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world," you sadly asked your
Fourteen Lessons in Yogi
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THE ASTRAL WORLD. 205
guide to take you to the highest spheres. Your guide smiled and said, "I will
take you as far as you can go," and then took you to a plane which so fitted
in with your desires, aspirations, tastes, and development, that you begged
him to allow you to remain there, instead of taking you back to earth, as
you felt that you had reached the "seventh heaven" of the Astral World. He
insisted upon your return, but before starting told you that you were still in
one of the sub-planes of the comparatively lower planes. You seemed to
doubt his words, and like the materialist asked to be shown the greater
things. He replied, "No, my son, you have progressed just as far as your
limitations will allow - you have reached that part of the 'other life' which
will be yours when you part with the body, unless you manage to develop
still more and thus pass into a higher grade thus far you may go but no
farther. You have your limitations, just as I have mine, still farther on. No
soul may travel beyond its spiritual boundaries."
"But," continued your guide, "beyond your plane and beyond mine are
plane after plane, connected with our earth, the splendors of which man
cannot conceive. And there are likewise many planes around the other
planets of our chain - and there are millions of other worlds - and there are
chains of universes just as there are chains of planets - and then greater
groups of these chains - and so on greater and grander, beyond the power
of man to imagine - on and on and on and on, higher and higher to
inconceivable heights. An infinity of in-
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206 YOGI PHILOSOPHY.
finities of worlds are before us. Our world and our planetary chain and our
system of suns, and our systems of solar systems, are but as grains of
sand on the beach."
"Then what am I - poor mortal thing - lost among all this inconceivable
greatness," you cried. "You are the most precious thing - a living soul,"
replied your guide, "and if you were destroyed the whole system of
universes would crumble, for you are as necessary as the greatest part of
it - it cannot do without you - you cannot be lost or destroyed - you are
part of it all, and are eternal.
"And beyond all of this of which you have told me," you cried, "what is
there, and what is the center of it all?" Your guide's face took on a rapt
expression. "THE ABSOLUTE," he replied.
And when you reached your physical body again - just before your guide
faded away - you asked him, "How many million miles away from Earth
have we been, and how long were we gone?" He replied, "You never left
the Earth at all - and your body was left alone but a moment of time - time
and space belong not to the Astral world."
Fourteen Lessons in Yogi
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Ramacharaka
THE ELEVENTH LESSON.
BEYOND THE BORDER.
In these lessons we have not attempted to force upon the student any
conception of the truth which did not appeal to him, or which did not
harmonize with his own conception. We grant to all the liberty of their own
convictions, preferring that they should accept only such of the Yogi
teachings as may appeal to them, letting the rest pass by as not being
needed just at that time. We merely state the Yogi's conception of the
matter, as simply and plainly as we are able, that the student may
understand the theory - whether or not it appeals to him as truth is a
matter with which we have no concern. If it is true, then it is true, no
matter what the student may think of it, and his belief or unbelief does not
change matters. But, the Yogis do not hold to the idea that anyone is to be
punished for unbelief, nor is one to be rewarded for belief - they hold that
belief and unbelief are not matters of the will, but of the growth of
understanding, therefore it is not consistent with justice to suppose that
one is rewarded or punished for belief or unbelief.The Yogis are the most
tolerant of people. They see good, and truth, in all forms of belief, and
conceptions of
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208 YOGI PHILOSOPHY.
truth, and never blame any for not agreeing with them. They have no set
creeds, and do not ask their followers to accept as a matter of course all that
they teach. Their advice to students is: "Take what appeals to you, and leave
the rest - tomorrow come back and take some of what you have rejected
today, and so on, until you receive all we have to give you - do not force
yourself to accept unpalatable truths, for when the time comes for you to
receive them they will be pleasant to your mental taste - take what you
please, and leave what you please - our idea of hospitality does not consist
in forcing unpalatable things upon you, insisting that you must eat them
to gain our favor, or that you will be punished for not liking them - take
your own wherever you find it; but take nothing that is not yours by right
of understanding; and fear not that anything that belongs to you may be
withheld." With this understanding we proceed with our lesson - a most
important one
When the Ego leaves the body, at the moment of what we call Death, it
leaves behind it the lower principles, and passes onward to states which
will be considered by us presently. It leaves behind, first, the physical
body. This physical body, as we have told you in the First Lesson, is
composed of millions of tiny cells - little lives having a bit of mind or
intelligence, under control of the central mind of the man; having also a
supply of prana, or vital force, and a material casing or body, the sum of
which little bodies makes the whole body of the
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BEYOND THE BORDER. 209
man. We have devoted a chapter of our book upon "Hatha Yoga" to the
consideration of these little lives, and we must refer the student to that book
for fuller particulars of their life and work. When the death of the man
occurs - when the Ego leaves its material sheath which it has used for the
period of that particular "life," the cells separate and scatter, and that which
we call decay sets in. The force which has held these cells together is
withdrawn, and they are free to go their own way and form new
combinations. Some are absorbed into the bodies of the plants in the
vicinity, and eventually find themselves forming parts of the body of some
animal which has eaten the plant, or a part of some other man who has
eaten the plant or the meat of the animal which had eaten the plant. You
will, of course, understand that these little cell - lives have nothing to do
with the real soul or Ego of the man - they are but his late servants, and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]