NOTES ON OCCULT PHILOSOPHY.
[The following notes are answers to philosophical questions raised by some of the Delegates at the Convention of the T. S., which were taken up at the time by a member.]
devachan.
It has been asked why the activity exhibited by a human monad in Devachan should last through a longer period of time than that same monad's activity on the present plane of existence?
From our present standpoint the difference is a great one, but this is not so from the standpoint of the Devachanee. When a Yogi is in a state of Samadhi, years may pass and seem only months or days to him. Energy exerted on the astral plane produces effects which last for a longer period of time than those produced by an equal amount of energy on the material plane, for the reason that less friction of opposition is encountered on the astral plane.
On the objective plane, the metallic sound produced by the striking of a bell will not last more than five or six minutes, however, finely the bell be made; but after the sound seems dead to the ordinary man, the chela can hear it on the astral plane for one or two hours longer. So we say that the momentum being the same, the period of time occupied by effects differs on the material and on the astral plane.
It is not possible to fix beforehand the definite length of the time passed by a human being or even a race, in Devachan; that depends a great deal upon the nature and development of the spiritual monad in the man, and also on the impulses it has generated in the world of effects and, more or less, on the nature of the man's aspirations. When the element of spirituality appears in the monad, its Devachanic existence will be longer. Perhaps the highest adept, after making a careful psychical analysis of a man, would be able to foretell the length of the latter's stay in Devachan within one or two thousand years, but he could not give the exact duration.
