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Part Two - The Basic Requirements for Healing - Part 2

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The field of experience (in which is death, as the average person knows it) is the three worlds of human evolution—the physical world, the world of emotion and desire, and the mental plane.  This world is, in the last analysis twofold, from the angle of death, and hence the phrase "the second death."  This I have earlier applied to the death or destruction of the causal body, in which the spiritual soul has hitherto functioned.  It can be applied, however, in a more literal sense, and may be referred to the second phase of the death process in the three worlds.  It then concerns form only, and is related to those vehicles of expression which are found below the formless levels of the cosmic physical plane.  These form levels are (as you know well, for the knowledge constitutes the a.b.c. of the occult theory) the levels on which the concrete, lower mind functions, the emotional nature reacts to the so-called astral plane, and the dual physical plane.  The physical body consists of the dense physical body and the etheric vehicle.  We have consequently, when considering the death of a human being, to employ the word death in relation to two phases in which it functions:

Phase One:  The death of the physical-etheric body.  This phase falls into two stages:

a. That in which the atoms which constitute the physical body are restored to the source from whence they came.  This source is the sumtotal of the matter of the planet, constituting the dense physical body of the planetary Life.

b. That in which the etheric vehicle, composed of an aggregation of forces, returns these forces to the [409] general reservoir of energy.  This dual phase covers the Process of Restitution.

Phase Two:  The "rejection" (as it is sometimes called) of the mental-emotional vehicles.  These form, in reality, only one body; to it the early theosophists (correctly) gave the name of the "kama-manasic body" or the vehicle of desire-mind.  I have said elsewhere that there is no such thing as the astral plane or the astral body.  Just as the physical body is made up of matter which is not regarded as a principle, so the astral body—as far as the mind nature is concerned—is in the same category.  This is a difficult matter for you to grasp because desire and emotion are so real and so devastatingly important.  But—speaking literally—from the angle of the mental plane, the astral body is "a figment of the imagination"; it is not a principle.  The massed use of the imagination in the service of desire has nevertheless constructed an illusory glamorous world, the world of the astral plane.  During physical incarnation, and when a man is not upon the Path of Discipleship, the astral plane is very real, with a vitality and a life all its own.  After the first death (the death of the physical body) it still remains equally real.  But its potency slowly dies out:  the mental man comes to realise his own true state of consciousness (whether developed or undeveloped), and the second death becomes possible and takes place.  This phase covers the Process of Elimination.

When these two phases of the Art of Dying are over, the discarnate soul stands free from the control of matter; it is purified (temporarily by the phases of Restitution and Elimination) from all contamination by substance.  This is achieved, not through any activity of the soul in form, [410] the human soul, but as a result of the activity of the soul on its own plane abstracting the fraction of itself which we call the human soul.  It is primarily the work of the overshadowing soul which effects this; it is not carried forward by the soul in the personality.  The human soul, during this stage, is only responsive to the pull or the attractive force of the spiritual soul as it—with deliberate intent—extracts the human soul from its imprisoning sheaths.  Later on, as the evolutionary processes proceed and the soul increasingly controls the personality, it will be the soul within the imprisoning sheaths which will bring about—consciously and with intention—the phases of dying.  In the earlier stages, this release will be brought about with the aid of the overshadowing spiritual soul.  Later on, when the man is living upon the physical plane as the soul, he will himself—with full continuity of consciousness—carry out the processes of abstraction, and will then (with directed purpose) "ascend to the place from whence he came."  This is the reflection in the three worlds of the divine ascension of the perfected Son of God.

Some of the information I have already given anent the subject of Death in my other writings might well be appended here.  I have a definite purpose in suggesting this.  Death is all around you at this time; the demand of the human spirit for light upon this matter has reached a crisis of potency; it is evoking the inevitable response from the Hierarchy.  It is also my hope that students will do something of major importance to aid in bringing forth the light upon the processes of death which humanity is today demanding.

ON DEATH

EXCERPTS FROM OTHER WRITINGS

"Why this blind power?  Why Death?  Why this decay [411] of forms?  Why the negation of the power to hold?  Why death, O mighty Son of God?"

Faintly the answer comes:  "I hold the keys of life and death.  I bind and loose again.  I the Destroyer am."

A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Vol. I, Page 63.

The intent of the Lord of the first Ray is to stand behind the other divine Aspects, and when They have achieved Their purpose, to shatter the forms They have built.

He is the controller of the death drama in all kingdoms—a destruction of forms which brings about release of power and permits "entrance into light through the gateway of death."

Page 64.

a. "Withhold thy hand until the time has come.  Then give the gift of death, O Opener of the Door."

Page 65.

b. "Separate the robe from That which hides behind its many folds.  Take off the veiling sheaths.  Let God be seen.  Take Christ from off the Cross."

Page 69.

The first step towards substantiating the fact of the soul is to establish the fact of survival, though this may not necessarily prove the fact of immortality....That something survives the process of death, and that something persists after the disintegration of the physical body is steadily being proved.  If that is not so, then we are the victims of a collective hallucination, and the brains and minds of thousands of people are untrue and deceiving, are diseased and distorted.  Such a gigantic collective insanity is more difficult to credit than the alternative of an expanded consciousness.

Page 98-99.

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a. The growth of etheric vision and the largely increased numbers of clairaudient and clairvoyant people is steadily revealing the existence of the astral plane and the etheric counterpart of the physical world.  More and more people are becoming aware of this subjective realm:  they see people walking around who are either the so-called "dead" or who, in sleep, have dropped the physical sheath.

Page 98.

b. The next two hundred years will see the abolition of death, as we now understand that great transition, and the establishing of the soul's existence.  The soul will be known as an entity, as the motivating impulse and the spiritual centre back of all manifested forms . . . Our essential immortality will be demonstrated and realised to be a fact in nature.

Page 96.

Within the next few years the fact of persistence and of the eternity of existence will have advanced out of the realm of questioning into the realm of certainty . . . There will be no question in anyone's mind that the discarding of the physical body will leave a man still a conscious living entity.  He will be known to be perpetuating his existence in a realm lying behind the physical.  He will be known to be still alive, awake and aware.  This will be brought about by:

a. The development of a power within the physical eye of a human being . . . will reveal the etheric body...men will be seen occupying that body.

b. The growth of the number of people who have the power to use the "reawakened third eye" will demonstrate immortality, for they will with facility see the [413] man who has discarded his etheric body as well as his physical body.

c. A discovery in the field of photography will prove survival.

d. Through the use of the radio by those who have passed over will communication eventually be set up and reduced to a true science.

e. Man will eventually be keyed up to a perception and to a contact which will enable him to see through, which will reveal the nature of the fourth dimension, and will blend the subjective and objective worlds together into a new world.  Death will lose its terrors and that particular fear will come to an end.

Page 183.

You must always bear in mind that the consciousness remains the same whether in physical incarnation or out of incarnation, and that development can be carried on with even greater ease than when limited and conditioned by the brain consciousness.

Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. I, Page 81.

The Law of Sacrifice and Death is the controlling factor on the physical plane.  The destruction of the form, in order that the evolving life may progress, is one of the fundamental methods in evolution.

A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, Page 569.

a. The Law of Disintegration is an aspect of the Law of Death.  This is the law that governs the destruction of the form in order that the indwelling life may shine forth in fullness....This law breaks up the forms and the Law of Attraction draws back to primal sources the material of those forms.

Page 580.

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b. The Law of Death controls in the three worlds.

Page 596.

c. The Law of Sacrifice is the Law of Death in the subtle bodies, whilst what we call death is the analogous thing in the physical body.

Page 596.

d. The Law of Death and Sacrifice governs the gradual disintegration of concrete forms and their sacrifice to the evolving life....

Page 596.

e. When all the units or cells in the body of the planetary Logos have achieved, He too is set free from dense manifestation and physically dies.

Page 509.

The process of DEATH is occultly as follows:

a. The first stage is the withdrawal of the life force in the etheric vehicle from the dense physical body and the consequent "falling into corruption" and becoming "scattered to the elements."  Objective man fades out and is no more seen by the physical eye, though still in his etheric body.  When etheric vision is developed, the thought of death will assume very different proportions.  When a man can be seen functioning in his etheric physical body by a majority of the race, the dropping of the dense body will be considered just as a release.

b. The second stage is the withdrawal of the life force from the etheric body, and its devitalisation....

c. The third stage is the withdrawal of the life force from the astral or emotional form so that it disintegrates in a similar manner and the life is centralised elsewhere.  It has gained an increase of vitality [415] through physical plane existence and added colour through emotional experience.

d. The final stage for the human being is its withdrawal from the mental vehicle.  The life forces after this fourfold abstraction are centralised entirely in the soul....

Pages 735-7.

The Law of Attraction breaks up the forms and draws back to primal sources the material of those forms, prior to rebuilding them anew.  On the path of evolution the effects of this law are well-known, not only in the destruction of discarded vehicles, but in the breaking up of the forms in which great ideals are embodied....All eventually break under the working of this law.

Its workings are more apparent to the average human mind in its manifestations at this time on the physical plane.  We can trace the connection between the atmic (spiritual) and the physical plane—demonstrating on the lower plane as the Law of Sacrifice and Death—but its effect can be seen on all five planes as well.  It is the law which destroys the final sheath that separates the perfected soul.

Page 581.

When the "will to live" vanishes, then the "Sons of Necessity" cease from objective manifestation....When the Thinker on his own plane withdraws his attention from his little system within the three worlds and gathers within himself all his forces, then physical plane existence comes to an end and all returns within the causal consciousness....This demonstrates on the physical plane in the withdrawing from out of the top of the head of the radiant etheric body and the consequent disintegration of the [416] physical.  The framework goes and the dense physical form falls apart.

Page 85.

a. The etheric body is in reality a network of fine channels which are the component parts of one interlacing fine cord—one portion of this cord being the magnetic link which unites the physical and the astral bodies and which is snapped or broken after the withdrawal of the etheric body from the dense physical body at the time of death.  (See Ecc: XII.6.)

Page 98.

b. Later "definite methods of demonstrating the fact that life persists after the death of the physical body will be followed and the etheric web will be recognised as a factor in the case."

Page 429.

Death is "initiation, or the entering into a state of liberation."

A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Vol. I, Page 197.

Death and the Etheric Body.

It is not our purpose to give facts for verification by science, or even to point the way to the next step onward for scientific investigators; that we may do so is but incidental and purely secondary.  What we seek mainly is to give indications of the development and correspondence of the threefold whole that makes the solar system what it is—the vehicle through which a great cosmic ENTITY, the solar Logos, manifests active intelligence with the purpose in view of demonstrating perfectly the love side of His nature.  Back of this design lies a yet more esoteric and ulterior purpose, hid in the Will Consciousness of the [417] Supreme Being, which perforce will be later demonstrated when the present objective is attained.  The dual alternation of objective manifestation and of subjective obscuration, the periodic out-breathing, followed by the in-breathing of all that has been carried forward through evolution, embodies in the system one of the basic cosmic vibrations, and the keynote of that cosmic ENTITY whose body we are.  The heart beats of the Logos (if it might be so inadequately expressed) are the source of all cyclic evolution, and hence the importance attached to that aspect of development called the "heart" or "love aspect," and the interest that is awakened by the study of rhythm.  This is true, not only cosmically and macrocosmically, but likewise in the study of the human unit.  Underlying all the physical sense attached to rhythm, vibration, cycles and heart-beat, lie their subjective analogies—love, feeling, emotion, desire, harmony, synthesis and ordered sequence—and back of these analogies lies the source of all, the identity of that Supreme Being Who thus expresses Himself.

Therefore the study of pralaya, or the withdrawal of the life from out of the etheric vehicle, will be the same whether one studies the withdrawal of the human etheric double, the withdrawal of the planetary etheric double, or the withdrawal of the etheric double of the solar system.  The effect is the same and the consequences similar.

What is the result of this withdrawal, or rather, what causes that something which we call death or pralaya?  As we are strictly pursuing the text book style in this treatise, we will continue our method of tabulation.  The withdrawal of the etheric double of a man, a planet, and a system is brought about by the following causes:

a. The cessation of desire.  This should be the result of all evolutionary process.  True death, under the law, is [418] brought about by the attainment of the objective, and hence by the cessation of aspiration.  This, as the perfected cycle draws to its close, will be true of the individual human being, of the Heavenly Man, and of the Logos Himself.

b. By the slowing down and gradual cessation of the cyclic rhythm, the adequate vibration is achieved and the work accomplished.  When the vibration or note is perfectly felt or sounded, it causes (at the point of synthesis with other vibrations) the utter shattering of the forms.

Motion is characterised, as we know, by three qualities:

1. Inertia

2. Mobility

3. Rhythm

These three are experienced in just the above sequence and presuppose a period of slow activity, succeeded by one of extreme movement.  This middle period produces incidentally (as the true note and rate are sought) cycles of chaos, of experiment, of experience and of comprehension.  Following on these two degrees of motion (which are characteristic of the atom, Man, of the Heavenly Man or group, and of the Logos or the Totality) comes a period of rhythm and stabilisation wherein the point of balance is achieved. By the force of balancing the pairs of opposites, and thus producing equilibrium, pralaya is the inevitable sequence.

c. By the severing of the physical from the subtler body on the inner planes, through the shattering of the web.  This has a threefold effect:

First.  The life that had animated the physical form (both dense and etheric) and which had its starting point in the permanent atom, and from thence "pervaded the moving and the unmoving" (in God, the Heavenly Man, and the human being, as well as in the atom of matter), is [419] withdrawn entirely within the atom upon the plane of abstraction.  This "plane of abstraction" is a different one for the entities involved:

a. For the physical permanent atom, it is the atomic level.

b. For man, it is the causal vehicle.

c. For the Heavenly Man, it is the second plane of monadic life, His habitat.

d. For the Logos, it is the plane of Adi.

All these mark the points for the disappearance of the unit into pralaya.  We need here to remember that it is always pralaya when viewed from below.  From the higher vision, that sees the subtler continuously overshadowing the dense when not in objective manifestation, pralaya is simply subjectivity, and is not that "which is not," but simply that which is esoteric.

Second.  The etheric double of a man, a planetary Logos, and a solar Logos, being shattered, becomes nonpolarised as regards its indweller, and permits therefore of escape.  It is (to word it otherwise) no longer a source of attraction, nor a factual magnetic point.  It becomes nonmagnetic, and the great Law of Attraction ceases to control it; hence disintegration is the ensuing condition of the form.  The Ego ceases to be attracted by its form on the physical plane, and proceeding to inbreathe, withdraws its life from out of the sheath.  The cycle draws to a close, the experiment has been made, the objective (a relative one from life to life and from incarnation to incarnation) has been achieved, and. there remains nothing more to desire:  the Ego, or the thinking entity, loses interest, therefore, in form, and turns his attention inward.  His polarisation changes, and the physical is eventually dropped.

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The planetary Logos likewise in His greater cycle (the synthesis or the aggregate of the tiny cycles of the cells of His body) pursues the same course; He ceases to be attracted downward or outward, and turns His gaze within; He gathers inward the aggregate of the smaller lives within His body, the planet, and severs connection.  Outer attraction ceases, and all gravitates towards the centre instead of scattering to the periphery of His body.

In the system the same process is followed by the solar Logos; from His high place of abstraction, He ceases to be attracted by His body of manifestation.  He withdraws His interest and the pairs of opposites, the spirit and the matter of the vehicle, dissociate.  With this dissociation the solar system, that "Son of Necessity," or of desire, ceases to be, and passes out of objective existence.

Third.  This leads finally, to the scattering of the atoms of the etheric body into their primordial condition.  The subjective life, the synthesis of will and love taking active form, is withdrawn.  The partnership is dissolved.  The form then breaks up; the magnetism that has held it in coherent shape is no longer present, and dissipation is complete.  Matter persists, but the form no longer persists.

The work of the second Logos ends, and the divine incarnation of the Son is concluded.  But the faculty or inherent quality of matter also persists, and at the end of each period of manifestation, matter (though distributed again into its primal form) is active intelligent matter plus the gain of objectivity, and the increased radiatory and latent activity which it has gained through experience.  Let us illustrate:  The matter of the solar system, when undifferentiated, was active intelligent matter, and that is all that can be predicated of it.  This active intelligent matter was matter qualified by an earlier experience, and coloured by an earlier [421] incarnation.  Now this matter is in form, the solar system is not in pralaya but in objectivity—this objectivity having in view the addition of another quality to the logoic content, that of love and wisdom.  Therefore, at the next solar pralaya, at the close of the one hundred years of Brahma, the matter of the solar system will be coloured by active intelligence and by active love.  This means literally that the aggregate of solar atomic matter will eventually vibrate to another key than it did at the first dawn of manifestation.

We can work this out in connection with the planetary Logos and the human unit, for the analogy holds good.  We have a correspondence on a tiny scale in the fact that each human life period sees a man taking a more evolved physical body of a greater responsiveness, tuned to a higher key, of more adequate refinement, and vibrating to a different measure.  In these three thoughts lies much information, if they are carefully studied and logically extended.

d. By the transmutation of the violet into the blue.  This we cannot enlarge on.  We simply make the statement, and leave its working out to those students whose karma permits and whose intuition suffices.

e. By the withdrawal of the life, the form should gradually dissipate.  The reflex action here is interesting to note, for the greater Builders and Devas who are the active agents during manifestation, and who hold the form in coherent shape, transmuting, applying and circulating the pranic emanations, likewise lose their attraction to the matter of the form, and turn their attention elsewhere.  On the path of out-breathing (whether human, planetary or logoic) these building devas (on the same Ray as the unit desiring manifestation, or on a complementary Ray) are attracted by his will and desire, and perform their office of construction.  On the path of in-breathing (whether human, planetary [422] or logoic) they are no longer attracted, and the form begins to dissipate.  They withdraw their interest, and the forces (likewise entities) who are the agents of destruction. carry on their necessary work of breaking up the form; they scatter it—as it is occultly expressed—to "the four winds of Heaven," or to the regions of the four breaths—a fourfold separation and distribution.  A hint is here given for careful consideration.

Though no pictures have been drawn of death bed scenes nor of the dramatic escape of the palpitating etheric body from the centre in the head, as might have been anticipated, yet some of the rules and purposes governing this withdrawal have been mentioned.  We have seen how the aim of each life (whether human, planetary or logoic) should be the effecting and the carrying out of a definite purpose.  This purpose is the development of a more adequate form for the use of spirit; and when this purpose is achieved, then the indweller turns his attention away, and the form disintegrates, having served his need.  This is not always the case in every human life, nor even in each planetary cycle.  The mystery of the moon is the mystery of failure.  This leads, when comprehended, to a life of dignity and offers an aim worthy of our best endeavour.  When this angle of truth is universally recognised, as it will be when the intelligence of the race suffices, then evolution will proceed with certainty, and the failures be less numerous.

A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, Pages 128-133.

All severing of links produces severe reactions.  Yet if you could but realise it, the severing of the outer physical plane links is the least severe and the most impermanent of all such events.  Death itself is a part of the great illusion and only exists because of the veils which we have gathered around ourselves.  All of us, as workers in the field of [423] glamour (the new field in which humanity must learn consciously to work), have been honoured and trusted.  Death comes to all, but for disciples there should be none of the usual glamour and distress.  I would say to you, look not back at the past.  In that direction lie glamour and distress. It is the usual direction and the line of least resistance for the majority.  But such is not the way for you.  Look not either to revelation or to the imparted illusory comfort of those who hover on the dividing line between the seen and the unseen.  Again, that is not the way for you.  You are not a distressed and bereaved disciple looking anxiously at the separating veil and hoping for some sign to come through which will convince you that all is well....

Reach up to the heights of the soul, and having sought and found that pinnacle of peace and that altitude of joy whereon your soul immovably stands, then look into the world of living men—a threefold world in which all men—incarnate and discarnate—are to be found.  Find there that which your soul can and will recognize.  The glamours of one's own distress, the maya of the past, distort ever one's point of view.  Only the soul stands clear from illusion, and only the soul sees things as they are.  Mount, therefore, to the soul.

Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. I, page 463.

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