The zodiac is the law according to which everything comes into existence, stays a while, then passes out of existence, to reappear according to the zodiac.

—The Zodiac.

THE

WORD

BIRTH-DEATH—DEATH-BIRTH

(Concluded)

IN our last article a brief description was given of the perennial invisible germ of physical life, how it persists in the world of the soul from life to life, how it acts as the bond which unites the two sex germs, how it furnishes the idea on which the physical body is built, how in pre-natal development the foetus receives its principles and faculties and how these are transferred from the world of the soul through the instrumentality of its parents, how, when the body is perfected it dies from its world of physical darkness, the womb, and is thence born into the world of physical light; and also how, at the birth of its physical body, the reincarnating ego is born into the flesh and dies from its place in the world of the soul.

In the present article will be shown the correspondence between physical death and physical birth and how the process of death may be anticipated and overcome by a process of spiritual development and spiritual birth while man is still living in the physical body, which development and birth is analogous to foetal development and birth, and how by this birth immortality is established.

All the powers and forces of the universe are called upon in the fashioning and building up of a human body. The human body is born and is breathed into the physical world of the soul; speech is developed; later, the ego incarnates and self-consciousness begins to manifest. The body grows, the senses are exercised, the faculties developed; a few ideals and ambitions are attended by some all-important little struggles, by a little joy and sorrow and pleasure and pain. Then the end comes; the play of life is over, the curtain is rung down; a gasp, the light of the breath goes out and the actor retires to brood over his deeds and motives in the play. So we come and go, again and again, alternately praising and abusing the wheel of birth and death, but hugging it closely all the while.

Physical death corresponds to physical birth. As the child leaves the mother, breathes and is separated from the parent, so the bundle of sensations held together during physical life in the astral body (linga sharira) is at the time of death forced outward from the physical body, its vehicle. A cry, a gasp, a rattle in the throat; the silver cord that binds is loosed, and death has taken place. The new born child is cared for and protected by its parent until it is self-conscious and is able to live by its experiences and knowledge, so the ego separated from the physical is cared for and protected by its good deeds and works in the world of its soul until it arrives at a knowledge of its state, and, at the moment of choice, separates itself from the sensuous desires which hold it in bondage in the desire world. Thus is lived the round of birth and life and death and birth again. But this will not go on forever. There comes a time when the ego insists on knowing who and what it is and what its purpose is in the whirl of life and death? After much pain and sorrow the light begins to dawn for him in this land of shadows. Then he will see that he need not be ground down by the wheel of life, that he may be free from this wheel even while it continues to revolve. He sees that the purpose of the turning of the wheel through joy and sorrow, struggle and strife, light and darkness, is to bring him to the point where he may see how and desire to overcome death. He learns that he may overcome physical death by spiritual birth. Even as physical birth is attended by pain, so also does travail and much labor attend him who would help on the tardy race to which he belongs by bringing about and attaining his spiritual birth and thus becoming consciously immortal.

In new fields of effort, thousands fail where one succeeds. For centuries past thousands have tried and failed before one air-ship was built to fly against the wind. And if in one branch only of physical science partial success has resulted from centuries of effort and the loss of lives, it is to be expected that many will try and fail before one of the present human race succeeds in dealing intelligently with and entering into a new world where the instruments, the material, the problems, and the results are different from those with which he has been familiar.

The explorer into the new world of immortality must not be less courageous than the adventurer into new fields who risks his life and spends his substance and endures mental and bodily hardship and privation and failure, in the hope of discovery.

It is not different with the one who would enter the spiritual immortal world and become an intelligent resident thereof. Greater dangers will attend him than any adventurer in the physical world, and he must be possessed of the endurance and strength and valor and wisdom and power to cope with all obstacles and difficulties. He must build and launch his bark and then cross the ocean of life on to the other shore before he can be numbered among the immortal host.

In the course of his journey, if he cannot endure the jibes and ridicule of his race, if he has not strength to withstand the fears of the weak-kneed and faint-hearted and to continue even while those engaged with him fail utterly or leave him and return to the beaten track, if he has not the valor to ward off the onslaughts and attacks of his enemies who would interfere with or prevent his work, if he has not the wisdom to guide him in the great work, if he has not the power to overcome, and if he has not, withal, an unswerving conviction in the virtue and reality of his quest, then he will not succeed.

But all these are acquired through effort and repeated effort. If the efforts of one life do not succeed, they will add to the success of a future life of him who admits defeat only to renew the fight. Let the motive be unselfish and for the good of all. Success will surely follow the effort.

In the early ages of humanity, the consciously immortal beings from past evolutions formed bodies by the union of the dual forces through their will and wisdom, and entering these bodies they dwelt among our then primitive humanity. The divine beings in that period taught mankind that they could produce physical or spiritual bodies by uniting the dual forces within. Owing to natural fitness and following the instruction of the divine beings, a few of that race united the dual forces of nature within their bodies and called into existence that body in which they became consciously immortal. But the majority, continually uniting the opposite forces to produce only physical effects, became less and less desirous of the spiritual and more and more deluded by the physical. Then instead of copulating only for the purpose of furnishing human bodies for the egos of their own high order and like character, they listened to the promptings of lower entities and copulated out of season and for their own pleasure. Thus were born into the world beings who were crafty and cunning and who made war against all human kind and among themselves. The immortals withdrew, humanity lost the knowledge and memory of its divinity and of its past. Then came loss of identity, and the degeneracy from which humanity is now emerging. Entrance to the physical world was given to inferior beings through the door of human passion and lust. When passion and lust are controlled and overcome there will be no door through which maleficent beings can come into the world.

What was done in the early ages of humanity may be done again in our age. Through all apparent confusion runs a harmonious purpose. Humanity had to become involved in materiality that it might gain strength and wisdom and power by overcoming matter and raising it to a higher degree in the scale of perfection. Humanity is now on the upward evolutionary arc of the cycle, and some may, some must rise to the plane of the immortals if the race is to progress. To-day it stands on the upward evolutionary arc of the plane (♍︎–♏︎) that humanity was on in its opposite and downward involutionary path, and man may enter the kingdom of the immortals (♑︎). But whereas, in the early ages men acted naturally and spontaneously as gods because they were consciously in the presence of and with the gods, now we can become as gods only by overcoming all that holds humanity in ignorance and bondage, and thus earning the right to our divine inheritance of conscious immortality. It was easier for humanity to become involved into matter and held in bondage than it is to gain freedom from that bondage, because bondage comes by natural descent, but freedom is gained only through self-conscious effort.

What was true in the early ages of humanity is true to-day. Man can earn his immortality to-day as it was earned by man in past ages. He may know of the law concerning spiritual development and if he will comply with the necessary requirements he will benefit by the law.

He who is informed concerning the law of spiritual development and birth, even though he be willing to comply with all requirements, should not rush madly on when wise men stop to ponder. After becoming aware of the law and requirements one should wait and consider well what are his ideals and duties in life before he determines to engage in the process of attaining self-conscious immortality. No real duty of life can be assumed and then neglected without incurring the consequences. One cannot make real progress in spiritual life if his present duty is left undone. There is no exception to this stern fact.

With its attendant causes and phenomena, foetal development and birth into the physical world are physical examples of physical development and birth into the spiritual world; with the difference that whereas physical birth is attended by ignorance on the part of the parents and lack of self-knowledge on the part of the child, the spiritual birth accompanies the self-conscious knowledge on the part of the parent who becomes immortal through the development and birth of the spiritual body.

The requirements for immortality are a sound mind in a healthy and adult body, with the idea of immortality as the motive in a life of unselfishness and of living for the good of all.

There is in the body of man a solar germ (♑︎) and a lunar germ (♋︎). The lunar germ is psychic. It comes from the world of the soul and represents the barhishad pitri. The lunar germ descends into the body once every month— with man as well as woman. In the body of man it develops into a spermatozoon—but not every spermatozoon contains the lunar germ. In the woman it becomes an ovum; not every ovum has the lunar germ. For impregnation to take place in the production of a human physical body there is necessary the presence of what we have called the invisible germ of the physical from the world of the soul, and the male germ (spermatozoon with the lunar germ) and the female germ (ovum with the lunar germ). The male and the female germs are bonded by the invisible germ and so produce the impregnated ovum; then follows foetal development which culminates in birth. This is the psycho-physical aspect of conception and of the building of a physical body.

The lunar germ is lost from the body of man by the production of a physical body. If still in the body the lunar germ is lost by copulation; and it may be lost in other ways. In the case of our present day humanity it is lost every month by both man and woman. To preserve the lunar germ is the first step towards immortality, for all bodies of man, the physical, psychic, mental and spiritual bodies,[1][1] See The Word, Vol. IV., No. 4, “The Zodiac.” are built up from the same source and force, but the force must rise to a certain height in order to furnish a germ for the kind of body which is to be built. This is the basis and secret of all true alchemy.

The solar germ descends into the body from the world of the soul. The solar germ is never lost so long as the human remains human. The solar germ is the representative of the ego, the agnishvatta pitri, and is divine.[2][2] See The Word, Vol. IV., Nos. 3-4. “The Zodiac.” In reality the solar germ enters when the child becomes self-conscious, and is renewed thereafter every year.

The bodies of man and woman complement each other and are so constructed that their particular functions produce two distinct physical germs. On the purely physical plane the body of the woman produces the ovum, which is the vehicle and representative of the lunar germ, while a male body is used to produce the vehicle and representative of the lunar germ, impressed with the signature of the solar germ.

To create a spiritual body the lunar germ must not be lost. By living a life of purity of thought and action, with the motives of immortality and unselfishness, the lunar germ is preserved and passes the gate of balance (♎︎ ) and enters the gland of Luschka (♏︎) and thence rises to the head.

[3][3] See The Word, Vol. V., No. 1, “The Zodiac.” It takes one month for the lunar germ to reach the head from the time of its entrance into the body.

If the purity of the body has been preserved consecutively during the course of a year, there are in the head the solar and lunar germs, which stand to each other as the male and female germs in the production of a physical body. During a sacred rite similar to the act of copulation in former times, there comes down a divine ray of light from the divine ego in the world of the soul, and blesses the union of the solar and lunar germs in the head; this is the conception of a spiritual body. It is the immaculate conception. Then begins the growth of the spiritual immortal body through the physical body.

The descent of the divine ray of light from the ego sanctioning the union of the solar and lunar germs corresponds to the presence, on a lower plane, of the invisible germ which blends the two psycho-physical germs.

The immaculate conception is attended by a great spiritual illumination; then the inner worlds are opened to the spiritual vision, and man not only sees but is impressed with the knowledge of those worlds. Then follows a long period during which this spiritual body is developed through its physical matrix, just as the foetus was developed in the womb. But whereas, during the foetal development the mother feels only and merely senses vague influences, the one who is thus creating a spiritual body knows of all of the universal processes which are represented and called upon in the fashioning of this immortal body. Just as at the time of the physical birth the breath entered the physical body, so now the divine breath, the holy pneuma, enters the spiritual immortal body so created. Immortality is thus attained.

[1] See The Word, Vol. IV., No. 4, “The Zodiac.”

[2] See The Word, Vol. IV., Nos. 3-4. “The Zodiac.”

[3] See The Word, Vol. V., No. 1, “The Zodiac.”