Theos-Talk Archives (January 2000 Message tt00069)

Hello Dorothy,

Here is the passage from ISIS below.  It seems to support much of what you
say.  The last sentence suggests to me that there are more soul-less people
in the world than we might want to acknowledge.

The passage begining, "Such a catastrophe may happen long years before final
seperation of the life rinciple from the body..." suggests to me that the
Individual may have gained at least some small amount of experience in the
begining of life to take into Devachan, but at some stage it has become
totally preoccupied with 'material' concerns to the total exclusion of its
higher nature.  Thus at some point in that individual's life the 'higher
nature' has quit the vehicle of that particular personality/body, "some
years before" the actual physical death of the body and seperation of the
life principle.  As I understand it, the Spiritual Soul, that which
reincarnated does not die.  As Dallas points out, this is 'immortal'.
"Soul death" is when the Spiritual Soul quits the body-personality during
'life'.  The personal soul, Kama-Manas, if it does nothing to redeem the
situation is eventually annihilated.  HPB has more to say on this in other
parts of her writings.  If I come across them I'll post them here.

...Peter

FROM ISIS UNVEILED...

"When man leads a naturally pure, virtuous life, there is none whatever;
except delay in the world of spirits, until he finds himself sufficiently
purified to receive it from his Spiritual "Lord," one of the mighty Host.
But if otherwise, the "soul," as a half animal principle, becomes paralyzed,
and grows unconscious of its subjective half -- the Lord -- and in
proportion to the sensuous development of the brain and nerves, sooner or
later, it finally loses sight of its divine mission on earth. Like the
Vourdalak, or Vampire, of the Servian tale, the brain feeds and lives and
grows in strength and power at the expense of its spiritual parent. Then the
already half-unconscious soul, now fully intoxicated by the fumes of earthly
life, becomes senseless, beyond hope of redemption. It is powerless to
discern the splendor of its higher spirit, to hear the warning voice of its
"guardian Angel," and its "God." It aims but at the development and fuller
comprehension of natural, earthly life; and thus, can discover but the
mysteries of physical nature. Its grief and fear, hope and joy, are all
closely blended with its terrestrial existence. It ignores all that cannot
be demonstrated by either its organs of action, or sensation. It begins by
becoming virtually dead; it dies at last completely. It is annihilated. Such
a catastrophe may often happen long years before the final separation of the
life-principle from the body. When death arrives, its iron and clammy grasp
finds work with life as usual; but there is no more a soul to liberate. The
whole essence of the latter has been already absorbed by the vital system of
the physical man. Grim death frees but a spiritual corpse; at best an idiot.
Unable either to soar higher or awaken from lethargy, it is soon dissolved
in the elements of the terrestrial atmosphere.

"Seers, righteous men, who had attained to the highest science of the inner
man and the knowledge of truth, have, like Marcus Antoninus, received
instructions "from the gods," in sleep and otherwise. Helped by the purer
spirits, those that dwell in "regions of eternal bliss," they have watched
the process and warned mankind repeatedly. Skepticism may sneer; faith,
based on knowledge and spiritual science, believes and affirms.

"Our present cycle is preeminently one of such soul-deaths. We elbow
soulless men and women at every step in life."

 (ISIS UNVEILED II: 368-369)


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