DEATH CANNOT SEVER

  NEVER allow fear to find a lodgment within your being. It is a negative quality which destroys, vitiates and saps. It impairs your judgment; it clouds your reason; it prevents you from seeing issues clearly. There is no problem that comes to any soul which you are incapable of solving. There is no difficulty that you cannot conquerーif you would but allow the latent divinity to rise to the surface.

  "The people in your world have, with very few excep-tions, not yet begun to live. They are expressing only infinitesimal portions of the power which is resident within them. In supreme moments of crisis or emergency they call on that power and it gives them added strength, added courage, added wisdom. But that power can be tapped all the time. It can give you health to master disease, direction in times of uncertainty, guidance when you are perplexed, strength when you are weary and vision when you are blind. It is there for you to express it."

　In such powerful language does Silver Birch combat an insidious foe. "Fear is born of the darkness of man's superstition," he declared, when someone asked him, 

"You say we should cast out fear, but is not fear a neces-sary part of our equipment?" He continued:

　"It is the relic of the days of early evolution when primitive man did not understand the processes of nature and attributed to them powers that were beyond the natural. He was afraid of the night; he was afraid of the sun; he was afraid of the storm, the lightning and the

thunder; he was afraid of the tempest; he was afraid of all natural phenomena because the explanation of them did not come within his mental orbit.

　"But you are no longer children of a primitive era. You boast that you are highly civilised, that you have grown to man's full, proud estate. Why, then, should you have fear, knowing that you are part of the Great Spirit of all life, that you are co-sharers in the processes of evolution, that you possess the power which shaped the whole universe and gave it direction and purpose, that you possess the power that is responsible for every facet of life, the power that filled the whole of the world with all that it contains? Why is fear essential when you know what you are and can be? No, fear is wrong, for fear makes you afraid and you should not be afraid. You should live in the sunlight of knowledge based on the confidence that you are infinite spirits and nothing can hurt or damage for ever the eternity which is yours.''

　Perhaps the greatest fear known to man is that of death. There is no horror comparable to that which numbs the mind when an imaginative individual con-templates the possibility of total extinction. And there is no grief to measure up to that which comes to an un-enlightened soul when someone who was truly and ten-derly loved ceases to breathe forever.

　"But do, please, try to understand this,"ーit is Silver Birch talkingー"death is not a tragedy to those who die: it is only a tragedy to those who are left behind. To go from darkness to light is not something over which you should grieve.

　"If you grieve, you are in reality grieving over your loss and not for one who has in truth become enfranchised. He is better off. He will no longer suffer all the ills of the human body. He will not be subjected to the ravages of wasting diseases. He will unfold all the gifts with which he has been endowed, and will express them free from any thwartings and will be able to give a larger service to those who require it.

　"You miss the accustomed presence, you sigh for the physical body that you no longer see, but the reality is always there, although it is not palpable to you. Look beyond the world of sense, beyond the five crude, clumsy windows of the soul, and try to gather some of the wisdom that comes with the knowledge of spiritual reality."

　"Should you be sad because they are freed from pain, from old age, from tiredness and weariness?" he asked on another occasion. "Should you be sad because they have escaped from darkness into the light? Should you be sad because they can now unfold the talents with which they have been endowed? Should you be sad because they are now free to enjoy the pursuits that are natural to them?

　"No, your sorrow is selfish. You are mourning your own loss, you are thinking in terms of what you are missing and what you will have to endureーa life of loneliness, bereft of love that has enriched it. But you are wrong. There need be no loneliness if you would but make yourself familiar with the truth and allow the scales of ignorance to drop away from your eyes so that you could behold the radiant form of the one you love.

　"Death cannot part you from the one you love, for love will always claim its own. Your sorrow is based on ignorance. With knowledge you could be sure that the one you love is closer than ever he or she has been before. You could taste some of the joy that comes with the appreciation of an understanding of spiritual reality.

　"Do not mourn because the caterpillar has become a beauteous butterfly. Do not weep because the cage has been opened and the bird has been set free. Rejoice, and know that the enfranchised soul has found liberty and that, if you would but unfold the powers that the Great Spirit has given you, you could share some of the new beauty and joy which is theirs. You could understand the plan of death and realise that death is but a stepping-stone, a door through which you enter into the larger freedom of the realms of the spirit."

　A vivid description of death as part of the cycle of life was given by Silver Birch when, one Easter-time, he drew a comparison with the seasons of the year.

　"Think of the 'miracle' of the seasons," he said, "the eternal circle for ever revolving with unbroken con-stancyーthe snows of winter, when all life sleeps; the herald of spring, when life awakens; the fullness of sum-mer, when life is revealed in all its beauty; autumn, when the voice of nature is hushed and preparation is made for sleep ere the period of refreshment comes upon it.

　"You are about to witness nature's great revelationーspring, Easter, resurrectionーwhen the new life makes itself visible all over your world, the life that has been sleeping, the life that has retreated into the darkness of mother earth, there to find peace and quietness in the darkness. Soon you will see the rising sap, the bud, the foliage, the leaf and then the flower. The tiny aconites raise their heads and a thousand voices announce the birth of new life.

　"You will be reminded of the old pagans, the 'uncivi-lised' savages, whose religion was founded on the rituals of nature, who saw in the seasons the divine drama, who constructed from the movements of the stars and the planets the lives of the gods, the powers that watched over them; who paid tribute to the laws which controlled their life, who recognised that the greatest season of all was spring, when birth came upon your world.

　"The cycle is repeated in every human life. The pageant of nature is duplicated in every human soul. First there is the spring, with the awakening consciousness; the summer, when man's powers rise to their highest; autumn, when life begins to wane; and winter, when sleep comes to the weary, tired soul. But even after the winter of the physical life, spring comes to the spirit as it awakens in another world to continue that eternal cycle. Take from nature this message, and be assured that the laws which have never failed will continue to operate in your case and in the case of every human life."