The Blavatsky Trust
THE CYCLE OF LIFE - APPENDIX
The BLAVATSKY LECTURE 2009
given at the summer school of The Theosophical Society in England, Nottingham, August 2009
given by Colin Price [biog]
The principal (and quite unique) source of information on this subject is the Mahatma Letters to A. P Sinnett, but there is much supplementary information in H. P. Blavatsky’s Collected Writings. There are many and different versions of the after-death processes now extant, some from spiritualistic sources, some from later theosophical writers, but the description given us by the Masters is consistent not only throughout all their writings and those of H. P. Blavatsky, but with all their voluminous other teachings on the total nature and processes of Cosmos, viz. the planes of being, the constitution of man and Cosmos, their origins, and the Law. This does not apply in the case of the other accounts; in fact, many of them are mutually contradictory in matters both of principle and detail. These differences have repercussions into the nature and explanations of psychic and spiritualistic phenomena, 'astral' travel, E.S.P., paranormal happenings and so on.
To understand the after-death processes from an objective point of view, we must first have a working knowledge of the esoteric constitution of man and the planes of being as now put forward, some knowledge of the nature of the Astral Light, and the place of Elementals in the cosmic economy.
We have shown man as comprising three parts, an upper Triad, a middle Duad and a lower Triad. These are the main divisions of his sevenfold nature. For purposes of examining the after-death processes, this constitution, with the numbering of the principles is the one the Masters used in their classification. This information from the Letters is supplemented not only in the Collected Writings, but in the Secret Doctrine, extracts from both of which are quoted later. References to quotations from the Mahatma Letters are from the Chronological Edition.
According to the Masters, the after-death processes are as follows:
When man dies, his second and third principles die with him' the lower triad disappears, and the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh principles form the surviving Quaternary.
Mahatma Letters Chron. Ed No. 68, pp.192-193
At the moment of death the man becomes unconscious:
Every just disembodied four-fold entity . .. loses at the instant of death all recollection, it is mentally - annihilated; it sleeps its akashic sleep in the Kama-Ioka. This state lasts from a few hours, (rarely less), days, weeks, months - sometimes to several years. All this according to the entity, to its mental status at the moment of death, to the character of its death, etc. Mahatma Letters Chron. Ed No. 85B, p263
There is a corroborative statement by H. P. Blavatsky about this period of unconsciousness:
But the process of stripping off the lower, the fourth and part of the fifth principles is an unconscious one in all normaI human beings otherwise in very exceptional cases. Collected Writings 9, p.164
In certain circumstances the disintegration of the fourth and part of the fifth principles is prolonged and they survive as the Elementary ‘shell’. This is one of the exceptional cases mentioned above.
As to what happens during this period of unconsciousness, we have: a "death" struggle between the Upper and Lower dualities ... the most Spiritualized portions of its mind - follows its divine elder (the 7th) into the "Gestation" State; and the fifth and fourth remain in association as an empty shell - (the expression is quite correct) - to roam in this earth's atmosphere, with half the personal memory gone, and the more brutal instinct fully alive for a certain period - an "Elementary" in short. This is the "angel guide" of the average medium. Mahatma Letters Chron. Ed No. 68B, p.193
Later herein and often elsewhere the Elementary is referred to as a 'shell' or 'spook'.
Regarding the upper triad, on its quitting the lower principles: ... man's sixth principle, as something purely spiritual could not exist, or have conscious being in the Deva-Chan, unless it assimilated some of the more abstract and pure of the mental attributes of the fifth principle or animal Soul: its manas and memory. Mahatma Letters Chron. Ed No. 68, p.193
After the 'gestation' period there is the second review of the past life: That remembrance will return slowly and gradually towards the end of the gestation (to the entity or Ego), still more slowly but far more imperfectly and incompletely to the shell, and fully to the Ego at the moment of its entrance into the Devachan. And now, the latter being a state determined and brought by its past life, the Ego does not fall headlong, but sinks into it gradually and by easy stages. With the first dawn of that state appears that life (or rather is once more lived over by the Ego) from its first day of consciousness to its last. From the most important down to the most trifling event, all are marshalled before the spiritual eye of the Ego; only, unlike the events of real life, those of them remain only that are chosen by the new liver (pardon the word) clinging to certain scenes and actors, these remain permanently - while the others fade away to disappear for ever, or to return to their creator - the shell. Now try to understand this highly important, because so highly just and retributive law, in its effects. Out of the resurrected Past nothing remains but what the Ego has felt spiritually - that was evolved by and through, and lived over by his spiritual faculties - be they love or hatred. Mahatma Letters Chron. Ed No. 85B, p.263
"Who goes to Devachan?" The personal Ego of course, but beatified, purified, holy. Every Ego - the combination of the sixth and seventh principles - which, after the period of unconscious gestation is reborn into the Devachan, is of necessity as innocent and pure as a new-born babe. The fact of his being reborn at all, shows the. preponderance of good over evil in his old personality. And while the Karma (of evil) steps aside for the time being to follow him in his future earth-reincarnations, he brings along with him but the Karma of his good deeds, words, and thoughts, into this Devachan. 'Bad' is a relative term for us - as you were told more than once before, - and the Law of Retribution is the only law that never errs. Hence all those who have not slipped down into the mire of unredeemable sin and bestiality - go to the Devachan. They will have to pay for their sins, voluntary and involuntary, later on. Meanwhile they are rewarded; receive the effects of the causes produced by them.
Of course, it is a state, one, so to say, of intense selfishness, during which an Ego reaps the reward of his unselfishness on earth. He is completely engrossed in the bliss of all his personal earthly affections, preferences and thoughts, and gathers in the fruit of his meritorious actions. No pain, no grief nor even the shadow of a sorrow comes to darken the bright horizon of his un alloyed happiness: for, it is a state of perpetual "Maya". Mahatma Letters Chron. Ed No. 68, p.190
This is an extract from a longer passage which goes on to describe more fully the Devachanic state, and to reiterate that entities there cannot communicate with earth. The description also says that the Devachanic state varies greatly in quality and extent according to that of the previous life, and the evolutionary development of the entity.
Concerning the duration of the after-death states:
... the period between death and rebirth ... lasts from a few years to a kalpa [Note: Maybe millions of years]. It is divided into three sub-periods (1) when the Ego, delivered of its mortal coil, enters into Kama-Loka (the abode of Elementaries); (2) when it enters into its "Gestation State"; (3) when it is reborn in the Rupa-Loka of Devachan. Sub- period (1) may last from a few minutes to a number of years - the phrase "a few years" becoming puzzling and utterly worthless without a more complete explanation; Sub-period (2) is "very long"; ... longer sometimes than you may even imagine, yet proportionate to the Ego's spiritual stamina; Sub-period (3) lasts in proportion to the good KARMA, after which the monad is again reincarnated ... "in all these Rupa-Lokas, the Devas (Spirits) are equally subjected to birth, decay, old age, and death," means only that an Ego is borne thither then begins fading out and finally "dies", i.e., falls into that unconscious condition which precedes rebirth, Mahatma Letters Chron. Ed No. 68, p.194
It was asked how long this phase lasts:
For years, decades, centuries and millenniums, often times multiplied by something more ... Every effect must be proportionate to the cause. And, as man's terms of incarnate existence bear but a small proportion to his periods of inter-natal existence in the manvantaric cycle, so the good thoughts, words, and deeds of anyone of these "lives" on a globe are causative of effects, the working out of which requires far more time that the evolution of the causes occupied. Mahatma Letters Chron. Ed No. 68, pp.192-193
Relating some of the foregoing information to references to it in other original literature, where we get an expansion of the basic ideas, we have the following concerning the consciousness residing in the kama-manasic vehicles after the gestation process:
The Masters corroborate this information when talking about the consciousness of the' shell:
At death it [the Antahkarana) is destroyed as a path, or medium of communication, and its remains survive as Kama Rupa - the "shell". It is this which the Spiritualists see sometimes appearing in the seance rooms as materialised "forms" which they foolishly mistake for the "Spirits of the Departed". So far is this from being the case that in dreams, though Antahkarana is there, the personality is only half awake; therefore, Antahkarana is said to be drunk or insane during our normal sleeping state. If such is the case during the periodical death (sleep), of the living body, one may judge of what the consciousness of Antahkarana is like when it has been transformed after the "eternal sleep" into Kama Rupa. H.P. Blavatsky C ollected Writings 12, p.633
When the sixth and seventh principles are gone, carrying off with them the finer, spiritual portions of that, which once was the personal consciousness of the fifth, then only does the shell gradually develop a kind of hazy consciousness of its own from what remains in the shadow of personality. Mahatma Letters Chron. Ed No. 93B, p.308
But what is then "the nature of the remembrance and self- consciousness of the shell?" ... As I said ... no better than a reflected or borrowed light. "Memory" is one thing, and "perceptive faculties" quite another.
Mahatma Letters Chron. Ed No. 93B, p.308
These statements are important in view of the part played by 'shells' in spiritualistic phenomena. In a few cases the question of there being any punishment after death is raised:
Q. But if my Ego can, after the destruction of my body, become plunged in a state of unconsciousness, then where can be the punishment for the sins of my past life.
A. Our philosophy teaches that Karmic punishment reaches the Ego only in its next incarnation. After death it receives only the reward for the unmerited sufferings endured during its past incarnation. Key To Theosophy, Chap.9, pp.160
In this passage there is more about the question of reward and punishment, justified by the overall principles involved.
Death comes to our spiritual selves ever as a deliverer and friend. For the materialist who, notwithstanding his materialism, was not a bad man, the interval between the two lives will be like the unbroken and placid sleep of a child, either entirely dreamless, or filled with pictures of which he will have no definite perception; while for the average mortal it will be a dream as vivid as life, and full of realistic bliss and visions.
Q. Then the personal man must always go on suffering blindly the Karmic penalties which the Ego has incurred?
A. Not quite so. At the moment of death every man, even when death is sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before him, in its minutest details. For one short instant the personal becomes one with the individual and all- knowing Ego. But this instant is enough to show him the whole chain of causes which have been at work during his life. He sees and now understands himself as he is, unadorned by flattery or self-deception. He reads his life, remaining as a spectator looking down into the arena he is quitting; he feels and knows the justice of all the suffering that has overtaken him.
Q. Does this happen to everyone?
A. Without any exception. Very good and holy men see, we are taught, not only the life they are leaving, but even several preceding lives in which were produced the causes that made them what they were in the life just closing. They recognize the law of Karma in all its majesty and justice.
Q. Is there anything corresponding to this before rebirth?
A. There is. As the man at the moment of death has a retrospective insight into the life he has led, so, at the moment he is reborn on to earth, the Ego, awaking from the state of Devachan, has a prospective vision of the life which awaits him, and realizes all the causes that have led to it. He realizes them and sees futurity, because it is between Devachan and rebirth that the Ego regains his full manasic consciousness, and becomes for a short time the god he was, before, in compliance with Karmic law, he first descended into matter and incarnated in the first man of flesh. The "golden thread" sees all its "pearls" and misses not one of them. Key to Theosophy , Chap.9, pp.161-162
This extract introduces us to the processes of coming back into earth life again. It is the dying process in reverse. The soul principles, the fifth and fourth, and the vital principles, the second and third, then finally the first, the physical body, are re-formed. In the case of the soul principles even the life atoms which previously composed them are re-assembled. Under what impulses is this process started and conducted? It is explained in the Collected Writings that:
KARMA, TANHA and SKANDHAS, are the almighty trinity in one, and the cause of our re-birth. The illustration of painting our own present likeness at death, and that likeness becoming the future personality is very poetical and graphic, but we claim it as an occult teaching ... At the solemn moment of death, no man can fail to see himself under his true colours, and no self-deception is of any use to him any longer. Thence the following thing happens. As at the instant of drowning man sees marshalled past his mind's eye the whole of his life, with all its events, effects and causes, to the minutest details, so at the moment of death, he sees himself in all his moral nakedness, unadorned by either human flattery or self-adulation, and, as he is; hence, as he, or rather, as his astral double combined with his Kama principle - shall be. For the vices, defects and especially the passions of the preceding life become, through certain laws of affinity and transference, the germs of the future potentialities in the animal soul (Kama-rupa), hence of its dependent, the astral double (linga-sharira) - at a subsequent birth. It is the personality alone which changes; the real reincarnating principle, the EGO, remains always the same; and it is its KARMA that guides the idiosyncrasies and prominent moral traits of the old "personality" that was (and that the EGO knew not how to control), to re-appear in the new man that will be. These traits and passions pursue and fasten on the yet plastic third and fourth principles of the child, and - unless the EGO struggles and conquers - they will develop with tenfold intensity and lead the adult man to his destruction. For it is they who are the tools and weapons ofthe Karmic LAW OF RETRIBUTION. Thus ... our good and bad actions "are the only tools with which we paint our likenesses at death", for the new man invariably the son and progeny of the old man that was. H. P. Blavatsky, Collected Writings 10, p.176
Our characteristics and tendencies, our Skandhas, are transferred from one personality to the next. In this we must remember that life atoms are, in fact, 'primitive' Elementals, conditioned by their experience as components of the various vehicles used by men during their earth lives.
There are other explanatory passages which help us get a more complete picture of the after-death processes. Here is one:
... the Devachanic Entity, the Ego, in order to be able to go into a state of bliss, as the "I" of its immediately preceding incarnation, has to be clothed (metaphorically speaking) with the spiritual elements of the ideas, aspirations and thoughts of the now disembodied Personality; otherwise what is it that enjoys bliss and reward? Surely not the impersonal Ego, the Divine Individuality. Therefore it must be the good Karmic records of the deceased, impressed upon the Auric Substance, which furnish the Human Soul with just enough of the Spiritual elements of the ex- personality, to enable it to still believe itself that body from which is has just been severed, and to receive its fruition, during a more or less prolonged period of "spiritual gestation". For Devachan is a "spiritual gestation" within an ideal matrix state, that ends in the new birth of the Ego into the world of effects, which ideal, subjective birth precedes its next terrestrial birth - the latter being determined by its bad Karma - into the world of causes. § In the second case, that of furnishing the Kama Rupa for the ghost or spook of the Entity, it is from the animal dregs of the Auric Envelope, with its daily Karmic record of animal life, so full of animal desires and selfish aspirations, that it is furnished. H. P. Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol.12 p.609,
§ Here the world of effects is the Devachanic state, and the world of Causes, earth life·
The story goes on to tell us what happens when an Ego, its Devachanic period completed, starts the process of re-birth .
... the Linga-Sarira remains with the Physical Body, and fades out along with it. An astral entity then has to be created (a new Linga Sarira provided) to become the bearer of all the past Tanhas and future Karma. How is this accomplished? The mediumistic "spook", the "departed anger', fades out and vanishes also in its turn as an entity or full image of the Personality that was, and leaves in the Kamalokic world of effects only the records of its misdeeds and sinful thoughts and acts, known in the phraseology of the Occultists as Tanhic or human "Elementals".
It is these Elementals which - upon entering into the composition of the "astral form" of the new body, into which the Ego, on its quitting the Devachanic state, is to enter according to Karmic degree - form that new astral entity which is born within the Auric Envelope, and of which it is often said "Karma, with its army of Skandhas, waits at the threshold of Devachan". For no sooner is the Devachanic state of reward ended, than the Ego is indissolubly united with (or rather follows in the track of) the new Astral Form. Both are Karmically propelled towards the family or woman from which is to be born the animal child chosen by Karma to become the vehicle of the Ego which has just awakened from the Devachanic state. Then the new Astral Form, composed partly of the pure Akashic Essence of the Auric "Egg", and partly of the terrestrial elements of the punishable sins and misdeeds of the last Personality, is drawn into the woman. Once there, Nature models the foetus of flesh around the Astral, out of the growing materials of the male seed in the female soil. Thus grows out of the essence of a decayed seed the fruit or eidolon of the dead seed, the physical fruit producing in its turn within itself another and other seeds for future plants. H. P. Blavatsky, Collected Writings Vol. 12 p. 609
An interesting passage tells us that death has not always been the lot of human kind, and presumably, as evolution goes full circle, there will come a time again when we shall not be subject to it. Here is the passage:
It is of this "earth" or new continent that Zarathustra became the law-giver and ruler. This was the fourth Race in its beginning, after the men of the Third began to die out. Till then ... there had been no regular death, but only a transformation, for men had no personality as yet. They had monads - breaths of the ONE Breath, and as impersonal as the source from which they proceeded. They had bodies, or rather shadows of bodies, which were sinless, hence Karmaless. Therefore, as there was no Kamaloka - least of all Nirvana or even Devachan - for the "souls" of men who had no personal Egos, there could be no intermediate periods between the incarnation. Like the Phoenix, primordial man resurrected out of his old into a new body. Each time, and with each new generation, he became more solid, more physically perfect, agreeably with the evolutionary law, which is the Law of Nature. Death came with the complete physical organism, and with it - moral decay. H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine Vol.2, p.610
The story of the after-death states is the one for the normal case, there are exceptions, for example of premature deaths, suicides, victims of accidents and child deaths. About these the Masters give us some specific information, as follows:
But there is another kind of "Spirits", we have lost sight of: the suicides and those killed by accident. Both kinds can communicate, and both have to pay dearly for such visits ... They are an exception to the rule, as they have to remain within the earth's attraction, and in its atmosphere - the Kama-Loka - till the very last moment of what would have been the natural duration of their lives ... Unless they were so good and pure, as to be drawn immediately within the Akashic Samadhi, i.e. to fall into a state of quiet slumber full of rosy dreams, during which they have no recollection of the accident, but move and live among their familiar friends and scenes, until their natural life-term is finished, when they find themselves born in the Devachan - a gloomy fate is theirs. Unhappy shades, if sinful and sensual they wander about - (not shells, for the connection with their two higher principles is not quite broken) - until their death-hour comes. Mahatma Letters Chron. Ed No. 68, p195
This information is supplemented by a full account of what can happen if these 'exceptions' are attracted to a medium, and it is mostly unpleasant and harmful karmically.
We should note particularly the account given of the after-death states and note especially that it does accord with all we have been told about the constitution of man and Cosmos, the Astral Light, the Law and so on. We should also note, because of the many other differing accounts, how they differ from it in important ways. Such differences can be in the states of consciousness at various stages of the after-death process. Some accounts refer to astral consciousness on an astral planes, or a state of consciousness in a mental body. We should also note that, except for the abnormal cases of premature death, and maybe a very few others, there is no possibility of communication, direct or indirect, with the true being, the Egoic individuality, of the deceased. There can be no 'astral' plane communication between the deceased and someone still alive either in his physical or his astral body; here we are using the word 'astral' as some of the later theosophical writers use it, to mean the Kama-Rupa in Kama-Loka.
The Masters' account of the death processes shows us that it fits the grand universal process of ever-becoming, according to cyclic and evolutionary law. The only real tragedy of death is for those left behind; it is in their personal bereavement. Their sadness is because they can only see death as a single isolated incident instead of one of a long series. Perhaps one day we shall all be able to see it in its vast panorama, to see causes and effects and the events of our many lives, and to see that these have led to those enduring, inseverable bonds of love and duty, the seeds which we are ever forming as we pass through the various stopping places of many earth lives. Then we shall see our vast journey of Egoic LIFE, passing through its many, many personal lives, until its final perfection and liberation, when the otherwise endless cycle of births and deaths will cease, for ever. Deity, Cosmos & Man p.168
TABLE 11 - The After Death States and Processes
Stage
State and Process
Notes
Dying
Memory dislodges from physical brain. Review of past life.
No possibility of an Ego, other
than a pre-
mature death,
communicating
with the living,
even through a
medium,
during this period.Just After
Death
Person unconscious; the three lower principles
abandoned. Loss of perceptive faculties forever; loss of
spiritual powers of cognition and volition for the time being. (The Mayavi·Rupa may appear to loved ones.)Death
'Struggle'Person, normally unconscious, in Kama-Loka, in earth's
atmosphere. Struggle develops between fourth and fifth
principles and sixth and seventh principles for spiritual content of past-life experience.Gestation
Assimilation of spiritual content by Ego (upper fifth,
sixth, and seventh principles) - Ego and person unconscious.Entry into
DevachanSecond review of previous life. Fourth and Fifth principles sloughed off to become "shell." Consciousness slowly returns to Ego. A dim consciousness and personal memory returns to "shell."
Devachan
Ego now conscious again. Subjective dream-like state. All scenes, population and activities are as the ex-person would have most liked them. Ego knows nothing of what is happening on earth. Person "en rapport" with Devachanee can, by raising his consciousness, feel himself to be communicating with him.
Rebirth
Ego relapses into unconsciousness but glimpses, before rebirth, the main tenor of the life to come. New astral body and middle principles formed, conditioned by Skandhas. New personality and environment determined by Karma. Skandhas cannot be altered after death (the world of effects) except pre-mature deaths via mediums.
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