As in actual earth-life, so there is for the Ego in Devachan — the first flutter of psychic life, the attainment of prime, the gradual exhaustion of force passing into semi-unconsciousness, gradual oblivion and lethargy, total oblivion and — not death but birth: birth into another personality, and the resumption of action which daily begets new congeries of causes, that must be worked out in another term of Devachan, and still another physical rebirth as a new personality. What the lives in Devachan and upon Earth shall be respectively in each instance is determined by Karma. And this weary round of birth upon birth must be ever and ever run through, until the being reaches the end of the seventh round, or — attains in the interim the wisdom of an Arhat, then that of a Buddha and thus gets relieved for a round or two, — having learned how to burst through the vicious circles — and to pass periodically into the Paranirvana.
But suppose it is not a question of a Bacon, a Gœthe, a Shelley, a Howard, but of some hum-drum person, some colourless, flaxless personality, who never impinged upon the world enough to make himself felt: what then? Simply that his devachanic state is as colourless and feeble as was his personality. How could it be otherwise since cause and effect are equal? But suppose a case of a monster of wickedness, sensuality, ambition, avarice, pride, deceit, etc., but who nevertheless has a germ or germs of something better, flashes of a more divine nature — where is he to go? The said spark smouldering under a heap of dirt will counteract, nevertheless, the attraction of the eighth sphere, whither fall but absolute nonentities; "failures of nature" to be remodelled entirely, whose divine monad separated itself from the five principles during their life-time, (whether in the next preceding or several preceding births, since such cases are also on our records), and who have lived as soulless human beings.218 These persons whose sixth principle has left them (while the seventh having lost its vahan (or vehicle) can exist independently no longer) their fifth or animal Soul of course goes down "the bottomless pit." This will perhaps make Eliphas Levi's hints still more clear to you, if you read over what he says, and my remarks on the margin, thereon (see Theosophist, October, 1881, Article "Death") and reflect upon the words used, such as drones, etc. Well, the first named entity then, cannot, with all its wickedness go to the eighth sphere — since his wickedness is of a too spiritual, refined nature. He is a monster — not a mere Soulless brute. He must not be simply annihilated but PUNISHED; for, annihilation, i.e. total oblivion, and the fact of being snuffed out of conscious existence, constitutes per se no punishment, and as Voltaire expressed it: "le néant ne laisse pas d'avoir du bon." Here is no taper-glimmer to be puffed out by a zephyr, but a strong, positive, maleficent energy, fed and developed by circumstances, some of which may have really been beyond his control. There must be for such a nature a state corresponding to Devachan, and this is found in Avitchi — the perfect antithesis of Devachan — vulgarized by the Western nations into Hell and Heaven, and which you have entirely lost sight of in your "Fragment." Remember: "To be immortal in good one must identify himself with Good (or God); to be immortal in evil — with evil (or Satan)." Misconceptions of the true value of such terms as "Spirit," "Soul," "individuality," "personality," and"immortality" (especially) — provoke wordy wars between a great number of idealistic debaters, besides Messrs. C.C.M. and Roden Noel. And, to complete your Fragment without risking to fall again under the mangling tooth of the latter honourable gentleman's criticism — I found it necessary to add to Devachan — Avitchi as its complement and applying to it the same laws as to the former. This is done, with your permission, in the Appendix.219
Having explained the situation sufficiently I may now answer your query No. 1 directly. Yes, certainly there is "a change of occupation," a continual change in Devachan, just as much — and far more — as there is in the life of any man or woman who happens to follow his or her whole life one sole occupation whatever it may be; with that difference, that to the Devachanee his special occupation is always pleasant and fills his life with rapture. Change then there must be, for that dream-life is but the fruition, the harvest-time of those psychic seed-germs dropped from the tree of physical existence in our moments of dreams and hopes, fancy-glimpses of bliss and happiness stifled in an ungrateful social soil, blooming in the rosy dawn of Devachan, and ripening under its ever fructifying sky. No failures there, no disappointments! If man had but one single moment of ideal happiness and experience during his life — as you think — even then, if Devachan exists, it could not be as you erroneously suppose, the indefinite prolongation of that "single moment," but the infinite developments, the various incidents and events, based upon, and outflowing from, that one "single moment" or moments, as the case may be; all in short that would suggest itself to the "dreamer's" fancy. That one note, as I said, struck from the lyre of life, would form but the Key-note of the being's subjective state, and work out into numberless harmonic tones and semi-tones of psychic phantasmagoria. There — all unrealized hopes, aspirations, dreams, become fully realized, and the dreams of the objective become the realities of the subjective existence. And there behind the curtain of Maya its vapours and deceptive appearances are perceived by the adept, who has learnt the great secret how to penetrate thus deeply into the Arcana of being.
Doubtless my question whether you had experienced monotony during what you consider the happiest moment of your life has entirely misled you. This letter, thus, is the just penance for my laziness to amplify the explanation.
Query (2) What cycle is meant?
The "minor cycle" meant is, of course, the completion of the seventh Round, as decided upon and explained. Besides that at the end of each of the seven rounds comes a less "full" remembrance; only of the devachanic experiences taking place between the numerous births at the end of each personal life. But the complete recollection of all the lives — (earthly and devachanic) omniscience — in short — comes but at the great end of the full seven Rounds (unless one had become in the interim a Bodhisatwa, an Arhat) — the "threshold" of Nirvana meaning an indefinite period. Naturally a man, a Seventh-rounder (who completes his earthly migrations at the beginning of the last race and ring) will have to wait longer at that threshold than one of the very last of those Rounds. That Life of the Elect between the minor Pralaya and Nirvana — or rather before the Pralaya — is the Great Reward, the grandest, in fact, since it makes of the Ego (though he may never have been an adept, but simply a worthy virtuous man in most of his existences) — virtually a God, an omniscient, conscious being, a candidate — for eternities of aeons — for a Dhyan Chohan.... Enough — I am betraying the mysteries of initiation. But what has NIRVANA to do with the recollections of objective existences? That is a state still higher and in which all things objective are forgotten. It is a State of absolute Rest and assimilation with Parabrahm — it is Parabrahm itself. Oh, for the sad ignorance of our philosophical truths in the West, and for the inability of your greatest intellects to seize the true spirit of those teachings. What shall we — what can we do!