Where is time not?

I think you now understand from what I have said that not all souls who have passed the airy frontier are either in heaven or hell. 

Not all souls who have passed the airy frontier are either in heaven or hell.

Few reach an extreme, and most live out their allotted period here, as they lived out their allotted period on earth—

Without realising either the possibilities or the significance of their condition.

Wisdom is a tree of slow growth—the rings around its trunk are earthly lives and the grooves between are the periods between the lives. 

Who grieves that an acorn is slow in becoming an oak? 

It is equally unphilosophical to feel that the truth, which I have endeavoured to make you understand—the truth of the soul’s great leisure—is necessarily sad. 

If a man were to become an archangel in a few years’ time, he would suffer terribly from growing pains. 

The law is implacable, but it often seems to be kind.

Nevertheless, there are many souls in heaven, and there are many heavens of which I have seen a few.

But do not fancy that most people go from place to place, and from state to state, as I do. 

The things, which I describe to you are not exceptional, but that one man should be able to see and describe so many things is exceptional indeed. 

I owe it largely to the Teacher. 

Without his guidance, I could not have acquired so rich an experience.

Yes; there are many heavens. 

Last night, I felt the yearning for beauty, which sometimes came to me on earth. 

One of the strangest phenomena of this ethereal world is the tremendous attraction by sympathy—

The attraction of events, I mean. 

Desire a thing intensely enough and you are on the way to it. 

A body of a feather’s weight moves swiftly when propelled by free will.

I felt a yearning for beauty, which is a synonym for heaven. 

Did I really move from my place, or did heaven come to me? 

I cannot say—

Space means so little here. 

For every vale without, there is a vale within. 

We desire a place and we are there. 

Perhaps the Teacher could give you a scientific explanation of this, but I cannot at the moment. 

And then, I want to tell you about that heaven where I was last night. 

It was so beautiful that the charm of it is over me still.

I saw a double row of dark-topped trees like cypresses, and at the end of this long avenue down which I passed was a softly diffused light. 

Somewhere, I have read of a heaven lighted by a thousand suns, but my heaven was not like that. 

The light, as I approached it, was softer than moonlight, though clearer. 

Perhaps the light of the sun would shine as softly if seen through many veils of alabaster. 

Yet this light seemed to come from nowhere. 

It simply was.

As I approached, I saw two beings walking toward me, hand-in-hand. 

There was such a look of happiness on their faces, as one never sees on the faces of the earth. 

Only a spirit unconscious of time could look like that.

I should say that these two were man and woman, save that they seemed so different from what you understand by man and woman. 

They did not even look at each other, as they walked—the touch of the hand seemed to make them so much one, that the realisation of the eye could have added nothing to their content. 

Like the light, which came from nowhere, they simply were.

A little farther on, I saw a group of bright-robed children dancing among flowers. 

Hand-in-hand in a ring, they danced, and their garments, which were like the petals of flowers, moved with the rhythm of their dancing limbs. 

A great joy filled my heart. 

They, too. were unconscious of time, and might have been dancing there from eternity, for all I knew. 

But whether their gladness was of the moment, or of the ages, had no significance, for me or for them. 

Like the light, and like the lovers who had passed me hand-in-hand, they were—and that was enough.

I had left the avenue of cypresses, and stood in a wide plain, encircled by a forest of blossoming trees. 

The colours of spring were in the air, and the birds sang. 

In the centre of the plain, a great circular fountain played with the waters, tossing them in the air, whence they descended, in a feathery spray. 

An atmosphere of inexpressible charm was over everything. 

Here and there, in this circular flower-scented heaven, walked angelic beings—many—or most of whom must some time have been human. 

Two-by-two they walked, or in groups, smiling to themselves or at one another.

On earth, you often use the word peace, but compared with the peace of that place, the greatest peace of earth is only turmoil. 

I realised that I was in one of the fairest heavens, but that I was alone there.

No sooner had this thought of solitude found lodgment in my heart than I saw standing before me the Beautiful Being about whom I wrote you a little time ago. 

It smiled, and said to me—

He who is sadly conscious of his solitude is no longer in heaven. 

So I have come to hold you here yet a little while.

Is this the particular heaven where you dwell? I asked.

Oh; I dwell nowhere, and everywhere, the Beautiful Being answered. 

I am one of the voluntary wanderers who find the charm of a home in every heavenly or earthly place.

So you sometimes visit earth?

Yes; even the remotest hells I go to, but I never stay there long. 

My purpose is to know all things, and yet to remain unattached.

And do you love the earth?

The earth is one of my playgrounds. 

I sing to the children of earth sometimes, and when I sing to the poets, they believe their muse is with them. 

Here is a song, which I sang one night to a soul, which dwells among men.

My sister; I am often with you when you realise it not.

For me, a poet-soul is a well of water, in whose deeps I can see myself reflected.

I live in a glamour of light and colour, which you mortal poets vainly try to express in magic words.

I am in the sunset, and in the stars—

I watched the moon grow old, and you grow young.

In childhood, you sought for me, in the swiftly moving clouds; in maturity, you fancied you had caught me in the gleam of a lover’s eye, but I am the eluder of men.

I beckon, and I fly, and the touch of my feet does not press down the heads of the blossoming daisies.

You can find me, and lose me again, for mortal cannot hold me.

I am nearest to those who seek beauty—

Whether in thought, or in form—

I fly from those who seek to imprison me.

You can come each day to the region where I dwell.

Sometimes, you will meet me—sometimes not—for my will is the wind’s wil,l and I answer no beckoning finger—

But when I beckon, the souls come flying from the four corners of heaven.

Your soul comes flying, too, for you are one of those I have called by the spell of my magic.

I have use for you, and you have meaning for me—

I like to see your soul in its hours of dream and ecstasy.

Whenever one of my own dreams a dream of paradise, the light grows brighter for me—to whom all things are bright.

Oh; do not forget the charm of the moment—

Forget not the lure of the mood!

For the mood is wiser than all the magi of earth and the treasures of the moment are richer and rarer than the hoarded wealth of the ages.

The moment is real, while the age is only a delusion, a memory, and a shadow.

Be sure that each moment is all and the moment is more than time.

Time carries an hourglass, and his step is slow—

His hair is white with the rime of years, and his scythe is dull with unwearied mowing—

But he never yet has caught the moment in its flight. 

He has grown old in casting nets for it.

Ah; the magic of life, and the endless combinations of living things!

I was young when the sun was formed, and I shall be young when the moon falls dead in the arms of her daughter, the earth.

Will you not be young with me? 

The dust is as nothing—

The soul is all.

Like a crescent moon on the surface of a lake of water is the moment of love’s awakening—

Like a faded flower in the lap of the tired world is the moment of love’s death.

But there is love, and the love of the light, for its radiance is the love of souls for each other.

There is no death where the inner light shines, irradiating the fields of the within—

The beyond—

The unattainable attainment.

You know where to find me.