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deprivation."
Ann had taken her life with sleeping pills. To balance the scales, she'd acquire a condition
which would not permit her to sleep normally.
"And she chose this?" I asked, wanting to be sure of that.
"Absolutely," Albert said. "Rebirth is always a matter of choice."
I nodded slowly, staring at him. "What about the rest?" I asked.
"The rest is good," he said. "In compensation for the pain she endured and the progress she
achieved in her last life. Her new parents are intelligent, attractive people, the father in local
government, the mother a successful artist. Ann she'll have another name, of course will
be given much love and opportunity for creative and intellectual growth."
I thought about it for a while before I spoke. Then I said, "I want to go back too."
Albert looked distressed.
"Chris," he said, "unless one has to, one should never choose rebirth until one has studied and
improved the mind so that the next life is an improvement over the last."
"I'm sure that's true," I conceded. "But I have to be with her and help her if I can. I feel guilty
for not having helped her enough in our past life together. I want to try again."
"Chris, think," he said. "Do you really want to return so soon to a world where masses are
robbed and cheated by a few? Where food is destroyed while millions starve? Where service
to state is a brute hypocrisy? Where killing is a simpler solution than loving?"
His words were harsh but I knew he spoke them for my benefit, hoping to convince me to
remain in Summerland and grow.
"I know you're right," I said. "And I know you have my best interests at heart. But I love Ann
and I have to be with her, helping her as best I can."
His smile was sad but accepting. "I understand." He nodded. "Well, I'm not surprised," he
said. "I've seen you both together."
I started. "When?"
"When both of you were taken from that etheric prison." His smile was tender now. "Your
auras blend. You have the same vibration, as I told you. That's why you can't bear being
separated from her. She's your soul mate and I understand completely why you want to be
with her. I'm sure Ann chose rebirth in hope of bringing both of you together somehow.
Still "
"What?"
"I wish you could understand the implications of returning."
"It can be done, can't it?" I asked in concern.
"It may not be simple," he answered. "And there could be risks."
"What sort of risks?"
He hesitated, then replied. "We'd best have an expert tell you."
I thought I could return immediately. I should have known that such a complex process was
not so easily effected; that, like everything in afterlife, it required study.
First came the lecture.
Near the center of the city I was in a giant, circular temple seating thousands. A shaft of white
light shone down on it, clearly visible in spite of the abundant illumination.
When Albert and I entered the temple, we moved unhesitatingly to a pair of seats halfway to
the speaker's platform. I cannot tell you why. They weren't marked or different, in any way,
from all the other seats. Still, I knew those seats were ours before we reached them.
The massive audience was talking quietly; by which, of course, I mean without an audible
sound. Many smiled at us as we took our places.
"Are all these people planning to be reborn?" I asked in surprise.
"I doubt it," Albert said. "Most of them are probably here to learn."
I nodded, trying not to acknowledge my mounting unrest. It was similar to the feeling I'd had
when I first arrived in Summerland; when something in me had, unconsciously, been aware of
Ann's impending suicide.
Similar, I say. It couldn't be the same. I knew that she would live now, not die. Still, our
separation was equally distressing to me. I couldn't tell you, Robert, what the higher
ramifications are of being soul mates. I can tell you this however. As long as you are
separated from your own, that long are you troubled. No matter what the circumstances, no
matter how exquisite the environment in which you find yourself.
To be half of one can only be a torment when the other half is gone.
A lovely woman walked up to the platform now and smiled at us, began to speak.
"Shakespeare put it this way in referring to death," she said. "The undiscovered country from
whose bourn no traveler returns.''
She smiled again. "Beautifully expressed," she said, "if totally inaccurate. We have all
discovered this country following our 'deaths.' What is more, it is a bourn from which all
travelers must, eventually, return.
"We are triune," she continued. "Spirit, soul and body; this last third in earthly life
composed of physical, etheric and astral bodies. I will not discuss our spirit at this time. Our
soul contains the essence of God within us. This essence directs our course of life, guiding the
soul through many life experiences. Each time a portion of the soul descends into flesh, it
absorbs that experience and evolves, becoming enriched by it. Or " She paused, "
detracting from it."
Which was essentially what Albert had said, I recalled. Ann's suicide had detracted from her
soul and, now, she had chosen to absorb enough positive experience to rebuild it.
How is this larger self added to or subtracted from? By memory. Each of us has an external
and an internal memory, the external belonging to our visible body, the internal to our
invisible or spiritual body. Every single thing any one of us has ever thought, willed,
spoken, done, heard or seen is inscribed on this internal memory.
This comprehensive recollection always remains in its "Father's house," growing or
diminishing with the results of each new physical life. The astral or spirit body returns to
earth but remains the same. Only the body of flesh and its etheric double is altered.
There is a line of communication between the higher self and whatever physical form the soul
has, currently, chosen. For instance, if the physical self receives an inspiration, it comes from
the soul. The so-called "still, small voice" is knowledge from former lessons which warn an
individual not to commit some act which would do injury to its soul.
However, by and large, except in cases of those born receptive to its existence or who, by
looking inward meditating become aware of it, the penetration of this true self into matter
is rarely perceived.
"The process, then, is this," the woman told us. "Life after life of effort, interspersed with
periods of rest and study on this plane, gradually shapes the soul to that which it aspires to be.
Sometimes, what it has failed to achieve in life can be achieved in afterlife so that the next
rebirth is attended by more awareness, more ability to effect the ultimate aspiration toward
God.
"Thus, the triunity which we are experiences a triad of incarnation, disincarnation and
reincarnation. Man should be well aware of how to die for he has done it many times. Yet,
every time he returns to flesh with rare exceptions he forgets again."
A question occurred to me. Amazingly, the woman answered it as though she'd picked it from
my mind.
"You appear now as you did in your last incarnation," she said. "You have, of course, had
many different appearances, some of the opposite sex. You retain the look of your previous
life, however, because it is most vivid in your memory.
"When that life terminated, your consciousness receded, in stages, toward its source,
dissociating itself from its involvement in matter. This process of relinquishment took place in
the etheric world where your desires and feelings were refined, all nonregenerated forces from
your life focused and transmuted. At length, your consciousness receded to this mental or [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]