It is important to revisit our previous discussion on devachan, delving deeper into its general features and broader purpose. We will now provide additional details and include other relevant information that could not be covered in the initial description without overwhelming the discussion.
Although Devachan may be somewhat illusory, just like all forms of manifested life to some extent, there is still a much greater sense of reality in the heavenly realm compared to earthly life. This is evident when we consider the necessary conditions for entering Devachan. In order for an aspiration or thought-form to manifest on the mental plane, it must be predominantly characterised by unselfishness.
Genuine affection for family or friends can lead a person to a joyful and fulfilling life, just like religious devotion can. However, this is only true when the affection or devotion is selfless. Affection that is demanding and selfish, seeking mainly to be loved, focusing on receiving rather than giving, and easily turning into jealousy, does not contribute to mental development. The actions it inspires will never rise above the emotional and desire-driven level to which it clearly belongs.
In the absence of grasping, pulling towards oneself, or thoughts of return, there is a powerful release of force that cannot be expressed by emotions nor contained within the dimensions of the emotional plane. This force requires the finer matter and wider space of the mental plane, as the energy it generates belongs to that higher world.
The devotion of a religious devotee whose main focus is not the glory of the deity but rather saving their own soul cannot lead to devachan. However, genuine religious devotion, which does not focus on the self but instead on love and gratitude towards the deity or leader and is inspired by a strong desire to do something for the deity or in their name, often leads to a prolonged, comparatively exalted heavenly existence.
The experience of celestial bliss is attainable by followers of any deity or leader, whether it be Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Allah, or Christ. The duration and quality of this bliss depend solely on the intensity and purity of the feeling, independent of the chosen object of devotion.
It’s a mistake to think that a person, after death, is only dealing with the consequences of their past life on the emotional and mental levels. This is generally true for the average person, but even while experiencing the happiness of their afterlife, they are still influencing others and creating karmic results.
This must be so in the very nature of things because thought is the most potent factor in the creation of human karma. Every force has the characteristic of the plane on which it is generated, and the higher the plane, the more potent and the more persistent the force.
In rare cases, when a person raises their consciousness to a higher level, their higher mind (casual) and lower selves become unified. This allows the individual to have access to their higher consciousness throughout their physical, emotional, and mental experiences. Consequently, they generate karma continuously and can influence their life conditions through their thoughts and willpower. But, apart from such cases of well-developed individuals, even an average person unknowingly produces three separate results throughout their entire life in heaven.
First: The love and care that a person directs towards the mental image they have of their friend is a strong force for good. It plays a significant role in the development of their friend’s inner self. This love inspires the friend, making their admirable qualities even stronger. This kind of action clearly creates karma.
It’s possible that the actions of a person can have an impact on the friend’s personality. When someone showers affection on a thought form, it’s possible that this affection can modify the causal envelope, which in turn may manifest in the person’s personality. Quite how this happens is not clear to me. A thought in the mental envelope would need to resonate with the persona, or lower causal envelope of the friend, which could then potentially transfer those vibrations into their causal envelope.
Second: A person who expresses a great deal of affection and elicits a similar response from their friends is clearly improving the mental atmosphere of their community. This positive atmosphere affects all living beings in that area – including monads deemed to be “gods”, humans, animals, and plants. This behaviour will undoubtedly have karmic consequences.
Third: A thought of unselfish affection or devotion not only elicits a response from the Logos to the individual who originated the thought but also helps to replenish the reservoir of spiritual force held by the Nirmanakayas. This force is at the disposal of the Masters of Wisdom and Their pupils to aid humanity. The impact of such affection or devotion during physical life can be magnificent. Furthermore, it’s clear that the response to the thought of an entity in devachan, sustained perhaps for a thousand years, will make a significant contribution to the reservoir. This will bring an immeasurable benefit to the world, which cannot be calculated in any terms used on the physical plane.
From all these considerations, it should be clear that even an ordinary person who has not yet undergone special development of consciousness is nevertheless capable of doing a great deal of good during their life in devachan. Therefore, they actually create new karma for themselves during that time, and it may even modify their heavenly existence while it is in progress.
In the physical world, many of our thoughts are just fragments. In the devachan, the dreamer carefully contemplates these fragments and patiently works them out in great detail, exploring every possibility of splendid performance and living through them with a vividness that nothing on earth can rival. The dreamer builds, shapes, and moulds these fragments into their various possibilities and then releases them into the world of form. Others may then pick them up and be inspired by them to embark on schemes of reform, works of philanthropy, and so on. Thus, from the radiant thought-stuff of a solitary dreamer, wonderful changes may arise, as their “dreaming” contributes to the recreation of the world.
Please bear in mind that due to the limitations that ordinary people impose on themselves in devachan, they cannot start a new direction of affection or devotion. However, their affection and devotion, within the paths they have already chosen, will be significantly more powerful than they could have been while they were constrained by their physical bodies.
This point requires further elaboration. To understand the relationship of a person in devachan to their surroundings, we need to consider (1) how the plane is shaped by their thoughts, and (2) the forces of the plane that are called upon in response to their aspirations.
We have already observed how the individual shapes the substance of the plane into mental representations of their acquaintances and how elemental units of the acquaintances communicate through the representations. There are also other living forces around a person: mighty angelic inhabitants of the plane. Many of these are very sensitive to certain aspirations of Humanity and readily respond to them. But the most important thing to remember is that people’s thoughts and goals are based on what they had prepared during their life on earth.
It might have been imagined that when a person ascends to a level of such extraordinary power and vitality, they would be inspired to engage in completely new activities along new paths. However, this is not the case. Their mental capacity, as we have previously observed, does not operate in the same way as their lower faculties, nor is it as fully under control. In the past, it has been accustomed to receiving its impressions and prompts for action from below, primarily from the physical environment and, at times, from the emotional worlds. It has rarely received direct mental influences at its own level. Consequently, it cannot suddenly begin to accept and respond to them. In practice, this means that the individual does not generate new thoughts but is confined to those they have previously entertained, which are the only means by which they can perceive their new world. Therefore, a bland, uninspired personality inevitably leads to a bland, weak state in the devachanic realm. When you view the current narcissistic behaviour of people taking selfies of themselves, I wonder what they are going to have to review in Devachan except for thoughts on their self-image!
A person will take with them to devachan only the mental experiences they have gained – no more and no less. Therefore, it is vital for them to be as accurate and precise as possible in their thinking during their physical life. Otherwise, they will greatly limit the usefulness of their devachanic life.
From this perspective, devachan is a world of effects, not causes. Each person is limited to their own individual perceptions and their capacity to appreciate. The more connections a person has with the external world, the more starting points or focal points for development there will be in devachan. On the other hand, from the perspective of the next life, devachan is essentially a world of causes. In Devachan, all experiences are integrated into the character that will be carried forward when the person reincarnates. Devachan is thus the direct result of one’s life on Earth and prepares the way for the next life on Earth.
In the upcoming presentation, we will examine some examples of how what we have been and what we have learned in our previous life are then expressed in the devachan when the monad finally arrives there on its journey home to its causal envelope.