Collins M. - Death

AT every active moment of our lives, in moments of pain or pleasure, even then Death lies doggedly in our future, waiting the moment when we approach near enough for him to grasp and devour us. With some people Death is the great terror of their lives. These are not necessarily “nervous” people in the ordinary sense; possibly they are very brave, and in a moment of excitement would forget their fear of Death entirely. But it is indeed surprising how men of this calibre will let the dread of Death haunt them, sit at their feasts, and accompany them into the dark hours of the night. A man of this sort, honest, straightforward, but entirely a man of the world, once candidly expressed himself in this manner: “I am afraid to die, because I have done so many bad deeds that I am sure to go to hell.” It appeared on further talk that he owned no religion, had no idea of Heaven or a state of reward, but only one fixed conception of an immortal state – one in which he would be punished for his sins on earth. This is the one terror of a keenly active nature, with a great deal of good in it, and an intellect overtopping others on the ordinary plane, but with no power of thought on things eternal. He is, perhaps, an advance on the ordinary man of the world, who says quietly to himself, with a little shudder, sometimes: “I’ll have to die like other people; it is too detestable to think of; but I’ll not say a word about it, and die game. Meantime I will enjoy myself.” The opposite extreme of feeling is reached in Keats’ phrase of “Easeful Death.” Such a glad, soft word is unintelligible to most people when applied to Death. And, indeed, it is an instance of the fact in occultism that pleasure and pain do, after a certain point of feeling, become the same. Death is painful; it is unpleasant; it is even horrible in its grimmer aspects. And Keats, who, like all great poets, had suffered all things in his short span of life, knew well that by the side of many forms of living, Death is indeed “easeful.” The supreme characteristic of Death is its silence; this is the most vivid horror it brings to those who lose one they love; it is the secret of the tempting power Death holds out to those who suffer keenly, to whom life is full of pain because of the reverberating thought, the echo in the mind, the longing for knowledge which never can be satisfied – never!

“Master,” says the neophyte to the Wise one, “is it true that the hunger for knowledge can never be satisfied?”

The Wise One: “It is not you who ask me that, for you are too sensible to do so. It is Servus who has uttered it as a truism, and you have passed it on to me as a question.”

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The Neophyte: “Yes.”

The Wise One: “Then I will answer you, Servus. The souls of great poets have all their knowledge hidden within them. In their passage through life and through death it comes to them; or, I should say, in their passage through many lives and many deaths they suddenly blossom and retire from the life of the world, for which they are now too great. But what I have just said opens up another subject; one which to us can never be separated from Death.”

Servus: the slave of the world: “You mean re-birth, or rather, re-incarnation? But is there not a distinction in your use of these words?”

The Wise One: “Most certainly. Re-birth is a negative word, which, when used by an Occultist, acquires a meaning different from what it ordinarily bears. With us it means that moment, which comes to some men either in life or in the shades of death, which makes of them new men. Re-incarnation is, of course, simply the passage from one earth-form to another. Those who are indeed reborn are freed from re-incarnation.”

Servus: “And do you not hold your place here, as teacher in this temple, as being one who is reborn in this sense?”

The Wise One: “Not so. Those who reach this state cannot approach the world.”

Servus: “Then we of the world can never be taught by those who know?”

The Wise One: “I, who endure your scoffs and insults, reached knowledge by my patience. It is given to all to approach knowledge, but some, alas, advance like the tortoise. My son, let us enter the temple.”

The Wise One and the Neophyte enter the temple, where are a little crowd of other neophytes waiting for their master. And Servus, without, in the temple garden, sits lazily in the strong sun and watches a lizard. Presently he looks up at the temple. He knows that within there is a discussion of thought which chills him, even though its margin attracts him intellectually. A feeling comes over him that the knowledge of which this temple is a symbol is handed on from race to race, till the races themselves fall under a greater law. The thought dwarfs him, makes him of no importance even to himself, and hurriedly he arises and goes down the hillside to the city.

We are such pigmies that, as a rule, great thought dwarfs us and we resent it; or we succeed in dwarfing it by the vulgar “Hobson Newcome” method of refusing to believe in any other possibilities in it save those evident to ourselves. To the Hobson Newcomes of the world death is a thing to be put off as long as possible, and then to be met with decency. He might pull a wry face sometimes when, in walking to the City of a morning, he got some gentle reminder that man is mortal,

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and his thoughts of death are simply a picture-like vision of himself in the four-post bed at home, Maria, his wife, crying bitterly over him, and a doctor at his side. He cannot think any further about himself; his mind wanders to Maria, and how much she cries over trifles, and how wet weather is good for transplanting, and she will certainly marry again; then he wonders can he do any more in his will to make the young ’uns safe – but there, he is at his office, and with the sight of its pleasant face all unpleasant thoughts vanish.

Death is one of the facts in our lives which stands like a great thought, sublime and mysterious, at the end of our walk. Yet thus can men rob the figure of its majesty and clothe it, in their own minds, with the order of things familiar to them. Blindly they go on, till one day they are tripped up, and the others of his sort say, “Poor old fellow!” and go on just the same without him.

To the sick man, worn out by suffering, death comes as a relief; but this only means physical rest from endurance and weariness too great for thought. Death is always terrible and grim, save to those strange brilliant souls, too great for incarnation, to whom it comes as “easeful.” O, flame of the poet’s soul, which escapes from the earth and the grass, though feeling them not unfriendly; escapes to go on learning its fierce, passionate, beautiful lessons of pleasure and pain, till at last it stands purified and powerful.

Death may be transformed and made into a beautiful thing, to the minds of the people. Mr. Balfour is simply making martyrs by his imprisonments. Mr. Dillon, languishing in his prison, must know that if he dies every countryman of his, in every country, will raise him to the rank of the martyrs, weep bitter tears to his memory, and doubly hate the Government which does such deeds.

Thus there are many modes of regarding death, but to quote Matthew Arnold’s great line, the constant quotation of which shows how bitter and well-known is the truth it contains, “We mortal millions live alone.”

These modes of regarding death are only mental, and generally belong to men in groups. Hobson Newcome will forget all about Maria and the children when he finds the fell hand upon his throat. To him it will mean only fear. But there are others who meet it differently. It has all sorts of meanings to the changeful minds of men; rest, without questioning; Heaven, without reproach; Hell, with remorse added; hope of a better and more beautiful existence than any known of in this world. But among them all, undisturbed passes the occultist, who knows death to be only a gateway, and its terrible silence to be only the shutting of the gate. He knows, too, that with him lies the choice of his path when the gate is shut on sensation for the precious brief moment of after-death.

The Wise One (coming from the temple with his pupils): “See – the sun is setting. What do we know of it till it rises again? What

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an emblem this is. But for the moment apply it to the subject we have been talking of. Death thus pushes man from consciousness, as the sun leaves us in darkness. But the light returns. Resurrection is everywhere – here at our feet, where last summer’s flowers bloom again.”

The Neophyte: “Rebirth then must come of itself.”

The Wise One: “Yes, in æons. But he who desires it now must make a supreme effort of growth.”

Mabel Collins.

Footnotes