There is no death of anything save of appearance. That which passes over from essence to nature seems to be birth, and what passes over from nature to essence seems to be death. Nothing really is originated, and nothing ever perishes; but only now comes into sight and now vanishes.

Apollonius of Tyana (First Century A.D.) Epistle to Valerius

As human beings, many of our most important questions do not have satisfactory answers. When we were children, we were not afraid to ask these questions. But as we matured, we found our questions were not always accepted. We discovered that the more important the question, the vaguer the response. Only less important queries seemed to have logical answers. Once we delved into serious matters, the veil was lowered and evasion began.

We may have thought these evasions were part of a concerted effort to keep us in the dark. Until one fateful day we learned the truth; our elders did not answer our questions about life's most important events because they did not know the answers. They were as unknowing as we, having been given no more help on this matter from their parents and teachers than we received from ours.

What are these unanswered questions? We know them well. We all have asked them.

"Where did I come from?" A logical question because we know that everything in life comes from a preexisting something. We assume we did also.

"What happens to me when I die?" Death is a vital part of life as we know it. Therefore, what question could be more important?

"Why are some people born rich and some born poor?" Another good question. If the world has any order, there must be a just and logical answer. But what?

"Why do some come into the world crippled and others are born whole?" For the same reason.

"How is it that some people work hard and never seem to succeed, yet others appear to grow rich and powerful without really trying?" Again, there must be an answer. But where?

"Is there really a God?" Or rather, "Are there many Gods?

"Can the God of the Hebrews be the same as the God of the Nazarene or the same as Allah, the God of Islam?

"What about the so-called heathen? Are their Gods any less authentic than ours? Our God--of the Hebrews and the Nazarene--told us that He is the only God. But so did theirs. What is the Truth?"

As we ponder these questions, our brain begins to reel. More questions are raised than answered.

Most of us, as we reach maturity, become entangled in the process of making a living, and we have little time to think or to worry about why we are here or where we are going, or what happens when we leave this life, once we leave this planet. As we approach the end of our days, however, we frequently return to the thoughts and questions of our youth. Unfortunately, we usually find no better answers to these questions later in life than we did in earlier days.

Approaches to Life

Basically, most answers to questions about the nature of life and death are variations on one of two themes. The first is that of the atheist or agnostic who says, "What you see is what you get." To such as these, life today is all there is, and, once it is gone, all things, in whatever form, vanish from the face of the Earth. A sobering thought, to be sure, but one that seems to fit many of the facts of life and is accepted by many respected people today.

The second theme is one promoted by religious prelates of an "after life," the character of which depends on the beliefs held and possibly the life formerly lived by the deceased. This view varies widely, and the nature of this after life is a matter of much conjecture.

To the thinking man or woman, however, neither of these positions presents a viable explanation of the majority of life's events. According to the atheist, the world is without conscious order. And yet, the works of man alone excepted, perfect order exists around us everywhere. The study of Darwin's work on evolution, the touchstone of their belief, shows clearly the nature of this order and the continuing efforts towards perfection in all facets of the physical world. From the atheists' scientific experiments we learn that for every effect there must be a previous cause. What then of a Mozart, an Edison, a Lincoln, and a thousand others? What was the cause of their genius? Why were they different from the rest of us? Darwin's Law of Natural Selection, they may reply. But were the parents of these great and good souls any different than a million others? No one has ever convincingly demonstrated a connection in one case of human genius, much less in the thousands with which we all are acquainted. Why is it that the children of these geniuses rarely ever reach the pinnacle of their parents?

Nearly every civilized man and woman has had experiences that are not explainable by the atheist's theories. We all have within us a "still small voice" that tells us there is more to existence than this life. The big question is, What? This feeling is, in fact, so strong that few real atheists are alive today. Atheism is not even totally popular with people who are programmed to it from the cradle. The leading sponsor of state atheism, the Soviet Union, for example, has to seal its borders to keep its subjects in, but the country with "In God We Trust" on the coins of its realm, the United States of America, has to seal its borders to keep people out.

If the first theme is disturbing, the second is more so. When we seek an understanding and knowledge from those who have placed themselves at the head of our religious institutions, we are struck at once with the fact that no two agree on the True Law of Life and Death. Therefore, we reason with ourselves and readily conclude, if professional theologians cannot agree on the interpretation of common facts, how can we choose which way is right?

The Desire to Believe

Most people want to believe, are searching for something to believe in that is rational and in harmony with what they know of the material facets of existence. It is marvelous to believe. Who would not trade the realism of adulthood for the fantasy of the child, if he could but believe? But what to believe? If we are to be true to ourselves, it must be the Truth alone that we can believe in. Where is that to be found today in a world of plastic and tinsel?

Upon closer examination, we find our second alternative even more confusing than the first. As previously mentioned, when we seek understanding and knowledge from those who have placed themselves at the head of our religious institutions, we are at once struck with the fact that no two of them seem to agree as to the True Law of Life and Death. With this in mind, could we not in all honesty take counsel with ourselves and readily conclude, If the professional theologians cannot agree on this subject, what chance have we of choosing which, if any, may be right?

And so, if the truth were to be known, we would find that most thinking individuals today wander in a never-never land between these two extremes - always looking, always hoping to find something that is just, honest, rational, and logical, but also sufficiently worthy and exalted, in which to believe.

There is a way. The voice within that bids us ask and seek never leads us astray. As we listen to that voice, we intuitively know when we hear Truth. And as we ask and seek, we are led further on the Path towards Truth.

Types Of People

As we look about us, we find three major groups of people. First are those who are firmly convinced in, and completely satisfied with, the teachings and posture of what is now called fundamentalist orthodox religion. Second, there is a large group of people who do not believe in anything they cannot see, feel, or taste; they live only for whatever pleasure they can derive from physical and mental pastimes. Lastly, an increasingly growing number find it difficult to accept the seemingly irrational faith of the first group, but feel in their hearts there is more to life than the mere satisfaction of the physical senses. To these, the forgotten human beings of this century, this book is dedicated.

One of the main reasons this neglected group of individuals finds it difficult to accept the belief in a loving and just God, as described in orthodox religion, is that as they look at life around them, only rarely do they see a sign of such justice. It cannot be denied that some persons live unjustly all their lives yet never seem to be punished, while many, though seemingly of good heart and loving mind, are dogged by misfortune all their time on this planet. How can a just God allow such discrepancies to occur?

Admonitions of orthodox prelates, that the ways of God are inexplicable, do little to salve their apprehensions. These people cannot be blamed for feeling that a worthy God would not be unexplainable. Why, they ask, did He give us a reasoning mind, if not to learn the "whys" and "wherefores" of His relationship to us and ours to Him and the world about us? This manner of reasoning is hard to debate. Did not the Man from Nazareth say, "Seek, and ye shall find; ask, and it shall be given to you"? If this is accepted in the full faith in which it was given and with the reverence we give the rest of the Holy Bible, how can we say that God desires to make His Ways unexplainable, that we must take them on blind faith?

Is it not just as possible that it was man who attempted to keep the world around him inexplicable because he refused--and continues to do so--to change long-held false opinions, lest he be forced to think for a change?

Is it not possible that the ways of God and Nature are so simple that the educated man has ignored them in his passion for complicated knowledge which he uses to set himself apart from the common crowd? Many great philosophers have thought this to be true.

Is There Justice On Earth?

All the philosophical discussion in the world has no real meaning, however, if it cannot first answer the most important human question: How is the obvious injustice in the world around us explained? Until this concept can be understood on a rational basis, most philosophic teachings will be suspect and shunned by the willing, but skeptical, third group of people.

The good news is that there is a viable answer to this question. The bad news, perhaps, is that we may need to change many precious misconceptions before we can use this new understanding to its fullest.

The one unchangeable Law of Creation upon which this principle is based is Cause and Effect. Paradoxically, the action of this immutable Law is accepted in the physical realm by many who deny categorically its action in the Spiritual Realm. Yet in the final analysis, there is but one Law that functions in every field of human endeavor. Never was this fact stated more clearly than in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus: "As above, so below; as in the inner, so in the outer; as in the lesser, so in the greater."

History is marked with evidences of man's inability to understand this Law. Or has man consciously or unconsciously forced it out of his mind because he did not desire to obey its admonitions? This Law of Cause and Effect has been taught by every great Messenger of God. Saint Paul stated this Law clearly when he wrote to the Galatians of old, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Jesus of Nazareth affirmed the same Law more positively and actively when He declared, "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to thee again." Could any Law be stated more unequivocally? Yet, when did you last hear a religious representative of any faith address this subject?

Other Influencing Factors

An understanding of this Law may not help to explain what we see going on around us--that not all people seem to reap as they sow. If felons and criminals were rapidly punished and those of good will rewarded promptly, it would be easier to believe. But life is not that way. The Truth is, the Law does work, but one factor is not recognized readily by man. That factor is time. For many reasons known only to God, a time factor must be reckoned into the equation of sowing and reaping. In fact, frequently the sowing and the reaping cannot be implemented in the same lifetime and the payment is carried over into another incarnation. In many of the Eastern philosophies this carry-over is called Karma, a term that has become part of our own language inasmuch as no other word in English has its precise meaning.

"But really," the skeptic may ask, "isn't reincarnation a lot of nonsense? Don't some people come back as trees or snakes or other bizarre things?" There is, admittedly, much confusion about the actual nature of reincarnation. Were the subject understood, this book would be unnecessary. Actually, it is impossible to affirm an orderly Universe without an understanding of human reincarnation. The subject, however, must be approached carefully and thoughtfully so that the seeker does not become engulfed in a quagmire of confusion.

This is the reason for this book. That the thoughts and ideas discussed within are not new is made abundantly clear by the following statement:

"Within the span of a single life we know that a man often suffers in his later days for the vices of his youth; how infinitely wider is the application of this principle, if we regard the single life as but one out of an endless series.

"The conditions obtaining at any given time are the inevitable, and therefore perfectly just, result of an infinite series of causes. We must look for the antecedents not in this life only, but in a limitless cycle of prior existences; and what might be unjust relative to a man's position in his present life may be the irresistible effect of his action in some bygone period."--Archer Hurd on the Phaedo.
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