If, now, the devachanic accretions preponderate, it floats to this zone, and remains until it has received its reward for, or rather exhausted the effects of, the altruistic and elevating thoughts and aspirations of its last life. If the Kama Loca deposits are in excess, there the consciousness remains until, having succeeded in separating itself from these, it rises to its devachanic stores; or, having none there, it again returns to earth and reincarnates, or slowly fades out upon this plane. But this preponderance of deposits does not mean simply an accurate physical or mental balancing of accounts - a casting up of a debtor and creditor column. If this were so, few, perhaps, would reach Devachan. But, just as the material attraction was greatly in excess during life, through the physical or sensuous connection, so now the spiritual forces at the upper pole exercise a correspondingly increased influence when no longer counterbalanced by the body; so much so that Devachan is the almost universal state of the human soul after death. For the personal consciousness, the "I am I," not to be drawn into the safety of Devachan means, as we hinted above, the most terrible fate for it - its utter and entire extinction.

Remember, the poles of our globe have more attributes than being merely higher and lower, or outer and inner. The great the all-important difference consists in that the one is eternal and everlasting, and the other mortal and impermanent. Therefore, we see but too plainly how that soul which has cultivated none but grossly material affinities during life will find itself overpoweringly drawn down into the abyss of matter and destruction at death. This is the true and esoteric meaning of the scriptural injunction to "lay up treasures in heaven."For the phrase, "Where a man's treasure is, there will his heart be also," has a real and awful significance when - read by the light of Theosophic teachings. Herein is found the explanation and meaning of that mysterious tenet running through all religions - the possibility of the eternal loss of the soul, which will be referred to later.

It might be supposed that, since most souls live to a great degree upon the plane of sensuous desires, thereby laying up treasures of a highly undesirable nature, yet, as they pass almost without exception into the devachanic state after death, the effects or karma of these evil acts were thus avoided. Not so. This is just the mistake that Christianity makes when it translates its repentant murderer from the gallows to eternal bliss, by means of its unphilosophical and unjust vicarious atonement. Theosophy commits no such blunder. As the soul, having experienced the spiritual effects of the spiritual causes set up while in the body, or, having received its devachanic reward, descends to reincarnate in another body, it meets and carries forward to the new account the unbalanced debt of evil, in the shape of the skandhas of its former life. It is these which, following the reincarnating soul into its new body, largely determine the selection of that body, through the law of karma. As Madame Blavatsky explains, in relation to these skandhas, or karmic results of evil acts : *

"They are destroyed as the working stock in hand of the personality; they remain as karmic effects or germs, hanging in the air of the terrestrial plane, ready to come to life as so many avenging fiends, to attach themselves to the new personality of the Ego when it reincarnates."

Thus we see the perfect justice and reasonableness of the The - osophic conception of these Post - mortem states, as well as why we are daily and hourly influencing and determining our future states, both in and out of our future bodies. The man who finds himself in a diseased or deformed body, or a member of a depraved family, can not, in the light of karma, charge it to accident, nor injustice, nor to carelessness nor indifference on the part of some god, but must recognize it as a result of these karmic "fiends" - these unexhausted causes created during his past incarnation - which, having been set up there, have followed him into the only plane where they could be satisfied - that of physical life.

After death has separated the soul from its body, what is it that enters Kama Loca, and what that enters Devachan? Man is constituted, as we have seen in its proper connection, of seven Principles, or vehicles for consciousness. To briefly recapitulate, these are: The physical body; its vitality, or Prana; the astral model of the physical body, or Linga Sharira; the passional center, or animal soul, common to man and the animals, called Kama; the human soul, or Manas, having a higher and a lower aspect; the spiritual soul, or Buddhi; and Atma, or pure spirit. The three latter form the upper spiritual Triad, or the true reincarnating Ego. The remaining four form that which is known as the lower, or material, Quaternary. At death the body returns to the matter, or "earth," from whence it came; the vitality, or Prana, rebe - comes one with its source - the Jiva, or One Life; the Astral Body, or Linga Sharira, slowly fades out, also returning to its source. The soul abandons these three Principles at once and forever when the body dies. But the consciousness still clings to Kama - is still, though deprived of kamic organs, kama - manasic, by reason of its long association with the body.

There are thus, immediately after death, five Principles, including the dual aspects of Manas, in Kama Loca, where at once a process of separation begins. The clamor of the senses is stilled; and, no new impetus being given to Kama, its vibrations cease gradually to command the Ego's attention, and the latter becomes slowly separated or freed from the influence of this vehicle. Until this separation is accomplished, Devachan is impossible. When it is, which may take from a few moments to many years, according as the relative strength of the material or the spiritual in the soul, the higher Triad, with all of the late personality worthy of immortality, enters Devachan as a Triad, leaving two more Principles, or vehicles to become skandhas in Kama Loca. Thus we see man has become from a septenary on earth, a Triad in Devachan; to rebecome a septenary upon his next reincarnation. In other words, the true man puts on a new body, just as he does here a new suit of clothes, only that the union is more intimate. It is as though one could not see without glasses, nor hear without a trumpet, etc., when all of these accessories would become part of his necessary clothing.

* Key to Theosophy.