Part 4

Now, the man had a sweetheart, a girl sweetheart, before he had either of his wives. The girl is out here somewhere, and the man often has a strong desire to try to find her. What opportunity he will now have to do so, I cannot say. The situation is rather depressing for the poor fellow. It is bad enough to have one person who insists on every minute of your society, without having two. And I think his case is not unusual. Perhaps the only way in which he can get free from his two insistent companions is by going back to the earth.

There is a way, however, by which he could secure solitude; but he does not know of it. A man who knows how can isolate himself here as well as he could on earth; he can build round himself a wall which only the eyes of a great initiate can pierce. I have not told this secret to my friend; but perhaps I shall some day, if it seems necessary for his development that he have a little solitude. At present it seems to me that he will learn more from adjusting to this double claim and trying to find the truth that lies in it. Perhaps he may learn that really, essentially, fundamentally, he does not “belong” to either of these women. The souls out here seem to belong to themselves, and after the first few years they get to love liberty so much that they are ready to yield a little of their claim upon others.

This is a great place in which to grow, if one really wants to grow; though few persons take advantage of its possibilities. Most are content to assimilate the experiences they had on earth. It would be depressing to one who did not realise that will is free, to see how souls let slip their opportunities here, even as they did on the moon-guarded planet.

There are teachers here who stand ready to help anyone who wishes their help in making real and deep studies in the mysteries of life--the life here, the life there, and in the remote past.

If a man understands that his recent sojourn on earth was merely the latest of a long series of lives, and if he concentrates his mind towards recovering the memories of the distant past, he can recover them. Some persons may think that the mere dropping of the veil of matter should free the soul from all obscuration; but, as on earth so out here, “things are not thus and so because they ought to be, but because they are.”

We draw to ourselves the experiences which we are ready for and which we demand, and most souls do not demand enough here, any more than they did in life. Tell them to demand more, and the demand will be answered.

LETTER XVIII

INDIVIDUAL HELLS

SOME time ago I told you of my intention to visit hell; but when I began investigations on that line there proved to be many hells.

Each man who is not content with the orthodox hell of fire and brimstone builds one out of mind-stuff suited to his imaginative need.

I believe that men place themselves in hell, that no God puts them there. I began looking for a hell of fire and brimstone, and found it. Dante must have seen the same things I saw.

But there are other and individual hells----

(_The writing suddenly stopped, for no apparent reason, and was not continued that night._)

LETTER XIX

A LITTLE HOME IN HEAVEN

I HAVE met a very interesting man since last I wrote to you. He is a lover who for ten years waited here for his love to come to him.

They said on earth that he was dead, and they urged her to love another; but she could not forget him, for every night he met her soul in dreams, every night she came out to him here, and sometimes she could recall on waking all that he had said to her in sleep. She had told him that she would not delay long in the sunshine world, but would come out to him in the self-lighted world.

Only a little while ago she came. He had been long getting ready for her coming, and had built in the substance of this world the little home he had planned to build for her in the outer world.

He told me how one night when she came to him in dream, she said that she would rejoin him on the morrow, never to leave him again. He was startled, and would almost have stayed her; because he had died a sudden and painful death, and he dreaded pain for her. Always he had watched over her, warning her of danger; but this time he felt, after the first shock of the message was over, that she was really coming. And he was very happy.

He had found no other love out here; for when one leaves the earth full of a great affection, and when the earthly loved one does not forget, the tie can hold for many years unweakened. You on the earth have forgotten so much of what you learned here that you do not realise how your thought of us can make us happy, do not realise how your forgetfulness of us can throw us back entirely upon ourselves.

Often those who go farthest here, who really grow in spirituality, are those whose loves have forgotten them on earth; but it is sad to be forgotten, nevertheless.

It is a bitter power you make possible to us when you thus throw us back upon ourselves; and not all souls are strong enough or aspiring enough to make use of the lonely impetus that might help them to scale the ladder of spiritual knowledge.

But to return to my lovers. All that day he remained near her. He would not rest; for, as I have told you, we generally rest a little when the sun shines on the earth. All that day he remained near her. He could not see her body, for the rays of sunlight were too strong for him. But, after hours of waiting, suddenly he felt a hand in his, and though she was invisible to him, yet he knew that she was _here_. And he spoke to her, using such words as he would have used on earth. She did not seem to understand. He spoke again, and still she did not answer; but he knew from the pressure of her hand that she realised his presence. So hand in hand they stood there in the darkness of the sunlight, the man able to speak because of his long experience in this world of subtle sounds, the woman speechless and bewildered, but still clinging to his hand.

When the sunshine went away he was able to see her face, and her eyes were wide and frightened; but still she seemed held to the room in which lay the body which had been she. It was summer, and the windows were open. He sought to draw her away into the perfumed night which to them was day; but she held his hand and would not let him go.

At last he drew her away a short distance and spoke to her again. Now she heard and answered him.

“Beloved,” she said, “which is I? For I see myself--I feel myself--back there also. I seem to be in two places. Which I is really I?”

He comforted her with loving words. He was still afraid to caress her, for the touch of souls is very keen, and he feared lest she should go back into the form which seemed to be so near them, and thus be lost to him again. But though she had often come to him in dreams, it had not been so vividly as this time, and he felt that she had really passed through the great change.

She still clung to his hand, yet seemed afraid to go out with him--out and away from _it_. He stayed there with her all that night and all the next day, when the darkening sun came again, and again he could not see her.

Once the well-meaning friends of his beloved disturbed her body, doing those sacred offices which seem so necessary to the living, but which may sorely disturb the dead.

He stayed with her the second night and all the second day. He could hear the sobs of her grieving parents, though they could not see either him or their daughter; but on the second night the little dog of his love came into the room where _it_ lay, the room in which their two souls still stood, and the little dog saw them and whined piteously. The man could hear it, and she also could hear it.

And now she could hear him more plainly when he spoke to her.

“Where will they take _it_?” she asked him.

He recalled the time when he had been held spellbound near his own lifeless form, over which his loved one had shed bitter tears. And he asked her if it would not be better to come away altogether; but she could not, or thought she could not.

On the third day he knew from the agitation of his love that they were placing her body in the coffin. After a while he felt, though he could not see, that many other persons were in the room, and he heard mournful music. Music can reach from one world to another, can be heard far more plainly than human voices, which generally cannot be heard at all except by the trained listener.

By and by his love was sorely agitated, and he also, through sympathy with her; and they felt themselves going slowly--oh, so slowly!--along. And he said to her:

“Do not be grieved. They are taking _it_ to the burial; but you are safe with me.” He knew that she was much troubled.

It is not for nothing that over the house of death there always hangs a strange hush, not to be explained by the mere losing of the loved one. Those who remain behind feel, though they cannot see, the soul of the one who has gone out. Their souls are full of sympathy for him in his bewilderment.

The change need not be painful if one would only remember that it has been passed through before; but one so easily forgets. We sometimes call the earth the Valley of Forgetfulness.

During the days and weeks that followed this lover remained with his loved one, ever trying to draw her away from the earth and from _it_, which had for her, as for so many, a fearsome fascination.

It is said that the souls of those who have lived long on earth more easily detach themselves; but this woman was still young, only about thirty; and even with the help of her lover it was a little time before she could get free.

But one day (or night, as you would say) he showed her the home which he had built for her, and it was literally a mansion in the sky. She entered with him, and it became their home.

Sometimes he leaves her for a little while, or she leaves him; for the joy of being together is heightened here, as on the earth, by an occasional separation; but not until she was content and accustomed to the new life did he leave her at all.

During the first days the habit of earthly hunger often held her, and he tried to appease it by giving her the softer substance which we know here. Gradually she became weaned altogether from the earth and the habits of the earth, only going back occasionally in a dream to her father and mother.

Do not disregard your dreams about the dead. They always mean something. They do not always mean what the dream would seem to signify; for the door between the two worlds is very narrow, and thoughts are often shaken out of place in passing through. But dreams about the dead mean something. We can reach you in that way.

I came to you in a dream the other night, standing behind and outside the gate of a walled garden in which you were enclosed. I smiled and beckoned you to come out to me; but I did not wish you to come out to stay. I only meant that you should come out in spirit; for if you come out occasionally it is easier for me to go into your world.

Good night.

LETTER XX

THE MAN WHO FOUND GOD

THERE seems to be no way in which I can better teach you about this life, so strange to you, than by telling my experiences and conversations with men and women here.

I said one night not long ago that I had met more saints than philosophers, and I want to tell you now about a man who seems to be a genuine saint. Yes, there are little saints and great saints, as there are little and great sinners.

One day I was walking on a mountain top. I say “walking,” for it seemed about the same, though it takes but little energy to walk here.

On the mountain top I saw a man standing alone. He was looking out and far away, but I could not see what he was looking at. He was abstracted and communing with himself, or with some presence of which I was unaware.

I waited for some time. At last, drawing a long breath--for we breathe here--he turned his eyes to me and said, with a kind smile:

“Can I do anything for you, brother?”

I was embarrassed for a moment, feeling that I might have intruded upon some sweet communion.

“If I am not too bold in asking,” I said, “would you tell me what you were thinking as you stood there looking into space?”

I was conscious of my presumption; but being so determined to learn what can be known, if sometimes I am too bold in making inquiries, I feel that my very earnestness may win for me the forgiveness of those I question.

This man had a beautiful beardless face and young-looking eyes; but his garments were the ordinary garments of one who thinks little or nothing of his appearance. That very unconsciousness of the outer form may sometimes give it a peculiar majesty.

He looked at me in silence for a moment; then he said:

“I was trying to draw near to God.”

“And what is God?” I asked; “and where is God?”

He smiled. I never saw a smile like his, as he answered:

“God is everywhere. God _is_.”

“What is He?” I persisted; and again he repeated, but with a different emphasis:

“_God_ is.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“God _is_, _God_ is,” he said.

I do not know how his meaning was conveyed to me, perhaps by sympathy; but it suddenly flashed into my mind that when he said, “God _is_,” he expressed the completest realisation of God which is possible to the spirit; and when he said, “_God_ is,” he meant me to understand that there was no being, nothing that is, except God.

There must have been in my face a reflection of what I felt, for the saint then said to me:

“Do you not also know that He _is_, and that all that is, is He?”

“I am beginning to feel what you mean,” I answered, “though I doubtless feel but a little of it.”

He smiled, and made no reply; but my mind was full of questions.

“When you were on earth,” I said, “did you think much about God?”

“Always. I thought of little else. I sought Him everywhere, but seemed only at times to get flashes of consciousness as to what He really was. Sometimes when praying, for I prayed much, there would come to me suddenly the question, ‘To what are you praying?’ And I would answer aloud, ‘To God, to God!’ But though I prayed to Him every day for years, only occasionally did I get a flash of that true consciousness of God. Finally, one day when I was alone in the woods, there came the great revelation. It came not in any form of words, but rather in a wordless and formless wonder, too vast for the limitation of thought. I fell upon the ground and must have lost consciousness, for after a while--how long a time I do not know--I awoke, and got up and looked about me. Then gradually I remembered the experience which had been too big for me while I was feeling it.

“I could put into the form of words the realisation which had been too much for my mortality to bear, and the words I used to myself were, ‘All that is, is God.’ It seemed very simple, yet it was far from simple. ‘All that is, is God.’ That must include me and all my fellow beings, human and animal; even the trees and the birds and the rivers must be a part of God, if God were all that is.

“From that moment life assumed a new meaning for me. I could not see a human face without remembering the revelation--that that human being I saw was a part of God. When my dog looked at me, I said to him aloud, ‘You are a part of God.’ When I stood beside a river and listened to the sound of its waters, I said to myself, ‘I am listening to the voice of God.’ When a fellow being was angry with me, I asked myself, ‘In what way have I offended God?’ When one spoke lovingly to me, I said, ‘God is loving me now,’ and the realisation nearly took my breath away. Life became unbelievably beautiful.

“Therefore I had been so absorbed in God, in trying to find God, that I had not given much thought to my fellow beings, and had even neglected those nearest me; but from that day I began to mingle with my human brethren. I found that as more and more I sought God in them, more and more God responded to me through them. And life became still more wonderful.

“Sometimes I tried to tell others what I felt, but they did not always understand me. It was thus I began to realise that God had purposely, for some reason of His own, covered Himself with veils. Was it that He might have the pleasure of tearing them away? If so, I would help Him all I could. So I tried to make other men grasp the knowledge of God which I myself had attained. For years I taught men. At first I wanted to teach everybody; but I soon came to see that that was impossible, and so I selected a few who called themselves my disciples. They did not always tell the world that they were my disciples, because I asked them not to do so. But I urged each of them to give to someone as much as possible of the knowledge that I had given to him. And so I think that many have come to feel a little of the wonder which was revealed to me that day alone in the woods, when I awoke to the knowledge that God _is_, _God_ is.”

Then the saint turned and left me, with all my questions unanswered. I wanted to ask him when and how he had left the earth, and what work he was doing out here--but he was gone!

Perhaps I shall see him again some day. But whether I do or not, he has given me something which I in turn give to you, as he himself desired to give it to the world.

That is all for to-night.

LETTER XXI

THE LEISURE OF THE SOUL

ONE of the joys of being here is the leisure for dreaming and for getting acquainted with oneself.

Of course there is plenty to do; but though I intend to go back to the world in a few years, I feel that there is time to get acquainted with myself. I tried to do that on earth, more or less; but here there are fewer demands on me. The mere labour of dressing and undressing is lighter, and I do not have to earn my living now, nor anybody else’s.

You, too, could take time to loaf, if you thought you could. You can do practically anything you think you can do.

I purpose, for instance, in a few years not only to pick up a general knowledge of the conditions of this four-dimensional world, but to go back over my other lives and assimilate what I learned in them. I want to make a synthesis of the complete experiences of my ego up to this date, and to judge from that synthesis what I can do in the future with least resistance. I believe, but am not quite sure, that I can bring back much of this knowledge with me when I am born again.

I shall try to tell you--or some of you--when and about where to look for me again. Oh, don’t be startled! It will not be for some time yet. An early date would necessitate hurry, and I do not wish to hurry. I could probably force the coming back, but that would be unwise, for I should then come back with less power than I want. Action and reaction being opposite and equal, and the unit, or ego, being able to generate only so much energy in a given time, it is better for me to rest in this condition of light matter until I have accumulated energy enough to come back with power. I shall not do, however, as many souls do; they stay out here until they are as tired of this world as they formerly were tired of the earth, and then are driven back half unconsciously by the irresistible force of the tide of rhythm. I want to guide that rhythm.

Since I have been here one man whom I know has gone back to the earth. He was about ready to go when I first found him. The strange part of it was that he himself did not understand his condition. He complained of being tired of things and of wanting to rest much. That was probably a natural instinct for rest, in preparation for the supreme effort of opening the doors of matter again. It is easy to come out here, but it requires some effort to go _from_ this world into yours.

I know where that soul is now, for the Teacher told me. I had spoken to the Teacher about him, but he already knew of his existence. It was rather strange, for the man was one in whom I should have fancied that the Teacher would have taken little interest. But one never knows. Perhaps in his next life he may really begin to study the philosophy which _they_ teach.