I cannot emphasize to you too much that as you are, so you will be.
You are now, whilst on earth, making your bodies for your next conditions. These are built up by your present lives on the quality of your thoughts. This world, which I have been in a long time now, is the closest thing imaginable to your earth. It is full of mineral, vegetable, animal, and all forms of life. All the animals you have loved on earth and educated to understanding, will be with you here. Those other animals who belong to no one in particular are here too, but they are in their own places. You will say, "Oh, then it is only a reflection of our word." It is not that way—the earth is only a reflection of this world. Earth is not the lasting world. It is the training school. You are not only on earth to amass riches and enjoy life, just for what it is; you are there to learn the truth about your own character, and how to control and develop it, to make full use of all earth's beauties and pleasures, but you must be master, and not allow them to master you.
As I have said, looking back on my life here, I am satisfied with what has been done both in the personal and individual way and the bigger way. We spirit people have made great advances in our communications with earth. We have been greatly and enormously helped by the physical strength of the spirits of all the young men and women who passed over during the recent fighting all over the world; not only English, but all. They brought with them great physical power and determination, and we have been able, through this power, to break down many of the barriers which keep the two worlds apart.
These truths do not conform with the ideas of many people, but that is no reason for saying they are not true. Truth is sometimes unexpected and none too pleasant, but it is always the most powerful, and will make itself known—no matter whether it brings pleasure or pain.
Go, each one of you, in reality or imagination, to the edge of a high cliff overlooking the sea. Let it be a bright, starry, frosty night, and go alone. Stand there and meditate. Look down upon the lights of any harbored, anchored boats, and think; then look up to the stars. You know where you are, and you are fully conscious of the flickering and movement of the lights on the boats.
You can see them. You are only a little way off. and perhaps you could make them hear if you called, but it would be easier to wait till the darkness breaks when they can see you without any effort on your part. That is how we spirit people are; conscious of those left behind, some willing to wait, others fighting and struggling to make themselves heard. It is only a little way from earth, and between this, our spirit state and the Great Universe, there is as much distance as between you on the cliff and the farthest star.
We are only a little way on our journey—nothing yet forgotten. Love still remaining.
CHAPTER XIV THE GREAT ULTIMATE
My life here has been a very normal, healthy and interesting affair, just as my life on earth was. I have been invested with no powers generally attributed to spirits and fairies, I am still just an ordinary man with an ordinary plain, blunt outlook on life; the change has in no way altered me. The only change there is in me is my greater ability to move speedily and to act quickly. I am rejuvenated, and this is a condition which becomes more marked as time goes on.
Many people who give thought to these subjects no matter what their particular point of view may be, ask the question, "To where is it all leading? What is to be our ultimate state?" This is a question of extreme difficulty to deal with on account of the limitations of the mind; both yours and ours.
I have explained to you that, as you are, so you will be when you come here. When here you will qualify for a further state, which will be your lot in due time, and there you will be exactly as you have made yourself by your life here. Better or worse, happier or more unhappy. From that you will go to a further state, another sphere if you like, and there again you will have made your own conditions.
In this further state you will be more self-contained; a word I use to express a state of being less dependent upon other people and things for development and progress. In this sphere you will again come in contact with your whole record. A record in full, of all former states: and from this sphere, if your record has qualified to the point of allowing it, you will be given the choice of returning to earth again. Reincarnating. If your record does not qualify for choice in this matter, you will be directed either to return or to continue according to what the Teachers—the Purified— consider will afford you most opportunity for recreating yourself and cleansing yourself in the necessary way. It is from this sphere that spirits return to earth, but by the time the most progressed spirit has reached this state he has forgotten in detail his association with earth. I cannot give the shortest period of time which would be necessary to reach this sphere, but the sojourn in the Real World after the Blue Island is a much longer period than that of mortal life; and in each sphere as progress is made the sojourn is longer.
The spirits who have reached this "Return or Stay Sphere," and are purified and qualified in themselves, those who stand the tests and pass out as Grade I, pass to another and altogether different and lighter land—and each becomes impersonal. Impersonal in the sense that they are no longer Jack Brown or Madge Black; they are now pure spirit people, and their former love, which had been a personal and individual thing, is no longer for one but equally for all. All are alike to all. The purest tissue of God's love binds one and all.
I have given a brief outline, sufficient for you to form your own ideas, your own mental pictures of Creation and its process. There would be no point in my going further into details, because if I were to give the facts you could not understand the conditions ruling in those advanced states. I am not able fully to understand them myself, for, as I have said, I am only a little way on my journey, but just far enough to grasp the intense beauty of life, and in life.
As one standing on a higher point than yourselves, and able to see a little more than you see, I can best explain to you that in these further states you receive not merely fifty, or sixty, or even a hundred per cent out of your lives in happiness and joy but you receive comparatively six hundred per cent. This is simply a graphic way of indicating the degree of happiness that obtains here.
Were I able to describe all the processes of our evolution many would say, "Oh, but I don't want that!" But when progress has been made and intelligence brightened and Reality seen as Reality, not as Imagination, they will want it. If I said to an old man in an invalid chair that he could have a motor-bicycle, he'd say he preferred his invalid- chair, but if he were to be a young, robust boy of nineteen again, which do you suppose he'd choose? This is the underlying principle.
Do you think that this scheme of the World is hateful and unkind and full of continual partings from all other spirits who are dear to each individually. I have said that there are "no} partings. It is always possible and customary for spirits to keep in close touch with each other on this side. When the highest states of the impersonal are reached there are no partings