Category: The Key To Theosophy (1889): H. P. Blavatsky

"Enq:  Still, would it not be more correct to say that death is birth into a new life, or a return once more into eternity?   Theo:  You may if you like. Only remember that births differ, and that there are births of "still-born" beings, which are failures of nature. Moreover, with your Western fixed [...]

"Enq:  And still I cannot understand, if the life to come is based on justice and the merited retribution for all our terrestrial suffering, how in the case of materialists, many of whom are really honest and charitable men, there should remain of their personality nothing but the refuse of a faded flower.   Theo:  [...]

"Enq:  Thus, then, it seems that, for the terrestrial personality, immortality is still conditional. Is, then, immortality itself not unconditional?   Theo:  Not at all. But immortality cannot touch the non-existent: for all that which exists as SAT, or emanates from SAT, immortality and Eternity are absolute.   Matter is the opposite pole of spirit, [...]

"Enq:  But this does not explain to me, at all, why you call life after death immortal, infinite and real, and the terrestrial life a simple phantom or illusion; since even that post-mortem life has limits, however much wider they may be than those of terrestrial life.   Theo:  No doubt. The spiritual Ego of [...]

"Enq:  The materialist, disbelieving in everything that cannot be proven to him by his five senses, or by scientific reasoning, based exclusively on the data furnished by these senses in spite of their inadequacy, and rejecting every spiritual manifestation, accepts life as the only conscious existence.   Therefore according to their beliefs so will it [...]

"Enq:  But this takes us to another subject. Let us return to the materialist who, while not denying dreams, which he could hardly do, yet denies immortality in general and the survival of his own individuality.   Theo:  And the materialist, without knowing it, is right. One who has no inner perception of, and faith [...]

"Enq:  I have heard some Theosophists speak of a golden thread on which their lives were strung. What do you mean by this?   Theo:  In the Hindu Sacred books it is said that that which undergoes periodical incarnation in the Sutratma, which means literally the "Thread Soul". It is a synonym of the reincarnating [...]

"Enq:  Then the personal man must always go on suffering blindly the Karmic penalties which the Ego has incurred?   Theo:  Not quite so. At the solemn moment of death every man, even when death is sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before him, in its minutest details. For one short instant [...]

"Enq:  But if my Ego can, after the destruction of my body, become plunged in a state of entire unconsciousness, then where can be the punishment for the sins of my past life?   Theo:  Our philosophy teaches that Karmic punishment reaches the Ego only in its next incarnation. After death it receives only the [...]

"Enq:  Do I understand you to say that we must not mix in our minds the noumenon with the phenomenon, the cause with its effect?   Theo:  I do say so, and repeat that, limited to Manas or the human soul alone, the radiance of Taijasi itself becomes a mere question of time; because both [...]