I say, this heart and kernel of a great and immortal self, this consciousness of a powerful and continuing life within, is there—however deeply it may be buried—within each person; and its discovery is open to everyone who will truly and persistently seek for it. And I say that I regard the discovery of this experience—with its accompanying sense of rest, content, expansion, power, joy, and even omniscience and immensity—as the most fundamental and important fact hitherto of human knowledge and scientific inquiry, and one verified and corroborated by thousands and even millions of human kind. Doubtless, as already suggested, questions may arise and will arise as to the exact nature of this continuing life, its exact relation to the local personal consciousness, as well as to what is called the sublimal self—how far definite personality and memory go with it, and so forth. These questions we may return to later. At present let us simply rest on the experience itself.
When Death is at hand, or its oncoming cannot long be delayed, there is still that to remember, to revert to, to cling to. And the more often we have made the experience our very own, in life, the easier will it be to hold on to at the close. Whatever physical death may bring—in the way of pain or distress or dislocation of faculty—there still remains that indefeasible fact, the certainty of the survival of the deepest, most universal portion of our natures. In some cases this deepest consciousness does itself remain so clear, so strong that—even through all the obscurations of illness and bodily weakness—death practically brings no break; the body is shed off, more or less like a husk or chrysalis (with effort and struggle perhaps, but without anguish and despair); and the human being passes on to realize under some other form the divine life which he has already partially entered into. I think it evident that this is the state of affairs which we ought to put before ourselves as the goal of our endeavor. It would seem the only condition which secures a sense of continuity in death, or which does not carry with it some threat of failure or extinction. And it suggests to us that our persistent and unremitted effort during ordinary life should be to realize and lay hold of this immortal Thing, to conquer and make our own this very Heart of the universe. It suggests that every magnanimous deed, every self-forgetting enthusiasm, every great and passionate love, every determined effort to get down into the heart and truth of things and below the conventional crust, does really bring us nearer to that attainment, and hasten the day when mankind at large shall indeed finally obtain the victory; and the passage into and through death shall appear natural and simple and clear of obstruction, and even in its due time desirable.
It is clear, however, that in a great number of cases this deepest consciousness, even if it has occasionally during life been reached by the person concerned, has not been sufficiently firmly established to endure through times of sickness, bodily weakness, and mental decay; while again, perhaps in the vast majority of cases, the previous realizations have been almost nil, or at most have been too few or too slight to count for much. What are we to say in such cases as these? Even if with the eye of faith or philosophy the bystander may seem to see the immortal spark shining, what consolation or assistance is that to the sufferer himself, who does not perceive or feel it? What is likely to be his experience of dissolution? and what may he fairly expect or look to as any sort of solution of the obscure problem?
To get any kind of answer to these questions and any clear idea of what really happens in the great majority of cases—when the break-up which we call dissolution arrives—it will be necessary to analyze roughly the nature of Man. We shall then see what are the various elements of that nature, and what their probable destination, respectively. And for the purpose in hand I think we may divide the complete human being into four sections—though remembering of course that the classification proposed, or any such classification, can only be very rough and tentative—namely, into (1) the eternal and immortal Self, of which we have already spoken; (2) the inner personal ego or human soul; (3) the outer personality or animal self; and (4) the actual body. Of these, (1), the eternal Self, is the germ or root of the whole human being; and I think we may even say that all the sections and elements of our human nature are really manifestations or outgrowths from this root (though of course in most cases unconscious of their real belonging or their real source). Then (2), the inner personal self or human soul, includes the finer and subtler elements of ‘character’—which we know so well in our friends, yet find so difficult to describe, but which are roughly denoted by such words as affection, courage, wit, sympathy, love of beauty, sense of equality, freedom, self-reliance, determination, and so forth; while (3), the outer personality or animal soul (not at all of course to be despised), is concerned with the more terrestrial desires and passions like pride, ambition, love of possession, jealousy, and especially those that relate themselves directly to the body, e.g. desires of food, drink, sex, ease, sleep, and so forth; and finally, (4), the body, includes all the material organs and parts. Other and intermediate subdivisions may be and sometimes are made, but these four will probably suffice for the present—remembering, as already said, that they have only a rough value: hard and fast lines and divisions in such matters being impossible, and the nature of man being really continuous and not built in sections; remembering, too, with regard to all four divisions, that the elements of them are not at all times present in consciousness, but to a large degree remain conscious or hidden or subliminal.
CHAPTER IV
THE PASSAGE OF DEATH
Allowing, then, that our human nature may be roughly divided as above into four main constituents, the destiny of two of these at death seems pretty clear. It is clear that (1) the central self remains (whether “we” know it or not) the same as it ever was, and ever will be, eternal, shining in glory and irradiating the world. It goes on, to be the birth-source, may be, of numberless lives to come. On the other hand, it is equally clear that (4) the actual visible tangible body dies, perishes, and is broken up. Though it may return, in its elements and through what we call Nature, into the great birth-source, it ceases as an individual body to exist, and passes even before the eyes of onlookers into other forms. The fate of these two portions of the human entity can hardly be doubted—of the innermost central portion, continuance, with but slow or secular change, if any; of the outermost material shell, immediate decay and dissolution.
What, then, may we suppose is the destiny of the other two portions, the human and the animal part? I think we may fairly suppose that they each share to a considerable degree the destiny of that extreme to which they are closest related. The outer personality or animal life, (3), is most closely related to the body. Its passions and desires (though in themselves psychical and mental entities) look always to the body for their expression and satisfaction. It is difficult to suppose them functioning without the body. We cannot, for instance, very well imagine the passion for drink without some kind of mouth or gullet through which to work (though of course it may carry on a sort of dream-activity by representing these channels to itself, or creating mental images of them). And similarly of the passion of personal vanity, or the passion of sex: they refer themselves always to the body, in some degree or other.
It is clear then, I think, that when the body in death breaks up, these psychic elements which function through it and correspond to the various parts and organs—these passions and desires, and with them the whole animal being—are to some extent involved in the ruin. They are (in most cases) smitten with dire suffering and confusion. A terrible misgiving and dismay assault them; and with the break-up and disruption of the body they too experience the agonies of disruption, and foresee their own dissolution and death.[[41]]
Yet to conclude from this that these elements do absolutely perish, would, I think, be a mistake. For these passional entities and this animal soul, though they seek the body and manifest themselves through it, are not the same as the body. They have a creative power within them.[[42]] The drunkard, as suggested, deprived of his liquor, represents furiously to himself in imagination the act of drinking: he dreams a gullet a yard long and an endless swallow—and in doing so he actually moulds and modifies his swallowing apparatus. The vain man and the sexual similarly mould and modify their bodies; they contribute to the building of the shapes which they use. And this sort of process going on through the ages has created the forms of the animals and mankind, and their respective members and organs.[[43]] All these things are the expression and manifestation and output of the psychical entities and passions and qualities underlying—which themselves are implicit in the world-soul, which indeed have grown up and manifested themselves out of the world-soul, and which still deeply though hiddenly root back into it.