agine how difficult it is to concentrate here
upon mathematical calculations and the judgment of a horoscope or in fact
upon any subject here, where every little thought-current takes you miles
away from your study. I used to think it difficult to concentrate when I
had a physical body, but it is not a circumstance to the obstacles which
face the student here."

The physical body was an anchor to her, and it is that to all of us. Being
dense, it is also to a great extent impervious to disturbing influences
from which the more subtle spiritual bodies do not shield us. It enables
us to bring our ideas to a logical conclusion with far less effort at
concentration than is necessary in that realm where all is in such
incessant and turbulent motion. Thus we are gradually developing the
faculty of holding our thoughts to a center by existence in this world,
and we should value our opportunities here, rather than deplore the
limitations which help in one direction more than they fetter in another.
In fact, we should never deplore any condition, each has its lesson. If we
try to learn what that lesson is and to assimilate the experience which
may be extracted therefrom, we are wiser than those who waste time in vain
regrets.

We said there is no time in the Desire World, and the reader will readily
understand that such must be the case from the fact, already mentioned,
that nothing there is opaque.

In this world the rotation of the opaque earth upon its axis is
responsible for the alternating conditions of day and night. We call it
Day--when the spot where we live is turned towards the sun and its rays
illumine our environment, but when our home is turned away from the sun
and its rays obstructed by the opaque earth we term the resulting
darkness: Night. The passage of the earth in its orbit around the sun
produces the seasons and the year, which are our divisions of time. But in
the Desire World where all is light there is but one long day. The spirit
is not there fettered by a heavy physical body, so it does not need sleep
and existence is unbroken. Spiritual substances are not subject to
contraction and expansion such as arise here from heat and cold, hence
summer and winter are also non-existent. Thus there is nothing to
differentiate one moment from another in respect of the conditions of
light and darkness, summer and winter, which mark time for us. Therefore,
while the so-called "dead" may have a very accurate memory o