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231 be,—though the enlightened consciousness which can roam still higher levels will regard the deeper illusions of the physical plane—where the mask of flesh and blood is mistaken for the true individuality, and none but the things which are evanescent are thought of as real,—as a point of view from which it is strangely inappropriate that the relatively durable illusions of the Devachanic vision should be treated as deceptive. Let us now take one step in advance in contemplat- ing the possibilities of the spiritual plane for those who in due time awaken there after death in the usual way. Of course Devachan for them is not a condition of active energy or work. If the persons we are now concerned with are so filled with philanthropic impulse that they might not—from the earth point of view—be able to conceive a State of happiness that did not involve doing good in some way to others, so beautiful an attribute in their natures will in due time assert itself, and may even tend to bring thein back more quickly than would otherwise be the case to the incarnate life which is the only possible sphere of activity for them, until they attain heights of spiritual evolution to be considered later on. But though, if asked the question, it may be that they would have been willing to sacrifice the personal bliss of Heaven in order to go on uninter- mittently being useful to their fellow creatures, Nature does not hurriedly accept that sacrifice. We are assum- ing that, though of a very elevated and generous character, they are still in the current of normal evolution, and for all such persons death is the intro- duction to a period of rest and happiness. Whether 232 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. they demand it or not, the reward, or an instalment of the reward, of their good and meritorious lives is served out to them; and if from the earth point of view they would fancy, as I have said, that happiness would not be happiness unless associated with continuous effort for others, that impression is merely due to their insufficient comprehension of the conditions of existence on the spiritual plane. It would be impossible but that such persons as we are now thinking of would have many capacities of emotion which Nature, working with the boundless resources, in that direction, of Heaven, would take advantage of, so to speak, to make them thoroughly happy during the period of their Spiritual repose. And now, still keeping to the aspect of the spiritual plane which presents itself to the normal soul getting into that state of consciousness after death, let us contemplate the zniterest of the Heavenly condition, —to fall back on that convenient and familiar phrase, —as related to the opportunities it affords to the soul thirsting for knowledge. Such a soul, to begin with, has all the resources of the astral light to draw upon. Just as the thought of the spiritual Ego directed towards a beloved friend in life evokes that friend as a living reality before the creative thinker, so does the attention turned towards any events or phenomena of the past evoke their living pictures from the all- embracing memory of Nature. And this would apply not merely to historical scenes or remote periods of geological development, but to the essential truths which scientific research gropes after. It is true indeed THE SPIRITUAL PLANE. 233 that our aspirations towards knowledge often in life take daring flights, and we set ourselves problems which the resources even of the Devachanic plane are inadequate to satisfy. We must always remember that the spiritual plane we are considering is the spiritual plane of this world. One of the mistakes of uninstructed imagination dealing with the conception of Heaven is a mistake of incoherent thinking. From the earth life belonging to this present stage of human evolution, the soul is imagined as slipping at once into a Heaven which is thought of as a homogeneous Heaven for the whole cosmos, in which we are all to be in the presence of and sharing the omniscience of absolute Divinity. Occult science dealing with the facts of Nature, which it is in a position to probe, interprets for us the spiritual plane of this world into which most assuredly the souls of people dying on this world do actually pass, existing there for such and such periods and then as certainly returning to incarnation on earth. It perceives there- fore the absurdity of the notion that, the tmmedtate Heaven of humanity is either co-extensive with the universe or designed for eternity. Within the limits of eternity who shall say what heights may not be reached, what realms of existence and consciousness touched ? The real occultist is as careful to avoid dogmatic denials as the real scientist to steer clear of those intellectual pitfalls. But just as the real scientist avows that a great deal lies beyond his ken, and contents himself with affirmations concerning what knowledge he can reach, so exactly with occult science. The observer who is adequately gifted can actually get into relation 234 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. with the spiritual plane of the earth, and can there recognise the souls of men who have lived and died existing under the conditions I am in course of describ- ing. He can understand and appreciate that plane as entering into the great scheme of human evolution, as constituting the reality which is dimly reached after by those people who aspire to the joys of Heaven, and as most certainly responding with abundant success to the cravings for happiness which are associated with those aspirations. But so also does the real occultist know that many fancies concerning Heaven which have possessed the imagination of men are, to say the least, premature, while some others of course are grotesque and nonsensical. The realities of human growth and evolution and of human experience, whether in or out of the body, are always concerned with gradual transitions, however infinite may be the horizon of possibility stretching on in the remote distance. Let it not be supposed that because the Heaven which human beings of this present race enjoy when they rest for a while between two incarnations, is subject to limitations, spiritual progress beyond these limitations is for ever denied to mankind. The entanglements of modern thought on such subjects have largely arisen from the way modern culture has forgotten the great law of Re-incarnation, which makes a long series of lives play the part in Nature erroneously assigned by popular notions to one such life. The spiritual plane of the world on which human beings, such as we are now, may exist, and on which they will in that case enjoy the most intense felicity their minds THE SPIRITUAL PLANE. 235 are capable of imagining for ten or twenty centuries between each incarnation, may be looked back upon as a mere resting-place from the point of view of a higher consciousness to be attained in some remote future, or indeed from the point of view which some exalted souls, greatly hastening the normal process, have already attained. But the truth of the matter is that if, when the design of Nature is correctly described, people who are used to thinking that the Heaven to which they will pass after death is co-exten- sive with the universe, are inclined to be discontented on that account with the prospect actually before them, their discontentment can only be due to an imperfect understanding of the relations between their own present consciousness and infinity. The child that puts out its hand to grasp at the moon is a feeble illustration of that miscalculation of their own spiritual range, which leads some incarnate thinkers to imagine that nothing will satisfy them after death but all the spiritual potentialities the cosmos contains. And these reflections bring me back to the case of the soul who, even on the spiritual plane of which I have been speaking, may be aware of aspirations towards an even higher knowledge than its resources may provide for. Within the limits of the spiritual Heaven, which is still no more than the spiritual aspect of this world, there are many widely differing ranges of condition. The state I have been endeavouring to describe, in which the resources of the spiritual plane respond to the ordinary human thirst for happiness by providing the vivid consciousness of all desired com- 236 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. panionships and the opportunities of an almost bound- less expansion of knowledge, is after all but the first stage of the spiritual life. It is a stage which so entirely suffices for the normal condition of human conscious- ness that great myriads of people can never be capable of an aspiration beyond it. But for those whose latent aspirations have been highly spiritualised during the earth life the spiritual plane will gradually reveal possibilities beyond its own first stage. The soul may spend centuries bathed in the rapture of that first stage, but the latent craving for an even purer condi- tion of spiritual consciousness may eventually assert itself. And the perception of the soul will then be wakened to the fact that in advance, as it were, of the bright light in which it exists, there is a brighter light shining, the mysteries of which may be explored. In this way, although the spiritual plane is not a region of Nature with which effort or struggle is com- patible, the old efforts and internal struggles of the earth life will have invested the soul with an onward impulse, which provides for a conscious progress within the spiritual realm.