“How absurd! And how can man do this?”
“Contemplation and a strong desire to assimilate the blessed Gods, will enable him to do so.”
“And if man refuses this intellectual occupation, by which you mean, I suppose, the fixing of the eyes on the tip of his nose, what becomes of him after the death of his body?” was my mocking question.
“He will be dealt with according to the prevailing state of his consciousness, of which there are many grades. At best—immediate rebirth; at worst—the state of avitchi, a mental hell. Yet one need not be an ascetic to assimilate spiritual life which will extend to the hereafter. All that is required is to try to approach Spirit.”
“How so? Even when disbelieving in it?”—I rejoined.
“Even so! One may disbelieve and yet harbor in one’s nature room for doubt, however small that room may be, and thus try one day, were it but for one moment, to open the door of the inner temple; and this will prove sufficient for the purpose.”
“You are decidedly poetical, and paradoxical to boot, reverend sir. Will you kindly explain to me a little more of the mystery?”
“There is none; still I am willing. Suppose for a moment that some unknown temple to which you have never been before, and the existence of which you think you have reasons to deny, is the ‘spiritual plane’ of which I am speaking. Some one takes you by the hand and leads you towards its entrance, curiosity makes you open its door and look within. By this simple act, by entering it for one second, you have established an everlasting connexion between your consciousness and the temple. You cannot deny its existence any longer, nor obliterate the fact of your having entered it. And according to the character and the variety of your work, within its holy precincts, so will you live in it after your consciousness is severed from its dwelling of flesh.”
“What do you mean? And what has my after-death consciousness—if such a thing exists—to do with the temple?”
“It has everything to do with it,” solemnly rejoined the old man. “There can be no self-consciousness after death outside the temple of spirit. That which you will have done within its plane will alone survive. All the rest is false and an illusion. It is doomed to perish in the Ocean of Mâyâ.”