more_ real _bliss and happiness_ there _than she does_ here,
_where all the conditions of evil and chance are against him.
To call the Devachan existence a "dream" in any other sense
than that of a conventional term, is to renounce for ever the
knowledge of the Esoteric Doctrine, the sole custodian of
truth._

"Dream" only in the sense that it is not of this plane of gross
matter, that it belongs not to the physical world.

Let us try and take a general view of the life of the Eternal Pilgrim,
the inner Man, the human Soul, during a cycle of incarnation. Before he
commences his new pilgrimage--for many pilgrimages lie behind him in the
past, during which he gained the powers which enable him to tread the
present one--he is a spiritual Being, but one who has already passed out
of the passive condition of pure Spirit, and who by previous experience
of matter in past ages has evolved intellect, the self-conscious mind.
But this evolution by experience is far from being complete, even so far
as to make him master of matter; his ignorance leaves him a prey to all
the illusions of gross matter, so soon as he comes into contact with it,
and he is not fit to be a builder of a universe, being subject to the
deceptive visions caused by gross matter--as a child, looking through a
piece of blue glass, imagines all the outside world to be blue. The
object of a cycle of incarnation is to free him from these illusions, so
that when he is surrounded by and working in gross matter he may retain
clear vision and not be blinded by illusion. Now the cycle of
incarnation is made up of two alternating states: a short one called
life on earth, during which the Pilgrim-God is plunged into gross
matter, and a comparatively long one, called life in Devachan, during
which he is encircled by subtle matter, illusive still, but far less