This famous and marvellous Sanskrit poem occurs as an episode of the Mahabharata, in the sixth--or "Bhishma"--Parva of the great Hindoo epic. It enjoys immense popularity and authority in India, where it is reckoned as one of the ``Five Jewels,"--pancharatnani--of Devanagiri literature. In plain but noble language it unfolds a philosophical system which remains to this day the prevailing…

From his early Sonnets in 1872, Alfred Lord Tennyson writes freely about past lives and existence ...

The authoress of these poems, Mrs. Mary C. A. Bright, a member of the Blavatsky Lodge of the Theosophical Society, Sydney, N. S. W .-has kindly asked me to pen a few words of introduction to this her first published book.

There are three truths which are absolute, and which cannot be lost, but yet may remain silent for lack of speech.

Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never;
Never was time it was not ; End and Beginning are dreams!
Birth-less and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit forever.
Death hath not touched it all, dead though the house of it seems!

The following set of instructions were given by Madame Blavatsky,  a Principal Co-Founder of the Theosophical Society, to some of her earnest students in London in 1888:

From the Book: The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

My spirit to yours dear brother,
Do not mind because many sounding your name do not understand you,
I do not sound your name, but I understand you,

DOES the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

After the loss of a loved one, we may feel like expressing in words our thoughts on the transition to a new state of awareness. Whether it is to family members or something that we may wish to read out at a funeral, there is not a lot of poetry with a theosophical flavour in which our expressions can be truly represented.