The Life of the Soul

By: Alice A. Bailey

I had been following the routine laid out for me with a faithfulness that was out of character. Evidently, my sincerity somehow enabled the unseen entities around me to assist my wavering spirit to take charge of its house of clay. The exercise and liquid diet gave me a sensation of internal cleanliness and lightness. I was losing a little weight and my spine was noticeably more flexible. The icy water plunges twice a day gave me a feeling of aliveness that was worth the shock of the stinging cold. My memory was definitely improving and I found myself able to recite poetry that I had not repeated for years. "Hah," I thought to myself, "years AND years!"

"Good morning, David." Rama Sandlob's incoming presence brought a spirit of quiet solemnity like purple mountains outlined against a deepening orange sky at sunset and, at the same time, sparkling gaiety like sunrise in springtime.

"Good morning to you, sir," I said with enthusiasm. "May I tell you about a dream which I had last night?"

"You certainly may, David. We are glad you do not feel constrained to withhold from sharing it."

"Well," I said in surprise, "I was inclined to, but now I think that your mind reading assistants may have dissuaded me, all unbeknown to myself."

"Perhaps, they did," said Rama. I thought I heard a chuckle with that.

"Sir, if you know what I dreamed, it would be far easier for me to say no more about it."

"Oh, no, David. You should tell me all that you are able to remember of this experience. We did assist you to have the experience but it was your own past which you were seeing. It will help you to profit from it, if you will bring it out into the open."

"Then it was actually me who did these things and they were not just figments of an overstimulated imagination?" I asked in disbelief and yet with the feeling that I knew all along Rama Sandlob would say it was myself.

As he listened silently, I unfolded before him the details. I had seen the activities of a tall man with a long, narrow face and a cynical sneer. His face was that of one whose cruelty was untempered by concern for the possible reaction upon himself of his deeds. It was as utterly cruel a visage as I had ever beheld and yet it bore an unmistakable and startling resemblance to my own. As I looked at the face, I could read the character of the man behind it. There was no belief in him that there was life after death, no hope that the pursuit of virtue could be worthwhile, no fear that his evil deeds would react upon himself and a brilliant mind to carry out any diabolical plan he conceived.

Rama nodded his understanding and sympathy as I went on with my account. The ancient civilization he lived in was technically advanced far beyond what I had seen in America but its leadership had fallen into the abuse of their technology to subjugate the masses. The actions of the man I observed were a reflection of his disbelief in any form of survival of bodily death. He was one of a small group who had control over technical forces that could be used to renew the youth of a physical body. He had already lived several hundred years and had participated in a number of murders to help his group maintain control of the rejuvenating equipment.

The most shocking part of the activities of this man was his use of technology to enslave people. This ancient civilization had discovered a method for radio broadcasting in a range of vibrations shorter than light waves. It allowed an infinite number of individual frequency bands. Each slave had a tiny receiving set implanted in his skull with electrodes projecting into the pain centers of his brain. Using skills the society had developed, this nucleus of men created a horde of eagerly obedient slaves. At the slightest sign of resentment or disobedience, a slave would be subject to having a tiny electric current stimulate the pain center in his brain. The receiver in his skull which delivered this current was so designed that its removal by any method brought sure death to the slave. If the device was used to discipline a slave, his agony was such that he fell to the earth screaming and frothing at the mouth. It was seldom necessary to apply it more than once but the slaves were given reminders of its effect at the slightest provocation. The same device was used to establish a secret guard and police force. They were compelled to protect the group in power. If one of those whom the police guarded was killed, the units in the heads of the guards would automatically be stimulated by a preset signal to torment them until they committed suicide.

The life of this man was terminated as result of a massive uprising led by some heroic slaves. The key slaves who had the initiative to lead the others were former noblemen and political enemies of the group in power. Their head sets were of a different design from those of the common slaves, having the same fail-safe mechanism as those of the body guards. As a precaution, to prevent the rebellion of these capable men, their pain transmitters were battery operated. Death of the evil leaders and destruction of the nation's power stations would not stop their transmitters from the fail-safe action that would drive these men to suicide. Having full knowledge of this, great personal sacrifice was involved upon their part. These men could not have hoped to survive their successful planning and participation in the uprising that freed the slaves.

"That was quite a story, David. It would not have been possible for you to have this error of your past revealed to your conscious mind had you not had the experience in the air car with Dr. Karoll's family. Self condemnation would drive you mad if you did not understand that Divine Justice is the reality behind all appearance of cruelty and injustice. You have not finished righting the errors you committed in that far off time, but you have been working on it since you learned to live by the Law of Grace. You set your feet on this new path some ten thousand years before the birth of Jesus."

"Thank God for that!" I said with feeling.

"You have made many mistakes since that time, David, but your direction has never again been so distorted. You might say that you hit bottom in that life and have been slowly overcoming the defects in your thinking since then. In your striving to undo the error of enslaving others you have become the sworn enemy of all forms of slavery. You especially despise the enslaving of men's minds by any means. Thus you agonized over the enslavement of common peoples' minds in your day through misuse of the channels of communications, even though the people seemed to be physically free and free from material want."

"Yes, sir, that is true."

After a thoughtful pause, I asked, "I wonder if you can give me insight into a life experience during which I undid some of these knots that I have tied?"

"We could do that, David, but is not appropriate for us to do it. In due time, you will learn these things on your own as you develop in meditation. It is far better for you to obtain such information first hand. For you, nothing less than your own personal encounter with the records within your soul will ever suffice. We would not deprive you of the thrill of accomplishment that this will bring you, nor risk lessening your incentive to pursue the priceless pearl of self knowledge by revealing anything prematurely."

"Ah, sir," I said, after several minutes of deep thought, "you do know my true desire in this matter. Only the access to these records myself could ever bring me satisfaction. I would be skeptical on the one hand and feel deprived of my rights on the other, should anyone make the path easier for me, or open up a short cut that I had not earned the right to use."

"God bless you, David."

"Thank you, sir. May His blessings be with you."

Rama Sandlob's presence gradually faded from before me and I set about my exercises and studies for the remainder of the day.