THE DEVACHANIC/PART 2

 

INHABITANTS.

 

In our endeavour to describe the inhabitants of the mental plane it will perhaps be well for us to divide them into the same three great classes chosen in the manual on the astral plane — the human, the non-human, and the artificial — though the sub-divisions will naturally be less numerous in this case than in that, since the products of man's evil passions, which bulked so largely there, can find no place here.

 

I. HUMAN.

 

Exactly as was the case when dealing with the lower world, it will be desirable to subdivide the human inhabitants of the mental plane into two classes — those who are still attached to a physical body, and those who are not — the living and the dead, as they are commonly but most erroneously called. Very little experience of these higher planes is needed to alter fundamentally the student's conception, of the change which takes place at death; he realizes immediately on the opening of his consciousness even in the astral, and still more in this mental world, that the fulness of true life is something which can never be known down here, and that when we leave this physical earth we are passing into that true life, not out of it. We have not at present in the English language any convenient and at the same time accurate words to express these conditions; perhaps to call them respectively embodied and disembodied will be, on the whole, the least misleading of the various possible phrases. Let us therefore proceed to consider those inhabitants of the mental plane who come under the head of

 

The Embodied.

 

Those human beings who, while still attached to a physical body, are found moving in full consciousness and activity upon this plane, are invariably either Adepts or their initiated pupils, for until a student has been taught by his Master how to use his mental body he will be unable to move with freedom upon even its lower levels. To function consciously during physical life upon the higher levels denotes still greater advancement, for it means the unification of the man, so that down here he is no longer a mere personality, more or less influenced by the individuality above, but is himself that individuality — trammelled and confined by a body, certainly, but nevertheless having within him the power and knowledge of a highly developed ego.

 

Very magnificent objects are these Adepts and initiates to the vision which has learnt to see them — splendid globes of light and colour, driving away all evil influence wherever they go, acting upon all who come near them as the sunshine acts upon the flowers, and shedding around them a feeling of restfulness and happiness of which even those who do not see them are often conscious. It is in this celestial world that much of their most important work is done — more especially upon its higher levels, where the individuality can be acted upon directly. It is from this plane that they shower the grandest spiritual influences upon the world of thought; from it also they impel great and beneficent movements of all kinds. Here much of the spiritual force poured out by the glorious self-sacrifice of the Nirmânâkayas is distributed; here also direct teaching is given to those pupils who are sufficiently advanced to receive it in this way, since it can be imparted far more readily and completely here than on the astral plane. In addition to all these activities they have a great field of work in connection with those whom we call the dead, but this will be more fitly explained under a later heading.

 

It is a pleasure to find that a class of inhabitants which obtruded itself painfully on our notice on the astral plane is almost entirely absent here. In a world whose characteristics are unselfishness and spirituality the black magician and his pupils can obviously find no place, since selfishness is of the essence of all the proceedings of the darker schools, and their study of occult forces is entirely for personal ends. Not but that in many of them the intellect is very highly developed, and consequently the matter of the mind-body extremely active and sensitive along certain lines; but in every case those lines are connected with personal desire of some sort, and they can therefore find expression only through that lower part of the mind-body which has become almost inextricably entangled with astral matter. As a necessary consequence of this limitation it follows that their activities are practically confined to the astral and physical planes. A man, the trend of whose whole life is evil and selfish, may indeed have periods of purely abstract thought during which he may utilize the mind-body if he has learnt how to do so, but the moment that the personal element comes in, and the effort to produce some evil result is made, the thought is no longer abstract, and the man finds himself working in connection with the familiar astral matter once more. One might almost say that a black magician could function on the mental plane only while he forgot that he was a black magician.

 

 But even while he forgot it he could be visible on the mental plane only to men functioning consciously on that plane — never by any possibility to those who are enjoying the heavenly rest in this region after death, since each of them is so entirely secluded within the world of his own thought that nothing outside of that can affect him, and he is consequently absolutely safe. Thus is justified the grand old description of the heaven-world as the place "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."

 

In Sleep or Trance.

 

In thinking of the embodied inhabitants of the mental plane, the question naturally suggests itself whether either ordinary people during sleep, or psychically developed persons in a trance condition, can ever penetrate to this plane. In both cases the answer must be that the occurrence is possible, though extremely rare. Purity of life and purpose would be an absolute pre-requisite, and even when the plane was reached there would be nothing that could be called real consciousness, but simply a capacity for receiving certain impressions.

 

As exemplifying the possibility of entering the mental plane during sleep, an incident may be mentioned which occurred in connection with the experiments made by the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society on dream consciousness, an account of some of which was given in my little book on Dreams. It may be remembered by those who have read that treatise that a thought-picture of a lovely tropical landscape was presented to the minds of various classes of sleepers, with a view of testing the extent to which it was afterwards recollected on awaking. One case which was not referred to in the account previously published, as it had no special connection with the phenomena of dreams, will serve as a useful illustration here.

 

It was that of a person of pure mind and considerable though untrained psychic capacity ; and the effect of the presentation of the thought-picture to her mind was of a somewhat startling character. So intense was the feeling of reverent joy, so lofty and so spiritual were the thoughts evoked by the contemplation of this glorious scene, that the consciousness of the sleeper passed entirely into the mind-body — or, to put the same idea into other words, rose on to the mental plane. It must not, however, be supposed from this that she became cognizant of her surroundings upon that plane or of its real conditions; she was simply in the state of the ordinary person who has reached that level after death, floating in the sea of light and colour indeed, but nevertheless entirely absorbed in her own thought, and conscious of nothing beyond it — resting in ecstatic contemplation of the landscape and of all that it had suggested to her — yet contemplating it, be it understood, with the keener insight, the more perfect appreciation, and the enhanced vigour of thought peculiar to the mental plane, and enjoying all the while the intensity of bliss which has so often been spoken of before. The sleeper remained in that condition for several hours, though apparently entirely unconscious of the passage of time, and at last awoke with a sense of deep peace and inward joy for which, since she had brought back no recollection of what had happened, she was quite unable to account. There is no doubt, however, that such an experience as this, whether remembered in the physical body or not, would act as a distinct impulse to the spiritual evolution of the ego concerned.

 

Though in the absence of a sufficient number of experiments one hesitates to speak too positively, it seems almost, certain that such a result as this just described would be possible only in the case of a person having already some amount of psychic development: and the same condition is even more definitely necessary in order that a mesmerized subject should touch the mental plane in trance. So decidedly is this the case, that probably not one in a thousand among ordinary clairvoyants ever reaches it at all; but on the rare occasions when it is so attained the clairvoyant, as before remarked, must be not only of exceptional development, but of perfect purity of life and purpose; and even when all these unusual characteristics are present there still remains the difficulty which an untrained psychic always finds in translating a vision accurately from the higher plane to the lower. All these considerations, of course, only emphasize what has been so often insisted upon before — the necessity of the careful training of all psychics under a qualified instructor before it is possible to attach much weight to their reports of what they see.

 

The Disembodied.

 

Before considering in detail the condition of the disembodied entities on the various subdivisions of the mental plane, we must have very clearly in our minds the broad distinction between the rûpa and arûpa levels, of which mention has already been made. On the former the man lives entirely in the world of his own thoughts, still fully identifying himself with his personality in the life which he has recently quitted; on the latter he is simply the reincarnating ego or soul, who (if he has developed sufficient consciousness on that level to know anything clearly at all) understands, at least to some extent, the evolution upon which he is engaged, and the work that he has to do.

 

It should be remembered that every man passes through both these stages between death and birth, though the undeveloped majority have so little consciousness in either of them as yet that they might more truly be said to dream through them. Nevertheless, whether consciously or unconsciously, every human being must touch the higher levels of the mental plane before reincarnation can take place; and as his evolution proceeds this touch becomes more and more definite and real to him. Not only is he more conscious there as he progresses, but the period he passes in that world of reality becomes longer; for the fact is that his consciousness is slowly but steadily rising through the different planes of the system.

 

Primitive man, for example, has comparatively little consciousness on any plane but the physical during life, and the lower astral after death; and indeed the same may be said of the quite undeveloped man even in our own day. A person a little more advanced begins to have a short period of heaven-life (on the lower levels, of course), but still spends by far the greater part of his time, between incarnations, on the astral plane. As he progresses the astral life grows shorter and the heaven-life longer, until when he becomes an intellectual and spiritually-minded person he passes through the astral plane with hardly any delay at all, and enjoys a long and happy sojourn on the more refined of the lower mental levels. By this time, however, the consciousness in the true ego on its higher level is awakened to a very considerable extent, and thus his conscious life on the mental plane divides itself into two parts — the later and shorter portion being spent on the higher sub-planes in the causal body.

 

The process previously described then repeats itself, the life on the lower levels gradually shortening, while the higher life becomes steadily longer and fuller, till at last the time comes when the consciousness is unified — when the higher and lower selves are indissolubly united, and the man is no longer capable of wrapping himself up in his own cloud of thought, and mistaking the little that he can see through that for the whole of the great heaven-world around him — when he realizes the true possibilities of his life, and so for the first time truly begins to live. But by the time that he attains these heights he will already have entered upon the Path, and taken his future progress definitely into his own hands.

 

The Qualities Necessary for the Heaven-Life.

 

 The greater reality of the heaven-life as compared with that on earth shines forth clearly when we consider, what conditions are requisite for the attainment of this higher state of existence. For the very qualities which a man must develop during life, if he is to have any existence in the heaven-world after death, are just those which all the best and noblest of our race have agreed in considering as really and permanently desirable. In order that an aspiration or a thought-force should result in existence on that plane, its dominant characteristic must be unselfishness.

 

Affection for family or friends takes many a man into the heaven-life, and so also does religious devotion; yet it would be a mistake to suppose that all affection or all devotion must therefore necessarily find its post-mortem expression there, for of each of these qualities there are obviously two varieties, the selfish and the unselfish — though it might perhaps reasonably be argued that it is only the latter kind in each case which is really worthy of the name.

 

There is the love which pours itself out upon its object, seeking for nothing in return — never even thinking of itself, but only of what it can do for the loved one; and such a feeling as this generates a spiritual force which cannot work itself out except upon the mental plane. But there is also another emotion which is sometimes called love — an exacting, selfish kind of passion which desires mainly to be loved — which is thinking all the time of what it receives rather than of what it gives, and is quite likely to degenerate into the horrible vice of jealousy upon (or even without) the smallest provocation. Such affection as this has in it no seed of the mental development; the forces which it sets in motion will never rise above the astral plane.

 

The same is true of the feeling of a certain very large class of religious devotees, whose one thought is, not the glory of their deity, but how they may save their own miserable souls — a position which forcibly suggests that they, have not yet developed anything that really deserves the name of a soul at all.

 

On the other hand there is the real religious devotion, which thinks never of self, but only of love and gratitude towards the deity or leader, and is filled with ardent desire to do something for him or in his name; and such a feeling often leads to a prolonged heaven-life of a comparatively exalted type.

 

This would of course be the case whoever the deity or leader might be, and followers of Buddha, Krishna, Ormuzd, Allah, and Christ would all equally attain their need of celestial bliss — its length and quality depending upon the intensity and purity of the feeling, and not in the least upon its object, though this latter consideration would undoubtedly affect the possibility of receiving instruction during that higher life.

 

Most human devotion, however, like most human love, is neither wholly pure nor wholly selfish. That love must be low indeed into which no unselfish thought or impulse has entered; and on the other hand an affection which is usually and chiefly quite pure and noble may yet sometimes be clouded by a spasm of jealous feeling or a passing thought of self. In both these cases, as in all, the law of eternal justice discriminates unerringly; and just as the momentary flash of nobler feeling in the less developed heart will surely receive its need in the heaven-world, even though there be naught else in the life to raise the soul above the astral plane, so the baser thought which erstwhile dimmed the holy radiance of a real love will work out its force in the astral world, interfering not at all with the magnificent celestial life which flows infallibly from years of deep affection here below.

 

How a Man first gains the Heaven-Life.

 

 It will be seen, therefore, that in the earlier stages of their evolution many of the backward egos never consciously attain the heaven-world at all, whilst a still larger number obtain only a comparatively slight touch of some of its lower planes. Every soul must of course withdraw into its true self upon the higher levels before reincarnation ; but it does not at all follow that in that condition it will experience anything that we should call consciousness. This subject will be dealt with more fully when we come to treat of the arûpa planes; it seems better to begin with the lowest of the rûpa levels, and work steadily upwards, so we may for the moment leave on one side that portion of humanity whose conscious existence after death is practically confined to the astral plane, and proceed to consider the case of an entity who has just risen out of that position — who for the first time has a slight and fleeting consciousness in the lowest subdivision of the heaven-world.

 

There are evidently various methods by which this important step in the early development of the soul may be brought about, but it will be sufficient for our present purpose if we take as an illustration of one of them a somewhat pathetic little story from real life which came under the observation of our students when they were investigating this question. In this case the agent of the great evolutionary forces was a poor seamstress, living in one of the dreariest and most squalid of our terrible London slums — a fetid court in the East End into which light and air could scarcely struggle.

 

Naturally she was not highly educated, for her life had been one long round of the hardest work under the least favourable of conditions; but nevertheless she was a good-hearted, benevolent creature, overflowing with love and kindness towards all with whom she came into contact. Her rooms were as poor, perhaps, as any in the court, but at least they were cleaner and neater than the others. She had no money to give when sickness brought need even more dire than usual to some of her neighbours, yet on such an occasion she was always at hand as often as she could snatch a few moments from her work, offering with ready sympathy such service as was within her power.

 

Indeed, she was quite a providence to the rough, ignorant factory girls about her, and they gradually came to look upon her as a kind of angel of help and mercy, always at hand in time, of trouble or illness. Often, after toiling all day with scarcely a moment's intermission, she sat up half the night, taking her turn at nursing some of the many sufferers who are always to be found in surroundings so fatal to health and happiness as those of a London slum; and in many cases the gratitude and affection which her unremitting kindness aroused in them were absolutely the only higher feelings that they had during the whole of their rough and sordid lives.

 

The conditions of existence in that court being such as they were, there is little wonder that some of her patients died, and then it became clear that she had done for them much more than she knew; she had given them not only a little kindly assistance in their temporal trouble, but a very important impulse on the course of spiritual evolution. For these were undeveloped souls — entities of a very backward class — who had never yet in any of their births set in motion the spiritual forces which alone could give them conscious existence on the mental plane; but now for the first time not only had an ideal towards which they could strive been put before them, but also really unselfish love had been evoked in them by her action, and the very fact of having so strong a feeling as this had raised them and given them more individuality, and so after their stay in the astral plane was ended they gained their first experience of the lowest subdivision of the heaven-world. A short experience, probably, and of by no means an advanced type, but still of far greater importance than appears at first sight; for when once the great spiritual energy of unselfishness has been awakened, the very working-out of its results in the heaven-world gives it the tendency to repeat itself, and small in amount though this first outpouring may be, it yet builds into the soul a faint tinge of a quality which will certainly express itself again in the next life.

 

 So the gentle benevolence of a poor seamstress has given to several less developed souls their introduction to a conscious spiritual life which incarnation after incarnation will grow steadily stronger, and react more and more upon the earth-lives of the future. This little incident perhaps suggests an explanation of the fact that in the various religions so much importance is attached to the personal element in charity — the direct association between donor and recipient.

 

Seventh Sub-Plane; the Lowest Heaven.

 

 This lowest subdivision of the heaven-world, to which the action of our poor seamstress raised the objects of her kindly care, has for its principal characteristic that of affection for family or friends — unselfish, of course, but usually somewhat narrow. Here, however, we must guard ourselves against the possibility of misconception. When it is said that family affection takes a man to the seventh celestial sub-plane, and religious devotion to the sixth, people sometimes very naturally imagine that a person having both these characteristics strongly developed in him would divide his period in the heaven-world between these two subdivisions, first spending a long period of happiness in the midst of his family, and then passing upward to the next level, there to exhaust the spiritual forces engendered by his devotional aspirations.

 

This, however, is not what happens, for in such a case as we have supposed the man would awaken to consciousness in the sixth subdivision, where he would find himself engaged, together with those whom he had loved so much in the highest form of devotion which he was able to realize. And when we think of it this is reasonable enough, for the man who is capable of religious devotion as well as mere family affection is naturally likely to be endowed with a higher and broader development of the latter virtue than one whose mind is susceptible to influence in one direction only. The same rule holds good all the way up; the higher plane may always include the qualities of the lower as well as those peculiar to itself, and when it does so its inhabitants almost invariably have these qualities in fuller measure than the souls on a lower plane.

 

 When it is said that family affection is the characteristic of the seventh sub-plane, it must not therefore be supposed for a moment that love is confined to this plane, but rather that the man who will find himself here after death is one in whose character this affection was the highest quality— the only one, in fact, which entitled him to the heaven-life at all. But love of a far nobler and grander type than anything to be seen on this level may of course be found upon the higher sub-planes.

 

 One of the first entities encountered by the investigators upon this sub-plane forms a very fair typical example of its inhabitants. The man during life had been a small grocer — not a person of intellectual development or of any particular religious feeling, but simply the ordinary honest and respectable small tradesman. No doubt he had gone to church regularly every Sunday, because it was the customary and proper thing to do; but religion had been to him a sort of dim cloud which he did not really understand, which had no connection with the business of everyday life, and was never taken into account in deciding its problems. He had therefore none of the depth of devotion which might have lifted him to the next sub-plane; but he had for his wife and family a warm affection in which there was a large element of unselfishness. They were constantly in his mind, and it was for them far more than for himself that he worked from morning to night in his tiny little shop ; and so when, after a period of existence on the astral plane, he had at last shaken himself free from the disintegrating desire-body, he found himself in this lowest subdivision of the heaven-world with all his loved ones gathered round him.

 

He was no more an intellectual or highly spiritual man than he had been on earth, for death brings .with it no sudden development of that kind; the surroundings in which he found himself with his family were not of a very refined type, for they represented only his own highest ideals of non-physical enjoyment during life ; but nevertheless he was as intensely happy as he was capable of being, and since he was all the time thinking of his family rather than of himself he was undoubtedly developing unselfish characteristics, which would be built into his soul as permanent qualities, and so would reappear in all his future lives on earth.

 

Another typical case was that of a man who had died while his only daughter was still young; here in the heaven-world he had her always with him and always at her best, and he was continually occupying himself in weaving all sorts of beautiful pictures of her future. Yet another was that of a young girl who was always absorbed in contemplating the manifold perfections of her father, and planning little surprises and fresh pleasures for him. Another was a Greek woman who was spending a marvellously happy time with her three children — one of them a beautiful boy, whom she delighted in imagining as the victor in the Olympic games.

 

A striking characteristic of this sub-plane for the last few centuries has been the very large number of Romans, Carthaginians, and Englishmen to be found there — this being due to the fact that among men of these nations the principal unselfish activity found its outlet through family affection, while comparatively few Hindus and Buddhists are here, since in their case real religious feeling usually enters more immediately into their daily lives, and consequently takes them to a higher level.

 

There was, of course, an almost infinite variety among the cases observed, their different degrees of advancement being distinguishable by varying degrees of luminosity, while differences of colour indicated respectively the qualities which the persons in question had developed. Some were lovers who had died in the full strength of their affection, and so were always occupied with the one person they loved to the entire exclusion of all others; others there were who had been almost savages, one example being a Malay, a very undeveloped man (at the stage which we should technically describe as that of a low third-class pitri) who obtained a slight experience of the heaven-life in connection with a daughter whom he had loved.

 

In all these cases it was the touch of unselfish affection which gave them their heaven; indeed, apart from that, there was nothing in the activity of their personal lives which could have expressed itself on that plane. In most instances observed on this level the images of the loved ones are very far from perfect, and consequently the true egos or souls of the friends who are loved can express themselves but poorly through them; though even at the worst that expression is much fuller and more satisfying than it ever was in physical life. In earth-life we see our friends so partially; we know only those parts of them which are congenial to us, and the other sides of their characters are practically non-existent for us. Our communion with them and our knowledge of them down here mean very much to us, and are often to us among the greatest things in life; yet in reality this communion and this knowledge must always be exceedingly defective, for even in the very rare cases where we can think that we know a man thoroughly and all through, body and soul, it is still only the part of him which is in manifestation on these lower planes while in incarnation that we can know, and there is far more behind in the real ego which we cannot reach at all. Indeed, if it were possible for us, with the direct and perfect vision of the mental plane, to see for the first time the whole of our friend when we met him after death, the probability is that he would be quite unrecognizable ; certainly he would not be at all the dear one whom we thought we had known before.

 

It must be understood that the keen affection which alone brings one man into the heaven-life of another is a very powerful force upon these higher planes — a force which reaches up to the soul of the man who is loved, and evokes a response from it. Naturally the vividness of that response, the amount of life and energy in it, depends on the development of the soul of the loved one, but there is no case in which the response is not a perfectly real one as far as it goes.

 

Of course the soul or ego can be fully reached only upon his own level — one of the arûpa subdivisions of this mental plane — but at least we are very much nearer to that in any stage of the heaven-world than we are here, and therefore under favourable conditions we could there know enormously more of our friend than would ever be possible here, while even under the most unfavourable of conditions we are at any rate far closer to the reality there than we have ever been before.

 

Two factors have to be taken into account in our consideration of this subject — the degree of development of each of the persons concerned. If the man in the heaven-life has strong affection and some development in spirituality he will form a clear and fairly perfect thought-image of his friend as he knew him — an image through which at that level the soul of the friend could express himself to a very considerable extent. But in order to take full advantage of that opportunity it is necessary that that soul should himself be very fairly advanced in evolution.

 

We see, therefore, that there are two reasons for which the manifestation may be imperfect. The image made by the dead man may be so vague and inefficient that the friend, even though well-evolved, may be able to make very little use of it; and on the other hand, even when a good image is made, there may not be sufficient development on the friend's part to enable him to take due advantage of it.

 

But in any and every case the soul of the friend is reached by the feeling of affection, and whatever may be its stage of development it at once responds by pouring itself forth into the image which has been made. The extent to which the true man can express himself through it depends on the two factors above mentioned — the kind of image which is made in the first place, and how much soul there is to express in the second; but even the feeblest image that can be made is at any rate on the mental plane, and, therefore, far easier for the ego to reach than is a physical body two-whole planes lower down.

 

If the friend who is loved is still alive he will of course be entirely unaware down here on the physical plane that his true self is enjoying this additional manifestation, but this in no way affects the fact that that manifestation is a more real one and contains a nearer approximation to his true self than this lower one, which is all that most of us can as yet see.

 

An interesting point is that since a man may well enter into the heaven-life of several of his departed friends at once, he may thus be simultaneously manifesting himself in all these various forms, as well as, perhaps, managing a physical body down here. That conception, however, presents no difficulty to anyone who understands the relation of the different planes to one another; it is just as easy for him to manifest himself in several of these celestial images at once, as it is for us to be simultaneously conscious of the pressure of several different articles against different parts of our body. The relation of one plane to another is like that of one dimension to another ; no number of units of the lower dimension can ever equal one of the higher, and in just the same way no number of these manifestations could exhaust the power of response in the ego above. On the contrary, such manifestations afford him an appreciable additional opportunity for development on the mental plane — an opportunity which is the direct result and reward under the operation of the law of divine justice of the actions or qualities which evoked such an outpouring of affection.

 

It is clear from all this that as the man evolves, his opportunities in all directions become greater. Not only is he more likely as he advances to attract the love and reverence of many, and so to have many strong thought-images at his disposal on the mental plane; but also his power of manifestation through each of these and his receptivity in it rapidly increase with his progress.

 

This was very well illustrated by a simple case which recently came under the notice of our investigators. It was that of a mother who had died perhaps twenty years ago, leaving behind her two boys to whom she was deeply attached. Naturally they were the most prominent figures in her heaven, and quite naturally, too, she thought of them as she had left them, as boys of fifteen or sixteen years of age. The love which she thus ceaselessly poured out upon these mental images was really acting as a beneficent force showered down upon the grown-up men in this physical world, but it did not affect them both to the same extent— not that her love was stronger for one than the other, but because there was a great difference, in the vitality of the images themselves. Not a difference, be it understood, that the mother could see; to her both appeared equally with her and equally all that she could possibly desire: yet to the eyes of the investigators it was very evident that one of these images was very much more instinct with living force than the other. On tracing this very interesting phenomenon to its source, it was found that in one case the son had grown up into an ordinary man of business — not specially evil in any way, but by no means spiritually-minded — while the other had become a man of high unselfish aspiration, and of considerable refinement and culture. His life had been such as to develop a much greater amount of consciousness in the soul than his brother's, and consequently this higher self was able to vitalize much more fully that image of his youthful days which his mother had formed in her heaven-life. There was more soul to put in, and so the image was vivid and living.

 

Further research revealed numbers of similar instances, and it was very clearly seen that the more highly a soul is evolved in spirituality, the more fully he can express himself in such manifestations as his friends' love has provided for him. And by such fuller expression he is also enabled to derive more and more benefit from the living force of that love as it pours itself upon him through these thought-images. As the soul grows these images become fuller expressions of him, till when he gains the level of a Master he consciously employs them as a means of helping and instructing his pupils.

 

Along these lines only is conscious communication possible between those still imprisoned in the physical body and those who have passed into this celestial realm. As has been said, a soul may be shining out gloriously through his image in a friend's heaven-life, and yet in his manifestation through the physical body on this plane that soul may be entirely unconscious of all this, and so may suppose himself unable to communicate with his departed friend. But if that soul has evolved his consciousness to the point of unification, and can therefore use his full powers while still in the physical body, he can then realize, even during this dull earthly life, that he still stands face to face with his friend as of yore — that death has not removed the man he loved, but has only opened his eyes to the grander, wider life which ever lies around us all.

 

In appearance the friend would seem much as he did in earth-life, yet somehow strangely glorified. In the mind-body as in the astral body there is a reproduction of the physical form within the outer ovoid whose shape is determined by that of the causal body, so that it has somewhat the appearance of a form of denser mist surrounded by a lighter mist. All through the heaven-life the personality of the last physical life is distinctly preserved, and it is only when the consciousness is finally withdrawn into the causal body that this feeling of personality is merged in the individuality, and the man for the first time since this descent into incarnation realizes himself as the true and comparatively permanent ego.

 

Men sometimes ask whether on this mental plane there is any consciousness of time — any alternation of night and day, of sleeping and waking. The only waking in the heaven-world is the slow dawning of its wonderful bliss upon the mind-sense as the man enters upon his life on that plane, and the only sleeping is the equally gradual sinking into happy unconsciousness when the long term of that life at length comes to an end. It was once described to us in the beginning as a sort of prolongation of all the happiest hours in a man's life magnified a hundredfold in bliss; and though that definition leaves much to be desired (as indeed all physical-plane definitions must), it still comes far nearer the truth than this idea of day and night. There is, indeed, what seems an infinity of variety in the happiness of the heaven-world; but the changes of sleeping and waking form no part of its plan.

 

On the final separation of the mind-body from the astral a period of blank unconsciousness usually supervenes — varying in length between very wide limits — analogous to that which usually follows physical death. The awakening from this into active mental consciousness closely resembles what often occurs in waking from a night's sleep. Just as on first awakening in the morning one sometimes passes through a period of intensely delightful repose during which one is conscious of the sense of enjoyment, though the mind is as yet inactive and the body hardly under control so the entity awakening into the heaven-world first passes through a more or less prolonged period of intense and gradually increasing bliss before his full activity of consciousness on that plane is reached. When first this sense of wondrous joy dawns on him it fills the entire field of his consciousness, but gradually as he awakens he finds himself surrounded by a world peopled by his own ideals, and presenting the features appropriate to the sub-plane to which he has been drawn.

 

Sixth Sub-Plane; the Second Heaven.

 

The dominant characteristic of this subdivision may be said to be anthropomorphic religious devotion. The distinction between such devotion and the religious feeling which finds its expression on the second sub-plane of the astral lies in the fact that the former is purely-unselfish (the man who feels it being totally unconcerned as to what the result of his devotion may be as regards himself), while the latter is always aroused by the hope and desire of gaining some advantage through it; so that on the second astral sub-plane such religious feeling as is there active invariably contains an element of selfish bargaining, while the devotion which raises a man to this sixth sub-plane of the heaven-world is entirely free from any such taint.

 

On the other hand, this phase of devotion, which consists essentially in the perpetual adoration of a personal deity, must be carefully distinguished from those still higher forms which find their expression in performing some definite work for the deity's sake. A few examples of the cases observed on this sub-plane will perhaps show these distinctions more clearly than any mere description can do.

 

A fairly large number of entities whose mental activities work themselves out on this level are drawn from the oriental religions; but only those are included who have the characteristic of pure but comparatively unreasoning and unintelligent devotion. Worshippers of Vishnu, both in his avatâr of Krishna and otherwise, as well as a few followers of Shiva, are to be found here, each wrapped up in the self-woven cocoon of his own thoughts, alone with his own god, and oblivious of the rest of mankind, except in so far as his affections may associate with him in his adoration those whom he loved on earth. A Vaishnavite, for example, was noticed wholly absorbed in the ecstatic worship of the very same image of Vishnu to which he had made offerings during life.

 

Some of the most characteristic examples of this plane are to be found among women, who indeed form a very large majority of its inhabitants. Among others there was a Hindu woman who had glorified her husband into a divine being, and also thought of the child Krishna as playing with her own children, but while these latter were thoroughly human and real, the child Krishna was obviously nothing but the semblance of a blue wooden image galvanized into life. Krishna also appeared in her heaven under another form — that of an effeminate young man playing on a flute; but she was not in the least confused or troubled by this double manifestation. Another woman, who was a worshipper of Shiva, had confounded the god with her husband, looking upon the latter as a manifestation of the former, so that the one seemed to be constantly changing into the other. Some Buddhists also are found upon this subdivision, but apparently exclusively those less instructed ones who regard the Buddha rather as an object of adoration than as a great teacher.

 

 The Christian religion also contributes many of the inhabitants of this plane. The un-intellectual devotion which is exemplified on the one hand by the illiterate Roman Catholic peasant, and on the other by the earnest and sincere "soldier" of the Salvation Army, seems to produce results very similar to those already described, for these people also are found wrapped up in contemplation of their ideas of Christ or his mother respectively. For instance, an Irish peasant was seen absorbed in the deepest adoration of the Virgin Mary, whom he imaged as standing on the moon after the fashion of Titian's " Assumption," but holding out her hands and speaking to him. A mediaeval monk was found in ecstatic contemplation of Christ crucified, and the intensity of his yearning love and pity was such that as he watched the blood dropping from the wounds of the figure of his Christ the stigmata reproduced themselves upon his own mind-body.

 

Another man seemed to have forgotten the sad story of the crucifixion, and thought of his Christ only as glorified on his throne, with the crystal sea before him, and all around a vast multitude of worshippers, among whom he himself stood with his wife and family. His affection for these relatives was very deep, yet his thoughts were more occupied in adoration of the Christ, though his conception of his deity was so material that he imaged him as constantly changing kaleidoscopically backwards and forwards between the form of a man and that of the lamb bearing the flag which we often see represented in church window.

 

A more interesting case was that of a Spanish nun who had died at about the age of nineteen or twenty. In her heaven she carried herself back to the date of Christ's life upon earth, and imagined herself as accompanying him through the chain of events recounted in the gospels, and after his crucifixion taking care of his mother the Virgin Mary. Not unnaturally, perhaps, her pictures of the scenery and costumes of Palestine were entirely inaccurate, for the Saviour and his disciples wore the dress of Spanish peasants, while the hills round Jerusalem were mighty mountains clothed with vineyards, and the olive trees were hung with grey Spanish moss. She thought of herself as eventually martyred for her faith, and ascending into heaven, but yet only to live over and over again this life in which she so delighted.

 

A quaint and pretty little example of the heaven-life of a child may conclude our list of instances from this sub-plane. He had died at the age of seven, and was occupied in re-enacting in the heaven-world the religious stories which his Irish nurse had told him down here; and best of all he loved to think of himself as playing with the infant Jesus, and helping him to make those clay sparrows which the power of the Christ-child is fabled to have brought to life and caused to fly.

 

It will be seen that the blind unreasoning devotion of which we have been speaking does not at any time raise its votaries to any great spiritual heights; but it must be remembered that in all cases they are entirely happy and most fully satisfied, for what they receive is always the highest which they are capable of appreciating. Nor is it without a very good effect on their future career; for although no amount of mere devotion such as this will ever develop intellect, yet it does produce an increased capacity for a higher form of devotion, and in most cases it leads also to purity of life. A person, therefore, who lives such a lifeqq and enjoys such a heaven as we have been describing, though he is not likely to make rapid progress on the path of spiritual development, is at least guarded from many dangers, for it is very improbable that in his next birth he should fall into any of the grosser sins, or be drawn away from his devotional aspirations into a mere worldly life of avarice, ambition, or dissipation. Nevertheless, a survey of this sub-plane distinctly emphasizes the necessity of following St Peter's advice, " Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge."

 

Since such strange results seem to follow from crude forms of faith, one looks with interest to see what effect is produced by the still cruder materialism which not long ago was so painfully common in Europe. Madame Blavatsky has stated in <> The Key to Theosophy that in some cases a materialist has no conscious life in the heaven-world, since he did not while on earth believe in such a postmortem condition. It seems probable, however, that our great founder was employing the word "materialist" in a much more restricted sense than that in which it is generally used, since in the same volume she also asserts that for them no conscious life after death is possible at all, whereas it is a matter of common knowledge among those whose nightly work lies upon the astral plane that many of those whom we usually call materialists are to be met with there, and are certainly not unconscious.

 

For example, a prominent materialist intimately known to one of our members was not long ago discovered by his friend upon the highest sub-plane of the astral, where he had surrounded himself with his books, and was continuing his studies almost as he might have done on earth. On being questioned by his friend he readily admitted that the theories which he had held while upon earth were confuted by the irresistible logic of facts; but his own agnostic tendencies were still strong enough to make him unwilling to accept what his friend told him as to the existence of the still higher mental-plane. Yet there was certainly much in this man's character which could find its full fruition only upon that mental plane, and since his entire disbelief in any life after death has not prevented his astral experiences, there seems no reason to suppose that it can check the due working out of the higher forces in him in the heaven-world hereafter.

 

Assuredly he has lost much by his disbelief. No doubt, had he been able to understand the beauty of the religious ideal, it would have called forth in him a mighty energy of devotion, the effect of which he would have been reaping now. All that, which might have been his, is missing. But his deep unselfish family affection, his earnest and tireless philanthropic effort — these also were great outpourings of energy, which must produce their result, and can produce it nowhere but upon the mental plane. The absence of one kind of force cannot prevent the action of the others.

 

Another instance still more recently observed was that of a materialist who on awakening upon the astral plane after death supposed himself to be still alive, and merely experiencing an unpleasant dream. Fortunately for him there was among the band of those able to function upon the astral plane a son of an old friend of his, who was commissioned to search for him and endeavour to render him some assistance. Naturally enough, he at first supposed the young man to be merely a figure in his dream; but upon receipt of a message from his old friend referring to matters which had occurred before the birth of the messenger, he was convinced of the reality of the plane upon which he found himself, and became at once exceedingly eager to acquire all possible information about it. The instruction which is being given to him under these conditions will undoubtedly have a very great effect upon him, and will largely modify not only the heaven-life which lies before him but also his next incarnation upon earth.

 

What is shown to us by these two and by many other examples need not after all surprise us, for it is only what we might expect from our experience upon the physical plane. We constantly find down here that nature makes no allowance for our ignorance of her laws; if, under an impression that fire does not burn, a man puts his hand into a flame, he is speedily convinced of his mistake. In the same way a man's disbelief in a future existence does not affect the facts of nature; and in some cases at least he simply finds out after death that he was mistaken.

 

The kind of materialism referred to by Madame Blavatsky in the remarks above mentioned was therefore probably something much coarser and more aggressive than ordinary agnosticism — something which would render it exceedingly unlikely that a man who held it would have any qualities requiring a life on the mental plane in which to work themselves out.

 

Fifth Sub-plane; the Third Heaven.

 

 The chief characteristic of this subdivision may be defined as devotion expressing itself in active work. The Christian on this plane, for example, instead of merely adoring his Saviour, would think of himself as going out into the world to work for him. It is especially the plane for the working out of great schemes and designs unrealized on earth — of great organizations inspired by religious devotion, and usually having for their object some philanthropic purpose. It must be borne in mind, however, that ever as we rise higher greater complexity and variety is introduced, so that though we may still be able to give a definite characteristic as on the whole dominating the plane, we shall yet be more and more liable to find variations and exceptions that do not so readily range themselves under the general heading.

 

A typical case, although somewhat above the average, was that of a man who was found carrying out a grand scheme for the amelioration of the condition of the lower classes. While a deeply religious man himself, he had felt that the first step necessary in dealing with the poor was to improve their physical condition; and the plan which he was now working out in his heaven-life with triumphant success and loving attention to every detail was one which had often crossed his mind while on earth, though he had been quite unable there to take any steps towards its realization.

 

His idea had been that, if possessed of enormous wealth, he would buy up and get into his own hands the whole of one of the smaller trades — one in which perhaps three or four large firms only were now engaged; and he thought that by so doing he could effect very large savings by doing away with competitive advertising and other wasteful forms of trade rivalry, and thus be able, while supplying goods to the public at the same price as now, to pay much better wages to his workmen. It was part of his scheme to buy a plot of land and erect upon it cottages for his workmen, each surrounded by its little garden; and after a certain number of years' service, each workman was to acquire a share in the profits of the business which would be sufficient to provide for him in his old age. By working out this system our philanthropist had hoped to show to the world that there was an eminently practical side to Christianity, and also to win the souls of his men to his own faith out of gratitude for the material benefits they had received.

 

Another not dissimilar case was that of an Indian prince whose ideal on earth had been the divine hero-king, Râma, on whose example he had tried to model his life and methods of government. Naturally down here all sorts of untoward accidents had occurred, and many of his schemes had consequently failed, but in the heaven-life everything went well, and the greatest possible result followed every one of his well-meant efforts — Râma of course personally advising and directing his work, and receiving perpetual adoration from all his devoted subjects.

 

A curious and rather touching instance of personal religious work was that of a woman who had been a nun, belonging to one not of the contemplative but of the working orders. She had evidently based her life upon the text, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me," and now in the heaven-world she was still carrying out to the fullest extent the injunctions of her Lord, and was constantly occupied in healing the sick, in feeding the hungry, and clothing and helping the poor — the peculiarity of the case being that each of those to whom she had ministered at once changed into the appearance of the Christ, whom she then worshipped with fervent devotion.

 

An instructive case was that of two sisters, both of whom had been intensely religious; one of them had been a crippled invalid, and the other had spent a long life in tending her. On earth they had often discussed and planned what religious and philanthropic work they would carry out if they were able, and now each is the most prominent figure in the heaven of the other, the cripple being well and strong, while each thinks of the other as joining her in carrying out the unrealized wishes of her earth-life. This was a very fine example of the calm continuity of life in the case of people of unselfish aims; for the only difference that death had made was to eliminate disease and suffering, and to render easy the work which had heretofore been impossible.

 

On this plane also the higher type of sincere and devoted missionary activity finds expression. Of course the ordinary ignorant fanatic never reaches this level, but a few of the noblest cases, such as Livingstone, might be found here engaged in the congenial occupation of converting multitudes of people to the particular religion which they happened to advocate. One of the most striking of such cases which came under notice was that of a Mohammedan, who imagined himself as working most zealously at the conversion of the world, and its government according to the most approved principles of the faith of Islam.

 

It appears that under certain conditions artistic capacity may also bring its votaries to this sub-plane. But here a careful distinction must be drawn. The artist or musician whose only object is the selfish one of personal fame, or who habitually allows himself to be influenced by feelings of professional jealousy, naturally generates no forces which will bring him to the mental plane at all. On the other hand, that grandest type of art whose disciples regard it as a mighty power entrusted to them for the spiritual elevation of their fellows, will express itself in even higher regions than this. But between these two extremes those devotees of art who follow it for its own sake or regard it as an offering to their deity, never thinking of its effect on their fellows, may in some cases find their appropriate heaven on this sub-plane.

 

As an example of this may be mentioned a musician of very religious temperament who regarded all his labour of love simply as an offering to the Christ, and knew nothing of the magnificent arrangement of sound and colour which his soul-inspiring compositions were producing in the matter of the mental plane. Nor would all his enthusiasm be wasted and fruitless, for without his knowledge it was bringing joy and help to many, and its results would certainly be to give him increased devotion and increased musical capacity in his next birth: but without the still wider aspiration to help humanity this kind of heaven-life might repeat itself almost indefinitely. Indeed, glancing back at the three planes with which we have just been dealing, we may notice that they are in all cases concerned with the working out of devotion to personalities — either to one's family and friends or to a personal deity — rather than the wider devotion to humanity for its own sake which finds its expression on the next sub-plane.

 

 

 

Fourth Sub-Plane; The Fourth Heaven.

 

So varied are the activities of this, the highest of the rûpa levels, that it is difficult to group them under a single characteristic. Perhaps they might best be arranged into four main divisions — unselfish pursuit of spiritual knowledge, high philosophic or scientific thought, literary or artistic ability exercised for unselfish purposes, and service for the sake of service. The exact definition of each of these classes will be more readily comprehended when some examples of each have been given.

 

Naturally it is from those religions in which the necessity of obtaining spiritual knowledge is recognized that most of the population of this sub-plane is drawn. It will be remembered that on the sixth sub-plane we found many Buddhists whose religion had chiefly taken the form of devotion to their great leader as a person; here, on the contrary, we have these more intelligent followers whose supreme aspiration was to sit at his feet and learn — who looked upon him in the light of a teacher rather than as a being to be adored.

 

Now in their heaven-life this highest wish is fulfilled; they find themselves in very truth learning from the Buddha, and the image which they have thus made of him is no empty form, but most assuredly through it shines out the wonderful wisdom, power, and love of that mightiest of earth's teachers. They are therefore acquiring fresh knowledge and wider views; and the effect upon their next life cannot but be of the most marked character. They will not perhaps remember any individual facts that they may have learnt (though when such facts are presented to their minds in a subsequent life they will grasp them with avidity and intuitively recognize their truth), but the result of the teaching will be to build into the ego a strong tendency to take broader and more philosophical views on all such subjects.

 

It will at once be seen how very definitely and unmistakably such a heaven-life as this hastens the evolution of the ego; and once more our attention is drawn to the enormous advantage gained by those who have accepted the guidance of real, living and powerful teachers.

 

A less developed type of this form of instruction is found in cases in which some really great and spiritual writer has become to a student a living personality, and has taken on the aspect of a friend, forming part of the student's mental life — an ideal figure in his musings. Such an one may enter into the pupil's heaven-life and by virtue of his own highly evolved soul may vivify the mental image of himself, and under these happier circumstances further illuminate the teachings in his own books, bringing out of them the more hidden meanings.

 

Many of the followers of the path of wisdom among the Hindus find their heaven upon this plane — that is, if their teachers have been men possessing any real knowledge. A few of the more advanced among the Sûfis and Parsis are also here, and we still find some of the early Gnostics whose spiritual development was such as to earn for them a prolonged stay in this celestial region. But except for this comparatively small number of Sûfis and Gnostics, neither Mohammedanism nor Christianity seems to raise its followers to this level, though some who nominally belong to these religions may be carried on to this sub-plane by the presence in their character of qualities which do not depend upon the teachings peculiar to their religion.

 

In this region we also find earnest and devoted students of Occultism who are not yet so far advanced as to have earned the right and the power to forego their heaven-life for the good of the world. Among these was one who in life had been personally known to some of the investigators — a Buddhist monk who had been an earnest student of Theosophy, and had long cherished the hope of being one day privileged to receive instruction directly from its Adept teachers. In his heaven-life the Buddha was the dominant figure, while the two Masters who have been most closely concerned with the Theosophical Society appeared also as his lieutenants, expounding and illustrating his teaching. All three of these images were very full of the power and wisdom of the great beings whom they represented, and the monk was therefore definitely receiving real teaching upon occult subjects, the effect of which would almost certainly be to bring him actually on to the Path of Initiation in his next birth.

 

Another instance from our ranks which was encountered on this level illustrates the terrible effect of harbouring unfounded and uncharitable suspicions. It was the case of a devoted and self-sacrificing student who towards the end of her life had unfortunately fallen into an attitude of quite unworthy and unjustifiable distrust of the motives of her old friend and teacher Madame Blavatsky; and it was sad to notice how this feeling had shut out to a considerable extent the higher influence and teaching which she might have enjoyed in her heaven-life. It was not that the influence and teaching were in any way withheld from her, for that can never be; but that her own mental attitude rendered her to some extent unreceptive of them. She was of course quite unconscious of this, and seemed to herself to be enjoying the fullest and most perfect communion with the Masters, yet it was obvious to the investigators that but for this unfortunate self-limitation she would have reaped far greater advantage from her stay on this level. A wealth of love and strength and knowledge almost infinite lay there at her hand, but her own ingratitude had sadly crippled her power to accept it.

 

It will be understood that since there are other Masters of wisdom besides those connected with our own movement, and other schools of occultism working along the same general lines as that to which we belong, students attached to some of these are also frequently met with upon this sub-plane.

 

 Passing now to the next class, that of high philosophic and scientific thought, we find here many of those nobler and more unselfish thinkers who seek insight and knowledge only for the purpose of enlightening and helping their fellows. We are not including as students of philosophy those men, either in the East or the West, who waste their time in mere verbal argument and hair-splitting — for that is a form of discussion which has its roots in selfishness and conceit, and can therefore never help towards a real understanding of the facts of the universe: for naturally such foolish superficiality as this produces no results that can work themselves out on the mental plane.

 

As an instance of a true student noticed on this sub-plane we may mention one of the later followers of the neo-platonic system, whose name has fortunately been preserved to us in the surviving records of that period. He had striven all through his earth-life really to master the teachings of that school, and now his heaven-life was occupied in unravelling its mysteries and in. endeavouring to understand its bearing upon human life and development.

 

Another case was that of an astronomer, who seemed to have begun life as orthodox, but had gradually under the influence of his studies widened out into Pantheism; in his heaven-life he was still pursuing these studies with a mind full of reverence, and was undoubtedly gaining real knowledge from those great orders of the Devas, through whom on this plane the majestic cyclic movement of the mighty stellar influences seems to express itself in ever-changing coruscations of all-penetrating living light He was lost in contemplation of a vast panorama of whirling nebulae and gradually-forming systems and worlds, and he appeared to be groping after some dim idea as to the shape of the universe, which he imagined as some vast animal. His thoughts surrounded him as elemental forms shaped as stars, and one especial source of joy to him consisted in listening to the stately rhythm of the music that pealed out in mighty chorales from the moving orbs.

 

 The third type of activity on this plane is that highest kind of artistic and literary effort which is chiefly inspired by a desire to elevate and spiritualize the race. Here we find all our greatest musicians; on this sub-plane Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner and others are still flooding the heaven-world with harmony far more glorious even than the grandest which they were able to produce when on earth. It seems as if a great stream of divine music poured into them from higher regions, and was, as it were, specialized by them and made their own, to be then sent forth through all the plane in a great tide of melody which adds to the bliss of all around. Those who are functioning in full consciousness on the mental plane will clearly hear and thoroughly appreciate this magnificent outpouring, but even the disembodied entities of this level, each of whom is wrapped up in his own thought-cloud, are also deeply affected by the elevating and ennobling influence of its resonant melody.

 

The painter and the sculptor also, if they have followed their respective arts always with a grand, unselfish aim, are here constantly making and sending forth all kinds of lovely forms for the delight and encouragement of their fellow-men — the forms being simply artificial elementals created by their thought. And not only may these beautiful conceptions give deepest pleasure to those living entirely on the mental plane; they may also in many cases be grasped by the minds of artists still in the flesh — may act as inspirations to them, and so be reproduced down here for the elevating and ennobling of that portion of humanity which is struggling amid the turmoil of physical life.

 

One touching and beautiful figure seen upon this plane was that of a boy who had been a chorister, and had died at the age of fourteen. His whole soul was full of music and of boyish devotion to his art, deeply coloured with the thought that by it he was expressing the religious longings of the multitude who crowded a vast cathedral, and yet was at the same time pouring out to them celestial encouragement and inspiration. He had known little enough save for this one great gift of song, but he had used that gift worthily, trying to be the voice of the people to heaven and of heaven to the people, and ever longing to know more music and render it more worthily for the Church's sake. And so in this celestial life his wish was bearing fruit, and over him was bending the quaint angular figure of a medieval St. Cecilia, formed by his loving thought from the picture of her in a stained glass window. But though the outer garb was thus a scarcely-artistic representation of a doubtful ecclesiastical legend, the reality which lay behind it was living and glorious; for the childish thought-form was vivified by one of the mighty archangels of the celestial hierarchy of song, and through it he taught the chorister a grander strain of music than ever earth has known.

 

Here also was one of earth's failures — for the tragedy of the earth-life leaves strange marks sometimes even in the heavenly places. In the world where all thoughts of loved ones smile upon man as friends, he was thinking and writing in solitude. On earth he had striven to write a great book, and for the sake of it had refused to use his literary power in making mere sustenance from paltry hack-work; but none would look at his book, and he walked the streets despairing, till sorrow and starvation closed his eyes to earth. He had been lonely all his life — in his youth friendless and shut out from family ties, and in his manhood able to work only in his own way, pushing aside hands that would have led him to a wider view of life's possibilities than the earthly paradise which he longed to make for all.

 

Now, as he thought and wrote, though there were none whom he had loved as personal or ideal helpers who could make part of this his mental life, he saw stretching before him the Utopia of which he had dreamed, for which he had tried to live, and the vast thronging impersonal multitudes whom he had longed to serve; and the joy of their joy surged back on him and made his solitude a heaven. When he is born again on earth he will surely return with power to achieve as well as to plan, and this celestial vision will be partially bodied forth in happier terrene lives.

 

Many were found on this plane who during their earth-stay had devoted themselves to helping men because they felt the tie of brotherhood — who rendered service for the sake of service rather than because they desired to please any particular deity. They were engaged in working out with full knowledge and calm wisdom vast schemes of beneficence, magnificent plans of world improvement, and at the same time they were maturing powers with which to carry them out hereafter on the lower plane of physical life.

The Reality of the Heaven-Life.

 

Critics who have very imperfectly apprehended the Theosophical teaching on the subject of the hereafter, have sometimes urged that the life of the ordinary person in the lower heaven-world is nothing but a dream and an illusion — that when he imagines himself happy amidst his family and friends, or carrying out his plans with such fulness of joy and success, he is really only the victim of a cruel delusion: and this is sometimes unfavourably contrasted with what is called the "solid objectivity" of the heaven promised by orthodoxy. The reply to such an objection is twofold: first, that when we are studying the problems of the future life we are not concerned to know which of two hypotheses put before us would be the pleasanter (that being, after all, a matter of opinion), but rather which of them is the true one; and secondly, that when we enquire more fully into the facts of the case we shall see that those who maintain the illusion theory are looking at the matter from quite a wrong point of view, and have utterly misunderstood the facts.

 

As to the first point, the actual state of affairs is quite easily discoverable by those who have developed the power to pass consciously on to the mental plane during life; and when so investigated it is found to agree perfectly with the account given to us by the Masters of Wisdom through our great founder and teacher Madame Blavatsky. This at once disposes of the " solid objectivity " theory mentioned above, and transfers the onus of proof to the shoulders of our orthodox friends. As to the second point, if the contention be that on the lower levels of the heaven-world truth in its fulness is not yet known to man, and that consequently illusion still exists there, we must frankly admit that that is so. But that is not what is usually meant by those who bring forward this objection; they are generally oppressed by a feeling that the heaven-life will be more illusory and useless than the physical — an idea than which nothing could be more entirely opposed to the fact.

 

 Is it contended that on that plane we make our own surroundings, and for that reason see only a very small part of the plane? Surely down here also the world of which a person is sensible is never the whole of the outer world, but only so much of it as his senses, his intellect, his education, enable him to take in. It is obvious that during earth-life the average person's conception of everything around him is really quite a wrong one — empty, imperfect, inaccurate in a dozen ways ; for what does he know of the great forces — etheric, astral, mental — which lie behind everything he sees, and in fact form by far the most important part of it? What does he know, as a rule, even of the more recondite physical facts which surround him and meet him at every step that he takes ? The truth is that here, as in his heaven-life, he lives in a world which is very largely of his own creation. He does not realize it, either there or here, but that is only because of his own ignorance — because he knows no better.

 

Is it said that in the heaven-world a man takes his thoughts for real things? He is quite right; they are real things, and on this, the thought-plane, nothing but thought can be real. There we recognize that great fact — here we do not; on which plane, then, is the delusion greater ? Those thoughts of his are indeed realities, and are capable of producing the most striking results upon living men — results which can never be otherwise than beneficial, because upon that high plane there can be none but loving thought. Thus it will be seen that the theory that the heaven-life is an illusion is merely the result of a misconception, and shows imperfect acquaintance with its conditions and possibilities; the truth is that the higher we rise - the nearer we draw to the one reality.

 

It will perhaps assist the beginner to comprehend how real and how entirely natural is the higher portion of a man's life if he regards it simply as the result of the earlier portion spent upon the two lower planes. We all know well that our highest ideals are never realized, that our highest aspirations never bear full fruit down here. So that it would seem as though in this way some efforts were fruitless, some force was lost. But we know that cannot be, for the law of the conservation of energy holds good on the higher planes just as on the lower. Much of that higher spiritual energy which man pours forth cannot react upon him while in earth-life, for until his higher principles are freed from the incubus of the flesh, they are unable to respond to these far finer and more subtle vibrations. But in the heaven-life for the first time all this hindrance is removed, and the accumulated energy immediately pours itself forth in the inevitable reaction which the law of eternal justice demands. As Browning has grandly phrased it—

 

There shall never be one lost good ! What was, shall live as before ;

The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;

What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;

On the earth the broken arcs: in the heaven a perfect round.

 

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;

Not in its semblance, but itself: no beauty, nor good, nor power

Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist

When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.

 

The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,

The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,

Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;

Enough that He heard it once ; we shall hear it by-and-by.

 

Another point worth bearing in mind is that this system upon which nature has arranged the life after death is the only imaginable one which could fulfil its object of making every one happy to the fullest extent of his capacity for happiness. If the joy of heaven were of one particular type only, as it is according to the orthodox theory, there must always be some who would weary of it, some who would be incapable of participating in it, either from want of taste in that particular direction, or from lack of the necessary education — to say nothing of that other obvious fact, that if this condition of affairs were eternal, the grossest injustice must be perpetrated by giving practically the same reward to all who enter, no matter what their respective deserts might be.

 

Again, what other arrangement with regard to relatives and friends could possibly be equally satisfactory? If the departed were able to follow the fluctuating fortunes of their friends on earth, happiness would be impossible for them ; if, without knowing what was happening to them, they had to wait until the death of those friends before meeting them, there would be a painful period 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 every one of these difficulties is avoided; a man decides for himself both the length and the 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 that quality of joy which is best suited to his idiosyncrasies. Those whom he 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. In point of fact, the arrangement really made 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.

 

The Renunciation of Heaven.

 

It has long been understood among students of occultism that among the possibilities of more rapid progress which come to a man as he advances is that of "renouncing the reward of Devachan" as it has been called — that is, of giving up the life of bliss in the heaven-world between two incarnations in order to return more rapidly to carry on work on the physical plane. The phrase quoted is not a very good one, for we shall be much more likely to arrive at a correct understanding of the heaven-life if we look upon it as the necessary result of the earth-life, rather than as its reward. In the course of his physical existence a man sets in motion by his higher thoughts and aspirations what may be described as a certain amount of spiritual force, which will react upon him when he reaches the mental plane. If there be but little of this force, it will be comparatively soon exhausted, and the heaven-life. will be a short one; if, on the contrary, a great deal has been generated, a corresponding space of time will be needed for its full working, and the heaven will be very greatly prolonged.

 

As a man develops in spirituality, therefore, his lives in the heaven-world will become longer, but it must not be supposed that his progress is thereby delayed or his opportunities of usefulness lessened. For all but very highly advanced persons the heaven-life is absolutely necessary, as it is only under its conditions that their aspirations can be developed into faculty, their experiences into wisdom; and the progress which is thus made by the soul is far greater than would be possible if by some miracle he was enabled to remain in physical incarnation for the entire period. If it were otherwise, obviously the whole law of nature would stultify itself, for the nearer it came to the attainment of its great object, the more determined and formidable would be its efforts to defeat itself — hardly a reasonable view to take of a law which we know to be an expression of the most exalted wisdom!

 

The possibility of the renunciation of this heaven-life is by no means within the reach of every one. The Great Law permits no man to renounce blindly that of which he is ignorant, nor to depart from the ordinary course of evolution unless and until it is certain that such departure will be for his ultimate benefit.

 

The general rule is that no one is in a position to renounce the bliss of heaven until he has experienced it during earth-life — until he is sufficiently developed to be able to raise his consciousness to that plane, and bring back with him a clear and full memory of that glory which so far transcends terrestrial conception.

 

A little thought will make obvious the reason and the justice of this. It might be said that since it is the progress of the soul which is really in question, it would be sufficient for him to understand on his own plane the desirability of making the sacrifice of celestial bliss, and then to compel his lower self to act in accordance with his decision. Yet that would hardly be strict justice, for the enjoyment of heavenly bliss on the rûpa levels, though it belongs to the ego, belongs to him only as manifested through his personality; it is the life of that personality, with all its familiar personal surroundings, that is carried on in the lower heaven-world. And so before the renunciation of all this can take place, that personality must realize clearly what it is that is being given up; the lower mind must be in accord with the higher on this subject.

Now such realization obviously involves the possession during earth-life of a consciousness on the mental plane equivalent to that which the person in question would have after death. But it must be remembered that the evolution of consciousness takes place from below upward, as it were, and that the comparatively undeveloped majority of mankind are effectively conscious as yet only in the physical body. Their astral bodies are for the most part still shapeless and unorganized — bridges of communication indeed between the ego and its physical vesture, and even vehicles for the reception of sensation, but in no sense as yet instruments in the hand of the real man or adequate expressions of his future powers on that plane.

 

In the more advanced races of mankind we find the astral body much more developed, and the consciousness in it in many cases fairly complete potentially, though even then in most cases the man is entirely self-centred — conscious of his own thoughts mainly, and but little of his actual surroundings. To advance still further, some few of those who have taken up the study of occultism have been regularly awakened on that plane, and have therefore entered upon the full use of their astral faculties, and are deriving in many ways great benefit therefrom.

 

It does not, however, necessarily follow that such men should at first, or even for some considerable time, remember upon the physical plane the activities and experiences of their astral life. As a general rule they would do so partially and intermittently, but there are cases in which for various reasons practically nothing worth calling a memory of that higher existence finds its way through into the physical brain.

 

Any kind of definite consciousness on the mental plane would, of course, indicate still further advancement, and in the case of a man who was developing quite normally and regularly we should expect to find such consciousness dawning only as the connection between the astral and the physical became fairly well established. But in this one-sided and artificial condition which we call modern civilization, people do not always develop quite regularly and normally, and so there are cases to be found in which a considerable amount of consciousness on the mental plane has been acquired and duly linked on to the astral life, and yet no knowledge of all this higher existence ever gets through into the physical brain at all.

 

Such cases are very rare, but they certainly do exist, and in them we see at once the possibility of an exception to our rule. A personality of this type might be sufficiently developed to taste the indescribable bliss of heaven and so acquire the right to renounce it, while he was able to bring the memory of it no farther down than into his astral life. But since by the hypothesis that astral life would be one of full and perfect consciousness for the personality, such recollection would be amply sufficient to fulfil the requirements of justice, even though no shadow of all this ever came through into the physical waking consciousness. The great point to bear in mind is that since it is the personality that must resign, it is also the personality that must experience, and it must bring back the recollection to some plane on which it functions normally and in full consciousness; but that plane need not be the physical if these conditions are fulfilled upon the astral. Such a case would be unlikely to occur except among those who were already at least probationary pupils of one of the Masters of Wisdom.

 

The man who wishes to perform this great feat must therefore work with the most intense earnestness to make himself a worthy instrument in the hands of those who help the world — must throw himself with the most devoted fervour into labour for the spiritual good of others, not arrogantly assuming that he is already fit for so great an honour, but rather humbly hoping that perhaps after a life or two of strenuous effort his Master may tell him that the time has come when to him also this may be a possibility.

 

THE HIGHER HEAVEN-WORLD

 

We now turn from the four lower or rûpa levels of the mental plane, on which man functions in his temporary personality, to the consideration of the three higher or arûpa levels, his true and relatively permanent home. Here, so far as he sees at all, he sees clearly, for he has risen above the illusions of personality and the refracting medium of the lower self, and though his consciousness may be dim, dreamily unobservant and scarcely awake, yet his vision is at least true, however limited. The conditions of consciousness are so far away from all with which we are familiar down here that all terms known to psychology are useless and misleading. This has been called the realm of the noumenal in contrast with the phenomenal, of the formless in contrast with the formed; but it is still a world of manifestation, however real when opposed to the unrealities of lower states, and it still has forms, however rare in their materials and subtle in their essence.

 

After the period of what we usually call the heaven-life is over, there is still another phase of existence for the soul before it is re-born on earth, and though in the case of most people this stage is a comparatively short one, we must not ignore it if we wish to have a complete conception of man's super-physical life.

 

We are perpetually misunderstanding the life of man because we are in the habit of taking a partial view of it, and entirely disregarding its real nature and object. We generally look at it, in fact, from the point of view of the physical body, and not in the least from that of the soul; and we therefore get the whole thing utterly out of proportion. Each movement of the ego towards these lower planes and back is in reality a vast circular sweep; we take a little fragment of the lower arc of this circle and regard it as a straight line, attaching quite undue importance to its beginning and ending, while the real turning-point of the circle naturally entirely escapes us.

 

Think of the matter for a moment as it must seem to the true man on his own plane, as soon as he begins to be at all clearly conscious there. In obedience to the desire for manifestation which he finds within him, which is impressed upon him by that law of evolution which is the will of the Logos, he copies the action of that Logos by pouring himself forth into lower planes.

 

In the course of this process he clothes himself with matter of the various planes into which he passes — mental, astral, and physical in turn, all the while steadily pressing outward. Through the earlier part of that little fragment of existence on the physical plane which we call his life, the outward force is still strong, but at about the middle of it, in ordinary cases, that force becomes exhausted, and the great inward sweep begins.

 

Not that there is any sudden or violent change, for this is not an angle, but still part of the curve of the same circle — exactly corresponding to the moment of aphelion in a planet's course round its orbit. Yet it is the real turning-point of that little cycle of evolution, though with us it is usually not marked in any way. In the old Indian scheme of life it was marked as the end of the grihastha or householder period of the man's earthly existence.

 

From this point there should be nothing but a steady drawing inward of the whole force of the man, and his attention ought to be more and more withdrawn from mere earthly things, and concentrated on those of higher planes — from which we at once see how exceedingly ill-adapted to real progress are the modern conditions of European life.

 

The point at which the man drops his physical body is not a specially important one in this arc of evolution — by no means so important as the next change, which we might call his death on the astral plane and his birth in the heaven-world, although really it is simply the transfer of the consciousness from astral matter to mental matter in the course of the same steady withdrawal of which we have already spoken.

 

The final result of the life is known only when in that process of withdrawal the consciousness is once more centred in the ego in his home in the higher heaven-world; then it is seen what new qualities he has acquired in the course of that particular little cycle of his evolution. At that time also a glimpse of the life as a whole is obtained; the soul has for a moment a flash of clearer consciousness, in which he sees the results of the life just completed, and something of what will follow from it in his next birth.

 

This glimpse can hardly be said to involve a knowledge of the nature of the next incarnation, except in the vaguest and most general sense; no doubt the main object of the coming life would be seen, but the vision would be chiefly valuable to the soul as a lesson in the karmic result of his action in the past. It offers him an opportunity, of which he takes more or less advantage according to the stage of development to which he has already attained.

 

At first he makes little of it, since he is but very dimly conscious and very poorly fitted to apprehend facts and their varied inter-relations; but gradually his power to appreciate what he sees increases, and later the ability comes to remember such flashes at the end of previous lives, and to compare them, and so to estimate the progress which he is making along the road which he has to traverse.

 

Third Sub-Plane; the Fifth Heaven.

 

This, the lowest of the arûpa sub-planes, is also by far the most populous of all the regions with which we are acquainted, for here are present almost all the sixty thousand millions of souls who are said to be engaged in the present human evolution — all, in fact, except the comparatively small number who are capable of functioning on the second and first sub-planes. Each soul is represented by an ovoid form — at first a mere film, colourless and almost invisible, of most tenuous consistency; but, as the ego develops, this body begins to show a shimmering iridescence like a soap-bubble, colours playing over its surface like the changing hues made by sunlight on the spray of a waterfall.

 

Composed of matter inconceivably fine, delicate and ethereal, intensely alive and pulsating with living fire, it becomes as its evolution proceeds a radiant globe of flashing colours, its high vibrations sending ripples of changing hues over its surface — hues of which earth knows nothing — brilliant, soft and luminous beyond the power of language to describe. Take the colours of an Egyptian sunset and add to them the wonderful softness of an English sky at eventide — raise these as high above themselves in light and translucency and splendour as they are above the colours given by the cakes of a child's paint-box — and even then none who have not seen can image the beauty of these radiant orbs which flash into the field of clairvoyant vision as it is lifted to the level of this supernal world.

 

All these causal bodies are filled with living fire drawn from a higher plane, with which the globe appears to be connected by a quivering thread of intense light, vividly recalling to the mind the words of the stanzas of Dzyan, " the Spark hangs from the Flame by the finest thread of Fohat"; and as the soul grows and is able to receive more and more from the inexhaustible ocean of the Divine Spirit which pours down through the thread as a channel, the latter expands and gives wider passage to the flood, till on the next sub-plane it might be imaged as a water-spout connecting earth and sky, and higher still as itself a great globe through which rushes the living spring, until the causal body seems to melt into the in-pouring light. Once more the Stanza says it for us: " The thread between the Watcher and his shadow becomes more strong and radiant with every change. The morning sunlight has changed into noon-day glory. This is thy present wheel, said the Flame to the Spark. Thou art myself, my image and my shadow. I have clothed myself in thee, and thou art my vahan to the day, ' Be-with-us,' when thou shall re-become myself and others, thyself and me."

 

The souls who are connected with a physical body are distinguishable from those enjoying the disembodied state by a difference in the types of vibrations set up on the surface of the globes, and it is therefore easy on this plane to see at a glance whether an individual is or is not in incarnation at the time. The immense majority, whether in or out of the body, are but dreamily semi-conscious, though few are now in the condition of mere colourless films; those who are fully awake are marked and brilliant exceptions, standing out amid the less radiant crowds like stars of the first magnitude, and between these and the least-developed are ranged every variety of size and beauty of colour — each thus representing the exact stage of evolution at which he has arrived.

 

The majority are not yet sufficiently definite, even in such consciousness as they possess, to understand the purpose or the laws of the evolution in which they are engaged; they seek incarnation in obedience to the impulse of the Cosmic Will, and also to Tanhâ, the blind thirst for manifested life — a desire to find some region in which they can feel and be conscious of living. For in their earlier stages these undeveloped souls cannot feel the intensely rapid and piercing vibrations of the highly-refined matter of their own plane; the strong and coarse but comparatively slow movements of the heavier matter of the physical plane are the only ones-that can evoke any response from them. So it is only upon the physical plane that they feel themselves to be alive at all, and this explains their strong craving for re-birth into earth-life. Thus for a time their desire agrees exactly with the law of their evolution. They can develop only by means of these impacts from without, to which they are gradually roused to respond, and in this early stage they can receive them only in earth-life. By slow degrees their power of response increases, and is awakened first to the higher and finer of the physical vibrations, and still more slowly to those of the astral plane. Then their astral bodies, which until now have been merely bridges to convey sensations to the soul, gradually become definite vehicles which they can use, and their consciousness begins to be centred rather in their emotions than in mere physical sensations.

 

At a later stage, but always by the same process of learning to respond to impacts from without, the souls learn to centre their consciousness in the mental body — to live in and according to the mental images which they have formed for themselves, and so to govern their emotions by the mind. Yet further on the long, long road the centre shifts to the causal body, and the souls realize their true life. When that time comes they will be found upon a higher sub-plane than this, and the lower earthly existence will be no longer necessary for them; but for the present we are thinking of the less evolved majority, who still put forth as groping, waving tentacles into the ocean of existence the personalities which are themselves on the lower planes of life, though they are as yet in no sense aware that these personalities are the means whereby they are to be nourished and to grow. They see nothing of their past or their future, not being yet conscious on their own plane. Still, as they are slowly drawing in experience and assimilating it, there grows up a sense that certain things are good to do and others bad, and this expresses itself imperfectly in the connected personality as the beginning of a conscience, a feeling of right and wrong: and gradually, as they develop, this sense more and more clearly and clearly formulates itself in the lower nature, and becomes a less inefficient guide of conduct.

 

By means of the opportunities given by the flash of fuller consciousness to which we have previously referred, the most advanced souls of this sub-plane develop to a point at which they are engaged in studying their past, tracing out the causes set going in it, and learning much from the retrospection, so that the impulses sent downwards become clearer and more definite, and translate themselves in the lower consciousness as firm convictions and imperative intuitions.

 

It is perhaps scarcely necessary to repeat that the thought-images of the rûpa levels are not carried into the higher heaven-world; all illusion now is past, and each soul knows his real kindred, sees them and is seen in his own royal nature, as the true immortal man that passes on from life to life, with all the ties intact that are knit to his real being.

 

Second Sub-Plane; the Sixth Heaven.

 

From the densely-thronged region which we have been considering we pass into a more thinly-populated world, as out of a great city into a peaceful country-side; for at the present stage of human evolution only a small minority of individuals have risen to this loftier level where even the least advanced is definitely self-conscious, and also conscious of his surroundings. Able at least to some extent to review the past through which he has come, the soul on this level is aware of the purpose and method of evolution ; he knows that he is engaged in a work of self-development, and recognizes the stages of physical and post-mortem life through which he passes in his lower vehicles. The personality with which he is connected is seen by him as part of himself, and he endeavours to guide it, using his knowledge of the past as a store of experience from which he formulates principles of conduct, clear and immutable, convictions of right and wrong. These he sends down into his lower mind, superintending and directing its activities. While he continually fails in the earlier part of his life on this sub-plane to make the lower mind understand logically the foundations of the principles he impresses on it, he yet very definitely succeeds in making the impression, and such abstract ideas as truth, justice and honour become unchallenged and ruling conceptions in the lower mental life.

 

There are rules of conduct enforced by social, national, and religious sanctions, by which a man guides himself in daily life, which may yet be swept away by some rush of temptation, some overmastering surge of passion and desire; but there are some things an evolved man cannot do — things which are against his very nature; he cannot lie, or betray, or do a dishonourable action. Into the inmost fibres of his being certain principles are wrought, and to act against them is an impossibility, no matter what may be the strain of circumstance or the torrent .of temptation; for these things are of the life of the soul. While, however, he thus succeeds in guiding his lower vehicle, his knowledge of it and its doings is often far from precise and clear. He sees the lower planes but dimly, understanding their principles rather than their details, and part of his evolution on this plane consists of coming more and more consciously into direct touch with the personality which so imperfectly represents him below.

It will be understood from this that only such souls as are deliberately aiming at spiritual growth live on this plane, and they have in consequence become largely receptive of influences from the planes above them. The channel of communication grows and enlarges, and a fuller flood pours through. The thought under this influence takes on a singularly clear and piercing quality, even in the less developed, and the effect of this in the lower mind shows itself as a tendency to philosophic and abstract thinking. In the more highly evolved the vision is far-reaching : it ranges with clear insight over the past, recognizing the causes set up, their working out, and what remains still unexhausted of their effects.

 

The souls living on this plane have wide opportunities for growth when freed from the physical body, for here they may receive instructions from more advanced entities, coming into direct touch with their teachers. No longer by thought-pictures, but by a flashing luminousness impossible to describe, the very essence of the idea flies like a star from one soul to the other, its correlations expressing themselves as light waves pouring out from the central star, and needing no separate enunciation. A thought is like a light placed in a room ; it shows all things round it, but requires no words to describe them.

First Sub-Plane : The Seventh Heaven

 

This, the most glorious level of the mental world, has but few denizens as yet from our humanity, for on its heights dwell none but the Masters of Wisdom and Compassion, and their initiated pupils. Of the beauty of form and colour. and sound here no words can speak, for mortal language has no terms in which those radiant splendours may find expression. Enough that they are, and that some of our race are wearing them, the earnest of what others shall be, the fruition of which the seed was sown on lowlier planes. These have accomplished the mental evolution, so that in them the higher shines out ever through the lower; from their eyes the illusion-veil of personality has been lifted, and they know and realize that they are not the lower nature, but only use it as a vehicle of experience. It may still have power in the less evolved of them to shackle and to hamper, but they can never fall into the blunder of confusing the vehicle with the self behind it. From this they are saved by carrying their consciousness through unbroken, not only from day to day but from life to life, so that past lives are not so much looked back upon as always present in the consciousness, the man feeling them as one life rather than as many.

 

At this height the soul is conscious of the lower heaven-world as well as of his own, and if he has any manifestations there as a thought-form in the heaven-life of his friends, he can make the fullest use of them. On the third sub-plane, and even in the lower part of the second, his consciousness of the sub-planes below him was still dim, and his action in the thought-form largely instinctive and automatic. But as soon as he got well into the second sub-plane his vision rapidly became clearer, and he recognized the thought-forms with pleasure as vehicles through which he was able to express more of himself in certain ways than he could through his personality.

 

Now that he is functioning in the causal body amidst the magnificent light and splendour of the highest heaven, his consciousness is instantaneously and perfectly active at any point in the lower divisions to which he wills to direct it, and he, therefore, can intentionally project additional energy into such a thought-form when he wishes to use it for the purpose of teaching.

 

From this highest level of the mental world come down most of the influences poured out by the Masters of Wisdom as they work for the evolution of the human race, acting directly on the souls of men, shedding on them the inspiring energies which stimulate spiritual growth, which enlighten the intellect and purify the emotions. Hence genius receives its illumination; here all upward efforts find their guidance. As the sun-rays fall everywhere from one centre, and each body that receives them uses them after its nature, so from the Elder Brothers of the race fall on all souls the light and life which it is their function to dispense; and each uses as much as it can assimilate, and thereby grows and evolves. Thus, as everywhere else, the highest glory of the heavenly world is found in the glory of service, and they who have accomplished the mental evolution are the fountains from which flows strength for those who still are climbing.