Lecture VI

Now let us take any animal that, for its progressive development in sensory existence, must shed its skin. From time to time, it must lay aside its skin like a kind of image of itself and progress in life with a new form. Something has to be cast aside to give the being in question new possibilities of life. Ahriman would like to save everything and would like to prevent all snakes from casting their skin; he would like everything used up that, in the mind of the world order, must be cast aside. Man, too, would like to do that in sensory existence. There is a great deal he would prefer not to leave but to take with him, although in the mind of a higher world order it is destined for the temporal and the passing moment. Because the urge is so strong in him, man would, if it were possible for him among all his questions in the sensory world about unknown paths and so forth, want first to ask, “Where can Ahriman be found? Where can Ahriman help one to carry into eternity what is held in the passing moment?”