DEATH, THE LIBERATOR

BY BRO. N.W.J. HAYDON, ONTARIO

THE BUILDER JANUARY 1922

The brethren who read this noble paper may care to
pursue the meditation further by turning to "Our
Eternity," by Maurice Maeterlinck, published by Dodd,
Mead & Company, New York City; and to "The New Death,"
by Winnifred Kirkland, published by the Atlantic
Monthly Press, Boston.  The latter first appeared as an
essay in the Atlantic Monthly Magazine and there
received so much commendation that the author enlarged
her paper to make a book of it.  In this day of the
free mind when men are learning to think by means of
facts and ideas rather than by means of traditions the
great and sombre fact of Death is receiving an
examination hitherto undreamed of.


FINALLY instructs us how to die." In common with the
older Mysteries, so far as we have relies of their
teachings, Masonry offers its votaries a method of
approach to this final test of our philosophy of life,
one worthy of human dignity and in harmony with our
honored motto, "Follow Reason."

Alan Seagar wrote for all of us:

"But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
And I to my pledged word am true-
I shall not fail that rendezvous."

We, too, have a rendezvous with the Reaper, by no means
to be escaped, no matter how much science may help us
to postpone it.  And though to but few is it given to
meet him with those feelings voiced for us by Horatius

"How can a man die better
Than when facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods?"

yet we need not watch his sure approach with only a
bitter recognition of our human weakness.  Such an
attitude is unworthy of those who truly follow reason,
and have worked out a philosophy of life, which in
death sees but a change of circumstance, however
important that may be.

We should adapt to our own use the salute offered by
the gladiators of old, save that instead of hailing a
human Caesar who viewed their struggles as an
amusement, we should as bravely regard the Ancient of
Days, saying each one of us "Ave, Maoister Vitae,
moriturus te saluto," and go forward fearing nothing.

There have been many noble expressions of attitude
towards Death, and amongst them that remarkable poem,
"Thanatopsis," written a century ago by a young man of
18, holds a high place with its sonorous phrases, its
confidence that finds in facts a firm foundation for
faith.  Naturally, it reflects at first the sombre New
England upbringing of its author, but none surpass its
conclusion in natural dignity:

". . . sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."

Let us examine our grounds for this trust, that our
hope may be reinforced by reason as concrete as by iron
rods and, to this end, let me draw attention to an
essay by Maeterlinck, to which I am deeply indebted.
("Death," published by Dodd, Mead & Co., 1912.) He
writes:

"It were a salutary, thing for each of us to work out
his idea of death in the light of his days and the
strength of his intelligence and learn to stand by it. 
He would say to Death: 'I know not who you are, or I
would be your master; but, in days when my eyes saw
clearer than today, I learnt what you are not; that is
enough to prevent you from becoming my master.'

"He would thus carry, imprinted on his memory, a tried
image against which the last agony would not prevail
and in which the phantom-stricken eyes would take fresh
comfort.  Instead of the terrible prayer of the dying,
which is the prayer of the depths, he would say his own
prayer, that of the peaks of his life, where would be
gathered, like angels of peace, the most limpid, the
most pellucid thoughts of his hfe.  Is not that the
prayer of prayers? After all, what is a true and worthy
prayer, if not the most ardent and disinterested effort
to reach and grasp the unknown."

Here is the key to our problem; let us learn what Death
is not; by this time-honored method we shall strip off
the masks wherewith our imagination has disguised it.
It is not sickness, nor suffering, nor the stern agony. 
It is not shroud, nor pall, nor grave, nor the horrors
of disintegration.  All these have to do with the
methds and usages of life. The errors and weaknesses of
nature or science caused their beginnings; Death
emphasizes their futility.  Should we convalesce, we
forget them; should we not, our survivors abuse Death
that stops them.

As Spencer so carefully explains, our life is a
continual adjustment of internal relations to external
relations, of growth from within to pressure from
without; and when we can no longer adjust ourselves,
why blame Death for clearing the board and giving us a
new deal ?

Do we accuse Sleep for the fatigue which overwhelms us
if we resist it? It seems that all our knowledge only
helps us to die in greater pain than the animals that
know nothing, and we add to our troubles by imputing to
Death those salvaging operations whereby our elements
are restored to usefulness in Life's workshop.

"... Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth to be resolved to earth again,
And. lost each human trace, surrending up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements."

We do not view. with horror or anguish the fading
flower, or the crumbling wall, but, where our bodies
are concerned, we usually strive to delay by all means
possible their natural dissolution.  Embalmings,
coffins, graves, and vaults are brought into action,
and that which happens therein poisons our thoughts,
offends our senses, daunts our courage.  Yet all this
is of life and impossible without life. How much, then,
has our boasted civilization increased the ethical
value of our funeral ceremonies?

Remains then but one terror associate with Death, that
of the unknown into which it seems to force us; but
this also can be dissolved considerably if not totally,
by following reason. There are at least four methods of
solution open to us:


Total annihilation.
Survival with our present consciousness.
Survival without consciousness.
Survival with universal consciousness.

There is nothing to be gained by including any
religious dicta herein, for the fact of Death is no
more-and certainly no less-subject to that mode of
thought, than any other of the activities of life.
Birth is equally as important as Death, but only in
some "pagan" and "uncivilized" peoples do we and the
solemnity and dangers of birth regarded as occasions
for priestly action, so we have still much to learn.

Annihilation is not only unthinkable, it is a blunder. 
Infinite change, yes, surely

"Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."

Endless diversity of place and condition, but to
suppose non-existence is to try to limit infinity, and
since a state of nothingness cannot be at all, that at
all events it cannot make Death terrible.  As Sir Edwin
Arnold has
written:

"Never the Spirit was born, the Spirit shall cease to
be never; 
Never was time it was not, end and beginning are
dreams.
Birthless and deathless and endless endureth the Spirit
forever, 
Death hath not touched it at all, dead tho the house of
it seems."

The next alternative - survival with our present
consciousness involves that ancient puzzle, "What am
I?" For most of us, "I" becomes identified with memory. 
"I" cannot be body or mind, for we know they are
constant only in chaning.  The body provides, and the
mind organizes, our sense perceptions, whereas our
conscious memory preserves such residue of these as
establish experience and build character. Memory seems
to be a sheath for the "I," most easily disturbed by
sickness, yet most clamorous for an unbroken existence. 
What cares it that through the alchemy of Death, "I"
can participate in the whole range of natural forces?
Neither knowledge, nor beauty, nor power attract it, if
they are not aceessible through its agency.

If "I" am greater than, and within, memory then bodily
sufferings and desires must be petty to this surviving
consciousness, for with the loss of body its services
are lost too, deprived of sense perceptions on which to
build them, mental and moral pains and changes must go,
and the personal mind is dissolved. Remains then of our
present consciousness, only memory, so pitiably finite
and, cut loose from its former co-workers, how shall it
continue to know itself ? We know how easily it fades
while in full physical health, what then will it be
like when the great change comes? Yet the hope that
this alternative conveys has done much good service to
the brave souls of our predecessors, and is well
expressed in the "Song of Odysseus" as he lay awaiting
death by torture:

"Endure my heart; not long shalt thon endure
The shame, the smart.
The gogd and ill are done, the end is sure;
Endure my heart.

"There stand two golden vessels by the throne
Of Zeus on high,
From them he scatters mirth and moan
To men who die.
And thou of many joys hast had thy share,
Thy perfect  part;
Battle and love, and evil things and fair;
Endure my heart.
"Fight one last greatest battle under shield, 
Wage that war well,
Then join thy fellows in the shadowy fields 
Of asphodel.
There is the kingly Hector, there the men
Who fought for Troy;
Shall we not fight our battles o'er again, 
Were that not joy?
"Tho no sun shines beyond the dusky west,
Thy perfect part,
There shalt thou have of the unbroken rest! 
Endure my heart."

(Translated by Andrew Lang.)

We approach, then, our third alternative, survival
without consciousness.  This also contains nothing of
terror, or even regret.  Dreamless sleep we welcome as
"Nature's sweet restorer," but not as a lasting
condition.  Such an expectation does not consort with
ideals fit for ordinary healthy men and women much less
for Builders.  A little further analysis shows us that
by this alternative we imply really the direct negative
of our second alternative; rather we feel opening to
our vision that which contains the offly possible
satisfaction for which all seem to be struggling, the
only possible completion of that urge from within which
is the mainspring of our evolution.

"Nay, but as when one layeth His worn out robes away,
And, taking others, sayeth
'These will I wear today.' 
So layeth off the Spirit
Lightly its garb of flesh, 
And passeth to inherit 
A residence afresh."'

Here, then, we approach our fourth alternative,
survival with the Universal Consciousness and at this
point Maeterlinck's own words alone are adequate:

"Here begins the open sea.  Here begins the glorious
adventure, the only one abreast with human curiosity,
the only one that soars as high as its highest longing.
Let us accustom ourselves to regard Death as a form of
life which we do not yet understand; let us learn to
look upon it with the same eye that looks upon birth;
and soon our mind will be accompanied to the steps of
the tomb with the same glad expectation that greets a
birth. If, before being born, we were permitted to
choose between the great peace of non-existence and a
life that should not be completed by the magnificent
hour of death, which of us, knowing what we ought to
know, would accept the disquieting problem of an
existence that would not end in the reassuring mystery
of its conclusion? Which of us would care to come into
a world, where there is so little to learn, if he did
not know that he must enter it if he would leave it and
learn more? The best part of life is that it prepares
this hour for us, that it is the one and only road
leading to the magic gateway and into that incomparable
mystery where misfortunes and sufferings will no longer
be possible, because we shall have lost the body that
produced them; where the worst that can befall us is
the dreamless slumber which we count among the number
of the greatest boons on earth; where, lastly, it is
almost unimaginable that a thought can survive to
mingle with the substance of the universe, that is to
say, with infinity which, if it be not a waste of
indifference, can be nothing but a sea of joy."

It is to this that we, having "Followed Reason," make
our approach, "sustained and soothed by an unfaltering
trust." Heretofore we have seen through a glass,
darkly; the narrow limits of our being conceal infinity
from our view, as Pascal has said, or, to use a Western
idiom, we cannot see the forest for the trees.  We must
prepare ourselves in advance by learning how to change
our focus.  For example, when we look through a screen
door we see the garden through a faint blur of lines;
or we can, instead, see the screen filling our vision
with a faint blur of light and greenery filtering
through.

For all of us Death is but a screen, and for most of us
it fills our vision.  Can we readjust our focus, and
strengthen our unfaltering trust, by attempting to
understand infinity? The effort, even if unsuccessful
at present, will be as useful as those of our talented
brother of Rochester (Mr. Claude Bragdon) in his
illuminating books on "The Fourth Dimension."

As an analogy let us condder the experience of the
human embryo when the time of birth approaches.  How
limited is its experience of life! A little space and
power for movement, but in no other mode can its
volition express itself! Sight, hearing, choice of
food, protection from accidents, are all beyond its
power.  It knows nothing but a soft, warm, darkness,
and even these qualities are not so known to its
consciousness, for it has no basis of comparison with
anything different.  Could one communicate to it news
of the great change soon to take place in its
condition, with what terror and reluctance would it
regard this entire loss of all it knows, for a state of
being so much more comprehensive as to be
incomprehensible! Yet we adults are in the same
position as we approach the gateway to another life. 
And if, as we know, the embryo by virtue of its
inherent life-quality casn change from a speck of
zooplasm to a human being, there appears no reason at
all why it should not go on yet further and enter into
tune with the Infinite.  Death to us can be no worse
than birth to the embryo, and all evolution affirms
that

"The soul's ephemerally housed in Nature's depths."

What then is this Infinite, as our reason tests it that
is to say, as we compare it with life as we know it?
Mostly negatives.  It has neither beginning nor end. It
can have no purpose nor destination, for the one would
have been accomplished and the other reached in the
long train of ages that has passed, had it been other
than self-contained.  If it be not conscious always,
then it never will be, for it must know all or nothing
since it has only itself to know.

If, however, we try to understand, Infinity through our
senses, how different is the result.  At once the hard
diamond becomes a mass of activities.  Every part is
going somewhere, complete knowledge is endlessly
experimenting for new discoveries, accomplished purpose
seeks continually some new fulfilment.

Which is right, is this inconsistency real or only
apparent? Here our limits force us to change from
Operative to Speculative.  We are, for the most part
unable to attain exact knowledge in advance of the fact
but we can hope, for we have laid the foundation
thereof.  We cannot deny infinity, but we can see that
all its parts (for lack of a better word) must be of
the same nature.  There would then be, as yet, no
unchangeable finality of perfected knowledge or
accomplished purpose.  Rather an infinite series of
transformations and combinations, an ever growing
consciousness striving to know itself, seeking to
express an idea hidden in its own nature, requiring all
the worlds of all the universes as fields for its
experiments, all form of life as instruments, as
coworkers to that discovery as pioneers in that great
adventure.  Here is our hope:

"Small as man and his thought may appear, he has
exactly the value of the most enormous forces that he
is able to conceive, since there is neither great nor
small in the immeasurable.  The mind alone, perhaps,
occupies in infinity a space which comparisons do not
reduce to nothing."

Is it not, then, childish to talk of eternal happiness
or sorrow, where it is infinity that is in question?
Our ideas of these conditions are so human so
specialized, they are based so entirely on the
implication that the laws of our life here shall govern
our life under all other conditions.  Yet, we must
admit that our ideas proceed entirely from the
sensibilities of our nervous system, which is tuned to
but a small range of perceptions, and which could as
easily have felt everything the reverse way, and taken
pleasure in what now makes pain.

Much wiser, then, is it to "Follow Reason," and
recognize that it would need but a trifle, a few
papillee more or less to our skin, the least
modification of our eyes and ears, to turn the
temperature, the silence, and the darkness of space
into a delicious springtime, an unequalled music, a
divine light. We can, then, readily persuade oursleves
that the catastrophes we think we behold are the acts
of life itself, that even the collision and pulverising
of worlds marks the beginning of some new and
marvelous, experiment, that all is but birth and
rebirth, a departure into an unknown filled with the
anticipation of thast far-off divine event to which the
whole creation moves: some immense festivasl of mind
and matter in which Death, the Liberator, thrusting
aside at last our two enemies, time and space, will
soon permit us to take our proper part, as Fellows of
the Craft of which the Great Architect is the Master.


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