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Preface
5 Planes of Existence
Introduction
Five Planes of Manifestation
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CORPSE, OR DEAD (HUMAN) BODY
A symbol of the personality in its lower aspect,
that is, without the Divine spark. Compared with the immortal
Individuality, the mortal personality is apprehended as dead—
illusive, transient.
"I have heard from the wise men that we are now dead, and that the
body is our sepulchre." - PLATO, Gorgias, fol. 493.
"He that toucheth the dead body of any soul of man shall be unclean
seven days. ." - NUM. xix. 11.
The "touching of a corpse" signifies the cherishing of the
personality with its desires and selfishness which render the nature
"unclean" for a full period. "It is well known that, in the minds of
Hindus, ideas of impurity are inseparably connected with death, and
contamination is supposed to result from contact with the corpses of
even a man's dearest relatives." - MON. WILLIAMS, Buddhism, p. 496.
"It grieves the sun, O holy Zoroaster, to shine upon a man defiled
by a corpse it grieves the moon; it grieves the stars." - J. M.
MITCHELL, Zend Avesta, etc., p. 35.
When the soul is steeped in the selfishness of the lower personality
(corpse), the Higher Self (sun), the emotions (moon), and the mental
faculties (stars), are unable to develop it.
"For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; but whosoever
shall lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it." (LUKE ix.
24.)
“'We must keep up our individuality, but we ought to take care that
it is true and not false individuality. The key to distinguish them
from each other is given to us in the text. It speaks of a double
nature in man; one which asserts self, the other which denies it.
The first has a seeming life which is actual death; the second has a
seeming death which is actual life; and therefore, as life is
inseparably connected with individuality, the development of the
selfish nature is false individuality; the development of the
unselfish nature is true individuality, ... Love for self, sympathy
for self, activity for self, do not produce life, or the sense of
life; they produce self, disease, the satiety which consumes, the
dreadful loneliness which corrupts the soul, that passionate lust
for more which is itself the unsatisfied worm which eats away the
heart. No vivid or exalted sense of individual being can ever fill
the heart of this man until he escape from the curse of
self-involvement, and spread his being over all the world." -
STOPFORd A. BROOKE, Serm., Individuality.
"A 'dead man' acknowledgeth nothing to be true and good, but what
regardeth the body and the world." - SWEDENBORG, Arc. Cel. to
Genesis. ii.
"The attitude of the natural man with referer ce to the Spiritual is
a subject on which the New Testament is equally pronounced. Not only
in his relation to the spiritual man, but to the whole Spiritual
World, the natural man is regarded as dead. He is as a crystal to an
organism. The natural world is to the Spiritual as the inorganic to
the organic. To be carnally minded in Death.' Thou hast a name to
live, but art Dead. 'She that liveth in pleasure is Dead while she
liveth.' To you hath He given Life which were Dead in trespasses and
sins.'" - H. DRUMMOND, Natural Law, etc., p. 75.
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