CHAPTER IV

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER DEATH
Death is an episode not a tragedy ; it is liberation from the physical body and not the annihilation of the con- sciousness. Though death may take from us our out- worn or outgrown bodies, it grants us the wider freedom of the unseen worlds, and to those who know, death has no terrors — not one. Instead of being a dark-robed King of Terrors, death is a bright Presence bearing the blessed key which unlocks the prison house of the flesh ; and it would be well for us to learn the truth about what happens after death ; and then to cast aside for ever all grief and mourning — twin offspring of ignorance.
There is a foolish aphorism current among us that all men are equal in the grave — king and beggar, sage and fool. This is perhaps true of their physical bodies, but it is a mistake so far as the men themselves are con- cerned. We are unchanged by death; our powers of consciousness may indeed become somewhat greater and the extent of our vision and perception larger, but we are the same people after death as before — mentally, morally and spiritually. Death cannot transform us into some- thing different just because it strikes away the physical instrument, the body, we have used on earth. It cannot suddenly convert us into prayerful saints or all-wise spirits; such changes can only come about during the long course of evolution. After death we cling to the same follies, believe the same half-truths, display the same prejudices and associate with the same sort of people as we did while in physical incarnation.
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True, we know a little more, because we are surrounded by the phenomena of a larger world, and we are at least convinced that death does not end all, because we our- selves have survived it, but on the other hand few people are careful observers, and so the knowledge we obtain after death is usually general and not detailed, and further, it is often distorted by our beliefs and prejudices.
The act of dying and of going to sleep are similar except in a few particulars. In both cases we withdraw from the physical body, but when we go to sleep the etheric matter in the physical body remains unchanged, and therefore while we are absent, the currents of vitality play through the body and keep it alive. But when we die, the etheric double goes out with us, the currents of vitality, which flow in ether, cease, and the physical body becomes cold and motionless, even though all its organs may be unimpaired. As soon as the etheric matter withdraws, the slow disintegration of the cells commences and decay sets in.
As we withdraw from the physical body at the time of death we are surrounded by the etheric matter which came out with us. This envelops us like a fog and pre- vents us from obtaining even a glimpse of the astral world which surrounds us with its multifarious activities and interests. As a result, most of us during this period, which lasts several hours, are entirely unconscious of our condition and environment.
After a time this etheric matter slowly slips away and we become more and more aware of the emotional world of which we are now a conscious inhabitant. Since every physical object is duplicated in emotional matter, we are apt at first, particularly if we are not very ob- servant, to notice very little difference between this new world and the physical earth. Indeed, it is difficult at times to convince some people that they are really
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"dead," for they are frequently possessed of such fan- tastic ideas as to what ought to happen but which does not happen after death, that it takes several days to persuade them that they have really lost their physical bodies.
After a few attempts, however, to eat and walk and talk as they were accustomed to do on earth, these ob- stinate people begin to realize that something is wrong. They eat the food of which they think and therefore immediately see before them, but for some reason it has no taste and does not give them any satisfaction. They have still to learn that the astral body does not require food. They walk about among their old haunts and homes but find themselves unable to move certain objects as before. They have still to find out that a person living in the unseen world cannot move physical objects merely by trying to lift their astral counterparts.
They talk to others they meet and are very much puzzled at first to notice that while they can converse with some people at any hour, other persons will only pay attention to them about eight hours out of twenty- four. During the rest of the time these peculiar men and women — for as such they are considered by the obstinate "dead" people whose experiences we are studying — do not respond to anything which is said. Our friends in the emotional world have still to discover that while they can mingle and speak at any time with other people who are also * ' dead, ' ' they cannot gain the attention of those in physical incarnation during the hours when the latter are awake, that is, when the consciousness is focussed in the physical brain. Only when the physical bodies of people in incarnation go to sleep, are they released from the limitations of the brain and therefore responsive to astral surroundings.
As we gain more experience in this life we are leading after death, we learn many other important lessons and
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facts. For some time we are apt to believe it necessary to walk about as we did on earth, to regard a door as something to be opened before we can pass through, and to think of walls as being impassable barriers. After a time we find that we can pass through any of these seemingly solid things without the slightest difficulty, and that, when we desire to go to a distant place, there is not the slightest necessity for walking there. All we need do is to will strongly to go to that place, there is a sense of motion, and we find ourselves there.
One of the most common dreams is that of flying — either of moving through the air or skimming along the ground, taking only a running step now and then. By questioning audiences in many cities, it has been found that about 25 to 40 per cent of intelligent people have dreams of this description. Such dreams of flying are merely indications that we are learning how to move about in the way which is normal in the emotional world.
We also realize after death that every uncontrolled passion and appetite of the ignoble sort, which we al- lowed to fasten upon us during our life on earth, is something for which we must now pay the price. The cravings, which we were accustomed to gratify without question, can no longer be satisfied because our physical bodies are gone. All the passions and desires are still as strong as before, and there is nothing to do now but to live them down and let them die out for want of gratification. We bitterly regret that we did not know this before death, because the bite of an unsatisfied de- sire is now far stronger than it was when we were liv- ing in a physical body, for this is the world of feeling. Any hell that is to be found after death is one which we make for ourselves by what we do and feel and think while on earth — we are not punished by any external power, we punish ourselves.
We also see how utterly wrong it is to give way to
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uncontrolled grief for those who are "dead," for now we, who have lost our physical bodies by death, are continually surrounded by the almost unbearable thoughts of grief and passionate longing created by our loving but misguided friends who are mourning our death. Strangely enough, though these same friends are with us and talk with us while their physical bodies are asleep, just as soon as they awake in the morning, they revert to the old delusion that they have lost us, and think thoughts of bitter sorrow all day long. "We stand beside them and cry out that we are there, but they do not hear us or even feel our presence, because their nervous systems are so insensitive and their attention is so fully directed to worldly affairs. They make us, the dead, very unhappy and miserable by their illogical and foolish attitude, and we can really only gain relief from this intolerable condition when they begin to forget us and think of other things. Be under no delusion that grief or mourning gratify the "dead;" it only makes them miserable. Why cannot people realize that all such sorrowing is wrong, that uncontrolled grief makes life a hell for us who are living in the emotional world, and that there is really no separation since those who love us are with us every night while their physical bodies are asleep and resting. God did not design this world to be a torture chamber — the source of all sorrow is ignorance, if we only knew it.
As the years roll on — counting time as is done on earth — we find that more radiant and beautiful regions of this emotional world unfold before our gaze, and we are startled to discover that we have been surrounded by these glorious regions all the time but did not know it, because of a peculiarity of the emotional body. It seems that it can only respond to the vibrations of the emotional world outside it, according to the degree of sensitiveness of the matter on its surface. If this surface
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layer is coarse, we sense only slow vibrations such as are characteristic of the lower levels of the emotional world ; if fine, then the swifter vibrations of the higher levels will bring their messages to our consciousness.
We are told that a curious rearrangement of the mat- ter of the emotional body took place immediately after our death. By an instinctive effort of the emotional body, the matter composing it was thrown into concentric layers, the coarsest on the outside, the finest of all within, the various other grades lying between the two. This arrangement was unnecessary and we could have stopped it had we known that it was taking place, but we did not know, and so the emotional body instinctively sorted out the matter in this way, thereby prolonging its existence.
This rearrangement caused us to be conscious only on that level of the emotional world corresponding in density to the matter on the surface of the emotional body. Hence, because our life on earth was not all that it might have been, we did not have a very high opinion at first of this emotional world, because we were limited to a rather low level for a while. In fact, some of us had rather an uncomfortable time of it during the first few months, because we had built a considerable amount of coarse matter into oar emotional bodies by unwhole- some habits and impure diet. Finally this wore away and we became conscious of very much more pleasant regions.
This opening up of new vistas of beauty and enjoy- ment is continually taking place with every person as the coarser particles are gradually eliminated from the emotional body. And after we have lived in this world several years, our interest in worldly affairs wanes, be- cause there are so many more interesting things to at- tend to here. While we still love the people who are yet in physical incarnation, nevertheless we realize sensibly
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that they must live their lives as we lived ours, and that we really only hinder them by trying to interfere. Further, as we become conscious of the more beautiful levels of the emotional world, the duplicates of physical objects gradually become less prominent, and so little by little we lose touch with earth life and turn our thoughts to higher and more important things. "We become more introspective and begin to learn the value of our own thoughts.
Eventually there comes a time when we slowly awaken to a new glory of life and color which is beyond all words to describe, and so intense is our bliss that it does not even interest us to know that we have now cast off the useless emotional body — which speedily disintegrates — and are living in our radiant mental body in the heaven world. In the words of one who has learned to lift the consciousness, even while functioning in the brain, to this supernal world, a man who withdraws into the heaven world "awakens to a sense of joy unspeakable, of bliss immeasurable, of peace that passeth understand- ing. Softest melodies are breathing around him, tender- est hues greet his opening eyes, the very air seems music and color, his whole being is suffused with light and harmony. Then through the golden haze dawn sweetly the faces loved on earth, etherealized into beauty which expresses their noblest, loveliest emotions, unmarred by the troubles and passions of the lower worlds. Who may tell the bliss of that awakening, the glory of that first dawning of the heaven world ? ' '
Many centuries may be spent in this world of happi- ness engaged in assimilating the experiences gained on earth and transmuting their essence into wisdom and faculty. This world is our true home and here we enjoy the fruits gathered during our visit to earth. The time spent here is a period of inner growth, and the food we consume is the harvest of good thoughts, emotions and
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aspirations, which we sowed during the earth life. The heaven life is one of intense, unalloyed happiness, with- out even the shadow of a sorrow.
After a period in the lower heaven world, the length of which is determined by the stage of evolution we have reached as souls, and the amount of experience we gained during our life on earth, the time comes when we have thought over every fragment of experience, carried out every spiritual aspiration, lived through every joy, ac- complished everything possible in this world, of which we can conceive. At that moment the now useless mental body drops away and our consciousness suddenly ex- pands to that of the mature soul, our true inner Self. Then we realize our divine nature, then we remember the long path we have trodden to gain our present stage of evolution, then we recall the past lives we have lived on earth, for the causal body is the storehouse of all mem- ories and it never forgets though the brain and lower mind may be ignorant of the past.
For a varying length of time we live in this condition of pure soul consciousness. The savage has but a flash of this lofty condition; an advanced philosopher may enjoy this state for years or even centuries. But with all, the time inevitably comes when there is awakened a thirst for more experience, for activity, for increased knowledge of details such as may only ~be gained on earth, and with that dawning desire, the soul turns its consciousness once more towards the lower worlds. First it draws round itself a cloud of matter of the lower mental world out of which, during the childhood of its future physical body, it fashions a mind body; then it gathers to itself a cloud of matter of the emotional world which later is moulded into an emotional body; lastly it becomes linked to an infant body provided by parents with whom the soul has formed ties in previous lives on earth. And thus it is that a new incarnation commences
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as the child is born, a child with its as yet unorganized emotional and mental bodies, through which, as the years advance, the mature soul behind is able ever more and more to manifest its powers.
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