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http://blavatskyarchives.com/inner/innerno14.htm
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[6/29/2013 7:07:26 PM] Thuan Thi Do: CHAPTER 15 THE AFTER-DEATH LIFE: SPECIAL
CASES
[Page 138]There is practically no difference between the consciousness of a
psychic after death and that of an ordinary person, except that the psychic,
being probably more familiar with astral matter, will feel more at home in his
new environment. To be psychic means to possess a physical body in some ways
more sensitive than those of most people: consequently, when the physical body
is dropped, this inequality no longer exists.
A sudden death, such as from an accident, need not necessarily affect the astral
life in any way for the worse. At the same time, for most people, a more natural
death is preferable, because the slow wasting away of the aged or the ravages of
a long-continued illness are almost invariably accompanied by a considerable
loosening and breaking up of the astral particles, so that when the man recovers
consciousness upon the astral plane, he finds some, at any rate, of his
principal work there already done for him.
In most cases, when earth life is suddenly cut short by accident or suicide, the
link between kâma (desire) and prânâ (vitality) is not easily broken, and the
astral body is consequently strongly vivified.
The withdrawal of the principles from their physical encasement, owing to sudden
death of any kind, has been aptly compared to the tearing of the stone out of an
unripe fruit. A great deal of the grossest kind of astral matter still clings
around the personality, which is consequently held in the seventh or lowest
astral sub-plane.
The mental terror and disturbance which sometimes accompany accidental death
are, of course, a [Page 139] very unfavourable preparation for astral life. In
certain rare cases the agitation and terror may persist for some time after
death.
The victims of capital punishment, apart from the injury done to them by
suddenly wrenching from the physical the astral body, throbbing with feelings of
hatred, passion, revenge, and so forth, constitute a peculiarly dangerous
element in the astral world. Unpleasant to society as a murderer in his physical
body may be, he is clearly far more dangerous when suddenly expelled from the
body: and, whilst society may protect itself from murderers in the physical
body, it is at present defenceless against murderers suddenly projected on to
the astral plane in the full flush of their passions.
Such men may well act as the instigators of other murders. It is well known that
murders of a particular kind are sometimes repeated over and over again in the
same community.
The position of the suicide is further complicated by the fact that his rash act
has enormously diminished the power of the higher ego to withdraw its lower
portion into itself, and therefore has exposed him to other and great dangers.
Nevertheless it must be remembered, as already said, that the guilt of suicide
differs considerably according to circumstances, from the morally blameless act
of Socrates through all degrees down to that of a wretch who commits suicide in
order to escape the physical results of his own crimes, and, of course, the
position after death varies accordingly.
The karmic consequences of suicide are usually momentous: they are certain to
affect the next life, and probably more lives than one. It is a crime against
Nature
to interfere with the prescribed period appointed for living on the physical
life. For every man has an appointed life-term, determined by an intricate web
of prior causes - i.e..,by karma - and that term must run out its appointed
sands, before the dissolution of the personality. [Page 140]
The attitude of mind at the time of death determines the subsequent position of
the person. Thus, there is a profound difference between one who lays down his
life from altruistic motives and one who deliberately destroys his life from
selfish motives, such as fear, etc..
Pure and spiritually-minded men, who are the victims of accident, etc., sleep
out happily the term of their natural life. In other cases they remain conscious
- often entangled in the final scene of earth-life for a time, held in whatever
region they are related to by the outermost layer of their astral body. Their
normal kâmalokic life does not begin until the natural web of earth-life is
out-spun, and they are vividly conscious of both their astral and physical
surroundings.
It must not for a moment, therefore, be supposed that because of the many
superiorities of astral over physical life, a man is therefore justified in
committing suicide or seeking death. Men are incarnated in physical bodies for a
purpose which can be attained only in the physical world. There are lessons to
be learnt in the physical world which cannot be learnt anywhere else, and the
sooner we learn them the sooner we shall be free from the need to return to the
lower and more limited life. The ego has to take much trouble in order to
incarnate in a physical body, and also to live through the wearisome period of
early childhood, during which he is gradually and with much effort gaining some
control over his new vehicles, and therefore his efforts should not be foolishly
wasted. In this respect the natural instinct of self-preservation is one which
should be obeyed, it being a man's duty to make the most of his earthly life and
to retain it as long as circumstances permit.
If a man, who has been killed suddenly, has led a low, brutal, selfish and
sensual life, he will be fully conscious on the seven astral sub-plane, and is
liable to develop into a terribly evil entity. Inflamed with appetites which he
can no longer satisfy, he may endeavour to gratify his passions through a medium
or any sensitive person who he can obsess. [Page 141] Such entities take a
devilish delight in using all the arts of astral delusion to lead others into
the same excesses in which they themselves indulged. From this class and from
the vitalised shells (see page 172) are drawn the tempters - the devils of
ecclesiastical literature.
The following is a strongly worded account of the victims of sudden death,
whether suicides or killed by accident, when such victims are depraved and
gross. “Unhappy shades, if sinful and sensual, they wander about... until their
death-hour comes. Cut off in the full flush of earthly passions, which bind them
to familiar scenes, they are enticed by opportunities which mediums afford to
gratify them vicariously. They are the Pishâchas, the Incubi and Succubae of
mediaeval times: the demons of thirst, gluttony, lust and avarice: elementaries
of intensified
craft, wickedness and cruelty: provoking their victims to horrid crimes, and
revelling in their commission!”
Soldiers killed in battle do not quite come under this category, because,
whether the cause for which they are fighting be in he abstract right or wrong,
they think it to be right: to them it is the call of duty, and they sacrifice
their lives willingly and unselfishly. In spite of its horrors, therefore, war
may nevertheless be a potent factor in evolution at a certain level. This, also,
is the grain of truth in the idea of the Mohammedan fanatic that the man who
dies fighting for the faith goes straight to a very good life in the next world.
In the case of children dying young, it is unlikely l that they will have
developed much affinity for the lowest sub-divisions of the astral world, and as
a matter of experience they are seldom found on the lowest astral sub-planes.
Some people cling so desperately to material existence that at death their
astral bodies cannot altogether separate from the etheric, and consequently they
awaken still surrounded by etheric matter. Such persons are in a very unpleasant
condition: they are shut out from the astral world by the etheric shell which
surrounds them, and at the same time they are [Page 142] also, of course, shut
off from ordinary physical life because they have no physical sense-organs.
The result is that they drift abou...
[6/29/2013 7:08:17 PM] Thuan Thi Do: The result is that they drift about,
lonely, dumb and terrified, unable to communicate with entities on either plane.
They cannot realise that if they would only let go their frenzied grasp on
matter they would slip, after a few moments of unconsciousness, into the
ordinary life of the astral plane. But they cling to their grey world, with
their miserable half-consciousness, rather than sink into what they think
complete extinction, or even the hell in which they have been taught to believe.
In process of time the etheric shell wears out, and the ordinary course of
Nature reasserts itself in spite of their struggles: sometimes in sheer
desperation they recklessly let themselves go, preferring even the idea of
annihilation to their present existence — with a result overwhelmingly and
surprisingly pleasant.
In a few cases, another astral entity may be able to help them by persuading
them to let go their hold on what to them is life and sink out of it.
In other cases, they may be so unfortunate as to discover a means of reviving to
some extent their touch with physical life through a medium, though as a rule
the medium's “spirit-guide” very properly forbids them access.
The “guide” is right in his action, because such entities, in their terror and
need, become quite unscrupulous and would obsess and even madden a medium,
fighting as a drowning man fights for life. They could succeed only if the ego
of the medium had weakened his hold upon his vehicles by allowing the indulgence
of undesirable thoughts or passions.
[6/29/2013 7:08:31 PM] Thuan Thi Do: Sometimes an entity may be able to seize
upon a baby body, ousting the feeble personality for whom it was intended, or
sometimes even to obsess the body of an animal, the fragment of the group-soul
which, to an animal, stands in the place of an ego, having a hold on the body
less strong than that of an ego. This obsession may be complete or partial. The
obsessing [Page 143] entity thus once more gets into touch with the physical
plane, sees through the animal's eyes, and feels any pain inflicted upon the
animal — in fact, so far as his his own consciousness is concerned, he is the
animal for the time being. A man who thus entangles himself with an animal
cannot abandon the animal's body at will, but only gradually and by considerable
effort, extending probably over many days. Usually he is set free only at the
death of the animal, and even then there remains an astral entanglement to shake
off. After the death of the animal such a soul sometimes endeavours to obsess
another member of the same herd, or indeed any other creature whom he can seize
in his desperation. The animals most commonly seized upon seem to be the less
developed ones — cattle, sheep and swine. More intelligent creatures, such as
dogs, cats and horses do not appear to be so easily dispossessed, though cases
do occasionally occur. All obsessions, whether of a human or an annual / body,
are an evil and a hindrance to the obsessing soul, as they temporarily
strengthen his hold upon the material, and so delay his natural progress into
the astral life, besides making undesirable karrnic links. In the case of a man
who, by vicious appetite or otherwise, forms a very strong link with any type of
animal, his astral body shows animal characteristics, and may resemble in
appearance the animal whose qualities had been encouraged during earth life. In
extreme cases the man may be linked to the astral body of the animal and thus be
chained as a prisoner to the animal's physical body. The man is conscious in the
astral world, has his human faculties, but cannot control the animal body nor
express himself through that body on the physical plane. The animal organism
serves as a jailer, rather than as a vehicle: and, further, the animal soul is
not ejected, but remains as the proper tenant of its body. Cases of this kind
explain, at least partially, the belief often found in Oriental countries, that
a man [Page 144] may under certain conditions reincarnate in an animal body. A
similar fate may befall a man as he returns to the astral plane on his way to
re-birth, and is described in Chapter 24 on Re-birth. The class of person who is
definitely held down to earth by anxiety is often termed earth-bound: as St.
Martin expressed it, such men are “remainers”, not “returners”, being unable
thoroughly to tear themselves away from physical matter until some business is
settled in which they have a special interest.
We have already seen that after physical death the real man is steadily
withdrawing himself from his outer bodies: and that, in particular, manas, or
mind, endeavours to disentangle itself from kâma, or desire. In certain rare
cases, the personality, or lower man, may be so strongly controlled by kâma that
lower manas is completely enslaved and cannot disentangle itself. The link
between the lower and the higher mental, the “ silver thread that binds it to
the Master”, snaps in two. This is spoken of in occultism as the “ loss of the
soul”. It is the loss of the personal self, which has separated from its parent,
the higher ego, and has thus doomed itself to perish. In such a case, even
during earth-life, the lower quaternary is wrenched away from the Triad, i.e.,
the lower principles, headed by lower manas, are severed from the higher
principles, Atma, Buddhi and Higher Manas. The man is rent in twain, the brute
has broken itself free, and it goes forth unbridled, carrying with it the
reflections of that manasic light which should have been its guide through life.
Such a creature, owing to its possession of mind, is more dangerous even than an
unevolved animal: though human in form, it is brute in nature, without sense of
truth, love or justice. After physical death, such an astral body is an entity
of terrible potency, and is unique in this, that under certain rare conditions
it can reincarnate in the world of men. With no instincts save those of the
[Page 145] animal, driven only by passion, never even by emotion, with a cunning
that no brute can rival, a wickedness that is deliberate, it touches ideal
vileness, and is the natural foe of all normal human beings. A being of this
class — which is known as an Elementary — sinks lower with each successive
incarnation, until, as the evil force gradually wears itself out, it perishes,
being cut off from the source of life. It disintegrates, and thus as a separate
existence is lost. From the point of view of the ego there has been no harvest
of useful experience from that personality: the “ray” has brought nothing back,
the lower life has been a total and complete failure. The word Elementary has
been employed by various writers in many different senses, but it is recommended
that it be confined to the entity described above. [Page 146]
[6/29/2013 7:14:04 PM] *** Van Atman added tothaottt ***
[6/29/2013 9:49:10 PM] Thuan Thi Do:
http://thongthienhoc.net/truongbigiao/DaiCuongTiengVoThinh.htm
[6/29/2013 9:59:23 PM] Thuan Thi Do:
http://thongthienhoc.net/truongbigiao/DaiCuongTiengVoThinh9.htm
[6/29/2013 10:08:12 PM] *** Call ended, duration 4:06:13 ***