One point must be borne in mind. The words "earth to earth and dust to dust," so familiar in the burial rituals of the Occident, refer to this act of restitution and connote the return of the physical body elements to the original reservoir of matter, and of the substance of the vital form to the general etheric reservoir; the words "the spirit shall return unto God who gave it" are a distorted reference to the absorption of the soul by the universal soul. The ordinary rituals, however, fail to emphasize that it is that individualized soul, in process of reabsorption, which institutes and orders, by an act of the spiritual will, that restitution. It is forgotten in the West that this "order to restore" has been given with great frequency down the ages by every soul within a physical form; in so doing, steadily and inevitably, the first divine aspect - the Monad on its own plane - is tightening its hold upon its body of manifestation, via its reflection, the soul. Thus the will aspect comes increasingly into play until, upon the Path of Discipleship, spiritual determination is brought to its highest point of development and, upon the Path of Initiation, the will begins to function consciously. It is worth remembering, is it not, that it is in the deliberate issuing of the command by the soul upon its own plane to its shadow in the three worlds that the soul learns to express the first and highest aspect of divinity, and this at first, and for a very long time, solely through the process of death. The difficulty at present is that relatively few people are soul-conscious, and consequently most men remain unaware of the "occult commands" of their own souls. As humanity becomes soul-conscious (and this will be one of the results of the agony of the present war), death will be seen as an "ordered" process, carried out in full consciousness and with understanding of [436] cyclic purpose. This will naturally end the fear at present rampant, and will also arrest the tendency to suicide, evidenced increasingly in these difficult times. The sin of murder is in reality based upon the fact that it interferes with soul purpose, and not really upon the killing of a particular human physical body. That is also why war is not murder, as many well-meaning fanatics consider it; it is the destruction of forms with the beneficent intent (if one could scrutinize divine purpose) of the planetary Logos. However, it is the motives of the originators of war on the physical plane which make them evil. If war did not take place, the planetary life would, through what we call "acts of God," call back the souls of men on a large scale in line with His loving intention. When evil men precipitate a war, He brings good out of evil.

I am anxious for you to grasp the teaching I have already given before we proceed to that which is explanatory or new. Study it with care so that the theme of death can more surely and more sanely take shape in your mind. Seek to arrive at a new slant upon the subject and see law and purpose and the beauty of intention in what has hitherto been a terror and a major fear. [437]

Later I shall endeavor to give you some glimpse of the death process as the soul registers it, when undertaking the act of restitution. To you, what I say may appear as speculative or hypothetical; in any case it will be a statement of which few of you will be in a position to prove the accuracy. But surely, brother of mine, it may be more sane and wholesome, more sound and beautiful, than the present darkness and sick hope, and the unhappy speculation and oft despair which over-shadows every death bed at this time.