Livia, ever mindful of our union, live on, and fare thee well. Augustus Caesar (On his deathbed)
Of Death
MEN fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children, is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak.
Death is an Awakening
Death is but an awakening into another state of consciousness, and the Greeks treated this beautifully, as can be seen in their sculptures. It should be awaited with joy and not with misgiving, seeing that we return to those spheres that are of the nature of our being.
Love and Death
As the Earth breathes in and out as we do, graveyards are a menace to civilisation; in time cremation will take its place, and people will have an altar in their house for the ashes of those who have showered their love upon them when alive, but not the ashes of those who gave no love: the youth of the future will not worship their ancestors indiscriminately, but will only send the pressure of their love to those deserving it, and evolve them to higher levels of consciousness. In these ashes will lie the atmospheric links between their ancestors and themselves. Incidentally the pressure of a child’s prayer is one of the most protective forces known to the occultist, and in occult history Egypt was once saved from calamity through the prayer of a child. This will show wherein the Chinese have a greater wisdom regarding these things.
The Initiates say that the living should be respected, and when death awakens them into their own states of the Reality they will be given their incense and perfume. This means that when a person who has loved others and has been loved passes over, his love is perfume and incense to our mind, and as we inhale this we contact those who are far beyond us in the inner states of being.