“It would go far indeed if it could do all that, although I believe there is something in what you say, for in a small way I have seen it myself.”
“Yes, we have all seen it in a small way; and does it not seem strange that men have never thought of cultivating it in a larger way, through the exercise of their will in controlling their minds and bodies? This exaltation of spirit is only attained through effort, or some great physical shock. It is the secret of all power; it conquers all pain, and makes disease impossible.”
“Makes disease impossible!” cried Paul in astonishment.
“Yes,” answered the elder man quietly. “This soul power, of which I speak, is the hidden akasa in all men--it is the man himself--and when once recognized, the body is relegated to its proper sphere as the servant, and not the master; then it is that man realizes his own power and supremacy over all things.”
“But,” persisted Henley, “if you go so far as to say that this occult or soul power can conquer disease, you would have us all living forever!”
“_There is no such thing as death_!” remarked Ah Ben quietly, as if he were merely giving expression to a well-established scientific fact.
“And yet we see it about us every day,” Paul replied.
“There you are wrong, for no man has ever seen that which never occurs!”
“You are quibbling with words,” suggested Henley.
“There is a change at a certain period in a man's life, which, from ignorance, people have agreed to call death. But it is a misnomer, for man never dies. He goes right on living; and it is generally a considerable time before he realizes the change that has taken place in him. He would laugh at the word death, as understood upon earth, as indeed he frequently does, for he is far more alive than ever before.”
“You speak as if you knew all this,” said Paul. “One might almost imagine that you had been in the other world yourself.”
“_Had been_!” exclaimed the old man with emphasis. “_I am in it now, and so are you. But there is a difference between us; I know that I am in it, because I can see it, and touch it, and hear it; while you are in it without knowing it_.”
There was an air of authority that impressed the hearer with the conviction of the speaker. This was not theory; it was the result of experience. There was a difference as vast as the night from the day. “I suppose, when I am dead, I shall know these things too,” said Paul meditatively.