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Nemesis in the way of the new man, concealing the old, the eternal Ego, and
&
Q. But where is the equity you speak of, since these new "personalities" are
not aware of having sinned or been sinned against?
A. Has the coat torn to shreds from the back of the man who stole it, by
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another man who was robbed of it and recognizes his property, to be regarded
as fairly dealt with? The new "personality" is no better than a fresh suit
of clothes with its specific characteristics, color, form, and qualities;
but the real man who wears it is the same culprit as of old. It is the
individuality who suffers through his "personality." And it is this, and
this alone, that can account for the terrible, still only apparent,
injustice in the distribution of lots in life to man. When your modern
philosophers will have succeeded in showing to us a good reason, why so many
apparently innocent and good men are born only to suffer during a whole
lifetime; why so many are born poor unto starvation in the slums of great
cities, abandoned by fate and men; why, while these are born in the gutter,
others open their eyes to light in palaces; while a noble birth and fortune
seem often given to the worst of men and only rarely to the worthy; while
there are beggars whose inner selves are peers to the highest and noblest of
men; when this, and much more, is satisfactorily explained by either your
philosophers or theologians, then only, but not till then, you will have the
right to reject the theory of reincarnation. The highest and grandest of
poets have dimly perceived this truth of truths. Shelley believed in it,
Shakespeare must have thought of it when writing on the worthlessness of
Birth. Remember his words:
Why should my birth keep down my mounting spirit?
Are not all creatures subject unto time?
There's legions now of beggars on the earth,
That their original did spring from Kings,
And many monarchs now, whose fathers were
The riff-raff of their age &
Alter the word fathers into Egos-and you will have the truth.
On the Kamaloka and Devachan
On the Fate of the Lower Principles
Q. You spoke of Kamaloka, what is it?
A. When the man dies, his lower three principles leave him forever; i.e.,
body, life, and the vehicle of the latter, the astral body or the double of
the living man. And then, his four principles-the central or middle
principle, the animal soul or Kamarupa, with what it has assimilated from
the lower Manas, and the higher triad find themselves in Kamaloka. The
latter is an astral locality, the limbus of scholastic theology, the Hades
of the ancients, and, strictly speaking, a locality only in a relative
sense. It has neither a definite area nor boundary, but exists within
subjective space; i.e., is beyond our sensuous perceptions. Still it exists,
and it is there that the astral eidolons of all the beings that have lived,
animals included, await their second death. For the animals it comes with
the disintegration and the entire fading out of their astral particles to
the last. For the human eidolon it begins when the Atma-Buddhi-Manasic triad
is said to "separate" itself from its lower principles, or the reflection of
the ex-personality, by falling into the Devachanic state.
Q. And what happens after this?
A. Then the Kamarupic phantom, remaining bereft of its informing thinking
principle, the higher Manas, and the lower aspect of the latter, the animal
intelligence, no longer receiving light from the higher mind, and no longer
having a physical brain to work through, collapses.
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Q. In what way?
A. Well, it falls into the state of the frog when certain portions of its
brain are taken out by the vivisector. It can think no more, even on the
lowest animal plane. Henceforth it is no longer even the lower Manas, since
this "lower" is nothing without the "higher."
Q. And is it this nonentity which we find materializing in Seance rooms with
Mediums?
A. It is this nonentity. A true nonentity, however, only as to reasoning or
cogitating powers, still an Entity, however astral and fluidic, as shown in
certain cases when, having been magnetically and unconsciously drawn toward
a medium, it is revived for a time and lives in him by proxy, so to speak.
This "spook," or the Kamarupa, may be compared with the jelly-fish, which
has an ethereal gelatinous appearance so long as it is in its own element,
or water (the medium's specific aura), but which, no sooner is it thrown out
of it, than it dissolves in the hand or on the sand, especially in sunlight.
In the medium's Aura, it lives a kind of vicarious life and reasons and
speaks either through the medium's brain or those of other persons present.
But this would lead us too far, and upon other people's grounds, whereon I
have no desire to trespass. Let us keep to the subject of reincarnation.
Q. What of the latter? How long does the incarnating Ego remain in the
Devachanic state?
A. This, we are taught, depends on the degree of spirituality and the merit
or demerit of the last incarnation. The average time is from ten to fifteen
centuries, as I already told you.
Q. But why could not this Ego manifest and communicate with mortals as
Spiritualists will have it? What is there to prevent a mother from
communicating with the children she left on earth, a husband with his wife,
and so on? It is a most consoling belief, I must confess; nor do I wonder
that those who believe in it are so averse to give it up.
A. Nor are they forced to, unless they happen to prefer truth to fiction,
however "consoling." Uncongenial our doctrines may be to Spiritualists; yet,
nothing of what we believe in and teach is half as selfish and cruel as what
they preach.
Q. I do not understand you. What is selfish?
A. Their doctrine of the return of Spirits, the real "personalities" as they
say; and I will tell you why. If Devachan-call it "paradise" if you like, a
"place of bliss and of supreme felicity," if it is anything-is such a place
(or say state), logic tells us that no sorrow or even a shade of pain can be
experienced therein. "God shall wipe away all the tears from the eyes" of
those in paradise, we read in the book of many promises. And if the "Spirits
of the dead" are enabled to return and see all that is happening on earth,
and especially in their homes, what kind of bliss can be in store for them?
-oOo-
Why Theosophists Do Not Believe in the Return of Pure "Spirits"
Q. What do you mean? Why should this interfere with their bliss?
A. Simply this; and here is an instance. A mother dies, leaving behind her
little helpless children-orphans whom she adores-perhaps a beloved husband
also. We say that her "Spirit" or Ego-that individuality which is now all
impregnated, for the entire Devachanic period, with the noblest feelings
held by its late personality, i.e., love for her children, pity for those
who suffer, and so on-we say that it is now entirely separated from the
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"vale of tears," that its future bliss consists in that blessed ignorance of
all the woes it left behind. Spiritualists say, on the contrary, that it is
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