CHAPTER VII
“FOR now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”—1 Cor. xiii. 12.
Man lives here at once an outer and an inner life, the first all visible and audible in look, word, writing, in outward affairs and works, the last perceptible to himself only through interior thoughts and feelings. The continuation of the visible into the exterior is easily followed; the development of the unseen remains itself invisible, but yet goes on. Rather the inner life of man progresses, with his outer life, asits nucleus, to form the nucleus of the future life.
In fact, that which goes out visibly and perceptibly from man during his lifetime is not the only thing that emanates from him. However small and fine the vibration or impulse may be by which a conscious emotion is carried to our minds, yet the whole play of conscious emotions is borne by an inward mental action, it cannot die out without producing effects of its kind in us and at last beyond us; only we cannot follow them into life outside. As little as can the lute keep its playing to itself, it is borne out beyond it, so little can our minds; to the lute or the mind belongs only that which is closest to it. What an infinitely complex play of subtle waves having their origin in ourminds may spread itself over the gross lower realm of action, perceptible to the outward eye and ear, like the fine ripples on the large waves of a pond, or the flat designs on the surface of a closely woven carpet, which takes from them its whole beauty and higher meaning. The physicist, however, recognizes and follows only the action of the lower exterior order, and does not concern himself with the finer, which he does not perceive. But even if he does not perceive it, yet knowing the principle, does he dare deny the result?[3]
Therefore, what we have absorbed from souls through the influences of their outward perceptible life in this world does not yet comprise their whole being; but, in a way incomprehensible to us, there still remains in their nature, besides that outward part, a deeper, indeed the chief part of their existence. And if a man had spent and ended his life on a desert island without ever having come in contact with another human life, he would have firmly retained his inner existence, awaiting a future development, which in this world hecould not find through intercourse with others. If on the other hand a child had lived but a moment, it could not die again in eternity. The least impulse of conscious life surrounds itself with a circle of influences, just as the briefest tone, which in a moment seems to die, throws out vibrations which reach out into infinity, beyond those standing near by and listening; for no influence expires in itself, and each produces others of its kind into eternity. And so will the soul of the child go on developing from this conscious beginning like that of the man left in isolation, only otherwise than as if beginning from an already advanced development.
Now, just as man in death first receives the full consciousness of what he has produced spiritually in others, so alsoin death will he acquire for the first time complete knowledge and use of what he has cultivated in himself. Whatever he has gathered during life of spiritual treasure, what fills his memory or penetrates his feeling, what his intelligence and imagination have created, remain forever his! Yet its whole connection remains dark in this life; thought merely passes through with a light-giving ray and illuminates what lies on the narrow line of his life, the rest remaining in obscurity. The soul here below never realizes all at once the entire depth of its fulness; only when one of its impulses draws another into union with itself does it emerge for an instant from the darkness, only to sink back again in the next. So man is a stranger to his own soul and wandersabout within it as he may, or wearily seeking the way to his life’s end, and often forgets his best treasures, which, aside from the glowing path of thought, lie sunken in the darkness which covers the wide region of his soul. But in the moment of death, in which an eternal night darkens the eye of his body, light will begin to dawn in his soul. Then will the centre of the inner man kindle into a sun which illuminates his whole spiritual nature, and at the same time penetrates it as with an inner eye, with divine clearness. All which was here forgotten will he recover there, indeed he only forgot it here because it went before him into the other world; now he finds it again collected. In that new universal luminousness he will no longer be obliged to seek out wearilywhat he would fain appropriate, separating his own from what he must reject, but at a glance he is able to understand himself wholly, and at the same time to perceive the true relations between unity and diversity, connection and separation, harmony and discord, not only according to one line of thought but equally according to all.[4]As far as are the flight and vision of the bird above the slow crawling of the blind worm which perceives nothing beyond what its sluggish body touches, so greatlywill the higher knowledge transcend that of the present. And so in death, with the body of man will also pass away his mind, his understanding, indeed the whole finite dwelling place of his soul, as forms become too narrow for its existence, as parts which are of no further use in an order of things in which all knowledge which they had to seek and discover gradually, laboriously, and imperfectly, he now has openly revealed, possessed, and enjoyed. The self of man, however, will subsist unimpaired in its full extent and development through the destruction of its transitory forms, and, in the place of that extinct lower sphere of activity, will enter into a higher life. Stilled is all restlessness of thought, which no longer needs to seek in order to finditself, or to approach another to come into conscious mutual relations. Rather begins now a higher interchange of spiritual life; as in our own minds thoughts interchange together, so between advanced souls there is a fellowship, the all-embracing centre of which we call God, and the play of our thoughts is but tributary to this high communion. Speech will no longer be needed there for mutual understanding, and no eye for recognition of others, but as thought in us comprehends and relates itself to thought, without the medium of ear, mouth, or hand, unites or separates without exterior restraint or prohibition, so comforting, intimate, and untrammelled will mutual spiritual communication be, and nothing will remain hidden in one from the other. Allsinful thoughts which here slink away into the dark places of the mind, and all which man would be glad to cover up from his kind with a thousand hands, become known to all. And only the soul which has been quite pure and true here can without shame come into the presence of others in that world; and he who has been misunderstood here on earth will there find recognition.
And even in its individual life will the soul through self-inspection become aware of every deficiency and every remnant, left behind from this life, of imperfection, disturbance, and discord, and not only will it recognize these defects, but feel them, all in common, with the same force as we our bodily infirmities. But as thoughts can be cleansed from all that is unworthy, andin moments of insight be united to still higher thoughts, each becoming thereby perfected in that which was lacking, even so will souls in their mutual intercourse find the path of progress towards perfection.