In our continuing investigations into the devachan, we will now consider the amount of time a monad may occupy this plane of matter before returning home to its causal envelope.
Since Humanity creates its own purgatory and heaven, it is evident that neither state of mind can be eternal, as a limited cause cannot result in an infinite outcome—so much for the Church’s dichotomy of eternal hell or an eternity in heaven.
The allocation of time that an individual devotes to the physical, emotional, and mental realms changes significantly as they progress. Initially, a person primarily occupies the physical realm and only spends a few years in the emotional plane after passing away. As they mature, their emotional experiences become more prolonged, and as their intellect develops, they start spending some time in the mental plane as well. We are talking about 1. Young and 2. Community souls in this instance.
The mental life of older individuals; the 3. Cultured, and 4. Compassionate souls are longer than their emotional lives.
Therefore, we can observe that, apart from the very early stages of human development, a person spends the majority of their time on the mental plane. As we will soon see in detail, for individuals who are not very developed, the ratio of time spent in the physical realm to the mental realm is rarely more than 1 to 20, and for those who are fairly well-developed, it could sometimes be as high as 1 to 30. It’s important always to remember that the true home of the real person, the monad, is the mental plane as we pass through the 4th Kingdom; each incarnation is just a short yet significant part of that person’s journey.
The following two examples provide an estimate of the average intervals between lives based on the individual’s class, including the average time spent on the emotional, mental, and causal levels. These tables link back to the information provided in the series of presentations on Chains, Rounds, and Globes and come from Charles Leadbeater’s investigations.
Do not take this social classification too literally or rigidly, as they have their flaws. At best, it should be seen as a rough estimate. For example, individuals from any social class can exhibit characteristics traditionally associated with the “Lost souls.” Similarly, someone identified as a “land owner” may, in reality, be nothing more than an unskilled labourer despite not actually engaging in labour. It would have been preferable to use a classification based on moral and mental development instead of social status, but even that method could have been just as challenging to implement. It must be understood that the figures in the table are only averages, with a wide range on each side of them being possible.
According to Arthur Powell, the mode of individualisation introduces a specific difference, but this difference is much less, in proportion, in the lower classes. Those individualised through intellect tend to take the longer of the two intervals mentioned, whereas those individualised in other ways tend to take the shorter interval. We shall return to this point and explain it in fuller detail presently.
On average, a person who dies at a young age is likely to have a shorter but more intense emotional life compared to a person who dies at an old age. This is because strong emotions tend to occur earlier in life, while mental energy is more likely to continue until the end or near the end of life.
As we have observed, the duration of time spent in devachan is determined by the spiritual qualities that a person brings from their earthly life. This includes all the positive thoughts, emotions, intellectual endeavours, moral aspirations, memories of meaningful work, and intentions for serving others. Not a single positive contribution is lost, no matter how small or brief. However, selfish and animalistic desires are excluded as there is no means for them to manifest in this realm.
Evil actions from a person’s past life, even if they outweigh the good ones, do not completely block the potential benefits of any good deeds. Even the most morally corrupt individuals have a chance for a period of devachanic life, during which any hint of longing for what is right or feelings of kindness can lead to positive developments. This period allows the seed of goodness to grow and the spark of good to flourish, even in the most depraved individuals.
In the past, when people were focused on living for the afterlife and aimed to attain heavenly bliss, the duration of time spent in devachan was very long, sometimes lasting for thousands of years. However, in the present time, people’s focus being more centred on earthly matters and with few thoughts directed towards spiritual life, their periods in devachan are consequently shortened.
The amount of time spent in the lower mental and causal worlds is directly related to the level of thought generated in the mental and causal bodies. The personal self, with its ambitions, interests, loves, hopes, and fears, finds fulfilment in the lower Mental World, which is the world of form. On the other hand, the higher mind and abstract, impersonal thinking are worked out in the formless world of the causal levels. The majority of people only enter the Causal World briefly before passing out into incarnation again, while some spend a significant portion of their devachanic life there, and a few spend almost their entire devachanic life in the Causal World. Remember, until you take the (i3) and gain continuity of consciousness, your devachanic life is going to either be one of deep sleep or a subjective form of dreaming.
The length and quality of a person’s afterlife in heaven is determined by the causes they generate during their earthly life. Therefore, they will receive exactly what they deserve and the type of joy that best suits their individual characteristics.
One important and interesting factor to consider is the intensity of devachanic life, which varies among different classes of monads. This intensity has a significant effect on the length of the heaven-life. In the first table, two types within the same group of monads are shown, which, despite being equal in development, have significantly different intervals between lives. One of them has about 1,200 years between lives, while the other has about 700 years. Although the amount of spiritual force generated is roughly equal in both cases, those with the shorter interval experience a double amount of bliss in their heaven-lives. It’s like working under high pressure, concentrating on their experience and getting through nearly twice as much in any given period as the members of the other class.
The difference, as already mentioned, is due to the way in which individualisation was achieved. Without going into the details of individualisation, which would be beyond the scope of the present series but has been covered to a reasonable degree in Chains, Rounds and Globes, it can be explained that those who individualise gradually through intellectual development generate a different kind of spiritual force. This gives them a longer devachanic life than those who individualise through an instantaneous upsurge of affection or devotion and experience their bliss in a much more concentrated or intense form. If there is any difference in the amount of force generated, it appears to be slightly more in the case of those who take the shorter interval.
Leadbeater’s investigations have shown that there is great flexibility regarding the intervals between lives, resulting in much variation in the rate at which monads experience their afterlife. One significant reason for this is the need to unite groups into incarnation simultaneously. This is important not only so that they may work out mutual karmic interrelations but also so that they may learn to work together for certain greater ends.
There are, for example, certain groups of monads known as “servers” who come together life after life so that they may pass through similar preparatory experiences. This is so the bonds of affection between them may be knit so firmly that they will be incapable of misunderstanding or mistrusting one another when the strain of the actual work they are destined to do comes upon them in the future. The one significant fact that the group is devoted to service overpowers all other considerations. The group is thus brought together to perform that service as an envelope of people.
It’s important to note that there’s no injustice in the workings of karma; everyone receives what they are due. However, the speed at which karma unfolds is adjusted to fit each individual’s circumstances. Sometimes, past karma is resolved quickly so that a person can pursue higher goals without being held back. In such cases, a significant amount of karma may manifest all at once in a major event or catastrophe, allowing the individual to swiftly move past it and clear their path forward. Of course, in the case of the great majority of people, there is no special intervention of this kind, and their life in heaven unfolds at its usual pace. Differences in the timing of karmic manifestation, leading to varying intensities in life, are indicated by the brightness of the mental aura.
There is more to discuss about the devachan and what it holds in store for Humanity as it moves along its preordained path back to its causal envelope at the end of each incarnation. We will look at some of those in the following presentation.