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1THE LIGHT OF EGYPT tiger presents us with a fine illustration of this law of transformation upon the outward planes of existence. We all know what the tiger is when endowed with physical life. His chief qualities are selfishness and destructiveness. He is, in fact, a complete expression of cruelty. When death transpires, the astral tiger, like the astral tree, becomes indrawn within the karmic sphere of its astral world. There it performs the higher evolutions of its special round until the life atoms, which constitute it, become “rounded out” and ready to externalize in some higher form. Thus the tiger, like the tree, is one of Nature’s countless mediums for the expression of mental force. By the interior laws of its constitution, it forms a central vortex or focus for the materialization of the purely selfish and destructive elements of humanity. When death removes the physical tiger from earth, the ethereal tiger becomes the sphere of action un¬ til the tigerish qualities have run their cycle. But we cannot say that there has been any real extinction, or that death has come upon the tiger, any more than we can say that the caloric of the sunbeam is destroyed because the solar ray is no longer brought to a focus. The eye of the initiate can distinctly see the ferocity of the animal in the inhumanity of the man.
2Mortality or death, then, can only exist and be a truth in refer¬ ence to individual forms. It has no existence in reality when brought face to face with the spiritual qualities and mental force, which created these forms. Change of sphere and change of action are the only realities of death. Ever onward, ever upward, forever and ever more. Eternal progression is the anthem of evolution, and the cycles of action are but intervals of time measured out to the life forces by the pendulum of creation. The second portion of our subject “Immortality” is the polar op¬ posite of death and mortality. Individual forms and characteristics are the only things that change and die. Death, as we have shown, is not extinction of the life atoms in the literal sense of the term, but simply change of sphere and function. Death is the grand terminus of one cycle of existence, and the commencement of another. Mortality is the harbinger of a still higher state of life, and consequently the forerunner of immortality. There are exceptions to the general rule, though they are few. The most important of these exceptions we shall notice in our next chapter. c iooqle MORTALITY AND IMMORTALITY 149 There are two distinct phases of immortal life, viz.: conscious immortality, and unconscious immortality. One relates to mind, and the other to matter; one to intelligence, and the other to substance.
3There is only one grade of external life which can be said to in¬ herit immortality in the Occult sense of the term. This grade includes those souls who are truly human who have soul qualities of such high degree that they can advance. Not as we know and recognize indi¬ viduals, but, rather, an individuality consisting entirely of soul qual¬ ities, a purely spiritual state which can only be partially expressed by the use of words. All the states below the human plane are only so many radiating lines which converge to a point, and are brought to a focus within the human organism. Therefore, every quality and force upon the planet or within the system of which the organism forms a part must find expression within man, this uterus of Nature. If this were not so, man would not constitute a miscrocosm or uni¬ verse in miniature. In the grades below the human state, we do not find complete organisms. They are mere temporary shapes of mat¬ ter continually dying out of existence, when the forces they were evolved to express are exhausted, and thus give place to something more perfect. They are not souls in the true sense, but refracted at¬ tributes of souls. They are qualities and functions in the process of evolution; isolated parts and characteristics of a whole; organs, but not organisms.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1THE LIGHT OF EGYPT tiger presents us with a fine illustration of this law of transformation upon the outward planes of existence. We all know what the tiger is when endowed with physical life. His chief qualities are selfishness and destructiveness. He is, in fact, a complete expression of cruelty. When death transpires, the astral tiger, like the astral tree, becomes indrawn within the karmic sphere of its astral world. There it performs the higher evolutions of its special round until the life atoms, which constitute it, become “rounded out” and ready to externalize in some higher form. Thus the tiger, like the tree, is one of Nature’s countless mediums for the expression of mental force. By the interior laws of its constitution, it forms a central vortex or focus for the materialization of the purely selfish and destructive elements of humanity. When death removes the physical tiger from earth, the ethereal tiger becomes the sphere of action un¬ til the tigerish qualities have run their cycle. But we cannot say that there has been any real extinction, or that death has come upon the tiger, any more than we can say that the caloric of the sunbeam is destroyed because the solar ray is no longer brought to a focus. The eye of the initiate can distinctly see the ferocity of the animal in the inhumanity of the man.
2Mortality or death, then, can only exist and be a truth in refer¬ ence to individual forms. It has no existence in reality when brought face to face with the spiritual qualities and mental force, which created these forms. Change of sphere and change of action are the only realities of death. Ever onward, ever upward, forever and ever more. Eternal progression is the anthem of evolution, and the cycles of action are but intervals of time measured out to the life forces by the pendulum of creation. The second portion of our subject “Immortality” is the polar op¬ posite of death and mortality. Individual forms and characteristics are the only things that change and die. Death, as we have shown, is not extinction of the life atoms in the literal sense of the term, but simply change of sphere and function. Death is the grand terminus of one cycle of existence, and the commencement of another. Mortality is the harbinger of a still higher state of life, and consequently the forerunner of immortality. There are exceptions to the general rule, though they are few. The most important of these exceptions we shall notice in our next chapter. c iooqle MORTALITY AND IMMORTALITY 149 There are two distinct phases of immortal life, viz.: conscious immortality, and unconscious immortality. One relates to mind, and the other to matter; one to intelligence, and the other to substance.
3There is only one grade of external life which can be said to in¬ herit immortality in the Occult sense of the term. This grade includes those souls who are truly human who have soul qualities of such high degree that they can advance. Not as we know and recognize indi¬ viduals, but, rather, an individuality consisting entirely of soul qual¬ ities, a purely spiritual state which can only be partially expressed by the use of words. All the states below the human plane are only so many radiating lines which converge to a point, and are brought to a focus within the human organism. Therefore, every quality and force upon the planet or within the system of which the organism forms a part must find expression within man, this uterus of Nature. If this were not so, man would not constitute a miscrocosm or uni¬ verse in miniature. In the grades below the human state, we do not find complete organisms. They are mere temporary shapes of mat¬ ter continually dying out of existence, when the forces they were evolved to express are exhausted, and thus give place to something more perfect. They are not souls in the true sense, but refracted at¬ tributes of souls. They are qualities and functions in the process of evolution; isolated parts and characteristics of a whole; organs, but not organisms.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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