One of the glories of the Christian religion is its promise of eternal
life. For those whose inquiring minds seek beyond a blind faith in this
promise, Esoteric Christianity offers the comfort of logical and satisfying
details concerning the Spirit's activities after the physical body is
discarded.
Most people have an instinctive interest in what
happens after death of the physical body, though ideas about it vary
infinitely. Unfortunately, even many professed Christians are quite fearful
about death and look forward to it with dread. This is a great mistake and a
hindrance to the individual, for his fearsome thoughts affect detrimentally
the value to him of what actually does take place.
That there is a definite, wonderful life for the
Spirit after it is released from its physical body is no longer a matter of
blind faith. There are many people who have become sufficiently clairvoyant to
observe conditions on the other side of the "veil" and thus to resolve any
doubt previously held about this vital manner. As a matter of fact, humanity
in general is slowly developing etheric vision, so that in the approaching
Aquarian Age knowledge concerning conditions in the land of the living dead
will be as available as it is now concerning foreign countries here on Earth.
Life on earth is only one phase of a recurring evolutionary cycle which we
all undergo, experiencing and learning in our physical bodies on Earth, then
leaving the physical plane to assimilate the essence of what we have learned,
rebuild our bodies, rest, and return to Earth to repeat the cycle. The work
done by man in the higher worlds is many-sided, and in a sense more
far-reaching than his work on Earth. His life there is not in the least an
inactive, dreamy, or illusory existence. It is a time of the greatest and most
important activity in preparing for the next life, as sleep is an active
preparation for the work of the next day.
Among those who have developed their clairvoyant faculties in a positive
manner, i.e., under control of their will, and can observe accurately what
goes on in the invisible worlds, was Max Heindel, an Initiate of the
Rosicrucian Order. In his book, The
Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, he describes in some detail what happens at the
time of passing and afterward between Earth lives in the higher worlds. Most
of the following is taken verbatim from this most enlightening volume.
Man, the individualized, indwelling Spirit, is a complex being. He
possesses not only a dense, physical body, which he uses here in this world to
fetch and carry, and which many think of as the whole man, but also a vital
body made of ether, which permeates the visible body and is the instrument
for specializing the energy of the Sun. In addition, he possesses a desire
body, his emotional nature, which pervades both the dense and vital bodies,
and extends about sixteen inches outside the visible body. Then there is the
mind, which is a mirror, reflecting the outer world and enabling the Spirit or
Ego to transmit its commands as thought and word, and to compel action.
During life on Earth man builds and sows, until the moment of death
arrives. Then the seed-time and the periods of growth and ripening are past.
The harvest time has come, when the skeleton specter of Death arrives with his
scythe and hour-glass. That is an apt symbol. The skeleton symbolizes the
relatively permanent part of the body. The scythe represents the fact that
this permanent part, which is about to be harvested by the Spirit, is the
fruitage of the life now drawing to a close. The hour-glass in his hand
indicates that the hour does not strike until the full course has been run in
harmony with unvarying laws.
When that moment arrives a separation of the vehicles takes place. As his
life in the Physical World is ended for the time being, it is not necessary
for man to retain the dense body. The vital body, also belonging to the
Physical World, is withdrawn by way of the head, leaving the dense body
inanimate.
The higher vehicles — vital body, desire body, and mind — are seen (by the
clairvoyant) to leave the dense body with a spiral movement, taking with them
the soul of one dense atom — not the atom itself, but the forces that played
through it. The results of the experiences passed through in the dense body
during the life just ended have been impressed upon this particular atom.
While all the other atoms of the dense body have been renewed from time to
time, this permanent atom has remained. It has remained stable, not only
through one life, but it has been a part of every dense body ever used by that
particular Ego. It is withdrawn at death only to reawaken at the dawn of
another physical life, to serve again as the nucleus around which is built the
new dense body to be used by the same Ego. It is therefore called the
"seed-atom." During life the seed-atom is situated in the left ventricle of the
heart, near the apex. At death it rises to the brain by way of the
pneumogastric nerve, leaving the dense body, together with the higher
vehicles, by way of the sutures between the parietal and occipital bones (the
Sagittal suture).
When the higher vehicles have left the dense body they are still connected
with it by a slender, glistening, silvery cord, shaped much like two figure
sixes reversed, one upright and one horizontally placed, the two connected at
the extremities of the hooks.
"Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the
pitcher be broken at the foundation, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then
shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto
God who gave it." (Eccles. 12:6-7.) (See Diagram below as shown in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception).
One end is fastened to the heart by means of the seed-atom, and it is the
rupture of the seed-atom which causes the heart to stop. The cord itself is
not snapped until the panorama of the past life, contained in the vital body,
has been reviewed.
Care should be taken, however, not to cremate or embalm the body until at
least three days after death, for while the vital body is with the higher
vehicles, and they are still connected with the dense body by means of the
silver cord, any post-mortem examination or other injury to the dense body
will be felt, in a measure, by the man. Cremation should be particularly
avoided in the first three days after death, because it tends to disintegrate
the vital body, which should be kept intact until the panorama of the past
life has been etched into the desire body.
The silver cord snaps at the point where the sixes unite, half remaining
with the dense body and the other half with the higher vehicles. From the time the cord snaps the dense body is quite dead.
When the silver cord is loosened in the heart, and man has been released
from his dense body, a moment of the highest importance comes to the Ego. It
cannot be too seriously impressed upon the relatives of a dying person that it is a great crime against the departing Spirit to give expression to loud grief and lamentation, for it is just then engaged in a matter of supreme
importance, and a great deal of the value of the past life depends upon how
much attention the Spirit can give to this matter. This will be made clearer
when we come to the description of man's life in the Desire World.
It is also a crime against the dying to administer stimulants which have
the effect of forcing the higher vehicles back into the dense body with a
jerk, thus imparting a great shock to the man. It is no torture to pass out,
but it is torture to be dragged back to endure further suffering. Some who
have passed out have told investigators that they had, in that way, been kept
dying for hours and had prayed that their relatives would cease their mistaken kindness and let them die.
The Life Panorama
When the Ego is freed from the dense body, which was
the heaviest clog upon his spiritual power (like a heavy mitten upon the hand
of a musician), his spiritual power comes back in some measure, and he is able
to read the pictures in the negative pole of the reflecting ether of his vital
body, which is the seat of the subconscious memory.
The whole of his past life passes before his sight like a panorama, the
events being presented in reverse order. The incidents of the days
immediately preceding death come first and so on back through manhood or
womanhood to youth, childhood, and infancy. Everything is remembered.
The man stands as a spectator before this panorama of his past life. he
sees the pictures as they pass, and they impress themselves upon his higher
vehicles, but he has no feeling about them at this time. That is reserved
until the time when he enters the Desire World, which is the world of feeling
and emotion. At present he is only in the Etheric Region of the Physical
World.
This panorama lasts from a few hours to several days, depending upon the
length of time the man could keep awake, if necessary. Some people can keep awake only twelve hours, or even
less; others can do so, upon occasion, for a number of days, but as long as
the man can remain awake, this panorama lasts.
This feature of life after death is similar to that which takes place when
one is drowning or falling from a height. In such cases the vital body also
leaves the dense body and the man sees his life in a flash, because he loses
consciousness at once. Of course the silver cord is not broken, or there could
be no resuscitation.
When the endurance of the vital body has reached its limit, it collapses.
During physical life, when the Ego controls its vehicles, this collapses
terminates the waking hours; after death the collapse of the vital body
terminates the panorama and forces the man to withdraw into the Desire World.
The silver cord breaks at the point where the "sixes" unite (see Diagram 5
1/2), and the same division is made as during sleep, but with this important
difference, that though the vital body returns to the dense body, it no longer
interpenetrates it, but simply hovers over it. It remains floating over the
grave, decaying synchronously with the dense vehicle. Hence, to the trained
clairvoyant, a graveyard is a nauseating sight, and if only more people could
see it as he does, little argument would be necessary to induce them to change
from the present unsanitary method of cremation, which restores the elements
to their primordial condition without the objectionable features incident to
the process of slow decay.
In leaving the vital body the process is much the same as when the dense
body is discarded. The life forces of one atom (of the vital body) are taken,
to be used as a nucleus for the vital body of a future embodiment. Thus, upon
his entrance into the Desire World the man has the seed-atoms of the dense and
vital bodies, in addition to the desire body and the mind.
Purgatory: If the dying man could leave all his desires behind, the desire
body would very quickly fall away from him, leaving him free to proceed into
the heaven world, but that is not generally the case. Most people, especially
if they die in the prime of life, have many ties and much interest in life on
Earth. They have not altered their desires because they have lost their
physical bodies. In fact, often their desires are augmented by a very intense
longing to return. This acts in such a manner as to bind them to the Desire
World in a very unpleasant way, although unfortunately, they do not realize
it. On the other hand, old and decrepit persons and those who are weakened by
long illness and are tired of life, pass on very quickly.
The matter may be illustrated by the ease with which the seed falls out of
the ripe fruit, no particle of the flesh clinging to it, while in the unripe
fruit the seed clings to the flesh with the greatest tenacity. Thus it is
especially hard for people to die who are taken out of their bodies by
"accident" while at the height of their physical health and strength, engaged
in numerous ways in the activities of physical life; held by the ties of wife,
family, relatives, friends, pursuits of business and pleasure.
As long as the man entertains the desires connected with Earth life he
must stay in his desire body, and as the progress of the individual requires
that he pass on to higher regions, the existence in the Desire World must
necessarily become purgative, tending to purify him from his binding desires.
How this is done is best seen by taking some radical instances.
The miser who loved his gold in Earth life loves it just as dearly after
death; but in the first place he cannot acquire any more, because he has no
longer a dense body wherewith to grasp it and worst of all, he cannot even
keep what he hoarded during life. He will, perhaps, go and sit by his safe and
watch the cherished gold or bonds; but the heirs appear and with, it may be, a
stinging jeer as the "stingy old fool" (whom they do not see, but who both sees
and hears them), will open his safe, and though he may throw himself over his
gold to protect it, they will put their hands through him, neither knowing nor
caring that he is there, and will then proceed to spend his hoard, while he
suffers in sorrow and impotent rage.
He will suffer keenly, his sufferings all the more terrible on account of
being entirely mental, because the dense body dulls even suffering to some
extent. In the Desire World, however, these sufferings have full sway and the
man suffers until he learns that gold may be a curse. Thus he gradually
becomes contented with his lot and at last is freed from his desire body and
is ready to go on.
It possible, of course, to avoid this problem in the after-life by
disposing of material possessions while yet incarnate on Earth. If we use
judgment, when we see that we have lived our lives to the end of usefulness,
we may say: Here are things that I have no more use for, and I know I am
getting towards the end; where can I do the most good with them, who will
enjoy them most, or whom can I help to establish in business so he can do
something for himself?
The same thing is true with regard to the affections; we should hold
ourselves in check so that we do not love anybody with an inordinate love —
such love as that which makes idols of others and puts them before everything
else. If we thus get ourselves free from all earthly ties so we are ready to
go, then we cannot be kept earthbound.
The drunkard is another case in point. He is just as fond of intoxicants
after death as before. It is not the dense body that craves drink. The dense
body is made sick by alcohol and would rather be without it. It vainly
protests in different ways, but the desire body of the drunkard craves the
drink and forces the dense body to take it, that the desire body may have the
sensation of pleasure resulting from the increased vibration. That desire
remains after the death of the dense body, but the drunkard has in his desire
body neither mouth to drink nor stomach to contain physical liquor. He may and
does get into saloons, where he interpolates his body into the bodies of the
drinkers to get a little of their vibrations by induction, but that is too
weak to give him much satisfaction. He may and also does sometimes get inside
a whiskey cask, but that is of no avail either, for there are in the cask no
such fumes as are generated in the digestive organs of a tippler. It has no
effect upon him and he is like a man in an open boat on the ocean, "Water,
water everywhere, but not a drop to drink;" consequently, he suffers
intensely. In time, however, he learns the uselessness of longing for drink,
which he cannot obtain. As with so many of our desires in the Earth life, all
desires in the Desire World die for want of opportunity to gratify them. When
the drunkard has been purged, he is ready, so far as this habit is concerned,
to leave this state of "Purgatory" and ascend into the heaven world.
Thus we see that it is not an avenging Deity that makes Purgatory of Hell
for us, but our own individual evil habits and acts. According to the
intensity of our desires will be the time and suffering entailed in their
expurgation. In the cases mentioned it would have been no suffering to the
drunkard to lose his worldly possessions. If he had any, he did not cling to
them. Neither would it have caused the miser any pain to have been deprived of
intoxicants. It is safe to say that he would not have cared if there were not
a drop of liquor in the world. But he did care about his gold, and the
drunkard cared about his drink, so the unerring law gave to each that which
was needed to purge him of his unhallowed desires and evil habits.
This is the law that is symbolized in the scythe of the reaper, Death; the
law that says "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." It is the
Law of Cause and Effect, which rules all things in the three worlds, in every
realm of Nature — physical, moral, and mental. Everywhere it works inexorably,
adjusting all things, restoring the equilibrium wherever even the slightest
action has brought about a disturbance, as all action must. The result may be
manifest immediately or it may be delayed for years or for lives, but
sometime, somewhere, just and equal retribution will be made. The student
should particularly note that its work is absolutely impersonal. There is in
the universe neither reward nor punishment. All is the result of invariable
law. This is the Law of Consequence.
In the Desire World it operates in purging man of the baser desires and
the correction of the weakness and vices which hinder his progress, by making
him suffer in the manner best adapted to that purpose. If he has made others
suffer, or has dealt unjustly with them, he will be made to suffer in that
identical way. Be it noted, however, that if a person has been subject to
vices, or repented and, as far as possible, made right the wrong done, such
repentance, reform, and restitution, have purged him of those special vices
and evil acts. The equilibrium has been restored and the lesson learned during
that embodiment, and therefore will not be a cause of suffering after death.
A word must be said here about the suicide, who tries to get away from
life only to find that he is as much alive as ever. His is the most pitiable
plight. He is able to watch those whom he has, perhaps, disgraced by his act,
and worst of all, he has an unspeakable feeling of being "hollowed out." The
part in the ovoid aura where the dense body used to be is empty, and although
the desire body has taken the form of the discarded dense body, it feels like
an empty shell, because the creative archetype of the body in the Region of
Concrete Thought persists as an empty mold, so to speak, as long as the dense
body should properly have lived. The archetype — the "model" of each Ego's
dense body, around which the body takes shape — is made of mind-stuff and set
to vibrating for a previously determined period of time. When a person meets a
natural death, even in the prime of life, the activity of the archetype
ceases, and the desire body adjusts itself so as to occupy the whole of the
form. In the case of the suicide, however, that awful feeling of "emptiness"
remains until the time comes when, in the natural course of events, his death
would have occurred. The impression of this particularly unpleasant experience
remains with the Ego, and is instrumental in preventing him from falling prey
to the temptation of suicide in future lives.
In the Desire World life is lived about three times as rapidly as in the
Physical World. A man who has lived to be fifty years of age in the Physical
World would live through the same life events in the Desire World in about
sixteen years. This is, of course, only a general gauge. There are persons who
remain in the Desire World much longer than their term of physical life.
Others again, who have led lives with few gross desires, pass through in a
much shorter period, but the measure given above is very nearly correct for
the average man of the present day.
It will be remembered that as the man leaves the dense body at death, his
past life passes before him in pictures; but at that time he has no feeling
concerning them.
During his life in the Desire World also these life pictures roll
backward, as before; but now the man has all the feeling it is possible for
him to have as, one by one, the scenes pass before him. Every incident in his
past life is now lived over again. When he comes to a point where he has
injured someone, he himself feels the pain as the injured person felt it. He
lives through all the sorrow and suffering he has caused to others and learns
just how painful is the hurt and how hard to bear is the sorrow he has caused.
In addition there is the fact already mentioned before that the suffering is
much keener because he has no dense body to dull the pain. Perhaps that is why
the speed of life there is tripled — that the suffering may lose in duration
what it gains in sharpness. Nature's measures are wonderfully just and true.
Nature, which is God in manifestation, always aims at the conservation of
energy, attaining the greatest results with the least expenditure of force and
the least waste of energy. If we study the effect of change in the Physical
World, we shall learn something of its consequence in the realm above us. A
person who is here suffering acutely for a short time usually feels pain very
intensely; whereas those who suffer for years in succession, though the pain
which is inflicted upon them may be as severe, do not seem to feel the
suffering in the same measure. They have, as it were, grown used thereto, and
their frame has in a certain sense become emaciated and adjusted to pain;
hence suffering is not felt as keenly as by the person in the first case.
It is similar in the purgatorial existence. When a person has been very
hard and harsh in life, when he has thought nothing of the feelings of others,
when he has inflicted severe pain here, there, and everywhere on whatever
occasion offered, we shall find that his suffering in Purgatory will be very
severe, intensified of course by the fact that the purgatorial experience is
shorter than the life lived upon Earth; but the pain is intensified in
proportion. Now, therefore, it is evident that if his experience were
continuous, if the pain engendered by one act were followed immediately by the
next, much of the effect of the suffering would be lost upon the Spirit
because it would not feel its full intensity. Therefore, the experiences, as
it were, come to him in waves so that there is a period of respite after each
period of suffering in order that the full intensity of the next may be felt.
The motive in this is for a greater good, for Nature, or God, never seeks
to revenge or avenge any wrong, but only to teach those who permit themselves
to do wrong not to repeat the act by giving the wrong doer exactly pain for
pain. The tendency in a future life is to cause him to respect the feelings of
others and so be merciful to all the world. Thus the very highest intensity in
pain is necessary for the conservation of energy, and to make him good and
pure sooner than would be the case if the pain were continuous and the
suffering correspondingly lessened.
Another characteristic peculiar to this phase of post-mortem existence is
intimately connected with the fact that distance is almost annihilated in the
Desire World. When a man dies, he at once seems to swell out in his vital
body; he appears to himself to grow into immense proportions. This feeling is
due to the fact, not that the body really grows, but that the perceptive
faculties receive so many impressions from various sources, all seeming to be
close at hand. The same is true of the desire body. The man seems to be
present with all the people with whom on Earth he had relations of a nature
which require correction. If he has injured one man in San Francisco and
another in New York, he will feel as if part of him were in each place. This
gives him a peculiar feeling of being cut to pieces.
The student will now understand the importance of the panorama of the past
life during the purgative existence where this panorama is realized in
definite feelings. If it lasted long and the man was undisturbed, the full,
deep, clear impression etched into the desire body would make life in the
Desire World more vivid and conscious and the purgation more thorough than if,
because of distress at the loud outbursts of grief on the part of his
relatives, at the death bed and during the three-day period previously
menitoned, the man had only a vague impression of his past life. The Spirit
which has etched a deep, clear record into its desire body will realize the
mistakes of the past life so much more clearly and definitely than if the
pictures were blurred on account of the individual's attention being riveted
by the suffering and grief around him. His feeling concerning the things which
cause his present suffering in the Desire World will be much more definite if
they are drawn from a distinct panoramic impression than if the duration of
the process were short.
This sharp, clear-cut feeling is of immense value in future lives. It
stamps upon the seed-atom of the desire body an ineffaceable impression of
itself. The experiences will be forgotten in succeeding lives, but the feeling remains. When opportunities occur to repeat the error in later lives, this
feeling will speak to us clearly and unmistakably. It is the "still, small
voice" which warns us, though we do not know why; but the clearer and more
definite the panoramas of past lives have been, the oftener, and clearer shall
we hear this voice. Thus we see how important it is that we leave the passing
Spirit in absolute quietness after death. By so doing we help it to reap the
greatest possible benefit from the life just ended and to avoid perpetuating
the same mistakes in future lives, while our selfish, hysterical lamentations
may deprive it of much of the value of the life it has just concluded.
The mission of Purgatory is to eradicate the injurious habits by making
their gratification impossible. The individual suffers exactly as he has made
others suffer through his dishonesty, cruelty, intolerance, or what not.
Because of this suffering he learns to act kindly, honestly, and with
forbearance toward others in the future. Thus, in consequence of this
beneficent state, man learns virtue and right action. When he is reborn he is
free from evil habits, at least every evil act committed is one of free will.
The tendencies to repeat the evil of past lives remains, for we must learn to
do right consciously and of our own will. Upon occasion these tendencies tempt
us, thereby affording us an opportunity of ranging ourselves on the side of
mercy and virtue as against vice and cruelty. But to indicate right action and
to help us resist the snares and wiles of temptation, we have the feeling
resulting from the expurgation of evil habits and the expiation of wrong acts
of past lives. If we heed that feeling and abstain from the particular evil
involved, the temptation will cease. We have freed ourselves from it for all
times. If we yield we shall experience keener suffering than before until at
last we have learned to live by the Golden Rule, because the way of the
transgressor is hard. Even then we have not reached the ultimate. To do good
to others because we want them to do good to us is essentially selfish. In
time we must learn to do good regardless of how we are treated by others; as
Christ Jesus said, we must love even our enemies.
There is an inestimable benefit in knowing about the method and object of
this purgation, because we are thus enabled to forestall it by living our
Purgatory here and now day by day, thus advancing much faster than would
otherwise be possible. The exercise of Retrospection is given in the latter
part of The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, the object of which is purification
as an aid to the development of spiritual sight. It consists of thinking over
the happening of the day after retiring at night. We review each incident of
the day, in reverse order, taking particular note of the day, in reverse
order, taking particular note of the moral aspect, considering whether we
acted rightly or wrongly in each particular case regarding actions, mental
attitude, and habits. By thus judging ourselves day by day, endeavoring to
correct mistakes and wrong actions, we shall materially shorten or perhaps
even eliminate the necessity for Purgatory and be able to pass to the First
Heaven directly after death. If in this manner we consciously overcome our
weaknesses, we also make a very material advance in the school of evolution.
Even if we fail to correct our actions, we derive an immense benefit from
judging ourselves, thereby generating aspirations toward good, which in time
will surely bear fruit in right action.
In reviewing the day's happenings and blaming ourselves for wrong, we
should not forget to approve impersonally of the good we have done and
determine to do still better. In this way we enhance the good by approval as
much as we abjure the evil by blame.
Repentance is also a powerful factor in shortening the purgatorial
existence, for Nature never wastes effort in useless processes. When we
realize the wrong of certain habits or acts in our past life, and determine to
eradicate the habit and to redress the wrong committed, we are expunging the
pictures of them from the sub-conscious memory and they will not be there to
judge us after death. Even though we are not able to make restitution for a
wrong, the sincerity of our regret will suffice. Nature does not aim to "get
even," or to take revenge. Recompense to our victim may be given in other
ways.
Much progress ordinarily reserved for future lives will be made by the man
who thus takes time by the forelock, judging himself and eradicating vice by
reforming his character. This practice is earnestly recommended.
Egos dwelling in the Desire World find it possible to mold desire-stuff by
thought, in any manner desired. For instance, they can form whatever articles
of clothing they might wish. They usually think of themselves as being dressed
in the conventional garb of the country in which they lived prior to their
passing into the Desire World, and therefore they appear so clothed without
any particular effort of thought. But when they desire to obtain something new
or an unusual article of clothing, naturally they have to use their will power
to bring that thing into existence; and such an article of clothing will last
as long as the person thinks of himself as being clad in that apparel.
This amenability of desire-stuff to the molding power of thought is alo
used in other directions. Generally speaking, when a person leaves the present
world in consequence of an accident, he thinks of himself as being disfigured
by that accident in a certain manner, perhaps minus a leg or arm or with a
hole in the head. This does not inconvenience him at all; he can move about
there just as easily without arms or legs as with them, but it shows the
tendency of thought to shape the desire body. At the beginning of World War I,
when great numbers of soldiers passed over into the Desire World with lesions
of the most horrible nature, the Elder Brothers of the Rosicrucian Order and
their pupils taught these men that by merely holding the thought that they
were sound of limb and body, they would at once be healed of their disfiguring
wounds. This they immediately did. Now all newcomers, when they are able to
understand matters over there, are at once healed of their wounds and
amputations in this manner, so that to look at them nobody would think they
has passed over in consequence of an accident in the Physical World.
Another evidence of the readiness with which desire-stuff is molded by
thought is where many people on Earth think along similar lines. In such cases
their thoughts mass themselves and form one grand whole.
Thus, in the lower regions of the Desire World, the thoughts of people who
believe in a fiery, furnace-like Hell make of the desire-stuff there such a
place of torture. There we may see devils with horns, hoofs, and tails,
prodding the unhappy sinners with pitchforks, and often when people pass out
at death, after having lived in that belief, they are in a sad state of fear
on beholding this place which they have helped to create. There is also in the
higher regions of the Desire World a New Jerusalem with pearly gates, with a
sea of glass and its great white throne upon which is seated a thought-form of
God, created by these people and appearing like an old man. This is a
permanent feature of the Desire World, and will remain so as long as people
continue to think of the New Jerusalem in that way. These forms have no life
apart from the sustained thoughts of mankind, and in time when humanity has
outgrown that faith, the city created by their thoughts will cease to exist.
The Borderland: Purgatory occupies the three lower Regions of the Desire
World. The First Heaven is in the three upper Regions. The central Region is a
sort of borderland — neither heaven nor hell. In this Region we find people who
are honest and upright; who wronged no one, but were deeply immersed in
business and thought nothing of the higher life. For them the Desire World is
a state of indescribable monotony. There is no "business" in that world, not
is there, for a man of that kind, anything that will take its place. he has a
very hard time until he learns to think of higher things than ledgers and
drafts. The men who thought of the problem of life and came to the conclusion
that "death ends it all," who denied the existence of things outside the
material sense world — these men also feel this dreadful monotony. They had
expected annihilation of consciousness, but instead of that they find
themselves with an augmented perception of persons and things about them. They
had been accustomed to denying these things so vehemently that they often
fancy the Desire World an hallucination, and may frequently be heard
exclaiming in the deepest despair, "When will it end? When will it end?"
Such people are really in a pitiable state. They are generally beyond the
reach of any help whatever and suffer much longer than almost anyone else.
Besides, they have scarcely any life in the heaven world, where the building
of bodies for future use is taught, so they put all their crystallizing
thoughts into whatsoever body they build for a future life. Thus a body is
built that has the hardening tendencies we see, for instance, in consumption.
Sometimes the suffering incident to such decrepit bodies will turn the
thoughts of the entities ensouling them to God, and their evolution can
proceed; but in the materialistic mind lies the greatest danger of losing
touch with the Spirit and becoming an outcast.
The First Heaven: When the purgatorial existence is over, the purified
Spirit rises into the First Heaven, which is located in the three highest
Regions of the Desire World, where the results of its sufferings are
incorporated in the seed-atom of the desire body, thus imparting to it the
quality of right feeling, which acts as an impulse to good and a deterrent
from evil in the future. Here the panorama of the past unrolls itself
backward, but this time it is the good acts of life that are the basis of
feeling. When we come to scenes where we helped others, we realize anew all
the joy of helping which was ours at the time, and in addition we feel all the
gratitude poured out to us by the recipient of our help. When we come to
scenes where we were helped by others, we again feel all the gratitude that we
then felt toward our benefactor. Thus we see the importance of appreciating
the favors shown us by others, because gratitude makes for soul growth. Our
happiness in heaven depends upon the joy we gave others, and the valuation we
placed upon what others did for us.
It should be ever borne in mind that the power of giving is not vested
chiefly in the monied man. Indiscriminate giving of money may even be an evil.
It is well to give money for a purpose we are convinced is good, but service
is a thousandfold better. A kind look, expressions of confidence, a
sympathetic and loving helpfulness — these can be given by all regardless of
wealth. Moreover, we should particularly endeavor to help the needy one to
help himself, whether physically, financially, morally, or mentally, and not
cause him to become dependent upon us or others.
The First Heaven is a place of joy without a single drop of bitterness.
The Spirit is beyond the influence of the material, earthly conditions, and
assimilates all the good contained in the past life as it lives it over again.
Here all ennobling pursuits to which the man aspired are realized in fullest
measure. It is a place of rest, and the harder has been the life, the more
keenly will the rest be enjoyed. Sickness, sorrow, and pain are unknown
quantities. This is the Summerland of the Spiritualists. There the thoughts of
the devout Christian have built the New Jerusalem. Beautiful houses, flowers,
etc., are the portion of those who aspired to them; they build them themselves
by thought from the subtle desire-stuff. Nevertheless, these things are just as
real and tangible to them as our material homes are to us. All gain here the
satisfaction which Earth life lacked for them.
This heaven is also a place of progression for all who have been studious,
artistic, or altruistic. The student and the philosopher have instant access
to all the libraries of the world. The painter has endless delight in the
ever-changing color combinations. He soon learns that his thought blends and
shapes these colors at will. His creations glow and scintillate with the dull
pigments of Earth. He is, as it were, painting with living, flowing materials
and able to execute his designs with a facility which fills his soul with
delight.
The poet finds a wonderful inspiration in the pictures and colors which
are the chief characteristics of the Desire World. Thence he will draw the
materials for use in his next incarnation. In like manner does the author
accumulate material and faculty. The philanthropist works out his altruistic
plans for the upliftment of man. If he failed in one life, he will see the
reason for it in the First Heaven and will there learn how to overcome the
obstacles and avoid the errors that made his plan impracticable.
Our life in the First Heaven is always blessed and filled by the presence
of those we love, whether relatives or friends. Those who love each other and
are, therefore, in a sense, necessary to each other's happiness, are united in
a bond of closest friendship during the stay in the First Heaven if they pass
out at or near the same time. If one remains in the body for a number of years
after the other has passed over, the one who is in the heaven world will, with
his or her loving thought, create an image of the other and endow it with
life; for we must remember that the Desire World is so constituted that we are
able to give bodily shape to whatever we think of. Thus, although this image
will only be ensouled by his thought and the thoughts of the other person
still living in the physical region, it embodies all the conditions that are
necessary to fill the cup of happiness of this inhabitant of the heaven world.
Similarly, when the second person passes on, if the first person is no
longer in the First heaven but has progressed on into the Second, the
disintegrating desire body in which he or she lived will remain in the First
Heaven and seem perfectly real to the second person until his or her life in
this realm is ended. It must not be thought that this image is pure illusion,
for it is ensouled by the love and friendship sent out by the absent one
toward the person of whose heaven they are a part.
Then, when they both pass into the Second and Third Heavens, forgetfulness
of the past comes over them, and they may part for one or more lives without
loss. But some time, somewhere, they will meet again, and the dynamic force
which they have generated in the past by their yearnings for each other will
unvaryingly draw them together so that their love may reach its legitimate
consummation.
Children in the First Heaven lead a particularly beautiful life. If we
could but see them we would quickly cease our grief. When a child dies before
the birth of the desire body, which takes place about the fourteenth year, it
does not go any higher than the First Heaven, because it is not responsible
for its actions, any more than the unborn child is responsible for the pain it
causes the mother by turning and twisting in her womb. Therefore the child has
no purgatorial existence. That which is not quickened cannot die, hence the
desire body of a child, together with the mind, will persist until a new
birth, and for that reason such children are very apt to remember their
previous life.
For such children the First Heaven is a waiting-place where they dwell
from one to twenty years, until an opportunity for a new birth is offered. Yet
it is more than simply a waiting-place, because there is much progress made
during this interim.
When a child dies there is always some relative waiting for it, or,
failing that, there are people who loved to "mother" children in Earth life
who find delight in taking care of a little waif. The extreme plasticity of
the desire stuff makes it easy to form the most exquisite living toys for the
children, and their life is one beautiful play; nevertheless, their instruction
is not neglected. They are formed into classes according to their
temperaments, but quite regardless of age. In the Desire World it is easy to
give object-lessons concerning the influence of good and evil passions on
conduct and happiness. These lessons are indelibly imprinted upon the child's
sensitive and emotional desire body, and remain with it after rebirth, so that
many a one living a noble life owes much of it to the fact that he was given
this training. Often, when a weak Spirit is born, the invisible Leaders who
guide our evolution cause it to die in early life that it may have this extra
training to fit it for what may perhaps be a hard life. This seems to be the
case particularly where the etching on the desire body was weak in consequence
of a dying person having been disturbed by the lamentations of his relatives,
or because he met death by accident or on the battlefield. He did not, under
these circumstances, experience the appropriate intensity of feeling in his
post-mortem existence. Therefore, he is caused to be reborn and die in
childhood in his next Earth life, so that the loss can be made up. Often the
duty of caring for such a child in the heaven life falls to those who are the
cause of the anomaly. They are thus afforded a chance to make up for the fault
and to learn better. Or perhaps they become the parents of the one they harmed
and care for it during the few years that it lives. It does not matter then if
they do lament hysterically over its death, because there would be no pictures
of any consequence in a child's vital body.
The Second Heaven — Region of Concrete Thought: In time a point is reached
where the result of the pain and suffering incident to purgation, together
with the joy extracted from the good actions of the past life, have been built
into the seed-atom of the desire body. Together these constitute what we call
conscience, that impelling force which warns us against evil as productive of
pain and inclines us toward good as productive of happiness and joy. Then man
leaves his desire body to disintegrate, as he left his dense and vital bodies.
He takes with him the forces only of the seed-atom, which are to form the
nucleus of future desire bodies, as it was the persistent particle of his past
vehicles of feeling.
At last the man, the Ego, the threefold Spirit, enters the Second Heaven.
He is clad in the sheath of mind, which contains the three seed-atoms — the
quintessence of the three discarded vehicles.
When the man dies and loses his dense and vital bodies, there is the same
condition as when one falls asleep. The desire body had no organs ready for
use. It is now transformed from an ovoid to a figure resembling the dense body
which has been abandoned. We can easily understand that there must be an
interval of unconsciousness resembling sleep and then the man awakes in the
Desire World. It not infrequently happens, however, that such people are, for
a long time, unaware of what has happened to them. They do not realize that
they have died. They know that they are able to move and think. It is
sometimes even a very hard matter to get them to believe that they are really
"dead." They realize that something is different, but that they are not able
to understand what it is.
Not so, however, when the change is made from the First Heaven, which is
in the Desire World, to the Second Heaven, which is in the Region of Concrete
Thought. Then the man leaves his desire body. He is perfectly conscious. He
passes into a great stillness. For the time being everything seems to fade
away. He cannot think. No faculty is alive, yet he know that he IS. He has a
feeling of standing in "The Great Forever"; of standing utterly alone, yet
unafraid; and his being is filled with a wonderful peace, "which passeth all
understanding." In esoteric science this is called The Great Silence.
Then comes the awakening. The Spirit is now in its home world — heaven.
Here the first awakening brings to the Spirit the sound of "the music of the
spheres." In our Earth life we are so immersed in the little noises and osunds
of our limited environment that we are incapable of hearing the music of the
marching orbs, but the esoteric scientist hears it. He knows that the twelve
signs of the zodiac and the seven planets form the sounding-board and strings
of "Apollo's seven-stringed lyre." He knows that were a single discord to mar
the celestial harmony from that grand Instrument there would be "a wreck of
matter and a crash of worlds." Celestial music is a fact and not a mere figure
of speech. Pythagoras was not romancing when he spoke of the music of the
sphere, for each one of the heavenly orbs has its definite tone, and together
they sound the celestial symphony which Goethe also mentions in the prologue
to his Faust.
Echoes of that heavenly music reach us even here in the Physical World.
They are our most precious possession, even though they are as elusive as a
will-o-the-wisp, and cannot be permanently created here as can other works of
art such as a statue or a book. The World of Thought, however, where the
Second and Third Heavens are located, is the sphere of tone, and the musician
here finally reaches the place where his art will express itself to the
fullest extent.
The power of rhythmic vibration is well known to all who have given the
subject even the least study. For instance, soldiers are commanded to break
step when crossing a bridge, otherwise their rhythmic tramp would shatter the
strongest structure. The Bible story of the sounding of the ram's horn while
marching around the walls of the city of Jericho is not nonsensical in the
eyes of the esotericist. (Joshua 6:13-20; Hebrews 11:30). In some cases similar
things have happened without the world smiling in supercilious incredulity. A
few years ago a band of musicians were practicing in a garden close to the
very solid wall of an old castle. There occurred at a certain place in the
music a prolonged and very piercing tone. When this note was sounded the wall
of the castel suddenly fell. The musicians had struck the keynote of the wall
and it was sufficiently prolonged to shatter it.
When it is said that this is the world of tone, it must not be thought
that there are no colors. Many people know that there is an intimate
connection between color and tone; that when a certain note is struck, a
certain color appears simultaneously. So it is also in the heaven world. Color
and sound are both present; but the tone is the originator of the color. Hence
it is said that this is particularly the world of tone, and it is this tone
that builds all forms in the Physical World. The musician can hear certain
tones in different parts of Nature, such as the wind in the forest, the
breaking of the surf on the beach, the roar of the ocean, and the sounding of
many waters. These combined tones make a whole which is the keynote of the
Earth — its "tone." As geometrical figures are created by drawing a violin bow
over the edge of a glass plate, so the forms we see around us are the
crystallized sound-figures of the archetypal forces which play into the
archetype in the heaven world.
The life in the Second Heaven is an exceedingly active one, varied in many
different ways. The Ego assimilates the fruits of the last Earth life and
prepares the environment for a new physical existence. The Second Heaven is
the real home of man — the Ego, the Thinker. Here he dwells for centuries,
using the sound or tone which pervades this Region as his instrument, so to
speak.
It is this harmonious sound vibration which, as an elixir of life, builds
into the threefold Spirit the quintessence of the threefold body, upon which
it depends for growth. This spiritualization of the vehicle is accomplished by
cultivation, during earthly life, of the faculties of observation,
discrimination, memory, devotion to high ideals, prayer, concentration,
persistence, and right use of the life forces.
As much of the desire body as the man had worked upon during life by
purifying his desires and emotions will be welded into the Human Spirit, thus
giving an improved mind in the future. As much of the vital body as the Life
Spirit had worked upon, transformed, spiritualized, and thus saved from the
decay to which the rest of the vital body is subject, will be amalgamated with
the Life Spirit to insure a better vital body and temperament in the
succeeding lives. As much of the dense body as the Divine Spirit has saved by
right action will be worked into it and will bring better environment and
opportunities.
It is not enough, however, to say that conditions in the forthcoming life
on Earth will be determined by conduct and action in the life just ended. It
is required that the fruits of the past be worked into the world which is to
be the next scene of activity while the Ego is gaining fresh physical
experiences and gathering further fruit. Therefore all the denizens of the
heaven world work upon the models of the Earth, all of which are in the Region
of Concrete Thought. They alter the physical features of the Earth, and bring
about the gradual changes which vary its appearance, so that on each return to
physical life a different environment has been prepared, wherein new
experiences may be gained. Climate, flora, and fauna are altered by man under
the direction of higher Beings. Thus the world is just what we ourselves,
individually and collectively, have made it; and it will be what we make it.
The esoteric scientist sees in everything that happens a cause of a spiritual
nature manifesting itself, not omitting the prevalence and alarmingly
increasing frequency of seismic disturbances, which it traces to the
materialistic thought of modern science.
Man's work in the heaven world is not confined solely to the alteration of
the surface of the Earth which is to be the scene of his future struggles in
the subjugation of the Physical World. He is also actively engaged in learning
how to build a body which will afford a better means of expression. It is
man's destiny to become a Creative Intelligence and he is serving his
apprenticeship all the time. During his heaven life he is learning to build
all kinds of bodies — the human included.
Man is directed in this work by Teachers from the higher creative
Hierarchies, which helped him to build his vehicles before he attained self-
consciousness, in the same way he himself now builds his bodies in sleep.
During heaven life they teach him consciously. The painter is taught to build
an accurate eye, capable of taking in a perfect perspective and of
distinguishing colors and shades to a degree inconceivable among those not
interested in color and light.
The mathematician has to deal with space, and the faculty for space
perception is connected with the delicate adjustment of the three
semi-circular canals which are situated inside the ear, each pointing in one of the
three dimensions in space. Logical thought and mathematical ability are in
proportion to the accuracy of the adjustment of these semi-circular canals.
Musical ability is also dependent upon the same factor, but, in addition
to the necessity for the proper adjustment of the semi-circular canals, the
musician requires extreme delicacy of the "fibers of Corti," of which there
are about ten thousand in the human ear, each capable of interpreting about
twenty-five gradations of tone. In the ears of the majority of people they do
not respond to more than from three to ten of the possible gradations, but the
master musician requires a greater range to be able to distinguish the
different notes and detect the slightest discord in the most complicated
chords.
The instrument through which man senses music is the most perfect sense
organ in the human body. The eye is not by any means true, but the ear is, in
the sense that it hears every sound without distortion, while the eye often
distorts what it sees.
In addition to the musical ear, the musician must also learn to build a
long, fine hand with slender fingers and sensitive nerves, otherwise he would
not be able to reproduce the melodies he hears.
It is a law of Nature that no one can inhabit a more efficient body than
he is capable of building. He first learns to build a certain grade of body
and afterwards he learns to live in it. In that way he discovers its defects
and is taught how to remedy them.
All men work unconsciously at the building of their bodies during ante-
natal life until they have reached the point where the quintessence of former
bodies — which they have saved — is to be built in. Then they work consciously.
It will, therefore, be seen that the more a man advances and the more he works
on his vehicles, thus making them immortal, the more power he has to build for
a new life. The advanced pupil of an esoteric school sometimes commences to
build for himself as soon as the work during the first three weeks (which
belongs exclusively to the mother) has been completed. When the period of
unconscious building has passed the man has a chance to exercise his nascent
creative power, and the true original creative process — Epigenesis — begins.
Thus we see that man learns to build his vehicles in the heaven world, and
to use them in the Physical World. Nature provides all phases of experience in
such a marvelous manner and with such consummate wisdom that as we learn to
see deeper and deeper into her secrets we are more and more impressed with our
own insignificance and with an ever-growing reverence for God, whose
visible symbol is Nature. The more we learn of her wonders, the more we
realize that this world system is not the vast perpetual motion machine
unthinking people would have us believe. It would be quite as logical to think
that if we toss a box of loose type into the air the characters will have
arranged themselves into the words of a beautiful poem by the time they reach
the ground. The greater the complexity of the plan the greater the argumental
weight in favor of the theory of an intelligent Divine Author.
The Third Heaven — Region of Abstract Thought: Having assimilated all the
fruits of his last life and altered the appearance of the Earth in such a
manner as to afford him the necessary environment for his next step towards
perfection; having also learned by work on the bodies of others, to build a
suitable body through which to express himself in the Physical World, and
having at last resolved himself in the Physical World, and having at last
resolved the mind into the essence which builds the threefold Spirit, the
naked individual Spirit ascends into the higher Region of the World of
Thought — the Third Heaven. "I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago
(whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body I cannot tell;
God knoweth;) such as one caught up to the third heaven." — II Cor. 12:2 Here
by the ineffable harmony of this higher world, it is strengthened for its next
dip into matter.
After a time comes the desire for new experience and the contemplation of
a new birth. This conjures up a series of pictures before the vision of the
Spirit — a panorama of the new life in store for it. But — mark this well — this
panorama contains only the principal events. The Spirit has free will as to
detail. It is as if a man going to a distant city had a time-limit ticket,
with initial choice of route. After he has chosen and begun his journey it is
not sure that he can change to another route during the trip. He may stop over
in as many places as he wishes, within his time limit, but he cannot go back.
Thus as he proceeds on his journey, he becomes more and more limited by his
choice. If he has chosen a steam road, using soft coal. He must expect to be
soiled and dusty. Had he chosen a road using anthracite or using electricity,
he would have been cleaner. So it is with the man in a new life. He may have
to live a hard life, but he is free to choose whether he will live it cleanly
or wallow in the mire. Other conditions are also within his control, subject
to the limits of his past choices and acts.
The pictures in the panorama of the coming life begin at the cradle and
end at the grave. This is the opposite direction to that in which they travel
in the after-death panorama which passes before the Spirit immediately
following its release from the dense body. The reason for this radical
difference in the two panoramas is that in the before-birth panorama the
object is to show the returning Ego how certain causes or acts always produce
certain effects. In the case of the after-death panorama the object is the
reverse, that is, to show how each event in the past life was the effect of
some cause further back in the life. Nature, or God, does nothing without a
logical reason, and the farther we search the more apparent it becomes to us
that Nature is a wise mother, always using the best means to accomplish her
ends.
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