The Human Being's Journey Through the World of the Senses, Soul and Spirit

We will find it understandable that, again, depending on the individuality of the person, the time will vary that must be gone through for the sake of this purification, for the sake of this uprooting of desires that only go to the physical world. But the human being also undergoes this time in such a way that it does not merely count in days, but that, according to the research of the science of the next life, it takes up about one third of the life in the physical world that has passed between birth and death. It is understandable to those who are able to look more deeply that the time of purification takes up about a third of one's lifetime. If you look at human life, you find that this human life between birth and death clearly falls into three thirds. The first third of life is there for the human being's abilities and talents, which come into being through birth, to work their way through the obstacles of the physical world. There is a kind of ascending life in the first third. The human being gradually takes possession of his physical organs as a spiritual being. Then comes the next third of life, which lasts approximately from the ages of 21 to 42 on average. The first lasts until the age of 21. This second third of life takes up the development of all those powers that a person can unfold by interacting with his inner being, with his soul, with the outside world. By this time, he has already formed the organs of his physical and etheric or life body plastically, so he no longer has any obstacles in them. He is fully grown. His soul enters into direct relationship with the outer world. This lasts until the time when man must begin to draw again on his physical and etheric or life body, and this then happens for the rest of his life. Then man draws again, little by little, on what he has formed plastically in his youth. We have been able to point out the wonderful connection that exists between youth and old age. If during the time when the inner human being is plastically formed in the organs of the human being, if the human being acquires certain qualities, if during this time he has overcome various impulses of anger in his soul, if he has gone through what we call the feeling of devotion, then the effect of this comes to expression precisely in the last third of life. In the middle third, this goes on as in a hidden stream. And what we call 'conquered anger' comes to the fore in old age as 'just mildness', so that in conquered anger lies the cause of mildness. And from the mood of devotion that we cultivate in our younger years, at the end of our lives comes that quality that we see in people who can enter into a community and, without saying much, have the effect of blessing.