entirely
new activities along hitherto unwonted lines; but this is not possible. His mind-body
is not in by any means the same order as his lower vehicles, and is by no means
so fully under his control. All through a past of many lives it has been accustomed
to receive its impressions and incitements to action from below, through the lower
vehicles, chiefly from the physical body, and sometimes from the astral; it has
done very little in the way of receiving direct mental vibrations at its own level,
and it cannot suddenly begin to accept and respond to them. Practically, then,
the man does not initiate any new thoughts, but those which he has already formed,
the windows through which he looks out on his new world.
With regard to these windows there are two possibilities of variation — the direction
in which they look, [Page 35] and the kind of glass of which they are composed.
There are very many directions which the higher thought may take. Some of these,
such as affection and devotion, are so generally of a personal character that it
is perhaps better to consider them in connection with the man's relation to other
people; let us rather take first an example where that element does not come in
— where we have to deal only with the influence of his surroundings. Suppose that
one of his windows into heaven is that of music. Here we have a very mighty force;
you know how wonderfully music can uplift a man, can make him for the time a new
being in a new world; if you have ever experienced its effect you will realize
that here we are in the presence of a stupendous power. The man that has no music
in his soul has no window open in that direction; but a man who has a musical window
will receive through it three entirely distinct sets of impressions, all of which,
however, will be modified by the kind of glass he has in his window. It is obvious
that his glass may be a great limitation to his view; it may be coloured, and so
admit only certain rays of light, or it may be of poor material, and so distort
and darken all the rays as they enter. For example, one man may have been able
while on earth to appreciate only one class of music, and so on. But suppose his
musical window to be a good one, what will he receive through it?
First, he will sense that music which is the expression of the ordered movement
of the forces of the plane. There was a definite fact behind the poetic idea of
the [Page 36] music of the spheres, for on these higher planes all movement and
action of any kind produce glorious harmonies both of sound and colour. All thought
expresses itself in this way — his own as well as that of others — in a lovely
yet indescribable series of ever changing chords, as of a thousand Aeolian harps.
This musical manifestation of the vivid and glowing life of heaven would be for
him a kind of ever present and ever delightful background to all his other experiences.
Secondly, there is among the inhabitants of the plane one class of entities — one
great order of angels, as our Christian friends would call them, who are specially
devoted to music, and habitually express themselves by its means to a far fuller
extent than the rest. They are spoken of in old Hindu books under the name of Gandharvas.
The man whose soul is in tune with music will certainly attract their attention,
and will draw himself into connection with some of them, and so will learn with
ever-increasing enjoyment all the marvelous new combinations which they employ.
Thirdly, he will be a keenly appreciative listener to the music made by his fellow-men
in the heaven-world. Think how many great composers have preceded him: Bach, Beethoven,
Mendelssohn, Handel, Mozart, Rossini all are there, not dead but full of vigorous
life, and ever pouring forth far grander strains, far more glorious harmonies,
than any which they knew on earth. Each of these is indeed a fountain of wondrous
melody, and many an inspiration of our [Page 37] earthly musicians is in reality
but a faint and far-off echo of the sweetness of their song. Very far more than
we realize of the genius of this lower world is naught but a reflection of the
untrammeled powers of those who have gone before us; oftener than we think the
man who is receptive here can catch some thought from them, and reproduce it, so
far as may be possible, in this lower sphere. Great masters of music have told
us how they sometimes hear the whole of some grand oratorio, some stately march,
some noble chorus in one resounding chord; how it is in this way that the inspiration
comes to them, though when they try to write it down in notes, many pages of music
may be necessary to express it. That exactly expresses the manner in which the
heavenly music differs from that which we know here; one mighty chord there will
convey what here would take hours to render far less effectively.
Very similar would be the experiences of the man whose window was art. He also
would have the same three possibilities of delight, for the order of the plane
expresses itself in colour as well as in sound, and all Theosophical students are
familiar with the fact that there is a colour language of the Devas — an order
of spirits whose very communication one with another is by flashings of splendid
colour. Again, all the great artists of mediaeval times are working still — not
with brush and canvas, but with the far easier, yet infinitely more satisfactory,
moulding of mental matter by the power of thought. Every artist knows how far below
the [Page 38] conception in his mind is
the most successful expression of it upon paper or canvas; but here to think is
to realize, and disappointment is impossible.
The same thing is true of all directions of thought, so that there is in truth
an infinity to enjoy and to learn, far beyond all that our limited minds can grasp
down here. [Page 39]
But let us turn to the second part of our subject, the question of the man's
relations with persons whom he loves, or with those for whom he feels devotion
or adoration. Again and again people ask us whether they will meet and know their
loved ones in this grander life, whether amid all this unimaginable splendour they
will look in vain for the familiar faces without which all would for them seem
vanity. Happily to this question the answer is clear and unqualified; the friends
will be there without the least shadow of doubt, and far more fully, far more really,
than ever they have been with us yet.
Yet again, men often ask "what of our friends already in the enjoyment of
the heaven-life; can they see us here below? Are they watching us and waiting for
us?" Hardly; for there would be difficulties in the way of either of these
theories. How could the dead be happy if he looked back and saw those whom he loved
in sorrow or suffering, or, far worse still, in the commission of sin? And if we
adopt the other alternative, that he does not see, but is waiting, the case is
scarcely better. For then the man will have a long and wearisome period of [Page
40] waiting, a painful time of suspense, often extending over many years, while
the friend would in many cases arrive so much changed as to be no longer sympathetic.
On the system so wisely provided for us by Nature all these difficulties are avoided;
those whom the man loves most he has ever with him, and always at their noblest
and best, while no shadow of discord or change can ever come between them, since
he receives from them all the time exactly what he wishes. The arrangement is infinitely
superior to any thing which the imagination of man has been able to offer us in
its place — as indeed we might have expected — for all those speculations were
man's idea of what is best, but the truth is God's idea. Let me try to explain
it.
Whenever we love a person very deeply we form a strong mental image of him, and
he is often present in our mind. Inevitably we take his mental image into the heaven-world
with us, because it is to that level of matter that it naturally belongs. But the
love which forms and retains such an image is a very powerful force — a force which
is strong enough to reach and act upon the soul of that friend, the real man whom
we love. That soul at once and eagerly responds, and pours himself into the thought-form
which we have made for him, and in that way we find our friend truly present with
us, more vividly than ever before. Remember, it is the soul we love, not the body;
and it is the soul that we have with us here. It may be said, "Yes, that would
be so if the friend were also dead; but suppose he is still alive; he cannot be
in two places at once". The [Page 41] fact is that, as far as this
is concerned, he can be in two places at once, and often many more than two; and whether he is
what we commonly call living, or what we commonly call dead, makes not the slightest
difference. Let us try to understand what a soul really is, and we shall see better
how this may be.
The soul belongs to a higher plane, and is a much greater and grander thing than
any manifestation of it can be. Its relation to its manifestations is that of one
dimension to another — that of a line to a square, or a square to a cube. No number
of squares could ever make a cube, because the square has only two dimensions,
while the cube has three. So no number of expressions on any lower plane can ever
exhaust the fullness of the soul, since he stands upon an altogether higher level.
He puts down a small portion of himself into a physical body in order to acquire
experience which can only be had on this plane; he can take only one such body
at a time, for that is the law; but if he could take a thousand, they would not
be sufficient to express what he really is. He may have only one physical body,
but if he has evoked such love from a friend, that that friend has a strong mental
image of him always present in his thought, then he is able to respond to that
love by pouring into that thought form his own life, and so vivifying it into a
real expression of him on this level, which is two whole planes higher than the
physical, and therefore so much the better able to express his qualities.
If it still seems difficult to realize how his consciousness can be active in that
manifestation as well as in [Page 42] this, compare with this an ordinary physical
experience. Each of us, as he sits in his chair, is conscious at the same instant
of several physical contacts. He touches the seat of the chair, his feet rest on
the ground, his hands feel the arms of the chair, or perhaps hold a book; and yet
his brain has no difficulty in realizing all these contacts at once; why, then,
should it be harder for the soul, which is so much greater than the mere physical
consciousness, to be conscious simultaneously in more than one of these manifestations
on planes so entirely below him? It is really the one man who feels all those different
contacts; it is really the one man who feels all these different thought-images,
and is real, living and loving in all of them. You have him there always at his
best, for this is a far fuller expression than the physical plane could ever give,
even under the best of circumstances.
Will this affect the evolution of the friend in any way, it may be asked? Certainly
it will, for it allows him an additional opportunity of manifestation. If he has
a physical body he is already learning physical lessons through it, but this enables
him at the very same time to develop the quality of affection much more rapidly
through the form on the mental plane which you have given him. So your love for
him is doing great things for him. As we have said, the soul may manifest in many
images if he is fortunate enough to have them made for him. One who is much loved
by many people may have part in many heavens simultaneously, and so may evolve
with far greater rapidity; but this vast [Page 43] additional opportunity is the
direct result and reward of those lovable qualities which drew towards him the
affectionate regard of so many of his fellow-men. So not only does he receive love
from all these, but through that receiving he himself grows in love, whether these
friends be living or dead.
We should observe, however, that there are two possible limitations to the perfection
of this intercourse. First, your image of your friend may be partial and imperfect,
so that many of his higher qualities may not be represented, and may therefore
be unable to show themselves forth through it. Then, secondly, there may be some
difficulty from your friend's side. You may have formed a conception somewhat inaccurately;
if your friend be as yet not a highly evolved soul, it is possible that you may
even have overrated him in some direction, and in that case there might be some
aspect of your thought image which he could not completely fill. This, however,
is unlikely, and could only take place when a quite unworthy object had been unwisely
idolized. Even then the man who made the image would not find any change or lack
in his friend, for the latter is at least better able to fulfil his ideal than
he has ever been during physical life. Being undeveloped, he may not be perfect,
but at least he is better than ever before, so nothing is wanting to the joy of
the dweller in heaven. Your friend can fill hundreds of images with those qualities
which he possesses, but when a quality is as yet undeveloped in him, he does not
suddenly evolve it because you have supposed him already [Page 44] to have attained
it. Here is the enormous advantage which those have who form images only of those
who cannot disappoint them — or, since there could be no disappointment, we should
rather say, of those capable of rising above even the highest conception that the
lower mind can form of them. The Theosophist who forms in his mind the image of
the Master knows that all the inadequacy will be on his own side, for he is drawing
there upon a depth of love and power which his mental plummet can never sound.
But, it may be asked, since the soul spends so large a proportion of his time in
the enjoyment of the bliss of this heaven-world, what are his opportunities of
development during his stay there? They may be divided into three classes, though
of each there may be many varieties. First, through certain qualities in himself
he has opened certain windows into this heaven-world; by the continued exercise
of those qualities through so long a time he will greatly strengthen them, and
will return to earth for his next incarnation very richly dowered in that respect.
All thoughts are intensified by reiteration, and the man who spends a thousand
years principally in pouring forth unselfish affection will assuredly at the end
of that period know how to love strongly and well.
Secondly, if through his window he pours forth an aspiration which brings him into
contact with one of the great orders of spirits, he will certainly acquire much
from his intercourse with them. In music they will use all kinds of overtones and
variants which were previously unknown to him; in art they are familiar with a
[Page 45] thousand types of which he has had no conception. But all of these will
gradually impress themselves upon him, and in this way also he will come out of
that glorious heaven-life far richer than he entered it.
Thirdly, he will gain additional information through the mental images which he
has made, if these people themselves are sufficiently developed to be able to teach
him. Once more, the Theosophist who has made the image of a Master will obtain
very definite teaching and help through it, and in a lesser degree this is possible
with lesser people.
Above and beyond all this comes the life of the soul or ego in his own causal body
— the vehicle which he carries on with him from life to life, unchanging except
for its gradual evolution. There comes an end even to that glorious heaven-life,
and then the mental body in its turn drops away as the others have done, and the
life in the causal begins. Here the soul needs no windows, for this is his true
home, and here all his walls have fallen away. The majority of men have as yet
but very little consciousness at such a height as this; they rest, dreamily unobservant
and scarcely awake, but such vision as they have is true, however limited by their
lack of development. Still, every time they return these limitations will be smaller,
and they themselves will be greater, so that this truest life will be wider and
fuller for them. As the improvement continues, this causal life grows longer and
longer, assuming
an ever larger proportion, as compared to the existence at lower levels. And as
he grows the man becomes capable
not only [Page
46] of receiving
but of giving. Then, indeed, is his triumph approaching, for he is learning the
lesson of the Christ, learning the crowning glory of sacrifice, the supreme delight
of pouring out all his life for the helping of his fellow-men, the devotion of
the self to the all, of celestial strength to human service, of all those splendid
heavenly forces to the aid of struggling sons of earth. That is part of the life
that lies before us; these are some of the steps which even we, who are as yet
at the very bottom of the golden ladder, may see rising above us, so that we may
report them to you who have not seen them yet, in order that you, too, may open
your eyes to the unimaginable splendour which surrounds you here and now in this
dull daily life. This is part of the gospel which Theosophy brings to you — the
certainty of this sublime future for all. It is certain because it is here already,
because to inherit it we have only to fit ourselves for it. [Page
47]
To my mind it is one of the most beautiful
points about our Theosophical teaching that it gives back to man all the most
useful and helpful beliefs of the religions
which he has outgrown. There are many who, though they feel that they cannot bring
themselves to accept much that they used to take as a matter of course, nevertheless
look back with a certain amount of regret to some of the prettier ideas of their
mental childhood. They have come up out of the twilight into fuller light, and
they are thankful for the fact, and they could not return into their former attitude
if they would; yet some of the dreams of the twilight were lovely, and the fuller
light seems sometimes a little hard in comparison with its softer tints. Theosophy
comes to their rescue here, and shows them that all the glory and the beauty and
the poetry, glimpses of which they used dimly to catch in their twilight, exist
as a living reality, and that instead of disappearing before the noonday, glow,
its splendour will be only the more vividly displayed thereby. But our teaching
gives them back their poetry on quite a new basis — a basis of scientific
fact instead of uncertain tradition. A very good example of such belief is to be
found
under our title of [Page 48] "Guardian
Angels". There
are many graceful traditions of spiritual guardianship and angelic intervention
which we should all
very much like to believe if we could only see our way to accept them rationally,
and I hope to explain that to a very large extent we may do this.
The belief in such intervention is a very old one. Among the earliest Indian legends
we find accounts of the occasional appearances of minor deities at critical points
in human affairs; the Greek epics are full of similar stories, and in the history
of Rome itself we read how the heavenly twins, Castor and Pollux, led the armies
of the infant republic at the battle of Lake Regillus. In mediaeval days St. James
is recorded to have led the Spanish troops to victory, and there are many tales
of angels who watched over the pious wayfarer, or interfered at the right moment
to protect him from harm. "Merely a popular superstition", the superior
person will say; perhaps, but wherever we encounter a popular superstition which
is widely spread and persistent, we almost invariably find some kernel of truth
behind it — distorted and exaggerated often, yet a truth still. And this is a case
in point.
Most religions speak to men of guardian angels, who stand by them in times of sorrow
and trouble; and Christianity was no exception to this rule. But for its sins there
came upon Christendom the blight which by an extraordinary inversion of truth was
called the Reformation, and in that ghastly upheaval very much was lost that for
the majority of us has not even yet been regained. That terrible abuses existed;
and that [Page 49] a reform was needed in
the church I should be the last to deny: yet surely the Reformation was a very
heavy judgment for the sins which had preceded
it. What is called Protestantism has emptied and darkened the world for its votaries,
for among many strange and gloomy falsehoods it has endeavoured to propagate the
theory that nothing exists to occupy the infinity of stages between the Divine
and the human. It offers us the amazing conception of a constant capricious interference
by the Ruler of the universe with the working of His own laws and the result of
His own decrees, and this usually at the request of His creatures, who are apparently
supposed to know better than He what is good for them. It would be impossible,
if one could ever come to believe this, to divest one's mind of the idea that such
interference might be, and indeed must be, partial and unjust. In Theosophy we
have no such thought, for we hold the belief in perfect Divine justice, and therefore
we recognize that there can be no intervention unless the person involved has deserved
such help. Even then, it would come to him through agents, and never by direct
Divine interposition. We know from our study, and many of us from our experience
also, that many intermediate stages exist between the human and the Divine. The
old belief in angels and archangels is justified by the facts, for just as there
are various kingdoms below humanity, so there are also kingdoms above it in evolution.
We find next above us, holding much the same position with regard to us that we
in turn hold to the animal kingdom, the [Page 50] great kingdom of the devas
or angels, and above them again an evolution which has been called that of the
Dhyan
Chohans, or archangels (though the names given to these orders matter little),
and so onward and upward to the very feet of Divinity. All is one graduated life,
from God Himself to the very dust beneath our feet — one long ladder, of which
humanity occupies only one of the steps. There are many steps below and above us,
and every one of them is occupied. It would indeed be absurd for us to suppose
that we constitute the highest possible form of development the ultimate achievement
of evolution. The occasional appearance among humanity of men much further advanced
shows us our next stage, and furnishes us with an example to follow. Men such as
the Buddha and the Christ, and many other lesser teachers, exhibit before our eyes
a grand ideal towards which we may work, however far from its attainment we may
find ourselves at the present moment.
If special interventions in human affairs occasionally take place, is it then to
the angelic hosts that we may look as the probable agents employed in them? Perhaps
sometimes, but very rarely, for these higher beings have their own work to do,
connected with their place in the mighty scheme of things, and they are little
likely either to notice or to interfere with us. Man is unconsciously so extraordinarily
conceited that he is prone to think that all the greater powers in the universe
ought to be watching over him, and ready to help him whenever he suffers through
his own folly or ignorance. He forgets that he is not engaged in acting as a beneficent
[Page 51] providence to the kingdoms below
him, or going out of his way to look after and help the wild animals. Sometimes
he plays to them the part of the orthodox
devil, and breaks into their innocent and harmless lives with torture and wanton
destruction, merely to gratify his own degraded lust of cruelty, which he chooses
to denominate "sport;" sometimes he holds animals in bondage, and takes
a certain amount of care of them, but it is only that they may work for him — not
that he may forward their evolution in the abstract. How can he expect from those
above him a type of supervision which he is so very far from giving to those below
him? It may well be that the angelic kingdom goes about its own business, taking
little more notice of us than we take of the sparrows in the trees. It may now
and then happen that an angel becomes aware of some human sorrow or difficulty
which moves his pity, and he may try to help us, just as we might try to assist
an animal in distress; but certainly his wider vision would recognize the fact
that at the present stage of evolution such interpositions would in the vast majority
of cases be productive of infinitely more harm than good. In the far-distant past
man was frequently assisted by these non-human agencies because then there were
none as yet among our infant humanity capable of taking the lead as teachers; but
now that we are attaining our adolescence, we are supposed to have arrived at a
stage when we can provide leaders and helpers from among our own ranks.
There is another kingdom of Nature of which little is known — that of Nature-spirits
or fairies. Here again [Page 52] popular tradition has preserved a trace of the
existence of an order of beings unknown to science. They have been spoken of under
many names — pixies, gnomes, kobolds, brownies, sylphs, undines, good people, etc.,
and there are few lands in whose folklore they do not play a part. They are beings
possessing either astral or etheric bodies, and consequently it is only rarely
and under peculiar circumstances that they become, visible to man. They usually
avoid his neighbourhood, for they dislike his wild outbursts of passion and desire,
so that when they are seen it is generally in some lonely spot, and by some mountaineer
or shepherd whose work takes him far from the busy haunts of the crowd. It has
sometimes happened that one of these creatures has become attached to some human
being and devoted himself to his service as will be found in stories of the Scottish
Highlands; but as a rule intelligent assistance is hardly to be expected from entities
of this class.
Then there are the great Adepts, the Masters of Wisdom — men like ourselves, yet
so much more highly evolved that to us they seem as gods in power, in wisdom and
in compassion. Their whole life is devoted to the work of helping evolution; would
they therefore be likely to intervene sometimes in human affairs? Possibly occasionally,
but only very rarely, because they have other and far greater work to do. The ignorant
sometimes have suggested that the Adepts ought to come down into our great towns
and succour the poor — the ignorant, I say, because only one who is exceedingly
ignorant and incredibly presumptuous ever ventures to [Page
53] criticize thus
the action of those so infinitely wiser and greater than himself. The sensible
and modest man realizes that what they do they must have good reason, for doing,
and that for him to blame them would be the height of stupidity and ingratitude.
They have their own work on planes far higher than we can reach; they deal directly
with the souls of men, and shine upon them as sunlight upon a flower, drawing them
upwards and onwards, and filling them with power and life; and that is a grander
work by far than healing or caring for or feeding their bodies, good though this
also may be in its place. To employ them in working on the physical plane would
be a waste of force infinitely greater than it would be to set our most learned
men of science to the labour of breaking stones upon the road, upon the plea that
that was a physical work for the good of all, while scientific work was not immediately
profitable to the poor! It is not from the Adept that physical intervention is
likely to come, for he is far more usefully employed. [Page 54]
There are two classes from whom intervention
in human affairs may come, and in both cases they are men like ourselves, and
not far removed from our own level.
The first class consists of those whom we call the dead. We think of them as far
away, but that is a delusion; they are very near us, and though in their new life
they cannot usually see our physical bodies, they can and do see our astral vehicles,
and therefore they know all our feelings and emotions. So they know when we are
in trouble, and when we need help, and it sometimes happens that they are able
to give it. Here, then, we have an enormous number of possible helpers, who may
occasionally intervene in human affairs. Occasionally, but not very often; for
the dead man is all the while steadily withdrawing into himself, and therefore
passing rapidly out of touch with earthly things; and the most highly developed,
and therefore the most helpful of men, are precisely those who must pass away from
earth most quickly. Still there are undoubted cases in which the dead have intervened
in human affairs; indeed, perhaps such cases are more numerous than we imagine,
for in very many of them the work done is only the putting of [Page
55] a suggestion
into the mind of some person still living on the physical plane, and he often
remains unconscious of the source of his happy inspiration. Sometimes it is necessary
for
the dead man's purpose that he should show himself, and it is only then that
we who are so blind are aware of his loving thought for us. Besides, he cannot
always
show himself at will; there may be many times when he tries to help, but is unable
to do so, and we all the time know nothing of his offer. Still there are such
cases, and some of them will be found recounted in my book on "The Other
Side of Death."
The second class among which helpers may be found consists of those who are able
to function consciously upon the astral plane while still living — or perhaps
we had better say, while still in the physical body, for the words "living" and "dead" are
in reality ludicrously misapplied in ordinary parlance.
It is we, enmeshed as we are in this physical matter, buried in the dark and noisome
mist of earth-life, blinded by the heavy veil that shuts out from us so much of
the light and the glory that are shining around us — it is surely we who are the
dead; not those who, having cast off for the time the burden of the flesh, stand
amongst us radiant, rejoicing, strong, so much freer, so much more capable than
we.
Those who, while still in the physical world, have learnt to use their astral bodies,
and in some cases their mental bodies also, are usually the pupils of the great
Adepts before mentioned. They cannot do the work which the Master does, for their
powers are not [Page 56] developed; they
cannot yet function freely on those lofty planes where He can produce such magnificent
results; but they can do something
at lower levels, and they are thankful to serve in whatever way He thinks best
for them, and to undertake such work as is within their power. So sometimes it
happens that they see some human trouble or suffering which they are able to
alleviate, and they gladly try to do what they can. They are often able to help
both the living
and the dead, but it must always be remembered that they work under conditions.
When such power and such training are given to a man, they are given to him under
restrictions. He must never use them selfishly, never display them to gratify
curiosity, never employ them to pry into the business of others, never give what
at Spiritualistic
séances are called tests — that is to say, he must never do anything which can
be proved as a phenomenon on the physical plane. He might if he chose take a
message to a dead man, but it would be beyond his province to bring back a reply
from the
dead to the living, unless it were under direct instructions from the Master.
Thus the band of invisible helpers does not constitute itself into a detective
office,
nor into an astral information bureau, but it simply and quietly does such work
as is given to it to do, or as comes in its way.
Let us see how a man is able to do such work and give such help as we have described,
so that we may understand what are the limits of this power, and see how we ourselves
may to some extent attain it. We [Page 57] must first think how a man leaves his
body in sleep. He abandons the physical body, in order that it may have complete
rest; but he himself, the soul, needs no rest, for he feels no fatigue. It is only
the physical body that ever becomes tired. When we speak of mental fatigue, it
is in reality a misnomer, for it is the brain and not the mind that is tired. In
sleep, then, the man is simply using his astral body instead of his physical, and
it is only that body that is asleep, not the man himself. If we examine a sleeping
savage with clairvoyant sight, indeed, we shall probably find that he is nearly
as much asleep as his body that he has very little definite consciousness in the
astral vehicle which he is inhabiting. He is unable to move away from the immediate
neighbourhood of the sleeping physical body, and if an attempt were made to draw
him away he would wake in terror.
If we examine a more civilized man, as for example one of ourselves, we shall find
a very great difference. In this case the man in his astral body is by no means
unconscious, but quite actively thinking. Nevertheless, he may be taking very
little more notice of his surroundings than the savage, though not at all for the
same
reason. The savage is incapable of seeing; the civilized man is so wrapped up
in his own thoughts that he does not see, though he could. He has behind him the
immemorial
custom of a long series of lives in which the astral faculties have not been
used, for these faculties have been gradually growing inside a shell, something
as a
chicken grows inside the egg. The shell [Page 58] is composed of the great mass
of self-centred thought in which the ordinary man is so hopelessly entombed.
Whatever may have been the thoughts chiefly engaging his mind during the past day,
he usually
continues them when falling asleep, and he is thus surrounded by so dense a wall
of his own making that he practically knows nothing of what is going on outside.
Occasionally some violent impact from without, or some strong desire of his own
from within, may tear aside this curtain of mist for the moment and permit him
to receive some definite impression; but even then the fog closes in again almost
immediately, and he dreams on unobservantly as before.
Can he be awakened, you will say? Yes, that may happen to him in four different
ways. First, in the far-distant future the slow, but sure, evolution of the man
will undoubtedly gradually dissipate the curtain of the mist. Secondly, the man
himself, having learnt the facts of the case, may by steady and persistent effort
clear away the mist from within, and by degrees overcome the inertia resulting
from ages of inactivity. He may resolve before going to sleep to try when he
leaves his body to awaken himself and see something. This is merely a hastening
of the
natural process, and there will be no harm in it if the man has previously developed
common sense and the moral qualities. If these are defective, he may come very
sadly to grief, for he runs the double danger of misusing such powers as he may
acquire, and of being overwhelmed by fear in the presence of forces which he
can neither [Page 59] understand
nor control. Thirdly, it has sometimes happened that
some accident, or some unlawful use of magical ceremonies, has so rent the veil
that it can never wholly be closed again. In such a case the man may be left
in the terrible condition so well described by Madame Blavatsky in her story
of "A
Bewitched Life", or by Lord Lytton in his powerful novel, "Zanoni".
Fourthly, some friend who knows the man thoroughly, and believes him capable
of facing the dangers of the astral plane and doing good, unselfish work there,
may
act upon this cloud-shell from without and gradually arouse the man to his higher
possibilities. But he will never do this unless he feels absolutely sure of him,
of his courage and devotion, and of his possession of the necessary qualifications
for good work. If in all these ways he is judged satisfactory, he may thus be
invited and enabled to join the band of helpers.
Now, as to the work such helpers can do. I have given many illustrations of this
in the little book which I have written, bearing the title of "Invisible
Helpers",
so I will not report those stories now, but rather give you a few leading ideas
as to the different types of work which are most usually done. Naturally it is
of varied kinds, and most of it is not in any way physical; perhaps it may best
be divided into work with the living and work with the dead.
The giving of comfort and consolation in sorrow or sickness at once suggests itself
as a comparatively easy task, and one that can constantly be performed without
any one knowing who does it. [Page 60]
Often efforts are made, to patch up quarrels — to effect a reconciliation between
those who long have been separated by some difference of opinions or of interests.
Sometimes it has been possible to warn men of some great danger which impended
over their heads and thus to avert an accident. There have been cases in which
this has been done even with regard to a purely physical matter, though more generally
it is against moral danger that such warnings are given. Occasionally it has been
permissible to offer a solemn warning to one who was leading an immoral life, and
so to help him back into the path of rectitude. If the helpers happen to know of
a time of special trouble for a friend, they will endeavour to stand by him through
it, and to give him strength and comfort.
In great catastrophes, too, there is often much that can be done by those whose
work is unrecognized by the outer world. Sometimes it may by permitted that some
one or two persons may be saved; and so it comes that in accounts of terrible
wholesale destruction we hear now and then of escapes which are esteemed miraculous.
But
this is only when among those who are in danger there is one who is not to die
in that way — one who owes to the Divine law no debt that can be paid in that
fashion. In the great majority of cases all that can be done is to make some effort
to impart
strength and courage to face what must happen, and then afterwards to meet the
souls as they arrive upon the astral plane, and welcome and assist them there.
[Page 61]
This brings us to the consideration of what is by far the greatest and most important
part of the work — the helping of the dead. Before we can understand this we must
throw aside altogether the ordinary clumsy and erroneous ideas about death and
the condition of the dead. They are not far away from us, they are not suddenly
entirely changed, they have not become angels or demons. They are just human beings;
exactly such as they were before, neither better nor worse, and they stand close
by us still, sensitive to our feelings and our thoughts even more than of yore.
That is why uncontrolled grief for the dead is so wrong as well as so selfish.
The dead man feels every emotion which passes through the heart of his loved ones,
and if they uncomprehendingly give way to sorrow, that throws a corresponding cloud
of depression over him, and makes his way harder than it need be if his friends
had been better taught.
So there is much help that may be given to the dead in very many ways. First of
all, many of them indeed, most of them — need much explanation with regard to the
new world in which they find themselves. [Page 62] Their religion ought to have
taught them what to expect, and how to live amid these new conditions; but in most
cases it has not done anything of the kind. So it comes that very many of them
are in a condition of considerable uneasiness, and others of positive terror. They
need to be soothed and comforted, for when they encounter the dreadful thought-forms
which they and their kind have been making for centuries — thoughts of a personal
devil and an angry and cruel Deity — they are often reduced to a pitiable state
of fear, which is not only exceedingly unpleasant, but very bad for their evolution;
and it often costs the helper much time and trouble to bring them into a more reasonable
frame of mind.
There are men to whom this entry into a new life seems to give for the first time
an opportunity to see themselves as they really are, and some of them are therefore
filled with remorse. Here again the helper's services are needed to explain that
what is past is past, and that the only effective repentance is the resolve to
do this thing no more — that whatever the dead man may have done, he is not a lost
soul, but that he must simply begin from where he finds himself, and try to live
the true life for the future. Some of them cling passionately to earth, where all
their thoughts and interests have been finds, and they suffer much when they find
themselves losing hold and sight of it. Others are earth-bound by the thoughts
of crimes that they have committed, or duties that they have left undone, while
others in turn are worried about the condition [Page 63] of those whom they have
left behind. All these are cases which need explanation, and sometimes it is also
necessary for the helper to take steps on the physical plane in order to carry
out the wishes of the dead man, and so leave him free and untroubled to pass on
to higher matters. People are inclined to look at the dark side of Spiritualism:
but we must never forget that it has done an enormous amount of good in this sort
of work — in giving to the dead an opportunity to arrange their affairs after a
sudden and unexpected departure.
It is surely a happy thought that the time of much needed repose for the body is
not necessarily a period of inactivity for the true man within. I used at one time
to feel that the time given to sleep was sadly wasted time; now I understand that
Nature does not so mismanage her affairs as to lose one third of the man's life.
Of course there are qualifications required for this work; but I have given them
so carefully and at length in my little book on the subject ["Invisible
Helpers."] that I need only just mention then here. First, he must be one-pointed,
and the work, of helping others must be ever the first and highest duty for him.
Secondly, he must have perfect self-control — control over his temper and his nerves.
He must never allow his emotions to interfere with his work in the slightest degree;
he must be above anger, and above fear. Thirdly, he must have perfect calmness,
serenity and joyousness. Men subject to depression and worry are useless, for one [Page
64] great part of the work is to soothe and to calm others, and how can
they do that if they are all the time in a whirl of excitement or worry themselves?
Fourthly, the man must have knowledge; he must have already learnt down here on
this plane all that he can about the other, for he cannot expect that men there
will waste valuable time in teaching him what he might have acquired for himself.
Fifthly, he must be perfectly unselfish. He must be above the foolishness of wounded
feelings, and must think not of himself but of the work that he has to do, so that
he will be glad to take the humblest duty or the greatest duty without envy on
the one hand or conceit on the other. Sixthly, he must have a heart filled with
love — not sentimentalism, but the intense desire to serve, to become a channel
for that love of God which, like the peace of God, passeth man's understanding.
You may think that this is an impossible standard; on the contrary, it is attainable
by every man. It will take time to reach it, but assuredly it will be time well
spent. Do not turn away disheartened, but set to work here and now, and strive
to become fit for this glorious task, and while we are striving, do not let us
wait idly, but try to undertake some little piece of work along the same lines.
Every one knows some case of sorrow or distress, whether among the living or the
dead does not matter; if you know such a case, take it into your mind when you
lie down to sleep, and resolve as soon as you are free from this body to go to
that person and endeavour to comfort him. You [Page
65] may not be conscious of
the result, you may not remember anything of it in the morning; but be well assured
that your resolve will not be fruitless, and that whether you remember what you
have done or not, you will be quite sure to have done something. Some day, sooner
or later, you will find evidence that you have been successful. Remember that as
we help, we can be helped; remember that from the lowest to the highest we are
bound together by one long chain of mutual service, and that although we stand
on the lower steps of the ladder, it reaches up above these earthly mists to where
the light of God is always shining. [Page 66]
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