Western European stream·Ancient Wisdom·CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
Devachan.
The word Devachan is the theosophical name for heaven, and, literally translated, means the Shining Land, or the Land of the Gods.* It is a specially guarded part of the mental plane, whence all sorrow and all evil are excluded by the action of the great spiritual Intelligences who superintend human evo- lution; and it is inhabited by human beings who have cast oflE their physical and astral bodies, and who pass into it when their stay in Kamaloka is completed. The devachanic life consists of two stages, of which the first is passed in the four lower subdivisions of the mental plane, in which the Thinker still wears the mental body and is condi- tioned by it, being employed in assimilating the materials gathered by it during the earth-life from which he has just emerged. The second stage is spent in the " formless" world, the Thinker escaping from the mental body, and living his own unencum-
♦Devasthan. the place of the Gods, is the Sanscrit equiva- lent. It is the Svarga of the Hindus ; the Sukh&vati of the Buddhists; the Heaven of the Zoroastrians and Christians, and of the less materialized among the Mahommedans.
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bered life in the full measure of the self -conscious- ness and knowledge to which he has attained. The total length of time spent in Devachan depends upon the amount of material for the devachanic life which the soul has brought with it thither from its life on earth. The harvest of fmit for consumption and assimilation in Devachan consists of all the pure thoughts and emotions generated during earth-life, all the intellectual and moral efforts and aspirations^ all the memories of useful work and plans for hu- man service — everything which is capable of being worked into mental and moral faculty, thus assist- ing in the evolution of the soul. Not one is lost, however feeble, however fleeting; but selfish animal passions cannot enter, there being no material in which they can be expressed. Nor does all the evil in the past life, though it may largely preponderate over the good, prevent the full reaping of whatever scant harvest of good there may have been; the scantiness of the harvest may render the devachanic life very brief, but the most depraved, if he has had any faint longings after the right, any stirrings of tenderness, must have a period of devachanic life in which the seed of good may put forth its tender shoots, in which the spark of good may be gently fanned into a tiny flame. In the past, when men lived with their hearts largely fixed on heaven and directed their lives with a view to enjoying its bliss, the period spent in Devachan was very long, lasting sometimes for many thousands of years: at the present time, tfeKGTH OF DEVACHANIC LIFE. 1^0 tnen's minds being so much more centred on earth, and so few of their thoughts comparatively being directed towards the higher life, their devachanic periods are correspondingly shortened. Similarly, the time spent in the higher and lower regions of the mental plane* respectively is proportionate to Ihe amount of thought generated severally in the mental and in the causal bodies; all the thoughts belonging to the personal self, to the life just closed —with all its ambitions, interests, loves, hopes and fears^ — all these have their fruition in the Devachan where forms are found ; while those belonging to the higher mind, to the regions of abstract, impersonal thinking, have to be worked out in the ** formless" devachanic region. The majority of people only just enter that lofty region to pass swiftly out again ; some spend there a large portion of their devachanic existence ; a few spend there almost the whole. Ere entering into any details let us try to grasp some of the leading ideas which govern the deva- chanic life, for it is so diflEerent from physical life that any description of it is apt to mislead by its very strangeness. People realize so little of their mental life, even as led in the body, that when they are presented with a picture of mental life out of the body they lose all sense of reality, and feel as though they had passed into a world of dream. The first thing to grasp is that mental life is far more intense, vivid, and nearer to reality than the • Called technically the Arupa and Rfipa Devachan— exist- ing on the arCipa and rtipa levels of the mental plane.
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life of the senses. Everything we see and touch anc hear and taste and handle down here is two removes farther from the reality than everything we contact ill Devachan, We do not even there see things as they are, but the things that we see down here have two mere veils of illusion enveloping them. Our sense of reality here is an entire delusion; we know nothing of things, of people, as they are ; all that we know of them are the impressions they make on our senses, and the conclusions, often erroneous, which our reason deduces from the aggregate of these im- pressions. Get and put side by side the ideas of a man held by his father, his closest friend, the girl who adores him, his rival in business, his deadliest enemy, and a casual acquaintance, and see how in- congruous the pictures. Each can only give the im- pressions made on his own mind, and how far are they from the reality of what the man is, seen by eyes that pierce all veils and behold the whole man. We know of each of our friends the impressions they make on us, and these are strictly limited by our capacity to receive; a child may have as his father a great statesman of lofty purpose and imperial aims, but that guide of a nation's destinies is to him only his merriest playfellow, his most enticing story- teller. We live in the midst of illusions, but have the feeling of reality, and this yields us content. In Devachan we shall also be surrounded by illu- sions — though, as said, two removes nearer to real- ity — and there also we shall have a similar feeling of reality which will yield us content. MUTUAL CRITICISM. I4I The illusions of earth, though lessened, are not escaped from in the lower heavens, though contact is more real and more immediate. For it must never be forgotten that these heavens are part of a great evolutionary scheme, and^ until man has found the real Self, his own unreality makes him subject to illusions. One thing, however, which produces the feeling of reality in earth-life and of unreality when we study Devachan, is that we look at earth- life from within, under the full sway of its illusions, while we contemplate Devachan from outside, free for the time from its veil of maya. In Devachan the process is reversed, and its in- habitants feel their own life to be the real one and look on the earth-life as full of the most patent illu- sions and misconceptions. On the whole, they are nearer the truth than the physical critics of their heaven- world. Next, the Thinker — being clad only in the mental body and being in the untrammelled exercise of its powers — manifests the creative nature of these powers in a way and to an extent that down here we can hardly realize. On earth a painter, a sculptor, a musician, dreams dreams of exquisite beauty, creating their visions by the powers of the mind; but when they seek to embody them in the coarse materials of earth they fall far short of the mental creation. The marble is too resistant for perfect form, the pigments too muddy for perfect color. In heaven, all they think is at once reproduced in fprm, for th^ rare and subtle matter of the heaven- THE Ancient wisdom. world is mind-stuff, the medium in which the mind normally works when free from passion, and it takes shape with every mental impulse. Each man, there- fore, in a very real sense, makes his own heaven, and the beauty of his surroundings is indefinitely increased, according to the wealth and energy of his mind. As the soul develops his powers, his heaven grows more and more subtle and exquisite; all the limitations in heaven are self-created, and heaven expands and deepens with the expansion and deep- ening of the soul. While the soul is weak and sel- fish, narrow and ill -developed, his heaven shares these pettinesses ; but it is always the best that is in the soul, however poor that best may be. As the man evolves, his devachanic lives become fuller, richer, more and more real, and advanced souls come into ever closer and closer contact with each other, enjoying wider and deeper intercourse. A life on earth, thin, feeble, vapid, and narrow, men- tally and morally, produces a comparatively thin, feeble, vapid and narrow life in Devachan, where only the mental and the moral survive. We cannot have more than we are, and our harvest is according to our sowing. " Be not deceived ; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that," and neither more nor less, "shall he also reap." Our indolence and greediness would fain reap where we have not sowed, but in this universe of law the Good Law, mercifully just, brings to each the exact wages of his work. The mental impressions, or mental pictures, W9 - rf- * • rf '««■ <■ t OUR FRIENDS IN HEAVEN. I43 make of our friends will dominate us in Devachan. Round each soul throng those he loved in life, and every image of the loved ones that live in the heart becomes a living companion of the soul in heaven. . And they are unchanged. They will be to us there as they were here, and no otherwise. The outer semblance of our friend as it affected our senses, we form out of mind-stuff in Devachan by the creative powers of the mind; what was here a mental picture is there — as in truth it was here, although we knew it not — an objective shape in living mind-stuff, abid- ing in our own mental atmosphere; only what is dull and dreamy here is forcibly living and vivid there. And with regard to the true communion, that of soul with soul? That is closer, nearer, dearer than anything we know here, for, as we have seen, there is no barrier on the mental plane be- tween soul and soul; exactly in proportion to the reality of soul-life in us is the reality of soul-com- munion there ; the mental image of our friend is our own creation; his form is as we knew and loved it; and his soul breathes through that form to ours just to the extent that his soul and ours can throb in sympathetic vibration. But we can have no touch with those we knew on earth if the ties were only of the physical or astral body, or if they and we were discordant in the inner life; therefore into our Devachan no enemy can enter, for sympathetic ac- cord of minds and hearts can alone draw men to- gether there. Separateness of heart and mind means separation in the heavenly life, for all that is
144THE AJ^rCIENT WISDOM.
lower than the heart and mind can find no means of expression there. With those who are far beyond us in evolution we come into contact just as far as we can respond to them ; great ranges of their being will stretch beyond our ken, but all that we can touch is ours. Further, these greater ones can and do aid us in the heavenly life, under conditions we shall study presently, helping us to grow towards them, and thus to be able to receive more and more. There is then no separation by space or time, but there is separation by absence of sympathy, by lack of accord between hearts and minds. In heaven we are with all whom we love and with all whom we admire, and we commune with them to the limit of our capacity, or, if we are the more ad- vanced, of theirs. We meet them in the forms we loved on earth, with perfect memory of our earthly relationships, for heaven is the flowering of all earth's buds, and the marred and feeble loves of earth expand into beauty and into power there. The communion being direct, no misunderstandings of words or thoughts can arise ; each sees the thought his friend creates, or as much of it as he can re- spond to. Devachan, the heaven-world, is a world of bliss, of joy unspeakable. But it is much more than this, much more than a rest for the weary. In Devachan all that was valuable in the mental and moral ex- periences of the Thinker during the life just ended is worked out, meditated over, and is gradually transmuted into definite mental and moral faculty. NOT MEMORY BUT FACULTY. 1 45 /nto powers which he will take with him to his next rebirth. He does not work into the mental body the actual memory of the past, for the mental body will, in due course, disintegrate ; the memory of the past abides only in the Thinker himself, who has lived through it and who endures. But these facts of past experiences are worked into mental capacity, so that if a man has studied a subject deeply the effects of that study will be the creation of a special faculty to acquire and master that subject when it is first presented to him in another incarnation. He will be bom with a special aptitude for that line of study, and will pick it up with great facility. Everjrthing thought upon earth is thus utilized in Devachan; every aspiration is worked up into power; all frustrated efforts become faculties and abilities; struggles and defeats re-appear as ma- terials to be wrought into instruments of victory; sorrows and errors shine lumin^^us as precious metals to be worked up into wise and well-directed volitions. Schemes of beneficence, for which power and skill to accomplish were lacking in the past, are ir Devachan worked out in thought, acted out, as it were, stage by stage, and the necessary power and skill are developed as faculties of the mind to be put into use in a future life on earth, when the clever and earnest student shall be reborn as a genius, when the devotee shall be reborn as a saint. Life then, in Devachan, is no mere dream, no lotus-land of purposeless idling; it is the land in which the mind and heart develop, unhindered by gross matter
146THE A\-CIENT WISDOM.
and by trivial cares, where weapons are forged for earth's fierce battle-fields, and where the progress of the future is secured. When the Thinker has consumed in the menta] body all the fruits belonging to it of his earthly life, he shakes it off and dwells unencumbered in his own place. All the mental faculties which express them- selves on the lower levels are drawn within the causal body — ^with the genns of the passional life that were drawn into the mental body when it left the astral shell to disintegrate in Kamaloka — and these become latent for a time, lying within the causal body, forces which remain concealed for lack of material in which to manifest.* The mental body, the last of the temporary vestures of the true man, disintegrates, and its materials return to the general matter of the mental plane, whence they were drawn when the Thinker last descended inbj incarnation. Thus the causal body atone remains, the receptacle and treasure-house of alt that has been assimilated from the life that is over. The Thinker has Inished a round of his long pilgrimage and dwells for a while in his own native land. His condition as to consciousness depends entirely *Tht! thoughtful student may here find a fruitful suggestion on the problern of continuing consciouauess after tlie cycle o£ the universe is trodden. Let liini pi nee I sh vara in ihe place of the Thinker, and let the faculties that are the fruils of « life represent thehmnan lives that are the fruits of a Universe. He may then catch some glimpse of what is necessary for con- i, during the interval bot\v( SELFr CONSCIOUS AT LAST. 1 4/ on the point he has reached in evolution. In his early stages of life he will merely sleep, wrapped in nncohsciousness, when he has lost his vehicles on the lower planes. His life will pulse gently within him, assimilating any little results from his closed earth- existence that may be capable of entering into his substance ; but he will have no consciousness of his surroundings. But as he develops, this period of his life becomes more and more important, and oc- cupies a greater proportion of his devachanic exist- ence. He becomes self-conscious, and thereby con- scious of his surrotmdings^ — of the not-self — and hia memory spreads before him the panorama of his life, stretching backwards into the ages of the past. He sees the causes that worked out their effects in the last of his life-experiences, and studies the causes he has set going in this latest incarnation. He as- similates and works into the texture of the causal body all that was noblest and loftiest in the closed chapter of his life, and by his inner activity he de- velops and co-ordinates the materials in his causal body. He comes into direct contact with great souls, whether in or out of the body at the time, en- joys communion with them, learns from their riper wisdom and longer experience. Each succeeding devachanic Hfe is richer and deeper; with his ex- panding capacity to receive, knowledge flows into him in fuller tides ; more and more he learns to un- derstand the workings of che law, the conditions of evolutionary progress, and thus returns to earth- life each time with greater knowledge, more effec-
148THE ANCIENT WISDOM.
tive power, his vision of the goal of life becoming ever clearer and the way to it more plain before his feet. To every Thinker, however unprogressed, there comes 2i moment of clear vision when the time ar- rives for his return to the life of the lower worlds. For a moment he sees his past and the causes work- ing from it into the future, and the general map of his next incarnation is also unrolled before him. Then the clouds of lower matter surge round him and obscure his vision, and the cycle of another in- carnation begins with the awakenings of the powers of the lower mind, and their drawing round them, by their vibrations, materials from the lower mental plane to form the new mental body for the opening chapter of his life-history. This part of our sub- ject, however, belongs in its detail to the chapters on reincarnation. We left the soul asleep,* having shaken oflf the last remains of his astral body, ready to pass out of Kamaloka into Devachan, out of purgatory into heaven. The sleeper awakens to a sense of joy un speakable, of bliss immeasurable, of peace that pass- eth understanding. Softest melodies are breathing round him, tenderest hues greet his opening eyes, the very air seems music and color, the whole being is suffused with light and harmony. Then through the golden haze dawn sweetly the faces loved on earth, etherealized into the beauty which expresses their noblest, loveliest emotions, unmarred by the ♦See Chapter III., on Kamaloka. p. S3. THE LOWER HEAVEKS. I49 troubles and the passions of the lower worlds. Who may tell the bliss of that awakening, the glory of that first dawning of the heaven- world? We will now study the conditions in detail of the seven subdivisions of Devachan, remembering that in the four lower we are in a world of form, and a world, moreover, in which every thought presents itself at once as a form. This world of form be- longs to the personality, and every soul is therefore surrounded by as much of his past life as has entered into his mind and can be expressed in pure mind- stuff. The first, or lowest, region is the heaven of the least progressed souls, whose highest emotion on earth was a narrow, sincere, and sometimes unsel- fish love for family and friends. Or it may be that they felt some loving admiration for some one they met on earth who was purer and better than them- selves, or felt some wish to lead a higher life, or some passing aspiration towards mental and moral expansion. There is not much material here out of which faculty can be moulded, and their life is but very slightly progressive; their family affections will be nourished and a little widened, and they will be reborn after a while with a somewhat improved emotional nature, with more tendency to recognize and respond to a higher ideal. Meanwhile they are enjoying all the happiness they can receive; their cup is but a small one, but it is filled to the brim with bliss, and they enjoy all that they are able to conceive of heaven. Its purity, its harmony, play ISO THE ANCIENT WISDOM, on their undeveloped faculites and woo them to awaken into activity, and the inner stirrings begin which must precede any manifested budding. The next division of devachanic life comprises men and women of every religious faith whose hearts during their earthly lives had turned with loving devotion to God, under any name, under any form. The form may have been narrow, but the heart rose up in aspiration, and it here finds the ob- ject of its loving worship. The concept of the Di- vine which was formed by their mind when on earth here meets them in the radiant glory of devachanic matter, fairer, diviner than their wildest dreams. The Divine One limits Himself to meet the intellectual limits of His worshipper, and in whatever form the worshipper has loved and wor- shipped Him, in that form He reveals Himself to his longing eyes, and pours out on him the sweet- ness of His answering love. The souls are steeped in religious ecstasy, worshipping the One under the forms their piety sought on earth, losing themselves in the rapture of devotion, in communion with the Object they adore. No one finds himself a stranger in the heavenly places, the Divine veiling Himself in the familiar form. Such souls grow in purity and in devotion under the sun of this communion, and return to earth with these qualities much in- tensified. Nor is all their devachanic life spent m this devotional ecstasy, for they have full opportu- nities of maturing every other quality they may possess of hear* and mind. • HEAVENLY MUSIC. I5I Passing onwards to the third region, we come to those noble and earnest beings who were devoted servants of humanity while on earth, and largely poured out their love to God in the form of works for man. They are reaping the reward of their good deeds by developing larger powers of useful- ness and increased wisdom in their direction. Plans of wider beneficence unroll themselves before the mind of the philanthropist, and, like an architect, he designs the future edifice which he will build in a coming life on earth; he matures the schemes which he will then work out into actions, and like a creative God plans his universe of benevolence, which shall be manifested in gross matter when the time is ripe. These souls will appear as the grea* philanthropists of yet unborn centuries, who will incarnate on earth with innate dower of unselfish love and of power to achieve. Most varied in character, perhaps, of all the heavens is the fourth, for here the powers of the most advanced souls find their exercise, so far as they can be expressed in the world of form. Here the kings of art and of literature are found, exercis- ing all their powers of form, of color, of harmony, and building greater faculties with which to be re- bom when they return to earth. Noblest music, ravishing beyond description, peals forth from the mightiest monarchs of harmony that earth has known, as Beethoven, no longer deaf, pours out his imperial soul in strains of unexampled beauty, making even the heaven-world more melodious as IS3 The ancient wisuom. he draws down harmonies from higher spheres, and sends them thrilling through the heavenly places. Here also we find the masters of painting and of sculpture, learning new hues of color, new curves of undreamed beauty. And here also are others who failed, thouph greatly aspiring, and who are here transmuting longings into powers, and dreams into faculties, that shall be theirs in another life. Searchers into Nature are here, and they are learn- ing her hidden secrets; before their eyes are unroll- ing systems of worlds with all their hidden mech- anism, woven series of workings of unimaginable delicacy and complexity ; they shall return to earth as great "discoverers," with unerring intuitions of the mysterious ways of Nature. In this heaven also are found students of the deeper knowledge, the eager, reverent pupils who sought the Teachers of the race, who longed to find a Teacher, and patiently worked at all that had been given out by some one of the great spiritual Masters who have taught hu- manity. Here their longings find their fruition, and Those they sought, apparently in vain, are now their instructors; the eager souls drink in the heavenly wisdom, and swift their growth and prog- ress as they sit at their Masters' feet. As teachers and as Hght-bringers shall they be bom again on earth, born with the birthmark of the teacher's high office upon them. Many a student on earth, all unknowing of these subtler workings, is preparing for himself a place in this fourth heaven, as he bends with a real devotion SA^E HOME. 15$ ovejr the pages of some teacher of genius, over the teachings of some advanced soul. He is forming a link between himself and the teacher he loves and reverences, and in the heaven-world that soul-tie will assert itself, and draw together into communion the souls it links. As the sun pours down its rays into many rooms, and each room has all it can con- tain of the solar beams, so in the heaven- world do these great souls shine into hundreds of mental images of themselves created by their pupils, fill them with life, with their own essence, so that each student has his master to teach him and yet shuts out none other from his aid. Thus, for periods long in proportion to the ma- terials gathered for consumption upon earth, dwell men in these heaven- worlds of form, where all of good that the last personal life had garnered finds its full fruition, its full working out into minutest detail. Then, as we have seen, when everything is exhausted, when the last drop has been drained from the cup of joy, the last crumb eaten of the heavenly feast, all that has been worked up into faculty, that is of permanent value, is drawn within the causal body, and the Thiniier shakes off him thje then dis- integrating body through which he has found ex* pression on the lower levels of the devachanic world. Rid of this mental body, he is in his own world, to work up whatever of his harvest can find material suitable for it in that high realm. A vast number of souls touch the lowest level of the formless world as it were but for a moment. i 54 THE ANCIENT \V151)OM. taking brief refuge there, since all lower vehicles; have fallen away. But so embryonic are they that they have as yet no active powers that there can function independently, and they become uncon- scious as the mental body slips away into disintegra- tion. Then, for a moment, they are aroused to con- sciousness, and a flash of memory illumines their past and they see its pregnant causes; and a flash of foreknowledge illumines their future, and they see such effects as will work out in the coming life. This is all that very many are as yet able to experi- ence of the formless world. For here again, ever, the harvest is according to the sowing, j how should they who sowed nothing for that loftjrj region expect to reap any harvest therein? But many souls have during their earth-life, by deep thinking and noble living, sown much seed, the harvest of which belongs to ihis fifth devachanic region, the lowest of the three he;.vens of the form- less world. Great is now their reward for having sO' risen above the bondage of the flesh and of passion, ^ and they begin to experience the real life of man, the lofty existence of the sou' itself, unfettered by vestures belonging to the lower worlds. They team truths by direct vision, and see the fundamental causes of which all concrete objects are the results;; they study the underlying unities, whose presem is masked in the lower worlds by the variety of relevant details. Thus they gain a deep knowled] of law, and leai'n to recognize its changeless work- ings below results apparently the most incongruoii! ;ee The worr of tME stRONo. 155 thus building" into the body that endures firm un- shakable convictions, that will reveal themselves in earth-life as deep intuitive certainties of the soul, above and beyond all reasoning. Here also the man studies his own past, and carefully disentangles the causes he has set going; he marks their interac- tion, the resultants accruing from them, and sees something of their working out in lives yet in the future. In the sixth heaven are more advanced souls, who during earth-life had felt but little attraction for its passing shows, and who had devoted all their ener- gies to the higher intellectual and moral life. For them there is no veil upon the past, their memory is perfect and unbroken, and they plan the infusion into their next life of energies that will neutralize many of the forces that are working for hindrance, and strengfthen many of those that are working for good. This clear memory enables them to form definite and strong determinations as to actions which are to be done and actions which are to be avoided, and these volitions they will be able to im- press on their lower vehicles in their next birth, making certain classes of evils impossible, contrary to what is ielt to be the deepest nature, and certain kinds of good inevitable, the irresistible demands of a voice that will not be denied. These souls are bom into the world with high and noble qualities which render a base life impossible, and stamp the babe from its cradle as one of the pioneers of hu- manity. The man who has attained to this sixth
156THE ANCIENT WISDOM,
heaven sees unrolled before him the vast treasure* of the Divine Mind in creative activity, and can study the archetypes or all the forms that are being, gradually evolved in the lower worlds. There he may bathe himself in the fathomless ocean of the Divine Wisdom, and unravel the problems connected with the working out of those archetypes, the partial good that seems as evil to the limited vision of men encased in flesh. In this wider outlook, phenomena, assume their due relative proportions, and he sees the justification of the divine ways, no longer to him "past finding oiit" so far as they are concerned with, the evolution of the lower worlds. The questional over which on earth he pondered, and whose an- swers ever eluded his eager intellect, are here solved by an insight that pierces through phenomenal veila and sees the connecting links which make the chain, complete. Here also the soul is in the immediate presence o£, and in full communion with, the greater souls that have evolved in our humanity, and, es- caped from the bonds which make "the past" of. earth, he enjoys "the ever-present" of an endless and unbroken life. Those we speak of here as " the. mighty dead" are there the glorious living, and the soul enjoys the high rapture of their presence, and grows more like them as their strong harmony attunes his vibrant nature to their key. Yet higher, lovelier, gleams the seventh heaven, where Masters and Initiates have their intellectual home. No soul can dwell there ere j-et it has passed while on earth through the narrow gateway of Ini- ONE WILL, ONE LIFE. IS/ tiation, the strait gate that "leadeth unto life" unending.* That world is the source of the strong- est intellectual and moral impulses that flow down to earth; thence are poured forth the invigorating streams of the loftiest energy. The intellectual life of the world has there its root; thence genius re- ceives its purest inspirations. To the souls that dwell there it matters little whether, at the time, they be or be not connected with the lower vehicles; they ever enjoy their lofty self -consciousness and their communion with those around them ; whether, when "embodied," they suffuse their lower vehicles with as much of this consciousness as they can con- tain is a matter for their own choice — they can give or withhold as they will. And more and more their volitions are guided by the will of the Great Ones, whose will is one with the will of the Locos, the will which seeks ever the good of the worlds. For here are being eliminated the last vestiges of separate- nessf in all who have not yet reached final emanci- pation — all, that is, who are not yet Masters — and, as these perish, the will becomes more and more harmonized with the will that guides the worlds. Such is an outline of the " seven heavens" into one or other of which men pass in due time after the •See Chapter XL, on "Man's Ascent." The Initiate has stepped out of the ordinary line of evolution, and is treading a shorter and steeper road to human perfection. f Ahamk^a. the "I" making principle, necessary in order that self -consciousness may be evolved, but transcended when its work is over.
158THE ANCIENT WISDOM.
"ciianye that nieii call death." For death is only a change that gives the soul a partial liberation, re- leasing him from the heaviest of his chains. It is but a birth into a wider life, a return after brief exile on earth to the soul's true home, a passing from a prison into the freedom of the upper air. Death is the greatest of earth's illusions; there is no death, but only changes in life-conditions. Life is continuous, unbroken, unbreakable; "unborn, eternal, ancient, constant," it perishes not with the perishing of the bodies that clothe it. We might as well think that the sky is falling when a pot is broken, as imagine that the soul perishes when the body falls to pieces. * The physical, astral, and mental planes are "the three worlds" through which lies the pilgrimage of the soul, again and again repeated. In these three worlds revolves the wheel of human life, and souls are bound to that wheel throughout their evolution, and are carried by it to each of these worlds in turn. We are now in a position to trace a complete life- period of the soul, the aggregate of these periods making up its life, and we can also distinguish clearly the difference between personality and indi- viduality. A soul, when its stay in the formless world of Devachan is over, begins a new life-period by put- ting forth the energies which function in the form- world of the mental plane, these energies being the •A simile used in the BJ-a^avad Purdiia. THE CYCLE OF LIFE. 1 59 resultant of the preceding" life-periods. These, passing outwards, gather round themselves, from the matter of the four lower mental levels, such ma- terials as are suitable for their expression, and thus the new mental body for the coming birth is formed. The vibration of these mental energies arouses the energies which belong to the desire-nature, and these begin to vibrate ; as they awake and throb, they at- tract to themselves suitable materials for their ex- pression from the matter of the astral world, and these form the new astral body for the approaching incarnation. Thus the Thinker becomes clothed with his mental and astral vestures, exactly express- ing the faculties evolved during the past stages of his life. He is drawn, by forces which will be ex- plained later,* to the family which is to provide him with a suitable physical encasement, and becomes connected with this encasement through his astral body. During pre-natal life the mental body be- comes involved with the lower vehicles, and this connection becomes closer and closer through the early years of childhood, until at the seventh year they are as completely in touch with the Thinker himself as the stage of evolution permits. He then begins to slightly control his vehicles, if sufficiently advanced, and what we call conscience is his moni- tory voice. In any case, he gathers experience through these vehicles, and, during the continuance of earth-life, stores the gathered experience in its own proper vehicle, in the body connected with the *See Chapter VII., on "Reincarnation." r60 THE ANCIENT WISDOM. plane to which the experience belongs. When tho ( earth-life is over the physical body drops away, and m with it his power o£ contacting the physical world, and his energies are therefore confined to the astral and mental planes. In due course, the astral body- decays, and the outgoings of his life are confined to the mental plane, the astral faculties being gathered up and laid by within himself as latent energies. Once again, in due course, its assimilative work \ completed, the mental body disintegrates, its ener- gies in turn becoming latent in the Thinker, and he 1 withdraws his life entirely into the formless de- vachanic world, his own native habitat. Thence, all the experiences of his life-period in the three \ worlds being transmuted into faculties and powers for future use, and contained within himself, he I anew commences his pilgrimage and treads the ' I cycle of another life-period with increased power ] and knowledge. The personality consists of the transitory vehicles ■ through which the Thinker energizes in the physi- cal, astral, and lower mental worlds, and of all the activities connected with these. These are bound together by the links of memory caused by impres- sions made on the three lower bodies; and, by the self- identification of the Thinker with his vehicles, the personal " I" is set up. In the lower stages of evolution this " I" is in the physical and passional | vehicles, in which the greatest activity is shown, later it is in the mental vehicle, which then assumes predominance. The personality, with its transient ^ THE CONFLICT OF LIFE. l6l feelings, desires, passions, thus forms a quasi-inde- pendent entity, though drawing all its energies from the Thinker it enwraps, and as its qualifications, be- longing to the lower worlds, are often in direct an- tagonism to the permanent interests of the ** Dweller in the body," conflict is set up in which victory in- clines sometimes to the temporary pleasure, some* times to the permanent gain. The life of a person- ality begins when the Thinker forms his new mental body, and it endures until that mental body disin- tegrates at the close of its life in the form-world of Devachan. The individuality consists of the Thinker himself, the immortal tree that puts out all these personalities as leaves, to last through the spring, summer, and autumn of human life All that the leaves take in and assimilate enriches the sap that courses through their veins, and in the autumn this is withdrawn into the parent trunk, and the dry leaf falls and perishes. The Thinker alone lives forever; he is the man for whom "the hour never strikes," the eternal youth who, as the Bhagavad Gttd has it, puts on and casts oflE bodies as a man puts on new gar- ments and throws oflE the old Each personality is a new part for the immortal Actor, and he treads the stage of life over and over again, only in the life- drama each character he assumes is the child of the preceding ones and the father of those to come, so that the life-drama is a continuous history, the his- tory of the Actor who plays the successive parts. To the three worlds that we have studied is con-
162 THE ANCrcNT WISDOM.
fined iL^ life of the Thinker, while he is treading the earlier stages of human evolution. A time will come in the evolution of humanity when its feet will enter loftier realms, and reincarnation will be of the past. But while the wheel of birth and death is turning, and man is bound thereon by desires that pertain to the three worlds, his life is led in these three regions. To the realms that lie beyond we now may turn, albeit but little can be said of them that can be either useful or intelligible. Such little as may be said, however, is necessary for the outlining of the Ancient Wisdom. CHAPTER VT The Buddhic and NirvAnic Planes. We have seen that man is an intelligent self-con scions entity, the Thinker, clad in bodies belonging to the lower mental, astral, and physical planes ; we have now to study the Spirit which is his innermost Self, the source whence he proceeds. This Divine Spirit, a ray from the Logos, partak- ing of His own essential Being, has the triple nature of the Logos Himself, and the evolution of man as man consists in the gradual manifestation of these three aspects, their development from latency into activity, man thus repeating in miniature the evolu- tion of the universe. Hence he is spoken of as the microcosm, the universe being the macrocosm: he is called the mirror of the universe, the image, or re- flection, of God ;* and hence also the ancient axiom, " As above, so below. *' It is this infolded Deity that is the guarantee of man's final triumph ; this is the hidden motive power that makes evolution at once possible and inevitable, the upward-lifting force that slowly overcomes every obstacle and every difficulty. It was this Presence that Matthew Arnold dimly *"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. '*—' Gen, i. 26^ r64 THE ANCIENT WISDOM. sensed when he wrote of the " Power, not ourselves, that makss for righteousness," but he erred in think- ing " not ourselves," for it is the very innermost Self of all — ^truly not our separated selves, but our Self.* This Self is the One, and hence is spoken of as the Monad,! and we shall cecd lo remember that this Monad is the outbreathed life of the Locos, contain- ing within itself germinally, or in a state of latency, aU the divine powers and attributes. These powers are brought into manifestation by the impacts aris- ing from contact with the objects of the universe into which the Monad is thrown; the friction caused by these gives rise to responsive thrills from the life sub- jected to their stimuli, and one by one the energies of the life pass from latency into activity. The hu- man Monad — as it is called for the sake of distinction — shows, as we have already said, the three aspects of Deity, being the perfect image of God, and in the human cycle these three aspects are developed one after the other. These aspects are the three great attributes of the Divine Life as manifested in the universe, existence, "bliss, and intelligence, J the three Locoi severally showing these forth with all • Atma. the reflection of Paramatraa. f It is called the Motiad. whether it be the Moaad of spirit- matter. Atma; or the Monad of form. Atma-Baddhi ; or tho human Monad, Atma-Buddht-Manas. In each case it is a unit and acts as a unit, whether the unit be one-faced, two-faced, or three-faced. t SatchitSnanda is often -used in the Hindu Scriptures as tbe I abstract name of Brahman, the Trimfirti being the concretA'J manifestations of thes& DUAL BUT INSEPARATE. 1 65 the perfection possible within the limits of manifes- tation. In man, these aspects are developed in the reversed order — intelligence, bliss, existence — *' ex- istence" implying the manifestation of the divine powers. In the evolution of man that we have so far studied we have been watching the development of the third aspect of the hidden Deity — the develop- ment of consciousness as intelligence. Manas, the Thinker, the human Soul, is the image of the Uni- versal Mind, of the Third Locos, and all his long pilgrimage on the three lower planes is devoted to the evolution of this third aspect, the intellectual side of the divine nature in man. While this is pro- ceeding, we may consider the other divine energies as rather brooding over the man, the hidden source of his life, than as actively developing their forces within him. They play within themselves, unmani- fest. Still, the preparation of these forces for mani- festation is slowly proceeding ; they are being roused from that unmanifested life that we speak of as latency by the ever-increasing energy of the vibra- tions of the intelligence, and the bliss-aspect begins to send outwards its first vibrations — faint pulsings of its manifested life thrill forth. This bliss-aspect is named in the theosophical terminology Buddhi, a name derived from the Sanskrit word for wisdom, and it belongs to the fourth, or buddhic, plane of our universe, the plane in which there is still duality, but where there is no separation. Words fail me to convey the idea, for words belong to the lower planes where duality and separation are ever con-
166
THE ANCIENT WISDOM. nected, ^ et some approach to the idea may be gamed. It is a state in which each is himself, with a clear- ness and vivid intensity which cannot be approached on lower planes, and yet in which each feels himself to include all others, to be one with them, inseparate and inseparable.* Its nearest analogy on earth is the condition between two persons who are united by a pure, intense love, which makes them feel as one person, causing them to think, feel, act, live as one, recognizing no barrier, no difference, no mine and thine, no separation. \ It is a faint echo from this plane which makes men seek happiness by union between themselves and the object of their desire, no matter what that object may be. Perfect isola- tion is perfect misery; to be stripped naked of everything, to be han^ng in the void of space, in utter solitude, nothing anywhere save the lone indi- vidual, shut out from all, shut into the separated self — imagination can conceive no horror more intense. The antithesis to this is union, and perfect union is perfect bliss. As this bliss-aspect of the Self begins to send out- •The reader should refer back to the Introduction, p. 36, ftnd re-read the description given by Plotinus of this state, com- meacing : " They likewise see all things. " And he should cote the phrases, "Each thing likewise iseverything."and "In each, however, a different quality predominates. " t It is for this reason that the bliss of divine love has in mauy Scriptures been imaged by the profound love of husband auti wife, as in the Bhagavad Pur4na of the Hindus, Ihe Seiix nf Solomon of the Hebrews and Christians. This also is ina :oTe of the Sufi mystics. an<l indeed of all mystics. LOVE BUILDS BLISS. 1 6/ wards its vibrations, these vibrations, as on the planes below, draw round themselves the matter of the plane on which they are functioning, and thus is formed gradually the buddhic body, or bliss-body, as it is appropriately termed.* The only way in which the man can contribute to the building of this glorious form is by cultivating pure, unselfish, all- embracing, beneficent love, love that "seeketh not its own" — that is, love that is neither partial, nor seeks any return for its outflowing. This sponta- neous outpouring of love is the most marked of the divine attributes, the love that gives everything, that asks nothing. Pure love brought the universe into being, pure love maintains it, pure love draws it upwards towards perfection, towards bliss. And wherever man pours out love on all who need it, making no difference, seeking no return, from pure spontaneous joy in the outpouring, there that man is developing the bliss-aspect of the Deity within him, and is preparing that body of beauty and joy inef- fable into which the Thinker will rise, casting away the limits of separateness, to find himself himself, and yet one with all that lives. This is ** the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," whereof wrote St. Paul, the great Christian Initiate ; and he raised charity, pure love, above all other vir- tues, because by that alone can man on earth contrib- ute to that glorious dwelling. For a similar reason *The Anandamayakosha, or bliss-sheath, of the Ved&ntins. It is also the body of the sun, Ihe solar body, of which a littlo is said in the Upanishads and elsewhere. l68 THE ANCIENT WISDOM. is separateness called "the great heresy" by the Buddhist, and "union" is the goal of the Hindu; liberation is the escape from the limitations that keep us apart, and selfishness is the root-evil, the destruction whereof is the destruction of all pain. The fifth plane, the nirvanic, is the plane of the highest human aspect of the God within us, and this aspect is named by Theosophists Atma, or the Self. It is the plane of pure existence, of divine powers in their fullest manifestation in our fivefold universe — what lies beyond on the sixth and seventh planes is hidden in the unimaginable light of God. This atmic, or nirvanic, consciousness, the consciousness belonging to life on the fifth plane, is the conscious- ness attained by those lofty Ones, the first fruits of humanity, who have already completed the cycle of human evolution, and who are called Masters.* They have solved in Themselves the problem of uniting the essence of individuality with non-sepa- rateness, and live, immortal Intelligences, perfect in wisdom, in bliss, in power. When the human Monad comes forth from the Logos, it is as though from the luminous ocean of Atm^ a tiny thread of light was separated oflf from the rest by a film of buddhic matter, and from this hung a spark which becomes enclosed in an egg-like casing of matter belonging to the formless levels of * Known also as Mab&tm&s. great Spirits, and Jivanmuktas, liberated souls, who remain connected with physical bodies for the helping forward of humanity. Many other great Beings also live on the nirv&nic plane. LIBERTY IS REACHED. 169 the mental plane. "The spark hangs from the flame by the finest thread of Fohat.'** As evolution proceeds, this luminous egg grows larger and more opalescent, and the tiny thread becomes a wider and wider channel through which more and more of the atmic life pours down. Finally, they merge — the third with the second, and the twain with the first, as flame merges with flame and no separation can be seen. The evolution on the fourth and fifth planes be- longs to a future period of our race, but those who choose the harder path of swifter progress may tread it even now, as will be explained later, f On that path the bliss-body is quickly evolved, and a man begins to enjoy the consciousness of that loftier region, and knows the bliss which comes from the absence of separative barriers, the wisdom which flows in when the limits of the intellect are trans- cended. Then is the wheel escaped from which binds the soul in the lower worlds, and then is the first foretaste of the liberty which is found perfected on the nirvanic plane. The nirvanic consciousness is the antithesis of annihilation ; it is existence raised to a vividness and intensity inconceivable to those who know only the life of the senses and the mind As the farthing rushlight to the splendor of the sun at noon, so is the nirvanic to the earth-bound consciousness, and to regard it as annihilation because the limits of the * Book of Dzyan^ Stanza vii. 5 ; Secret Doctrine, vol. i. f See Chapter XI., on "Man's Ascent." I/O THE ANCIENT WISDOM. earthly consciousness have vanished, is as though a man, knowing only the rushlight, should say that light could not exist without a wick immersed in tallow. That Nirvana is has been borne witness to in the past in the Scriptures of the world by Those who enjoy it and live its glorious life, and is still borne witness to by others of our race who have climbed that lofty ladder of perfected humanity, and who remain in touch with earth that the feet of our ascending race may mount its rungs unfalteringly. In Nirvana dwell the mighty Beings who accom- plished Their own human evolution in past uni- verses, and who came forth with the Logos when He manifested Himself to bring this universe into exist- ence. They are His ministers in the administration of the worlds, the perfect agents of His will. The Lords of all the hierarchies of the Grods and lower ministrants that we have seen working on the lower planes have here Their abiding-place, for Nirvana is the heart of the universe, whence all its life- currents proceed. Hence the Great Breath comes forth, the life of all, and thither it is indrawn when the universe has reached its term. There is the Beatific Vision for which mystics long, there the unveiled Glory, the Supreme Goal. The Brotherhood of Humanity — nay, the Brother- hood of all things — has its sure foundation on the spiritual planes, the atmic and buddhic, for here alone is unity, and here alone perfect sympathy is BROTHERHOOD. I7I found. The intellect is the separative principle in man, that marks off the ** I" from the "not I," that is conscious of itself, and sees all else as outside itself and alien. It is the combative, struggling, self-assertive principle, and from the plane of the intellect downwards the world presents a scene of conflict, bitter in proportion as the intellect mingles in it. Even the passion-nature is only spontaneously combative when it is stirred by the feeling of desire and finds anything standing between itself and the object of its desire ; it becomes more and more ag- gressive as the mind inspires its activity, for then it seeks to provide for the gratification of future de- sires, and tries to appropriate more and more from the stores of Nature. But the intellect is spontane- ously combative, its very nature being to assert it- self as different from others, and here we find the root of separateness, the ever-springing source of divisions among men. But unity is at once felt when the buddhic plane is reached, as though we stepped from a separate ray, diverging from all other rays, into the sun it- self, from which radiate all the rays alike. A being standing in the sun, suffused with its light, and pouring it forth, would feel no difference between ray and ray, but would pour forth along one as readily and easily as along another. And so with the man who has once consciously attained the bud- dhic plane; he /eels the brotherhood that others speak of as an ideal, and pours himself out into any one who wants assistance, giving mental, moral, l72 THE ANCIENT WISDOM. astral, physical help exactly as it is needed. He sees all beings as himself, and feels that all he has is theirs as much as his; nay, in many cases, as more theirs than his, because their tieed is ^eater, their strength being less. So do the elder brothers in a family bear the family burdens, and shield the little ones from suffering and privation ; to the spirit of brotherhood weakness is a claim for help and loving protection, not an opportunity for oppression. Be- cause They had reached this level and mounted even higher, the great Founders of r'^;ligions have ever been marked by Their overwelling compassion and tenderness, ministering to the physical as well as to the inner wants of men, to every man according to his need. The consciousness of this inner unity, the recognition of the One Self dwelling equally in all, is the one sure foundation of Brotherhood ; all else save this is frangible. This recognition, moreover, is accompanied by the knowledge that the stage in evolution reached by different human and non-human beings depends chiefiy on what we may call their age. Some began their journey in time very much later than others, and, though the powers in each be the same, some have unfolded far more of those powers than others, simply because they have had a longer time for the process than their younger brethren. As well blame and despise the seed because it is not yet the flower, the bud because it is not yet the fruit, the babe be- cause it is not yet the man, as blame and despise the germinal or baby souls around us because they have IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCES. 1/3 not yet developed to the stage we ourselves occupy. We do not blame ourselves because we are not yet as Grods; in time we shall stand where our elder Brothers are standing. Why should we blame the still younger souls who are not yet as we? The very word brotherhood connotes identity of blood and in- equality of development ; and it therefore represents exactly the link between all creatures in the uni- verse — identity of essential life, and differences in the stages reached in the manifestation of that life. We are one in our origin, one in the method of our evolution, one in our goal, and the differences of our age and stature but give opportunity for Irhe growth of the tenderest and closest ties. All that a man would do for his brother of the flesh, dearer to him than himself, is the measure of what he owes to each who shares with him the one Life. Men are shut out from their brothers' hearts by differences of race, of class, of country ; the man who is wise by love rises above all these petty differences, and sees all drawing their life from the one source, all as part of his family. . The recognition of this Brotherhood intellect- ually, and the endeavor to live it practically, are so stimulative of the higher nature of man, that it was made the one obligatory object of the Theosophical Society, the single " article of belief " that all who would enter its fellowship must accept. To live it, even to a small extent, cleanses the heart and puri- fies the vision ; to live it perfectly would be to eradi- cate all stain of separateness, and to let the pure '74 THE AN'CrENT \V[5DOM. shining; of the Self irradiate us, as a light through flawless glass. Never let it be forgotten that this Brotherhood is, whether men ignore it or deny it. Man's ignorance does not change the laws of Nature, nor vary by one hair's- breadth her changeless, irresistible march. Her laws crush those who oppose them, and break into pieces everything which is not in harmony with them. Therefore can no nation endure that outrages Brotherhood, no civilization can last that is built on its antithesis. We have not to make Brotherhood ; it exists. We have to attune our lives into harmony with it, if we desire that we and our works shall not perish. It may seem strange to some that the buddhic plane — a thing to them misty and unreal — should thus influence all planes below it, and that its forces should ever break into pieces all that cannot har- monize itself with them in tlie lower worlds. Yet BO it is, for this universe is an expression of spiritual forces, and they are the guiding, moulding energiee pervading all things, and slowly, surely, subduing all things to themselves. Hence this Brotherhood, which is a spiritual unity, is a far more real thing than any outward organization; it is a life and not a form, "wisely and sweetly ordering all things." I^ may take innumerable forms, suitable to the times, but the life is one; happy they who see its presence. and make themselves the channels of its living force. The student has now before hiip the constituents PRINCIPLES IN MAN. 1 75 of the human constitution, and the regions to which these constituents respectively belong; so a brief summary should enable him to have a clear idea of this complicated whole. The human Monad is Atma-Buddhi-Manas, or, as sometimes translated, the Spirit, Spiritual Soul, and Soul, of man. The fact that these three are but aspects of the Self makes possible man's immortal existence, and though these three aspects are mani- fested separately and successively, their substantial unity renders it possible for the Soul to merge itself in the Spiritual Soul, giving {o the latter the pre- cious essence of individuality, and for this indi- vidualized Spiritual Soul to merge itself in the Spirit, coloring it — if the phrase may be permitted with the hues due to individuality, while leaving un- injured its essential unity with all other rays of the Logos and with the Logos Himself. These three form the seventh, sixth, and fifth principles of man, and the materials which limit or encase them, f>., which make their manifestation and activity pos- sible, are drawn respectively from the fifth (nir- vanic), the fourth (buddhic), and the third (mental) planes of our universe. The fifth principle furthei takes to itself a lower body on the mental plane, in order to come into contact with the phenomenal worlds, and thus intertwines itself with the fourth principle, the desire-nature, or Kama, belonging to the second or astral plane. Descending to the first, the physical, plane, we have the third, second and first principles — the specialized life, or Prana: the 1/6 THE ANCIENT WISDOM. etheric double, its vehicle; the dense body, which contacts the coarser materials of the physical world. We have already seen that sometimes Prana is not regarded as a "principle,** and then the interwoven desire and mental bodies take rank together as Kama- Manas; the pure intellect is called the Higher Manas, and the mind apart from desire Lower Manas. The most convenient conception of man is perhaps that which most closely represents the facts as to the one permanent life and the various forms in which it works and which condition its energies, causing the variety in manifestation. Then we see the Self as the one Life, the source of all energies, and the forms as the buddhic, causal, mental, astral, and physical (etheric and dense) bodies.* Putting together the two ways of looking at the same thing, we may construct a table : Principles. Life. Forms. Atmk. Spirit Atm& Buddhi. Spiritual Soul Bliss-Body Higher Manas ) tt„^^^ o^„i Causal Body Lower Manas \ "^"^^^ ^^"^ Mental Body ♦Those of our readers who are more familiar with the Ved^ntin classification may find the following table of tlie form -side useful : Buddhic body Anandamayakosha. Causal body Vigny&namayakosha. Kf^d/[ Manomayakosha. Physical body { ^^<^ litra^^'^'a" PRINCIPLES IN BODV. XfJ P&INCIPLBS. ifORMS. £&ma. Animal Soul Astral Body Linga Sharira* Etheric Double Sth^a Sharira Dense Body It will be seen that the difference is merely a question of names, and that the sixth, fifth, fourth, and third "principles" are merely Atma working in the buddhic, causal, mental, and astral bodies, while the second and first " principles" are the two lowest bodies themselves. This sudden change in the method of naming is apt to cause confusion in the mind of the student, and as H. P. Blavatsky, our revered teacher, expressed much dissatisfaction with the then current nomenclature as confused and mis- leading, and desired others and myself to try and improve it, the above names, as descriptive, simple, and representing the facts, are here adopted. The various subtle bodies of man that we have now studied form in their aggregate what is usually called the " aura" of the human being. This aura has the appearance of an egg-shaped luminous cloud, in the midst of which is the dense physical body, and from its appearance it has often been spoken of as though it were nothing more than such a cloud. What is usually called the aura is merely such parts of the subtle bodies as extend beyond the periphery of the dense physical body; each body is complete *Linga Sharira was the name originally given to the etheric body, and must not be confused with the Linga Sharira of Hindu philosophy. Sthiila Sharira is the Sanskrit nam^ for the dense body. \% 1/8 THE ANCIENT WISDOM. in itself, and interpenetrates those that are coarsei than itself; it is larger or smaller according to its development, and all that part of it that overlaps the surface of the dense physical body is termed the aura. The aura is thus composed of the overlapping portions of the etheric double, the desire body, the mental body, the causal body, and in rare cases the buddhic body, illuminated by the atmic radiance. It is sometimes dull, coarse, and dingy; sometimes magnificently radiant in size, light, and color; it depends entirely on the stage of evolution reached by the man, on the development of his different bodies, on the moral and mental character he has evolved. All his varying passions, desires, and thoughts are herein written in form, in color, in light, so that " he that runs may read" if he have eyes for such script. Character is stamped thereon as well as fleeting changes, and no deception is there possible as in the mask we call the physical body. The increase in size and beauty of the aura is the unmistakable mark of the man's progress, and tells of the growth and purification of the Thinker and his vehicles.