So emphatically and so thoroughly is this the case that

the physical life would really seem an almost unimportant

and negligeable quantity, but for the fact that at our pres
ent stage of evolution there is much experience that we
can attain only through the slower vibrations of this
coarser and heavier matter, and so the earth-life is neces
sary for us.
This is a point upon which, perhaps, a word or two
ought here to be said, lest in endeavouring to remove misconceptions we should
ourselves be
misconceived. Some people have been disposed to think that since death is but
the entrance into a better life, and seems altogether so
beautiful and desirable a thing, there is, therefore, no
need for us ever to make any effort to avoid it, or to take
any trouble to preserve mere physical life. Indeed, a man
might well suppose that the sooner he died the better;
such knowledge would seem almost to place a premium
on suicide ! If we were thinking solely of ourselves and
of our pleasure, then emphatically that would be so. But
if we think of our duty towards the Logos, and towards
our fellow-men, then we shall at once see that this con
sideration is negatived.
While it is perfectly true that in the case of everyone
who has lived at all a good 0-r useful life here, the astral
existence will be a much happier and fuller one than this,
it must be remembered that we are here for a purpose
a purpose which can only be attained upon this physical
plane. The instinct of self-preservation is a true and
worthy one, divinely implanted in our breasts, and it is
our duty to make the most of this earthly life which is
ours, and to retain it as long as circumstances permit.
There are lessons to be learnt on this plane which cannot
be learnt anywhere else, and the sooner we learn them
the sooner we shall be free for ever from the need of re
turn to this lower and more limited life. At present the
physical plane is the principal theatre of our evolution,
and a great deal of very necessary progress can be
made only under its somewhat gross and undesirable con
ditions. The appointed method for the evolution of our
latent qualities is by learning to vibrate in response to
impacts from without. But at the level of the soul him
self the vibrations are far too fine and rapid to awaken
this response at present; he must begin with those which are coarser and stronger,
and having awakened his dormant sensibilities by their means, he will gradually
grow
more and more sensitive until he is capable of perfect re
sponse at all levels to all possible rates of vibration-——or,
in other words, he has become perfect in sympathy and
compassion. But to attain this glorious result he must
begin on the physical plane. Each incarnation costs the
ego no inconsiderable trouble in its preparation, and also
in the wearisome period of early childhood during which
he is gradually and with much effort gaining some control
over his new vehicles. When, therefore, he has achieved
his task and painfully grown for himself a series of com
paratively suitable bodies, it is obviously alike his duty
and his interest to make the most of them and to preserve
them as carefully as possible. Assuredly he ought by no
means to yield them up until the Great Law compels him
to do so, except at the bidding of some higher and over
mastering duty from outside, such as that of the soldier
to his country.
So none must dare to die until his times comes, though
when it does come he may well rejoice, for indeed he is
about to pass from labour to refreshment—from dark
ness into light, from limitation into freedom; and he may
well be filled with exultation at the prospect.

Yet all this which we have heard is insignificant beside

the glory of the life which follows it—the life of the
Heaven-W0-rld. This is the purgatory; that is the endless
bliss of which monks have dreamed and poets sung—not
a dream after all, but a living and glorious reality. The
astral life is happy for some, unhappy for others, accord
ing to the preparation they have made for it; but what
follows it is perfect happiness for all, and exactly suited
to the needs of each. But we shall describe this in a later
chapter.

In most of us, then, the consciousness is not yet suf

ficiently developed to function. untrammelled through the
higher vehicles, so that there are certain directions in
which it can be reached only through the physical
senses, though when it has been so reached and
fully awakened down here it can continue to work along
those lines in other and higher worlds. Thus, unreal
though it be, this physical life is in some sense a seedtime,
for in it we may set in motion forces whose harvest will
be reaped under the far more favourable and fruitful con
ditions of higher spheres.

But this truth in no way modifies the great fact above

stated of the superior reality of those higher spheres, and
it must not be allowed to dim our appreciation of the eter- '
nal verity that death is for us in very truth the gateway
of a grander life—that all that we know now of glory and
of beauty is simply as nothing to the glory and beauty
of the worlds into which it leads us. And this because as
we pass through that gate of death, one at least (and that
the heaviest and the darkest) of many veils falls for us
from before the face of Him who is Himself Glory and
Beauty, the all-pervading Lord of life and death alike.
If we can but grasp this truth of the greater reality of
the higher worlds we shall have rid ourselves for ever
of that fatal sense of vagueness and dimness which for so
many people surrounds all that is not physical. There
has been no greater enemy to a true appreciation of the
meaning and the use of life, no more powerful weapon
in the hands of the evil-minded, than the helpless vague
ness about all higher life which has so.long characterized
the thought of the majority of the men of these Western races. For the occult
student there should be here no difficulty whatever, and among the ranks of our
members
there should be none in whom this realization is still lacking.