Theosophy
GA 9
Chapter III: The Three Worlds: 4. The Spirit in Spiritland after Death
When the human spirit has passed through the worlds of souls on its
way between two incarnations, it enters the land of spirits to remain
there until it is ripe for a new bodily existence. One can only
understand the meaning of this sojourn in spiritland when one is able
to interpret in the right way the aim and end of the pilgrimage of man
through his incarnation. While man is incarnated in the physical body
he works and creates in the physical world as a spiritual being. He
imprints on the physical forms, on corporeal materials and forces what
his spirit thinks out and develops. As a messenger of the spiritual
world he has, therefore, to embody the spirit in the corporeal world.
Only by being embodied, incarnated, can man work in the world of
bodies. He must take on the physical body as his tool so that through
the body he can act on other bodies and they on him. What acts
through this physical corporeality of man is the spirit. From this
spirit flow the purposes, the direction its work is to take in the
physical world.
Now as long as the spirit works in the physical body, it cannot as
spirit live in its true form. It can, as it were, only shine through
the veil of physical existence because as a matter of fact, the
thought life of man really belongs to the spiritual world. As it
appears in physical existence its true form is veiled. It can also be
said that the thought life of the physical man is a shadow, a
reflection of the true, spiritual being to whom it belongs. Thus,
during physical life, the spirit working through the physical body
interacts with the earthly corporeal world. Although one of the tasks
of the human spirit, as long as it proceeds from incarnation to
incarnation, is to work upon the physical corporeal world, it could by
no means fulfill this task in a proper manner if it lived merely in
embodied existence. The purposes and goals of the earthly task are
just as little developed and determined within the earthly
incarnation, as the plan of a house comes into existence on the site
where the laborers work. Just as this plan is worked out in the office
of the architect, so are the aims and purposes of earthly creative
activities worked out and developed in the land of spirits. The
spirit of man has to live again and again in this land between two
incarnations in order to be able, equipped with what he takes with him
on his departure, to approach the work in the physical life. Just as
the architect, without working with brick and mortar, works out the
plan of the house in his drafting room in accordance with
architectural and other laws, so too does the architect of human
creation, the spirit or higher self, develop its capacities and aims
in spiritland in accordance with the laws of that land, in order to
bring them over into the earthly world. Only when the human spirit
sojourns again and again in its own region, will it also be able by
means of the physical corporeal instruments to bring the spirit into
the earthly world.
On the physical scene of action man learns to know the qualities and
forces of the physical world. During his creative activity he
gathers experiences regarding the demands made by the physical world
on anyone wishing to work on it. He learns to know there, as it were,
the qualities of the matter in which he wishes to embody his thoughts
and ideas. The thoughts and ideas themselves he cannot extract from
matter. Thus the physical world is both the scene of his creating and
of his learning. In the spiritland, what has been learned is then
transformed into living faculties of the spirit. One can carry the
above comparison farther in order to make the matter clearer. The
architect designs a house. His plans are carried out. In doing this
he gains the most varied experiences. All of these experiences
enhance his capacities. When he works out his next design, all these
experiences flow into it, and this next design, when compared to the
first, is seen to be enriched with all that was learned through the
first.
It is the same with the successive human lives. In the intervals
between incarnations, the spirit lives in its own sphere. It can give
itself up entirely to the requirements of the spirit life. Freed from
the physical body, it develops itself in every direction and works
into this development the fruits of its experiences in former earthly
careers. Thus its attention is always directed to the scene of its
earthly tasks. Thus it works continually at following the earth
insofar as that is its field of action, through its necessary
development. It works upon itself in order to be able in each
incarnation to carry out its service during that life in accordance
with the condition of the earth at that time. This is, of course,
only a general outline of successive human lives. Reality will never
quite correspond with it, but only to a certain degree. Circumstances
may decree that a man's subsequent life be much less perfect than a
previous one, but taken as a whole such irregularities equalize
themselves in the succession of lives within definite limits.
The development of the spirit in spiritland takes place in consequence
of man's entering completely into the life of the various regions of
this land. His own life dissolves, as it were, into these regions
successively and he takes on, for the time being, their
characteristics. Through this they penetrate his being with theirs in
order that the may be able to work, strengthened by theirs, in his
earthly life.
In the
first region of spiritland man is surrounded by the
spiritual archetypes of earthly beings. During life on earth he
learns to know only the shadows of these archetypes that he grasps in
his thoughts. What is merely thought on earth is in this region
experienced, lived. Man moves among thoughts, but these thoughts are
real beings. What he has perceived with his senses during life on
earth acts on him now in its thought form. The thought, however, does
not appear as the shadow hiding itself behind the things. It is, on
the contrary, the life-filled reality producing the things. Man is,
as it were, in the thought workshop in which earthly things are formed
and fashioned, because in the land of spirit all is vital activity and
mobility. Here the thought world is at work as a world of living
beings, creative and constructive. We see how what we have
experienced during the earthly existence is constructed. Just as in
the physical body we experience the things of the senses as reality,
so now, as spirit, we experience the spiritual, constructive forces as
real.
Among the thought beings to be found in spiritland is also the thought
of our own physical corporeality. We feel removed from the latter.
We feel only the spiritual being as belonging to ourselves, and when
we perceive the discarded body as if in memory, no longer as physical
but as thought being, then its relation to the external world becomes
a matter of direct perception. We learn to look at it as something
belonging to the external world, as a member of this external world.
We consequently no longer distinguish our own corporeality from the
rest of the external world as something more closely related to
ourselves. We feel the unity in the whole external world including
our own bodily incarnations. Our own embodiments dissolve here into a
unity with the rest of the world. Thus man here looks upon the
archetypes of the physical corporeal reality as a unity to which he
has belonged himself. He learns, therefore, gradually to know his
relationship, his unity with the surrounding world by observation. He
learns to say to it, “What is here spread out around thee, thou
wert that.” This is one of the fundamental thoughts of ancient
Indian Vedanta wisdom. The sage acquires, even during his earthly
life, what others experience after death, namely, the ability to grasp
the thought that he himself is related to all things—the
thought, “Thou art that.” In earthly life this is an ideal
to which the thought life can be devoted. In the land of the spirit
it is an immediate fact, one that grows ever clearer to us through
spiritual experience, and man himself comes to know ever more clearly
in this land that in his own inner being he belongs to the spirit
world. He perceives himself to be a spirit among spirits, a member of
the primordial spirits, feeling within himself the word of the
primordial spirit, “I am the Primal Spirit.” The wisdom of
the Vedanta says, “I am Brahman,” that is, I belong as a
member to the primordial being in whom all beings have their origin.
We see that what is grasped during earthly life as a shadowy thought
towards which all wisdom strives is in spiritland an immediate
experience. Indeed it is only
thought during earth life
because it is a
fact in spiritual existence.
Thus man during his spiritual existence sees as if from outside from a
high watch tower the relationships and facts in the midst of which he
stands during his earthly life. During his life in the lowest region
of spiritland, he lives in regard to the earthly relationships
immediately connected with physical corporeal reality. On earth man
is born into a family, a folk; he lives in a certain country. His
earthly existence is determined by all these relationships. He finds
this or that friend because relationships within the physical world
bring it about. He carries on this or that business. All this
decides the conditions of his earthly life. All this presents itself
to him during his life in the first region of spiritland as living
thought being. He lives it all through again in a certain way, but he
lives it through from the active spiritual side. The family love he
has exercised, the friendship he has produced, become alive and quick
from within, and his capacities in this direction are enhanced. That
element in the spirit of man that acts as the force of love of family
and friend is strengthened. He later enters on his earthly existence
again as a more perfect man in these respects. It is to a certain
extent the everyday relationships of earth life that ripen as the
fruit of this lowest region of spiritland. That element in man, which
in its interests is wholly absorbed by these everyday relationships,
will feel itself in affinity with this region for the greater part of
its life between two incarnations. We find again in the spiritual
world the people with whom we have lived in the physical world. Just
as everything loosens and falls away from the soul that was peculiarly
its own through the physical body, so also does the bond that in
physical life linked soul with soul loosen itself from those conditions
that have meaning and effectiveness only in the physical world. Yet
all that soul was to soul in physical life is carried over beyond
death into the spiritual world. It is natural that words coined for
physical conditions can only reproduce inaccurately what takes place
in the spiritual world. If this is taken into account, it must be
described as quite correct when it is said that those souls that
belong together in physical life find each other again in order to
continue in a corresponding manner their joint lives in the spiritual
world.
In the
second region the common life of the earth world flows as
thought being, as a fluid element, so to speak, of spiritland. As
long as one observes the world during physical embodiment, life
appears to be confined within separate living beings. In spiritland
it is liberated from them and, like life-blood, flows as it were
through the whole land. It exists there as the living unity that is
present in all things. Of this also only a reflection appears to man
during earthly life, and this reflection expresses itself in every
form of reverence that he pays to the whole, to the unity and harmony
of the universe. The religious life of man is derived from this
reflection. He becomes aware of how far the all-embracing meaning of
existence does not lie in what is transitory and separate. He regards
the transitory as a similitude, a likeness of an eternal, harmonious
unity. He looks up to this unity in a mood of reverence and worship.
He performs before it religious rites and ceremonies. In spiritland,
not the reflection but the real form appears as living thought being.
Here man can really join himself to the unity that he has reverenced
on earth. The fruits of religious life and all connected with it make
their appearance in this region. Man now learns through spiritual
experience to recognize that his individual destiny is not to be
separated from the community to which he belongs. The capacity to
know oneself as a member of a whole develops here. The religious
feelings, all that has already during life striven after a pure and
noble morality, will draw strength out of this region during a great
part of the spiritual life between incarnations, and a man will
reincarnate with enhanced capacities in this direction.
While in the first region we are in company of those souls with whom
we have been linked by the closest ties of the physical world during
the preceding physical life, in the second region we enter the domain
of all those things with whom we felt united in a wider sense, that
is, through a common reverence, through a common religious confession,
and so on. It must be emphasized that the spiritual experiences of
the preceding regions continue to persist through the subsequent
ones. Thus man is not all torn away from the ties knitted by family,
friendship, and so on, when he enters upon the life of the second and
following regions. Moreover, the regions of spiritland do not lie
like sections one beside the other. They interpenetrate each other,
and man experiences himself in a new region not because he has
externally entered upon it in any form whatever, but because he has
attained in himself the inner capacities for now perceiving what he
previously lived within, but without perceiving it.
The
third region of spiritland contains the archetypes of the
soul world. All that lives in this world is here present as living
thought being. We find in it the archetypes of desires, wishes and
feelings, but here in the spirit world nothing self-seeking clings to
the soul. Just as all life forms a unity in the second region, so in
this third region all longings, wishes, all likes and dislikes form a
unity. The desire and wish of others are not separable from my desire
and wish. The sensations and feelings of all beings are a common
world, enclosing and surrounding everything else, just as the physical
atmosphere surrounds the earth. This region is, as it were, the
atmosphere or air of spiritland. All that a person has carried out in
his life on earth in the service of the community, in selfless
devotion to his fellowmen, will bear fruit here because through this
service, through this self-giving, he has lived in a reflection of the
third region of spiritland. The great benefactors of the human race,
the self-sacrificing natures, those who render great services to
communities, have gained their ability to render them in this region
after having acquired for themselves the readiness for a special
relation to it during their previous earthly careers.
It is evident that the three regions of spiritland just described
stand in a certain relation to the worlds below them, to the physical
and soul worlds, because they contain the archetypes, the living
thought beings, that take up corporeal or soul existence in those
worlds. Only the
fourth region is the pure spiritland, but even this
region is not quite that in the fullest sense of the word. It differs
from the three lower regions owing to the fact that in them we meet
with the archetypes of those physical and soul relations that man
finds existing in the physical and soul worlds before he himself
begins to participate in them. The circumstances of everyday life link
themselves with the things and beings that man finds already present
in the world. The transitory things of this world direct his gaze to
their eternal primal foundation, and his fellow creatures also, to
whom he selflessly devotes himself, do not owe their presence to him.
It is, however, through him that there are in the world all the
creations of the arts, sciences, engineering, states and governments—in short, all that he has embodied in the world as original
creations of his spirit. Without his activity these could not manifest
themselves in the physical world. The archetypes of these purely
human creations are in the fourth region of the spiritland. All that
we develop during earthly life in the way of scientific discoveries,
of artistic ideas and forms, of technical conceptions, bears fruit in
this fourth region. It is out of this region therefore that artists,
scientists and inventors draw their impulses and enhance their genius
during their stay in spiritland in order during another incarnation to
be able to assist in fuller measure the further evolution of human
culture. But we must not imagine that this fourth region of
spiritland possesses importance only for specially prominent human
beings. It has great importance for all men. All that occupies us in
our physical life outside the sphere of everyday living, wishing and
willing has its source in this region. If we did not pass through it
in the period between death and a new birth, we would in our
subsequent life have no interests leading out beyond the narrow circle
of our personal life-conduct to what is common to all humanity.
It has already been said above that even this region cannot be called
pure spiritland in the full sense of the word. This is the case
because the stage at which men have left civilization on earth
continues to influence their spiritual existence. They can enjoy in
spiritland only the fruits of what it was possible for them to carry
out in accordance with their talents and the stage of development of
the folk, state and nation into which they were born.
In the still higher regions of the spiritland the human spirit is now
freed from every earthly fetter. It rises to the pure spiritland in
which it experiences the intentions, the aims, that the spirit set
itself to accomplish by means of the earthly life. All that has been
already realized in the earthly world brings into existence only a
more or less weak copy of the highest intentions and aims. Each
crystal, each tree, each animal, and all that is being realized in the
domain of human creation—all this gives only copies of what the
spirit intends, and man during his incarnations can only link himself
with these imperfect copies of the perfect intentions and aims. Thus
during one of his incarnations he himself can only be an image of
what, in the kingdom of the spirit, he is intended to be. What he
really is as spirit in spiritland comes, therefore, into view only
when he rises to the
fifth region of spiritland in the interval
between two incarnations. What he is here is really he himself—the being who receives an external existence in the numerous and
varied incarnations. In this region the true self of man can freely
live and expand in all directions, and this self is thus the being who
appears ever anew in each incarnation as the one. This self brings
with it the faculties that have developed in the lower regions of the
spiritland. It consequently carries the fruits of former lives over
into those following. It is the bearer of the results of former
incarnations.
When the self lives in the fifth region of the spiritland, it is in
the kingdom of intentions and purposes. Just as the architect learns
from the imperfections that have come to light in his work, and just
as he brings into his new designs only what he was able to change from
imperfections to perfections, so does the self in the fifth region
discard from the results of its former lives whatever is bound up with
the imperfections of the lower worlds, and with these results it
impregnates the purposes of the spiritland—purposes with which
it now lives. It is clear that the force that can be drawn from this
region will depend upon how much the self during its incarnation has
acquired in the form of results fit to be taken up into the world of
purposes. The self that has sought to realize the purposes of the
spirit during earthly life through an active thought life, or through
wise love expressed in deeds, will establish a strong claim upon this
region. The self that has expended its efforts entirely on the events
of everyday life, that has lived only in the transitory, has sown no
seeds that can be fruitful in the purposes of the external world
order. Only the small portion of its activities that extended beyond
the interests of everyday life can unfold as fruit in these higher
regions of the spiritland. It must not be supposed that what comes
into consideration here is chiefly earthly fame or anything akin to
it. No, the important thing to realize here is that in the narrowest
walks of life even the least event has its significance in the eternal
progressive course of existence.
We must make ourselves familiar with the thought that in this region
our judgments must be different from those in the physical life. For
instance, if a man has acquired little that is related to this fifth
region, the craving arises in him to imprint an impulse upon himself
for the following life that will cause that life to run its course in
such a way that in its destiny (karma) the corresponding effect of
that deficiency will come to light. Experiences, which in the
following earth life appear as a painful destiny, seen from that life—and perhaps deeply bewailed as such—are, nevertheless,
the very experiences that a man in this region of spiritland finds
absolutely necessary for himself.
Since a man in the fifth region lives in his own true self, he is
lifted out of everything from the lower worlds that envelops him
during his incarnations. He is what he ever was and ever will be
during the course of his incarnations. He lives in the governing
power of the intentions that prevail during these incarnations, and
that he grafts into his own self. He looks back on his own past and
feels that all he has experienced in it will be brought into service
in the intentions he has to realize in the future. There flash forth
a kind of remembrance of his earlier, and a prophetic vision of his
future lives. We see, therefore, that what we call in this book
spirit self lives in this region, as far as it is developed, in
the reality that is appropriate to it. It develops itself still
further and prepares itself to make possible in a new incarnation the
fulfillment of the spiritual intentions in the realities of earthly
life.
If, during a succession of sojourns in spiritland, the spirit self has
evolved so far that it can move about quite freely there, it will
evermore seek there its true home. Life in the world of spirit will
be as familiar to it as life in physical reality is to the earthly
man. The view-points of the spirit world operate from now on as the
dominating ones, which it makes its own more or less consciously or
unconsciously for its succeeding earth lives. The self can feel
itself to be a member of the divine world order. The limitations and
laws of the earthly life do not affect it in its innermost being.
Power for all that it carries out comes to it from this spiritual
world. The spiritual world, however, is a unity. He who lives in it
knows how the Eternal has worked creatively upon the past. Out of the
Eternal he can determine the direction for the future.
* (See
Addendum 12.)
His view over the past widens into a perfect one.
The man who has reached this stage sets before himself aims that he
intends to carry out in a coming incarnation. From out the spiritland
he influences his future so that it runs its course in harmony with
the true and spiritual. Such a person during the stages between two
incarnations finds himself in the presence of all those exalted beings
before whose gaze divine wisdom lies spread out unveiled, because he
has climbed up to the stage at which he can understand it.
In the
sixth region of the spiritland a man will fulfill in all
his actions what is most in accord with the true being of the world.
He cannot seek after what profits himself, but only after what ought
to happen according to the right course of the world order.
In the
seventh region of the spiritland the limit of the three
worlds is reached. Man stands in the presence of the
life-kernels, which are transplanted from higher worlds into
the three already described in order that in them they may fulfill
their tasks. When a man has reached the boundary of the three worlds,
he recognizes himself in his own life-kernel. This implies that for
him the problems of these three worlds have been solved. He has a
complete view of the entire life of these worlds. In physical life
the powers of the soul, through which it obtains the experiences in
the spiritual world here described, remain unconscious under ordinary
circumstances. They work in their unconscious depths upon the bodily
organs, which bring about the consciousness of the physical world.
That is precisely the reason why these powers remain imperceptible for
this world. The eye, too, does not see itself because forces are at
work in it that make other things visible. If one would judge to what
extent a human life running its course between birth and death can be
the result of preceding earth lives, one must take into consideration
the fact that a point of view that lies within this same life, and at
the outset is the natural one, can yield no possibility of correct
judgment. For such a point of view, for instance, an earth life could
appear full of suffering, imperfect. Yet, seen from an extra-earthly
view-point, this very configuration of the earth life with its
suffering, its imperfections, would prove to be the result of previous
earth lives. By treading the path of knowledge as this is described
in the next chapter, the soul sets itself free from the conditions of
bodily life. Thus it can perceive in a picture the experiences that it
undergoes between death and a new birth. Perception of this kind
makes it possible to describe what happens in spiritland as has been
done here in but little more than outline. Only when we do not
neglect to hold before our minds the fact that the whole disposition
of the soul is different in the physical body from its disposition
during purely spiritual experiences, only then shall we see the
description given here in the right light.
