68. Death Makes the Experience of Life into True Soul Property

Man is held in the physical world by the lust for his body; through the desire for it, he is led to it again and again – sleep means an external release; but internally, lust and desire remain experiences – to tear them out of the soul – without living them – this gives knowledge of the higher worlds – death is the experience that makes the experience of life the true property of the soul; man acquires it inwardly through the experience of death; without life in the body he could not come to self-awareness. In life, the physical body gives us self-awareness; in death, the memory of the experiences in this body ignites our supersensory self-awareness through hindsight. We are like a thought of higher beings, but we are ourselves through our connection to the physical world.

In death from war: the strengthening of the spiritual world; the fulfillment of the soul; the fallen, like those who survive, will look down on them through the spirit in a strengthening way; or rather, the spiritual world will look down on the people of the future in a strengthened way. One experiences an inner turmoil; and one sees oneself placed in a struggle that foreign powers fight in man - the thinking soul becomes full of devotion - the willing soul resists this devotion, revolts - it knows that with the fulfillment of devotion, unless it has first acquired its own existence. It knows that physical death is an experience, but that it becomes the essential event if it does not go through it in this way – that it finds itself before its onset.

It could choose: to remain in ignorance, but then it would not bring progress into the world's development.