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The Eleventh Lesson: Beyond the Border169
in the ground for some time, until taken up by some other form of living
thing which needs nourishment. As a leading writer has said, “Death is but
an aspect of life, and the destruction of one material form is but a prelude
to the building up of another.”
From the moment that the Ego leaves the physical body, and the influence
of the commanding mind is withdrawn from the cells and the cell-groups,
disorder reigns among them. They become a disorganized army, rushing
hither and thither, interfering with each other—jostling and pushing each
other—even fighting each other, their only object being to get away from
the crowd—to escape from the general confusion. During the life of the
body their main object is to work together in harmony, under the orders
of their officers—after the death of the body their only object seems to
separate and each go its own way. First the groups separate one from the
other—then each group breaks up into smaller groups—and so on until
each individual cell becomes freed from its fellows, and goes its own way, or
where it is called by some form of life needing it. As a writer on the subject
has said, “The body is never more alive when it is dead; but it is alive in its
units, and dead in its totality.”
When the Ego departs from the physical body, at the moment of death,
the Prana being no longer under control of the central mind, responds only
to the orders of the individual atoms or their groups, which have formed
the individual body, and as the physical body disintegrates and is resolved
into its original elements, each atom takes with it sufficient Prana to maintain
its vitality, and to enable it to form new combinations, the unused Prana
returning to the great universal storehouse, from which it came.
When the Ego leaves the body, at the moment of death, it carries with
it the Astral Body as well as the higher principles. This astral body, you will
remember, is the exact counterpart of the physical body, but is composed
of a finer quality of matter, and is invisible to the ordinary vision, but may be
plainly seen by clairvoyant or astral sight, and may therefore be sometimes
seen by persons under certain psychic conditions. Clairvoyants describe the