What does being non existent mean?

The other day, I met an acquaintance―a woman whom I had known for a number of years and who came out about the time I did.

Old acquaintances, when they meet here [in the world of spirits] greet each other about as they did on earth. 

Though spirit-lives are less conventional, still they cling more―or less to their former habits.

I asked Mrs― how she was enjoying herself, and she said that she was not having a very pleasant time. 

She found that everybody was interested in something else and did not want to talk with her.

This was the first time I had met with such a complaint, and I was struck by its peculiarity.

I asked her to what cause she attributed this unsociability, and she replied that she did not know the cause―that it had puzzled her.

“What do you talk to them about?” I asked.

“Why, I tell them my troubles, as one friend tells another, but they do not seem to be interested. 

"

"How selfish people are!"

Poor soul! 

She did not realise here [in the world of spirits] any more than she had on earth that our troubles are not interesting to anybody, but ourselves.

“Suppose,” I said, “that you unburden yourself to me."

"Tell me your troubles."

"I promise not to run away.”

“Why, I hardly know where to begin!” she answered. 

“I have found so many unpleasant things.”

“What, for instance?”

“Why, horrid people."

I remember when I lived in―, I sometimes told myself that in the other world I would not be bothered with boardinghouse landladies and their careless hired girls, but they are just as bad here―even worse.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you live in a boardinghouse here?”

“Where should I live?"

"You know that I am not rich.”

Of all the astonishing things I had heard in this land of changes, this was the most astonishing. 

A boardinghouse in the “invisible” world! 

Surely, I told myself, my observations had been limited. 

Here was a new discovery.

“Is the table good in your boardinghouse?” I asked.

“No, it is worse than at the last one.”

“Are the meals scanty?”

“Yes, scanty and bad, especially the coffee.”

“Will you tell me,” I said, my wonder growing, “if you really eat three meals a day here, as you used to do on earth?”

“How strangely you talk!” she answered in a sharp tone. 

“I do not find very much difference between this place and the earth, except that I am more uncomfortable here because everything is so flighty and uncertain.”

“Yes, go on.”

“I never know in the morning who will be sitting next to me in the evening."

"They come and go.”

“And what do you eat?”

“The same old things―meat and potatoes and pies and puddings.”

“And you still eat these things?”

“Why, yes, do you not?”

I hardly knew how to reply. 

Had I told her what my life here really was, she would no more have understood than she would have understood two years ago when we lived in the same city on earth had I told her then what my real mental life was.

So I said―

“I have not much appetite.”

She looked at me as if she distrusted me in some way, though why I could not say.

“Are you still interested in philosophy?” she asked.

“Yes, perhaps that is why I do not get hungry very often.”

“You were always a strange man.”

“I suppose so."

"But tell me, Mrs ―, do you never feel a desire to leave all this behind?”

“To leave all what behind?”

“Why, boardinghouses and uncongenial people and meat and potatoes and pies and puddings and the shadows of material things in general.”

“What do you mean by ‘the shadows of material things’?”

“I mean that these viands and pastries, which you eat and do not enjoy are not real."

"They have no real existence.”

“Why,” she exclaimed, “have you become a Christian Scientist?”

At this, I laughed heartily. 

Was one who denied the reality of astral food in the astral world a Christian Scientist because the Christian Scientist denied the reality of material food in the material world? 

The analogy tickled my fancy.

“Let me convert you to Christian Science, then,” I said.

“No, sir!” was her sharp response. 

“You never succeeded in convincing me that there was any truth in your various fads and philosophies."

"And now you tell me that the food I eat is not real.”

I puzzled for a moment, trying to find a way by which the actual facts of her condition could be brought home to the mind of this poor woman. 

Finally, I hit upon the right track.

“Do you realise,” I said, “that you are only dreaming.”

“What!” she snapped at me.

“Yes, you are dreaming."

"All this is a dream―these boardinghouses, et cetera.”

“If that is so, perhaps you would like to wake me up.”

“I certainly should."

"But you will have to awaken yourself, I fancy."

"Tell me, what were your ideas about the future life before you came out here?”

“What do you mean by out here?”

“Why, before you died?”

“But, man, I am not dead!”

“Of course you are not dead."

"Nobody is dead." 

"But you certainly understand that you have changed your condition.”

“Yes, I have noticed a change, and a change for the worse.”

“Do you not remember your last illness?”

“Yes.”

“And that you passed out?”

“Yes, if you call it that.”

“You know that you have left your body?”

She looked down at her form, which appeared as usual, even to its rusty black dress rather out-of-date.

“But I still have my body,” she said.

“Then you have not missed the other one?”

“No.”

“And you do not know where it is?”

My amazement was growing deeper and deeper. 

Here was a phenomenon I had not met before.

“I suppose,” she said, “that they must have buried my body if you say I left it but this one is just the same to me.”

“Has it always seemed the same?” I asked, remembering my own experiences when I first came out―my difficulty in adjusting the amount of energy I used to the lightness of my new body.

“Now you mention it,” she said, “I do recall having some trouble a year or two ago." 

"I was quite confused for a long time."

"I think I must have been delirious.”

“Yes, doubtless you were,” I answered. “But tell me, Mrs―, have you no desire to visit heaven?”

“Why, I always supposed that I should visit heaven when I died, but as you see, I am not dead.”

“Still,” I said, “I can take you to heaven now perhaps if you would like to go.”

“Are you joking?”

“Not at all."

"Will you come?”

“Are you certain that I can go there without dying?”

“But I assure you there are no dead.”

As we went slowly along, for I thought it best not to hurry her too swiftly from one condition to another, I drew a word-picture of the place we were about to visit―the orthodox Christian heaven. 

I described the happy and loving people who stood in the presence of their Saviour―in the soft radiance from the central Light.

“Perhaps,” I said, “some dwellers in that country see the face of God himself, as they expected to see it when they were on earth―as for myself, I saw only the Light, and afterwards, the figure of the Christ.”

“I have often wished to see Christ,” said my companion in an awestruck voice. 

“Do you think that I can really see Him?”

“I think so, if you believe strongly that you will.”

“And what were they doing in heaven when you were there?” she asked.

“They were worshipping God, and they were happy.”

“I want to be happy,” she said, “I have never been happy.”

“The great thing in heaven,” I advised, “is to love all the others."

"That is what makes them happy." 

"If they loved the face of God only, it would not be quite heaven, for the joy of God is the joy of union.”

Thus by subtle stages I led her mind away from astral boardinghouses to the ideas of the orthodox spiritual world, which was probably the only spiritual world, which she could understand.

I spoke of the music―yes, church music if you like to call it that. 

I created in her wandering and chaotic mind a fixed desire for Sabbath joys and Sabbath peace and the communion of friends in heaven. 

But for this gradual preparation, she could not have adjusted herself to the conditions of that world.

When we stood in the presence of those who worship God with song and praise, she seemed caught up on a wave of enthusiasm―to feel that at last she had come home.

I wanted to take leave of her in such a way that she would not come out again to look for me, so I held out my hand in the old way, and said good-bye, promising to come again and visit her there and advising her to stay where she was. 

I think she will.

Heaven has a strong hold on those who yield themselves to its beauty.