What are the aftereffects of causes set in motion?

As I have been coming to you every few days, for several months, and have told stories for your amusement, may I come now and preach a sermon? 

I promise it shall not be long.

You live in a land where church spires pierce the blue of heaven, looking from the viewpoint of the clouds, like the uplifted spears of an invading army, which—in intent—they are—so, surely, you have the habit of listening to sermons. 

The average sermon is made up mostly of advice and mine will not differ from others in that particular. 

I wish to advise you, and as many other persons, as you can make listen to my advice.

You will grant that—for one who offers counsel—I have had unusual opportunities for fitting myself to give it. 

In order to help you to live—

I would show you the point of view of a serious and thoughtful—however imperfect—observer of the after-effects of causes set in motion by dwellers upon the earth.

It has been said that cause and effect are opposite and equal.

Very good.

Now—

I want to draw your attention to certain illustrations of that axiom, which have come to mind during the last few months. 

If I repeat one or two things, which I have already said, that is no serious matter. 

You may have forgotten them—or missed their application to the business of preparing—for the future life—on this side of the gulf of death. 

That is a moss-grown figure of speech, the gulf of death, but I am writing a sermon, not a poem, and well-worn tropes are expected from the pulpit.

The preachers remind you every few Sundays that you have got to die some day. 

Do you realise it? 

Does your consciousness take in the fact that at any moment—tomorrow—or fifty years hence—you may suddenly find yourself outside that body whose cohesive force you have become accustomed to—that you may find yourself—either alone or accompanied—in a very tenuous—and light—and, at first, not easily manageable body, with no certain power of communicating with those friends and relations whom you may see in the very room with you?

You have not realised it! 

Then get it through your consciousness. 

Grasp it with both hemispheres of your brain. 

Clutch it with the talons of your mind. 

You are going to die.

Oh; do not be alarmed! 

I do not mean you personally, nor that you, or any particular person, will die tomorrow or next year, but die you must some day, and if you remind yourself of it occasionally, it will lessen the shock of the actual happening when it comes.

Do not brood over the thought of death. 

God forbid that you should read such a morbid meaning into my blunt words! 

But—

Be prepared. 

You insure your own life, for so much money, that your family may be provided for, but you do nothing to insure your own future peace of mind regarding your own self.

Remember this always—

However minute are the instructions you leave for the management of your affairs after death, should you be able to look back to the earth, you will find that someone has mismanaged them. 

So expect just that—

Take it as a matter of course, and learn to say—

What difference does it make?

Learn to feel that the past is past—

That the future alone has possibilities for you—

And that the sooner you leave other persons to manage your discarded earthly affairs—the better it will be for your own tranquility. 

Be prepared to let go. 

That is the first point I wish to make.

Do not go out into the new life with only one eye open to the celestial planes—and the other inverted towards the images of earth. 

You will not get far if you do. 

Let go. 

Get away from the world just as soon as you can.

This may sound to some people like heartless advice, for there is no doubt that a wise spirit—looking down from the higher sphere—can, by his subtly instilled telepathic suggestions—influence, for good, the men and women of the earth. 

But there are always thousands of those who are eager to do that. 

The heavens above your head now are literally swarming with souls who long to take a hand in the business of earth—

Souls who cannot let go—

Who find the habit of managing other people’s affairs a fascinating habit—

As enthralling—

As that of tobacco—

Or opium. 

Again—

Do not call me heartless. 

I am blunt of speech—but I love you—men of earth. 

If I hurt you, it is for your good.

Now comes another and a most interesting point. 

Forget—if you can—the sins you have committed in the flesh. 

You cannot escape the effects of those causes, but you can avoid strengthening the tie with sin—

You can avoid going back to earth self-hypnotised with the idea that you are a sinner.

Do not brood over sin. 

It is true that you can exhaust the impulse to sin by dwelling on it until your soul is disgusted—but that is a slow and an unpleasant process. 

The shortcut of forgetfulness is better.

Now—

I want to express an idea very difficult to express, for the reason that it will be quite new to most of you. 

It is this—

The power of the creative imagination is stronger in men wearing their earthly bodies than it is in men [the world of spirits] who have laid off their bodies. 

Not that most persons know how to use that power—

They do not. 

The point I wish to make is that they can use it. 

A solid body is a resistive base—a powerful lever—from which the will can project those things conjured by the imagination. 

That is, I believe, the real reason why Masters retain their physical bodies. 

The trained mind—robed in the tenuous matter of our world—is stronger than the untrained mind robed in dense matter, but the Master still robed in flesh can command a legion of angels.

This is by way of preface to the assertion that as you on earth picture your future life to be, so it will be—

Limited always by the power with which you back your will, and by the possibility of subtle matter to take the mould you give it—and that possibility is almost unlimited.

Will to progress after death and you will progress—

Will to learn, and you will learn—

Will to return to earth after a time to take up a special work and you will return and take up that work.

Karma is an iron law, yes; but you are the creator of karma.

Above all things, do not expect—which is to demand—

Unconsciousness and annihilation. 

You cannot annihilate the unit of force, which you are, but you can—by self-suggestion, put it to sleep, for ages. 

Go out of life with the determination to retain consciousness—and you will retain it.

When the time comes for you to enter that rest, which a certain school of thought has called devachan, you will enter it, but that time will not be immediately after you go out.

On finally reaching that state, you will, as a matter of course, relive, in dream, your former earthly life, and assimilate its experiences, but—by that time—you will have got rid of the desire personally to take part, as a spirit, in the lives of those you have left behind.

Do not—while still on earth—invoke the spirits of the dead. 

They may be busy elsewhere—and you may be strong enough to call them away from their own business to attend to yours unwillingly.

You who write for me, I want to thank you, for never calling me. 

You let me come always at my own time, and let me say what I wish to say, without confusing my thought by either questions or comments.

You of the earth who are still upon the earth may find your departed friends when you come out here—

If they have not already put on another body. 

Meantime—

Let them perform the work of the state in which they are.

You who write for me will remember that the first time I came, you did not even know that I had left the earth. 

I found you in a passive mood, and wrote a message signed by a symbol whose special meaning was unknown to you, but which I knew would be immediately recognised by those whom you were likely to confide. 

That was a most fortunate beginning, for it gave you confidence in the genuineness of my communications.

But I said that I would write only a sermon tonight, so I will now pronounce the blessing and depart. 

I shall return, however. 

This is not the last meeting of the season.

Later—

One more word before I go to my other work.

If you had urgently called me during that week, which I spent in rest, you might have had the power to cut short a most interesting and valuable experience. 

So the final word, after the benediction of this sermon, is—

Do not be too egotistically insistent—even with the so-called dead.

If your need is great, the souls who love you may feel it, and come to you of their own accord.

This is often illustrated in the earth life, among whose psychic pores are open.

—The Judge