Chapter - 6

Overcoming Fears Death And The Beyond

Man's greatest desire is to live forever and keep his individual Self or identity . . . the serpent doubt, still is the most subtil beast of the field . . . eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life and live forever . . . death is not bigger than life . . . love is stronger than death.

Story From Life:

The Man Who Was Afraid of His Shadow

Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.-ST. LUKE 16:6

Death still is the greatest mystery in life. It still is the most formidable threat to man's desire for more of life, love and liberty. Death is one of God's processes in the circle of life. It is a good and necessary part of life. But without an understanding of these facts life on earth can be a miserable existence, filled with fears both conscious and unconscious.

For example, let me tell you about the man who was afraid of his shadow.

This man, whom I like to think of as Thomas Worth, is one I never shall forget. He came to me one bright spring morning. Though I was expecting him, he arrived an hour early and I was still in the garden. I had just finished for the day and was setting a dripper hose under the Rangpur lime tree when I saw Mr. Worth coming up the driveway, heading for the front door. I called to him and he came back, catching me in sunbonnet, garden dress and muddy shoes. I remember I apologized for not shaking hands with him because I am an amateur barehanded gardener and my hands were a mess.

Mr. Worth was about sixty-five years old, tall, thin, conservatively and modestly dressed. He was slightly stooped, as if he had carried many burdens in his time. His step was slow, his voice low and tired. His dark eyes had the look of hurt and disappointment. But every ounce of the man bespoke his integrity. By letter and by phone Mr. Worth had told me his problem was illness. Though he had read several of my books he had not said he wanted to be healed. He had not asked whether I would pray with him. He simply wanted me to talk to him and maybe answer a few questions.

His first question was about the lime tree. New to California, he never had seen a Rangpur lime before. The fruit of this tree is a bright orange color when ripe, and varies in size from an English walnut to that of a normal-size orange. It is sour enough to cut your throat. At that moment the tree was in full bloom, covered by a blanket of white, heavily scented blossoms, the sweetest fragrance of all the citrus trees. It was alive with bees.

"I could smell these blossoms from the street," said Mr. Worth, who also loved gardening. "What do you do with the fruit?" he asked, as he picked a large one left from the previous crop and sniffed it with interest.

We sat down on the low brick retaining wall which keeps the earth of my garden in place (all Pasadena slopes south from the mountains) and I told him about the wonderful life in that wonderful tree—the most prolific tree on the place, bearing blossoms and fruits in various stages the year round. I told him I never could see it without thinking of eternal life and of the goodness of God and the abundance of mother nature. Then I told him about my experiences in using the fruit.

"I tried repeatedly to make marmalade of the limes using my orange marmalade recipe. But it always turned out too strong. So one day standing here and looking up at the thousands of golden globes I said, "Lord, please tell me what to do with this heavenly fruit you have created. Tell me what to do with it so that the marmalade will be as delicious as it is beautiful." And the Lord said to me, 'Peel half of the fruit you make up; the bitterness comes from the skins.' I tried it and it worked. I have varied the proportion of peeled fruits many times until now I have a recipe that is perfect. I call it tender-tone, and make up about forty quarts of it a year. My husband likes it so well he has a small dish of it every day. It is crammed full of vitamins," I said.

"The Lord talked to you?" said Mr. Worth. He smiled a little, as an adult to a child, shook his head and we got up and went into the house. I took him to my office and handed him a copy of Dr. Gustaf Stromberg's book, The Soul of the Universe to read while I went to change. When I returned a little later the book was unopened. Mr. Worth was staring out the window, looking years older than his age, tired and hopeless. He brightened considerably as I came in and said:

"The Lord talked to you?" Then that little hesitant half laugh, that was all on the surface, with no depth. It came out rather lopsided, as if to say "I really shouldn't be laughing." I came to associate that strange little laugh with him as we worked together. "You talked to the Lord and he answered you," he repeated. "Well," he sighed, "if you can prove to me that there is a Lord— a God—anything beyond the grave ..."

Thus our work together began.

This was his story:

When he was a child his father was killed in an accident leaving his mother with five young children of which he was the youngest, and very little money. His mother had "worked like a slave," to feed and care for them. About the time Thomas was ready for high school his mother died. "I always felt she worked her poor self to death for us, and then was cheated out of her just reward. She did not get to see how we turned out. We would have taken good care of her and made her old age happy.

But we were denied that privilege. My children never knew a grandparent. It is not fair."

When we got to his religious beliefs, Mr. Worth said:

"I never have been able to believe in God. I can't believe in a life after death and yet I want to."

We can understand the depth of Mr. Worth's fears for fear of death has many parts:

1. Fear of the unknown which is as old as man and once was useful to him in saving his life.

2. Fear of extinction of body, mind and spirit. This means total loss of identity as a living Self, a knowing self and a loving self and a free self.

3. Fear of having failed the purpose of life on earth.

4. Fear of never seeing or knowing our loved ones again.

5. Fear of punishment for possible wrongdoing.

Here doubt, the serpent, still is the "most subtil beast of the field" as described in Genesis, because doubt is a power and privilege given to man and is part of free will and therefore is good. We have the right to question, to doubt. But when we use this power of doubting to doubt the goodness of God, we have used it to harm ourselves. Eve doubted the goodness of God; she felt God had denied them something that was desirable to have. She disobeyed God's orders and promptly got into trouble.

Mr. Worth's suffering was a result of his doubting the goodness of God. He believed that evil, something he did not want, could overcome the desires of his heart.

Mr. Worth was a good, moral, honest man. He was not afraid to die. He was afraid that death ended everything. The dread of death, feeling cheated in life, always had been with him. The feeling was in the background when he was busy. But the thoughts came boldly forth and visited him in the stillness of the night. Lately, those thoughts came quite often in broad daylight. They came whenever he walked in the sun and saw his shadow. The shadow made him feel cold, unhappy, and fear clutched his heart.

I encouraged him to talk about how he felt when he saw his shadow.

"The sunset of my life is approaching," he said. "I feel that when my body dies that will be the end of me. This body," tapping his chest with a forefinger, "is boss. It is going to die. But I don't want to die, now or ever. That is why I am afraid when I see my shadow."

"Why, Mr. Worth," I said, "you couldn't die if you tried! Your life is the life of God. Death is not in your keeping. Neither is life. Life is in God's keeping. You, the individual Self, the Being God created, will last forever. When your body in which your Self or Life, now resides, becomes unfit as a dwelling place for your Self of Spirit, then it, or you will leave the unfit body. It is made of earth elements and will stay on earth. Dust must return to dust. But you will be more alive than ever before."

Mr. Worth sat motionless. He breathed deeply and said, "I am still listening."
 
I went on:

"The Bible understood is an authentic document of religious history. From Genesis to Revelations it tells us that man, like God, lives forever because the life in man is God. The great scholars tell us that the life, death on the cross and burial of Jesus Christ can be as well established as any other fact in ancient history. There is no doubt about it. The man Jesus Christ lived. He really was crucified, dead and buried but he arose from the dead."

"Is anybody sure?" Mr. Worth asked.

"Yes. It is a fact. The most important fact in all human history. There were plenty of authentic witnesses to this fact. There were the Jewish and the Roman authorities of the day, soldiers, apostles, and women who were early at the tomb. During the forty-day period which followed the resurrection, Jesus appeared at least ten times and in one instance to more than five hundred persons. These eyewitnesses could not have been the victims of mass hallucinations, an explanation which is sometimes given by unbelievers to account for what happened. There were too many witnesses and spread over a time period of forty days."

"People make mistakes," said Mr. Worth, groping for truth.

"Yes, but the truth itself bore witness to the resurrection. This is why the early church had such courage, both moral and physical and why it lived 'in spite of dungeon, fire and sword.' In spite of all that Rome did to stop it. People then living knew people who had, with their own eyes, seen the risen Christ. A mere myth of such victory over death could not have kept the young church alive. It would not be alive today. And it is, and stronger than at any time in its history."

"But I am not a Jesus Christ," said Mr. Worth, sadly, almost in a whisper.

"You are at least as good as the thief on the cross," I reminded him. "And of the thief, Christ said, 'This day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' The thief did not have to do anything but desire, ask and believe. If you keep on desiring, and asking you will find your way through to a faith beyond a doubt."

"If I could just get this faith inside of my own mind or heart, as you have it," said Mr. Worth, "I'd be the happiest man in the world and ready to die. If I could find God," he said.

"You don't have to find God," I assured him. "God already has found you. There is no other way for a living soul to come into being except through God's life. The most human beings can do is to pass on the spark of life."

As we continued our work together, Mr. Worth coming several mornings a week, we went further into the real cause of his unbelief.

We found that he never had recovered from the shock of the loss of his father because the family had no established church or religion in their lives. "I think we believed in the power of our own work and the security of money," he said. "I have lived honorably, made a good living, met my obligations and never once asked God for help."

"Since the whole world had been created before you came on the scene and millions of years of improvement had been put into God's project, Man, you hardly had to ask God for help if you were alert to the opportunities around you. However, your whole life would have been different if you had felt gratitude enough to thank God for all the good you did have," I said.

"That is a new thought to me," Mr. Worth said slowly, thinking it through. "Maybe I have been too busy blaming instead of praising?" He had come to see that he long had been angry with God, and accepted the fact that anger and hatred are defenses against fear. His fear was that something could and would deny him the deepest desire of his heart—to live forever and to see his beloved mother again and to "learn that things do make sense."

My suggestion that he write down a list of his blessings, all those things for which he was truly grateful, proved to be the turning point in his studies about the meaning of life and death. But the lime-tree story continued to impress him more perhaps than all the other teaching. Of course I was daily in prayer for him that he might break through to the enlightenment he sought. But often he would say, "Tell me again about how the Lord talked to you." He would shake his head and laugh. "You are just a child," he once said. "You have the faith of a child's belief in Santa Claus. Do you also believe in fairies?"

As the summer progressed we often walked out to see how the lime crop was coming along. Once when our shadows were sharp on the cement driveway he said, "You tell me not to be afraid of my shadow, that I need only to face the sun (I told him Light) and my shadow will fall behind. But it will still be there and I will still know it. You tell me to trust God, to believe all is good. Well, I am closer to doing that, but . . ."

But he still had fears and our studies continued.

I sometimes gave him a jar of the lime marmalade which he greatly enjoyed and always smiled and said, "The marmalade that the Lord made," followed by his strange little laugh.

I typed out long lists of what some of the greatest people on earth have said about their belief in eternal life, and some fifty passages from the Bible. Mr. Worth went over them carefully and on returning the material he would say, "Very interesting, but . . ."

But he had not yet found his answer. As our work continued Mr. Worth became well acquainted with my husband, Herbert James Mann, an architect and engineer. Mr. Worth's life work had to do with the housing industry and the two men found several interests in common. One night when Mr. Worth was having dinner with us my husband said something to him which helped him more than anything I had yet been able to do. He said:

"My wife's beliefs make sense to me because they satisfy my engineering mind. We know that nothing in the world of nature is lost. All energy for example, is forever conserved. We burn coal. It changes form to heat and light. But not one atom is lost in the changing. This is to me a most impressive fact about nature. Things change form but their inherent energy is forever conserved. This implies intelligence and a plan and purpose in nature. If mere energy, then why not mind and spirit? The most important thing about us must be our Soul, or individuality. It seems logical to me that Universal Life, which is intelligent, is wise enough to preserve its highest values, those of human experience. To think otherwise is to believe that nature fails at the very point where she doubtless is the most successful. It seems to me all the other is for the final, or big purpose. I cannot believe there is loss in nature or lack of a plan for man after earth life. Nature is wiser than that."

"Do you believe in heaven?" Mr. Worth asked anxiously.

"Not a static, finished heaven. The Church always has presumed to know all the answers. But I am convinced that life after death is far better, far more beautiful and useful than anything the Church presents. I think modern science is on the right track. Like my wife, I get help from Dr. Gustaf Stromberg's book, The Soul of the Universe. He looks at life with the detachment of a scientist. He seeks the true facts of nature."

"Nature," said Mr. Worth excitedly. "Nature!"

The tall candles had burned to their base before Mr. Worth went home that night, but in his heart was a hope and under his arm my copy of Dr. Stromberg's book. I went to bed happy, sure Mr. Worth had turned the comer. The next time he came he brought notes made from Stromberg's book. Placing them on my desk he said, "Now I know the Lord really did talk to you. Now I understand the nature of it."

Stromberg's book is now out of print and has been for several years. I have permission to quote, here, some of the points in it which so greatly helped Mr. Worth; the same points my husband and I so often discussed:

1. Thoughts like sensations and feelings are attributes of Cosmos (God). For what else can they be? A combination of atoms cannot of itself give rise to a human thought. If we admit the cosmical nature of thoughts, we begin to realize the origin of ideas, which is the same as that of the ova genes which came to earth and determined the development of organic life as described in preceding chapters.

We have said that thoughts can be transmitted from one individual to another (telepathy) and there is then no logical reason why they cannot be transmitted from an individual to the Soul of the Universe and from the Soul of the Universe to an individual (inspiration). [Italics and parentheses are Stromberg's.]

2. We have given reasons for the belief that a Soul is indestructible, and that its most characteristic property is its capabilities of development.

3. We have seen how charity, tolerance and peacefulness are rewarded by longevity, happiness, and beautiful mental development. Sometimes they are rewarded by death from cruel hands, but the profit to the individual is indestructible, since the development goes on for all eternity.

Since I have mentioned my husband's views in connection with Mr. Worth, I should add the following:

My husband, as an engineer, was tremendously impressed by the Appendix in the second edition of Strom-berg's book. In it Stromberg sums up his faith, which was also published in The American Weekly of April 18, 1948. He says:

In the nonphysical world lies the fountainhead of life. . . . Nature apparently has foresight and intelligence, and it is capable of highly organized activity. Since an impersonal nature cannot have such characteristics, we are led to the idea of a personal God.

. . . and after death, when our mind is no longer blocked by inert matter, we can probably recall them all (our memories) even those of which we were never consciously aware during our organic life. Some of these memories will torment us, and others will bless us. Our conscience gives us an inkling of what we can expect in another world, where there are pleasure and beauty, as well as sorrow and pain.

This, it seems to me, is the Heaven and Hell indicated by the many new discoveries in modern science.

After reading Stromberg, Mr. Worth went on to serious study of scientist Du Nöuy's Human Destiny, and Morrison's Man Does Not Stand Alone. We three had many long discussions together, becoming more and more agreed on the points we have endlessly repeated in this book: man's desires for more of life, love and liberty.

We said:

The more we learn of earth the more we expect of heaven and rightly so. In keeping with what we are learning and doing in this space age, with science telling us there surely must be "millions of worlds like ours, inhabited by some kind of intelligent beings" the old idea of heaven seems too tame and unfulfilling. Few scientists of today would be content to settle down in heaven and never try to go over to the next planet or invent a new travel machine, or perhaps try to make a trip back to earth again. "Nature," we said, agreeing with scholar-writer Thomas Troward, "could build a new body for us suitable to any environment in which we might find ourselves."

We talked about the need for expanding liberty. Since there can be no safety or growth in liberty outside of love our need is to express more of life and love and not less. Liberty therefore, should increase and not diminish after death. So our ideas of the greatness of God increase. God is the cause, nature the method by which God's work is carried out.

As our ideas of God increase so do our ideas of the importance of man, the individual and his potential increase. Therefore, death should open up to us more of life, more of love and more of knowledge that brings liberty than we have had on earth. I personally believe that this is a trick of nature—and she is full of such tricks—we desire ultimate perfection because it is our destiny if we continue to so choose. We are being offered something bigger, and better, more wonderful than our present ability to understand or appreciate.

As long as we said "nature," and not God, Mr. Worth went along with us. Thus he began to eat of the fruit of the tree of life—to build a consciousness of utter faith in God, which he called nature, to understand that the love of God surpasses our human understanding; to experience the fact that our love in return casts out all fear. Whereas once, Mr. Worth had felt "nothing in nature cares, everything is at the mercy of its natural enemies," he came to think: "Even what appears to be evil is good." He finally said to me, "You are right; the body is not the most important part of man. I can now laugh at my shadow. But my shadow cannot laugh at me. I am boss!"

This must be explained. In Genesis we are told that to eat of the fruit of the tree of life is to live forever. This point bothered Mr. Worth. We talked about it repeatedly. I told him this is what it means to me: We will live regardless. But if we have no fear, which is a taste of death, we are able to pass out of the body from life on earth to the next life without actually "seeing death." We are alive all the time and know that we are and know there is no death. We know what is taking place. There is such a growing literature on this subject of witnessed instances of persons who made that kind of transition without losing consciousness that we need not labor the point here. Enough to say that Mr. Worth came to believe he could do just that. Hence his remark, "I am the boss."

The summer blazed and blossomed itself through the garden and our hearts and lives. I saw Mr. Worth less and less as he read and prayed and meditated more and more on his own account.

Fall came, hot and bright, filling the air with the fragrance of the ripening pineapple guavas, big as turkey eggs. Mr. Worth came in October to bring me a birthday present and to take home a bag of guavas which he so greatly enjoyed. "You are much happier," I said.

"Oh, yes," he replied. "I just wish I had learned all this before. Now I can say God and it sounds all right," he confided, followed by his little laugh.

Fall went away with the high winds and left some change of leaves and brought threats of winter. In December Mr. Worth came to bring me a Christmas present and to take home a large bag of ripe tangerines. He so enjoyed picking them one by one. His happiness had increased but his body seemed more tired than in October. Then winter threw itself upon the face of the earth bringing drenching rains. The rains gave way to winter sun like minted gold, coloring and sweetening the kumquats, which I generally preserve in March.

Mr. Worth came one day when it was very blustery, when it had been raining and there was sleet for a few minutes. He worried about the lime tree and so we went out to see it. There was a snowcap on Mt. Wilson. But there was warmth in Mr. Worth's eyes and heart, as we stood beneath the lime tree, now heavy with several lugs of enlarged fruit. (In California we do not say pecks or bushels for measure. A lug is a box holding about thirty pounds.)

"The tree is not harmed even by the sleet," said Mr. Worth, relieved. And we went back into the house and sat before the fire of oakwood. "I am looking forward to my trip," he said, just as he was leaving.

I almost muffed it. I almost said "Trip? Are you going somewhere?" But caught it in time. "Good," I said. "Remember, you will not travel alone."

He nodded and went away.

Then it was spring again over the earth and in my garden. Mount Wilson rose high and mighty and blue over to the north. One sunny morning I felt a terrible and sudden loneliness and left my office which is in the front of the house, to go down the driveway to the garden. The suffering continued as I paused beneath the lime tree. As I stood there in the warm sun a breeze ruffled the white blossoms, sending a shower of petals down to the brown damp earth. And then it came—that little half laugh of Thomas Worth.

Oh, it was as clearly his strange little laugh as ever I had heard it before. Then frightening silence. I began to pray for the man. A dreadful, heartbreaking feeling caught me up and burst through me in sobs and drove me into the house and into my prayer closet, into the presence of God in prayer. But I was not comforted. I walked in the garden again, still wordlessly asking questions of God. Had it been my imagination? Could I be losing my mind? There was no answer. Only a mocking bird on the rooftop singing a song of gratitude for life, love and liberty.

I went back to my office but was unable to work. About an hour later the phone rang bringing me the message that Mr. Worth had passed away about an hour before. He had wanted them to let me know. "He was happy and fully conscious to the very last," I was told.

A special message to the reader:

In all the foregoing I have tried to give the reader reasons why I believe we do not need to fear death or anything beyond this earth life. And now, if the reader can pardon my becoming personal, I should like to share with him the following:

This book was to have been finished in April 1961, and published in September of that year. The foregoing chapter was one that had been completed about as it now stands. In March of 1961, my precious husband, Herbert James Mann, was struck down by an automobile, driven by a young man in a hurry. He died five and a half weeks later of the injuries received.

The book manuscript had been put down and not picked up again until October of 1961. During the intervening time I often thought of the chapter on fears of death and felt I might change it because of the experiences I had during my husband's last weeks and have had since his passing. But after taking Chapter 6 out, only to put it back again several times, I decided to leave it, and to make the following additions:

Everything I felt and believed and discussed with Mr. Worth is now more firmly held than before the passing of my husband. Perhaps later, when I am able to work with it more objectively, I shall write about some of the experiences because I feel they belong to the world.

Loss of a loved one in death brings pain and shock beyond describing. At first there is a fear that we may never fully recover from that loss; that the soul scars may become part of our eternal Self. Always, we find it hard to let our good go from us. We instinctively hope to keep and enlarge our good. I believe that our loving Father God and our wise Mother Nature have given us this hope to prepare us for the reality that is to follow.

I am grateful for the love and prayers and letters from many friends including readers of my books whom I never have seen. Their love has picked me up, and carried me along as in a river at flood tide, sweeping me on from day to day and from task to task. In a very real sense their very thoughts and good desires for me have helped me to carry on with my responsibilities and so, to finish this book. Truly, love is the healer. Not time, as is so often misquoted. Love.

My husband was not only an architect and engineer but he wrote songs and had started life as an artist. He was getting ready to turn back to these first two loves of his life—music and painting, but he had to go home.

I am so sure that my husband is as much alive as I am, that I expect to meet him again and to recognize him. I even believe we will take up some of our conversation, so suddenly and for the rest of this earth life, interrupted. I feel certain that since God brought us together at one time for our mutual benefit, love and growth, He can do so again. I am further certain in my own mind that our desire, our deeply caring about, our free will choice forms the link that is never broken but that will draw us together again. We often discussed this point of life and we were agreed on it. Herbert always brought our happy and excited discussion on life after death to a close with these words:

"Oh, my dear, it is all so much better than we can ever dream of."

I am convinced that he was, and is, right about it.

Let us now go on with our lesson at hand. For I firmly believe that our learning on earth has an eternal value for us. And it always is later than we think.

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