THIS WORLDーAND THE NEXT

　　　　CHAPTER Х

　　THIS WORLDーAND THE NEXT

　"HOW do the dead pass their time?" Silver Birch was asked at our circle. "Have they time just as we have with hours of light and darkness, or is it another sort of time? What do they do? Do they work or study, or amuse them-selves?" 

　The guide replied: "That has been answered many, many times. The question of time is one of interest because we are not dependent on your definition of time.

　"Yours is a demarcation for purposes of convenience. That is, you have charted certain passages as minutes or hours, or seconds, or days, and all that is based upon the rotation of the earth and its relationship to the sun. We do not have night and day. Our source of light is not the same as yours. There-fore, we do not have time in the sense in which have it. Our measurement of time depends upon our spiritual state, that is, we feel time in the sense of enjoyment. Time, to us, is a mental experience.  

　"In the lower spheres, where life is not very enjoyable, it seems a long time to them. In higher spheresーand I am speaking relativelyーwhere there is much more congenial activity, time seems more speedy in the sense that there is always some new phase of interesting labour. But it is not apportioned in hours, or days, or months, or years. As to the way in which we work, that depends on the individual. There is plenty of activity connected with the mind and the spirit.  

　"The difficulty the questioner has is in understanding spiritual experiences in terms of physical measurement, but there are wide and boundless pursuits of the mind and the spirit, cultural, educational, purposive, actual in their effect on your physical world, to engage us occupy us for as long as we wish to be so occupied."

　"But," asked a sitter, "the question arisesーif you want to book something ahead, how do you do it, if tíme has no meaning as it has here?"

　"Do you mean," asked the guide, "if I wished to meet someone? Then I send a thought and if it is convenient we meet. There are no letters to be written."

　"What if you wanted to arrange to meet somebody at some specified time?"

　"It does not happen that way," was the answer. "The only kind of engagement like that is the perpetuation of the earthly custom of festivals, such as my retirement at what approxi-mates to your Easter and your Christmas. That is a with-drawal from your world, but that is only a convenience. I could, if it were necessary, retire to those spheres when I have finished speaking with this instrument. If I am desired to attend some group, the request is sent to me mentally, I receive it and I go. It would not be sent to me now because it would be known that I am at this moment speaking with you. There are no diaries; it is a world of the mind and of the spirit."

　Someone in the circle asked if there were trains in the spirit world, and the guide answered: "There are no trains unless you think you have a train to catch and then there is a train for you to catch. It is hard to understand, isn't it? But it is like a dream. If you think have a train to catch, there is your train.

　"Even in your dreams you think you have to go on a ship. The ship is there because you make the ship, and it is real to you. You people it and it travels. It has got the necessary attendants, hasn't it? It is very real on its own plane of sensation. You must remember that reality is a relative term."

　"I have heard and read of these things frequently," said a sitter, "but I must say it is very difficult for me to appreciate."

　"It is," said Silver Birch. "But even in your world you have the illusion of time. One hour is not always the same to you; and five minutes can sometimes seem as long as one hour. That is the mental aspect of it. If you appreciate that in our world that mental aspect is the reality, you will see that we are divorced from the purely mechanical aspect of time as it affects you. I think that is the best way to express it."

　Another question sent in was: "Does each individual have a house of his own?"

　"Yes," replied the guide, "they have houses of their own if they want them, because they desire them and they earn them. But some do not desire houses. Some prefer them built according to their own styles of architecture, some prefer to incorporate ideas of lighting which are, for example, not known to you. This is a matter of personal taste dependent upon the creative ability of the spirit concerned."

　"Didn't you say," a member of the circle interposed, "that your house was dependent upon the kind of life you had lived?"

　"I said," went on Silver Birch, "if you desired it and had earned it. But once you have earned it, then its style is purely a matter of taste. If you would like it open to the sky you can have it. You must remember that these things are largely controlled for a long time by individual habit. Habit is a mental attribute and it persists after death.

　"People who have dwelt only in this country are accus-tomed to certain styles of houses and thus it is those styles in which they live because it is a habit to do so. Once they have outworn that habit they have other types of houses. This is a very wise provision which ensures continuity; it prevents shock and life is smoother and more harmonious as a result."

　With these words the guide ended the sitting: "I have come back very close to you all. I would like you to know that I am closer to each one of you than ever I have been before and this will provide me with the opportunity of giving, I hope, even greater service to those who are closest to me in the bond of that love which binds us all together in unity of purpose.

　"And let us always remember the great central purpose which unites us. Let us remember that always our task is directed to the less fortunate ones in lifeーthe many who yearn for hope, who experience difficulty, who are sick in body and in mind and whom we can reach with a message and a demonstration that would bring the sunshine into their lives. Thus shall we qualify truly to be the ambassadors of the great, creative spirit of all life."

　There is no "parliament" in the spirit world because there is no need to make laws to regulate the lives of the people who dwell there, said Silver Birch at a different sitting.

　"The natural law," explained the guide, " takes care of people in the spirit world because they are confronted with it in a form which is inescapable. They no longer have physical bodies; the problem of physical life does not concern them. They are now expressing themselves in spiritual form and the natural law is in operation. There is no need for any intermediary." 

　The guide was asked whether there were concerts, theatres and museums in the spirit world. Their museums, he said, were "in the halls or buildings of learning where there are collections of varying kinds, of objects relating to earthly life throughout history, and also collections of interesting forms of spiritual life. For example, we have flowers that have not bloomed on earth. We have many other phases of natural life unknown to you. There are examples of these in the halls of learning.

　"Concerts are always available because there are so many musicians, many of them masters, whose desire is that their talents should be enjoyed by the largest possible number. Theatresーthere are many of varying kinds. Some are used purely for dramatic purposes, others for cultural purposes, and others for educational purposes.

　"Gifts, talents and faculties which people had in your world do not end with death. Death brings them greater freedom and the extended opportunities to express those talents."

　"Are there newspapers and radio?" was the next question.

　"No, we do not have radio because communication is differently used," explained Silver Birch. "Telepathy is the common method of reaching one another. But it is possible for those who know how, to address vast numbers and to reach them, even when they are not themselves present. But it does not work on the principle of your radio.

　"There are no newspapers in your earthly sense, because there is no necessity to chronicle happenings, as you do. Information is constantly being dispensed to those who should have it by the ones whose occupation it is to spread these facts. This is difficult for you to understand.

　"When it is necessary for me to be told something that I do not know the thought is sent to me by the one who thinks I ought to know it. There are people engaged on the task of disseminating these thoughts. They are specially trained for it."

　"Does the same thing happen to us when we receive inspiration?" asked a member of the circle. 

　"It is on a different scale," began the answer. "When you receive inspiration it is because consciously or unconsciously you are tuned in to some intelligence in our world and, for that time, you are able to receive his power, inspiration or message. Sometimes it is conscious, sometimes it is uncon-scious. It depends upon the circumstances.

　"But in our life we are constantly receiving and transmitting thoughts. Those who are on our spiritual wavelength, that is, of like spiritual mentality, receive thoughts that we send them and transmit thoughts to us. The wavelength is deter-mined by spiritual attainment."

　"Do people retain their earth names?" was the next question? "Is Abraham Lincoln, for instance, still known as Abraham Lincoln in the spirit world?"

　"Yes," said Silver Birch, "as long as it is necessary for a person to be so identified. But what you must remember is that the name is not the individual; it is only the means by which he is known."

　"If someone passes on who is known to many people by a certain name, it would be very convenient for him to keep that name," observed a sitter.

　"Yes," he was told, "as long as it is necessary for him or her to be so identified. That take hundreds or even thousands of years. But once you have passed beyond the magnetic field of the earth, the name does not matter because you are then known for the individual that you truly are."

　"Can that be witnessed by people?"

　"Yes. Once you have got beyond the earthly pull, once you have passed the stage of carthly association and reached the span of spiritual life to which you are thus entitled, you emit a light, an aura, a radiation, which indicates who and what you are. Is that hard to understand?"

　"No," said the questioner. "In our world, sometimes without speaking to a person, you are able to ascertain what kind of an individual he is."

　"Yes, it is in the aura," commented Silver Birch. "It is like that here, but on a much intensified scale."

　Another question was: "Do they have famous men and women in the spirit world, distinct from the famous men and women of this world?"

　"Most decidedly," said the guide. "Fame comes to many people in your world through sheer birth and for no other reason. They have not won it by their life, their endeavour, or their labour. There are many, many beings unknown, unrecognised in your world, to whom the lustre of fame is accorded in our world. The soul is the indelible passport."

　"Are there books or anything equivalent in the other world?" was a further question.

　"Yes, there are many, many books," said Silver Birch. “There is a duplicate of every book known to your world, and there are many other volumes of which there are no originals in your world. There are vast halls or buildings dedicated to all the arts, and literature has its place among them. It is possible to obtain knowledge of any subject in which you are interested."

　"Who prepares the books?"

　"Authors, people who are specialists in the task of pre-paring books."

　"Are they etheric books which etheric people can pick up and read?"ー“Yes!"

　Then the discussion took one of those turns which throw new light on old problems. "Could the same book be some-thing different to somebody else?" was the question which started it.

　"No," explained the guide, who asked, "Have you ever dreamed you were reading a book?"

　"I have not," was the answer, "but I can quite imagine what the experience is like."

　"Would it be a real book?" asked Silver Birch. "No," he was told.

　"Supposing," the guide went on, "you never woke, that dreams were your constant reality and you had no waking experience with which to compare your dream life, every-thing that transpired in dreams would be real to you and all that had happened in waking life would now become the shadow.

　"All the mental processes utilised during the dream state are engaged in to a much greater intensity in the worlds beyond death. As those mental states are the reality of the people who dwell in those worlds, the states are as tangible to them as material things are to you in your world."

　"I am appalled by the prospect," said the first questioner, who was asked by the guide, "Why?"

　"It does not seem to be such a satisfactory life, bearing the hall-mark of reality which we experience here," was the answer.

　"That," said the guide, "is purely a matter of comparison. Actually yours is the shadow cast by the sun of our life. Yours is the husk, yours is not the reality. Nowhere in the world of matter do you have the hall-mark of reality because matter depends on spirit for its existence. Matter is but one mani-festation in one form of vibration of spiritual reality."

　"I said that," replied the sitter, "because, to me, subjective beauty is not as pleasant as objective beauty."

　"What you consider subjective now will be objective," explained Silver Birch, "and what you consider objective now will be subjective."

　"And I suppose," commented the debater, "you have got to have personal experience of these things to appreciate them."

　"You have," said Silver Birch. “But I am not so sure that you have not personal experience now."

　"In dreams?" 

　"No, in your own mental states. You love wife very much. Is that love subjective or objective?"

　"I think it is a combination of the two."

　"But love is of the spirit, soul and mind, otherwise it could not endure," replied the guide. "Reality starts from within. You are spiritual beings with material bodies. The eternal reality is the spirit, not the physical body. The spirit will endure when the body has decayed and resolved itself into the elements from which it was composed."

　Once, when Silver Birch had returned from a visit "far into the recesses of the inner realms" of his world where, with many others, the task of helping humanity to gain a spiritual view of life had been reviewed, he told us that he went to gather more power for the task on which he and many others are engaged.

　"It is always with a sense of flatness that I return to your world," he said, "and yet 'flatness' does not quite convey the sensation. Your world is void of all light and life. It is dull and drab and it lacks vitality. Yours is like an old cushion in

which the spring has gone and everything sags. An atmo-sphere of gloom hangs everywhere. There are few with radiant spirits and joyful minds. There is a great feeling of spiritlessness. So very few are filled with the joy of life, and despair and indifference are on every hand. You are, perhaps, so accustomed to it that you do not notice it."

　"I think we notice it as well," said a member of the circle. "The place seems full of cynicism."

　Continuing his comments, the guide said: "It is the price being paid for war. You cannot have strength poured out at a fast and furious pace and be surprised at the weakness that results. There is no fire, no ardour, no enthusiasm.

　"I come from a realm where all is light and colourful, where hearts sing with the sheer joy of living, where all are busily engaged in congenial pursuits, where all the arts flourish, where each is imbued with the idea of service, with sharing what he has with those who have it not, where there is the desire to instruct the uninstructed, to enlighten the less know-ledgeable, where there is an intensity and vitality, a joy and radiance in well-doing.

　"And here all seems such gloom. Yet this is the soil in which we must labour; this is the field in which we must serve; this is the material with which all the efforts must be made. Every individual is a part of the Great Spirit with the infinite poten-tialities of that Great Spirit. Each possesses within his own being the means of supplying inspiration and strength to over-come the problems of daily existence.

　"Few seem to know about the eternal realities or how to call into being the finer, more beautiful faculties that they possess. So many prefer the drabness of physical existence when they could have the rich colour and zest of the spiritual life which is as real as the physical, in fact it is more real. Do you see why I feel like this?'"

　"Yes," said a circle member, "but isn't it true that there is another of spirit life far more drab than our world?"

　"Yes, that is true," said the guide. "There are infinite gradations of spirit life ranging from the extreme depths of despair to the heights of heavenly achievement."

　"So this world would seem heaven to some of the most degraded parts," commented the sitter.

　"It is always true,'" replied Silver Birch, "that, in compari-son, there are worse and better, but I was comparing what I have seen with that to which I returned. And yet, if all these people knew what we know, they need not be cast down, their backs need not be bent. They could be uplifted, for they would realise that the source of all strength is to be found in the spirit and that the acquisition of eternal riches is more important than many of the things that cause them anxiety.

　"I see so many worried, fearful, anxious over matters that need not cause the dissipation of all this energy. It is the wrong emphasis, the wrong stress. One day adjustment has to be made."

　When Silver Birch mentioned that W. T. Parish, the healer who has passed on, was one of two companions on his journey into the spheres, a member of the circle asked: "Is he very busy these days? Is he able to exercise his gifts?"

　The guide replied: "We are always busy because there is no need to go to sleep. You cannot tire out the spirit. There is no question of recuperation involved. There is nothing to get fatigued. There is no running down or getting old or wearing out."

　"You must expend energy," remarked a sitter, "some of the psychic energy that needs replenishing."

　"No," replied the guide, "you are inbreathing it all the time as you are expending it. You must remember that we are not dependent upon oxygen or any gas for existence."

　In an aside to his questioner, he said, "You are always puzzled by the life in the spirit world, aren't you?"

　"I must confess I am," he answered. "Of course, I could blindly accept what is told to me, but perhaps it is my nature to ask questions."

　"You know that I am not in favour of blind acceptance," commented the guide, who added: "There are no beds in the spirit world except for those who want them. There is no necessity for sleep because there is no night."

　"Although some people do go to sleep?"

　"Yes, of course, they think they ought to do so, but the enlightened ones do not go to sleep. If you want to rest on a bank, well you just rest, but not because you are tired."

　"Because it is pleasant to sit and contemplate?"

　"Or to exchange ideas with someone while gazing at some natural vista. But you do not say, 'Forgive me, I am tired, I must have a rest, perhaps you will not disturb me,' or 'I must hurry now to have my dinner.' There is no dinnerーunless you want to eat. You are not possessed of organs that require replenishment because you are no longer in a physical vibra-tion."

　Silver Birch ended his visit with these words: "I am very happy to have the chance of making this renewal in my association. It was the thought of all of you that provided the warmth and the consciousness of a mission still unfulfilled.

　"Much has been done, much more remains to be done. I wish we had a magic carpet so that we could travel and visit all the people to whom it has been our privilege to give a little help. Then, with a different kind of magic carpet, we would seek all those in my world who were helped, too. Then we would realise that the work we do is much greater than appears on the surface. I do not count. I am always sincerely humble in the face of the task that is yet to be doneーby all of us.

　"So, hold your heads high; know that you are the instru-ments of a divine purpose and let your lives be so regulated that all who cross your path may realise what it is you are trying to do. Serve them wherever you can, lift them up where you can, guide them where you can. Service is all that

matters, for when all else has been forgotten, when all earthly possessions have crumbled into dust, when all earthly riches have tarnished and rusted, the service you rendered will still be the imperishable jewel of your character."