“We can see among the Hindus, the Persians, the Chinese, how men were taught to recognize their manifold obligations; to make the body yield dutiful sacrifice of obedience and reverence to ancestors, to parents, to elders; to bestow charity with courtesy; and to show kindness to all.
Slowly men were helped to evolve both heroism and self-sacrifice to a high degree, as witness the martyrs who joyfully flung their bodies to torture and death rather than deny their faith or be false to their creed.
They looked indeed for a “crown of glory” in heaven as a recompense for the sacrifice of the physical form, but it was much to have overcome the clinging to that physical form, and to have made the invisible world so real that it outweighed the visible.”
Annie Besant
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 