THEOSOPHY
Theosophical Society,
Drilling
First World War recruits
on the beach at Llandudno,
Theosophy and the Great War
Life After Death
by
C W Leadbeater
First
Published 1912
Although
published two years prior to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. This article
was widely distributed during the war and was a source of reference in study
groups held at both Penarth and Cardiff Lodges in 1917 – 18.
Theosophy and The Great War Index
CONTENTS
Is there any Certain
Knowledge?
The True Fact
Purgatory
The Heaven-World
Many Mansions
Our Friends in Heaven
Guardian Angels
Human Workers in the Unseen
Helping the Dead
IS THERE
ANY CERTAIN KNOWLEDGE ?
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 someone who is 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 seem and dark and terrible. We have an evil heredity behind us in this
matter; we have inherited these funeral horrors from 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 body — partly perhaps because they had a
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 immediately,
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 be evil, 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 death is a friend
and not an enemy. It would not be necessary if Christianity had not so largely
forgotten its own best traditions. It has come to regard the grave as ‘the
bourn from which no traveller returns’, and the
passage 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 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 rife, 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 poetic,
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 anyone 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 beyond the grave, and showing themselves to their
fellowmen. There is much 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, the great scientist, 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 the 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 faraway 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 this, 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 firsthand 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.
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 cognized, 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 you
so’, but he will never say,’ I who speak to you, 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?
II
THE TRUE FACTS
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 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 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. 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
this is so, for it describes to us whole worlds of minute life (microbes) 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 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.
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 asleep) his friends are
perfectly conscious of him, and talk with him as of oldc
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!’
III
PURGATORY
GREAT deal
of totally unnecessary uneasiness nd even acute
suffering has been caused by those who still continue to teach the world silly
fables about nonexistent bugbears instead of using reason and common sense. The
baseless and blasphemous hellfire 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 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 symbolic 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 berepresented only by that small portion of the curve lying
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 eventually he drops the
dense body altogether. His life on the astral plane commences, but during the
whole of it the process of withdrawal 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 whoharbours 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 are.
Let us think first of the ordinary colourless
man, who is neither specially good, nor specially bad,
nor indeed specially anything in particular. The man is in no way changed, so colourlessness will remain his principal characteristic (if
we can 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 hanging
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 at 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 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 an other 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 heavyrock 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 afterlife of the man of worldly ambition. He has all his life been in the habit of forming selfish plans, and 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 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 necessary 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 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 person 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 in 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 the brain will bear no 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 would not be satisfied
without something higher than this — whose greatest joy in any life would
consist in serving their fellowmen. 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 is usually
possible 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 watcover
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 negates that view.
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 as 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 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.
There is an infinity of interesting
information to be given about this higher life. You should read the literature;
read Annie 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 vita — 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.
IV
THE HEAVEN-WORLD
TILL
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
Islam 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 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 decoration 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.
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 refinements and beauty of
colour and form; we draw our similies 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 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
The
Devachanic Plane, or the Heaven -World.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 breath. 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 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 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 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; 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 cognizes 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 during his astral existence, and that time was happy or
miserable i 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 the.re 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 in 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 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 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.
MANY
MANSIONS
THE
keynote of the conception is the I 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 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 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 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, arid
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, 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 not 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 face behind the poetic idea of the
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 marvellous new combinations which
they employ. Thirdly, he will be a keenly appreciative listener to the music
made by his fellowmen 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 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 nothing but a reflection of the untrammelled
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 knowhere; one mighty chord there will convey what \ here would take hours to
render far less effectively..Very similar
would be 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 medieval 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
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 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.
VI OUR FRIENDS IN
HEAVEN
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 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. In 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 anything
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 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 wecommonly 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 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 consciousness 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 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
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 underdeveloped
in him, he does not suddenly evolve it because you have supposed him already 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 thereupon 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 endowed 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 thousand types of which he has had no conception. But all of these will
gradually impress themselves upon him, and 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.
GUARDIAN ANGELS
To my mind
it is one of the most beautiful I points about our theosophical teaching that
it gives back to man all of 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 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’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 medieval 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 angles, 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
upheaval very much was lost that for the majority of us has not even yet been
regained. That terrible abuses existed, and that a
reform was needed in the church I should be the last to deny: yet surely the
Reformation was a very heavy judgement for the sins
which had preceded it. What is called Protestantism has tempted 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 great kingdom of 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 litde), 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 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 providence to the kingdoms below him, or
going out of his 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 may 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
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 help the poor — the
ignorant, I say, because only one who is exceedingly ignorant and incredibly
presumptuous ever ventures to 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.
VIII
HUMAN
WORKERS IN THE UNSEEN
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 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, 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 speech.
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 developed; they cannot yet function freely on those lofty
planes where he can produce such magnificnt 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 seances 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 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 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 fact 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 co 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 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 effacing 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 tide 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.
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 be 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.
IX
HELPING THE DEAD
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 before. 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. 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 fixed, 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 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 to 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 that I
need only just mention them 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 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 peaceof 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 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 sendee, 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.
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