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The Rosicrucian Mysteries by Max Heindel

II. THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND ITS SOLUTION

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The question also arises in the mind of inquirers: If we have been here before why do we not remember? And the answer is, that while most people are not aware of how their previous existences were spent, there are others who have a very distinct recollection of previous lives. A friend of the writer’s for instance, when living in France, one day started to read to her son about a certain city where they were then going upon a bicycle tour, and the boy exclaimed: you do not need to tell me about that mother. I know that city, I lived there and was killed! He then commenced to describe the city and also a certain bridge. Later he took his mother to that bridge and showed her the spot where he had met death centuries before. Another friend travelling in Ireland saw a scene which she recognized and she also described to the party the scene around the bend of the road which she had never seen in this life, so it must have been a memory from a previous life. Numerous other instances could be given where such minor flashes of memory reveal to us glimpses from a past life. The verified case in which a little three year old girl in Santa Barbara described her life and death has been given in the Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception. It is perhaps the most conclusive evidence as it hinges on the veracity of a child too young to have learned deception.

This theory of life does not rest upon speculation however, it is one of the first facts of life demonstrated to the pupil of a Mystery school. He is taught to watch a child in the act of dying, also, to watch it in the invisible world from day to day, until it comes to a new birth a year or two later. Then he knows with absolute certainty that we return to earth to reap in a future life what we now sow.

The reason for taking a child to watch in preference to an adult, is, that the child is reborn very quickly, for its short life on earth has borne but few fruits and these are soon assimilated, while the adult who has lived a long life, and had much experience remains in the invisible worlds for centuries, so that the pupil could not watch him from death to rebirth. The cause of infant mortality will be explained later, here we merely desire to emphasize the fact that it is within the range of possibilities of every one without exception to become able to know at first hand that which is here taught.

The average interval between two earth-lives is about a thousand years. It is determined by the movement of the sun known to astronomers as _precession of the equinox_, by which the sun moves through one of the signs of the Zodiac in about 2100 years. During that time the conditions upon earth have changed so much that the spirit will find entirely new experiences here, and therefore it returns.

The Great Leaders of evolution always obtain the maximum benefit from each condition designed by them, and as the experiences in the same social conditions are very different in the case of a man from what they are for a woman, the human spirit takes birth twice during the 2100 years measured by the precession of the equinox as already explained, it is born once as a man and another time as a woman. Such is the rule, but it is subject to whatever modifications may be necessary to facilitate reaping what the spirit has sown, as required under the law of Causation which works hand in hand with the law of Rebirth. Thus, at times a spirit may be brought to birth long ere the thousand years have expired, in order to fulfill a certain mission, or it may be detained in the invisible worlds after the time when it should have come to birth according to the strict requirements of a blind law. The laws of nature are not that however. They are Great Intelligences who always subordinate minor considerations to higher ends, and under their beneficent guidance we are constantly progressing from life to life under conditions exactly suited to each individual, until in time we shall attain to a higher evolution and become Supermen.

Oliver Wendell Holmes has so beautifully voiced that aspiration and its consummation in the lines:

“Build thee more stately mansions Oh! my soul,
As the swift seasons roll,
Leave thy low-vaulted past;
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast.
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thy outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea.”