He is not here, He is risen—come see the form where the Lord lay.
Behold, I show you a mystery—you will all be changed, for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
The point at which your life joins spirit [as a spirit in the next world] is that experience—that change—so-called death—a change really so natural, so simple, so universal, which has yet been more dreaded by humanity than any suffering, which was supposed to come after.
In the truest sense, however, there is no death.
There is no death even to the Physical if by death you understand destruction or annihilation, for what happens to the physical is merely disintegration—a dissolving of the earthly frame that it may be built up again in a new form, while the true-life escapes from its prison.
The psychical does not dwell in the physical, as a man dwells in a house—or as a jewel may lie in a casket—rather it permeates and infuses the whole, as a perfume inhabits a flower—as a sound fills space—as love fills the heart.
There are no violent changes—no forced or hasty developments in nature—what seems to be violent is not really so—those changes, which seem to be unconnected with what goes before or after are so only in appearance.
Birth and death are only apparently unconnected with the past or the future, and that because to you only the one side is visible.
You see the death on this side, and spirit-lives see the birth into theirs.
When an infant dies, the psyche has not yet fully manifested itself—is not so closely connected with its phenomenon, as it would be later, and it parts from it most easily, but it comes into spirit-life an immature being, and needs careful nursing and guarding before it attains its true spirithood.
The most natural death is that of the spirit-life in the full possession of his powers when such powers have been as fully developed, as was possible on the earthly-plane.
Then, when the bodily faculties begin to decay, the psychical loses its hold on the physical—can no longer manifest itself through the body, and the unused higher powers sleep for a time.
But in all cases, there is no real break at death—hardly as much as comes to you in sleep—the spirit-life disappears and appears in the world of spirits like a ship sinking below the horizon, and appearing above the horizon of other lands, without consciously rising or falling to those on her decks.
So when your call comes, do not seek to hide in your clay prison, fearing you should be found naked, but be ready that when the Master calls, you may go forth without fear and regret for the body cast off—
You will be found clothed in the likeness of God, for as you have borne the image of the earthly, so also will you bear the image of the heavenly!
