But leaving aside disputes as to what may be to us "happiness" in a future separated from our present by millions of years, so that we are no more fitted now to formulate its conditions than is a child, playing with its dolls, to formulate the deeper joys and interests of its maturity, let us understand that, according to the teachings of the Esoteric Philosophy, the Devachani is surrounded by all he loved on earth, with pure affection, and the union being on the plane of the Ego, not on the physical plane, it is free from all the sufferings which would be inevitable were the Devachani present in consciousness on the physical plane with all its illusory and transitory joys and sorrows. It is surrounded by its beloved in the higher consciousness, but is not agonised by the knowledge of what they are suffering in the lower consciousness, held in the bonds of the flesh. According to the orthodox Christian view, Death is a separation, and the "spirits of the dead" wait for reunion until those they love also pass through Death's gateway, or--according to some--until after the judgment-day is over. As against this the Esoteric Philosophy teaches that Death cannot touch the higher consciousness of man, and that it can only separate those who love each other so far as their lower vehicles are concerned; the man living on earth, blinded by matter, feels separated from those who have passed onwards, but the Devachani, says H.P. Blavatsky, has a complete conviction "that there is no such thing as Death at all", having left behind it all those vehicles over which Death has power. Therefore, to its less blinded eyes, its beloved are still with it; for it, the veil of matter that separates has been torn away. A mother dies, leaving behind her little helpless children, whom she adores, perhaps a beloved husband also. We say that her "Spirit" or Ego--that individuality which is now wholly impregnated, for the entire Devachanic period, with the noblest feelings held by its late _personality, i.e._, love for her children, pity for those who suffer, and so on--is now entirely separated from the "vale of tears," that its future bliss consists in that blessed ignorance of all the woes it left behind ... that the _post-mortem_ spiritual consciousness of the mother will represent to her that she lives surrounded by her children and all those whom she loved; that no gap, no link will be missing to make her disembodied state the most perfect and absolute happiness.[36] And so again: