"In the Western world our life has become so unnatural that 'even in old age many men eagerly carry on the turmoil and the competition of worldly business, and so their physical life is ill-proportioned and its machinery all out of gear. The work of purification and detachment which should have begun in middle life is left until death overtakes them, and has therefore to be done upon the astral plane instead of the physical. Thus unnecessary delay is caused, and through his ignorance of the true meaning of life the man's progress is slower than it should be"