ginning of
the expression of the soul through a material body on the physical
plane. It is an arrival. But from the astral viewpoint it is a departure
and therefore is as logically a "death" there as departure from a
physical body is here. So death and departure from one plane is simply
birth, or arrival, upon another, although it is not, of course, birth
as we know it.

Every process in nature has a part to play in evolution and therefore
death is as necessary as life and as beneficial as birth. Death is the
destroyer of the useless. There is a time when each human being should
die--that is to say, a time when the physical body has fulfilled its
mission and completely accomplished the purpose for which it exists. To
continue life in a physical body beyond that point is to waste energy
and lose time in the evolutionary journey. Under the action of what we
call "diseases" the body becomes inefficient, or through the gradual
breaking down of old age the senses grow dim and uncertain. The
consciousness can no longer be keenly expressed through its impaired
machine and it is decidedly to the advantage of the ego to withdraw from
it. The soul is in the position of an artisan obliged to work with
broken and rusted tools. Good results are no longer possible. It is then
that death comes, beneficently destroying the worn out instrument and
releasing the consciousness from its too-often painful situation and
permitting its escape into a field of unobstructed activity.

Death is painless. The breaking down of the body under the ravages of
disease may cause pain, but that belongs to physical life, not death.
Distress may also be caused by groundless fear of death. But the dying
person who does not know that death is upon him has no terror, and no
pain, and sinks quietly to sleep. Very little observation will convince
one that the distress about a death-bed is invariably on the part of
surviving friends, not on the part of the dying. Those who are left
behind remain within the limitations of the physical senses, and they
are therefore separated from the so-called dead man, but he is not
separated from them. It is because of that separation that the terror of
death exists for them.

But in that very fact is to be seen the great evolutionary value of
death. The separation it causes intensifies love as nothing else could
do. It is only when our friend is gone that we begin to appreciate his
real value and comprehend how large a part