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Immortality - W D S Brown

By immortality most people probably mean survival of the death of the physical body. In fact, at the zenith of the recent materialistic wave the possibility of such survival was so mercilessly challenged that even this bare belief called for no ordinary exercise of faith. The result was that the phenomenon of death diverted attention from the nature of the life beyond. It was assumed that, if only that apparent end of all things could be tided over, there would remain no question of a future dissolution. On the other hand, the information regarding the next world that came from spiritualistic sources, though comforting to many in positive doubt, failed to attract the larger number of spiritually minded people, to whom the glowing accounts of a Summerland appeared to be anything but final satisfaction.

At first sight also the theosophical teaching of rebirth often seems to make matters worse for such people, so that one continually hears the objection: ‘But I don’t want to come back.’ And yet on further reflection this teaching really brings home the conception of immortality to an experience possible in the physical body amid all the changes of physical surroundings.

But, it will be said, if we do not remember past lives, how can we know that we are immortal? The obvious answer is to point to that future stage of development at which past lives can be remembered. To some, however, this may appear still a long way off; so I venture to suggest a philosophical sense in which immortality may be experienced here and now, a condition of mind which may be the prelude to development of the causal consciousness, but which in any case is a source of great peace and power in itself.

Probably at the root of the desire for immortality is the fear of consciously coming to an end, though the prospect of going on for ever is almost equally alarming when approached by the brain consciousness. But in this case, as ever, fear results from a want of logic, because if we could really cease to exist we could not be aware of such cessation, still less could we find it unpleasant. We do not fear to fall asleep, simply because we are used to it and remember nothing unpleasant on waking, yet we certainly cease to exist for a time as far as our physical consciousness is concerned. In the case of death, the absence of any reliable information regarding the future state generally causes a certain reluctance to leave a state of comparative comfort for one containing possibilities of serious inconvenience; but alas, to some the present conditions of life are so intolerable that they are ready to welcome relief in any form, even if it be annihilation. But is not the very fact of their enduring such conditions in itself a witness to the immortal nature beneath?

I do not believe that a preponderance of trouble is necessary to a realization of that independence of outward circumstance which is the outcome of matured experience. But fairly constant change of some kind is necessary at our present stage, and change involves the sense of worse as well as of better. Hence we can regard outer changes as in accordance with a beneficent cosmic order, for it is only in survival of change that we can recognize the changeless element of our being. In one sense, therefore, Bergson is justified in regarding change as the measure of life, but we have to go deeper and see it as the antithesis of the real life, the phenomenal perpetually declaring the noumenal.

The root of all our trouble is that we have always been trying to find permanence at the wrong end of the scale, in the phenomenal. For sooner or later, either the form is snatched away from us while we are still clinging to it, or else it persists after we have tired of it; and, instead of welcoming a new form as revealing a further aspect of life, we either resent it or attach ourselves to it again.

Hence the stress laid in Buddhism on the impermanence of all phenomena. To some, especially in the West, this appears to be sheer pessimism, or at least a very negative gospel. But Buddhists were not told to despise or disregard phenomena, but to use them rightly and so learn from them. In Hinduism, again, the word avidya, though commonly translated ‘ignorance’, is not confined to the grosser forms of human ignorance, but extends right up to the first differentiation of primordial substance. It is therefore no sacrilege to say that the universe came into being through avidya, as might be imagined if the word ignorance were used; it is merely the statement that conditions ever latent within the Boundless or Unconditioned became manifest or active.

Similarly the word ‘maya’, or illusion, is applied to every condition up to the highest, and any state of consciousness subject to the maya, or illusion, of condition is spoken of as avidya. But we must remember that every form of maya is real on its own plane and conforms to the One law; so we are not justified in pronouncing any phenomenon to be illusory in relation to our consciousness until we are consciously able to master it. But the knowledge of having mastered even one phenomenon carries with it the promise of ability to master all, and the acceptance of a belief in the inseparability of the phenomenal and noumenal on all planes of manifestation emboldens us to sever the Gordian knot here and now, by seeing the true nature of life as super-phenomenal.

It is this true nature of life that is referred to by the world’s teachers as eternal life or immortality, in contra-distinction to the apparent life of the senses which is of the nature of change, and which ‘ceases’ or is ‘annihilated’ to the spiritual perception when once the true nature of life is realized. Therefore I suggest that any man, woman, or child, who can appreciate the value of a crisis when first faced with it, has consciously or unconsciously succeeded in reaching this vantage ground of the Spirit that is immortality. It is to stand at the center of the wheel of life, and see orient and occident, zenith and nadir, as the mystic cross within the circle.

But it is not merely in the sense of time that change throws us off our balance. The sense of space or extent is also inseparable from the ravages of change. For instance, it is well-known that sudden access of prosperity may sometimes prove as disastrous as a sudden plunge into adversity; the unwonted expansion of pleasure may deceive as much as the resented contraction of pain. The remedy for this condition lies in getting beyond that sense of separateness which is the great illusion of space, as the sense of impermanence is the great illusion of time. For to one who has discerned, if only intellectually, his identity with the Source of all life, the phases of the personal consciousness assume a subordinate value when related to his unlimited capacity for beneficent influence and response to all around him. Every time we perform an effective act of service, or respond to the true and beautiful in the world around us, an exchange of life has taken place that confirms the intuition of our own immanence. To empty ourselves, as the Christian mystics put it, is to expand ourselves to the point which is everywhere because it is nowhere.

But, it will be said, it is easy enough to identify oneself with the true and beautiful, when it is seen; but how can one identify oneself with the false and ugly, of which there is far more to be seen; and is it even to be recommended? Now I do not intend to open up the vexed problem of evil, that is closely involved in such a question. I only suggest that everything that we call evil has within it the potentiality of good, if it can be re-directed or reversed. ‘Demon est Deus inversus’ is the key to regeneration for the practical Occultist; and here we come to the most important sense of all in which immortality may be realized – or rather practiced, for it is the active aspect which arises out of the passive aspect that has been so far stated. I remember hearing a theosophical lecturer say: ‘If you want to know you are immortal, act as immortal beings.’ This seems to me to express the spiritual life in a nutshell. Having found the ‘Deus’, we have to re-invert the ‘demon’. And so the sight of evil, whether in ourselves or elsewhere, no longer repels us, but summons us to put forth our inner powers. A thankless task it may seem, so far as outer results go, for it requires an immortal patience; but when we give up trying to do everything all at once and in our own little way, we fall back on the irresistible cosmic forces that are ever making for progress, and know that their strength is working through us. I have heard it said that theosophists are always thinking too much of the future and not enough of the present; but the spiritually minded man does not dwell on what is going to happen to him personally, but on that which eternally inheres on the boundless plane of duration, from which he endeavors to shower down all that he can on to the planes of time and change. To the theosophist it is the Great Plan, a portion of which has been indicated to him, and in accomplishing which he finds his true Self as a thread on the loom of life stretching from eternity to eternity.

Blessed is he who has become an embodiment of truth and loving-kindness. He conquers, although he may be wounded; he is happy and glorious, although he may suffer; he is strong, although he may break down under the burden of his work; he is immortal, although he may die. The essence of his being is immortality.

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