MAN AND THEMETHOD OFEVOLUTION 121
This has been said before, but it cannot be too strongly
impressed upon the mind. In this connection the illustration
of the snail is very helpful. Matter, which is crystallized
spirit, corresponds to the snail's house, which is crystallized
snail. The chemical force which moves matter, making it
available for the building of form, and the snail which
moves its house are also good correspondences. That which
is now the snail will in time become the house, and that
which is now force will in time become matter when it has
crystallized further. The reverse process of resolving matter
back into spirit is also going on continually. The coarser
phase of this process we see as decay when a man is leaving
his vehicles behind and at that time the spirit of an atom is
easily detachable from the coarser spirit which has been
manifesting as matter.
THE SECOND HEAVEN
At last the man, the Ego, the threefold spirit, enters the
second heaven. He is clad in the sheath of mind, which
contains the three seed atoms—the quintessence of the three
discarded vehicles.
When the man dies and loses his dense and vital bodies
there is the same condition as when one falls asleep. The
desire body, as has been explained, has no organs ready for
use. It is now transformed from an ovoid to a figure
resembling the dense body which has been abandoned. We
can easily understand that there must be an interval of
unconsciousness resembling sleep and then the man
awakens in the Desire World. It not infrequently happens,
however, that such people are, for a long time, unaware of
what has happened to them. They do not realize that they
have died. They know that they are able to move and think.