Death - and After? by Annie Besant (best english novels to read txt) 📕

A machine compared with whose perfect sensitiveness and adjustment the highest human intellect is but a coarse clumsy replica, _in petto_.

And we must remember that thoughts and motives are material, and at times marvellously potent material, forces, and we may then begin to comprehend why the hero, sacrificing his life on pure altruistic grounds, sinks as his life-blood ebbs away into a sweet dream, wherein

All that he wishes and all that he loves,
Come smiling round his sunny way,

only to wake into active or objective consciousness when reborn in the Region of Happiness, while the poor unhappy and misguided mortal who, seeking to elude fate, selfishly loosens the silver string and breaks the golden bowl, finds himself terribly alive and awake, instinct with all the evil cravings and desires that embittered his world-life, without a body in which to gratify these, and capable of only such partial alleviation as is possible by more or less vicarious gratification, and this only at the cost of the ultimate complete rupture with his sixth and seventh principles, and consequent ultimate annihilation after, alas! prolonged periods of suffering.

Let it not be supposed that there is no hope for this class--the sane deliberate suicide. If, bearing steadfastly his cross, he suffers patiently his punishment, striving against carnal appetites still alive in him, in all their intensity, though, of course, each in proportion to the degree to which it had been indulged in earth-life. If, we say, he bears this humbly, never allowing himself to be tempted here or there into unlawful gratifications of unholy desires, then when his fated death-hour strikes, his four higher principles reunite, and, in the final separation that then ensues, it may well be that all may be well with him, and that he passes on to the gestation period and its subsequent developments.

* * * * *


FOOTNOTES:


[Footnote 1: Book ii., from lines 666-789. The whole passage bristles with horrors.]

[Footnote 2: xii. 85. Trans., of Burnell and Hopkins.]

[Footnote 3: From the translation of Dhunjeebhoy Jamsetjee Medhora, _Zoroastrian and some other Ancient Systems_, xxvii.]

[Footnote 4: Trans., by Mirza Mohamed Hadi. _The Platonist_, 306.]

[Footnote 5: _The Sacred Books of the East_, iii, 109, 110.]

[Footnote 6: _Secret Doctrine_, vol. i. p. 281.]

[Footnote 7: See _ibid._, p. 283.]

[Footnote 8: _Isis Unveiled_, vol. i. p. 480.]

[Footnote 9: Theosophical Manuals, No. 1.]

[Footnote 10: _The Heroic Enthusiasts_, Trans., by L. Williams. part ii. pp. 22, 23.]

[Footnote 11: _Cremation_, Theosophical Siftings, vol. iii.]

[Footnote 12: _Man: Fragments of Forgotten History_, pp. 119, 120.]

[Footnote 13: _Key to Theosophy_, H.P. Blavatsky, p. 109. Third Edition.]

[Footnote 14: _Magic, White and Black_, Dr. Franz Hartmann, pp. 109, 110. Third Edition.]

[Footnote 15: See _The Seven Principles of Man_, pp. 17-21.]

[Footnote 16: _Theosophist_, March, 1882, p. 158, note.]

[Footnote 17: _Essays upon some Controverted Questions_, p. 36.]

[Footnote 18: _Fortnightly Review_, 1892, p. 176.]

[Footnote 19: _Key to Theosophy_, p. 67.]

[Footnote 20: _Ibid._, p. 97.]

[Footnote 21: _Key to Theosophy_, p. 97]

[Footnote 22: _Ibid._, p. 102.]

[Footnote 23: June, 1882, art. "Seeming Discrepancies."]

[Footnote 24: Pp. 73, 74. Ed. 1887.]

[Footnote 25: _Theosophical Glossary_, Elementaries.]

[Footnote 26: See _The Seven Principles of Man_, p.p. 44-46.]

[Footnote 27: The name Sukhavati, borrowed from Tibetan Buddhism, is sometimes used instead of that of Devachan. Sukhavati, according to Schlagintweit, is "the abode of the blessed, into which ascend those who have accumulated much merit by the practice of virtues", and "involves the deliverance from metempsychosis" (_Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 99). According to the Prasanga school, the higher Path leads to Nirvana, the lower to Sukhavati. But Eitel calls Sukhavati "the Nirvana of the common people, where the saints revel in physical bliss for aeons, until they reenter the circle of transmigration" (_Sanskrit-Chinese Dictionary_). Eitel, however, under "Amitabha" states that the "popular mind" regards the "paradise of the West" as "the haven of final redemption from the eddies of transmigration". When used by one of the Teachers of the Esoteric Philosophy it covers the higher Devachanic states, but from all of these the Soul comes back to earth.]

[Footnote 28: See _Lucifer_, Oct, 1892, Vol. XI. No. 62.]

[Footnote 29: _The Path_, May, 1890.]

[Footnote 30: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 31: "Notes on Devachan," as cited.]

[Footnote 32: "Notes on Devachan," as before. There are a variety of stages in Devachan; the Rupa Loka is an inferior stage, where the Soul is still surrounded by forms. It has escaped from these personalities in the Tribhuvana.]

[Footnote 33: _Vishnu Purana_, Bk. I. ch. v.]

[Footnote 34: _Key to Theosophy_, p. 69. Third Edition.]

[Footnote 35: Sixth and seventh in the older nomenclature, fifth and sixth in the later--_i.e._, Manas and Buddhi.]

[Footnote 36: _Key to Theosophy_, p. 99. Third Edition.]

[Footnote 37: _Ibid._, p. 100.]

[Footnote 38: _Ibid._, p. 101.]

[Footnote 39: See Manual No. 2 _Re-incarnation_, pp. 60, 61. Third Edition.]

[Footnote 40: _Key to Theosophy_, p. 105. Third Edition.]

[Footnote 41: _Esoteric Buddhism_, p. 197. Eighth Edition.]

[Footnote 42: Quoted in the _Secret Doctrine_, vol. ii. p. 83. The student will do well to read, for a fair presentation of the subject, G.R.S. Mead's "Note on Nirvana" in _Lucifer_, for March, April, and May, 1893. (Re-printed in _Theosophical Siftings_).]

[Footnote 43: _Theosophist_, Sept., 1882, p. 310.]

[Footnote 44: See on "illusion" what was said under the heading "Devachan".]

[Footnote 45: _Key to Theosophy_, p. 102. Third Edition.]

[Footnote 46: _Theosophist_, Sept. 1881.]

[Footnote 47: "Notes on Devachan", _Path_, June, 1890, p. 80.]

[Footnote 48: _Theosophist_, June, 1882, p. 226.]

[Footnote 49: Summarised from article in _Theosophist_, Sept., 1882.]

[Footnote 50: _Ibid._, p. 309.]

[Footnote 51: _Ibid._, p. 310.]

[Footnote 52: _Key to Theosophy,_ p. 151.]

[Footnote 53: _Theosophist_, Sept., 1882, p. 310.]

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