The Following is a selection from The Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures. LECTURE ONE by Max Heindel
AT EVERY birth, what appears to be a new life comes into the world. Slowly the little form grows, it lives and moves among us, it becomes a factor in our lives; but at last there comes a time when the form ceases to move and decays. The life that came, whence we know not, has again passed to the invisible beyond. Then, in sorrow and perplexity we ask ourselves the three great questions concerning our existence: Whence have we come? Why are we here? Whither are we going?
Across every threshold the fearsome specter of Death throws his shadow. It visits alike the palace and the
poorhouse. None are safe: old or young, well or ill, rich or poor. All alike must pass through this gloomy portal, and down the ages has sounded the piteous cry for a solution of the riddle of life, the riddle of death.
Unfortunately there has been much vague speculation by people who did not know, and it has therefore come to be the popularly accepted opinion that nothing definite can be known about the most important part of our existence: A 10 ROSICRUCIAN CHRISTIANITY Life prior to its manifestation through the gate of birth and beyond the portal of death
That idea is erroneous. Definite firsthand knowledge may be had by anyone who will take the trouble to
cultivate the “sixth sense” which is latent in all. When it is acquired it opens our spiritual eyes so that we perceive the spirits who are about to enter physical life by birth, and
those who have just re-entered the beyond after death. We see them as clearly and definitely as we cognize physical beings by our ordinary sight. Nor is firsthand information about the inner worlds indispensable to satisfy the inquiring mind any more than it is necessary to visit China
to learn about conditions there. We learn about foreign countries through the reports of returned travelers. There is as much knowledge concerning the world beyond as about the interior of Africa, Australia, or China.
The solution of the problem of Life and Being advocated in the following pages is based upon the concurrent testimony of many who have cultivated the above-mentioned faculty and are qualified to investigate the superphysical realms in a scientific manner. It is in harmony with scientific facts, an eternal truth in Nature which governs human progress, as the Law of Gravity serves to keep the stars unchangeably in their orbits about
the sun.
Three theories have been brought forward to solve the riddle of life and death, and it seems to be universally
agreed that a fourth is an impossible conception. If so, one of the three theories must be the true solution, or it remains insoluble, at least by man.
The riddle of life and death is a basic problem; everyone must solve it at some time, and it is of the utmost importance to each individual human being which of these theories he accepts; for his choice will color his whole life. In order that we may make an intelligent choice, it is necessary to know them all, to analyze, compare, and weigh them, holding the mind open and free from the bias of preconceived ideas, ready to accept or reject each theory upon its merits. Let us first state the three theories and then let us see how they agree with established facts of life and how far they are in harmony with other known laws of nature, as we should reasonably expect them to be, if true, for discord in nature is impossible.
- The Materialistic Theory holds that life is a journey from the womb to the tomb; that mind is the product of matter; that man is the highest intelligence in the cosmos; and that intelligence perishes when the body dissolves at death.
- The Theory Of Theology asserts that at each birth a newly-created soul enters the arena of life fresh from the hand of God; that at the end of one short span of life in the material world it passes through the gate of death into the invisible beyond, there to remain; and that its happiness or misery there is determined for all eternity by its belief just
prior to death. - The Theory of Rebirth teaches that each soul is an integral part of God; that it enfolds all divine possibilities, as a seed enfolds the plant; that by means of repeated existences in a gradually improving earthly body those latent powers are being slowly unfolded into dynamic
12 ROSICRUCIAN CHRISTIANITY
energy; that none are lost, but that all Egos will ultimately
attain the goal of perfection and reunion with God, bringing with them the cumulative experience which is the fruitage of their pilgrimage through matter.
Comparing the materialistic theory with the known laws of nature, we find that it is contrary to such well established laws as those which declare matter and force indestructible. According to those laws mind cannot be destroyed at death as the materialistic theory asserts, for when nothing can be destroyed mind must be included.
Moreover, mind evidently is superior to matter, for it
molds the face so that it mirrors the mind; also, we know
that the particles of our bodies are constantly changing;
that an entire change takes place at least once in seven years. If the materialistic theory were true, our
consciousness ought also to undergo an entire change, with no memory of what preceded; so that no one could
remember an event more than seven years.
We know that is not the case. We remember our whole life; the smallest incident, though forgotten in ordinary life, is vividly remembered by a drowning person; also in the
trance state. Materialism takes no account of these states of
subconsciousness or superconsciousness; it cannot explain them, so it ignores them, but in the face of scientific investigations which have established the verity of psychic phenomena beyond cavil, the policy of ignoring rather than disproving these alleged facts is a fatal defect in a theory which lays claim to solve the greatest problem of life: Life itself.
The materialistic theory has many more defects which render it unworthy of our acceptance; but sufficient has been said to justify us in casting it aside and turning to the
other two.
One of the greatest difficulties in the doctrine of the theologians is its entire and confessed inadequacy.
According to their theory that a new soul is created at each birth, myriads of souls have been created since the
beginning of existence (even if that beginning goes back only 6,000 years). According to certain sects, only 144,000 are to be saved; the rest are to be tortured forever. And that
is called “God’s plan of salvation,” extolled as proof of God’s wonderful love.
Let us suppose a wireless message is received at New York, stating that a large transatlantic liner is sinking just
outside Sandy Hook; that 3,000 people are in danger of drowning. Would we hail it as a glorious plan of salvation if a small, fast motorboat were sent to their relief, and
succeeded in rescuing two or three people? Certainly not. Only when some adequate means was provided to save the great majority at least would it be hailed as a “plan of
salvation.”
The “plan of salvation” which the theologians are offering is worse than sending a motorboat to save the
people on an Atlantic liner, for two or three are a larger proportion saved out of a total of 3,000 than 144,000 of all the myriads of souls created on the plan of theology. If God had really evolved that plan, it would seem to the logical mind that He cannot be all-wise, and if He allows the devil to get the best of it, as per that plan, and torture the great majority of mankind, He cannot be good. If He
cannot help Himself, He is not all-powerful. In neither case
14 ROSICRUCIAN CHRISTIANITY
can He therefore be God. Such suppositions are, however,
unthinkable as actualities, for that cannot be God’s plan, and it is a gross libel to attribute it to Him.
If we turn to the doctrine of reincarnation (rebirth in human bodies) which postulates a slow process of development carried on with unwavering persistence
through repeated embodiment in human forms of increasing efficiency, whereby all beings are in time
brought to a height of spirituality inconceivable to our present limited understanding, we can readily perceive its harmony with nature’s methods. Everywhere in nature is
found this slow and persistent striving for perfection; and
nowhere is found a sudden process of either creation or destruction analogous to the plan which the theologians and materialists would have us believe.
Science recognizes the process of evolution as Nature’s method of development alike for the star and the starfish, the microbe and the man. It is the progression of
spirit in time, and as we look about and note evolution in our three-dimensional universe, we cannot escape the obvious fact that its path is also three-dimensional, a spiral;
each loop of the spiral is a cycle, and cycle follows cycle in unbroken progression, as the loops of the spiral succeed each other, each cycle being the improved product of the preceding and the basis of progress in the succeeding cycles.
A straight line is but the extension of a point, and analogous to the theories of the materialists and the
theologians. The materialistic line of existence goes from birth to death; the theologian commences the lines at a point just previous to birth and carries it into the invisible beyond at death. THE RIDDLE OF LIFE AND DEATH 15
There is no return. Existence thus lived would extract but a minimum of the experience from the school of life, such as might be had by one-dimensional beings incapable of broadening out or rising to sublime heights of attainment.
A two-dimensional zigzag path for the evolving life would be no better, a circle would mean a never-ending
round of the same experiences. Everything in Nature has a purpose, the third dimension included. In order that we may live up to the opportunities of a three-dimensional
universe, the path of evolution must be a spiral. So it is. Everywhere in heaven and on earth all things are going onward, upward forever.
The modest little plant in the garden and the giant redwood of California with its forty-foot diameter alike
show the spiral in the arrangement of their branches, twigs, and leaves. If we study the great vaulted arch of heaven and examine the spiral nebulae, which are worlds in the
making, or the path of the solar systems, the spiral is evidently the way of progression.
We find another illustration of spiral progression in the yearly course of our planet. In the spring she emerges from her period of rest, her wintry sleep. We see the life budding
everywhere. All the activities of Nature are exerted to bring forth. Time passes; the corn and the grape are ripened and harvested, and again the silence and inactivity of winter take the place of the activity of the summer; again the snowy coverlet wraps the Earth. But she will not
sleep forever; she will wake again to the song of a new spring, and will then be a little farther progressed along the pathway of time.
-Continue Reading in The Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures
