Page:The Pathway of Roses, Larson (1913) image of page 312.jpg

312 sublime state, every moment of existence will be perfect bliss. It is truly sweet to live when we live to promote the great divine plan.

We find, however, that but very few live a good life, and that only a limited number reach a high spiritual state before taking their departure. But what might the reason be? We all realize that old age is unnatural; and none of us require logic to demonstrate the great advantage of a life where eternal youth and eternal ascension in life are blended into one. Therefore we wish to find the fundamental cause of those conditions that produce age, that produce sickness, and that take us away from this sphere before our work is done. And this cause we find in the fact that man thinks he is living in time; when he should know that he is living in eternity.

When man fully realizes that he is living now in the great eternal now, and that he is already in eternity, he shall know age no more. Man grows old because he believes in the passing of time. He believes that he is living in a world where time is ever going, and that he is going with it—to the grave. He is conscious of the passing of years, and believes that the further he goes with the years the more years will be added to the burden of his life. He therefore thinks of himself as so many years old; but here he is mistaken. Time is not passing; time is; and the time that is, is eternity.

What we call time is only that period in eternity that we are conscious of now, and in