“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I
know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”--1 Cor.
xiii. 12.
Man lives here at once an outer and an inner life, the first all
visible and audible in look, word, writing, in outward affairs and
works, the last perceptible to himself only through interior thoughts
and feelings. The continuation of the visible into the exterior
is easily followed; the development of the unseen remains itself
invisible, but yet goes on. Rather the inner life of man progresses,
with his outer life, as its nucleus, to form the nucleus of the future
life.
In fact, that which goes out visibly and perceptibly from man during
his lifetime is not the only thing that emanates from him. However
small and fine the vibration or impulse may be by which a conscious
emotion is carried to our minds, yet the whole play of conscious
emotions is borne by an inward mental action, it cannot die out without
producing effects of its kind in us and at last beyond us; only we
cannot follow them into life outside. As little as can the lute keep
its playing to itself, it is borne out beyond it, so little can our
minds; to the lute or the mind belongs only that which is closest
to it. What an infinitely complex play of subtle waves having their
origin in our minds may spread itself over the gross lower realm of
action, perceptible to the outward eye and ear, like the fine ripples
on the large waves of a pond, or the flat designs on the surface of a
closely woven carpet, which takes from them its whole beauty and higher
meaning. The physicist, however, recognizes and follows only the action
of the lower exterior order, and does not concern himself with the
finer, which he does not perceive. But even if he does not perceive it,
yet knowing the principle, does he dare deny the result?[3]
Therefore, what we have absorbed from souls through the influences of
their outward perceptible life in this world does not yet comprise
their whole being; but, in a way incomprehensible to us, there still
remains in their nature, besides that outward part, a deeper, indeed
the chief part of their existence. And if a man had spent and ended
his life on a desert island without ever having come in contact with
another human life, he would have firmly retained his inner existence,
awaiting a future development, which in this world he could not find
through intercourse with others. If on the other hand a child had lived
but a moment, it could not die again in eternity. The least impulse
of conscious life surrounds itself with a circle of influences, just
as the briefest tone, which in a moment seems to die, throws out
vibrations which reach out into infinity, beyond those standing near by
and listening; for no influence expires in itself, and each produces
others of its kind into eternity. And so will the soul of the child
go on developing from this conscious beginning like that of the man
left in isolation, only otherwise than as if beginning from an already
advanced development.
Now, just as man in death first receives the full consciousness of
what he has produced spiritually in others, so also in death will
he acquire for the first time complete knowledge and use of what he
has cultivated in himself. Whatever he has gathered during life of
spiritual treasure, what fills his memory or penetrates his feeling,
what his intelligence and imagination have created, remain forever his!
Yet its whole connection remains dark in this life; thought merely
passes through with a light-giving ray and illuminates what lies on
the narrow line of his life, the rest remaining in obscurity. The soul
here below never realizes all at once the entire depth of its fulness;
only when one of its impulses draws another into union with itself does
it emerge for an instant from the darkness, only to sink back again
in the next. So man is a stranger to his own soul and wanders about
within it as he may, or wearily seeking the way to his life’s end, and
often forgets his best treasures, which, aside from the glowing path
of thought, lie sunken in the darkness which covers the wide region of
his soul. But in the moment of death, in which an eternal night darkens
the eye of his body, light will begin to dawn in his soul. Then will
the centre of the inner man kindle into a sun which illuminates his
whole spiritual nature, and at the same time penetrates it as with
an inner eye, with divine clearness. All which was here forgotten
will he recover there, indeed he only forgot it here because it went
before him into the other world; now he finds it again collected. In
that new universal luminousness he will no longer be obliged to seek
out wearily what he would fain appropriate, separating his own from
what he must reject, but at a glance he is able to understand himself
wholly, and at the same time to perceive the true relations between
unity and diversity, connection and separation, harmony and discord,
not only according to one line of thought but equally according to
all.[4] As far as are the flight and vision of the bird above the slow
crawling of the blind worm which perceives nothing beyond what its
sluggish body touches, so greatly will the higher knowledge transcend
that of the present. And so in death, with the body of man will also
pass away his mind, his understanding, indeed the whole finite dwelling
place of his soul, as forms become too narrow for its existence, as
parts which are of no further use in an order of things in which all
knowledge which they had to seek and discover gradually, laboriously,
and imperfectly, he now has openly revealed, possessed, and enjoyed.
The self of man, however, will subsist unimpaired in its full extent
and development through the destruction of its transitory forms, and,
in the place of that extinct lower sphere of activity, will enter into
a higher life. Stilled is all restlessness of thought, which no longer
needs to seek in order to find itself, or to approach another to come
into conscious mutual relations. Rather begins now a higher interchange
of spiritual life; as in our own minds thoughts interchange together,
so between advanced souls there is a fellowship, the all-embracing
centre of which we call God, and the play of our thoughts is but
tributary to this high communion. Speech will no longer be needed there
for mutual understanding, and no eye for recognition of others, but as
thought in us comprehends and relates itself to thought, without the
medium of ear, mouth, or hand, unites or separates without exterior
restraint or prohibition, so comforting, intimate, and untrammelled
will mutual spiritual communication be, and nothing will remain hidden
in one from the other. All sinful thoughts which here slink away into
the dark places of the mind, and all which man would be glad to cover
up from his kind with a thousand hands, become known to all. And only
the soul which has been quite pure and true here can without shame
come into the presence of others in that world; and he who has been
misunderstood here on earth will there find recognition.
And even in its individual life will the soul through self-inspection
become aware of every deficiency and every remnant, left behind from
this life, of imperfection, disturbance, and discord, and not only will
it recognize these defects, but feel them, all in common, with the same
force as we our bodily infirmities. But as thoughts can be cleansed
from all that is unworthy, and in moments of insight be united to
still higher thoughts, each becoming thereby perfected in that which
was lacking, even so will souls in their mutual intercourse find the
path of progress towards perfection.