"Being divided is our human condition," she admitted. "But our division is not between the mind and the body, but between the body, which houses the mind or the self, and the double, which is the receptacle of our basic energy."

She said that before birth, man's imposed duality doesn't exist, but that from birth on, the two parts are separated by the pull of mankind's intent. One part turns outward and becomes the physical body: the other, inward and becomes the double. At death the heavier part, the body, returns to the earth to be absorbed by it, and the light part, the double, becomes free. But unfortunately, since the double was never perfected, it experiences freedom for only an instant, before it is scattered into the universe.

"If we die without erasing our false dualism of body and mind, we die an ordinary death," she said.

"How else can we die?"

Clara peered at me with one eyebrow raised. Rather than answer my question, she revealed in a confiding tone that we die because the possibility that we could be transformed hasn't entered our conception. She stressed that this transformation must be accomplished during our lifetime and that to succeed in this task is the only true purpose a human being can have. All other attainments are transient, since death dissolves them into nothingness."