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| A Treatise on Cosmic Fire - Section Two - Division E - Motion on the Plane of Mind |
| Absorption: This is the faculty which
produces the forms of the mental ring-pass-not, and which (at the close of the cycle) is
the active principle behind devachanic manifestation. The student, through a
consideration of the macrocosmic process, can arrive at a knowledge of the separation of
the mental body and its individual functioning. It is anent the process of "heavenly
withdrawal" that we are speaking; under the law of analogy it is not easily possible
to follow the various steps and stages and this for the following reasons: All our planes, being the cosmic physical subplanes, form the logoic physical body. At His final withdrawal from manifestation, He functions in His cosmic astral body, and the cosmic devachan is as yet far from Him, and impossible to conceive of. Certain points, therefore, anent man's "rest in Heaven" are all that is possible for us to deal with. Absorption into devachan is absorption into a definite stage of consciousness within the logoic physical body; devachan, therefore, is occultly a state of consciousness, but of consciousness thinking in terms of time and space in the three worlds. It has therefore no location for the unit of consciousness, but has location from the standpoint of the Heavenly Man. Prakriti (matter) and consciousness are - in manifestation - inseparable. The "devachan" of the occult books is connected with the consciousness of the logoic planetary body, and with the gaseous subplane of the cosmic physical plane. It is, consequently, transcended the moment a man begins to function in the cosmic ethers, such as the fourth cosmic ether, the buddhic plane. It is closely allied with certain karmic forces for, whilst in devachan, the man is occupied with the aggregate of the thought forms he has built, [1109] which are essentially of an occult, a mental, and a persistent nature. It is in devachan that the man shapes and polishes the stones which are built into the Temple of Solomon. It is the workshop to which the individual stones (good deeds and thoughts) are taken for fashioning, after being extracted from the quarry of the personal life. Being of mental matter, devachan might be regarded as a center, or heart of peace, within the periphery of the sphere of influence of the mental unit. The four spirillae form four protecting streams of force. A correspondence to this stream of force can be seen in the four rivers which emanated from the Garden of Eden. Out of this garden man is driven into the world of physical incarnation and the Angel with the flaming sword protects the entrance, driving him back from entry until the time comes when evolution has progressed so far that he can come to the portal laden with stones which can withstand the action of fire. When he submits these stones to the fire and they stand the test, he can enter "Heaven" again, his time though being limited by the nature and the quality of what he brought. When the consciousness within devachan has absorbed all the essences of life experience even that locality, or that aspect of matter, cannot enfold him, and he escapes from limitation into the causal vehicle. |
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