to it. In early Christianity this heaven was considered to be, as it really is, a stage in the progress of the soul, re-incarnation in one form or another, the pre-existence of the soul, being then very generally taught. The result was, of course, that the heavenly state was a temporary condition, though often a very prolonged one, lasting for "an age"—as stated in the Greek of the New Testament, the age being ended by the return of the man for the next stage of his continuing life and progress—and not "everlasting," as in the mistranslation of the English authorised version.[248]
In order to complete the outline necessary for the understanding of the Resurrection and Ascension, we must see how these various bodies are developed in the higher evolution.
The physical body is in a constant
state of flux, its minute particles being continually renewed, so that it is ever building; and as it is composed of the food we eat, the liquids we drink, the air we breathe, and particles drawn from our physical surroundings, both people and things, we can steadily purify it, by choosing its materials well, and thus make it an ever purer vehicle through which to act, receptive of subtler vibrations, responsive to purer desires, to nobler and more elevated thoughts. For this reason all who aspired to attain to the Mysteries were subjected to rules of diet, ablution, &c., and were desired to be very careful as to the people with whom they associated, and the places to which they went.
The desire body also changes, in similar fashion, but the materials for it are expelled and drawn in by the play of the desires, arising from the feelings, passions, and emotions. If these are coarse, the materials built into the desire body are also coarse, while as these are purified, the desire body grows subtle and becomes very sensitive to the higher influences. In proportion as a man dominates his
lower nature, and becomes unselfish in his wishes, feelings, and emotions, as he makes his love for those around him less selfish and grasping, he is purifying this higher vehicle of consciousness; the result is that when out of the body in sleep he has higher, purer, and more instructive experiences, and when he leaves the physical body at death, he passes swiftly through the intermediate state, the desire body disintegrating with great rapidity, and not delaying him in his onward journey.
The mental body is similarly being built now, in this case by thoughts. It will be the vehicle of consciousness in the heavenly world, but is being built now by aspirations, by imagination, reason, judgment, artistic faculties, by the use of all the mental powers. Such as the man makes it, so must he wear it, and the length and richness of his heavenly state depend on the kind of mental body he has built during his life on earth.
As a man enters the higher evolution, this body comes into independent activity on this side of death, and he gradually
becomes conscious of his heavenly life, even amid the whirl of mundane existence. Then he becomes "the Son of man which is in heaven,"[249] who can speak with the authority of knowledge on heavenly things. When the man begins to live the life of the Son, having passed on to the Path of Holiness, he lives in heaven while remaining on earth, coming into conscious possession and use of this heavenly body. And inasmuch as heaven is not far away from us, but surrounds us on every side, and we are only shut out from it by our incapacity to feel its vibrations, not by their absence; inasmuch as those vibrations are playing upon us at every moment of our lives; all that is needed to be in Heaven is to become conscious of those vibrations. We become conscious of them with the vitalising, the organising, the evolution of this heavenly body, which, being builded out of the heavenly materials, answers to the vibrations of the matter of the heavenly world. Hence the "Son of man" is ever in heaven. But we know that the "Son of man" is a
term applied to the Initiate, not to the Christ risen and glorified but to the Son while he is yet "being made perfect."[250]