Birth and Death: Natural and Spiritual

EOM Ida Mingle

Birth and Death are two-fold in purpose, relating to the natural and to the spiritual planes of expression. "Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual." The natural is the mortality, the spiritual is the immortality. The mortality is the earthy, the immortality is the heavenly. "As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." It is to say that we are brought forth on the earthy, mortal plane through the natural law of birth and pass from it through the natural law of death; but to attain to the heavenly, the immortal, we must be spiritually born, as well as spiritually pass through death. The last two functions represent the reality of the Creative Plan, the first two the unreality. Consciousness must live through the unreality to become conscious of itself and the unreality’s attending its unfoldment, before it is sufficiently advanced to come under the Creative Laws to be spiritually born.

Natural Birth

Mortals speak of natural birth as the mystery of life. This is the known aspect of the mystery of living, while death on the natural plane has been the unknown aspect. However, the mystery is in the Law of spiritual birth and death, but the symbolical reflection always precedes the outworking of the realities of the Laws of God. Birth on the natural plane is the embodiment of the developed spirits of Life, this affording them opportunity of unfoldment. The mortal spirits are provided for in the operation of the Divine Laws that are performing the services of the Creator, and are existent from the beginning of mortality, even as the spirits of the immortals to be born in the immortal order that follows mortality, are now provided for in the operation of the Divine Laws that are closing mortality and establishing immortality. The process by which these spirits are generated is in the operation of the Laws of spiritual birth and death, hence known only to one unfolded in the Divine Laws and performing the universal function of the Word (God Being).

The law of natural birth is the law of sin and death. It is the means by which egos, separated in male and female qualities, are given coordination unto the attainment of the unity of the male and female of being. This attainment marks the beginning of the Law of spiritual birth. Consciousness is made up of progressing forces of spirit, soul, mind and body, the union of which in the Love of the Lord is the goal of attainment, though this cannot be reached except through death to self-love, by which the Love of God, as the Mother Principle of Being is identified, to give birth to the child of God, as son-daughter. Birth on the natural plane is organization of consciousness, while death is disorganization. When the forces of the four above mentioned departments of consciousness are organized to conform to the innate Laws of Being, one is spiritually born; though the spiritual death is the means by which one sheds the last vestige of mortal forces and is identified in eternal life, the goal to which man is appointed.

Natural birth is the formation of that which was unformed by means of death, each ego attracting to itself its own forces. During mortality, when consciousness is not organized to conform to the Divine Laws, the breaking up of itself in death is not a re-forming again in the self-same ego of that progressed in a former life. One sows and another reaps; one sows but others enter into the harvest, for consciousness cannot have its own in any real way until it has found itself; and since it finds itself only when it becomes conscious of the real nature, it follows that it is in spiritual birth that the ego can claim his own and aggregate his-her gained qualities toward revealing the Real State of Being. The purpose of natural birth is to afford opportunity for egos to be spiritually born. The Plan of making a man is duplicated on the plane of generation, though it is the regenerative process by which the Real Man is made. The union of males and females, in sex consciousness (sex meaning to cut, to divide), by which the seed-energies are merged to conceive a man, results in the formation of a kind of man that is divided as to his or her male and female qualities. In other words, the man God has idealized and made cannot be brought forth through the sexual law, which is the law of sin and death.

The seed-energies of males and females are composed of what they have thought and felt, except for the creative essence residing in the germ cells of women. The formation of these energies in the wombs of women is attended by a Creative Law, for which males and females are not responsible; that is, the fashioning of a form of being within the womb is not through the desire or will of men and women, but through the Will of Being to be, yet, the Will of Being to be what it has willed can have perfect expression only through the Law of spiritual birth. It is the love function of males and females (sexes) that gives impetus to the seed energies to become forms of beings, though this function is not alone for reproduction. However, until males and females are again united in the potencies of the inner Male and Female Qualities of Being they are not recreative in their function, therefore they must be spiritually born before they can invite into the organisms of consciousness the Energies of Paradise, and have continuity of life and being after the Law of God. These spiritually born egos will be non-propagative, their qualities being unfolded and expressed for the purpose of replenishing themselves and the universe. These egos are the fourth dimensional states of consciousness, the gods and the goddesses, referred to as the virgins, as the first fruit unto God and Christ.

Natural women are the receptacles into which unformed forces are projected, both as to their positive and their negative expressions. The positive expressions of the unformed forces are the seeds of males, formed from their developed intelligence’s and love, while the negative expressions of the unformed forces are those disorganized through mortal death. Women are the graves into whom the dissolving forces of mortals aggregate, as well as the birthplace of the progressing forces of living, these uniting in positive-negative force to give Birth to egos, or self-centers of consciousness, though an action of the Creative Laws is necessary to cause these forces to be formed as bodily states. It is in the action of the Creative Laws that we have the so-called "miracle of birth." The expulsion of children from wombs of women is symbolical of the Divine Expulsion of Creative Forces, identified as Truth through united male-female qualities. This Expulsion has its negative reflection in the projection of semen from the male organs. The ecstasy of the orgasm of copulative merging of forces is a mortal reflection (not a reality) of the Divine Orgasm that opens in one spiritually Born, into whom the Qualities of Paradise are expelled to form the spiritual state of being. It is only in Truth or Christ that one may scientifically know the law of sin and death. It is in the gaining of the Divine Love, through dying to the love of the flesh, that one is opened to know the Divine Ecstasy and Orgasm by which the organism is flooded with the emanation from the River of Life in Paradise.

Natural birth is a necessity because of the many lifetimes of progression needed to attain to union of the spirit, soul, mind and body. It is an indirect servant of the Divine Laws, preparing consciousness to finally receive the Law of spiritual birth, though this is not without the necessity of dying to the self. As the intelligence and love of the race progresses, these forming the seed-energies of males, especially, the organisms or Bodies are refined and made more fit to function a spirit, soul, and mind by which the Divine Intelligence and Love may be known. This knowledge is the spiritual that follows the natural, which must exist in mind and in spirit and be impressed upon the soul, before it can be formed as the body. The seed of the female, in mortality, is fixed by Law of Nature, corresponding to the fixed Law of Divine Motherhood that exists in Divine Laws, by which the children of God are brought forth as the first-fruit unto God (as Father) and Christ. The Divine Motherhood operates as the second coming of Christ in Woman Function to bring forth the children, begotten by the Father Law in the Man Function of the first coming of Christ. The One Seed of the Woman is Christ, but this is symbolized in the womanhood of the race as the one seed or ova that descends monthly to make union with the forces ascending from the earth or bodily plane, functioned in males, without which there would be no reproduction of a kind of a man. It is in the spiritual correspondent that stands back of this one seed that enables God to give birth to a new race, through Woman as its Helpmeet, for She becomes the Means by which the race is reborn and identified in immortality, as well as the Means by which the potentially virginal group, as children of God are brought forth.

Death on the Natural Plane

Death on the natural plane is a necessary pole of birth. Death is disorganization of the progressed and organized forces, not only those aggregated as a body, but of those developed as spirit, soul and mind. These disorganized forces go into the cosmos of the race, this having its racial identity in the womanhood and manhood, as well as in the universe. While women are pre-eminently the wombs into which the disorganized forces are gathered for reorganization, the males too receive through women the emanated energies of the forces of spirit, soul and mind which give added potency and character to their seeds. This is to say that the seeds of males are not alone from the developed intelligence and love of the world as they think and feel, but their relation to women also makes them the recipients of forces, even as women are recipients of forces from males. That emanated from women represents heaven, while that emanated from men represents hell, women functioning the ascending forces in mortality and men the descending. It is because of this that the ideals of the race are upheld from the womanhood, though there is no absolute and fixed law on the plane of mortality, hence these expressions are made as to their general reflections of the Inner Laws in the race and their applications. The forces of men and women merge as one as mortality reaches a climax, making men more feminine and women more masculine, hence there is a change in their seed elements. Many mortals think women have no seed, but they have the one germ cell that furnishes opportunity for reproduction of man, and which is projected monthly as the menses. It is through the function of the Creative Laws in this germ cell that the race is refined in spirit and body, though it is in the emanations of the orgasms of women that the heavenly qualities of disorganized forces are projected to males. However the first heaven and the first earth pass away, hence no genuine heavenly quality can operate between males and females, bound to the sexual thought and love.

Living on the plane of mortality is death, but its active pole; when death reaches its negation its passive pole is identified and the forces progressed are disorganized for another organization. Every male and female progresses through mortality, either on this planet or on another, until the goal of living is reached, this being at its inception spiritual birth with its ultimate of eternal life. Spiritual death is a procedure between the point of spiritual birth and eternal life, for one cannot die spiritually until one has been made alive, no more than one can die to the self-consciousness until it has been progressed and gained. When one finds one's life one loses it, and if it is voluntarily given up for the sake of the Spirit of God unfolding, one passes more harmoniously through the death of self that makes for spiritual birth which leads to eternal life. Death is the result of progression in the law of sin. Sin is the lack of knowledge and love of God, which is lack of conformity to the Divine Laws that make for spiritual being. "The wages of sin is death." Death is a necessity in consciousness limited to mortality. The Laws of God that control all things, directly or indirectly, appointed the bounds of mortals, and as they went further out into darkness limited their span of living, lest they become involved in the forces of evil and darkness to their hurt, while still lacking Light and Love. The last century has witnessed the attempt to overthrow the limitations of death and to promote the idea of longer living, this being an evidence to those who can discern it of the desire of the Divine Laws to throw off their limitations and to work out in man the unlimited of themselves.

Eternal life does not rest upon the premise of longer mortal living, but is opened only to those who are willing to die to the law of sin and death, by which they are spiritually born. The spiritual death is incidental to the outworking Laws of God in consciousness, that aspect of the Truth that sets free after the Truth is known. It is in the works of the Father or Divine Laws that open at a point when man cannot longer work, having attained to spirituality of being. Spirituality of being is not for the self, but for the Lord, therefore the death of the Spirit is comparable to the death of the self-consciousness, though it results in eternal life; while the self-conscious death gives further opportunity to promote the forces of life. Death is a merciful provision in mortality, else consciousness would become so involved in darkness and ignorance that it would destroy itself, yet, death is an enemy to be overcome. Death is overcome through Christ, for it is Christ, the Truth, that has the key that opens the door to hell and death; utilizing the liberated energies of spiritual death to form the Qualities of united Wisdom and Love as spiritual being. Even as the dissolved forces of mortality are utilized to form the organism of mortals, so the dissolved forces of immortality (spirituality) are utilized to form the organisms to be revealed as spiritual states of being. The dissolving energies of mortality, racially, are utilized to form the qualities of immortality, racially, this action being one with the Creative Laws that operate to form spiritual states of being, as the first-fruit of God and Christ, revealed as the many members of the Body of Christ.

Mortals have no eternal identity for mortality does not partake of the nature of the Eternal. As forces of consciousness they continually replenish the earth, forming the soil in which the seed-energies may take form and progress. Death is not a transition to mansions in the skies, nor to a plane of endless joy and bliss, but is a reduction to disorganized forces of consciousness of that which was organized. Re-embodiment, the means by which egos put off bodies through death and put them on through birth is a natural fact of mortality, but is not a Truth of Being. Reincarnation, commonly associated with putting off the body in death and putting on the body by birth, pertains to the unfolding consciousness that has human characteristic. These forces of consciousness are continually drawn to egos who by human advancement can gather them to the self, these egos aggregating as those who sustain and support the unfolding Plan of God, as functioned in Christ and by Christ, at its movements among men. There are only two distinct movements of Christ in mortality, though the five messengers that precede the sixth and seventh, as two poles of Christ Consciousness, are means by which aspects of the Word work out to give impetus to the Spirit in the race. It is the sixth messenger, as Christ's first coming that shows the way of overcoming both birth and death, this being the necessity of dying to the love that makes man mortal. It is at the point where one dies to self-love that the Love of God springs up, it having died at the point where self-love sprang up, it is reversal of that which made for death (mortal living) that makes for spiritual life and being. Cutting off the forces of mortality or death, by which immortality may be identified, has led to cutting off mortal birth with a corresponding offsetting of the forces of mortal death.

Death cannot be made beautiful, though mortals lacking life and love, have attempted to soften its blow. Its sting is in relation to mortal love, therefore the death of mortal love is the first blow struck at death itself, though one must experience the living death before one can really die to death. This is a spiritual experience and is associated with the spiritual birth, even as birth and death are polar opposites on the plane of mortality. When people realize that the mind of the flesh is death, and the mind of the Spirit is life, they will arouse themselves to overcoming the lack of knowledge and love of God, this being the overcoming of sin. Since the result of sin is death, the overcoming of sin is the overcoming of death. The dissolution of organism, called somatic death, is only one aspect of death, for to live in the love of mortality is an active form of death, though a necessity until consciousness of love and life is gained; this beginning with the opening of spiritual understanding. Death is not an open door to bliss except one be spiritually born and die the mystical death with Christ.

Spiritual Birth and Spiritual Death

Spiritual birth is identified at the point where love of material birth dies. Since it is the mortal love that makes for material or mortal birth, it is the death of this love that opens one in the Love of the Spirit. The identification of any Principle of Being permits that Principle to begin its unfoldment, therefore one enters the path of spiritual birth as a child enters the world from its mother's womb, knowing nothing but ready to be taught the Way of God. After one has proven that mortal love is dead and that it cannot entice the ego into mortal expressions of thought, words, feeling and acts, one is tested and tried as to one's fitness to enter the path of spiritual unfoldment. This is the wilderness experience, referred to in scripture, by which one is led of the Spirit into it to be tempted of the devil. When the ego proves that he or she has no desire for what the mortal offers, on any of its planes of expression, one can become opened to the mysteries of Christ's unfoldment within the consciousness. However, during the spiritual advancement one grows in understanding and the will to walk in keeping with it, until Truth or Christ is identified. The spiritual birth involves the regeneration of the forces of spirit, soul, mind and body so that one becomes a new creature. A new creature thinks, desires, feels and acts in a spirit different from the mortal creature. Though appearing outwardly to be as other men and women. It is not the function of those spiritually gained egos who make up the new world and man to be taken out of the world, but rather are they to be kept from the evil one; for they must overcome the world, hence now appear to be more involved in the worldly forces than usually associated with the followers of Christ. Since those who gain Christ consciousness are overcomers, they must overcome the world, and this would not be possible if they did not contact the worldly forces. In fact, after one has gained the Truth, having individually overcome the forces of the world relating to the consciousness, one is used in Divine Laws in Universal service, this forcing the overcoming of the world, racially.

It is in the point between individual completeness in Christ and revelation of spiritual being, that attends the overcoming of the world, racially, that one undergoes the spiritual death. It is during this time that the gained qualities of God, Christ, and Man, as well as the racial forces in subjection to the individual, are projected back to the race in service to all, that one undergoes the mystical death with Christ, by which one partakes of the resurrection. If one gaining the Wisdom and Love of God, whose union is Truth, Life, Substance, Understanding, Will, was not given to the race, in the Law of the Cross, the gained Qualities could not be projected to the race consciousness. The forces of the race could not be subjected to the Truth without those forces already subjected in the Christ consciousness were liberated toward the race. It is this action of God through Christ consciousness that enables all who receive Christ to be spiritually born and to be raised up as the children of God. Christ consciousness is always male-female in character, hence the means by which all males and females are subjected to the Divine Laws, directly or indirectly; as well as subjecting the forces of the race, for they are male and female in character. It is the universal action of God, through Christ in Man (male-female character) that brings the race to accounting and judgment; as well as proves the spiritual results and reveals it as the fruit of the ages of mortality. This fruit is brought forth at the end of mortality, through the processes of Divine Laws that bring forth the fruit from mortality and usher in immortality in the race.

Since spiritual birth is identified at the point where the love that makes for mortal birth dies, it follows that death to the self-consciousness enters at this point. The death to self-consciousness is incidental to the identification of spiritual birth, by which one is unfolded in the realities of being, at the same time putting off the forces of mortality and putting on the intelligence and love of the Spirit. When spirituality is gained and one is spiritually alive, one is made to suffer the spiritual death by which the love. life and intelligence, alive in Christ, are carried into the consciousness of the race, this movement of Divine Laws being the coming of Christ to the race. The ego functioning God, who is Christ Consciousness, is broken up or dissolved in Qualities in a living spiritual death, this projecting them to all who can receive them, by which they are given power to become children of God; though the Mother Function of God operates as the second coming of Christ, now working out since 1922, to give them spiritual embodiment. The spiritual death includes the final conflict with death, for through Christ, who has the keys to hell and death, all the Forces of darkness are brought to light for judgment in Truth. It is because Christ consciousness suffers without the gate, that is, outside of its own spiritual domain, this being occasioned in the Law of the Cross, that those outside the gate may be brought to accounting and judgment, and permitted an opportunity to enter in by the Door; but if they do not enter in, then their lot is appointed among the "dogs, sorcerers, fornicators, murderers, idolaters, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie."

Spiritual birth is the means by which egos who have died to their mortal love and have been opened in immortality are brought to consciousness of eternal life; though this is not without the action of its complement, spiritual death. Spiritual death is a living experience and is related to the function of spiritual love, contrariwise to material death relating to the function of material love. Spiritual birth and death are not racial factors, but are means by which mortals put on immortality and enter into eternal life, though it is not the mortal that is advanced to the reality of being, for in this process the mortality is changed to immortality and death is overcome by Christ, the Truth. Spiritual birth and death are means by which the fourth dimensional ego is identified, this being one that has graduated from the necessity of further birth and death. The acme of pain is in spiritual birth, even as the acme of pain on the plane of mortality is associated with mortal birth. Mortal death is the dying down of the mortal love without any direct ascension of a higher love and life, while spiritual death is the ascension of spiritual love and life. It is in the spiritual life and love that one is opened to Paradise, the realm of Divine energies, and witnesses the Deific Orgasm within the consciousness. The love of the Spirit, or Christ, is in an instant sweeter and more sublime than anything experienced by mortals throughout lifetimes of progression. No one can know real Love until dead to the unreality, which is to die to mortality, that immortality may be identified to permit the unfoldment of the Divine Life and Love.

Body and Spirit in Relation to Birth and Death

Spiritual birth and death are two poles of each other, like birth and death on the natural plane. One dies on the natural plane to the love of the flesh to become alive in the Spirit, this being the beginning of the process of spiritual birth. One dies to that gained in the spirit of the natural, while alive, in order to be made alive to the Spirit of the spiritual. The spiritual death is incidental to making the body alive, this being the carrying down to the plane of the body of the Qualities of the Spirit. As the physical forces are broken up in living spiritual death the Qualities of the heavenly forces are formed as realities of being. This is comparable to the carrying down to the plane of the body, in the sexual law, of the unfolding forces of consciousness, this giving them embodiment. Even if children are not conceived on the plane of sexual law, the participants in sex-love bring to the plane of their own bodies the embodiment of their unfolding forces of intelligence and love. This is the reason why people bloom out, temporarily, when touching the love of the flesh, especially before it has become so materialized and grounded in matter. This is the "honeymoon" period of sexual love, though if the forces of males and females are not balanced one draws on the other and promotes depreciation of spirit or body, or both.

The spirit is the within of consciousness, the body is the without. When men and women are each potentially balanced between these two poles of consciousness, they will express a greater intelligence and love, individually and toward each other. This is the inclination as mortality reaches its height, this making sexual love more enticing and more serviceable to the participants. This height of sexual love has given us more beautiful bodies the last half century, as well as more advanced spirits of egos. However, this is a temporary condition, and is incidental to the death of mortality, for mortality must become alive in its sexual forces before it is ready to die. The same principles that work out in the individual life work out in the race, though it is not until the Universal Function of Christ is identified that the life of mortality is brought to negation, pending the establishment of immortality. This has occurred the last quarter of a century and accounts for the condition of the race on all planes of its expression.

The body is formed by means of natural birth and unformed by means of natural death. This is the body of mortality, but this body is unformed in a living death of self by which one is spiritually born. The processes of spiritual birth form the essences of the body to be, though the spiritual death of the essences is essential to form them as physical reality. The body that is to be exists in the spiritual essences, gained through overcoming untruth and establishing Truth, like the radish is in the radish seed before the seed is planted in the soil. The planting of the spiritual essences in the soil of consciousness is in the process of spiritual death, this causing the elements of the world to be used in forming the Qualities of the Spirit, and it is for this purpose that the world exists, that is, to sustain and to support the unfolding Plan of the Creator. Mortals must embody the natural qualities through processes of living, so as to gain the spirit of perfection of all expressions. This enables them to connect with God, the Spirit of Perfection, by which its Laws can begin to spiritualize the consciousness. Thus the fulfillment of the natural plane in a spirit of perfection is the opening of the spiritual as the fulfillment of the spiritual is the establishment of the eternal nature of man. This is consciousness male-female in character, which is not subject to either birth or death, but has being from the Creative Laws in their own modes of expression. The Spirit gave itself for the life of the flesh, and the flesh is given for the Life of the Spirit, at which time the Spirit works its will and purpose in consciousness to bring forth the reality of being, or spiritual man.