the nutriment on which it has to feed. Hence the enormous importance
of the earth-life, _the field of sowing, the place where experience is
to be gathered_. It conditions, regulates, limits, the growth of the
Soul; it yields the rough ore which the Soul then takes in hand, and
works upon during the devachanic stage, smelting it, forging it,
tempering it, into the weapons it will take back with it for its next
earth-life. The experienced Soul in Devachan will make for itself a
splendid instrument for its next earth-life; the inexperienced one
will forge a poor blade enough; but in each case the only material
available is that brought from earth. In Devachan the Soul, as it
were, sifts and sorts out its experiences; it lives a comparatively
free life, and gradually gains the power to estimate the earthly
experiences at their real value; it works out thoroughly and
completely as objective realities all the ideas of which it only
conceived the germ on earth. Thus, noble aspiration is a germ which
the Soul would work out into a splendid realisation in Devachan, and
it would bring back with it to earth for its next incarnation that
mental image, to be materialised on earth when opportunity offers and
suitable environment presents itself. For the mind sphere is the
sphere of creation, and earth only the place for materialising the
pre-existent thought. And the soul is as an architect that works out
his plans in silence and deep meditation, and then brings them forth
into the outer world where his edifice is to be builded; out of the
knowledge gained in his past life, the Soul draws his plans for the
next, and he returns to earth to put into objective material form the
edifices he has planned. This is the description of a Logos in
creative activity:

Whilst Brahmâ formerly, in the beginning of the Kalpas, was
meditating on creation, there appeared a creation beginning