THE DEATH EXPLAINED BY MAX HEINDEL

On this matter, Max Heindel explained the following:

« So man builds and sows until the moment of death arrives. Then the seed time and the periods of growth and ripening are past. The harvest time has come, when the skeleton specter of Death arrives with his scythe and hour-glass.

That is a good symbol. The skeleton symbolizes the relatively permanent part of the body. The scythe represents the fact that this permanent part, which is about to be harvested by the spirit, is the fruitage of the life now drawing to a close. The hourglass in his hand indicates that the hour does not strike until the full course has been run in harmony with unvarying laws.

When that moment arrives a separation of the vehicles takes place. As his life in the Physical World is ended for the time being, it is not necessary for man to retain his dense body. The vital body, which as we have explained, also belongs to the Physical World, is withdrawn by way of the head, leaving the dense body inanimate.

(This is false, because the vital body is not part of the physical plane, it is part of the energetic plane, and this lie was invented by Leadbeater.)

THE ATOM SEED OF THE PHYSICAL BODY

The higher vehicles (vital body, desire body and mind) are seen to leave the dense body with a spiral movement, taking with them the soul of one dense atom. Not the atom itself, but the forces that played through it.

The results of the experiences passed through in the dense body during the life just ended have been impressed upon this particular atom. While all the other atoms of the dense body have been renewed from time to time, this permanent atom has remained.

It has remained stable, not only through one life, but it has been a part of every dense body ever used by a particular Ego. It is withdrawn at death only to re-awaken at the dawn of another physical life, to serve again as the nucleus around which is built the new dense body to be used by the same Ego. It is therefore called the “Seed Atom.”

During life the seed atom is situated in the left ventricle of the heart, near the apex. At death it rises to the brain by way of the pneumogastric nerve, leaving the dense body, together with the higher vehicles, by way of the sutures between the parietal and occipital bones.

(All this is false, and this is another lie invented by Leadbeater, who claimed that the registers of the different bodies are kept in "a permanent atom" corresponding to each of the bodies.

But the masters explained that all the characteristics of humans and their bodies remain stored in the skandhas, which are placed in the auric egg. And the lower skandhas become inactive when the human ascends to the divine World, and they are reactivated when the humans return to reincarnate.)

THE SILVERY CORD

When the higher vehicles have left the dense body they are still connected with it by a slender, glistening, silvery cord shaped much like two figure sixes reversed, one upright and one horizontally placed, the two connected at the extremities of the hooks.

One end is fastened to the heart by means of the seed atom, and it is the rupture of the seed atom which causes the heart to stop. The cord itself is not snapped until the panorama of the past life, contained in the vital body, has been reviewed.

The silver cord snaps at the point where the sixes unite, half remaining with the dense body and the other half with the higher vehicles. From the time the cord snaps the dense body is quite dead.

(I don't know if the Max Heindel's description of the silver cord is correct, but it is false that the memories of life are contained in the vital body, because masters explained that in reality these memories are contained in the brain.

And it is true that the silver cord is what keeps the inner person connected with his physical body, but I have read that the connection is established in the navel and not in the heart. Although, I am not sure if it asseveration is true or not. However, I am inclined to think that this could be true, since the fetus begins to form connected with the navel.)

THE CREMATION

Care should be taken, however, not to cremate or embalm the body until at least three days after death, for while the vital body is with the higher vehicles, and they are still connected with the dense body by means of the silver cord, any postmortem examination or other injury to the dense body will be felt, in a measure, by the man.

Cremation should be particularly avoided in the first three days after death, because it tends to disintegrate the vital body, which should be kept intact until the panorama of the past life has been etched into the desire body.

(It is false that the vital body is disintegrated with the cremation, because as I pointed out above, the energy body does not belong to the physical plane.

The vital body has been constructed to remain operational for a period of time. And if, for example, the human had to live 90 years, but by accident, he dies at 60. Then the vital body will continue to function for another 30 years.

And during these thirty years, the human will remain in the astral plane, exactly the same as before, simply he will no longer have his physical body since it will have been eliminated.)

THE IMPORTANCE OF SILENCE

When the “silver cord” has broken in the heart, and man has been released from his dense body, a moment of the highest importance comes to the Ego, and it cannot be too seriously impressed upon the relatives of a dying person that it is a great crime against the departing soul to give expression to loud grief and lamentations, for it is just then engaged in a matter of supreme importance and a great deal of the value of the past life depends upon how much attention the soul can give to this matter. This will be made clearer when we come to the description of man's life in the Desire World.

(The masters agree that silence is ideal, but neither is it the end of the world if there is noise, because this separation process takes place automatically, without the involvement of the person, except unless he is already a very advanced human.)

FORCE THE PERSON TO STAY ALIVE

It is also a crime against the dying to administer stimulants which have the effect of forcing the higher vehicles back into the dense body with a jerk, thus imparting a great shock to the man.

It is no torture to pass out, but it is torture to be dragged back to endure further suffering. Some who have passed out have told investigators that they had, in that way, been kept dying for hours and had prayed that their relatives would cease their mistaken kindness and let them die.

(Here, it depends on each case, for example a person who falls into a coma, sometimes it can be beneficial to try to bring her inner being back to her body.)

THE REVISION OF LIFE

When the man is freed from the dense body, which was the heaviest clog upon his spiritual power (like the heavy mitten on the hand of the musician in our previous illustration), his spiritual power comes back in some measure, and he is able to read the pictures in the negative pole of the reflecting ether of his vital body, which is the seat of the subconscious memory.

(The masters explain that the human remains exactly the same after deadh as before, and his powers do not increase.

It is true that the human sees his life passing, but this happens when he is in the process to die, and not after he has freed himself from his physical body. And this does not happen because "his spiritual power has increased", but because it is the usual process where the brain transmits to the inner being, all the memories of what the person lived on Earth, consciously and unconsciously.)

The whole of his past life passes before his sight like a panorama, the events being presented in reverse order. The incidents of the days immediately preceding death come first and so on back through manhood or womanhood to youth, childhood and infancy. Everything is remembered.

The man stands as a spectator before this panorama of his past life. He sees the pictures as they pass and they impress themselves upon his higher vehicles, but he has no feeling about them at this time.

That is reserved until the time when he enters into the Desire World, which is the world of feeling and emotion. At present he is only in the Etheric Region of the Physical World.

(This is false, because this process takes place on the physical plane and before the brain turns off, and the energy plane does not belong to the physical plane, this is another Leadbeater invention.)

This panorama lasts from a few hours to several days, depending upon the length of time the man could keep awake, if necessary. Some people can keep awake only twelve hours, or even less; others can do so, upon occasion, for a number of days, but as long as the man can remain awake, this panorama lasts.

(This is also false, because this remembering takes only a short time.)

This feature of life after death is similar to that which takes place when one is drowning or falling from a height. In such cases the vital body also leaves the dense body and the man sees his life in a flash, because he loses consciousness at once. Of course the “silver cord” is not broken, or there could be no resuscitation.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE REMEMBERING?

When the endurance of the vital body has reached its limit, it collapses in the way described when we were considering the phenomenon of sleep. During physical life, when the Ego controls its vehicles, this collapse terminates the waking hours; after death the collapse of the vital body terminates the panorama and forces the man to withdraw into the Desire World.

(This is incorrect, because in reality the vital body does not intervene in this affair. It is the physical body which forces that separation, either by the old age, or because an event caused its death prematurely.)

The silver cord breaks at the point where the sixes unite, and the same division is made as during sleep, but with this important difference, that though the vital body returns to the dense body, it no longer interpenetrates it, but simply hovers over it. It remains floating over the grave, decaying synchronously with the dense vehicle.

(The silver cord is not divided during sleep, because then the person would die.)

Hence, to the trained clairvoyant, a graveyard is a nauseating sight and if only more people could see it as he does, little argument would be necessary to induce them to change from the present unsanitary method of disposing of the dead to the more rational method of cremation, which restores the elements to their primordial condition without the objectionable features incident to the process of slow decay.

(As I mentioned earlier, the vital body does not disintegrate until its time has arrived. However, what disintegrates with the physical body is its subtle counterpart, which corresponds to its denser astral aspect. This is the unconscious "ghost" which is sometimes perceived on the physical plane.

And this counterpart rots and generates subtle pestilent emanations that humans do not currently perceive – except those who are very sensitive – but which affect people negatively, and that is why it would be preferable to get rid of cemeteries.)

In leaving the vital body the process is much the same as when the dense body is discarded. The life forces of one atom are taken, to be used as a nucleus for the vital body of a future embodiment. Thus, upon his entrance into the Desire World the man has the seed atoms of the dense and the vital bodies, in addition to the desire body and the mind.

THE WEIGHT OF THE SOUL

In the beginning of 1906 Dr. McDougall made a series of experiments in the Massachusetts General Hospital, to determine, if possible, whether anything not ordinarily visible left the body at death. For this purpose he constructed a pair of scales capable of registering differences of one-tenth of an ounce.

The dying person and his bed were placed on one of the platforms of the scale, which was then balanced by weights placed on the opposite platform. In every instance it was noted that at the precise moment when the dying person drew the last breath, the platform containing the weights dropped with startling suddenness, lifting the bed and the body, thus showing that something invisible, but having weight, had left the body.

Thereupon the newspapers all over the country announced in glaring headlines that Dr. McDougall had “weighed the soul.” Occultism hails with joy the discoveries of modern science, as they invariably corroborate what occult science has long taught.

The experiments of Dr. McDougall showed conclusively that something invisible to ordinary sight left the body at death, as trained clairvoyants had seen, and as had been stated in lectures and literature for many years previous to Dr. McDougall's discovery.

But this invisible “something” is not the soul. There is a great difference. The reporters jump at conclusions when they state that the scientists have “weighed the soul.” The soul belongs to higher realms and can never be weighed on physical scales, even though they registered variations of one-millionth part of a grain instead of one-tenth of an ounce.

It was the vital body which the scientist weighed. It is formed of the four ethers and they belong to the Physical World.

As we have seen, a certain amount of this ether is “superimposed” upon the ether which envelops the particles of the human body and is confined there during physical life, adding in a slight degree to the weight of the dense body of plant, animal and man. In death it escapes; hence the diminution in weight noticed by Dr. McDougall when the persons with whom he experimented expired.

(The vital body is not composed of four ethers, that is another lie invented by Leadbeater.

And I've heard about the research done by Dr. Mac Dougall, but I can't tell you what he weighed. On the other hand, what I can tell you is that Max Heindel is partially wrong when he says that the soul remains in the higher realms.

Because although most of the soul remains in the divine world, she also projects a ray of her essence towards the Earth, and this ray will interact with the physical world.)

Dr. McDougall also tried his scales in weighing dying animals. No diminution was found here, though one of the animals was a St. Bernard dog. That was taken to indicate that animals have no souls.

A little later, however, Professor La V. Twining, head of the Science Department of the Los Angeles Polytechnic School, experimented with mice and kittens, which he enclosed in hermetically sealed glass flasks. His scales were the most sensitive procurable and were enclosed in a glass case from which all moisture had been removed.

It was found that all the animals observed lost weight at death. A good sized mouse, weighing 12.886 grams, suddenly lost 3.1 milligrams at death.

A kitten used in another experiment lost one hundred milligrams while dying and at its last gasp it suddenly lost an additional sixty milligrams. After that it lost weight slowly, due to evaporation.

Thus the teaching of occult science in regard to the possession of vital bodies by animals was also vindicated when sufficiently fine scales were used, and the case where the rather insensitive scales did not show diminution in the weight of the St. Bernard dog shows that the vital bodies of animals are proportionately lighter than in man.

(I cannot tell you if animals have a proportionally lighter vital body than humans, but that could be possible, because humans have more developed their subtle bodies.

However, I don't think that can be perceived with a scale, and for me it remains a mystery what doctors have weighed, but I don't think they are subtle bodies.) »

(The Rosicrucian Cosmos Conception, Chapter 3)

CONCLUSION

Max Heindel, about the process experienced by humans at the time of death, said some asseverations in correspondence with what the Masters of Wisdom taught, but unfortunately most of his explanations are incorrect because he copied the lies invented by Charles Leadbeater.

THE PURGATORY EXPLAINED BY MAX HEINDEL

On this subject Max Heindel wrote the following:

«

ENTRY INTO THE PURGATORY

If the dying man could leave all desires behind, the desire body would very quickly fall away from him, leaving him free to proceed into the heaven world, but that is not generally the case. Most people, especially if they die in the prime of life, have many ties and much interest in life on earth.

They have not altered their desires because they have lost their physical bodies. In fact often their desires are even augmented by a very intense longing to return. This acts in such a manner as to bind them to the Desire World in a very unpleasant way, although unfortunately, they do not realize it.

On the other hand, old and decrepit persons and those who are weakened by long illness and are tired of life, pass on very quickly. The matter may be illustrated by the ease with which the seed falls out of the ripe fruit, no particle of the flesh clinging to it, while in the unripe fruit the seed clings to the flesh with the greatest tenacity.

(This is not necessarily true, because there may be young people who are very detached from terrestrial life, and conversely elderly people who are very attached to earthly life, and in particular to their possessions.)

Thus it is especially hard for people to die who were taken out of their bodies by accident while at the height of their physical health and strength, engaged in numerous ways in the activities of physical life; held by the ties of wife, family, relatives, friends, pursuits of business and pleasure.

(Indeed, accidents or murders in full force of life generate many disorders.)

The suicide, who tries to get away from life, only to find that he is as much alive as ever, is in the most pitiable plight. He is able to watch those whom he has, perhaps, disgraced by his act, and worst of all, he has an unspeakable feeling of being “hollowed out.”

The part in the ovoid aura where the dense body used to be is empty and although the desire body has taken the form of the discarded dense body, it feels like an empty shell, because the creative archetype of the body in the Region of Concrete Thought persists as an empty mold, so to speak, as long as the dense body should properly have lived.

(This is incorrect because the Theosophical instructors explained that the individual who commits suicide generally continues to be overwhelmed by all the despair that led him to commit suicide. And this is why the Theosophists explained that suicide does not free you from suffering.)

When a person meets a natural death, even in the prime of life, the activity of the archetype ceases, and the desire body adjusts itself so as to occupy the whole of the form, but in the case of suicide that awful feeling of “emptiness” remains until the time comes when, in the natural course of events, his death would have occurred.

(Master Pastor explained that not only the suicides, but also all the other people who die before the expected time, must wait in the astral plane until their vital body finishes functioning, and only after, they can go up to World of Desire.)

THE PURIFICATION OF THE DESIRES

As long as the man entertains the desires connected with earth life he must stay in his desire body and as the progress of the individual requires that he pass on to higher Regions, the existence in the Desire World must necessarily become purgative, tending to purify him from his binding desires.

How this is done is best seen by taking some radical instances.

1) The miser who loved his gold in earth life loves it just as dearly after death; but in the first place he cannot acquire any more, because he no longer has a dense body wherewith to grasp it and worst of all, he cannot even keep what he hoarded during life.

He will, perhaps, go and sit by his safe and watch the cherished gold or bonds; but the heirs appear and with, it may be, a stinging jeer at the “stingy old fool” (whom they do not see, but who both sees and hears them), will open his safe, and though he may throw himself over his gold to protect it, they will put their hands through him, neither knowing nor caring that he is there, and will then proceed to spend his hoard, while he suffers in sorrow and impotent rage.

He will suffer keenly, his sufferings all the more terrible on account of being entirely mental, because the dense body dulls even suffering to some extent. In the Desire World, however, these sufferings have full sway and the man suffers until he learns that gold may be a curse. Thus he gradually becomes contented with his lot and at last is freed from his desire body and is ready to go on.

2) Or take the case of the drunkard. He is just as fond of intoxicants after death as he was before. It is not the dense body that craves drink. It is made sick by alcohol and would rather be without it.

It vainly protests in different ways, but the desire body of the drunkard craves the drink and forces the dense body to take it, that the desire body may have the sensation of pleasure resulting from the increased vibration.

That desire remains after the death of the dense body, but the drunkard has in his desire body neither mouth to drink nor stomach to contain physical liquor.

He may and does get into saloons, where he interpolates his body into to bodies of the drinkers to get a little of their vibrations by induction, but that is too weak to give him much satisfaction.

He may and also does sometimes get inside a whiskey cask, but that is of no avail either for there are in the cask no such fumes as are generated in the digestive organs of a tippler. It has no effect upon him and he is like a man in an open boat on the ocean. “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink;” consequently he suffers intensely.

(This is false because the masters explained that aromas can be perceived in the higher planes of existence.)

In time, however, he learns the uselessness of longing for drink which he cannot obtain.

As with so many of our desires in the Earth life, all desires in the Desire World die for want of opportunity to gratify them. When the drunkard has been purged, he is ready, so far as this habit is concerned, to leave this state of “purgatory” and ascend into the heaven world.

Thus we see that it is not an avenging Deity that makes purgatory or hell for us, but our own individual evil habits and acts. According to the intensity of our desires will be the time and suffering entailed in their expurgation.

(It is true that we create for ourselves the existence that we will have in the afterlife with our own thoughts and acts, but this process of liberation in the World of Desire is not done consciously like Max Heindel says.

Since the masters explained that most humans remain asleep after they die and that liberation is effected because the good nature of the person is separated from his lower nature, and only the good part ascends to the Heaven World while the bad part stays in the World of Desires, where it will slowly disintegrate.)

KARMA IN THE WORLD OF DESIRES

This is the law that is symbolized in the scythe of the reaper, Death; the law that says, “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” It is the law of cause and effect, which rules all things in the three Worlds, in every realm of nature — physical, moral and mental. Everywhere it works inexorably, adjusting all things, restoring the equilibrium wherever even the slightest action has brought about a disturbance, as all action must.

The result may be manifested immediately or it may be delayed for years or for lives, but sometime, somewhere, just and equal retribution will be made. The student should particularly note that its work is absolutely impersonal. There is in the universe neither reward nor punishment. All is the result of invariable law.

The action of this law will be more fully elucidated in the next chapter, where we shall find it associated with another Great Law of the Cosmos, which also operates in the evolution of man. The law we are now considering is called the Law of Consequence.

In the Desire World it operates in purging man of the baser desires and the correction of the weaknesses and vices which hinder his progress, by making him suffer in the manner best adapted to that purpose. If he has made others suffer, or has dealt unjustly with them, he will be made to suffer in that identical way.

Be it noted, however, that if a person has been subject to vices, or has done wrong to others, but has overcome his vices, or repented and, as far as possible, made right the wrong done, such repentance, reform and restitution have purged him of those special vices and evil acts. The equilibrium has been restored and the lesson learned during that incarnation, and therefore will not be a cause of suffering after death.

(Here, Max Heindel distorts the teaching because the masters explained that karma is temporarily paused when the person dies, then pursues her again when the person returns to reincarnation.

And this is because the Physical World is the place of action and learning, while the Heaven World is the place of rest and assimilation. And the World of Desires is simply a bridge between those two worlds.)

DURATION IN THE WORLD OF DESIRES

In the Desire World life is lived about three times as rapidly as in the Physical World. A man who has lived to be fifty years of age in the Physical World would live through the same life events in the Desire World in about sixteen years.

This is, of course, only a general gauge. There are persons who remain in the Desire World much longer than their term of physical life. Others again, who have led lives with few gross desires, pass through in a much shorter period, but the measure above given is very nearly correct for the average man of present day.

(It is true that the duration in the World of Desires varies for each person based on several factors, but the masters did not specify that this duration correspond to a third of what the person had lived on Earth, so I suspect that It is an invention of Max Heindel.)

THE REVISION OF LIFE IN THE WORLD OF DESIRES

It will be remembered that as the man leaves the dense body at death, his past life passes before him in pictures; but at that time he has no feeling concerning them.

During his life in the Desire World also these life pictures roll backwards, as before; but now the man has all the feelings that it is possible for him to have as, one by one, the scenes pass before him.

Every incident in his past life is now lived over again. When he comes to a point where he has injured someone, he himself feels the pain as the injured person felt it. He lives through all the sorrow and suffering he has caused to others and learns just how painful is the hurt and how hard to bear is the sorrow he has caused.

(This is not what the masters said. Master Kuthumi explained that during their stay in the World of Desires, humans sleep. Those who were good have sweet dreams, those who have been bad have nightmares, and those who have been materialistic, they simply sleep, but without dreaming.)

PERCEPTIONS IN THE WORLD OF DESIRES

There is another characteristic peculiar to this phase of postmortem existence which is intimately connected with the fact (already mentioned) that distance is almost annihilated in the Desire World.

When a man dies, he at once seems to swell out in his vital body; he appears to himself to grow into immense proportions. This feeling is due to the fact, not that the body really grows, but that the perceptive faculties receive so many impressions from various sources, all seeming to be close at hand. The same is true of the desire body.

The man seems to be present with all the people with whom on earth he had relations of a nature which require correction. If he has injured one man in San Francisco and another in New York, he will feel as if part of him were in each place. This gives him a peculiar feeling of being cut to pieces.

(This is invented by Max Heindel because people are sleeping.)

THE IMPORTANCE OF NOT CRYING

WHEN SOMEONE IS DYING

The student will now understand the importance of the panorama of the past life during the purgative existence, where this panorama is realized in definite feelings.

If it lasted long and the man were undisturbed, the full, deep, clear impression etched into the desire body would make life in the Desire World more vivid and conscious and the purgation more thorough than if, because of distress at the loud outbursts of grief on the part of his relatives, at the death bed and during the three-day period previously mentioned the man had only a vague impression of his past life.

The spirit which has etched a deep clear record into its desire body will realize the mistakes of the past life so much more clearly and definitely than if the pictures were blurred on account of the individual's attention being diverted by the suffering and grief around him.

His feeling concerning the things which cause his present suffering in the Desire World will be much more definite if they are drawn from a distinct panoramic impression than if the duration of the process were short.

This sharp, clear-cut feeling is of immense value in future lives. It stamps upon the seed atom of the desire body an ineffaceable impression of itself. The experiences will be forgotten in succeeding lives, but the Feeling remains.

When opportunities occur to repeat the error in later lives, this Feeling will speak to us clearly and unmistakably.

It is the “still, small voice” which warns us, though we do not know why; but the clearer and more definite the panoramas of past lives has been, the oftener, stronger and clearer shall we hear this voice. Thus we see how important it is that we leave the passing spirit in absolute quietness after death.

By so doing we help it to reap the greatest possible benefit from the life just ended and to avoid perpetuating the same mistakes in future lives, while our selfish, hysterical lamentations may deprive it of much of the value of the life it has just concluded.

(It is true that it is advisable not to cry when a person is dying because that hinders their transition to the subtle world, but it is false that it affects their memories, because that process of revision of their life is automated and the person does not intervene in it.

And the atom-seed of the wish body does not exist because it is a lie invented by Charles Leadbeater.)

THE PURGATORY OBJECTIVE

The mission of purgatory is to eradicate the injurious habits by making their gratification impossible. The individual suffers exactly as he has made others suffer through his dishonesty, cruelty, intolerance, or what not. Because of this suffering he learns to act kindly, honestly, and with forbearance toward others in the future. Thus, in consequence of the existence of this beneficent state, man learns virtue and right action.

(As I explained above, the learning process takes place on the physical plane, not in the Purgatory. The World of Desires is simply the bridge that humans have to go through in order to reach the Heaven World.

And the World of Desires also acts as a dump, because the Divine World vibrates very high, there cannot be low vibrations, and that is why people have to leave their bad part in the World of Desires to be able to enter the Celestial World.)

When he is reborn he is free from evil habits, at least every evil act committed is one of free will.

(This is false because, although his previous body of desires was disintegrated, the negative characteristics of the person are recorded in his skandhas, and therefore the person will have to deal with those characteristics in his new reincarnation.)

The tendencies to repeat the evil of past lives remain, for we must learn to do right consciously and of our own will. Upon occasion these tendencies tempt us, thereby affording us an opportunity of ranging ourselves on the side of mercy and virtue as against vice and cruelty.

But to indicate right action and to help us resist the snares and wiles of temptation, we have the feeling resulting from the expurgation of evil habits and the expiation of the wrong acts of past lives.

If we heed that feeling and abstain from the particular evil involved, the temptation will cease. We have freed ourselves from it for all time. If we yield we shall experience keener suffering than before until at last we have learned to live by the Golden Rule, because the way of the transgressor is hard.

Even then we have not reached the ultimate. To do good to others because we want them to do good to us is essentially selfish. In time we must learn to do good regardless of how we are treated by others; as Christ said, we must love even our enemies.

METHOD TO AVOID THE PURGATORY

There is an inestimable benefit in knowing about the method and object of this purgation, because we are thus enabled to forestall it by living our purgatory here and now day by day, thus advancing much faster than would otherwise be possible.

An exercise is given in the latter part of this work, the object of which is purification as an aid to the development of spiritual sight. It consists of thinking over the happenings of the day after retiring at night.

We review each incident of the day, in reverse order, taking particular note of the moral aspect, considering whether we acted rightly or wrongly in each particular case regarding actions, mental attitude and habits. By thus judging ourselves day by day, endeavoring to correct mistakes and wrong actions, we shall materially shorten or perhaps even eliminate the necessity for purgatory and be able to pass to the first heaven directly after death.

(The Purgatory cannot be avoided, because it is like an elevator: you cannot reach the third floor without crossing the second floor. But on the other hand, it is true that more you purify yourself during your earthly life, and faster you will pass through the World of Desires.)

If in this manner, we consciously overcome our weaknesses, we also make a very material advance in the school of evolution. Even if we fail to correct our actions, we derive an immense benefit from judging ourselves, thereby generating aspirations toward good, which in time will surely bear fruit in right action.

In reviewing the day's happenings and blaming ourselves for wrong, we should not forget to impersonally approve of the good we have done and determine to do still better. In this way we enhance the good by approval as much as we abjure the evil by blame.

Repentance and reform are also powerful factors in shortening the purgatorial existence, for nature never wastes effort in useless processes. When we realize the wrong of certain habits or acts in our past life, and determine to eradicate the habit and to redress the wrong committed, we are expunging the pictures of them from the subconscious memory and they will not be there to judge us after death.

Even though we are not able to make restitution for a wrong, the sincerity of our regret will suffice. Nature does not aim to “get even,” or to take revenge. Recompense may be given to our victim in other ways.

(Here Max Heindel is mixing things up, because regret will not suffice to eliminate karma. Regret will allow you to compensate for your negative karma in a positive way.)

Much progress ordinarily reserved for future lives will be made by the man who thus takes time by the forelock, judging himself and eradicating vice by reforming his character. This practice is earnestly recommended. It is perhaps the most important teaching in the present work. »

(The Rosicrucian Cosmos Conception, Chapter 3)

CONCLUSION

Max Heindel's explanation has some positive points, such as emphasizing the importance of seeking to purify and improve ourselves during our life on Earth, but his explanation of what happens in the World of Desires is very wrong if we compare it with what the masters of wisdom have really taught.

THE HEAVEN EXPLAINED BY MAX HEINDEL

On this subject, Max Heindel explained the following:

«

THE FIRST HEAVEN

When the purgatorial existence is over the purified spirit rises into the first heaven, which is located in the three highest Regions of the Desire World, where the results of its sufferings are incorporated in the seed atom of the desire body, thus imparting to it the quality of right feeling, which acts as an impulse to good and a deterrent from evil in the future.

(This is false, because the first heaven is located in the mental plane and not in the plane of desire, as Max Heindel affirms. And the seed atoms do not exist, since it is a lie invented by Leadbeater.)

Here the panorama of the past again unrolls itself backward, but this time it is the good acts of life that are the basis of feeling. When we come to scenes where we helped others we realize anew all the joy of helping which was ours at the time, and in addition we feel all the gratitude poured out to us by the recipient of our help.

When we come to scenes where we were helped by others, we again feel all the gratitude that we then felt toward our benefactor. Thus we see the importance of appreciating the favors shown us by others, because gratitude makes for soul growth.

Our happiness in heaven depends upon the joy we gave others, and the valuation we placed upon what others did for us. It should be ever borne in mind that the power of giving is not vested chiefly in the monied man. Indiscriminate giving of money may even be an evil. It is well to give money for a purpose we are convinced is good, but service is a thousandfold better.

As Whitman says,

“Behold! I do not give lectures, or a little charity; When I give, I give myself.”

A kind look, expression of confidence, a sympathetic and loving helpfulness — these can be given by all regardless of wealth. Moreover, we should particularly endeavor to help the needy one to help himself, whether physically, financially, morally, or mentally, and not cause him to become dependent upon us or others.

(This is also false, because the masters explained that when humans ascend to heaven, they fall into a deep sleep where they will dream with what made them happier during their stay on earth: his couple, his children, music, travels, etc.

And humans will experience a whole story of happiness around that theme. And although it will only be a dream, this dream will be so intense, that the person will feel it more real than if she were living it in the physical world.

So, what we experience in heaven has nothing to do with the good we have given or received, as affirm Max Heindel, but with what made us happier.)

The first heaven is a place of joy without a single drop of bitterness. The spirit is beyond the influence of the material, earthly conditions, and assimilates all the good contained in the past life as it lives it over again. Here all ennobling pursuits to which the man aspired are realized in fullest measure. It is a place of rest, and the harder has been the life, the more keenly will rest be enjoyed.

(It is true that it is a period of intense bliss, without any bitterness. And it is also a period of rest and assimilation of what we learned on Earth. But it is false that “the harder has been the life” influences the duration and the intensity of heavenly life, because there are other factors that intervene, and these are: the amount of knowledge, development and spirituality we have obtained, as well as the positive karma we have produced.

So, a person may have had a very hard life, but if she did not generate these factors, then his heaven will be short and tasteless.)

Sickness, sorrow, and pain are unknown quantities. This is the Summerland of the spiritualists. There the thoughts of the devout Christian have built the New Jerusalem. Beautiful houses, flowers, etc., are the portion of those who aspired to them; they build them themselves by thought from the subtle desire stuff. Nevertheless these things are just as real and tangible to them as our material houses are to us. All gain here the satisfaction which earth life lacked for them.

(They are real to the person who experiences them, but they are only a dream for those who are awake on this plane of existence.)

WHAT HAPPENS WITH CHILDREN

There is one class there who lead a particularly beautiful life — the children. If we could but see them we would quickly cease our grief. When a child dies before the birth of the desire body, which takes place about the fourteenth year, it does not go any higher than the first heaven, because it is not responsible for its actions.

(It is false that the body of desires is born at fourteen, as I demonstrated in a previous chapter.)

Therefore the child has no purgatorial existence. That which is not quickened cannot die, hence the desire body of a child, together with the mind, will persist until a new birth, and for that reason such children are very apt to remember their previous incarnation as instanced in the case cited elsewhere.

(This is false, because the child must also follow the same process as adults, and therefore the child also has to go through purgatory to ascend to heaven, and new bodies must be rebuilt when he reincarnates again. And it is only in the case of very young children who died, that they are quickly reborn without passing through heaven.)

For such children the first heaven is a waiting-place where they dwell from one to twenty years, until an opportunity for a new incarnation is offered. Yet it is more than simply a waiting-place, because there is much progress made during this interim.

(Since the child could not accumulate the factors I mentioned above, then his stay in heaven will be very short, but since the average duration is 1500 years, I doubt that the child only lives from one to twenty years as Max Heindel says.

And it is false that "much progress is made during the stay in the first heaven" because Blavatsky explained that only what has already begun on Earth can be developed in heaven.)

When a child dies there is always some relative awaiting it, or, failing that, there are people who loved to “mother” children in the earth life who find delight in taking care of a little waif.

(This is also false, because it is not a family member who is waiting, but a guide who takes care of the person after he dies. And depending to his development, the person will have an individual or collective guide.)

The extreme plasticity of the desire stuff makes it easy to form the most exquisite living toys for the children, and their life is one beautiful play; nevertheless their instruction is not neglected. They are formed into classes according to their temperaments, but quite regardless of age.

In the Desire World it is easy to give object-lessons in the influence of good and evil passions on conduct and happiness. These lessons are indelibly imprinted upon the child's sensitive and emotional desire body, and remain with it after rebirth, so that many a one living a noble life owes much of it to the fact that he was given this training.

Often when a weak spirit is born, the Compassionate ones (the invisible Leaders who guide our evolution) cause it to die in early life that it may have this extra training to fit it for what may be perhaps a hard life.

This seems to be the case particularly where the etching on the desire body was weak in consequence of a dying person having been disturbed by the lamentations of his relatives, or because he met death by accident or on the battlefield.

He did not under those circumstances experience the appropriate intensity of feeling in his postmortem existence, therefore, when he is born and dies in early life, the loss is made up as above.

Often the duty of caring for such a child in the heaven life falls to those who were the cause of the anomaly. They are thus afforded a chance to make up for the fault and to learn better. Or perhaps they become the parents of the one they harmed and care for it during the few years it lives. It does not matter then if they do lament hysterically over its death, because there would be no pictures of any consequence in a child's vital body.

(Here Max Heindel is telling many lies, because the masters explained that the vast majority of humans lose their consciousness and fall into a deep sleep after to die.)

ACTIVITIES IN HEAVEN

This heaven is also a place of progression for all who have been studious, artistic, or altruistic. The student and the philosopher have instant access to all the libraries of the world.

(This is false since humans are asleep.)

The painter has endless delight in the ever-changing color combinations. He soon learns that his thought blends and shapes these colors at will. His creations glow and scintillate with a life impossible of attainment to one who works with the dull pigments of Earth.

He is, as it were, painting with living, glowing materials and able to execute his designs with a facility which fills his soul with delight.

(This is also false.)

The musician has not yet reached the place where his art will express itself to the fullest extent. The Physical World is the world of Form. The Desire World, where we find purgatory and the first heaven, is particularly the world of Color; but the World of Thought, where the second and third heavens are located, is the sphere of Tone.

Celestial music is a fact and not a mere figure of speech. Pythagoras was not romancing when he spoke of the music of the spheres, for each one of the heavenly orbs has its definite tone and together they sound the celestial symphony which Goethe also mentions in the prolog to his “Faust,” where the scene is laid in heaven.

Echoes of that heavenly music reach us even here in the Physical World. They are our most precious possession, even though they are as elusive as a will-o'-the-wisp, and cannot be permanently created, as can other works of art — a statue, a painting, or a book.

In the Physical World tone dies and vanishes the moment after it is born. In the first heaven these echoes are, of course, much more beautiful and have more permanency, hence there the musician hears sweeter strains than ever he did during earth life.

The experiences of the poet are akin to those of the musician, for poetry is the soul's expression of its innermost feelings in words which are ordered according to the same laws of harmony and rhythm that govern the outpouring of the spirit in music.

In addition, the poet finds a wonderful inspiration in the pictures and colors which are the chief characteristics of the Desire World. Thence he will draw the material for use in his next incarnation. In like manner does the author accumulate material and faculty.

The philanthropist works out his altruistic plans for the upliftment of man. If he failed in one life, he will see the reason for it in the first heaven and will there learn how to overcome the obstacles and avoid the errors that made his plan impracticable.

(Here Max Heindel is doing a deep jumble because Blavatsky explained that the inspirations that come from “above” come from the upper astral plane. While the World of Desire, but above all the Divine World, for the moment few people can come into connection with those worlds.)

THE SECOND HEAVEN

At last the man, the Ego, the threefold spirit, enters the second heaven. He is clad in the sheath of mind, which contains the three seed atoms — the quintessence of the three discarded vehicles.

(This is false, because the masters explained that only the most advanced humans can ascend to the second heaven.)

When the man dies and loses his dense and vital bodies there is the same condition as when one falls asleep. The desire body, as has been explained, has no organs ready for use. It is now transformed from an ovoid to a figure resembling the dense body which has been abandoned.

We can easily understand that there must be an interval of unconsciousness resembling sleep and then the man awakens in the Desire World. It not infrequently happens, however, that such people are, for a long time, unaware of what has happened to them.

They do not realize that they have died. They know that they are able to move and think. It is sometimes even a very hard matter to get them to believe that they are really “dead.” They realize that something is different, but they are not able to understand what it is.

Not so, however, when the change is made from the first heaven, which is in the Desire World, to the second heaven, which is in the Region of Concrete Thought. Then the man leaves his desire body. He is perfectly conscious. He passes into a great stillness. For the time being everything seems to fade away.

He cannot think. No faculty is alive, yet he knows that heis. He has a feeling of standing in “The Great Forever;” of standing utterly alone, yet unafraid; and his soul is filled with a wonderful peace, “which passeth all understanding.” In occult science this is called “The Great Silence.”

Then comes the awakening. The spirit is now in its home-World—heaven. Here the first awakening brings to the spirit the sound of “the music of the spheres.” In our Earth life we are so immersed in the little noises and sounds of our limited environment that we are incapable of hearing the music of the marching orbs, but the occult scientist hears it. He knows that the twelve signs of the Zodiac and the seven planets form the sounding-board and strings of “Apollo's seven-stringed lyre.” He knows that were a single discord to mar the celestial harmony from that grand Instrument there would be “a wreck of matter and a crash of worlds.”

(In reality, the opposite happens, since when the physical body dies, the emotional body takes the form of a sphere.)

The work done by man in the Heaven World is many-sided. It is not in the least an inactive, dreamy nor illusory existence. It is a time of the greatest and most important activity in preparing for the next life, as sleep is an active preparation for the work of the following day.

Here the quintessence of the three bodies is built into the threefold spirit. As much of the desire body as the man had worked upon during life, by purifying his desires and emotions, will be welded into the human spirit, thus giving an improved mind in the future.

As much of the vital body as the life spirit had worked upon, transformed, spiritualized, and thus saved from the decay to which the rest of the vital body is subject, will be amalgamated with the life spirit to insure a better vital body and temperament in the succeeding lives.

As much of the dense body as the divine spirit has saved by right action will be worked into it and will bring better environment and opportunities.

This spiritualization of the vehicle is accomplished by cultivation of the faculties of observation, discrimination and memory, devotion to high ideals, prayer, concentration, persistence and right use of the life forces.

The second heaven is the real home of man — the Ego, the Thinker. Here he dwells for centuries, assimilating the fruit of the last earth life and preparing the earthly conditions which will be best suited for his next step in progress.

The sound or tone which pervades this Region, and is everywhere apparent as color, is his instrument, so to speak. It is this harmonious sound vibration which, as an elixir of life, builds into the threefold spirit the quintessence of the threefold body, upon which it depends for growth.

The life in the second heaven is an exceedingly active one, varied in many different ways. The Ego assimilates the fruits of the last earth life and prepares the environment for a new physical existence. It is not enough to say that the new conditions will be determined by conduct and action in the life just closed.

It is required that the fruits of the past be worked into the World which is to be the next scene of activity while the Ego is gaining fresh physical experiences and gathering further fruit.

Therefore all the denizens of the Heaven World work upon the models of the Earth, all of which are in the Region of Concrete Thought. They alter the physical features of the Earth, and bring about the gradual changes which vary its appearance, so that on each return to physical life a different environment has been prepared, wherein new experiences may be gained.

We have spoken of the forces which work along the positive and negative poles of the different ethers. Man himself is part of that force. Those whom we call dead are the ones who help us to live. They in turn are helped by the so-called “nature spirits,” which they command.

Man is directed in this work by Teachers from the higher creative Hierarchies, which helped him to build his vehicles before he attained self-consciousness, in the same way he himself now builds his bodies in sleep.

During heaven life they teach him consciously. The painter is taught to build an accurate eye, capable of taking in a perfect perspective and of distinguishing colors and shades to a degree inconceivable among those not interested in color and light.

The mathematician has to deal with space, and the faculty for space perception is connected with the delicate adjustment of the three semi-circular canals which are situated inside the ear, each pointing in one of the three dimensions in space.

Logical thought and mathematical ability are in proportion to the accuracy of the adjustment of these semi-circular canals.

Musical ability is also dependent upon the same factor, but in addition to the necessity for the proper adjustment of the semi-circular canals, the musician requires extreme delicacy of the “fibers of Corti,” of which there are about ten thousand in the human ear, each capable of interpreting about twenty-five gradations of tone. In the ears of the majority of people they do not respond to more than from three to ten of the possible gradations.

Among ordinary musical people the greatest degree of efficiency is about fifteen sounds to each fiber; but the master musician, who is able to interpret and bring down music from the Heaven World, requires a greater range to be able to distinguish the different notes and detect the slightest discord in the most complicated chords.

Persons who require organs of such exceeding delicacy for the expression of their faculties are specially taken care of, as the higher state of their development merits and demands. None other ranks so high as the musician, which is reasonable when we consider that while the painter draws his inspiration chiefly from the world of color (the nearer Desire World) the musician attempts to bring us the atmosphere of our heavenly home world (where, as spirits, we are citizens), and to translate them into the sounds of earth life.

His is the highest mission, because as a mode of expression for soul life, music reigns supreme. That music is different from and higher than all the other arts can be understood when we reflect that a statue or painting, when once created, is permanent. They are drawn from the Desire World and are therefore more easily crystallized, while music, being of the Heaven World, is more elusive and must be re-created each time we hear it.

It cannot be imprisoned, as shown by the unsuccessful attempts to do so partially by means of such mechanical devices as phonographs and piano-players. The music so reproduced loses much of the soul-stirring sweetness it possesses when it comes fresh from its own world, carrying to the soul memories of its home and speaking to it in a language that no beauty expressed in marble or upon canvas can equal.

The instrument through which man senses music is the most perfect sense organ in the human body. The eye is not by any means true, but the ear is, in the sense that it hears every sound without distortion, while the eye often distorts what it sees.

In addition to the musical ear, the musician must also learn to build a long, fine hand with slender fingers and sensitive nerves, otherwise he would not be able to reproduce the melodies he hears.

It is a law of nature that no one can inhabit a more efficient body that he is capable of building. He first learns to build a certain grade of body and afterwards he learns to live in it. In that way he discovers its defects and is taught how to remedy them.

All men work unconsciously at the building of their bodies during ante-natal life until they have reached the point where the quintessence of former bodies—which they have saved — is to be built in.

Then they work consciously. It will therefore be seen that the more a man advances and the more he works on his vehicles, thus making them immortal, the more power he has to build for a new life. The advanced pupil of an occult school sometimes commences to build for himself as soon as the work during the first three weeks (which belongs exclusively to the mother) has been completed.

When the period of unconscious building has passed the man has a chance to exercise his nascent creative power,  and the true original creative process — “Epigenesis” — begins.

Thus we see that man learns to build his vehicles in the Heaven World, and to use them in the Physical World. Nature provides all phases of experience in such a marvelous manner and with such consummate wisdom that as we learn to see deeper and deeper into her secrets we are more and more impressed with our own insignificance and with an ever-growing reverence for God, whose visible symbol nature is.

The more we learn of her wonders, the more we realize that this world system is not the vast perpetual motion machine unthinking people would have us believe. It would be quite as logical to think that if we toss a box of loose type into the air the characters will have arranged themselves into the words of a beautiful poem by the time they reach the ground.

The greater the complexity of the plan the greater the argumental weight in favor of the theory of an intelligent Divine Author.

(All this Max Heindel’s explanation is an invention, because few humans ascend to the second heaven, and the requirement is achieve the universality, that is, for example, no longer loving only one person or some people, but love all mankind, because then the human experiences love in a universal way and that is what allows you to ascend to the second heaven.

And it is also false that in heaven, humans are preparing their bodies for their new reincarnation because that is not something that humans themselves take care of.)

THE THIRD HEAVEN

Having assimilated all the fruits of his last life and altered the appearance of the Earth in such a manner as to afford him the necessary environment for his next step towards perfection; having also learned by work on the bodies of others, to build a suitable body through which to express himself in the Physical World and having at last resolved the mind into the essence which builds the threefold spirit

Then, the naked individual spirit ascends into the higher Region of the World of Thought — the third heaven. Here, by the ineffable harmony of this higher world, it is strengthened for its next dip into matter.

(This is incorrect since only the highest initiates can ascend to the third heaven.)

After a time comes the desire for new experience and the contemplation of a new birth. This conjures up a series of pictures before the vision of the spirit — a panorama of the new life in store for it. But, mark this well — this panorama contains only principal events. The spirit has free will as to detail. »

(The Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception, chapter 3)

CONCLUSION

Max Heindel's account of what happen in heaven is much distorted, because he adopted many of the lies invented by Leadbeater, as well as others he has added himself. And his explanation has little to do with the true explanations given by the masters of wisdom and their true disciples.