Through Death to Rebirth

James S. Perkins

• Publisher: Barakaldo Books
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781839745799
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhism

What will be my situation immediately after death? Does my individual consciousness continue? Is immortality a myth? In this remarkable volume, James Scudday Perkins proposes answers to these and other questions concerning the pilgrimage of the soul through the cycles of death and rebirth. Placing the entire process in perspective, he presents a unique interpretation of the age-old concept of reincarnation. He perceives the stages between death and rebirth as a definite and purposeful part of the whole cyclic pattern of growth, moving irresistibly toward an "awakened awareness of living immortality now."Reincarnation is a subject of intimate personal concern to every individual, as well as one of highly philosophic content. The majority of the world's people accept it in some form, and recent years have seen a dramatic upsurge of interest in the concept, particularly in the West. To the average person, seeking an answer to discouragements and a sense of failure, it often comes as a blinding light, bringing the awareness that no failure is final, that there is endless opportunity to become what one aspires to be.James Scudday Perkins is a professional illustrator and designer, and in this book he combines his artistic and literary abilities with telling effect. Much of his life has been dedicated to the work of The Theosophical Society; he served for fifteen years as National President of the Society in the United States and, more recently, as International Vice-President at the Society's headquarters in Madras, India. He is now resident in Australia. In addition to the present work, Mr. Perkins is the author of A Geometry of Space and Consciousness, an exploration into the nature of reality.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR

1. TRUTH GLIMPSED Fly-leaf

An arrangement that suggests the theme of this book, the idea that the individual may awaken now a joyous, creative awareness of his immortality.

2. GROWTH OF THE SOUL Frontispiece

The Immortal Self in man, a god in the becomings stands behind the outer façade of every human being. In each it is felt as a deep mystery that becomes perceptible at those times when a person exhibits flashes of other-world dignity and power. This Inner Man is growing in divine stature through experiencing many incarnations in human bodies. The painting represents the cyclic release from dead forms and self-identification with vital new forms—all taking place within the shaft of light that symbolizes Divine Law.

3. THROUGH DEATH TO REBIRTH

A design that symbolizes the return of the Soul from an incarnation bringing with him the harvests of experience on the one hand, and on the other hand, the Soul’s descent to rebirth in the fiery worlds of matter bearing the chalice of latent capacities that will be awakened in the new lifetime.

4. BODIES CONTINUOUSLY DYING

The self dies from childhood to become the youth and from youth to reach adulthood and finally old age.

5. BASIS FOR IMMORTALITY

The aeonian unfoldment of spirit through form, consciousness through matter, is symbolized in this drawing. The five-pointed star in the upper part of the design represents the Will of the manifested Creator. An individual Spark of His Divine Fire is indicated by the small star shown in the winged figure just beneath the star. This individualized Spark of Eternal Spirit is embodied in the form of the Immortal Soul—the winged figure. The Soul’s immortal purpose is growth to godhood. There is an age-long preparation prior to the birth of the individualized soul. The Spirit has brooded over and nurtured a developing unit of consciousness that has evolved through the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms.

In the drawing these are symbolized by the crystal, the rose and the deer. At last a chalice of consciousness has been prepared for individualization by the Divine Spirit. It is at this stage that the human soul is born, as explained in the text, and then begins the long series of reincarnations of this Immortal Self in human bodies. Man is Spirit, Soul and Body, in that order of reality. The ages of struggle to evolve human bodies into sensitive harmonized vehicles for spiritual consciousness is the struggle of each individual soul to master in time every force and form with which he must cope in the lower worlds.

The drawing’s elliptical character suggests the individual movement of consciousness from centers above, of Soul and Spirit, to centers below, of action, feeling and thought and vice versa: always from positive to positive pole across a negative field. Thus the spiritual will in man, represented by the tiny five-pointed star is the upper positive pole that together with the lower positive pole—the tiny star in the physical body—forms an ellipse across the negative field of the emotional world, Awareness of the movement of consciousness in elliptical rhythms between the Inner Self and the outer man engaged in daily activities is indicative of an awakening to what is immortal and what is not within one’s self. Immortality is not a gift bestowed but an achievement won through individual effort. Always unlocked is the door through which man can walk forth by his own exertions into the freedoms of immortality.

6. THE SOUL RADIATES FROM THE CENTER

The illustration attempts to suggest a four dimensional reality—the within-withoutness of matter and consciousness—in a two dimensional drawing. One must grasp at once that the smallest area, the circle at the center, is identical with the infinite beyond shown outside all of the circles. The figure at the center is the same figure as the largest one drawn with dotted line in the spiritual beyond. As shown, the mental plane envelops and permeates the emotional world, or astral plane; similarly both enfold and penetrate the physical plane. Hence the physical plane is seen here as the shut-in world of utmost limitation. The soul center is beyond the lower and in the higher, mental world. The pen line drawing conveys the idea of a reincarnating soul radiating energies from the center to create mental, astral and physical bodies. These bodies are outer encasements of a soul, or more precisely understood, they are vehicles for a soul’s action in the three lower worlds. The complete physical incarnation is represented by the four small figures of the child, youth, adult and aged man. The integrated performance of soul and bodies during an incarnation develops an entity, a living personality, of character, appearance and general conduct, by which we recognize the person. After death the Soul withdraws step by step to its center as it dissociates its higher life from the denser forms.

7. HISTORICAL TIME TOO BRIEF

This arrangement is a reminder that the currently recognized historical records of man and his evolution from theorized origins do not provide sufficient time for a reasonable hypothesis of the evolution of individual consciousness by means of reincarnation. The adoption of the theory of reincarnation requires the positing of vaster epochs of civilized human life on earth.

8. WITH KNOWLEDGE AND IMAGINATION EXPLORE INWARDLY

Shown here is a natural posture for meditation through the practice of which consciousness can be focused for inward exploration as described beginning on page 41.

9. AT THE ATOMIC FRONTIER

Exploring the atom with the human microscope focused through the lens of knowledge and imagination. The procedure is elaborated on pages 45 and 46.

10. MAP OF AFTER DEATH ROUTE

The man who has even a general theosophical knowledge of the realms he will dwell in after death possesses a very valuable map. It will enable him to recognize where he is and in what direction he is going. Such knowledge also will help him to render understanding help to others. The illustration charts the normal course taken after death through the shadowy etheric portion of the physical plane, and on through the astral and heaven worlds, reaching those regions of universality at the height of the inward cycle wherein dwells the Soul in his causal body.

11. EXPERIENCING DEATH

The little sketch tells the story: suddenly one steps outside the physical body aware that there is nothing to fear about departure from the physical world. Familiar surroundings may be perfectly visible but it is usually futile to try to communicate with friends present there, as is explained in the text.

12. LET GO—AND WALK STRAIGHT INTO THE LIGHT

The whole experience is that of looking up, stepping up, moving onward, out of the earth life now ended. As illustrated, the old man, long a cripple, dies clutching his worn crutch. He is aided by an invisible helper to release the physical body and walk into the Light as the vigorous young person he knows himself to be within, casting aside the unnecessary astral crutch.

13. THE EARTHBOUND MATERIALIST CLINGS TO DESIRED OBJECTS

Wrapped in the fiery cocoon of his own desires even after dying from his physical body, the person who is trying to cling to material forms as pictured will be earthbound for as long as his passionate desires are stronger than the tidal forces that draw him into the normal stream of the after death cycle. The large hand shown at the top of the drawing is representative of the reality of the Soul’s power to break through the illusory cocoon and beckon the returning individual to resume progress inward to the Soul’s deep center.

14. THE SUICIDE FORTUNATELY CAN BE HELPED

Depicted is the bewildering and unhappy situation of the person who has fled physical entanglement via the suicide route. He is in the gray etheric world where temporarily there is no surcease from the repetitive emotions, fiery thoughts and phantom forms that compelled his act. Once more the Soul’s beneficent power with its light shining from within is suggested by the hand in a gesture of blessing. In due time this inner Light will break through and release the Soul from imprisonment.

15. WHERE DEATH IS NOT

This drawing was conceived as illustrative of the experiencing of sudden death by one who is absorbed at the time in nobler contemplations and reverence for life, and who is instantly transported into a universe of Light where death is not known. The individual who suddenly encounters death through some violent accident will discover that he is immediately conscious in realms where he already abides in his inner life. As a man lives within himself so does he die. Those whose earth lives have been orderly, dutiful and kindly have no affinity for gruesome atmospheres and are oblivious of the surroundings of the fatal accident in which their physical bodies are destroyed.

16. HEAVEN IS INEVITABLE

The Soul is projected into incarnation in the form of his alter ego, the human personality. Death of the latter in stages marks the Soul’s return to his realm; thus his “going to heaven” is inevitable. The drawing is symbolic of the harmonized union of the eternal masculine-feminine polarities, the soul and personality, in heaven. The episodes between incarnations of this divine love affair in heaven are a refreshing preparation for rebirth. Human consciousness becomes focused for another incarnation in earthly existence where the masculine and feminine elements are polarities that ever hunger for union in their polar opposites. The five-pointed star symbolizes the Divine Spirit enfolding and blessing the heavenly reunion of S...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• THROUGH DEATH TO REBIRTH
• ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR
• INTRODUCTORY
• DEATH A FAMILIAR EXPERIENCE
• BODIES CONTINUOUSLY DYING
• BASIS FOR IMMORTALITY
• THE SOUL RADIATES FROM THE CENTER
• WE LIVE IN THREE WORLDS SIMULTANEOUSLY
• PERCEPTIVE USE OF IMAGINATION
• WHERE IS SOLID REALITY?
• WHAT IS DEATH?
• KNOWLEDGE ABOUT LIFE AFTER DEATH
• THE EXPERIENCING OF DEATH
• IMMEDIATELY AFTER DEATH
• FREEDOM-LIGHTNESS-BUOYANCY
• THROUGH THE ETHERIC SHEATH
• ASTRAL SOJOURN
• THE EARTHBOUND MATERIALIST
• DEATH THROUGH LEGAL EXECUTION
• THE SUICIDE
• SUDDEN ACCIDENTAL DEATH
• HEAVEN IS INEVITABLE
• REINCARNATION BEGINS
• THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT
• KARMA AND CREATION
• RETURN TO EARTH
• THROUGH IMMORTAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO SPIRITUAL KINGSHIP
• the nature and method of reincarnation