The Rosicrucian Mysteries - Max Heindel (best free novels TXT) 📗

process of restoration commences and lasts for a longer or a shorter time according to circumstances.

At times however, the grip of the desire body upon our denser vehicles is so strong that it refuses to let go. When it has become so interested in the proceedings of the day, it continues to ruminate over them after the collapse of the physical body, and is perhaps only half extracted from that vehicle. Then it may transmit sights and sounds of the desire world to the brain. But as the connections are necessarily askew under such conditions, the most confused dreams result. Furthermore, as the desire body compels motion, the body is very apt to toss about when [pg 140] the desire body is not fully extracted, hence the restless sleep which usually accompanies dreams of a confused nature.

There are times of course when dreams are prophetic and come true, but such dreams result only after complete extraction of the desire body, under circumstances where the spirit has seen some danger perhaps, which may befall, and then impresses the fact upon the brain at the moment of awakening.

It also happens that the spirit goes upon a soul flight and omits to perform its part of the work of restoration, then the body will not be fit to re-enter in the morning, so it sleeps on. The spirit may thus roam afield for a number of days, or even weeks, before it again enters its physical body and assumes the normal routine of alternating waking and sleep. This condition is called trance, and the spirit may remember upon its return what it has seen and heard in the super-physical realm, or it may have forgotten, according to the stage of its development and the depth of the trance condition. When the trance is very light, the spirit is usually present in the room where its body lies all the time, and upon its return to the body it will be able to recount to relatives all they [pg 141] said and did while its body lay unconscious. Where the trance is deeper, the returning spirit will usually be unconscious of what happened around its body, but may recount experiences from the invisible world.

A few years ago a little girl by the name of Florence Bennett in Kankakee, Illinois, fell into such a trance. She returned to the body every few days, but stayed within only a few hours each time, and the whole trance lasted three weeks, more or less. During the returns to her body she told relatives that in her absence she seemed to be in a place inhabited by all the people who died. But she stated that none of them spoke about dying and no one among them seemed to realize that they were dead. Among those she had seen was a locomotive engineer who had been accidentally killed. His body was mangled in the accident which caused death. The little girl perceived him there walking about minus arms, and with lesions upon his head, all of which is in line with facts usually seen by mystic investigators. Persons who have been hurt in accidents go about thus, until they learn that a mere wish to have their body made whole will supply a new arm or [pg 142] limb, for desire stuff is most quickly and readily molded by thought.

Death.

After a longer or shorter time there comes in each life a point where the experiences which a spirit can gain from its present environment have been exhausted, and life terminates in death.

Death may be sudden and seemingly unexpected, as for instance by earthquake, upon the battle-field, or by accident, as we call it, but in reality, death is never accidental or unforeseen by Higher Powers. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without divine Will. There are along life's path partings of the way, as it were; on one side the main line of life continues onward, the other path leads into what we might call a blind alley. If the man takes that path, it soon ends in death. We are here in life for the sake of gaining experience and each life has a certain harvest to reap. If we order our life in such a manner that we gain the knowledge it is intended we should acquire, we continue in life, and opportunities of different kinds constantly come our way. But if we neglect them, and the life goes into paths which are not congruous [pg 143] to our individual development it would be a waste of time to let us stay in such environment. Therefore the Great and Wise Beings, Who are behind the scene of evolution, terminate our life, that we may have a fresh start in a different sphere of influence. The law of conservation of energy is not confined to the Physical World, but operates in the spiritual realms also. There is nothing in life that has not its purpose. We do wrong to rail against circumstances, no matter how disagreeable, we should rather endeavor to learn the lessons which are contained therein, that we may live a long and useful life. Some one may object, and say: You are inconsistent in your teachings. You say there is really no death, that we go into a brighter existence, and that we have to learn other lessons there in a different sphere of usefulness! Why then aim to live a long life here?

It is very true that we make these claims, and they are perfectly consistent with the other assertions just mentioned, but there are lessons to be learned here which cannot be learned in the other worlds, and we have to bring up this physical body through the useless years of childhood, through hot and [pg 144] impulsive youth, to the ripeness of manhood or womanhood, before it becomes of true spiritual use. The longer we live after maturity has been attained, when we have commenced to look upon the serious side of life and started to truly learn lessons which make for soulgrowth, the more experience we shall gather and the richer our harvest will be. Then, in a later existence, we shall be so much more advanced, and capable of taking up tasks that would be impossible with less length of life and breadth of activity. Besides, it is hard to die for the man in the prime of life with a wife and growing family whom he loves; with ambitions of greatness unfulfilled; with hosts of friends about him, and with interests all centered upon the material plane of existence. It is sad for the woman whose heart is bound up in home and the little ones she has reared, to leave them, perhaps without anyone to care for them; to know that they have to fight their way alone through the early years when her tender care is needed, and perhaps to see those little ones abused, and she unable to lift a hand, though her heart may bleed as freely as it would in earth life. All these things are sad, and they bind the spirit to earth for a much longer [pg 145] time than ordinarily, they hinder it from reaping the experiences it should reap upon the other side of death, and they make it desirable along with other reasons already mentioned to live a long life before passing onwards.

The difference between those who pass out at a ripe old age, and one who leaves this earth in the prime of life, may be illustrated by the manner in which the seed clings to a fruit in an unripe state. A great deal of force is necessary to tear the stone from a green peach; it has such a tenacious hold upon the fruit that shreds of pulp adhere to it when forcibly removed, so also the spirit clings to the flesh in middle life and a certain part of its material interest remain and bind it to earth after death. On the other hand, when a life has been lived to the full, when the spirit has had time to realize its ambitions or to find out their futility, when the duties of life have been performed and satisfaction rests upon the brow of an aged man or woman; or when the life has been misspent and the pangs of conscience have worked upon the man and shown him his mistakes; when, in fact, the spirit has learned the lessons of life, as it must have to come [pg 146] to old age; then it may be likened to the seed of the ripe fruit which falls out clean, without a vestige of flesh clinging thereto, at the moment the encasing pulp is opened. Therefore we say, as before, that though there is a brighter existence in store for those who have lived well, it is nevertheless best to live a long life and to live it to the fullest extent possible.

We also maintain, that no matter what may be the circumstances of a man's death, it is not accidental; it has either been brought about by his own neglect to embrace opportunities of growth, or else life has been lived to the ultimate possible. There is one exception to that rule, and that is due to man's exercise of his divine prerogative of interference. If we lived according to schedule, if we all assimilated the experiences designed for our growth by the Creative Powers, we should live to the ultimate length, but we ourselves usually shorten our lives by not taking advantage of opportunities, and it also happens that other men may shorten our lives and cut them off as suddenly as the so-called accident whereby the divine rulers terminate our life here. In other words, murder, or fatal accidents brought about by human [pg 147] carelessness, are in reality the only termination to life not planned by invisible leaders of humanity. No one is ever compelled to do murder or other evil, or there could not come to them a just retribution for their acts. The Christ said that evil must come but woe unto him by whom it cometh, and to harmonize that with the law of divine justice: “as a man soweth, so shall he also reap,” there must at least be absolute free will in respect to evil acts.

There are also cases where a person lives such a full and good life of such vast benefit to humanity and to himself, that his days are lengthened beyond the ultimate, as they are shortened by neglect, but such cases are of course too few to allow of their being dwelt upon at length.

Where death is not sudden as in the case of accidents, but occurs at home after an illness, quietly and peacefully, dying persons usually experience a falling upon them as of a pall of great darkness shortly before termination of life. Many pass out from the body under that condition, and do not see the light again until they have entered the super-physical realms. There are many other cases however, where the darkness lifts before the [pg 148] final release from the body. Then the dying person views both worlds at once, and is cognizant of the presence of both dead and living friends. Under such circumstances it very often happens that a mother sees some of her children who have gone before, and she will exclaim joyously: Oh, there is Johnny standing at the foot of my bed; my but hasn't he grown! The living relatives may feel shocked and uneasy, thinking the mother suffering from hallucinations, while in reality she is more clear-sighted than they; she perceives those who have passed beyond the veil who have come to greet and help her to make herself at home in the new world she is entering.

Each human being is an individual, separate and apart from all others, and as experiences in the life of each differ from those of all others in the interval from the cradle to the grave, so we may also reasonably infer that the experiences of each spirit vary from those of every other spirit when it passes through the gates of birth and death. We print what purports to be a spirit message communicated by the late Professor James of Harvard at the Boston spirit temple, and in which he describes sensations which he felt [pg 149] when passing through the gate of death. We do not vouch for its authenticity as we have not investigated the matter personally.

Professor James had promised to communicate after death with his friends