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CHAPTER V - The Process of Restitution - Part 1

The theme of Death, which we are now considering, must be approached by us with as much of the spirit of normalcy and of scientific investigation as we can manage.  The fear complex of humanity finds its point of entrance into man's consciousness through the act of dying; failure to survive is the basic fear; and yet it is the commonest phenomenon upon the planet.  Bear that in mind.  The act of dying is the great universal ritual which governs our entire planetary life, but only in the human family and faintly, very faintly, in the animal kingdom is the reaction to fear found.  Could you but see the etheric world as Those on the inner side of life experience and see it, you would see (going on ceaselessly and without any pause) the great planetary act of restitution.  You would see a great activity proceeding within the etheric world in which the anima mundi, the animal soul and the human soul are constantly restoring the substance of all physical forms to the great reservoir of essential substance.  This essential substance is as much a vital, directed unity as the world soul of which one hears so much.  This interplay of the principle of death with the principle of life produces the basic activity of creation.  The impulsive, directive force is the mind of God, of the planetary Logos, as He pursues His divine purposes, carrying [425] with Him in this process all the media through which He manifests.

The human fear of death is primarily caused because the orientation of the kingdom of souls, the fifth kingdom in nature, has been (until relatively late in the world's cycle) towards form expression and towards the necessity of seeking experience through matter, in order eventually freely to control it.  The percentage of the souls of those who are oriented away from expression in the three worlds is relatively so small, in proportion to the total number of souls demanding experience in the three worlds, that, until the cycle or era which we call the Christian, it might be stated that death reigned triumphant.  Today, however, we are on the eve of seeing a complete change in this condition, owing to the fact that humanity—on a much larger scale than ever known before—is achieving a needed reorientation; the higher values and the life of the soul, as entered upon through the insistence of the mind in its higher and lower aspects, is beginning to control.  This will perforce bring in a new attitude towards death; it will be regarded as a natural and desirable process, cyclically undergone.  Men will eventually understand the significance of Christ's words when He said, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's."  In the incident where those words occur He was referring to the great act of restitution which we call death.  Ponder that story and see the symbolism of the soul, contained within the universal soul, as the fish within the water, and holding a coin of metal, the symbol of matter.

In one of the ancient writings the following symbolic words occur—

Said the Father to the son:  Go forth and take unto thyself that which is not thyself, and that which [426] is not thine own, but which is Mine.  Regard it as thine own and seek the cause of its appearance.  Let it appear to be thyself.  Discover thus the world of glamour, the world of deep illusion, the world of falsity.  Then learn that thou hast taken that which is not the goal of soul endeavour.

And when that moment comes in each cycle and appearance of deception and of theft, a voice will then be heard.  Obey that voice.  It is the voice of that within thyself which hears My voice—a voice unheard by those who love to thieve.  The order will go forth again and yet again:  "Make restitution of the stolen goods.  Learn they are not for thee."  At greater intervals will come that voice again:  "Make restitution of the borrowed goods; pay back thy debt."

And then, when all the lessons have been learnt, the voice once more will speak:  "Restore with joy that which was Mine, was thine and now again is ours.  Thou hast no longer need of form.  Stand free."

The implication of the above words is clear.

Two major thoughts will serve to clarify the issue of death with which we are now concerned:  First, the great dualism ever present in manifestation.  Each of the dualities has its own expression, is governed by its own laws, and seeks its own objectives.  But—in time and space—they merge their interests for the benefit of both, and together produce the appearance of a unity.  Spirit-matter, life-appearance, energy-force—each have their own emanating aspect; they each have a relation to each other; each have a mutual temporary objective, and thus in unison produce the eternal flux, the cyclic ebb and flow of life in manifestation. [427] In this process of relationship between Father-Spirit and Mother-Matter the son comes into being, and during the child stage carries on his life processes within the aura of the mother, identified with her yet forever seeking to escape from her domination.  As maturity is reached, the problem intensifies, and the "pull" of the Father begins slowly to offset the possessive attitude of the mother, until finally the hold of matter, or of the mother, over her son (the soul) is finally broken.  The son, the Christ-child, released from the guardianship and clinging hands of the mother, comes to know the Father.  I am talking to you in symbols.

Second:  All the processes of incarnation, of life in form and of restitution (by the activity of the principle of death), of matter to matter, and soul to soul, are carried forward under the great universal Law of Attraction.  Can you picture the time when the process of death, clearly recognised and welcomed by the man, could be described by him in the simple phrase, "The time has come when my soul's attractive force requires that I relinquish and restore my body to the place from whence it came"?  Imagine the change in the human consciousness when death comes to be regarded as an act of simple and conscious relinquishing of form, temporarily taken for two specific objectives:

a. To gain control in the three worlds.

b. To give opportunity to the substance of the forms thus "stolen or borrowed or rightly appropriated," according to the stage of evolution, to reach a higher point of perfection through the impact upon it of life, via the soul.

These are significant thoughts.  They have been expressed before, but have been discarded as symbolic, as comforting or as wishful thinking.  I present them to you as factual in nature, as unavoidable in practice, and as familiar a technique [428] and process as those activities, (rhythmic and cyclic in nature) which govern the average man's life—rising and retiring, eating and drinking, and all the periodic affairs which he is accustomed to pursue.

I dealt with the subject of death in A Treatise on White Magic, focussing therein primarily upon the physical processes of dying and doing so from the point of view of the onlooker or observer.  I sought there to indicate what the attitude of the onlooker should be.  Here I would like to present a somewhat different picture, indicating what is known by the departing soul.  If this involves repetition of what you already know, there are however certain basic repetitions and statements I wish to make.  Let me tabulate them with brevity.  Will you regard them as foundational and factual.

1. The time for the departure of an incarnating soul has come.  The soul has in the past:

a. Appropriated a physical body of a certain calibre, adequate to the requirements and age of that soul.

b. Energized that physical body through the medium of the etheric body, thus galvanising it into life activity for the duration of the soul's set term of physical enterprise.

2. Two major streams of energy enter the physical body and produce its activity, its quality and type of expression, plus the impression it makes upon its environment.

a. The stream of dynamic life.  This is anchored in the heart.  This stream of dynamic energy enters the body, via the head, and passes down to the heart, where it is focussed during the life cycle.  A smaller stream of the universal energy or prana, distinctive from the individualised life force, enters the physical body, via the spleen.  It then rises to the heart to [429] join the larger and more important life stream.  The life stream energises and holds in coherency the integrated physical body.  The stream of pranic energy vitalises the individual atoms and cells of which that body is composed.

b. The stream of individual consciousness.  This is anchored in the head, is an aspect of the soul, reveals the type of consciousness which is, in its turn, indicative of the point attained in evolution.  This stream of energy likewise functions in connection with a stream of personality force; and this force is characterised by desire (emotional or astral sentiency) and enters into the physical body, via the solar plexus centre.  This relates the man to the entire astral plane, and therefore to the world of glamour. With undeveloped people and with the average type of man, the solar plexus is the focus of consciousness and the energy is registered by the focal point of consciousness in the head without any recognition whatsoever.  It is for this reason that (at the time of death) the soul leaves the body, via the solar plexus and not via the head.  In the case of the developed man, the mental type of individual, the aspirant, disciple or initiate, the thread of consciousness will withdraw from the body via the head.

3. The group soul of all forms in the animal kingdom—under the Law of Attraction—withdraws the life principle from any specific physical form via the solar plexus, which is the brain of the average animal.  Highly developed and domesticated animals are beginning to utilise the brain to a greater or to a less degree, but the life principle and the sentient aspect, or animal consciousness, is still withdrawn via the solar plexus.  You have, [430] therefore, in all stages of the evolutionary process, certain interesting triangles of energy.

a. In the case of the animals and of those human beings who are little more than animals, of imbeciles and certain men who appear to be born with no centralised point of individual consciousness, the following triplicity is of importance:

The group soul

The solar plexus

The spleen or pranic centre.

b. In low grade, but nevertheless individualised human beings and with the average emotional type of person, the following triplicity must be noted:

The soul

The head centre

The solar plexus.

c. For highly developed people and for those upon the Path of Discipleship you have the following triangle active at the time of death:

The soul

The head centre

The ajna centre.

In connection with all these triplicities there exists a dual relationship to the life principle:

a. The heart in which is focussed the life of the soul in form.

b. The spleen through which passes constantly and rhythmically the universal life essence or prana.

The whole subject is of course most obscure, and for those on strictly human levels, as yet unverifiable.  However, an acceptance of the above three points, hypothetical today, [431] will help to clarify your minds concerning this entire theme of restitution with which we are occupied.

4. The next point needs no proving, for it is generally accepted.  It is that desire governs the process of death, as it also governs the processes of life experience.  We say constantly that when the will-to-live is lacking, death is the inevitable result.  This will-to-live, whether it is the tenacity of the physical body, functioning as an elemental being or as the directed intention of the soul, is an aspect of desire, or rather, it is a reaction of the spiritual will upon the physical plane.  There is therefore an interlocking relation between:

a. The soul on its own plane.

b. The astral body.

c. The solar plexus centre.

This relationship has hitherto received little attention in connection with the Art of Dying.  Nevertheless it warrants careful thought.

You will note that I am here dealing with the theme of death as it makes its presence felt through disease or through old age.  I am not referring to death as it comes through war or accident, through murder or through suicide.  These causes of death, and other causes, come under a totally different directive process:  they may not even involve the karma of a man or his individual destiny, as in the case of war.  Then vast numbers of people are killed.  This has nothing to do with the Law of Cause and Effect as a factor in the soul career of any individual.  It is not an act of restitution, planned by a particular soul as it works out its individual destiny.  Death, through the destructive processes of war, is under the directive and cyclic intention of the planetary Logos, working through the Council Chamber at Shamballa.  The Beings Who there direct world processes [432] know that a time has come when the relation between planetary evil and the Forces of Light or of Good have reached a point of "explosive antagonism" (as it is called).  This must be given free rein if the divine purpose is to work out unarrested.  The explosion is therefore permitted; nevertheless, all the time a controlling factor is present, even though unrealised by man.  Because these Beings (Who work out the will of God) are in no way identified with form life, they have consequently a just appreciation of the relative importance of life in form; the destruction of forms is, to Them, not death in the sense that we understand it, but simply and solely a process of liberation.  It is the limited vision of those identified with form which has so consistently nurtured the fear of death.  The cycle in which we now live has seen the greatest destruction of human forms in the entire history of our planet.  There has been no destruction of human beings.  I would have you note this statement.  Because of this wholesale destruction, humanity has made a very rapid advance towards a more serene attitude in connection with death.  This is not yet apparent but—in a few years' time—the new attitude will begin to be marked and the fear of death will begin to die out in the world.  This will also be largely due to the increased sensitivity of the human response apparatus, leading to a turning inward or to a new orientation of the human mind, with unpredictable results.

The basis of all wars is fundamentally the sense of separateness.  This fundamental individualism or pleased recognition of isolationism leads to all the secondary causes of war:  greed, producing economic disaster; hatred, producing national and international friction; cruelty, producing pain and death.  The roots of death are therefore deep-seated; it is the destruction of the cycle of separateness as an individual upon the physical plane which we call death [433] in the usual sense; consequently death is a process of at-one-ment.  Could you but see a little further into the matter, you would learn that death releases the individualised life into a less cramped and confined existence, and eventually—when the  death process has been applied to all the three vehicles in the three worlds—into the life of universality.  This is a point of inexpressible bliss.

The Law of Attraction governs the process of dying, as it governs all else in manifestation.  It is the principle of coherency which, under the balanced integration of the whole body, preserves it intact, stabilises its rhythm and cyclic life processes and relates its varied parts to each other.  It is the major coordinating principle within all forms, for it is the primary expression (within the soul) of the first aspect of divinity, the will aspect.  This statement may surprise you, accustomed as you are to regard the Law of Attraction as an expression of the second aspect, love-wisdom.  This attractive principle is found in all forms, from the tiny form of the atom to that form, the planet Earth, through which our planetary Logos expresses Himself.  But if it is the principle of coherency and the cause of integration, it is also the medium through which "restitution" is brought about and by which the human soul is periodically reabsorbed into the overshadowing soul.  This aspect of the Law of Attraction has, as yet, received little attention.  The reason is that it concerns the highest expression of that Law, and is therefore related to the will aspect of Deity, as also the will aspect of the Monad.  Only as the Shamballic force proceeds with its more direct work in the coming cycle, and men begin to discriminate (as they must and will) between self-will and the spiritual will, between determination, intention, plan, purpose, and fixed polarisation, will clarification come.  The Law of Attraction has (as all else in manifestation) [434] [434] three phases or aspects, each related to the three divine aspects:

1. It relates life and form, spirit and matter—the third aspect.

2. It governs the coherent integrative process which produces forms—the second aspect.

3. It brings about the imbalance which results in the act of disintegration, thus overcoming form—as far as the human being is concerned—and brings this about in three phases to which we have given the names:

a. Restitution, resulting in the dissolution of the body and the return of its elements, atoms and cells, to their originating source.

b. Elimination, involving the same basic process in relation to the forces which have constituted the astral body and the mental vehicle.

c. Absorption, the mode whereby the human soul is integrated into its originating source, the overshadowing, universal soul.  This is an expression of the first aspect.

All these phases, rightly understood, illustrate or demonstrate the unique potency of the Law of Attraction and its relation to the Law of Synthesis, which governs the first divine aspect.  Integration eventually produces synthesis.  The many cyclic integrations which are carried forward in the great life cycle of an incarnating soul lead to the final synthesis of spirit and soul, which is the goal of the evolutionary process where humanity is concerned.  After the third initiation, this results in the complete liberation of the man from the "pull" of substance in the three worlds and in his consequent ability to wield, with full understanding, the Law of Attraction in its various phases, as far as [435] the creative process is involved.  Other phases will then be later mastered.

One point must be borne in mind.  The words "earth to earth and dust to dust," so familiar in the burial rituals of the Occident, refer to this act of restitution and connote the return of the physical body elements to the original reservoir of matter, and of the substance of the vital form to the general etheric reservoir; the words "the spirit shall return unto God who gave it" are a distorted reference to the absorption of the soul by the universal soul.  The ordinary rituals, however, fail to emphasise that it is that individualised soul, in process of reabsorption, which institutes and orders, by an act of the spiritual will, that restitution.  It is forgotten in the West that this "order to restore" has been given with great frequency down the ages by every soul within a physical form; in so doing, steadily and inevitably, the first divine aspect—the Monad on its own plane—is tightening its hold upon its body of manifestation, via its reflection, the soul.  Thus the will aspect comes increasingly into play until, upon the Path of Discipleship, spiritual determination is brought to its highest point of development and, upon the Path of Initiation, the will begins to function consciously.  It is worth remembering, is it not, that it is in the deliberate issuing of the command by the soul upon its own plane to its shadow in the three worlds that the soul learns to express the first and highest aspect of divinity, and this at first, and for a very long time, solely through the process of death.  The difficulty at present is that relatively few people are soul-conscious, and consequently most men remain unaware of the "occult commands" of their own souls.  As humanity becomes soul-conscious (and this will be one of the results of the agony of the present war), death will be seen as an "ordered" process, carried out in full consciousness and with understanding of [436] cyclic purpose.  This will naturally end the fear at present rampant, and will also arrest the tendency to suicide, evidenced increasingly in these difficult times.  The sin of murder is in reality based upon the fact that it interferes with soul-purpose, and not really upon the killing of a particular human physical body.  That is also why war is not murder, as many well-meaning fanatics consider it; it is the destruction of forms with the beneficent intent (if one could scrutinise divine purpose) of the planetary Logos.  However, it is the motives of the originators of war on the physical plane which make them evil.  If war did not take place, the planetary life would, through what we call "acts of God," call back the souls of men on a large scale in line with His loving intention.  When evil men precipitate a war, He brings good out of evil.

You can see, therefore, why the occult sciences lay the emphasis upon cyclic law, and why there is a growing interest in the Science of Cyclic Manifestation.  Death appears frequently to be so purposeless; that is because the intention of the soul is not known; past development, through the process of incarnation, remains a hidden matter; ancient heredities and environments are ignored, and recognition of the voice of the soul is not yet generally developed.  These are matters, however, which are on the very verge of recognition; revelation is on its way, and for that I am laying the foundation.

I am anxious for you to grasp the teaching I have already given before we proceed to that which is explanatory or new.  Study it with care so that the theme of death can more surely and more sanely take shape in your mind.  Seek to arrive at a new slant upon the subject and see law and purpose and the beauty of intention in what has hitherto been a terror and a major fear.

[437]

Later I shall endeavour to give you some glimpse of the death process as the soul registers it, when undertaking the act of restitution.  To you, what I say may appear as speculative or hypothetical; in any case it will be a statement of which few of you will be in a position to prove the accuracy.  But surely, brother of mine, it may be more sane and wholesome, more sound and beautiful, than the present darkness and sick hope, and the unhappy speculation and oft despair which overshadows every death bed at this time.

1. THE NATURE OF DEATH

EXCERPTS FROM OTHER WRITINGS

The whole must be seen as of more vital importance than the part, and this not as a dream, a vision, a theory, a process of wishful thinking, a hypothesis or an urge.  It is realised as an innate necessity and as inevitable.  It connotes death, but death as beauty, as joy, as spirit in action, as the consummation of all good.

A Treatise on the Seven Rays.  Vol. V. page 99.

Death, if we could but realise it, is one of our most practised activities.  We have died many times and shall die again and again.  Death is essentially a matter of consciousness.  We are conscious one moment on the physical plane, and a moment later we have withdrawn into another plane and are actively conscious there.  Just as long as our consciousness is identified with the form aspect, death will hold for us its ancient terror.  Just as soon as we know ourselves to be souls, and find that we are capable of focussing our consciousness or sense of awareness in any form or on any plane at will, or in any direction within the form of God, we will no longer know death.

A Treatise on White Magic, page 494.

[438]

Ponder, therefore, upon this doctrine of abstraction.  It covers all life processes and will convey to you the eternally lovely secret of Death which is entrance into life.

A Treatise on the Seven Rays.  Vol. V. page 167.

In this Rule, two main ideas are to be found, both of them connected with the first divine aspect:  the thought of DEATH and the nature of the WILL.  In the coming century, death and the will most inevitably will be seen to have new meanings to humanity and many of the old ideas will vanish.  Death to the average thinking man is a point of catastrophic crisis.  It is the cessation and the ending of all that has been loved, all that is familiar and to be desired; it is a crashing entrance into the unknown, into uncertainty, and abrupt conclusion of all plans and projects.  No matter how much true faith in the spiritual values may be present, no matter how clear the rationalising of the mind may be anent immortality, no matter how conclusive the evidence of persistence and eternity, there still remains a questioning, a recognition of the possibility of complete finality and negation, and an end of all activity, of all heart reaction, of all thought, emotion, desire, aspiration and the intentions which focus around the central core of man's being.  The longing and the determination to persist and the sense of continuity still rest, even to the most determined believer, upon probability, upon an unstable foundation and upon the testimony of others—who have never in reality returned to tell the truth.  The emphasis of all thought on this subject concerns the central "I" or the integrity of Deity.

You will note that in this Rule, the emphasis shifts from the "I" to the constituent parts which form the garment of the Self, and this is a point worth noting.  The information given to the disciple is to work for the dissipation of this garment and for the return of the lesser lives to the general [439] reservoir of living substance.  The ocean of Being is nowhere referred to.  Careful thought will here show that this ordered process of detachment, which the group life makes effective in the case of the individual, is one of the strongest arguments for the fact of continuity and for individual, identifiable persistence.  Note these words.  The focus of activity shifts from the active body to the active entity within that body, the master of his surroundings, the director of his possessions and the one who is the breath itself, despatching the lives to the reservoir of substance or recalling them at will to resume their relation to him.

A Treatise on the Seven Rays.  Vol. V. pages 101-102.

First of all that the Eternal Pilgrim, of his own free will and accord, chose "occultly" to die and took a body or series of bodies in order to raise or elevate the lives of the form nature which he embodied; in the process of so doing, he himself "died" in the sense that, for a free soul, death and the taking of a form and the consequent immersion of the life in the form, are synonymous terms.

Secondly, that in so doing, the soul is recapitulating on a small scale what the solar Logos and the planetary Logos have likewise done, and are doing.  The great Lives come under the rule of these laws of the soul during the period of manifestation, even though They are not governed or controlled by the laws of the natural world, as we call it.  Their consciousness remains unidentified with the world of phenomena, though ours is identified with it until such time that we come under the rule of the higher laws.  By the occult "death" of these great Lives, all lesser lives can live and are proffered opportunity.

A Treatise on the Seven Rays.  Vol. II. page 172.

The forces of death are abroad today, but it is the death of liberty, the death of free speech, the death of [440] freedom in human action, the death of truth and of the higher spiritual values.  These are the vital factors in the life of humanity.  The death of the physical form is a negligible factor in relation to these and is easily righted again through the processes of rebirth and of fresh opportunity....The destruction of the form in battle is of small importance to those who know that reincarnation is a basic law of nature and that there is no death.

June Message, 1940.

You say there are as yet only beliefs as to immortality, and no sure evidences.  In the accumulation of testimony, in the inner assurances of the human heart, in the fact of belief in eternal persistence as an idea in the minds of men, lie sure indication.  But indication will give place to conviction and knowledge before another hundred years has elapsed, for an event will take place and a revelation be given the race which will turn hope into certainty and belief into knowledge.  In the meantime, let a new attitude to death be cultivated and a new science of death be inaugurated.  Let it cease to be the one thing we cannot control and which inevitably defeats us, and let us begin to control our passing over to the other side, and to understand somewhat the technique of transition.

A Treatise on White Magic, page 500.

All I plead for is a sane approach to death; all I seek to make is a suggestion that when pain has worn itself out and weakness has supervened, the dying person be permitted to prepare himself, even if apparently unconscious, for the great transition.  Forget not that it takes strength and a strong hold on the nervous apparatus to produce pain.  Is it impossible to conceive of a time when the act of dying will be a triumphant finale to life?  Is it impossible [441] to vision the time when the hours spent on the death bed may be but a glorious prelude to a conscious exit?  When the fact that the man is to discard the handicap of the physical sheath may be for him and those around him the long-waited-for and joyous consummation?  Can you not visualise the time when, instead of tears and fears and the refusal to recognise the inevitable, the dying person and his friends would mutually agree on the hour, and that nothing but happiness would characterise the passing?  That in the minds of those left behind the thought of sorrow will not enter and death beds shall be regarded as happier occasions than births and marriages?  I tell you that, before so very long, this will be deeply so for the intelligent of the race, and little by little for all.

A Treatise on White Magic, page 499.

It is interesting here to note that death is governed by the Principle of Liberation and not by that of Limitation.  Death is only recognised as a factor to be dealt with by self-conscious lives and is only misunderstood by human beings, who are the most glamoured and deluded of all incarnated lives.

A Treatise on white Magic, page 534.

When the nature of true Service is comprehended, it will be found that it is an aspect of that divine energy which works always under the destroyer aspect, for it destroys the forms in order to release.  Service is a manifestation of the Principle of Liberation, and of this principle, death and service constitute two aspects.  Service saves, liberates and releases, on various levels, the imprisoned consciousness.  The same statements can be made of death.  But unless service can be rendered from an intuitive understanding of all the facts in the case, interpreted intelligently, and applied [442] in a spirit of love upon the physical plane, it fails to fulfill its mission adequately.

A Treatise on White Magic, page 537.

Fear of Death.

The fear of death is based upon:

a. A terror of the final rending processes in the act of death itself.

b. Horror of the unknown and the indefinable.

c. Doubt as to final immortality.

d. Unhappiness at leaving loved ones behind or of being left behind.

e. Ancient reactions to past violent deaths, lying deep in the consciousness.

f. Clinging to form life, because primarily identified with it in consciousness.

g. Old erroneous teaching as to Heaven and Hell, both equally unpleasant in prospect to certain types.

A Treatise on White Magic, page 300.

As time progresses and before the close of the next century, death will be finally seen to be nonexistent in the sense in which it is now understood.  Continuity of consciousness will be so widely developed, and so many of the highest types of men will function simultaneously in the two worlds, that the old fear will go and the intercourse between the astral plane and the physical plane will be so firmly established and so scientifically controlled that the work of the trance mediums will rightly and mercifully come to an end.  The ordinary common trance mediumship and materialisations under controls and Indian guides are just as much perversions of the intercourse between the two planes as are sex perversions and the distortions of the [443] true relationship and intercourse between the sexes.  I refer not here to the work of clairvoyants, no matter how poor, nor to the taking possession of the body by entities of high calibre, but of the unpleasant phenomena of the materialisation seance, of ectoplasm and the blind unintelligent work done by the old Atlantean degenerates and earthbound souls, the average Indian chief and guide.  There is nothing to be learned from them, and much to be avoided.

The reign of the fear of death is well-nigh ended and we shall soon enter upon a period of knowledge and of certainty which will cut the ground from under all our fears.  In dealing with the fear of death, there is little to be done except to raise the whole subject onto a more scientific level, and—in this scientific sense—teach people to die.  There is a technique of dying just as there is of living, but this technique has been lost very largely in the West, and is almost lost except in a few centres of Knowers in the East.  More of this can perhaps be dealt with later, but the thought of the needed approach to this subject can rest in the minds of students who read this, and perhaps as they study and read and think, material of interest will come their way which could be gradually assembled and published.

A Treatise on White Magic, pages 301-302.

Fear of death and depression constitute for man the Dweller on the Threshold in this age and cycle.  Both of them indicate sentient reaction to psychological factors and cannot be dealt with by the use of another factor such as courage.  They must be met by the omniscience of the soul, working through the mind—not by its omnipotence.  In this is to be found an occult hint.

A Treatise on White Magic, page 309.

The instinct of self-preservation has its roots in an innate fear of death; through the presence of this fear, the [444] race has fought its way to its present point of longevity and endurance.

A Treatise on White Magic, page 626.

Definition of Death.

Death itself is a part of the Great Illusion, and only exists because of the veils we have gathered around ourselves.

A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Vol. I. page 463.

But people are apt to forget that every night in the hours of sleep we die to the physical plane and are alive and functioning elsewhere.  They forget that they have already achieved facility in leaving the physical body; because they cannot as yet bring back into the physical brain consciousness the recollection of that passing out, and of the subsequent interval of active living, they fail to relate death and sleep.  Death is, after all, only a longer interval in the life of physical plane functioning; one has only "gone abroad" for a longer period.  But the process of daily sleep and the process of occasional dying are identical, with the one difference that in sleep the magnetic thread or current of energy along which the life force streams is preserved intact, and constitutes the path of return to the body.  In death, this life thread is broken or snapped.  When this has happened, the conscious entity cannot return to the dense physical body, and that body, lacking the principle of coherence, then disintegrates.

A Treatise on White Magic, page 494.

The processes of abstraction are (as you may thus see) connected with the life aspect, are set in motion by an act of the spiritual will, and constitute the "resurrection principle which lies hidden in the work of the Destroyer," as an old esoteric saying expresses it.  The lowest manifestation [445] of this principle is to be seen in the process of what we call deathwhich is in reality a means of abstracting the life principle, informed by consciousness, from the form of the bodies in the three worlds.

Thus, the great synthesis emerges and destruction, death, and dissolution are, in reality, naught but life processes.  Abstraction is indicative of process, progress and development.  It is this aspect of the Law of Life (or the Law of Synthesis as it is called in certain larger connotations) with which the initiate specifically deals.

A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Vol. V. page 163.

Life is approached from the angle of the Observer, and not from that of a participator in actual experiment and experience in the three worlds (physical-emotional-mental)...if they are initiated disciples they are increasingly unaware of the activities and reactions of their personalities, because certain aspects of the lower nature are now so controlled and purified that they have dropped below the threshold of consciousness and have entered the world of instinct; therefore, there is no more awareness of them than a man asleep is conscious of the rhythmic functioning of his sleeping physical vehicle.  This is a deep and largely unrealised truth.  It is related to the entire process of death, and might be regarded as one of the definitions of death; it holds the clue to the mysterious words "the reservoir of life."  Death is in reality unconsciousness of that which may be functioning in some form or another, but in a form of which the spiritual entity is totally unaware.  The reservoir of life is the place of death, and this is the first lesson the disciple learns....

A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Vol. V. pages 99-100.

Purposes of Death.

Through death, a great at-one-ing process is carried [446] forward; in the "fall of a leaf" and its consequent identification with the soil on which it falls, we have a tiny illustration of this great and eternal process of at-one-ing, through becoming and dying as a result of becoming.

A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Vol. II, page 173.

I speak about Death as one who knows the matter from the outer world experience and the inner life expression:  There is no death.  There is, as you know, entrance into fuller life.  There is freedom from the handicaps of the fleshly vehicle.  The rending process so much dreaded does not exist, except in the cases of violent and sudden death, and then the only true disagreeables are an instant and overwhelming sense of imminent peril and destruction and something closely approaching an electric shock.  No more.  For the unevolved, death is literally a sleep and a forgetting, for the mind is not sufficiently awakened to react, and the storehouse of memory is as yet practically empty.  For the average good citizen, death is a continuance of the living process in his consciousness and a carrying forward of the interests and tendencies of the life.  His consciousness and his sense of awareness are the same and unaltered.  He does not sense much difference, is well taken care of, and oft is unaware that he has passed through the episode of death.  For the wicked and cruelly selfish, for the criminal and for those few who live for the material side only, there eventuates that condition which we call "earth-bound."  The links they have forged with earth and the earthward bias of all their desires, force them to remain close to the earth and their last setting in the earth environment.  They seek desperately and by every possible means to re-contact it and to re-enter.  In a few cases, great personal love for those left behind, or the nonfulfillment of a recognised and urgent duty, holds the good and beautiful in a somewhat similar [447] condition.  For the aspirant, death is an immediate entrance into a sphere of service and of expression to which he is well accustomed and which he at once recognises as not new.  In his sleeping hours he has developed a field of active service and of learning.  He now simply functions in it for the entire twenty-four hours (talking in terms of physical plane time) instead of for his usual few hours of earthly sleep.

A Treatise on White Magic, pages 300-301.

True death, under the Law, is brought about by the attainment of the objective, and hence by the cessation of aspiration.  The etheric double of a man, a planetary Logos, and a solar Logos, being shattered, becomes non-polarised as regards its indweller, and permits therefore of escape.  It is (to word it otherwise) no longer a source of attraction, nor a focal magnetic point.  It becomes non-magnetic, and the great Law of Attraction ceases to control it; hence disintegration is the ensuing condition of the form.

A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, pages 129-130.

"The Law demands the entrance of that which can effect a change."

Bearing in mind what I have elsewhere given, it is obvious that that which must find entrance is that vital concentrated will which, when set in motion in an individual, in a group, in a nation, in a kingdom of nature (a planetary centre), and in the planet as a whole, i.e., in all the planetary centres simultaneously, will cause a stirring, a changed measure, a new movement and momentum, an uprising and a consequent abstraction.  The changes wrought in the centres when the death of the physical body is taking place have never yet been observed or recorded; they are, however, definitely present to the eye of the initiate and prove most interesting and informative.  It is the recognition of the condition of the centres which enables the initiate [448] to know—when in process of bestowing healing—whether the physical healing of the body is permissible or not.  He can see, by looking, whether the will principle of abstraction, to which I have been referring, is actively present or not.  The same process can be seen taking place in organisations and in civilisations in which the form aspect is being destroyed in order that the life may be abstracted and later again rebuild for itself a more adequate form.  It is the same under the great processes of initiation, which are not only processes of expanding the consciousness but are rooted in the death or the abstraction process, leading to resurrection and ascension.

That which effects a change is a discharge (to use a totally inadequate phrase) of directed and focussed will-energy.  This is so magnetic in quality that it draws to itself the life of the centres, bringing about the dissolution of the form but the release of the life.  Death comes to the individual man in the ordinary sense of the term when the will-to-live in a physical body goes and the will-to-abstract takes its place.  This we call death.  In cases of death in war, for instance, it is not then a case of the individual will-to-withdraw, but an enforced participation in a great group abstraction.  From its own place, the soul of the individual man recognises the end of a cycle of incarnation, and recalls its life.  This it does through a discharge of the will-energy that is strong enough to bring about the change....Christ referred to this work of abstraction as regards the third great planetary centre, Humanity, when He said (and He was speaking as the Representative of the Hierarchy, the second planetary centre, into which all human beings achieving initiation are "withdrawn" esoterically), "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me."  A different word to this word of His will be spoken at the end of the age when the Lord of the World will speak from Shamballa [449] (the first planetary centre), will abstract the life principle from the Hierarchy, and all life and consciousness will then be focussed in the planetary head centre—the Great Council Chamber at Shamballa.

"The Law demands that the changes thus effected remove the form, bring quality to light, and lay the emphasis upon life."

Here the three great aspects—form, quality, and life—are brought into relation, and the point of the evolutionary objective is seen in its true light—LIFE.  Note this phrasing.  Form or appearance, having served its purpose, disappears.  Death of the form takes place.  Quality, the major divine attribute being developed in this planet, becomes dominant, is "conscious of itself"—as the ancient writings put it.  It is identified and individual, but has no implementing form, except that of the greater whole in which it finds its place.  Neither form nor quality (body nor consciousness) are paramount in the new state of being, only the life aspect, the spirit on its own plane becomes the dominating factor.  Some faint dim light on the significance of this may come if you bear in mind that our seven planes are only the seven subplanes of the cosmic physical plane.  The process of developing sensitivity in this sevenfold evolution has been undergone in order to enable the initiate to function upon the cosmic astral plane, when withdrawn or abstracted after the higher initiations.  He is abstracted from our planetary life altogether.  Only one factor could prevent this, and that might be his pledge to serve temporarily within the planetary ring-pass-not.  Such members of the Hierarchy Who pledge Themselves to this work are stated to have Buddhic consciousness, and the line of Their descent (occultly understood) is from the Eternal Pilgrim, the Lord of the World, then the Buddha, and then the Christ.  They remain identified through free choice with the "quality seen [450] within the light" and, for the term of Their freely rendered service, work with the consciousness aspect in order to lay the emphasis later upon the life aspect....

A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Vol. V. pages 164-166.

The eighteen fires must die down; the lesser lives (embodying the principle of form, of desire and of thought, the sumtotal of creativity, based upon magnetic love) must return to the reservoir of life and naught be left but that which caused them to be, the central will which is known by the effects of its radiation or breath.

This dispersal, death or dissolution, is in reality a great effect produced by the central Cause, and the injunction is consequently:  "This they must bring about by the evocation of the Will."...The disciple finds his group in the Master's Ashram and consciously and with full understanding masters death—the long-feared enemy of existence.  He discovers that death is simply an effect produced by life and by his conscious will, and is a mode whereby he directs substance and controls matter.  This becomes consciously possible because, having developed awareness of two divine aspects—creative activity and love—he is now focussed in the highest aspect and knows himself to be the WILL, the Life, the Father, the Monad, the One.

A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Vol. V. pages 104-105.