(11) Jesus said, "This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. In the days when you consumed what is dead, you made it what is alive. When you come to dwell in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?"

(4) And now if we look round about us every where, upon Heaven and Earth, the Stars and Elements, yet we can see and know no Way [or Passage] where we may go to our Rest; we see no other than the Way of the Entrance in of our Life, and then of the End of our Life, where our Body goes into the Earth, and all our Labour (also our Arts and Glory) is inherited by another, who also vexes himself therewith for a While, and then follows after us; and that continues so from the Beginning of the World to its End.

(2) When the consciousness-principle getteth outside [the body, it sayeth to itself], Am I dead, or am I not dead ?' It cannot determine. It seeth its relatives and connexions as it had been used to seeing them before. It even heareth the wailings. The terrifying karmic illusions have not yet dawned. Nor have the frightful apparitions or experiences caused by the Lords of Death yet come.

When Eve was in Adam, there was no death. When she was separated from him, death came. If enters into him again and he embraces , death will cease to be.

(132) But the wisdom of God prevents this speedy end, He says, "O parts, the appointed time is not yet; It is useless for you to take wing before that day." But as each part desires reunion with its original, How is it with the soul who is a stranger in exile? It says, "O parts of my habitation here below, My absence is sadder than yours, as I am heaven-born. The body loves green pastures and running water, The love of the soul is for life and the living one, The love of the soul is for wisdom and knowledge,

(3) When Tai lay dying someone asked him: 'O Tai, you have seen the essence of things, how is it with you now?' He said: ' I can say nothing about my state. I have measured the wind all the days of my life, and now the end is come I shall be buried, and so, good night.'

There is no other remedy for death than to look death constantly in the face. We all are born to die; life will not stay with us; we must submit. Even he who held the world under the seal of his ring is now only a mineral in the earth.

(24) O nobly-born, at that time, at bridge-heads, in temples, by stiipas of eight kinds, thou wilt rest a little while, but thou wilt not be able to remain there very long, for thine intellect hath been separated from thine [earth-plane] body. Because of this inability to loiter, thou oft-times wilt feel perturbed and vexed and panic-stricken. At times, thy Knower will be dim; at times, fleeting and incoherent. Thereupon this thought will occur to thee, 'Alas! I am dead! What shall I do?' and because of such thought the Knower will become saddened and the heart chilled, and thou wilt experience infinite misery of sorrow. Since thou canst not rest in any one place, and feel impelled to go on, think not of various things, but allow the intellect to abide in its own [unmodified] state.

(3) Thou wilt pay undistracted attention to that with which I am about to set thee face to face, and hold on: O nobly-born, that which is called death hath now come. Thou art departing from this world, but thou art not the only one; [death] cometh to all. Do not cling, in fondness and weakness, to this life. Even though thou clingest out of weakness, thou hast not the power to remain here. Thou wilt gain nothing more than wandering in this Sangsara. Be not attached [to this world]; be not weak. Remember the Precious Trinity.

(1) WE know Christ has taught us, that a Judgment shall be kept, not only for the Punishment of the Despisers of God, and for a Reward to the Good, but also for the Sake of the Creature, and of Nature, that they may once be delivered from Vanity; and we know that the Substance of this World, and the Property thereof, must pass away; the Sun and the Stars, and also the four Elements, must pass away as to their Source [or Property,] and all must be restored again; and then the Life will spring forth through Death, and the Figure of every Thing shall stand eternally before God, for which End it was created; also we know that our Souls are immortal, generated out of the eternal Band; and when this World passes away, then also all its Essences pass away, which are generated out of it, and the Tincture remains still in the Spirit.

(34) So understand, as those who are alive, that you have succeeded. You have taught yourselves about things infinite. Marvel at the truth within them, and at the revelation.

(1) Death said: 'The Self-existent pierced the openings (of the senses) so that they turn forward: therefore man looks forward, not backward into himself. Some wise man, however, with his eyes closed and wishing for immortality, saw the Self behind.'

(19) And, thus, think from thyself, and bid thy soul go unto any land, and there more quickly than thy bidding will it be. And bid it journey oceanwards; and there, again, immediately 'twill be, not as if passing on from place to place, but as if being there. And bid it also mount to heaven; and it will need no wings, not will aught hinder it, nor fire of sun, nor auther, nor vortex-swirl, nor bodies of the other stars; but, cutting through them all, it will soar up to the last Body [of them all]. And shouldst thou will to break through this as well, and contemplate what is beyond - if there be aught beyond the Cosmos; it is permitted thee.

A person is either in this world or in the resurrection—or in the middle place. May I not be found there! In this world there is good and evil, but the good of the world is not really good and the evil of the world is not really evil. After this world there is evil that is really evil: this is called the middle. The middle is death. As long as we are in this world, we should acquire resurrection, so that when we take off the flesh we may be found in rest and not wander in the middle. For many go astray on the way.

(9) "Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting-point. Existence without limitation is Space. Continuity without a starting-point is Time. There is birth, there is death, there is issuing forth, there is entering in. That through which one passes in and out without seeing its form, that is the Portal of God. "The Portal of God is Non-Existence. All things sprang from Non-Existence. Existence could not make existence existence. It must have proceeded from Non-Existence, And Non-Existence and Nothing are One. Herein is the abiding-place of the Sage. "The knowledge of the ancients reached the highest point,—the time before anything existed. This is the highest point. It is exhaustive. There is no adding to it. "The second best was that of those who started from existence. Life was to them a misfortune. Death was a return home. There was already separation. "The next in the scale said that at the beginning there was nothing. Then life came, to be quickly followed by death. They made Nothing the head, Life the trunk, and Death the tail of existence, claiming as friends whoever knew that existence and non-existence, and life and death were all One. "These three classes, though different, were of the same clan; as were Chao Ching who inherited fame, and Chia who inherited territory. "Man's life is as the soot on a kettle. Yet men speak of the subjective point of view. But this subjective point of view will not bear the test. It is a point of knowledge we cannot reach. "At the winter sacrifice, the tripe may be separated from the great toe; yet these cannot be separated.

(25) For no one of the gods in heaven shall come down to the earth, o'er-stepping heaven's limit; whereas man doth mount up to heaven and measure it; he knows what things of it are high, what things are low, and learns precisely all things else besides. And greater thing than all; without e'en quitting earth, he doth ascend above. So vast a sweep doth he possess of ecstasy. For this cause can a man dare say that man on earth is god subject to death, while god in heaven is man from death immune. Wherefore the dispensation of all things is brought about by means of there, the twain - Cosmos and Man - but by the One.

(2) The effect of death on the composite nature of man is as follows: Man has two souls, an animal soul and a spiritual soul, which latter is of angelic nature. The seat of the animal soul is the heart, from which this soul issues like a subtle vapour and pervades all the members of the body, giving the power of sight to the eye, the power of hearing to the ear, and to every member the faculty of performing its own appropriate functions. It may be compared to a lamp carried about within a cottage, the light of which falls upon the walls wherever it goes. The heart is the wick of this lamp, and when the supply of oil is cut off for any reason, the lamp dies. Such is the death of the animal soul. With the spiritual, or human soul, the case is different. It is indivisible, and by it man knows God. It is, so to speak, the rider of the animal soul, and when that perishes it still remains, but is like a horseman who has been dismounted, or like a hunter who has lost his weapons. That steed and those weapons were granted the human soul that by means of them it might pursue and capture the Phoenix of the love and knowledge of God. If it has effected that capture, it is not a grief but rather a relief to be able to lay those weapons aside, and to dismount from that weary steed. Therefore the Prophet said, "Death is a welcome gift of God to the believer." But alas for that soul which loses its steed and hunting weapons before it has captured the prize! Its misery and regret will be indescribable.

(13) You are going too fast. You see your egg, and expect to hear it crow. You look at your cross-bow, and expect to have broiled duck before you. I will say a few words to you at random, and do you listen at random. "How does the Sage seat himself by the sun and moon, and hold the universe in his grasp? He blends everything into one harmonious whole, rejecting the confusion of this and that. Rank and precedence, which the vulgar prize, the Sage stolidly ignores. The revolutions of ten thousand years leave his Unity unscathed. The universe itself may pass away, but he will flourish still. "How do I know that love of life is not a delusion after all? How do I know but that he who dreads to die is not as a child who has lost the way and cannot find his home? "The lady Li Chi was the daughter of Ai Fêng. When the Duke of Chin first got her, she wept until the bosom of her dress was drenched with tears. But when she came to the royal residence, and lived with the Duke, and ate rich food, she repented of having wept. How then do I know but that the dead repent of having previously clung to life?

(21) To those who have experienced the flashes of Illumination, or the glimpse of the Fire of Cosmic Consciousness—both of which classes of phenomena belong to the Plane of the Consciousness of the Demi-Gods—there has come a realization of the actual Oneness of Life in the Universe, and an actual awareness that the Universe is animated by One Life which is diffused among and permeates every portion of its extent and manifestation. To such has come an assurance that there is nothing "dead" in the Universe—that every part and portion, individual and collective, is instinct. with Life. Not only this, but for at least the time of the experience there has come a sense of absolute certainty that the individual is in touch with this One Life, and is an actual centre of activity within its presence.

(2) "And from this hour onwards no one will be able to enter into the Light and no one be able to go forth. For at the completion of the time of the number of the perfect souls, before I have set fire to the world, in order that it may purify the æons and the veils and the firmaments and the whole earth and also all the matters which are on it, mankind will be still existing.

(26) Thou must not think that thereupon the outermost dead birth or geniture of the earth has gotten such a life, through the risen word that sprang up, that it is no more a death, and that death no longer is in her fruit: No; that can never be; for that which is once dead in God is really dead, and in its own power can never be living again; but the word, which qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth with the astral birth in the part of the love, generateth the life through the astral birth or geniture, through the death.