Keightley A. - Life and Death

It may perhaps seem that thought on the subject of Life is superfluous, and that it is so familiar that everyone knows all about it. But it can easily be seen that such thought as this is very shallow and turns away satisfied from a very superficial examination of that which has proved the deepest of all problems to the student of nature. When we look back at history we see that there have been pessimists in all ages who have asked of themselves and others the question whether life was worth living, and that they have found themselves forced to reply in the negative unless they had discovered for themselves some clue as to the why and wherefore of existence. One of the chief difficulties has been to know the meaning of life as it is, and to most people life as we know it appears to have no meaning at all. Life is, and we have to live without apparently having any choice in the matter. Then comes another question: if we have to live shall we not get the best we can out of life, and devote ourselves to the search for happiness and enjoyment? The result inevitably is that we are brought up sharp by circumstances which apparently are as equally not of our choosing as the very fact of life. Then we begin to perceive that life (and we in it) is limited and conditioned by circumstances which are a part of that life. Consequently we then have to see what these circumstances mean. To the materialist or Agnostic, who regards this particular existence as the only one, with nothing beyond it on either side, living becomes a death-struggle with the forces which counteract those functions which we call life. Thus if they devote all their energies to carrying out their “creed”, self-interest logically is the main factor in life. But as a result it has been seen that the good of the individual cannot be separated from that of the nation, or race, or even family, and the interest of the individual has been merged in race-progress. Thus a species of altruism has been enforced on selfish people, although it takes its origin in self-interest, and is merely an enlargement of the individual to the race of which he forms a part. To the Theosophist who has had the advantage of learning about the law of Karma, or cause and effect as applied to the Law of Re-incarnation, the problem of life as we know it assumes a very different aspect. He learns that, logically considered, he lives because he chooses to live, and that the circumstances of his life are of his own making, and therefore of his own choosing also. Further, he learns that his thoughts and actions in what may be called the moral world are the factors which largely determine his condition in the physical. His view of life thus becomes enlarged, for he sees that he has both a past and a future as well as a present, and that from the point of view of life or existence the three are one.

From such considerations, then, it is evident that the problem of life has a new and greater interest, and it is therefore profitable to see whether there may not be some new considerations also as to the manifestation of life – the force by reason of which we exist in the physical world.

Without entering into the details of biological knowledge, there are certain very familiar phenomena of daily occurrence around us which are exhibited in natural objects. To these phenomena it has been found convenient to give the names “Life” and “Death”. So accustomed are we to these phenomena, that unless attention is paid to them death is regarded 161 by many as the opposite of life, in the same way that black is said to be the opposite of white, night of day, positive of negative. But on considering these “pairs of opposites”, as they are called, we may see at once that these phenomena resemble the phenomena exhibited by the poles of a magnet, and that they are manifestations of one force under different conditions. The magnetic force is one, but it is displayed at the two poles of the magnet by the production of very similar but still different phenomena. If the magnet be placed under a sheet of paper covered with iron filings, these filings will take up different positions and form different curves in the lines on which the force is exerted, according as they are opposite to the positive or the negative poles of the magnet. Day is succeeded in point of time by night, and night again by day, but we know that this is only due to the position of the earth relatively to the sun, and that it is the presence or absence of the light radiating from the sun which determines for us whether it is day or night. In fact, at the North pole there is “day” for six months of the year, and a similar period of time can be assigned to the “night”. Negations and affirmations are opposite states of our mental phenomena about something, but it is only we ourselves who differ, and not the thing in itself. Thus, while all these “opposites” exist, there is in every case one underlying basis for them, in which they inhere, and of which they are conditions. Therefore, also, we are forced to the conclusion that the pair of opposites known to us as “life” and “death” are but the alternate phenomena in point of time of continuous existence. In other words, as opposed to existence or life, there is really no such thing as death, but only a change of conditions for manifesting life, to which state it has been found convenient to give the name of “death”.

But one thing is very plain when we consider the matter: all the resources of science have not been able to tell us how or why these states change and alternate. We see the fact that they do: we know that men and women are born to life, and that deaths occur in large numbers every day. We also know of the existence of certain bodily organs of more or less delicate structure, and we know that upon their remaining in normal condition depends the condition of health or disease. In the attempt to solve the problem, science fell back on the explanation that life was due to the interaction of the cells composing the body and its organs, and rejected the older idea that there was a vital force which manifested pheonmena through the body. At the same time it is very hard to say why the second explanation of interaction is better than the idea of vital force. If life be due to the interaction of the cells of the body, it is difficult to know why nature ever undergoes the change called death, for the cells and the organs are still present in the dead body, though the phenomena called life have disappeared. But probably the cause of the rejection lay in the fact that in submitting all phenomena to physical and tangible tests, science rejected the idea of a vital force which could not be so subjected, as one of the superstitions engendered by ignorance and priestcraft. But there are now many who consider that vital force manifests phenomena through physical objects while belonging itself to a different category of forces. In somewhat the same way we talk about electricity, and judge of its effects on the physical plane in cable, telephone and dynamo; but although we can measure and calculate upon certain effects under certain conditions, we do not know at all what electricity itself is. We can put its effects to physical tests, and to some extent the same can be done with the phenomena of life-action, but the force itself eludes our observation. That life belongs to a higher category of force than even electricity is shown by the fact that heat and electricity are phenomena of the action of life-force.

Although research into the constitution of the bodies of animal and plant has been deeply pursued, it was not until an early date in this century that microscopical research showed that these bodies were composed of 162 myriads of cells of certain well-defined types, but displaying many varieties. Further, it was found that these cells had in common certain features. These features were in the end found to be modifications only of one substance, which received the name of protoplasm. Also, it was found that protoplasm when alive was endowed with one property only – “irritability”. Thus with the discovery and naming of protoplasm there came the conclusion of research to a large number, for they denied the existence or meaning of anything but protoplasm and its “irritability”, and forgot that they could no more explain the presence or absence of irritability than they were able to explain life as a whole. They had only dug down to the cell and its special manifestation of life, but where the life came from, or how it departed, they did not know. And although chemistry has been called in and has analysed protoplasm, no one has yet succeeded in synthetically manufacturing protoplasm from so-called inorganic material; nor, simple though it may seem, has any one succeeded in again endowing a cell with irritability once that this property has departed from it. I do not here speak of the “vital functions” of growth, multiplication and nutrition.

Nevertheless, thanks to the study of the cells of the body, it has been found that under certain conditions the most active protoplasm in them undergoes certain changes of shape until it splits up into minute pieces, from each of which a fresh cell may grow. These pieces strongly resemble the germs which are to be found in the air and all round us, although this does not mean to say that they are identical. Still, thanks to the study of these germs, we are enabled to approach somewhat nearer to the narrow boundary which separates the phenomena known as life from those known as death. We are aware that from the single embryonic cell once vitalised, whether of plant or animal, under appropriate conditions, there grows the mature body, ready to manifest the phenomena of life. And we know that all the complicated organs and structures are but modifications, specialised from the homogeneous protoplasm of the embryo-cell amid its various environments under the guidance of “intelligent” life-force, to meet the circumstances under which that life-force is to be manifested. Although, at first sight, it does not seem that there is any reason why the manifestation of life-force once started in the embryonic cell should ever end, we know that the organism after a certain period, during which it attains maturity, undergoes a retrogressive change, and finally the vital phenomena are no longer manifested through it. But although as a single organism it has ceased to manifest life, its components are neither dead nor inactive. In fact, the ultimate constituent of the body – the protoplasm – is found to be more active than ever. But it has changed its method of action. Instead of being an agent of construction and formation, it is now an agent of destruction or change of form, and the energy locked up at one time in the body and its cells is transferred to the use of nature at large.

Now a very large number of those germs to which reference has been made require oxygen for their maintenance and development, and if not oxygen some form of nutriment which is necessary to their existence. When this nutriment is not supplied to them they break up the constituents of their home in chemical fashion, and having obtained all that they require let the economy of which they formed a part, or were the unwelcome guests, proceed as best it can. In the same way, physically speaking, the germs and cells of the body, when no longer supplied with nutriment, draw upon the chemical constituents of their weaker brethren in the animal economy, and thus the cells, in place of being constructors, become the destroyers and transformers of themselves, and, through themselves, of the physical organism. In fact, life-force is one and homogeneous like the original cells of the body through which it manifests, and the cells when pervaded by this force become alternately formers or transformers, according to condition.

163 But even now we are not much advanced. The question arises: Where is the origin of this force which we see in nature in cells and organs, alternately using these cells and organs as agents of construction and destruction on the physical plane? All things on the earth are compelled to draw the materials for their physical bodies from that of the physical earth they inhabit. Thus the earth has been compared to a great animal which stands somewhat in the relation to its inhabitants as the “host” in zoology does to the “parasites” which draw their sustenance from it. The question is only referred one step further back, and again a step when we reflect that the earth draws her forces from the sun, without which the earth could not continue to support life. Thus the sun is the source of life so far as the solar system including the earth is concerned. But again we are confronted with the question: Where does the sun get its forces from? Here again the sun is but the transmitter from the universe beyond and we are forced again to the conclusion that what we know as life is a Universal Force, which pervades and belongs to the universe as a whole and not to any one part in any especial nature. Thus as science has been driven to accept the existence of ether as the only possible means of explaining the attraction and repulsion of the celestial bodies – in fact of the phenomena of their life and existence – we may also by analogy argue that life is a force which acts as universally as this unproven ether, even if we do not conclude that the two are aspects of one and the same thing – Universal Force. Just as the ether is said to penetrate every physical atom so does life-force penetrate. Really, whether it be ether or “life”, everything is bathed in an ocean of life just as a sponge floating in the sea is penetrated through and through with water. It is the Ocean of the One Life – the universal Jiva as it is called in the Orient, though it is by some called Prana when, like the water within the sponge, it is specially modified when manifesting in the body of animal or plant.

Again, when we consider the constitution of bodies we wonder what it is which holds them together. The force of cohesion, as it is called, is the workman in this case, but the very assertion of such a force unites with our knowledge of facts and equally implies the force of disruption. Now we know that bodies when similarly electrified are driven apart, and in exactly this way we can consider that bodies or cells when, by floating in the ocean of life, they have absorbed too much life, are driven apart – they have in short become too highly charged with life and a process of adjustment has to take place or they will be driven apart and the death of the organism will ensue. Thus the universal Jiva is everywhere, but without union with matter it cannot manifest. If united with the matter of the body we then know it as “life”. The cells of the body becoming too highly charged are driven asunder, and life losing hold of the organism as a whole still inheres in its ultimate constituents which now live for themselves and become destroyers of the order that was. Every day of our life we have to undergo the process of adjustment in sleep, otherwise, as in the case of insanity from insomnia, a very speedy close is brought to our physical life. And in the process sleep is truly shown to be the twin-brother of death.

There is also another consideration on life which may be urged. We know that worlds are held together by the force of cohesion, by what is called the interaction of “matter” which is ponderable and “matter” which is imponderable. This “imponderable matter” it is which proceeds from the sun and orders the planets in their courses. If then it produces life in animal and plant and orders the worlds, it produces its various phenomena by reason of its amount relative to the “ponderable”. In short, again, life is universal and exists as such in rock and stone, as a force, as it does in animal and plant.

Thus, in view of the consideration that life is universal we may add another point, and that is that life and consciousness are co-extensive. As 164 we know life, or as we in our ordinary state define life and consciousness, they may, perhaps, not seem to be so. We have what is called our personal consciousness in which the physical body is especially prominent, but to assert that consciousness is solely confined to the physical body would be to deny facts which are obvious to nearly all. If we consider matters in the light thrown on them by Theosophy we may see them more clearly. First of all there is what we may call the life and consciousness of the terrestrial body, producing what has been called direct consciousness, a faculty which man shares with the animal kingdom in general. Then we find them manifesting through what St. Paul calls the celestial body, producing the faculty of self-consciousness, or the quality which enables man to study himself in relation to the source of life and consciousness. Finally we have the spiritual soul or spirit, which is the consciousness and perception of life and consciousness as they really are, as universal forces and powers apart from any vehicle of manifestation. Thus, though in essence both life and consciousness are universal and imperishable, it would not be right to say that their manifestation as personal consciousness is continuous. We know that physical matter undergoes change and that what we are accustomed to call the personality of man is thus destroyed. But it does not by any means follow that nothing remains. Indeed on the analogy of the Law of the Conservation of Energy this would not take place. But the energy becomes correlated and transformed, and though personal consciousness and life may come to an end the effects survive. The various states of consciousness would seem to be marked off by the more or less material basis in which life manifests and the removal of the limitations means the entrance on the various states of consciousness. Thus the so-called post-mortem states, such as Devachan or Kama Loca, which have been discussed in theosophical literature, are only supersensuous conditions, which may be and are more or less realized by man focalizing and centering his consciousness away from normal material conditions in that in which he lives and moves and has his being.

Thus from the point of view of the conservation and correlation of energy it would follow that “where the treasure is there the heart is also”. In other words, so long as life is devoted to obtaining physical conditions, so long will it inhere in those conditions. Incarnation will necessitate re-incarnation until the effects of the desire for life on the physical plane are worked out or until the evolutionary progress which can be made there is accomplished. Incarnation follows incarnation as soon as the correlations of the life-force on the various planes have been effected. Thus it is necessary, if we are to know the meaning of life, to distinguish between life manifesting as life and life manifesting as death. Life being a universal force, and universal in its action, has a meaning above our personal life and what we may do with it for ourselves. It is a universal property of which we have made ourselves the trustees by virtue of the very fact that we live. The nearer we get to our own origin the better we can understand life, and most certainly to the individual soul which is consciously allied to the universal spirit and to life, there is no such condition as “death”.

Archibald Keightley, M.B., F.T.S.

Footnotes