This Classic work is now copyright expired and therefore in the public domain.

The Rosicrucian Mysteries by Max Heindel

II. THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND ITS SOLUTION

page 1 of 8 | The Rosicrucian Mysteries - home

THE PROBLEM OF LIFE.

Among all the vicissitudes of life, which vary in each individual’s experience, there is one event which sooner or later comes to everyone—Death! No matter what our station in life, whether the life lived has been a laudable one or the reverse, whether great achievements have marked our path among men, whether health or sickness have been our lot, whether we have been famous and surrounded by a host of admiring friends or have wandered unknown through the years of our life, at some time there comes a moment when we stand alone before the portal of death and are forced to take the leap into the dark.

The thought of this leap and of what lies beyond must inevitably force itself upon every thinking person. In the years of youth and health, when the bark of our life sails upon seas of prosperity, when all appears beautiful and bright, we may put the thought behind us, but there will surely come a time in the life of every thinking person when the problem of life and death forces itself upon his consciousness and refuses to be set aside. Neither will it help him to accept the ready made solution of anyone else without thought and in blind belief, for this is a basic problem which every one must solve for himself or herself in order to obtain satisfaction.

Upon the Eastern edge of the Desert of Sahara there stands the world-famous Sphinx with its inscrutable face turned toward the East, ever greeting the sun as its rising rays herald the newborn day. It was said in the Greek myth that it was the wont of this monster to ask a riddle of each traveler. She devoured those who could not answer, but when Oedipus solved the riddle she destroyed herself.

The riddle which she asked of men was the riddle of life and death, a query which is as relevant today as ever, and which each one must answer or be devoured in the jaws of death. But when once a person has found the solution to the problem, it will appear that in reality there is no death, that what appears so, is but a change from one state of _existence_ to another. Thus, for the man who finds the true solution to the riddle of life, the sphinx of death has ceased to exist, and he can lift his voice in the triumphant cry “Oh death where is thy sting, oh grave where is thy victory.”

Various theories of life have been advocated to solve this problem of life. We may divide them into two classes, namely _the monistic theory_, which holds that all the facts of life can be explained by reference to this visible world wherein we live, and _the dualistic theory_, which refers part of the phenomenon of life to another world which is now invisible to us.

Raphael in his famous painting “the School of Athens” has most aptly pictured to us the attitude of these two schools of thought. We see upon that marvelous painting a Greek Court such as those wherein philosophers were once wont to congregate. Upon the various steps which lead into the building a large number of men are engaged in deep conversation, but in the center at the top of the steps stand two figures, supposedly of Plato and Aristotle, one pointing upwards, the other towards the earth, each looking the other in the face, mutely, but with deeply concentrated will. Each seeking to convince the other that his attitude is right for each bears the conviction in his heart. One holds that he is of the earth earthy, that he has come from the dust and that thereto he will return, the other firmly advocates the position that there is a higher something which has always existed and will continue regardless of whether the body wherein it now dwells holds together or not.