16. Life After Death

It is exceedingly difficult to speak about life after death in words borrowed from everyday language since the language we know is adapted to life between birth and death and refers to the objects of this world. Therefore, we can usually only indicate what happens between death and a new birth, which is so radically different in nature from anything that can be experienced here. We must imagine that everything we perceive here in the physical world to which we belong cannot be our world after death because we lack the physical-sensory organs. The intellect, which is bound to the brain, also ceases to function after death. We can only tentatively endeavor to give a picture of the life that is so completely different from our existence here on earth. In a certain sense, everyday words can only be used as analogies. Spiritual science, however, also teaches us to relate words to spiritual reality and conveys by means of words an understanding of the super-sensible world.