THE SENSATION OF awakening was peculiar; as though I were emerging from a thick, heavy chrysalis. I opened my eyes and stared up at a ceiling. It was pale blue, softly tinted. I heard nothing but the most profound of silence.

Attempting to turn my head, I found, to my surprise, that I was too weak to move it. For several moments, I felt with a sense of dread that I was paralyzed.

Then I realized it was exhaustion and closed my eyes again.

How long I slept, I cannot say. The next thing I recall was opening my eyes again. The same blue ceiling, pale, irradiant. I looked down at my body. I was lying on a couch, wearing a white robe.

Was I back in Summerland?

Using my right elbow, I raised myself slowly and looked around.

I was in an immense hall which was ceilinged but not walled, tall Ionic columns serving as side supports. There were hundreds of couches in the room, almost all with people on them. Men and women, dressed in robes the color of the ceiling, moved among the couches, leaning over now and then to speak to reclining figures, stroking their heads. I was back in Summerland.

But where was Ann?

"Are you all right?"

I looked around at the sound of the woman's voice. She was standing behind me.

"Am I in Summerland?" I asked.

"Yes." She leaned over and stroked my hair. "You're safe. Rest."

"My wife ..."

Something flowed from her fingertips into my mind; something soothing. I lay down again. "Don't worry about anything now," she said. "Just rest."

I felt sleep drifting over me again; warm, soft, silken sleep. I closed my eyes and heard the woman say, "That's right. Close your eyes and sleep. You're perfectly safe."

I thought about Ann.

Then was asleep once more.

Again, I cannot tell how long I slept. I only know I woke again to see the blue, effulgent ceiling overhead.

This time I thought of Albert, speaking his name in my mind.

When he failed to appear, I felt alarmed and pushed up on my elbow.

The hall was still the same--peacefully still. The floor was thickly carpeted, I saw, and, here and there, handsome tapestries hung down from above. All the floor space, as I've said, was spaced with couches. I looked to my right and saw one six or seven feet away, a woman sleeping on it. To my left, another couch, an old man on it, also asleep.

I forced myself to sit up. I had to find out where Ann was. Again, I thought of Albert but to no avail. What was wrong? He'd always come to me before. Hadn't he returned to Summerland? Was he still in that terrible place?

I struggled to my feet. I felt incredibly heavy, Robert. As though, despite the shedding of that chrysalis, my flesh was still encased in stone. I could hardly move across the hall, past endless ranks of sleeping people, male and female, old and young.

I stopped in the entrance to an adjoining hall.

Here, there was no scene of rest. People thrashed in frantic sleep or, partially conscious, tried to sit up, had no strength to do so and fell back heavily or struggled to rise, restrained by men and women in blue.

Nor was it silent like the hall I'd left. This one was discordant with sobs and cries, embittered and dissentient voices.

Nearby, I saw a man in blue talking to a woman on a couch. She looked confused and angry and kept trying to sit up but couldn't. The man patted her on the shoulder and spoke to her reassuringly. I looked across the hall in startlement as a man began to shout. "I'm a Christian and a follower of my Saviour! I demand to be taken to my Lord! You have no right to keep me here! No right!"

I saw a man in blue gesture to several of his associates and they gathered around the furious man to touch him. In seconds, he was heavily asleep.

"You should be resting," said a voice.

I looked around and saw a young man in a blue robe smiling at me. I tried to answer but my tongue felt thick and weighted. All I could do was stare at him.

"Come," he said. I felt his hand on my arm and, with the touch, that sense of silken comfort once again. Everything began to blur around me. I knew that he was walking me but couldn't see. What was this subtle narcotic in their touch? I wondered "as I felt the soft couch under me once more and sank into a deep sleep.

When I woke up, Albert was sitting on the edge of the couch, smiling at me.

"You're better now," he said.

"What is this place?" I asked.

"The Hall of Rest."

"How long have I been here?"

"Quite a while," he told me.

"Those people in the next--" I pointed.

"Those who've died suddenly and violently, waking for the first time," he said. "Refusing to believe that their bodies are gone but they still exist."

"That man ..."

"One of many who expect to sit at the right hand of God and believe that those who fail to share their ideas are doomed to eternal torment. In many ways, these are the most backward souls of all." "You didn't come before," I said.

"I couldn't until you were adequately rested," he replied. "I received your calls but wasn't permitted to answer them."

"I thought you were still--" I broke off, reaching out to grip his arm. "Albert, where is she?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

"She's not still in that awful place."

He shook his head. "No," he told me. "You spared her that."

"Thank God!" I felt a burst of joy.

"By going there and staying with her of your own free will, you gave her just enough awareness to escape."

"Then she's here," I said.

"You were with her for some time," he told me. "That's why you've been here, regaining your strength." He put a hand on my arm and squeezed it. "I really didn't think it could be done, Chris," he said. "I never foresaw what you were able to do for her. I thought in terms of logic. I should have realized that only love could reach her."

"She is safe," I said.

"Safe from where she was."

I felt a tremor of uneasiness. "She's here?" I asked. "In Summerland?''

He seemed reluctant to answer.

"Albert." I looked at him anxiously. "Can I see her?"

He sighed. "I'm afraid not, Chris."

I stared at him in blank dismay.

"You see," he said, "although the love of someone close can, on occasion, elevate a soul to Summerland--though I've never seen it done with a suicide--that soul is, rarely, if ever, able to remain here."

"Why?" I asked. That I was back in Summerland seemed, suddenly, a hollow victory.

"There are a hundred different answers to that question," he said. "A thousand. The simplest of which is that Ann just isn't ready for it yet."

"Where is she then?" I was sitting up now, gazing at him apprehensively.

He seemed to brace himself. Was that a smile? "Well," he started, "the answer to that brings up a subject so immense I don't know where to begin. You haven't been in Summerland long enough to have been exposed to it."

"What subject?" I asked.

"Rebirth," he said.

I felt dazed and lost. The more I learned of afterlife, the more confusing it became.

"Rebirth?"

"You've actually survived death many times," he said. "You remember the identity of the life you just departed but you've had--we've all had--a multitude of past lives."

A memory surfaced from the darkness in my mind. A cottage and an old man lying on a bed, two people nearby, a white-haired woman and a middle-aged man, their dress foreign, the woman's accent unfamiliar as she said, "I think he's gone."

That old man had been me?

"Are you telling me that Ann is back on earth again?" I asked.

He nodded and I couldn't restrain a groan of despair.

"Chris, would you rather she was still where you found her?"

"No,but--"

"Because you helped her understand what she'd done," he said, "she was able to replace her self-imprisonment with immediate rebirth. Surely, you can see the vast improvement in that." "Yes, but--" Again, I couldn't finish. Of course, I was grateful that she was free of that dreadful place.

Still, now, we were separated again.

"Where?" I asked.

He answered quietly. "India."

The path begins on earth

AT LAST, I spoke. One word.

"India ?"

"It was immediately available," he said, "as well as offering a challenge to her soul; a handicap to overcome which can counterbalance the negative effect of her suicide."

"Handicap?" I asked uneasily.

"The body she's chosen will, in later years, contract an illness which will cause severe sleep deprivation."

Ann had taken her life with sleeping pills. To balance the scales, she'd acquire a condition which would not permit her to sleep normally.

"And she chose this?" I asked, wanting to be sure of that.

"Absolutely," Albert said. "Rebirth is always a matter of choice."

I nodded slowly, staring at him. "What about--the rest?" I asked.

"The rest is good," he said. "In compensation for the pain she endured and the progress she achieved in her last life. Her new parents are intelligent, attractive people, the father in local government, the mother a successful artist. Ann--she'll have another name, of course--will be given much love and opportunity for creative and intellectual growth."

I thought about it for a while before I spoke. Then I said, "I want to go back too."

Albert looked distressed.

"Chris," he said, "unless one has to, one should never choose rebirth until one has studied and improved the mind so that the next life is an improvement over the last."

"I'm sure that's true," I conceded. "But I have to be with her and help her if I can. I feel guilty for not having helped her enough in our past life together. I want to try again."

"Chris, think," he said. "Do you really want to return so soon to a world where masses are robbed and cheated by a few? Where food is destroyed while millions starve? Where service to state is a brute hypocrisy? Where killing is a simpler solution than loving?"

His words were harsh but I knew he spoke them for my benefit, hoping to convince me to remain in Summerland and grow.

"I know you're right," I said. "And I know you have my best interests at heart. But I love Ann and I have to be with her, helping her as best I can."

His smile was sad but accepting. "I understand." He nodded. "Well, I'm not surprised," he said. "I've seen you both together."

I started. "When?"

"When both of you were taken from that etheric prison." His smile was tender now. "Your auras blend. You have the same vibration, as I told you. That's why you can't bear being separated from her. She's your soul mate and I understand completely why you want to be with her. I'm sure Ann chose rebirth in hope of bringing both of you together somehow. Still--"

"What?"

"I wish you could understand the implications of returning."

"It can be done, can't it?" I asked in concern.

"It may not be simple," he answered. "And there could be risks."

"What sort of risks?"

He hesitated, then replied. "We'd best have an expert tell you."

I thought I could return immediately. I should have known that such a complex process was not so easily effected; that, like everything in afterlife, it required study.

First came the lecture. Near the center of the city I was in a giant, circular temple seating thousands. A shaft of white light shone down on it, clearly visible in spite of the abundant illumination.

When Albert and I entered the temple, we moved unhesitatingly to a pair of seats halfway to the speaker's platform. I cannot tell you why. They weren't marked or different, in any way, from all the other seats. Still, I knew those seats were ours before we reached them.

The massive audience was talking quietly; by which, of course, I mean without an audible sound. Many smiled at us as we took our places.

"Are all these people planning to be reborn?" I asked in surprise.

"I doubt it," Albert said. "Most of them are probably here to learn."

I nodded, trying not to acknowledge my mounting unrest. It was similar to the feeling I'd had when I first arrived in Summerland; when something in me had, unconsciously, been aware of Ann's impending suicide.

Similar, I say. It couldn't be the same. I knew that she would live now, not die. Still, our separation was equally distressing to me. I couldn't tell you, Robert, what the higher ramifications are of being soul mates. I can tell you this however. As long as you are separated from your own, that long are you troubled. No matter what the circumstances, no matter how exquisite the environment in which you find yourself.

To be half of one can only be a torment when the other half is gone.

A lovely woman walked up to the platform now and smiled at us, began to speak.

"Shakespeare put it this way in referring to death," she said. "The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.''

She smiled again. "Beautifully expressed," she said, "if totally inaccurate. We have all discovered this country following our 'deaths.' What is more, it is a bourn from which all travelers must, eventually, return.

"We are triune," she continued. "Spirit, soul and body; this last third--in earthly life-- composed of physical, etheric and astral bodies. I will not discuss our spirit at this time. Our soul contains the essence of God within us. This essence directs our course of life, guiding the soul through many life experiences. Each time a portion of the soul descends into flesh, it absorbs that experience and evolves, becoming enriched by it. Or--" She paused, "--detracting from it."

Which was essentially what Albert had said, I recalled. Ann's suicide had detracted from her soul and, now, she had chosen to absorb enough positive experience to rebuild it.

How is this larger self added to or subtracted from? By memory. Each of us has an external and an internal memory, the external belonging to our visible body, the internal to our invisible--or spiritual--body. Every single thing any one of us has ever thought, willed, spoken, done, heard or seen is inscribed on this internal memory.

This comprehensive recollection always remains in its "Father's house," growing or diminishing with the results of each new physical life. The astral--or spirit--body returns to earth but remains the same. Only the body of flesh and its etheric double is altered.

There is a line of communication between the higher self and whatever physical form the soul has, currently, chosen. For instance, if the physical self receives an inspiration, it comes from the soul. The so-called "still, small voice" is knowledge from former lessons which warn an individual not to commit some act which would do injury to its soul.

However, by and large, except in cases of those born receptive to its existence or who, by looking inward--meditating--become aware of it, the penetration of this true self into matter is rarely perceived.

"The process, then, is this," the woman told us. "Life after life of effort, interspersed with periods of rest and study on this plane, gradually shapes the soul to that which it aspires to be. Sometimes, what it has failed to achieve in life can be achieved in afterlife so that the next rebirth is attended by more awareness, more ability to effect the ultimate aspiration toward God.

"Thus, the triunity which we are experiences a triad of incarnation, disincarnation and reincarnation. Man should be well aware of how to die for he has done it many times. Yet, every time he returns to flesh--with rare exceptions--he forgets again."

A question occurred to me. Amazingly, the woman answered it as though she'd picked it from my mind.

"You appear now as you did in your last incarnation," she said. "You have, of course, had many different appearances, some of the opposite sex. You retain the look of your previous life, however, because it is most vivid in your memory. "When that life terminated, your consciousness receded, in stages, toward its source, dissociating itself from its involvement in matter. This process of relinquishment took place in the etheric world where your desires and feelings were refined, all nonregenerated forces from your life focused and transmuted. At length, your consciousness receded to this mental or 'heaven' stage where it is, now, completely free of matter.''

I didn't know whether she'd receive my thanks for the answer but I nodded once. It may have been imagined but it seemed as though she smiled and nodded back.

"The length of the stay in afterlife varies," she continued. "Sometimes a thousand years may pass between incarnations. When awareness comes after death, the initial impulse of the personality is to reincarnate. Newcomers invariably begin to practice the method by which vibrations are controlled so they can be reborn.

"The real discipline is for a soul to decide to remain in Summerland and study to improve so that the next incarnation will be a larger forward step in the soul-growth process."

Another question occurred to me; immediately answered again. I wondered if I was the only one thinking it.

"Not everyone is reborn," the woman said. "Some souls are so advanced they no longer reincarnate but pass on to a level of existence beyond anything that earth can offer, achieving a final reunion with God.

"These souls, having found no remaining lack in their attempts to atone for misdeeds or acquire knowledge, elect to join the Creator and are drawn into a state of perfect oneness with Him, becoming, as it were, integral with the universal pattern."

She did not go into the details of this so-called "third" death since it is too complex and all of us had much experience to face yet, much to learn and many limitations to overcome. Limitations which can only be dealt with on earth because it is the only place where they can be externalized. Summerland is far too malleable, far too easy to control. Only in the density of matter can any personality face the most severe of trials. It is man's primary testing ground, the place for action and experiment.

All of us have a path to follow and the path begins on earth.