Theosophical Society, Cardiff
Lodge
206 Newport Road,
Cardiff, Wales, UK, CF24 1DL
Death
&
How to Get Through It
Lentil burgers, a thousand
press ups before breakfast and
the daily 25 mile run may put
it off for a while but death
seems to get most of us in the
end. We are pleased to
present for your
consideration, a definitive work on the
subject by a Student of
Katherine Tingley entitled
“Man After Death”
Katherine
Tingley
1847
– 1929
Founder
& President of the
Point
Loma Theosophical Society 1896 -1929
She
and her students produced a series of informative
Theosophical
works in the early years of the 20th century
Man After Death
By
A Student of
Katherine Tingley
Chapter 1
The Mystery of Death
There's not
the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his
motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony
is in immortal souls;
But whilst
this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly
close it in, we cannot hear it. --
William Shakespeare
"If a man
die shall he live again?" How many myriad times has this question been
asked since the days of Job, and how many times imperfectly answered! But in
this age of transition an opportunity has been given the Western world to
obtain a more accurate view of life, and what is called death, than has been
possible since the destruction of the Mysteries in Greece, Egypt, and western
Asia.
The popular
dread of death and the misconceptions concerning it arise from ignorance, the
parent of evil. We are yet ignorant of our own true nature; humanity is a
sealed book to itself; and no wonder, therefore, the future looks dark,
uncertain, and forbidding.
We all, at
least all who have begun to study their own natures impersonally, feel a
certain cramping bondage in our lives, a sense of limitation. We tremble on the
brink of discovering that life contains far greater possibilities than we had
dared to hope for, and that we are not living up to the height of our powers.
We dimly suspect that there is a higher principle in us that must come out and
take control, and our intuitions, timid and faint though they may be, and
clouded by the materialism of the age, tell us that the death of the physical
body cannot be the end of all things for us.
Without a
future existence for the larger man that we feel stirring in our hearts at
times, human life would indeed be "a discreditable episode on one of the
meanest of the planets"!
How is it that
our boasted intellectual progress has left us more ignorant, hopeless, and
bewildered than ever in respect to this supreme question? Why do we wear gloomy
looks and black clothes, and entertain hopeless grief and dread in our hearts,
when this natural and inevitable shadow crosses our path?
Our popular
theology tells us "Death is a mystery, we must hope for the best,"
and that the only proof of the resurrection is that Jesus Christ rose from the
dead and opened the gates of Paradise for the faithful -- a 'proof' which is no
proof to the majority of people. But orthodoxy is undermined today by
scientific criticism, and many of its leading exponents have abandoned what
were believed to be its central features.
Today the
churches speak with mental reservation and quavering voices of Heaven, Hell,
and the plan of Salvation; the ringing note of certainty is wanting, for the Huxleys and Spencers have
thoroughly shaken the walls of the creeds with their trumpet-blasts of
criticism. Few persons honestly believe in the old orthodoxy or in any plan of
salvation at all. Dispassionate study of the Higher Criticism and a judicious
regard of the unspiritual career of Christendom during the past nineteen weary
centuries have thrown back the more thoughtful and, necessarily, the masses who
follow, into doubt or indifference.
Acts speak
louder than words and it is not to be denied that the lives of men today show
that they have, in the main, lost the simple enthusiastic faith that sent
Ridley and Latimer to the stake, or fired the fine ladies of Florence to
sacrifice their vanities at the bidding of Savonarola. It is even considered impolite
to speak on such subjects as the future life in general society! The crudity of
the teachings of the churches on the subject of what happens after death is
well typified by the lines of the famous hymn of Dr. Watts, beginning:
When rattling
bones together fly
From every
quarter of the sky.
The
publication of such gross caricatures of the truth has led people to doubt,
justly enough, whether their self-appointed teachers know any more of the
mystery of death than they themselves; and, as a natural consequence, those to
whom the future is all dark, either cling to lives of hopeless suffering with
the tenacity of despair, or destroy themselves in reckless disregard of the
warnings they despise. The increase of suicide is one of the most menacing signs
of the times.
Science on its
part has nothing definite to affirm and refuses to answer the question of the
possibility of a future life for man. The scientific world hardly dares to
admit there is such a question at all, and prefers to devote its attention to
researches of inferior consequence. No doubt this attitude of scientific
thought is but a temporary reaction against the absurd and obsolete dogmas of
theology, but the fact remains that the anxious truthseeker
receives no answer, and that in pursuing what is called the practical, science
strangely ignores the most practical questions of all, i.e., what are we here
for; where have we come from; and where do we go? And in doing this Science
today unscientifically disregards the testimony of a vast mass of facts bearing
upon the question, and ignores the opinion of the greatest minds of the ages.
But if we
shake off the preconceived prejudices we may have gathered from the vagaries of
learned theological ignorance, or the negations, of scientists, we will admit
that the importance of the subject is undeniable; it is only the possibility of
gaining any certainty on the subject that is doubtful.
What a
different thing life is to one who realizes that "The soul of man is
immortal and its future is the future of a thing whose growth and splendor have
no limits" (Idyll of the While Lotus), and that it is in his own hands for
weal or woe, from what it appears to one who thinks, Let us eat and drink, for
tomorrow we die. How is the materialist going to confront the 'King of Terrors'
when the icy hand suddenly strikes the beloved one? Will not his pride of
negation bend at that crisis? -- for much of modern skepticism is born of
conceit. It is not impossible that at such times a strange, wild hope, a flash from
a higher source may startle him as he gazes down the street of tombs, the Appian Way of dead hopes and attachments.
The teachings
of theosophy, simple in their broad outlines, profound as nature in their
details, have come as a revealer to those who are seeking the way to truth.
Theosophy reconciles the conflict between science and religions; it is nothing
new; the truths it brings forward are as old as the hills, but it puts them in
a manner conformable to the temper of the age.
William Q.
Judge says: Embracing both the scientific and the religious,
Theosophy is a
scientific religion and a religious science. It is not a belief or dogma
formulated or invented by man, but is a knowledge of the laws which govern the
evolution of the physical, astral, psychical, and intellectual constituents of
nature and of man.
There is
nothing grotesque in theosophy; it is a system which is scientific and not
merely speculative. It is as inevitable as the multiplication table.
But theosophy
demands one difficult thing from the student -- an unprejudiced attitude of
mind, for it takes a real effort to change our standpoint and to admit that our
ignorance has been perpetuated by sheer unwillingness to climb to the heights
where a broader view can be obtained.
Though
theosophy opens a new realm of nature to the student and unveils facts and
their meanings that have been lost or buried, it is not dogmatic; it does not
demand acceptance under penalties. Theosophy could not be dogmatic and continue
to be theosophy, for it teaches man to look within himself for the truth and
not to accept the testimony of another person, or of any book, as infallible.
The real teacher is one who puts you in a position to find out truth for
yourself. In Oriental theosophy he is called the guru, or guide and adjuster,
and his duty is not to cram quantities of startling facts into the learner, but
to show him how to travel from the known to the unknown.
We are told
that if we follow the path of brotherly conduct in all our acts and thoughts,
the path of self-discipline and self-purification, the royal and only road to
the higher wisdom will be found. In the poetical words of H. P. Blavatsky:
There is a
road steep and thorny, beset with perils of every kind, but yet a road, and it
leads to the Heart of the Universe. I can tell you how to find those who will
show you the secret gateway that leads inward only and closes fast behind the
neophyte for evermore. There is no danger that dauntless courage cannot
conquer, there is no trial that spotless purity cannot pass through; there is
no difficulty that strong intellect cannot surmount. For those who win onward
there is reward past all telling, the power to bless and serve Humanity. For
those who fail there are other lives in which success may come.
As we
persevere in sincere altruistic effort for the uplifting of our 'other selves,'
our brothers, the darkest shadows will be lifted, and the mystery of death be
solved, for our vision will be so pure that we shall see things as they really
are. H. P. Blavatsky said that she was instructed to put forward the teachings
of theosophy primarily "to break the molds of mind"; that is to say,
to give the brightest and most spiritual minds of this age the opportunity of
finding for themselves the truth by showing them the line of search and the
method of commencing.
Theosophical Society, Cardiff
Lodge
206 Newport Road,
Cardiff, Wales, UK, CF24 1DL
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