In action we are free. Absolutely free. We have graduated in the Blue School. We are free to go amongst the other spheres. The hands where many or several—or none—of our own people are. We can go to them, and we can take help from those more developed, and give help to those less fortunate. Help by advice, help by demonstration, and help by association. We are still living on the Blue Island; not yet do we pass to the next sphere for domicile.
As we are able to travel among these other lands, so we are able to be in constant touch with earth. Thoughts of us sent out by people on earth reach us, and we sense from whom they come, and can follow up the person, if so desired. We would not get every thought from anyone who happened to see our names and make a casual remark, but from anyone with whom we were intimate whilst on earth a thought of us will come straight, as along a telephone wire from one house to another, and if we wish we can come. In this way we are able to help people left behind. We can follow their actions and their minds, and influence them one way or the other, according to our idea of what is for their good; but we cannot do impossible things even for those dearest to us.
Whilst on earth one can give advice, but one cannot force it into practice—so here we can influence but not create. Having attained this state there is no parting, there is no sting to death, we can be with our own beyond us, with us, below us, and with those still on earth. Separation and partings are not known except by the law of attraction and affection. We leave people behind on the earth who dutifully mourn for us, who are genuinely upset at their loss; but after a while—short or long—their remembrance of us grows thin. They cease to think of us, to recall us, and to remember our companionship. They are the only partings. In some cases even those people come back to our lives when they themselves come to this land. Gradually, as they throw off the influences which dimmed their remembrance of us, they find the foundation of the old affection. Sometimes it is untouched; sometimes spoilt; but these are the only partings.
A spirit who comes here, and is anxious to get in touch with earth ties, may be made more unhappy by being with the earth people, for if they do not understand that he is still alive, they are all sadness, and they think of him as dead—as something finished. Although the spirit will go to them a great deal at first, the earth people will not know he is there, and seeing them but being unable to make his presence know causes him much disappointment and sorrow, and they are ignorant of his presence and think only of him as dead, he will finally stay away altogether, content to wait until they join him. This accounts for many people who are not apparently making any attempt to communicate, and for earth people to say that this cannot be true because their dearest so-and-so never made any sign to them.
When you are over in this life you will not be continually associated with people who are not of interest to you. On earth you eliminate, as far as practicable, the people who tire and try you—but here that can be done effectively because those feelings and instincts are entirely mutual. The governing force is love. Affections bind people together, and if the love between any two, or any group, is a strong and real thing, then those people are in close unison and happiness together. But wherever the love is not on both or all sides, there is automatically a falling away of the affected party. Nothing uneven or unequal holds. When you come, through death, you are attracted by the ties of love into the set of people who vibrate the same affection, and if you have had an affection for another which is not equally shared although you will at first be together, you will gradually and yet quietly cease to attract each other, and cease to be in each other's company.
CHAPTER X THE STATE OF FREEDOM
Everything is ordered. I have touched lightly upon my first arrival and my impression of the new surroundings, and of my first return to earth and the manner of it. Without giving technical and scientific formula at all, I thing I have given you a fair picture and a rough idea of the next step after earth life. What I have said applies to all the human race. Whites, blacks and yellows—there is no differentiation; one rule holds for all races of mankind.
I shall pass for the present to a further stage.
I may return to say more about the Blue Island, but now I will leave all life there to continue on its way, and will deal with a further point of development—the state of being rid of most earth instincts. Once rid of these we are able to pass with comparative ease, and almost at will, from one sphere to another, and from this or another sphere back to earth; keeping thereby in close association with our own people—or those of them who desire it.
We help by influencing them in their daily lives and actions, and we do this without in any way retarding our own work, development and construction of character. Character is the main thing to be studied.
Whilst on the Blue Island I studied, as all do, the secrets of self and of life, and I came to realize the vastness of Creation. It is not life on earth and then life on this island only. As progress is made and earth's inclinations and habits are put aside, so other interests take their place, and then comes the desire for true knowledge. As other do and will do, so did I. I fell into line also, and as I learned so I progressed. Capacity for wisdom grew with the wisdom acquired.
I had learnt of the existence of other lands besides this island, and at one time it seemed as incredible as the possible existence of this land does to many now on earth; but eventually the time came when I was taken to these other spheres. I cannot tell where they are, but it was like traveling amongst the stars. It seems as if we left our world and traveled through space until we reached another star, another land.
There are several of these other lands, and they are inhabited by former earth people who have progressed sufficiently to qualify for entry into this or that land. These other lands are nearly all inhabited by a higher form of life, a happier form and, individually, a more powerful form, but there are one or two other lands of not so high an order, where happiness is less or not at all, according to whether life on earth was a well or lightly ordered thing. In these lands the people who are there fail and fail again to find the spirit in themselves to desire to rise, to improve an control themselves, although the necessary strength is offered and offered and even thrust at them.
All races have the gift of free will. All are free agents in
determining their own destinies. At all times, not only after the body's death. Just as a father and a mother of a family order the day's routine for their children, and allow the children then to amuse themselves in their own way, so the races of mankind are free to develop and model their lives upon their own individual pattern—being given certain rules to conform to. All life is originally free, but whilst on earth, through poor comprehension and mismanagement, the individual often thinks he is not a free personage with free will—but he is. As the same father and mother will influence and guide their children, the cause