Theosophy - There is No Death: a message of comfort by Clara M.Codd
THERE
IS NO DEATH ΔΔ
A MESSAGE
OF COMFORT
by CLARA
M. CODD
Nay,
but as when one layeth
His
worn-out robes away,
And,
taking new ones, sayeth,
"These
will I wear today!"
So putteh
by the spirit
Lightly
its garb of flesh,
And
passeth to inherit
A residence
afresh
-The
Song Celestial
A
COMFORTING IN TRUTH
THE WORLD
OF THE SOUL
THE WITHDRAWAL
OF CONSCIOUSNESS
THE GATEWAY OF SLEEP
THE AWAKENING
THE CREATIVE POWER OF THOUGHT
CHILDREN AFTER DEATH
PSYCHOLOGICAL STATES
OUR DESIRES AND THOUGHTS
THE REALM OF THE SPIRIT
GATEWAYS INTO HEAVEN
THE ANGELIC ORDERS
OUR GROWTH LIFE AFTER LIFE
ETERNAL TRUTHS
THOUGHTS OF COMFORT AND JOY
THE INVISIBLE WORLDS
A
COMFORTING IN TRUTH
One
of the most wonderful and comforting truths which the Ancient Wisdom brings
to us is the fact there is in reality no death anywhere in the Universe.
Nothing ever ceases to exist, it but changes its state. In the words of the
poet Longfellow:
"There
is no death,
What seems so is transition"
And
because in his deepest heart man has really known this all the time, he has
an ineradicable conviction that he cannot finally be separated from those he
loves, and that they will surely meet again. That is a true impression. We may
lay it down as an eternal axiom that what a man loves he can never, never lose.
"But"
you will say, "my beloved one lies cold and still. Presently that dear
body will crumble away. Where is she? How can I be sure that I shall ever see
her again?"
Perhaps
the first thing to realise is that she is not that body. That was only the clothing
of her soul. She put it on through the gateway of birth, in order to come into
touch with this wonderful order of experience we call life, although,in reality,
other orders of experience are even more fully life than this one. Many poets
and sages have had that idea. Plato says that we are "buried" in graves
of bodies to set right our mistakes of a former life. And Walt Whitman writes:
"Haply I the dead man, I the dreamer."
The
very word "body" comes from an Anglo-Saxon word bodig, from which
we get the word "abode", which means the dwelling-place. As is said
in the Christian Scriptures: "For here have we no continuing city, but
we seek one to come." Arnold Bennett calls the body the human machine.
Because it is a living thing, with a dim, elemental life of its own, the term
of St.Francis, "brother ass," is better. Genesis calls it the "coat
of skin," and yet another definition is the school-uniform. We come to
this life, seemingly without any volition of our own, to gain, through the experiences
of this material world, the food of our soul's growth. When we leave it again
we go to a rest time of the spirit, and are for a long time freed from the cares
and troubles of earth life.
THE
WORLD OF THE SOUL
Where
do we go? Above the sky? The popular conception is that heaven is above and
hell beneath. No, heaven is not beyond the stars, but here and now, all around
us, as our Jesus taught. He said it was "within". That means an
inner, subtler order of matter, not physical at all, yet full of form and
colour, surrounding and permeating this familiar world.
Occultists
tell us that all forms of matter exist in several degrees of density. We can
convert water into ice and again into steam. Science postulates somewhere an
invisible world of protons and electrons, similar in idea to our sun with its
circle of planets. They are not static, but incredibly alive, and moving with
unimaginable speed. What kind of space are they moving through? A much finer,
subtler order of matter than that of our world, more fluidic, luminous, vivid,
so shining a world that mediaeval writers called it "Astral" or starry.
And this luminous world interpenetrates and surrounds our physical world.
This
is the world of the soul. Most of us believe we have a soul, but we cannot say
what it looks like or where exactly it is. Again the derivation of the word
will help us. It comes from the Greek word psyche, which gives us the words
psychic and psychology. Psychical research and psychology in the West are modern
sciences, but in the East they are very old. The one endeavours to explore the
world of the soul from the standpoint of matter or form- as Sir Oliver Lodge
prophesied the science of the coming centuries would do- to see if it has form
and colour, can be photographed, and so on. The other explores the world of
the soul from the standpoint of its powers of consciousness, of feeling and
thought. Today no one would deny that thought is a very mighty power, a subtle
wireless that is in action all the time.
So the
soul is the thinking, feeling self, which thinks and feels after death even
more vividly than before. Can we think without a brain, or feel without nerves?
Much better. Our brain and nerve cells are only like the keys of a piano to
the musician. The music is in his soul, but he needs the instrument to show
something of what that music is.
St.
Paul classified man as a trinity,having a body, a soul, and a spirit. These
last two are not interchangeable terms, for they are quite different words in
the Greek original. The word "spirit" is a translation of the Greek
word pneuma, Latin spiritus. It means the pristine "breath of life."
It is subtle, pure, divine. God breathed into physical and psychical man the
breath of life and be became a living, immortal Self, sharing for evermore the
underlying, eternal life of the Universe. This is where every son of man is
also and forever a Son of the Most High, a heritage he can never forego. We
can only approach the thought of it by symbology and allegory. St.Peter calls
it "the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible."
St.Paul calls it "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Jesus was even
more explicit, when He said, "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye
are gods?" quoting King David, who wrote: "Ye are gods; and all of
you are children of the most High." After death, slowly the best of our
life's experiences are sublimated and taken up into that hidden, divine consciousness,
causing it also to grow and develop. Thus, we shed the clothing of the body,
and live at first the life of the soul, finally teaching the glorious and completely
blissful life of the freed spirit.
THE
WITHDRAWAL OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Let
us try to picture the life of each state. First of all the process of dying.
It must come to all, but death is a friend,never to be feared but welcomed.
The hour of death is known on the other side, and one ever passes over who
is not met by someone he knows who has preceded him. During life here, our
consciousness is turned outwards, contacting life's experiences. When the
time to leave approaches, the consciousness withdraws and begins to turn
inwards. Sometimes a dying person will ask for the lights to be turned up,
or will say that the room is receding. Quite often,too, as the other side
draws near,the one who is passing will begin to discern the people or the
scenery upon that other side. A dying Irish soldier said to his nurse: "Sister,look
at all these lovely ladies." They would look like that to him, for he
was seeing the Land of the Ever-Young, where matter is luminous and radiant.
Then,
as the consciousness draws ever more inwards, a very wonderful and important
thing takes place. In our ordinary waking consciousness we seem to have forgotten
so many of the daily events of life, but that is not really so. In the deeper
parts of ourselves nothing is ever forgotten, and as a man passes to life on
the other side, he seems to pass quickly through the halls of his own memory.
It is as if, leaving the arena of life,the man looks back, and in birdseye view
sees that life as a whole, where he succeeded and where he failed. Then, as
the soul leaves the body the consciousness for a short time passes into deep
sleep, during which the psychic body, which, during life, permeated and surrounded
the physical sheath, is adjusted to an independent existence upon the other
side.
THE
GATEWAY OF SLEEP
Although
most of us do not realise it, whilst we are in the body we nightly leave
it through the gateway of sleep,which is the same portal as the gateway of
death. "How wonderful is sleep," writes Shelley, "sleep and
his brother, death." To die is indeed but to fall asleep for the last
time in this incarnation. But, whilst we live, we are still connected with
our bodies whilst we sleep by a shining magnetic thread which instantaneously
recalls the man to wakefulness if his body is touched. At death this connecting
link is broken and so return is no more possible. Does this not recall to
memory the words of Ecclesiastes: "or ever the silver cord be loosed." Thus,
the world which he now enters is not a wholly unfamiliar world, for he has
traversed some of it before, during the sleep of his body.
"Is
the dying person conscious of all this?" we may ask. "What about what
is called the death struggle?" This is only the physical muscles ceasing
to function. The person himself is unaware of it. He is occupied with that unfolding
picture of his past life, and this may go on in his consciousness even after
his body has ceased to breathe. A dying person should never be disturbed or
troubled. Watch his passing with peace and affectionate solicitude. An ancient
Tibetan scripture tells us to sit beside him and whisper loving words, for although
his ears may not hear, his soul will hear.
THE
AWAKENING
The
period of unconsciousness into which a man passes after death does not generally
last very long, although this depends upon personal factors. With most it
is about thirty-six hours. Then the man wakes to a shining, restful world,
and the first thing he will see will be some of those who have preceded him.
They will have come to meet him. At one time, in Australia,the writer used
to broadcast these ideas, and letters came in from all over the southern
hemisphere. A doctor in New Zealand wrote that one night he was called out
to a lonely station, or farm, kept by a very old couple. When he got there
the old man was already dead. He had died with arms outstretched. His wife,commenting
on this, said: "Oh! sir, we once had a daughter who died when she was
seventeen, and just before he passed my husband declared he saw her,and held
out his arms towards her,saying: 'I am coming, Mary, wait for me'.
What
kind of life had he now entered upon? It will be a little difficult to describe,for
we all naturally picture it in earthly terms, and that is not quite the case.
Let us put it this way. We cannot carry over there anything which belongs to
this earthly life alone,such as wealth we have amassed, celebrity we have gained,
or the pleasures of the body,such as eating and drinking or sex sensation as
such,for we are now living in a world and in a form of matter where these things
are no longer particularly real. But all that which belongs to us as a soul,
as a feeling, thinking self, goes with us and is enormously enhanced and enlarged.
All intellectual delights, all true love of others,all pure religious aspiration,love
of beauty and truth, these upon the other side build a very lovely and wonderful
life for the man who has for the time left this vale of tears.
Another
thing to be remembered is that psychic matter has its own laws and conditions,
and they are not the same as those of physical matter. For instance, psychic
matter is unaffected by heat or cold. Therefore our soul bodies do not feel
either. But thought and feeling are much more vivid and clear than when we had
to set in motion the heavy particles of the physical brain and nerve cells.
Time and space valuations are different, too. What a person thinks of is immediately
before him. What he loves is at his side.
THE
CREATIVE POWER OF THOUGHT
Do
we wear clothes, eat food, and live in houses? Yes, but the clothes and the
houses are not woven or built. They are the creation of men's thoughts and
imaginations,for there thought and desire are mighty creative forces,as indeed
they are here also. Like congregates with like, builds churches,concert halls,
laboratories, and other buildings. There is no longer any need for food and
drinks, for he psychic body requires neither. If we carry over a great attachment
to meals we shall create their semblance,but we shall soon lose the habit.
The ancient Celts called this plane the Land of the Ever-Young, because psychic
matter is unaffected by fatigue, disease, or old age. These belong to the
discipline of life here, and when we die we lose them for the time being.
No one there is a cripple, or diseased, or ever gets tired. What a relief
for those who have dragged out a weary existence on a sickbed, or through
a hard life! Would we call them back? Some may say that they have seen a
spirit photograph of an old mother or grandmother, and that there they still
look old. Let us remember the tremendous power of thought and imagination
there. If we have carried over the thought that we are old, we shall still
continue to look so until we have lost the habit. Sometimes a man carries
over the thought that he is old and tired. Then he will rest until he, too,
has lost that.
There
was a man who had been an invalid nearly all his life. But he was a very beautiful
character and many people loved him. When he died it seemed to him at first
that he was surrounded by a most restful, comforting atmosphere. This was really
formed by all the loving thoughts and prayers which were coming from those left
on earth who had loved him.
Perhaps
we do not realise that our loved ones,passed on, are never out of reach of our
thoughts and our prayers. Do not forget them. Pray for them, for in that more
subtle world these loving forces are veritable guardian angels to those passed
on.
A British
General, who had been a man of very evil life,found himself after death in a
most unhappy condition. His own sins and evil thoughts had created a dark world
for him. The first ray of light came to him when someone on earth remembered
him with love and compassion and prayed for him. He found his way to brighter
realms by following that gleam.
We should
try not to be too grief-stricken when our dear ones go, for sometimes excessive
grief will weave a cloud round us and prevent us from truly contacting our lost
one, either here in thought, or when we leave our own body temporarily at night.
A mother used to pass over every night surrounded by a thick cloud of grief,
for she had lost her little girl to whom she was completely devoted. The child
ran to meet her,but at first the thick cloud prevented the mother from seeing
her. Then a helper dissipated the cloud and the mother held the child in her
arms.
When
we pass out of the body at night we do not take our brains with us, and unless
those brains are very sensitive and well controlled it will be difficult to
make them register experiences they have not shared. But most of us have had
the experience of waking in the morning with a sense of peace and comfort, or
perhaps with a vivid dream. The psychology of dreams is a very complex matter,
and most dreams are not true memories. But fragments do come through markedly
an extraordinary vividness,for life there is so much more life than it is here.
CHILDREN
AFTER DEATH
Do
children remain young there? As time goes on they grow up and approach a
kind of ageless maturity. Some will wonder how we shall recognise them. We
do not really recognise people by the shape of their faces. In the soul world
recognition is so quick and full that no one ever fails to find another.
If they have died at a very young age, before the divine Ego has taken complete
control, and the Guardian Angel has resigned matters into his hands, generally
about the age of six or seven years, they may come back quickly, and quite
often comes back to the same parents. There are several cases of this known.
And
what do we do in the psychic world? Many things. We no longer have to earn our
living. No one can starve or be deprived of anything he needs. So a man has
the opportunity, perhaps for the first time, to turn his attention to what has
always interested him, but for which he never had time on earth. Suppose we
love music or literature, especially one particular composer or author. Our
thoughts and interest will lead us into touch with him upon the other side.
Women who loved little children and never had any of their own, become foster-mothers
to troops of happy children. For of all people children are the happiest upon
the other side, for this is the land where they can really "make-believe".
And at night their own mothers find them, too, through the gateway of sleep.
Doctors no longer minister to sick bodies, but there are many sick souls who
call out their compassion and sympathy.
PSYCHOLOGICAL
STATES
What
of the orthodox teachings about heaven and hell? Are there such places? There
are no places called heaven and hell, but there are psychological states
which may be thus described. There certainly is no eternal hell. That terrible
idea came into Christianity when the old truth of the cyclic return of the
soul to earth was lost and so man was forced into the illogical position
of positing unending results upon fleeting and finite causes. Heaven and
hell can be experienced whilst still in the body. The evil, selfish man is
in hell, the saint in heaven. The very derivation of the words will give
us the clue. Heaven means illimitable expansion; hell means cut off, isolated,
in prison. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word which is sometimes translated
as hell is just as often translated as a pit or grave. And in the New Testament
the word most often translated as hell is the Greek word hades, which merely
means the unseen, the invisible. All hells are psychological and are created
by a man whilst he lives, but none of them are eternal and everlasting.
The
whole principle of the after-life can be put in this way. Here we live an objective
life,surrounded by the objects of the physical plane. But inwardly we live a
subjective life which really means much more to us, formed of memories, hopes,
ideals and longings. The more evolved a man is, which is the same as saying
that he is the richer in soul, the more wonderful, varied and rich becomes that
inward life. After death that which was a dim, subjective world becomes a very
vivid and objective existence. A great Adept once phrased it like this: Man
is constantly peopling his current in space with a world of his own, crowded
with the offspring of his fancies, desires, impulses, passions. This interior
world becomes increasingly an exterior one after death.
OUR
DESIRES AND THOUGHTS
There
is another thing to be remembered. Because a man has died, his character
has not suddenly undergone any change. He is still the same man, with the
same desires and thoughts. Supposing that whilst upon earth they have been
mostly fixed on sensual enjoyments, or on thoughts of cruelty and revenge,
with the loss of his physical body these sentiments will glow with added
fervour in his subtler form, but the instrument with which they may be gratified
will be gone. He will be tortured by his own unholy desires which he cannot
gratify. Seers, seeing this condition, and using allegorical language to
describe non-physical states, may speak of such a man as "burning in
the flames of hell." But, after a while, these flames, if they remain
unfed, and he man does not discover a medium through whom he can vicariously
gratify them, will die down and the man will find his consciousness opening
out into a much more beautiful region of the Universe. The memory of them,
however, will persist into his new life on earth,speaking to him s the voice
of conscience.
Jesus
called these states prisons. During an evil life, a man has been weaving around
himself, although he does not realise it, a web of unholy thoughts and desires,
and these will hold him prisoner for a while after death. The writer once saw
such a case herself. She was in America at the time, and it was the day after
the execution of a woman for the murder of her husband. When the writer awoke
in the morning,there was the woman before her, wringing her hands and wailing,
"Why must I die?" As sometimes happens after death,she did not seem
to realise that she was what we call dead. All around her, built by her own
subconscious thought processes, were the scenes of the murder, the trial and
the execution, and she went through them again and again. Feeling desperately
sorry for her, the writer put her arms around her, but nothing she could do
or say seemed able to enter the consciousness of he murderess, who remained
totally unaware of anyone but herself. So a more experienced helper was sought
to come and deliver her. Intense selfishness weaves a thick cloud round a man
which isolates him for a time. But, for the vast majority of us, kindly, decent
people, no such fate awaits us after death, only release and peace.
The
worst of men have something beautiful in them and that beauty will at last bring
them through a temporary purgatory to happiness and peace. For heaven is the
final and ultimate home of every son of man who is yet for ever also the Son
of the Most High. The trend after death is all towards our truer and diviner
selves, and their habitant is in heaven. The man whose heart is open to all
life with love and compassion is in a heaven of happiness even whilst he still
lives here. All that which is beautiful, true and good,we take back with us
to our eternal selves after death, and in the light of that purer world, life's
experiences take on their true meaning. To some the transition to that heavenly
world comes very soon indeed. To all it comes some time, even if only for a
short while. The psychic world is fashioned by the merely personal in us, good
or bad. The glories of heaven open out before us when we rise purified from
our too little and too selfish conceptions of life.
THE
REALM OF THE SPIRIT
We
now approach in thought a realm of being so glorious,so instinct with unearthly
joy, that it can only be described by the figurative language of symbology.
A great seer has thus described it: "A sea of living light, surrounded
by every conceivable variety of loveliness in colour and form- the whole
changing with every wave of thought that a man sends out from his mind, and
being indeed, s he presently discovers, only the expression of his thought
in the matter of the plane. There is no loveliness in earth or sky or sea
which is not there with a fulness and intensity beyond all power of imagination;
but out of all this splendour of living reality each man sees only that which
he has within himself the power to see."
Wordsworth
says in his Laodomia:
"He
spake of love, such loves as Spirits feel
in worlds whose course is equable and pure,
No fears to beat away- no strife to heal-
The past unsighted for, and the future sure;
Spake of heroic arts in graver mood
Revived, with finer harmony pursued;
Of all
that is most beauteous- imaged there
In happier beauty; more pellucid streams,
An ampler ether, a diviner air,
And fields invested with purpureal gleams;
Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day
Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey.
Again
the Scriptures in Revelations describe the same thing. "And God shall wipe
away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow,
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain....And there shall in nowise
enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination,
or maketh a lie."
GATEWAYS
INTO HEAVEN
We
may say that there are four gateways into heaven, or, in another symbology,
that there are four seeds which men sow whilst living, some one only,others
more than one, which flower and ripen in the air of heaven, and make a wonderful
compensation for all the trials and troubles of life. It is indeed the rest
time of the human spirit, but it is also a time of great assimilation and
growth.
1- The
seed of the love of friends and relations. Not the selfish, too personal love
which finds its fulfilment upon the physical plane, but that selfless love which
desires above all the good and happiness of loved ones. There a man finds himself
surrounded by everyone he has ever loved. There will not be one missing. Even
if one should still be wearing a physical body, his spirit will be there, and
that is so much more responsive and glorious than when it is trying to shine
through the mask of a physical body In that world no words are necessary. What
a man would say is known and completely understood by his friends. Down here
we so often cannot express truly what we think and feel. Too often words lead
astray and are misunderstood. There, that is not possible. It is truly the plane
of the communion of spirit, where all who love are one. And only the highest
of each is there, that which can never give pain or disappointment.
2- The
seed of the love of God. This denotes the religious temperament. Not everyone
has it. But where it is truly selfless and loyal it creates a veritable heaven
for the devotee. For, although he probably never realised it, through his devotion
and constant thought of a Divine Ideal during life, he had built a radiant form
through which, after death and even during life,the Great Original could bless
and instruct and come into communion with His worshipper.
Thus
to the lovers of the Buddha and Jesus, These will be with Their worshippers
during the heaven life in the very forms in which They were always pictured.
The devotee has built the form,but the Spirit of the Great One ensouls and uses
it. There was once a little Salvation Army Captain who lived a rather lonely
life. But he never felt lonely, for his whole soul was caught up in continual
adoration of the Lord Jesus. He, in heaven, will come into glowing contact with
his Lord.
3- The
seed of the love of Man. Some are always looking upwards to the One; others
more naturally look downwards over the many. It is only another way of loving
the One. The man who during life gave himself wholeheartedly to the service
of his fellowmen, will find, after death, that he will come into contact with
those greatest servants of humanity, the freed men, the Perfected Souls, those
who were once men s we are, but who have long ago left the School of the World,
and yet remains near it that They may still help and serve Their younger brethren.
The result will be that the man who loves his fellowmen will come back to earth
with wider knowledge and greater power to help.
4- The
seed of the love of Truth and Beauty. This makes the sage or the artist of whatever
degree of development. The scientist or philosopher is really seeking Truth,
the innate laws of the Universe, the Will of God. There in heaven he sees it
working in a wide, untrammelled vision, there he learns to understand and to
adore. When he returns to earth he will bring back something of that heavenly
vision, and this will cause him to search for it et again here. But never down
here will he see, in all its pristine fulness, that which stirs his heart with
an almost unconscious memory.
THE
ANGELIC ORDERS
The
special companions of the artist, even when alive,though he knew it not,
are the natural priests of the Beautiful, the Angels- or, as the East calls
them, the Devas. The word Devas means literally The Shining Ones, the name
John Bunyan also gave them. They are not human, nor does a human being become
an angel. Each belongs to a different line of evolution. The Deva does not
know sorrow and sin and pain. Perhaps his way is a longer one because of
this. His way is the way of joy and peace, and his characteristic influence
is one of joy and upliftment. Man becomes a mangod,a Perfected Man, and,
as Eliphas Levi puts it, "Is above and commands even the angels." Does
this not remind us of the text in Hebrew: "Thou madest him a little
lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour."
The
unseen presence of the deva hosts brings their special atmosphere of beauty
and joy. For instance,to the musically sensitive, organ music in a church, or
the playing of a great orchestra,brings solace and peace and upliftment. The
hall or church is invisibly surrounded by angelic hosts who have come in response
to the music. One investigator into the unseen came across a little boy in the
heaven world who during earth life had been a chorister in one of the great
Minsters of England. He often sang the solos in the Cathedral , and opposite
his stall in the choir was a narrow window with a picture of St. Cecilia, the
patron Saint of music. As he sang Sunday after Sunday,the stained glass of St
Cecilia grew living and real to the imagination of the boy, and he sang to her.
His thought created her form,but the form was ensouled by a great angel of music,
called in the East a Gandharva, or Heavenly Singer. When that child returns
to earth, his musical capacity will have been greatly increased.
OUR
GROWTH LIFE AFTER LIFE
That
is how we all grow, life after life, followed by after-life upon after-life-
grow in capacity, in power to love, in spirituality. So life is never in
vain, however hard it may be. Could we not stay there for ever? For hundreds
of years, as we count time on this side, we shall rest in that blissful state,
and then the thirst for sentient existence will arise again in us, and will
bring us back once more to this order of existence. To use a rough simile;
food is the means of growth for our physical bodies. It does not take long
to eat a meal, but i ttakes several hours to assimilate it, and the it becomes
the physical man. Life's experiences are the food of our soul's growth. We
may be threescore years and ten taking it, but it will be hundreds of years
before that has become really part of us, and so, as a soul, we are increased
in power and understanding. Before we return to earth,another vision will
open before us,not of the life we are leaving, but of the one we are about
to enter upon. This is best glimpsed by the spiritually mature, and we bring
through as innate ideas something of its memory in a new brain when we drink
of the "waters of Lethe." Thus, Sir Francis Bacon wrote that from
early youth he felt himself called upon to be of service to mankind.
ETERNAL
TRUTHS
Genius
shows itself early in life So does spiritual genius. Every one of us is an
incipient hero, saint or sage, according to his fundamental bias of thought,
emotion or activity. We never come back alone. With us will come friends
and dear ones from former lives. Over and over again shall we meet them,
not always in the same guise, for all the world's a stage, and each man in
his time plays many parts. But we cannot fail to find them, and each time
learn to love them better still. Perhaps there is nothing else to learn in
life,but how truly to love. There are two eternal truths, and they are these:
whatever a man thinks of he is at once in touch with, whether it be a friend
living or so-called dead, or whether it be an ideal of something infinitely
beyond him; and whatever a man loves he can never,never lose,for love is
eternal and can never be denied. Perhaps seeming loss or estrangement can
teach us how to love more unselfishly. Dr. Annie Besant once said: "When
you can be just as happy when the one you love best is not there,you have
learn how to love."
Do not
let us talk about our loved ones being in the grave. Nothing is there but the
worn-out vesture of the man. We may treasure it, as a mother treasures little
shoes a child once wore,but it is no longer of any concern to him. He is living
a wider, happier life, freed from all the ills and disabilities of the body.
Would we call him back to a suffering, diseased body, or to the trials and anxieties
of life? Never fear death. It is, as the Latins phrased it, the gate of life.
All must die, for it is the loving will of the Creator, who would give surcease
from pain, and rest to assimilate growth.
THOUGHTS
OF COMFORT AND JOY
However
much we may feel the loss of a dear one, let us try not to be too grief-stricken,
for sorrowful thought may reach him and cause him pain. Do not wish him back
too ardently. If we only knew what a much happier world he is now inhabiting!
And he is not far from us. Not only can he feel our loving thoughts and prayers,
but, for a time, he is not out of reach or personal touch with us when we
leave our own bodies temporarily in sleep,and are therefore in a similar
condition to himself. Let him pass peacefully to his rest and bliss. We shall
soon follow him, and he will be among the first to welcome us when our turn
comes to pass from earth life. Let us every try to remember his greater gain,
and send him always our dearest love and prayers. They will bring him added
comfort and joy.
THE
INVISIBLE WORLDS
Perhaps
in conclusion some will say:"How true, how comforting is this! But does
anyone really know?" In the space of of this short presentation it is
not possible to answer that fully. But it can be said that the power to see
and hear the surrounding invisible worlds is but an extension of the senses
we normally employ, and is lying latent in every one of us. All that to which
our senses respond can be described as rhythmic waves in matter. Sound causes
waves in the air, and our ears catch these. Similar waves, far more rapid
and subtle, and moving through the ether, not the air, are caught by our
eyes, and we see. X-rays are beyond human visibility, yet the sensitive photographic
plate can register them. Some people, either through the experiences of past
lives, or through heredity, are born with an unusually sensitive response
to the more subtle vibrations of nature. We speak of them as being clairvoyant
or clairaudient. When these powers, which are latent in all of us, are fully
developed and brought into working order, which is the case with a fully
developed Yogi or Occultist, the whole of the subtler, more radiant worlds
which permeate and surround this one, will lie open to the illumined gaze
of the seer. Such trained seership is responsible for the truths enumerated
above,but it should not be confused with the sporadic seership of undeveloped
races, and is rare and difficult to achieve. Yet, in the end, all will possess
it, and when that day arrives man will no longer hope that he has a soul
and will live after death, for he will know that he does, and his friends
will be ever with him whether living or dead. As we read in Corinthians:"The
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." What the seer knows,the
heart of loving man has intuitively always known.
The
Chinese call the dead man the "guest of heaven." Ah! what a happy
guest is he. Let us remember the immortal words of the poet Shelley, in a poem
to his greatest friend who had passed away:
"Peace!
Peace! He is not dead, he doth not sleep,
He is awakened from the dream of life."
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