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Devachan

H P Blavatsky

Devachan is the state of consciousness which the Ego eventually reaches after the death of the physical body and when the desires of the personality have been discarded. It is often referred to by Theosophists as the second death

This article is a response by H P Blavatsky to a question about this state

To realize the conditions of spiritual existence of any sort it is necessary to get above the plane of merely physical perceptions. One cannot see the things of the spirit with the eyes of the flesh, and one cannot successfully appreciate subjective phenomena by help only of those fully appreciate subjective phenomena by help only of those intellectual reflections which appertain to the physical senses. "How can a conscious existence without activity or pursuit be one of satisfaction or enjoyment?" It would only emphasize the mistaken idea which this questions embodies if one were to ask instead, "how can a conscious existence without athletic sports and hunting be one of enjoyment?" The cravings of man's animal or even human nature are not permanent in their character.

The demands of the mind are different from those of the body. In physical life an ever-recurring desire for change impresses our imagination with the idea that there can be no continuity of contentment, without variety of occupation and amusement. To realize completely the way in which a single vein of spiritual

consciousness may continue for considerable periods of time to engage the attention - of a spiritual entity, is probably posssible only for persons who already in life have developed certain inner faculties, dormant in mankind at large. But meanwhile our present correspondent may perhaps derive some satisfaction from the fact - as explained in recent essays on the subject - that

one sort of variety is developed in Devachan to a very high degree; viz. the variety which naturally grows out of the simple themes set in vibration during life.

Immense growths, for example, of knowledge itself are possible in Devachan, for the spiritual entity which has begun the "pursuit" of such knowledge during life. Nothing can happen to a spirit in Devachan, the keynote of which has not been struck during life; the conditions of a subjective existence are such that the importation of quite external impulses and alien thoughts is impossible. But the seed of thought once sown, the current of thoughts once set going (the metaphor may freely be varied to suit any taste), and then its developments in Devachan may be infinite, for the sixth sense there and the sixth principle are our instructors; and in such society there can be no isolation, as physical humanity understands the term. The spiritual ego in fact, under the tuition of his own sixth principle, need be in no fear of being dull, and would be as likely to sigh for a doll's house or a box of ninepins as for the harps and palm leaves of the mediaeval Heaven.

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Defintion of Devachan given in H P Blavatsky’s Theosophical Glossary

Devachan (Sk.). The “dwelling of the gods”. A state intermediate between two earth-lives, into which the EGO (Atmâ-Buddhi-Manas, or the Trinity made One) enters, after its separation from Kâma Rupa, and the disintegration of the lower principles on earth.