Personal Convictions of Life Eternal ~ Ernest Holmes
I believe in the continuation of the personal life beyond the grave, in the continuity of the individual stream of consciousness with a full recollection of itself and the ability to know and to make itself known. I wish to feel, when the experience of physical death shall occur, that that which I really am will continue to live beyond the grave. I wish to feel that I shall again meet those friends whose lives and influences have made my life happy while on earth. If I could not believe this, I would believe nothing in life; life would have no meaning and death could not be untimely, unless it were long delayed. If personality does not persist beyond the grave, then death would be an event to be devoutly long for and sought after.
I believe that certain experiences have given us ample evidence to substantiate the claim of immortality. I know that my own experience justifies a complete acceptance in my mind of my own and other people's immortality. Is there any one who, standing at the bier of a loved one, can possibly feel that the real end has come? It is useless to say that their influence lives after them. That is true, of course, but we hope for more than this; WE WISH TO FEEL THAT THEY STILL LIVE! How anyone can feel otherwise seems unthinkable. I want to live and keep on living and to know that I am I; and unless immortality means this, death means the cutting off of all conscious life, contact or recognition, and it could then be truly said of the personality that it dies with the grave.
Poets have sung of the eternality of the soul, while the saints and sages of the ages have assured us that man is an immortal being. It is recorded that Jesus rose from the dead and made Himself known to his immediate followers. The faith of countless millions of the Christian Religion has been based, to a great extent, on its teachings of immortality. The philosophy of Christianity can be traced largely to Greek thought and ideals, but the Christian Religion itself rests its greatest hope on the assurance that a man rose from the dead and passed from this plane to the next, retaining and carrying with him into the beyond those qualities and attributes which constitute that personal stream of consciousness known as an individual.
But I cannot base my hopes of immortality on the revelation of anyone but myself. So far as I am concerned, nothing can exist to me unless I am aware of it. While I believe in other men's revelations, I am sure only of my own. I look upon the belief in immortality neither as a vague dream, nor a forlorn hope, but as a proven fact. One cannot doubt that which he knows to be so, and why should he deny the evidence of his senses, his reason and his personal experiences, in one field more than in another? Immortality, or the continuation of personal existence beyond this life, has been so completely demonstrated to me that it would be unthinkable for me to assume an opposite position, even for the purpose of debate. Here, within myself, is something that knows. Here is something knows that it IS, and knows that life itself moves with a tide as irresistible as the recurring seasons.
I do not believe in the return of the soul to another life on this plane. The spiral of life is upward. Evolution carries us forward, not backward. Eternal and progressive expansion is its law and there are no breaks in its continuity. It seems to me that our evolution is the result of an unfolding consciousness of that which already is, and needs but to be realized to become a fact of everyday life. I can believe in planes beyond this one without number, in eternal progress. I cannot believe that nature is limited to one sphere of action.
The average man desires to live beyond the grave. In most instances where this desire is lacking, we find those whose experiences in this world have been so negative that their greatest hope is for utter oblivion, a complete nothingness. The average man desires an eternal progress, an everlasting expansion, a complete reconciliation between this life, the grave and everlasting existence. Even the best men feel that their lives here have been marred by incompleteness. Nine out of ten people believe in some type of immortality, which demonstrates that people not only wish to believe, but that - in the face of all difficulties, disappointments and disillusionments - THEY ACTUALLY DO BELIEVE!
It is human to grieve over the loss of dear ones. We love them and cannot help missing them, but a true realization of our immortality and continuity of the individual soul, will rob our grief of hopelessness. We shall realize that they are in God's keeping and they are safe. We shall know that loving friends have met them, and that their life still flows on with the currents of eternity. We shall feel that we have not lost them, they have only gone before. So we shall view eternity from the higher standpoint, as a continuity of time, forever and ever expanding, until time, as we now experience it, shall be no more. Realizing this, we shall see in everyone a budding genius, a becoming God, an unfolding soul, an eternal destiny.
Time heals all wounds, adjust conditions, explains facts; and time alone satisfies the expanding soul, reconciling the visible with the invisible. We are born of eternal day, and the Spiritual Sun shall never set upon the glory of the soul, for it is the coming forth of God into self-expression. We must give ourselves time to work out all problems. If we do not work them out here, we shall hereafter. There will be time enough in eternity to prove everything. Every man is an incarnation of eternity, a manifestation in the finite, of that Infinite which, Emerson tells us, "lies stretched in smiling repose."
With all these facts confronting us, we should learn to trust life. There is no power in the universe which wishes anyone ill. Life is good and God is Good. Why not accept this and begin to live? No man need prepare to meet his God, he is meeting Him every day and each hour in the day. He meets Him in the rising sun, in the flowing stream, in the budding rose, in the joy of friendship and love, and in the silence of his own soul.
When we meet each other, do we not feel that subtle Presence which flows through all things and gives light and color to our everyday experiences? In our own souls, in the silent processes of our thought and understanding, do we not sense another Presence? There is something Divine about us which we have overlooked. There is more to us than we realize. Man is an eternal destiny, a forever-expanding principle of conscious intelligence...the ocean in the drop of water, the sun in its rays. Man, the real man, is birthless, deathless, changeless; and God, as man, in man, IS man! The highest God and the innermost God is One and the same God.
And so we prepare not to die, but to live. The thought of death should slip from our consciousness altogether; and when this great event of the soul takes place, it should be beautiful, sublime...a glorious experience. As the eagle, freed from its cage, soars to its native heights, so the soul, freed from the home of heavy flesh, will rise and return unto its Father's house, naked and unafraid."
I believe in the continuation of the personal life beyond the grave, in the continuity of the individual stream of consciousness with a full recollection of itself and the ability to know and to make itself known. I wish to feel, when the experience of physical death shall occur, that that which I really am will continue to live beyond the grave. I wish to feel that I shall again meet those friends whose lives and influences have made my life happy while on earth. If I could not believe this, I would believe nothing in life; life would have no meaning and death could not be untimely, unless it were long delayed. If personality does not persist beyond the grave, then death would be an event to be devoutly long for and sought after.
I believe that certain experiences have given us ample evidence to substantiate the claim of immortality. I know that my own experience justifies a complete acceptance in my mind of my own and other people's immortality. Is there any one who, standing at the bier of a loved one, can possibly feel that the real end has come? It is useless to say that their influence lives after them. That is true, of course, but we hope for more than this; WE WISH TO FEEL THAT THEY STILL LIVE! How anyone can feel otherwise seems unthinkable. I want to live and keep on living and to know that I am I; and unless immortality means this, death means the cutting off of all conscious life, contact or recognition, and it could then be truly said of the personality that it dies with the grave.
Poets have sung of the eternality of the soul, while the saints and sages of the ages have assured us that man is an immortal being. It is recorded that Jesus rose from the dead and made Himself known to his immediate followers. The faith of countless millions of the Christian Religion has been based, to a great extent, on its teachings of immortality. The philosophy of Christianity can be traced largely to Greek thought and ideals, but the Christian Religion itself rests its greatest hope on the assurance that a man rose from the dead and passed from this plane to the next, retaining and carrying with him into the beyond those qualities and attributes which constitute that personal stream of consciousness known as an individual.
But I cannot base my hopes of immortality on the revelation of anyone but myself. So far as I am concerned, nothing can exist to me unless I am aware of it. While I believe in other men's revelations, I am sure only of my own. I look upon the belief in immortality neither as a vague dream, nor a forlorn hope, but as a proven fact. One cannot doubt that which he knows to be so, and why should he deny the evidence of his senses, his reason and his personal experiences, in one field more than in another? Immortality, or the continuation of personal existence beyond this life, has been so completely demonstrated to me that it would be unthinkable for me to assume an opposite position, even for the purpose of debate. Here, within myself, is something that knows. Here is something knows that it IS, and knows that life itself moves with a tide as irresistible as the recurring seasons.
I do not believe in the return of the soul to another life on this plane. The spiral of life is upward. Evolution carries us forward, not backward. Eternal and progressive expansion is its law and there are no breaks in its continuity. It seems to me that our evolution is the result of an unfolding consciousness of that which already is, and needs but to be realized to become a fact of everyday life. I can believe in planes beyond this one without number, in eternal progress. I cannot believe that nature is limited to one sphere of action.
The average man desires to live beyond the grave. In most instances where this desire is lacking, we find those whose experiences in this world have been so negative that their greatest hope is for utter oblivion, a complete nothingness. The average man desires an eternal progress, an everlasting expansion, a complete reconciliation between this life, the grave and everlasting existence. Even the best men feel that their lives here have been marred by incompleteness. Nine out of ten people believe in some type of immortality, which demonstrates that people not only wish to believe, but that - in the face of all difficulties, disappointments and disillusionments - THEY ACTUALLY DO BELIEVE!
It is human to grieve over the loss of dear ones. We love them and cannot help missing them, but a true realization of our immortality and continuity of the individual soul, will rob our grief of hopelessness. We shall realize that they are in God's keeping and they are safe. We shall know that loving friends have met them, and that their life still flows on with the currents of eternity. We shall feel that we have not lost them, they have only gone before. So we shall view eternity from the higher standpoint, as a continuity of time, forever and ever expanding, until time, as we now experience it, shall be no more. Realizing this, we shall see in everyone a budding genius, a becoming God, an unfolding soul, an eternal destiny.
Time heals all wounds, adjust conditions, explains facts; and time alone satisfies the expanding soul, reconciling the visible with the invisible. We are born of eternal day, and the Spiritual Sun shall never set upon the glory of the soul, for it is the coming forth of God into self-expression. We must give ourselves time to work out all problems. If we do not work them out here, we shall hereafter. There will be time enough in eternity to prove everything. Every man is an incarnation of eternity, a manifestation in the finite, of that Infinite which, Emerson tells us, "lies stretched in smiling repose."
With all these facts confronting us, we should learn to trust life. There is no power in the universe which wishes anyone ill. Life is good and God is Good. Why not accept this and begin to live? No man need prepare to meet his God, he is meeting Him every day and each hour in the day. He meets Him in the rising sun, in the flowing stream, in the budding rose, in the joy of friendship and love, and in the silence of his own soul.
When we meet each other, do we not feel that subtle Presence which flows through all things and gives light and color to our everyday experiences? In our own souls, in the silent processes of our thought and understanding, do we not sense another Presence? There is something Divine about us which we have overlooked. There is more to us than we realize. Man is an eternal destiny, a forever-expanding principle of conscious intelligence...the ocean in the drop of water, the sun in its rays. Man, the real man, is birthless, deathless, changeless; and God, as man, in man, IS man! The highest God and the innermost God is One and the same God.
And so we prepare not to die, but to live. The thought of death should slip from our consciousness altogether; and when this great event of the soul takes place, it should be beautiful, sublime...a glorious experience. As the eagle, freed from its cage, soars to its native heights, so the soul, freed from the home of heavy flesh, will rise and return unto its Father's house, naked and unafraid."
When death shall come
And the spirit, freed, shall mount the air,
And wander afar in that great no-where,
It shall go as it came,
Freed from sorrow, sin and shame;
And naked and bare, through the upper air
Shall go alone to that great no-where.
Hinder not its onward way,
Grieve not o'er its form of clay,
For the spirit, freed now from clod,
Shall go alone to meet its God.
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