possessors of a spiritual realm. But there will be no essential or
sudden change at death. That which is immortal is involved in our
present experience. Those who have developed into spiritual
personalities, who have worked in fellowship with the great Universal
Life, and become centre-points of spirituality, have thus risen supreme
over time and pass to their inheritance. Those who have not done so, but
have lived their lives on the plane of nature, will have nothing that
can persist.

Hence it is that the negative movement leads to freedom, personality,
and immortality; the neglect to make the movement consigns the
individual to slavery, makes a real "self" impossible, and at death he
has nought that a spiritual realm can claim. The choice is an
all-important one; for, as a recent writer puts it, "In this choice, the
personality chooses or rejects itself, takes itself for its life-task,
or dies of inanition and inertia."




CHAPTER VII

THE PERSONAL AND THE UNIVERSAL


In the last chapter the ascent of the human being from serfdom to
freedom and personality was traced. In doing so it was necessary to make
frequent reference to the Universal Spiritual Life.

When we turn to consider the characteristics of the Universal Spiritual