WHAT HAPPENS AFTER DEATH ?
Dec 19th, 2012 by admin
MAX HEINDEL ON TRANSITIONS
Direct Quotes from the Heindel Writings
1. Rebirth of Children
2. Results of Sudden Death
3. Reunion of Lovers in Heaven
4. Results of Suicide
5. Our Responsibility to the Dead
REBIRTH OF CHILDREN
It is stated in the Rosicrucian teachings that children who die in infancy are brought to rebirth in from one to twenty years. Do they return to the same station in life, or do they sometimes return to a different environment, more or less desirable, from wealth to poverty, or vice versa?
Answer: This question was asked years ago when the writer was a novice in the investigation of the spiritual world, and it was answered correctly at that time. But later investigations make it possible to give more detail based upon what has actually happened in a considerable number of cases. Notes were made of the results at the time of the investigations, but these have been mislaid. Nevertheless, according to our recollection, it was found that out of twenty children we watched who came to rebirth within five years of the time of death, fifteen or sixteen went back into the same family. It can be seen at the time when a child dies whether it will be a long or a short time in the invisible worlds. We therefore selected another group of twenty which are still in the invisible world and not expected to take rebirth until ten or more years have passed. But the tendencies are already quite plainly shown, for when a Spirit seeks rebirth it is usually drawn to the prospective mother years before it enters the womb, and sometimes women still unmarried are surrounded by their prospective children even before they have become engaged. Judging from this fact what the results will be, we find that out of the group of twenty only three are staying with their former mothers; the other seventeen are scattered among other families, and two of them are keeping company with small girls, showing that they are waiting for them to grow up and become their mothers.
This tendency of Spirits who are seeking embodiment to follow their prospective mothers around for years sometimes gives rise to laughable and embarrassing situations in connections with mediums who do not understand the conditions. We remember the case of a young lady who went to a seance and was told that she had a child in spirit land who was standing beside her and calling her mother. Naturally she denied the allegation indignantly, and arose and left the meeting. So there was a case where both were right through making diametrically opposite statements; each thought the other dishonest because each lacked the knowledge to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable.
RESULTS OF SUDDEN DEATH
In the November, 1917, issue of Rays From The Rose Cross there was a story called, “Facing the Firing Squad,” stating how a spy was placed against a wall and shot. Immediately afterwards he, being in full possession of his consciousness, converses with a Rosicrucian and in his company travels thousands of miles to visit his sister. Is not this contrary to what is taught in the Rosicrucian Philosophy? It is there stated that after the seed atom in the heart has been removed and the silver cord ruptured, a period of unconsciousness lasting about three and one-half days follows, during which time the spirit reviews the panorama of its past life.
Answer: Yes, it is so stated in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, and that holds good under all ordinary circumstances. However, it is also stated in explanation of the law of infant mortality that when a person passes out under untoward circumstances, such as a fire or a railway accident, or suddenly as by a fall from a building or a mountain, or on a battlefield, or when the lamentations of relatives around the bedside of the newly dead make it impossible for him to concentrate upon the life-panorama, then the etching in the two higher ethers, the light ether and the reflecting ether, and their amalgamation with the desire body, does not take place. Man does not then lose consciousness, and because there is no etching on the finer vehicles such as is normally the case, he has no purgatorial existence; that is to say, he does not reap what he has sown, there is no suffering in consequence of his wrong-doings and no feeling of joy and love on account of the good he has done. The fruitage of the life has been lost.
To offset this great disaster the Spirit on entering its next earth life is caused to die in childhood so far as the physical body is concerned, but the vital body, the desire body, and mind, which do not ordinarily come to birth until the dense body is seven, fourteen, and twenty-one years old, respectively, remain with the passing Spirit, as that which has not been quickened cannot die. Then in the First Heaven the Spirit stays from one to twenty years, receiving such instructions and object lessons as will teach it that which it would otherwise have learned by the panorama of its past life had it not been interrupted by the accident which terminated it. And so it is reborn, ready to take its proper place on the path of evolution.
There is in this consideration a great deal of food for thought. The large percentage of infant mortality today has its root in the wars of former ages. The loss of life was comparatively slight, though the toll of national wars must have been greatly increased by the deaths which occurred in duels, feuds, and common quarrels, where deadly weapons were used in those days. Nevertheless, the sum total of these casualties seems insignificant when compared with the awful carnage which is now going on, and if this is to be corrected in the same manner, then a future generation will certainly reap a harvest of tears on account of the epidemics which will devastate the homes of their children. But as we have pointed out at other times, every tear shed because of the loss of some loved one is wearing away the scales from our eyes until one day we shall see with sufficient clarity to penetrate the veil that now separates us from those we mistakenly call dead, but who are really much more alive than we are. Then shall come to pass the victory over death, and we shall be able to exclaim: “O, Death, where is thy sting? O, Grave, where is thy victory?” The Rosicrucian Philosophy in Questions & Answers II, 47 – 49
Children who die before the seventh year have only been born so far as the dense and vital bodies are concerned and are not responsible to the Law of Consequence. Even up to twelve or fourteen years the desire body is in process of gestation, as will be more fully explained in the next lecture, and as that which has not been quickened cannot die, the dense and vital bodies alone go to decay when a child dies. It retains its desire body and mind to the next birth. Therefore it does not go around the whole path which the Ego usually traverses in a life cycle, but only ascends to the First Heaven to learn needed lessons, and after a wait of from one to twenty years it is reborn, often in the same family as a younger child. Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures, 95
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 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 houses are to us. All gain here the satisfaction which earth life lacked for them.
There is one class there who lead a particularly beautiful life–the children. 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 not 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 as instanced in the case cited elsewhere.
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 awaiting it, or, failing that, there are people who loved to “mother” children in the 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 in 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 Compassionate ones (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 be perhaps 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 those circumstances experience the appropriate intensity of feeling in his postmortem existence, therefore, when he is born and dies early in life, the loss is made up as above. Often the duty of caring for such a child in the heaven life falls to those who were 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 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 Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, 117 – 119
REUNION OF LOVERS IN HEAVEN
Similarly, when the second person passes on, if the first person has progressed into the Second Heaven, his or her shell, so-called (the disintegrating desire body in which he or she lived), will answer the purpose and seem perfectly real to the second lover until his or her life in this realm is ended. 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.
This applies not only to lovers in the generally accepted sense of the word, but the love existing between brothers and sisters, parents and children, or friends who are not related by blood will also work itself out in a similar manner. Our life in the First Heaven is always blessed and filled by the presence of those we love. If they are not in the spirit world and thus actually present, their images will be; and it must not be thought that these are pure illusion, for they are ensouled by the love and the friendship sent out by the absent ones toward the person of whose heaven life they are a part. The Rosicrucian Philosophy in Questions & Answers II, 22 – 23
RESULTS OF SUICIDE
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. The Passing and Life Afterward, 17 – 18
OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE DEAD
Will you please tell me just how we may best help those who have passed on?
Answer: We have often expressed our appreciation of the science of birth with its efficient methods of helping both the mother and the child when the latter is entering our earth-life, but we have also heartily deplored the lack of a science of death which would teach people how to help intelligently the Ego that is passing from earth-life into the unseen realms of nature. At such times we usually stand helplessly by, and often do in our ignorance the very things which are detrimental to the comfort of the Spirit then in transition. If people could only know how their moans and hysterical outbursts affect their dear departing ones, unselfish consideration would probably change their attitude and quiet their manner.
So far as the body is concerned it is not really dead until about three and one-half days after the Spirit has passed out of it, for the silver cord still connects it with the higher vehicles. During this time anything in the nature of a post-mortem examination, embalming, or cremation is felt by the Spirit almost as keenly as if still within the body. These are facts well known to all students of the Rosicrucian Philosophy, but they have perhaps not received the emphasis they deserve. We should remember that our attitude after that time continues to affect the Spirit, for our friends do not usually leave their accustomed places right away. Many stay in or near the home for a number of months after they have left the body and can feel conditions there even more keenly than when in earth-life. If we sigh, mourn, and moan for them we transfer to them the gloom we ourselves carry about with us or else we bind them to the home because of their efforts to cheer us.
In either case we are a hindrance and a stumbling block in the way of their spiritual progress, and while this may be forgiven in those who are ignorant of the facts concerning life and death, people who have studied the Rosicrucian Philosophy or kindred teachings are incurring a very grave responsibility when they indulge in such practices. We are well aware that custom used to demand the wearing of mourning and that people were not considered respectable if they did not put on a sable garb as a token of their sorrow. But fortunately times are changing and a more enlightened view is being taken of the matter. The transition to the other world is quite serious enough in itself, involving as it does a process of adjustment to strange conditions all around, and the passing Spirit is further hampered by the sorrow and anguish of the dear ones whom it continues to see about itself. When it finds them surrounded by a cloud of black gloom, clothed in garments of the same color and nursing their sorrow for months or years, the effect cannot be anything but depressing.
How much better then the attitude to those who have learned the Rosicrucian Teachings and have taken them to heart. Their attitude when a dear one makes the transition is cheerful, hopeful, and encouraging. The selfish grief at the loss is controlled in order that the passing Spirit may receive all the encouragement possible. Usually the survivors in the family dress in white at the funeral and a cheerful, genial spirit prevails throughout. The thought of the survivors is not, “What shall I do now that I have lost him (or her)? All the world seems empty for me.” but the thought is, “I hope he (or she) may find himself (or herself) to rights under the new conditions as quickly as possible and that he (or she) will not grieve at the thought of leaving us behind.” Thus by the good-will, intelligence, unselfishness, and love of the remaining friends the passing Spirit is enabled to enter the new conditions under much more favorable circumstances, and students of the Rosicrucian Philosophy cannot do better than to spread this teaching as widely as possible. According to the Bible the redeemed of the Lord will finally vanquish the last enemy, DEATH, and they will then exclaim “O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?” For those who have evolved spiritual sight there is of course no death, but even those who have studied the Rosicrucian Teachings may in a measure be said to have attained this great victory. The Rosicrucian Philosophy in Questions & Answers II, 38 – 41