Home
Preface
5 Planes of Existence
Introduction
Five Planes of Manifestation
A to Z
Related Information
|
DEAD, RISING FROM THE
A symbol of the consciousness rising from the
lower nature to the higher, from the personality to the
individuality.
"The Naassene exclaims, 'The dead shall start forth from their
graves,' that is, from the earthly bodies, being born again
spiritual, not carnal. For this, he says, is the Resurrection that
takes place through the gate of heaven, through which, he says, all
those that do not enter remain dead." - HIPPOLYTUS, Bk. V. p. 143.
The “earthly bodies" are the mental, astral, and physical bodies of
the lower nature (earth). The gate of heaven" is the higher mental
plane, the central plane between the higher and lower natures. The
personalities which do not rise to the higher planes are mortal and
"remain dead": the individualities which emanate them are alone
immortal and seated in causal-bodies.
"Blessed are the dead' (REV. xiv. 13) does not, I think, mean,
Blessed are they whose bodies are dead'; the death referred to is
not physical. Now the phrase in the Lord,' even in the ordinary
interpretation, means in a state of faith, a state of conscious
union with God. That I believe is the true meaning of the phrase, a
conscious union with God, with the Source of all life, and therefore
union with all God's world. Now what is it that dies in that
consciousness of union with God? It is the lower self, the illusion
that we are separate from God, that dies in the other consciousness,
as the stream dies in the sea, as shadows die in the sun, as
darkness dies in the dawn. In the coming forth of the Divine Essence
into manifestation we found individual existence. At first we did
not know that we were individuals, but we discovered ourselves. Then
we made the mistake of supposing that we were not only individuals
but entirely separate entities." - T. RHONDDA WILLIAMS, Serm., Dying
in the Lord.
|
See Also
|