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The Eleventh Lesson: Beyond the Border177
much longer time between them. Their inclinations and tastes being of a
higher order, they prefer to dwell on in the higher places of disembodied
life, thinking of and contemplating the higher teachings, aided as they are
by the absence from material things and encouraged by the rays of the
Spiritual Mind beating down upon them, helping their unfoldment. They
are able to prepare themselves for great progress in this way, and often
spend centuries on the higher planes, before reincarnating. In some cases
where they have advanced far beyond their race, they spend thousands of
years in the higher planes, waiting until the race grows up to render their
rebirth attractive, and in the meantime they find much helpful work to do
for less developed souls.
But sooner or later, the souls feel a desire to gain new experiences, and
to manifest in earth-life some of the advancement which has come to them
since “death,” and for these reasons, and from the attraction of desires which
have been smoldering there, not lived out or cast off, or, possibly influenced
by the fact that some loved soul, on a lower plane, is ready to incarnate
and wishing to be incarnated at the same time in order to be with it (which
is also a desire) the souls fall into the current sweeping toward rebirth,
and the selection of proper parents and advantageous circumstances and
surroundings, and in consequence again fall into a soul-slumber, gradually,
and so when their time comes they “die” to the plane upon which they have
been existing and are “born” into a new physical life and body. A soul does
not fully awaken from its sleep immediately at birth, but exists in a dreamlike
state during the days of infancy, its gradual awakening being evidenced
by the growing intelligence of the babe, the brain of the child keeping pace
with the demands made upon it. In some case the awakening is premature,
and we see cases of prodigies, child-genius, etc., but such cases are more
or less abnormal, and unhealthy. Occasionally the dreaming soul in the
child half-awakes, and startles us by some profound observation, or mature
remark or conduct.