“Enq: I have heard you say that the Ego, whatever the life of the person he incarnated in may have been on Earth, is never visited with post mortem punishment.
Theo: Never, except in very exceptional and rare cases of which we will not speak here, as the nature of the “punishment” in no way approaches any of your theological conceptions of damnation.
Enq: But if it is punished in this life for the misdeeds committed in a previous one, then it is this Ego that ought to be rewarded also, whether here, or when disincarnated.
Theo: And so it is. If we do not admit of any punishment outside of this earth, it is because the only state the Spiritual Self knows of, hereafter, is that of unalloyed bliss.
Enq: What do you mean?
Theo: Simply this: crimes and sins committed on a plane of objectivity and in a world of matter, cannot receive punishment in a world of pure subjectivity.
We believe in no hell or paradise as localities; in no objective hell-fires and worms that never die, nor in any Jerusalems with streets paved with sapphires and diamonds.
What we believe in is a post mortem state or mental condition, such as we are in during a vivid dream.
We believe in an immutable law of absolute Love, Justice, and Mercy. And believing in it, we say: “Whatever the sin and dire results of the original Karmic transgression of the now incarnated Egos no man (or the outer material and periodical form of the Spiritual Entity) can be held, with any degree of justice, responsible for the consequences of his birth. He does not ask to be born, nor can he choose the parents that will give him life.
(It is on this transgression that the cruel and illogical dogma of the Fallen Angels has been built. It is explained in Vol. II. of the Secret Doctrine.
All our “Egos” are thinking and rational entities (Manas-putras) who had lived, whether under human or under forms, in the precedent life-cycle (Manvantara), and whose Karma it was to incarnate in the man of this one.
It was taught in the MYSTERIES that, having delayed to comply with this law (or having “refused to create” as Hinduism says of the Kumaras and Christian legend of the Archangel Michael), i.e., having failed to incarnate in due time, the bodies predestined for them got defiled (Vide Stanzas VIII. and IX. in the “Slokas of Dzyan”, Vol. II. Secret Doctrine, pp. 19 and 20), hence the original sin of the senseless forms and the punishment of the Egos.
That which is meant by the rebellious angels being hurled down into Hell is simply explained by these pure Spirits or Egos being imprisoned in bodies of unclean matter, flesh.)
In every respect he is a victim to his environment, the child of circumstances over which he has no control; and if each of his transgressions were impartially investigated, there would be found nine out of every ten cases when he was the one sinned against, rather than the sinner.
Life at its best a heartless play, a stormy sea to cross, and a heavy burden often too difficult to bear.
The greatest philosophers have tried in vain to fathom and find out its raison’d’etre, and have all failed except those who had the key to it, namely, the Eastern sages.
Life is , as Shakespeare describes it:
“….but a walking shadow – a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then he is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing….”
Nothing in its separate parts, yet of the greatest importance in its collectivity or series of lives.
At any rate, almost every individual life is, in its full development, a sorrow. And are we to believe that poor, helpless man, after being tossed about like a piece of rotten timber on the angry billows of life, is, if he proves too weak to resist them, to be punished by a sempiternity of damnation, or even a temporary punishment?
Never! Whether a great or an average sinner, good or bad, guilty or innocent, once delivered of the burden of physical life, the tired and worn-out Manu (“thinking Ego”) has won the right to a period of absolute rest and bliss.
The same unerringly wise and just rather than merciful Law, which inflicts upon the incarnated Ego the Karmic punishment for every sin committed during the preceding life on Earth, provided for the now disembodied Entity a long lease of mental rest, i.e., the entire oblivion of every sad event, aye, to the smallest painful thought, that took place in its last life as a personality, leaving in the soul-memory but the reminiscence of that which was bliss, or led to happiness.
Plotinus, who said that our body was the true river of Lethe, for “souls plunged into it forget all”, meant more than he said. For as our terrestrial body is like Lethe, so is our celestial body in Devachan, and much more.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 