Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
Life
& Death:
- Mabel Rowland's
- How To Die
- Editor's note: Rowland's essay was reprinted in George Meek's After We Die,
What Then? The following introductory remarks are his.
All of us spend all of our earth years in temporary occupancy of this current
physical body. Quite naturally, all of us are concentrating our thoughts and actions on
the business of living. But what about the important business of dying?
As we move through our sixties, seventies and eighties, what guidance is available to ease
us through the gates of death? Suddenly, we find we are really going through the birth
process-rebirth into an exciting new world. What steps are involved? Who is there to help
us?
For those who want a good but short overview of the subject, we reprint herewith the
substance of an address presented in various cities in the United States by Mabel Rowand
more than forty years ago. It was issued as a small booklet in 1942 and sold widely in the
following decades. It is now out of print. Since our own sixteen years of fulltime,
worldwide research in this area fully confirms all details of the Rowland material, we use
this occasion to help all readers in this and the coming decades.
How To Die by Mabel Rowland
Regardless of who we are and how we feel about it, each one of us must one day leave the
body. But there is absolutely no reason to fear this change, for life is continuous and,
what is still more comforting, consciousness and individuality are continuous.
What happens is that the soul leaves the body we now dwell in and starts anew in its next
phase of existence, vibrating at a different rate. The change is as natural as breathing
and we should be as trusting and fearless concerning it as we are about breathing. There
is nothing to fear any more than when we lie down to sleep for the night.
As God's creatures, we are privileged to live life, and this privilege includes
stewardship of a body--a body housing this dynamic, precious and most wonderful thing in
the world--life. We must take care of the body, but we are not to presume that we own it.
We dwell in it. We do not own it. The Creator put us into these bodies "for the
duration" of our earth lives, and we are to follow the first law of Nature and
strictly observe "self-preservation." We are to fight for our lives to the very
last ditch and to protect our bodies to the very best of our ability. Even an insect does
as much, instinctively.
Painless as we know "dying" to be, it is nature's own process and is arrived at
upon the Creator's exact moment scheduled for us in the great plan. When will it be for
me? Forget it! It is none of our business, but preparing for life afterward is.
It is only fair to yourself to take in these few facts which I shall give you and remember
them-you may not believe them, nor do you need to--but it is necessary for you to read and
remember them. That is the intelligent thing to do. Then when you need the information, it
will suddenly pop up out of your subconscious mind and be useful.
Now when we have completed this cycle of our earth life and it is over--finished--we
awaken in the next state of existence, discovering that our thought and feeling reactions
are exactly the same as they always were! Remember that. You are you. There is no death.
There is only a change of apparel, so to speak. You have shed the body, but your thoughts
and feelings do not undergo any change in the passing out.
However, you become quickly conscious of the fact that things other than yourself are
slightly, but definitely, different, and it is for that very reason I am making this talk.
So please heed this, that you may not be at all panicky, but know exactly what to do.
You probably at some time have dreamed you were falling. If so, you know that the dreamer
never hits and hurts himself. He wakes up. In the experience of "dying,"
sometimes the individual realizes he is going-or he may merely suspect it--but the truth
is, that while people rarely admit it, even to themselves, most of them fear it.
There is no need to. There is no death: it is a misnomer. The truth is that the actual
passing out is not only painless, as I told you a few moments ago, but often beautiful-a
natural transition, never to be dreaded.
We do not get whisked to a city with "golden streets" and see angels flying
around--no. If there is any such place, which was held out to us as "bait" to be
"good" in the theologies we were raised on, then we are certainly not ready, in
our present state of being, to take up residence there, anyway.
The real of the person leaves the body-very much as a butterfly leaves its old chrysalis.
Many, many persons everywhere have seen this passing out. I have seen it myself. Ask any
experienced nurse. She will probably tell you of seeing a vaporous cloud of
ectoplasm--that's what it looks like to our human vision. It is the silver cord that holds
us to our bodies. Everyone has it and here in our earth life it is never severed, but it
stretches when we are asleep to let our souls or entities, the real of us, go from the
body and experience dreams. Then it shortens again and comes back to the body. It holds
"body and soul" together. There might be four or five people present at a
bedside when a soul passes out and maybe only one or two of them will have their human
vision stepped up to the frequency even to see this much.
Some of us have seen a great deal more. There is no death. Now you understand that you are
the same individual after you leave the body as before. No wings, no thrones, no crowns.
You may be pleased with conditions, or you may at first be a little disappointed. It just
depends on what you expected.
For the first few days, everyone's fate is the same, whether saint or sinner, and after
that there are spheres of life where you will belongand nothing can keep you out of your
sphere. You are drawn into it by the law of attraction; that law which proves that like
attracts like. We will be with people of the same tastes and degree of spiritual interests
as ourselves, just as we naturally gravitate to and choose suitable associates here.
Individual reactions are just that-individual reactions. And there are some people who
have lived a sheltered earth life to a ripe old age, steeped in theological tradition and
with fixed ideas about streets of gold, gates of pearl, harps and so forth. These good
souls are oftentimes their own worst enemies, being stubbornly unwilling to adjust to
anything even similar to their earth life conditions, although the next plane is
similar--surprisingly so. Some people, through theological training, actually expect, when
they realize they have "died," to find the streets made of gold. Certain it is
that if they believed that literally while here, they will be of the same opinion still.
Some theologies teach that when we die, the body, soul and entire entity lie in the grave
and sleep until the "judgment day." Well, these dear souls actually believe that
literally. And when helpers on the other side of life try to tell them they are the same
John or Annie Smith they've always been, but that now their life is going to have a few
changes in its working out, they are skeptical and react as they might to a Bunko man at
the county fair. Some folks of this persuasion insist on sleeping until
"Gabriel" shall blow his horn. They often sleep for years.
Let us consider now, a soul just out of the physical body, through a natural, leisurely
process. It is yourself perhaps. You are greeting your parents. How wonderful they look
and they have been gone for years! They were quite old and a little bent when you last saw
them in earth life. It used to grieve and tug at you a little to see them aging and
failing. But here they are as lovely looking and as smiling and happy as you remember them
when they were young and you were very young, just starting to school back in the little
home town.
Perhaps you are dreaming--something like this has happened to you before in dreams. No,
they were very brief and fleeting flashes, those dreams. This is real and enduring. Still,
your parents aren't saying very much--that is like a dream, too. But their gaze is fond
and steady and they smile so reassuringly. It is real. And what a nice cool light feeling
you have! They embrace you. It is real!
Lovingly, they lead you off into their own circle or vibration, where you will rest and
talk. Soon you will experience a lovely drowsy, but very safe feeling, and letting
yourself go, will fall into a sleep of anywhere from three days or so to several weeks.
Even the most spiritual personalities we have any record of remained and rested the first
sixty hours or a few days, in the astral, then sometimes reappeared here on earth,
briefly, before ascending into higher realms.
The "dead" person doesn't feel nor act any differently for having
"died," but adjustments have to be made, just as they have to be made here on
earth. For instance, when summer is waning, we move in off the sleeping porch, wrap up a
bit and get out our furs and make a hearth fire. That is all there is to it: it is that
simple.
When you have slept for your few days or so after "dying" and wakened to start
living in your new environment, you never sleep again. You rest as all do in the spiritual
realms, but they do not sleep. The exception is those people I just mentioned, waiting for
Gabriel.
Please bear in mind that when the soul leaves the body it doesn't go anywhere. The change
geographically is no greater than you would experience in life if you walked from one room
to another, from a darkened room into a lighted one or from a warm room onto a cool
balcony. Please realize also that while your body is to be protected and cherished,
leaving it, in God's own time, is no more to be feared than is sliding out of your
overcoat, letting it fall on a chair and walking away from it. And at first there is no
consciousness of this "shedding" as it were, of the body of flesh. Our rate of
vibration has changed, that is all. And the life we have entered is so very much like the
earth life the new arrival is often quite confused, particularly if he has been taught all
his life to expect something different.
Should you ever experience the baffling sensation of walking up to your loved ones,
embracing them, while they, completely unaware of your presence, walk through you, just do
not get panicky. Do the same as you should do in an earth emergency, or any situation
which you do not understand. We are told by the Psalmist to "Be still" (Psalms
46:10). It matters not what your religious belief is, or whether you have any--that is
perfect advice. Just be perfectly still, within your own mind and lift your thought to
your highest concept--whatever you think of a God. Call to It or Him or breathe His name
silently or aloud, just so it is from the heart, which it will be then-it will be you
"as a little child" and immediately--even more quickly than I can tell you this,
help comes. Pleasant, friendly aid and you are never in that "spot" again.
The helper finds your relatives and loved ones for you. This is necessary when deaths
occur accidentally and suddenly. Remember what you are reading please. Simply raise your
consciousness. It is your same old consciousness you know, to your own heavenly father.
Just say as much as "Father" and help will come. The astral realm is organized.
I repeat: you need not believe this that you are reading, but please remember it. In
accidental death and in wartime it all happens so suddenly that the soul may be hurtled
out of the body and stand amidst a hellish scene of disaster and destruction and see his
own body lying there. It isn't a pleasant experience, but it is life. Life is progressive.
It blooms and fades and grows again and lifts us from sphere to sphere individually
according to each one's consciousness. Stand still and pray. Death is a natural part of
life.
If your life here has been devoted to the accumulation of material things or to the making
of money, to the extent that you have come to be steeped in it--to enjoy it, say, more
than anything else, you are building up a hazard for yourself in the "next
world." Be wise enough not to have your chief interest a material one like collecting
or selling to make money, because when we leave the body, we go where there is no economic
standard--money is not used. You will be a fish out of water unless you have a hobby which
is something less material, more intangible and important than buying and selling.
Things "of the earth earthy" are just that. Be careful not to grow so fond of
them to be obsessed by them, for once we actually love things or money, then we are in
danger of being drawn and held by this earth vibration. Briefly, that would mean that we
should, as a disembodied soul, yours or mine, after we have died, hang around others still
in earth life, whose tastes and activities are the same as ours used to be. Our
satisfaction would be merely vicarious. There are hoards of these pitiful earthbound souls
haunting clearing houses, counting houses and money markets and trade centers of all
sorts. Also we see the souls of the morally weak and depraved in drinking joints and low
places.
While you are still living your physical existence, realize that money is important to you
merely for body-comfort needs. This is temporary, so don't feed your soul to it. In the
next plane you see no "business as usual" sign. It is then that your artistic
attainments may be enjoyed and you will receive instruction for far more noble service
than money grubbing.
- So, my advice is to be prepared--to prepare while still
living here. Cultivate your soul side. Learn to love and serve your fellow man. If it is
not easy for you to love people, it can be an impersonal kind of love until you become a
more loving creature. Cut down on the criticisms of others and magnify their desirable
qualities. I mean just to yourself, as they start to "irritate" you when you
think of them. The way they walk or talk or some little fault-forget that and refuse to
see it. The Hindu, when he passes another human soul, mutters "pronom," meaning,
"The God in me salutes the God (part) of you."
I am not being sentimental. I am giving you the key to the situation of living,
more fully, both here and now and afterward! Let us live with our thought upon God and
with this attitude of mind we shall be living the right way--and then surely we will
"die" the right way.
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