Death is Life!

And so the soul—

When it is freed at last from earthly bonds—

Flies from its prison-house to its true home.

On earth it was encumbered, incomplete,

Dumb and half-blind, struggling with earth and sin—

Striving and groping on its darkened way—

With the eternal question on its lips

Eternally unanswered—Why?

Until the angel comes with outstretched wings—

Dark underneath to him but light above

That angel, which like two-faced Janus stands,

One face forever turned towards the past,

The other forward to the life to come

That dreaded messenger from the Unseen

Who is called death by you, but life by us.

When you speak of growth, childhood, and manhood, you do not mean growth in days or in years.

The psyche grows only in soul-ways, waxing strong in spirit—

There comes to the soul increased power of manifesting itself a more varied and fuller life.

This growth is not always at the same rate—

Sometimes, the soul seems to remain stationary, or even decline for a while, but speaking generally, progress is the law of the new nature as of the old.

Progress is the law of the new nature as of the old.

The soul, when it reaches the highest point of perfection, when it is truly matured, is prepared for another form of life and departs to higher regions.

The time of your departure is not in any way fixed by your own will or sense of fitness. 

Generally, you become aware when your hour is at hand—

A higher power than your own—above you, yet in you—sweetly constrains you to depart.

The body, which you have, then dissolves, disappears, is restored to the sphere from which it was taken, as your body (though much less quickly) returns to the earth from which it was derived. 

Painlessly and naturally the tent is taken down—

The old earth and the old heaven vanish away, and the new heavens appear to you in all their spiritual beauty.

All that was psychic remains in the psychic sphere, and your spirit enters into the third state, which has been called final, simply because nothing is known of what lies beyond it.