thinks, _and the Ego lives over in those few brief seconds
his whole life. Speak in whispers, ye who assist at a
deathbed, and find yourselves in the solemn presence of
death. Especially have ye to keep quiet just after death has
laid her clammy hand upon the body. Speak in whispers, I say,
lest ye disturb the quiet ripple of thought, and hinder the
busy work of the past, casting its reflection upon the veil
of the future._[12]

This is the time during which the thought-images of the ended
earth-life, clustering around their maker, group and interweave
themselves into the completed image of that life, and are impressed in
their totality on the Astral Light. The dominant tendencies, the
strongest thought-habits, assert their pre-eminence, and stamp
themselves as the characteristics which will appear as "innate
qualities" in the succeeding incarnation. This balancing-up of the
life-issues, this reading of the kârmic records, is too solemn and
momentous a thing to be disturbed by the ill-timed wailings of
personal relatives and friends.

At the solemn moment of death every man, even when death is
sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before
him, in its minutest details. For one short instant the
_personal_ become one with the _individual_ and all-knowing
Ego. But this instant is enough to show to him the whole
chain of causes which have been at work during his life. He
sees and now understands himself as he is, unadorned by
flattery or self-deception. He reads his life, remaining as a
spectator, looking down into the arena he is quitting.[13]