In the Light of Truth

40. Death

There is one thing in which all men believe without exception. It is death! Death is one of the few facts that have never been disputed nor doubted. Yet, although all men, from childhood upwards, reckon with the fact that they must once die, the greater number, by far, seek to ward off the thought. Many people, indeed, are even irritated if the subject is broached in their presence. Others again, carefully avoid cemeteries and if, by chance, they meet a funeral procession in the street, they seek to efface the impression made as soon as possible, for at such moments an inexplicable feeling of dread oppresses them; they fear that death may one day suddenly surprise them. A strange feeling of apprehension prevents their seriously meditating on this irrefutable fact.

There hardly exists another process that, though so inevitable, is so pushed aside in their thoughts as death. Nor is there another such important event in man's life on earth unless it is birth. It is a striking fact that man will not and does not concern himself more with the beginning and the end of his life on earth, whereas to other, even quite secondary matters, he ascribes the greatest importance. He cogitates and speculates on the intervening periods of life more than on what would fully and effectively enlighten him: the beginning and the end of human life. Death and birth are so closely allied, because one is the result of the other.

In the first place procreation is regarded with a lamentable want of the consideration due to its importance. It would be a rare case in which one could find anything worthy of the dignity of man or of the importance of the occasion, for just on this point man is pleased to place himself on a level with the animal without being able to preserve its innocence. In this indeed man ranks below the beast. For the beast acts in harmony with the degree of development of the plane it is on in Creation. Man, however, cannot, or will not, keep to the plane that is his. He descends to a lower level and then wonders how it is that humanity gradually deteriorates. Wedding customs of the present day make marriage appear a purely mundane matter. In many cases the revelries indulged in at the festivities are so unworthy that parents should not allow their children to be present. Speeches are made of such a suggestive nature that young men and girls who do not turn away in disgust, show that they themselves are spiritually no better and belong to the same low order.

It is as if the dissolute reveller wished here also to deceive himself, lest he should think of the real issue. If, as it has already become the custom, man's earth-life is built up on such a frivolous basis, one can understand that he also strives to deceive himself with regard to death by trying not to think of it. This pushing aside of all serious thoughts is closely connected with the fact of procreation taking place under such unworthy, degrading conditions. That mysterious feeling of apprehension that accompanies man, like his shadow throughout his life, has its source in the consciousness of all the wrong in the frivolous and unworthy life of men. And if he cannot otherwise allay his fears, he tries to deceive himself, either by arguing that death is the end of all things (whereby he openly acknowledges his inferiority and his cowardly fear of being called to account) or by clinging to the hope that he is not much worse than others.

But all this reasoning does not alter the fact in the slightest degree, that death is coming nearer and nearer, day by day, hour by hour! When the last hour has come, how deplorable those will look, who so positively denied the existence of another world where they could be made answerable for their doings. Then, in their alarm, they will begin to question, plainly showing how shaken they are, and how their convictions have begun to waver. This is now but of little use. It is again cowardice, for suddenly, when the end approaches, they recognise the possibility of a continuation of life and of a reckoning to come. Alarm, fear, cowardice do not affect, diminish or curtail the retributive reaction of Karma any more than does obduracy. It is not after this fashion that understanding and true contrition come about.

When the worldly man's last hour approaches, his intellect (which he found so trustworthy during his life) will play him a sorry trick by suggesting that it would be prudent to turn pious. This, at the time when the process of the separation of body and soul has so far advanced, that the dying man's intuition (the sensation of his ethereal body) has attained the same power as his intellect, which up till then had mercilessly subjugated his intuition. But the dying man profits nothing; he will reap what his thoughts and actions sowed on earth! He has changed nothing, nor improved, he will irresistibly be drawn under the reacting wheel of Karma, and must now himself learn by experience how he erred in his convictions, and, consequently, in his actions and thoughts. He has every reason to dread the hour when he must leave his physical body. That body protected him for a while against transcendental influences. It was intended as a shield behind which he was to work at his improvement undisturbed, where he could alter much and even redeem much wrong, which he could not do otherwise.

It is doubly sad, when this time of merciful respite is rioted through in frivolous self-deception as if it were a drunken revel. Many there are who have every reason for alarm and apprehension.

The case is quite different with those who have not wasted their time on earth, but who have discovered, although late, that they were on the wrong road and have turned before it was too late to lead a spiritual life. Their serious search for the truth will serve them as a staff and support in their passage into the next world. They need have no misgivings in taking this step from the physical material world into the ethereal transcendental world. It is a step every man must take. All matter, whether physical or ethereal, is transient. They may welcome this hour of release, for it means an advance in all cases, no matter what they have to experience in the ethereal world. Their good experiences will make them happy and the evil ones will be made surprisingly easy burdens to bear. Here their goodwill helps them more effectively than they could have imagined.

The process of dying, in itself, is nothing further than birth into a world of finer substance, similar to the process of birth into the physical world. The ethereal body remains attached to the physical as with a navel string for some time after death has taken place. The connection is more or less close (or slack) in proportion to the progress the soul, now born into the ethereal world, has already made on earth towards spirituality and how far it has got on its way to the Kingdom of God. The more the man tied himself to the world, i. e. to matter, and refused all knowledge of the spiritual world, the tighter this connecting link, made by his own volition, ties his ethereal body (which he wants as his clothing in transcendental life) to its physical vessel. According to the law it follows that the denser his ethereal body is, the heavier and the darker it appears. This great resemblance and close relation to matter makes it very hard for the soul to detach itself, so that it happens in such, cases that the last bodily pain and the process of decay is felt in the ethereal body too, and the same would be the case, when the physical body is cremated. After the final severance of this link, the ethereal body sinks to that level on which its surroundings are of corresponding density and weight. There man will be among those whose opinions and views agree with his. As all sensations in that region are far more acute and quite uncontrolled or restrained, one can understand that provocation is more bitter and strife more violent than on earth.

It is otherwise with a man, who aspired to all that is noble during his life on earth. Such a man is inspired with a conviction that this transit from the physical to the transcendental world must come, and for him the severance is much easier. His ethereal body and the connecting link are not dense. They are of a nature alien to the physical body, and are consequently easily and quickly detached, so that before and during the last death-struggle the ethereal body stands beside the physical body, if, indeed, there be such a thing as a death-struggle when a normal being passes over. The slender connecting link does not allow the ethereal body standing there to feel any pain, indeed feelings cannot be transmitted from the physical to the ethereal body. Owing to its frail and transient nature, such a strand soon tears and sets the ethereal body perfectly free to soar to that region where all is of finer, lighter nature. There in that sublime realm the liberated soul will only meet with kindred souls, happiness and peace. Such a light and porous body of invisible substance naturally becomes more and more luminous, till it is so transparent that the pure rays of the spirit within begin to break through. This process precedes the final evolution to a perfectly translucent human spirit which can then enter into the sphere of pure spiritual substance.

Those, however, who are present at a death-bed should take warning that they do not break out into loud lamentations. When the grief at parting is too extravagantly expressed, the ethereal body, in the process of detaching itself, or which has already detached itself and is standing by the physical body, can hear and feel and be so touched by the lamentations that a feeling of pity arises within him. He wishes now to say a few words of consolation to his friends, but to make himself understood to them he needs his physical brain. The effort to reconnect his ethereal body with his physical body, stops the process of disconnection which had already set in, or was, indeed, perhaps already accomplished; and the result of being drawn back into his physical body is, that he again must suffer the pangs that were already past. When the process of detachment begins afresh, it is much harder and more painful and even takes some days to accomplish. This is what is called the long fight for life, which is, indeed, painful. The natural process has been interrupted by the noisy grief of the egoistical mourners, and the slight effort to concentrate has made the reconnection compulsory. To dissolve this unnatural union is very difficult for a soul who does not know how to proceed, and no help can be afforded it, as it was its own desire to reconnect itself. It is easy for such a connection to take place before the physical body is cold, and the link which still holds the two bodies together is sometimes not severed for weeks. It is unnecessary suffering for the dying man and an utter want of consideration on the part of the bystanders.

Absolute peace should reign in the chamber of death — a gravity suitable to the importance of the hour. Those people who cannot control themselves should be forcibly removed even if they be the nearest relations.

[Grail Message by Abdrushin]  [Resonances to the Grail Message]