THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF OUR life on earth is to lay the foundations of a spiritual body of such excellence that it will continue our existence after the earthly body is cast off. In other words, the object of earthly life is spiritual reality. There is in fact only one existence, and this is eternal life. But our painstaking work in the world of limitation is a preparation for the realisation of eternity in every moment of life. In the midst of life we are in death. Indeed, every new experience is a little death to a past, cherished belief. The relinquishing of old concepts and ways of life before the challenge of new insights is the way of death during earthly life. And if we persist in faith, we find that the death is also the gateway to a new life. It is in this frame of reference that we can consider best the problem of death, which is the true end of all earthly experience.
What is the most important thing we have to achieve while on earth? Is it material gain-which we have to relinquish and pass on to others? Is it power and prestige - which drop from us as soon as we lose authority over others? Is it intellectual knowledge - which is superseded by new developments almost before the world has had time to assess our own contribution? Is it physical pleasure - with the body ageing from its very moment of birth? No, none of these can be the great work of man, though each is important in its own right in helping to integrate the personality within the wider context of the world. But as an end in itself, neither gain, nor power, nor knowledge, nor pleasure, can suffice, because all of these are submerged in the finality of bodily death. There is only one thing that can survive personal death, and that is love. For in love we are no longer circumscribed, finite units, but are members one of another. Each little death is the ending of an enclosed view of identity. As we lose that dominating concern for ourselves, our opinions, and the justification to retain our personal image in the world, which characterises worldly man, so we move into a new understanding of reality.
We prepare for death as soon as we are born. The essential feature of the preparation is a graded sacrifice of the enclosed self for the wider vision of concern for others. As a spiritually advancing man grows older, so he welcomes each passing year with open arms. Age, the terrible threat to the immature person who clings desperately on to the last vestiges of receding youth, is the great friend of the spiritual man. Each year brings him closer to truth, and enables him to discard more of the superficial dross of outer personality - or rather to transmute that dross into the material of the soul.
It follows therefore that man's great work while in the flesh is the forging of relationships. It is by these that the spiritual body is built while on earth, so that when the mortal body is cast off, it will be alive to contain the soul in its onward journey through time into eternity. As we grow older, the power, the importance, the pleasure of the body, the material affluence that we guarded so carefully, all become past memories. Indeed, it is a measure of our spiritual status while on earth just how much time we spend in memories of past grandeur and in private fantasies of no practical application. We are indeed already dead, in the conventional use of that word, if our lives cling to the past or to delusions that keep us from reality. We are truly alive when we can, by an act of will, bid farewell in tender decisiveness to the past and to our inner vain imaginings, and face the future in clear-headed contemplation. But the one aspect of life that does not pass into oblivion is that of relationships. For as we give of ourselves increasingly to others, so they become part of our lives. As we fail, so they care for us as we, in our time, cared for others when they were low.
This caring is not a mere duty forced on us by mutual social advantage. It is a deep concern which is of the nature of love. As I have stressed so often already, as we open ourselves to the adventure of knowing others, so God reveals Himself to us and shows us our own true nature, which is of Him. The soul is not merely a focus of personal identity. It is also a shared possession of all life, and through it we are in psychic communion with all that exists. The mystic knows of this truth in its more embracing reality, while the psychically aware person gets glimpses of it through extrasensory perception of other souls both those living in the world and those existing in the greater world of the life eternal.
The event of physical death is an awesome moment. There is no absolute proof of survival of any aspect of the personality. While the data of psychical research are not negligible, and indeed spiritualists are convinced that they can enjoy meaningful communication with the deceased, there is a veil between the living and those who have passed beyond mortal life which has not yet been successfully penetrated by objective means. This to me is exactly as it should be. Until we have reached the spiritual stature of Christ, the full meaning of resurrection and immortality will be hidden from us. The awe of death and the uncertainty of personal survival are the foundation on which the corner-stones of faith are laid. Ultimately survival at death is as personal an experience as is survival at birth from our mother's womb. In the life of separation, we have to undergo many trials alone. Our friends can support us and remember us in their prayers, but we alone can do the deed and experience the consequences. And yet it is in going alone on the inevitable journey to completion that we begin to realise that we are not really alone at all. We are supported by the unseen hosts of eternity, amongst whom are our earthly friends in the form of immortal souls-a form of a different magnitude from that by which we knew them in everyday life. This is the inner meaning of intercessory prayer, to which is added the communion of those many souls who have entered the greater life beyond the grave.
As we move from earthly life to the unknown, yet dimly experienced, realm beyond death, so we put aside all the things that we held dear during life. Our mortal work is done, our possessions must now be taken over by those who follow us, and our relationships of a personal nature limited by the range of the five external senses fade from our view. We have nothing left but our own identity. Everything that we identified ourselves by in the world of matter has been removed from us. We stand naked and alone. At last we know what is real and eternal and what was transitory and changing. This is the moment in which we exchange spiritual reality for mortal life. But who is to receive us into the new realm of being? We have been cleared of the past nexus of events by which we have identified ourselves, and are naked in a new darkness-dark because the way is not by earthly sight. A new light is to be revealed to the emergent personality, the light of love.
It is here that we understand how important our past life in the world has been. We are received into the greater life by those friends whom we received when we were living on earth. And I do not limit the friend only to those whom we knew and loved while on earth. This body of friends is much vaster than a mere reunion of past comrades on the mortal path. It includes the full communion of saints, provided we are fit to receive them. "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations" (Luke 16.9).
It is the quiet, unobtrusive opening of ourselves to all manner of men in humble service-above all the service of simply giving them our attention-that brings its reward on the other side of life. It is not great intellectual knowledge, political power, material wealth, or physical strength that can forge an enduring relationship. All who pin their faith in these personal attributes will find themselves derelict when the physical body is no more, and when the money of the world can no longer buy anything. In the life of the greater world no secrets can be hidden, and all desires are known, for the concealing power of the physical body is no more, and the transparency of the spiritual body leaves no part of it protected from the knowledge and the scrutiny of the whole community of souls.
The traditional states of heaven and hell can be seen in this relationship. We are in hell, whether now on earth or on the other side of life, when we are immersed in ourselves. When our awareness cannot transcend self-interest, when our spiritual vision is so dim that we cannot see anyone outside ourselves, when our lives run in a rut of vain imaginings and futile fantasies, we are in hell. We are cut off from psychic communion with the greater community by our own self-centred attitude, and the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit is excluded from us. Until we, through openness to God's grace, can move beyond the little self to the soul in its eternal communion with all life, we cannot escape the darkness of hell.
Such hell is bad enough on this side of the grave, but it becomes increasingly fearful in the life beyond the grave, for the familiar landmarks of the earth-its solid structures and well-established connections-are swallowed up in oblivion, and there is nothing left except the person and his confused awareness. Indeed, some personalities (they are now called discarnate entities) live in a private world of past fantasy, and may remain indefinitely unaware that they have passed into the greater world of life. In other words, they are not aware that they have died. Such a state of confusion is a fearful one, but it is related entirely to the attitude of the person himself. There is no question of punishment by God (or some other power). On the contrary, all the forces of light both in the world of matter (through prayers for the dead) and in the greater world beyond the grave are working in love towards the redemption of this "lost" person. This love shows itself as light, but it cannot penetrate into the awareness of the lost personality until it is open to change. Fortunately, through divine compassion an opening does occur in the fullness of the new life, and then the personality loses its old restricted ways of thought and enters into the greater life around it. This dedication of self to life is the meaning of heaven. It is with us, at least potentially, here on earth when we are doing our work properly, and it becomes even more radiant in the greater life when we move beyond the restriction of the physical body to the openness and vitality of the spiritual body.
What is it that survives the immediate death of the physical body? Of course, to the atheistic humanist this question is pitiful, for since to him matter alone is real, there can be no survival of anything resembling a conscious personality once the brain has disintegrated. But to those of us who have cultivated an inner life of meditation and prayer while here on earth, and have lived in self-giving relationship (relationship in depth, as the phrase goes) with others, especially our loved ones, the introspective fact of an inner identity, or soul, becomes ever clearer. If we are psychically attuned, sporadic episodes of telepathy, precognition, or out-of-the-body experiences will make the dualism of mind and body-a position detested by most psychologists and many philosophers because of its far-reaching implications against the materialist orthodoxies of our time - ever more credible. Such a view does not deny the importance of the physical body while we are alive on earth. Indeed, incarnation is to be seen as the training ground of the mind and soul in the limitation of the matter of the body. If the body is not functioning properly, the mind becomes increasingly impotent, a tragic situation seen especially when there is damage to the brain. And the potentiality of matter is quickened by the mind-in this sentence lies the heart of the mystery of the resurrection of the body.
But when the time comes for the physical body to return to elements of the earth from which it was fashioned and nourished, the mind-soul personality is released in a world outside the limitation of space and time by which we live our earthly lives. This mind-soul personality is loosely called the "spirit" especially by spiritualists, but it is not to be confused with the spark, or apex, of the soul by which the fact of God is known. The whole mind-soul complex is the spiritual body, and it has been built from our experiences and attitudes during physical life. In theosophical thought (derived as part of the ageless wisdom from Eastern religion and metaphysics) a series of "bodies" are envisaged as ensheathing the soul (which itself is the body of the spirit). While I would not deny this possibility, and indeed am personally sympathetic to this theory, I do not regard it as vitally important in one's understanding of survival of death. It is an added embellishment which must be accepted only as it is revealed to you.
The spiritual body, at the time of its separation from the disintegrating physical body, consists essentially of the mental, emotional, and aspirational qualities of the whole person to whom it formerly belonged. In other words at the time of death the mental part of the personality is not greatly changed, and indeed in people of low spiritual stature this trivial level of mental reality may persist indefinitely. But in those of spiritual awareness, the mental and emotional side of the personality are rapidly shed-or more correctly are incorporated into the soul, which grows in comprehension and in greater union with reality. Spiritualistic communication, for which I myself am not an enthusiast, taps the superficial mental level of the personality of the deceased,and the material revealed is usually trivial and seldom progressive. At the level of the soul there is no communication through sensitives (or mediums), but rather a direct communion between lover and beloved.
I have, in these last two sentences, appeared to accept that mediumistic communication genuinely occurs between the minds of the discarnate and the worldly living. In fact, the source of much material is open to doubt. The greater portion is a simple reading of the sitter's mind by the medium (this is a fine example of telepathy), some is guess-work with an unconsciously fraudulent background, and some may be true communication with a discarnate source-whose credentials may sometimes be less impeccable than either the medium or the sitter realises. It is for this reason that one can seldom be enthusiastic about the material evoked by a medium, although many bereaved people gain great inner strength because of the evidence of survival (which is real enough to them) so provided.
It is often said that the existence of those who have passed on to the other side of life is so different in character that we cannot grasp it until we too have made the transition. This is largely true, but the personality of the deceased persists for a variable period of time (using this word in the earthly context), and an important part of post-mortem existence is the reliving of past experiences of earth. The great spiritual law that as a man sows so shall he reap is obeyed. But we are the judge of our own past. When the soul is finally released, it can see how great were its shortcomings, and also how difficult were the circumstances of earthly life under which it laboured. It is now much more tractable to the love of God than it was on earth, enclosed in a dense, physical body.
The hope that, in the after-life, we may meet Christ face to face, while in one way rather too naive to be the full truth, is nevertheless accurate inasmuch as the naked soul is far more aware of the cosmic dimensions of Christ than is the incarnate soul. The life in the world to come starts as a mental construction. The truth of one's attitude and behaviour while on earth is pitilessly revealed, but as one comes more to oneself, one is immersed in the glorious beauty of a mental realm. This is called "heaven" or "summerland", and is to he contrasted with the greyness of the immediate post-mortem period (which is called "hell" or "hades" - into which Jesus descended after the crucifixion in order to release these sombre personalities from the bondage of spiritual darkness).
Esotericists speak of an etheric body that enshrouds the spiritual body during the period of darkness, and of its dissolution as the spiritual body is released into the light of heaven. Such a view is somewhat conditioned by earthly concepts of shrouds and bodies, and it might be easier simply to say that the personality comes to itself and acts more as it should have done while incarnate.
The heavenly state is a mental realm. It has no real substance, and is described as astral by esotericists, who also accept the presence of an astral body which limits the progress of the soul, until this body too is dissolved, and the soul reaches a more mystical level of reality. Personally I accept much of this, not merely because it is part of traditional teaching but because I have had direct, though fleeting, contact with what I believe are other realms of life. The one thing that has been brought forcibly to my attention is the mental, subjective existence of those who are newly deceased. They learn things too wonderful for us here to fathom, but they do not grow.
I have likened the immediate after-life to the discussion that follows an examination, in which we all partly pass and partly fail (in some instances the failure or the success strongly dominates). In this atmosphere we can sum up our merits and our faults, but we can in no way alter the result of the test, which is the life we have led on earth. All the understanding that we may have acquired in the vast timeless realm of the soul in communion with God has eventually to be put into practice once more in the less expansive, more restricted world of time and space, just as we have to sit the same, or else a more advanced, examination in due course depending on how we have fared in the present test.
The type of eternal bliss that is promised the devout religionist would be real hell if it were a fact. Life is growth into the fullness of being, and the means at hand are always relationships. There can be no real meaning in a realm of timeless, spaceless eternity, nor can there be growth in love where there is nothing to give away or sacrifice. It is fatuous to believe that the soul of any one of us, as we expire on our deathbed, is so advanced in perfection that it could enter the timeless realm of bliss (Nirvana in the Buddhist tradition) eternally. And who would choose bliss for himself while the whole creation groans as if in the pangs of childbirth. The law of life is rebirth, which means a dying to some part of one's previous attitude to reality. The soul is reborn into successive states of limitation, so that it can grow into something of the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The forgiveness made plain in the atonement of Christ leaves all who accept this on the level of selfless love free to continue the quest unburdened by past guilt and regret ("Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." -St. Matthew 11 .28). But the path is one of patient toil, selfless giving, and dangerous living. There are no short cuts or magical escapes. The magic of the world lies in its very existence. He who can see no miracle in the constant fecundity of life will never see it if the order is changed.
Mention of rebirth at once brings in the possibility of reincarnation, the assumption by the soul of a fresh physical body on successive occasions. Indeed, some people would equate the two words, but I prefer to speak of rebirth, an event that occurs continually during all phases of life whether here on earth or in the greater world beyond the grave. What realms of limitation the soul voluntarily accepts in its growth towards eternal union with God are not known ("in my Father's house are many mansions." St. John 14.2), and it would be presumptuous to assume that our little planet amid the countless galaxies of the cosmos is the only place of growth for the soul (nor need growth always take place on a strictly material plane). However, it seems likely that many souls do assume an earthly body on a number of occasions in their spiritual journey. The evidence of psychical research workers who have investigated the detailed memories of very young children-too young to have gleaned the information during their brief sojourn on earth-does bear out the theory that they had been incarnate in another human form not long before their present birth. This type of evidence is much more convincing than the alleged-and usually glamorous-memories of past lives on earth displayed by psychically attuned adults. In these cases the possibility of "cryptamnesia"-the sudden recall of a long submerged memory probably acquired during early childhood - can seldom be ruled out.
Reincarnation should not be confused with the transmigration of souls into animal bodies. This is, at most, extremely improbable because of the complex nature of the human mind-soul complex (the spiritual body). It could hardly function in the limited brain of other animals, and therefore it would not learn by growth in relationships.
A great snare in all rebirth hypotheses, and especially in relation to reincarnation, is the penal attitude adopted to present difficulties. A harshly moralistic approach attributes present tragedies to past errors and speaks dogmatically of each person working out his own "karma"-a word which simply means action. In this context it would imply a payment of past debts, a reaping of what we have sown in a past life of selfish action or personal betrayal. But life is not as rigidly moralistic as this. In Christ we grow beyond bondage to the law of cause and effect, and live by love. Every difficulty the aspiring person has to meet is to be seen not as a consequence for wrong action in the past, but as the necessary tension for growth of the personality in the future. If this attitude of holy indifference to the world's concepts of success and failure is achieved (by God's grace), we cease to be ensnared in detailed considerations of the mechanism of rebirth or the working out of old scores between people, and live more fully in the moment. Thus a spiritually aware person, while not denying the purifying effect of life's past experiences, lives in the present. He will accept a rebirth hypothesis as the most logical solution to the personal tragedies we all have to undergo, the birth of mentally subnormal children who can never achieve much in that particular life, and the glowing brilliance of childhood genius. But he moves beyond considerations of the working out of justice in individual life to the contemplation of the unity of all men in God.
The soul grows through successive experiences. The reasoning mind and emotional response that characterise the personality are not discarded in the longer view of the after-life. They are incorporated in the soul. Their personal memories are so fused with the awareness of the soul that their contribution enhances its range and comprehension. If rebirth, as I have portrayed it, is a fact-and agnosticism remains a duty until a personal revelation expands one's awareness-the only aspect of a past life that is worth remembering is that relating to our moral nature. The categorical imperative of Kant - which is categorical only to aspiring people - could well be the fruit of past experience of the soul incarcerated in a selfish personality. It is an empirical fact that the golden rule - do to others as you would have them do to you-comes only with long experience of the world and the suffering inherent in that experience. Compassion is the fruit of longsuffering, a suffering that is part of all limitation in a time-space world.
I am not therefore impressed by the grandiose reincarnational memories claimed by some enthusiasts. To them each affront has a past background, and each reverse is the paying back of a karmic debt. If this were the way of the soul's progress, we would never move away from the realm of personal revenge. Until we see every aspect of life, pleasant and unpleasant alike, as part of the soul's growing into communion with all life in God we are not fully alive and our spiritual vision is faulty. Christ is the prototype of all the saints who have suffered grievously in this life for the benefit of their fellows in all generations. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man give up his life for his friend." (St. John 15.I3.) If we could see rebirth in this exalted context, we would cease to be absorbed in trivialities about past actions and future recompense.
What I have written above is a personal confession of faith. But like all real faith it is based on inner experience, and is not simply a fresh presentation of Christian theology on to which is grafted aspects of the ageless wisdom (or perennial philosophy, as it is more usually called). The reader must use his own spiritual discernment and accept or reject it for himself.
There is no scientifically acceptable proof of survival of death. The reason for this, as we shall see in the final chapter, is the ill-defined quality of personal identity. It is an act of faith to accept the identity of someone you "know" when he communicates with you by telephone or the written word. How do you know he is not an impostor? An inner discernment provides the confidence of identity without which normal social intercourse would be impossible. But when the same person passes beyond mortal life, his whole personality is bound to alter rapidly in the new environment of freedom. Direct communication can no longer be sensory, but must be extrasensory, or telepathic. If a third person, the medium, is also implicated in the transaction, his (or more likely her) personality impinges and further distorts the communication. Some of the pitfalls of mediumship I have already mentioned. Extrasensory contact with a living source who knew the deceased person is the most important.
True communion with the deceased is a spiritual act. In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, we are told that if the living will not hear Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded of the reality of the after-life, even if one were to rise from the dead (Luke I6. 19-31) This is the truth. A generation seeking after signs and wonders before it accepts spiritual reality will never be satisfied. Each sign will be analysed away, and a suitable materialistic explanation will be found that can lull the unbelieving into a dogmatic sleep once more.
The history of spiritualism and psychical research is an eloquent testimony to this truth. Spiritual facts can be discerned only by the Holy Spirit in man. Until we are tractable to the Holy Spirit our faith will be a paltry thing. When Christ appeared after the Resurrection, it was only to His friends that He showed himself. He did not appear to those who had condemned and crucified Him, although such a presentation could hardly have failed to shake them out of their unbelief. But He never aimed at forcing people to be other than themselves. His was the way of freedom, not coercion. The disciples, weak men as they had been during the passion of their Master, were nevertheless sufficiently advanced spiritually to bear the fact of the resurrection. They were the fathers of the new dispensation when the Holy Spirit dwelt fully with them.
In all ages He has come to men of all conditions and religious traditions (St. Paul's experience is the prototype of many later conversions) as a blinding revelation-the revelation of supreme mystical experience. This is the moment of truth when the veil between the world of matter and the world of unseen reality is finally dissolved, and they are found to be one. He who has had the veil dissolved by divine grace accepts the fact of survival and the meaning of immortality.