Art thou ready to depart?

A Message from the First Unity Sphere

A spirit mother's letter to her daughter on earth—

Beloved—I am going to try and let you see what my life is like here and may understand better what your destiny is.

For time is short—and the longest life on earth or in Hades will seem but like a dream when you look back.

I am not merely your mother physically—no—there was entrusted to me, as to all mothers, though I was unconscious of it, a power, an influence, a stream of tendencies to hand on to you, which should shape your whole being and life.

Had I been more faithful to the highest that I knew of, it would have been happier for me and easier for you. But it is not of that earthly life that I would speak now, nor must I dwell on my second life—it was quietly, tranquilly happy, but I did not develop through suffering and conflict some sides of my nature, which are now feeble.

But to pass at once to my entrance here.

There came to me, just before I left that former state, a sudden call, a summons to gather all my powers and see in what I was deficient. It was a voice within me that seemed to say—

Art thou ready to depart?

I looked around and examined myself to see how it was with me. The calm peace that had filled my soul for so long was broken up, and I was troubled, as I looked in vain for many virtues, which I thought I had truly possessed for a long time.

No one accused me—I was my own judge and my own examiner. I found that love was too narrow, pity too self-centred, truth but partial.

Then the inner voice said—Go forward—the weak shall be strengthened and the evil cut away and cast into outer darkness—go forward into the light of a new day.

My soul then seemed to expand—to rise—or rather, my spirit to break through my soul body like a conscious birth, and then instead of light, I found myself in utter darkness—darkness such as I had never known before.

This darkness seemed to be empty if I may so express it—there was no sound, no thing, no being. I tried to speak, but could not—to reach out after something, no matter what—all was empty space. But this was only for a moment. I had been trying to hear and see with the old psychic powers, which I no longer possessed, and my newborn—not new, created, spirit had not learned to use its new ones. Then what a glorious change—Light, life, music, beauty everywhere—a constant overflowing stream.

I had been seeking outside what was within me—it was in my own breast that this new Universe was laying, not away and apart from me.

You may think from what I say about looking within that you have no body here, but are pure spirit. That is not so—

You have a spirit body, which is as much superior to your psychic body, as it was to the physical.

I cannot describe it to you at all clearly, but it is a real manifestation—a part of your being, and not mere clothing.

We used to speak on earth of the three Kingdoms of Nature, and if you can imagine your form, as embodying the strength and durability of the mineral, the beauty of the petals of a rose and the conscious life of the animal—all combined. Or—if you could unite the lily and the rainbow with the soul looking forth, as from the eye of a man, you may get some idea. Then next, I would say that your life is not a mingling of joy and grief, work and rest, as the last was.

I have known no sorrow, no weariness, no inactivity of spirit since I have been here, nor have I been conscious of any such state of feeling in those around me. 

When you are in the psychic world, you are conscious of being separated, both from your world and from this—seeing only in vision or broken fragments—now the Universe is always open and undivided to you. You see all. 

Not, of course, material things. By all, I mean that the soul-life—back to its manifestation in earthly body and forward to the now in which you live is open to spirits. For instance, you are here with me from your birth to the moment in which you read this—they are fully-revealed and ever-living before me.

Your past and your present are all one, so that I know no difference between your childhood and youth, for we see the life as a perfect circle, and who shall say where it begins or ends?

The only difference is where the pure gold of the circle is sometimes bright and sometimes dull and tarnished with the clouds of passing failure or sin.

In the other life, you first willed and then acted—you desired and then accomplished—the inner preceded the outer. Here, there are, not two, but one—

You seem neither to think nor act—you are. You do not wish and then perform—you are—there is no need to desire anything and then obtain it—it is all within you—and you have only to breathe it out—you have only just to be—and all things are included.

I know not if this will be at all clear to you—or seem only words without meaning. Perhaps if you will try to imagine me as more like in Nature what you believe God to be, then you will get an impression, which is as close to the reality as is possible.

I believe that in this sphere, no sadness, no unsatisfied desire is possible, but I also believe that there will come a time when you will pass on—or when life will be different and conflict may begin again in new forms.

One thing, which I lacked when I passed over was love for others who were not near to me on earth. 

So, I still am somewhat shut in with regard to many here, but I live in the life of my dear ones, making myself one with them and seeking ever to draw their spirits towards the great fount of life—towards their Father and my Father.

You have but little sense of time here, nor do you realise the difference between far and near—

There are no stops to your life in any way, but a great sense of infinite power, joy and blessedness, which you are rather than which you experience.

I have said that I had not the outgoing love for others not connected with the earthly life that I should have had. For this reason, my union with those here is not complete and they seem outside of myself apart rather than within. This restriction will last while I am in this sphere.

I would gladly tell you if I could how it is with my relationship with God and Christ. I know you have had some deep teaching from your friends as to the being of God, but I must speak as my own experience has taught me. 

In the psychic world, Christ was to me a teacher, a friend, a God—all united, and from Him, my life and happiness seemed to spring. Here, I see Him as still in the psychic world with a body, such as we all had there, and yet I am conscious that He is also here, and that from Him, there goes out to me a constant stream of life, without which, I feel I could not exist.

I know that He is truly Man—only much further on in the great stream of existence than I—but yet He is to me, as I have said, all that I need to raise me from that lowness of nature, which is death to the highest life.

It may be that God is to Christ what Christ is to me—I know not.

There is but little more that it would be possible for me to explain to you. You see all soul forms—and that continuously—there is no darkness or emptiness. You hear all soul-thoughts united in one grand harmony. You know all soul-realities without forgetfulness and without mistake.

Do not then imagine that I could ever be separated from you—your true being lies open before me, as mine will do to you when you have passed into this sphere. I cannot sign this, for my new name is unspeakable.