The Etheric Being in the Physical Human Being

We thus grow together cognisantly with the spiritual world. We grow together with something of which we may say that it forms part of us when we discard what is given to us with the instrument of the physical body and what essentially constitutes our life from birth to death. When passing through the portal of death we grow into a world which very much resembles the one described just now, which reveals itself to higher knowledge. And then we notice an infinitely important thing: If we wish to penetrate in the right way into the world we enter through the portal of death, we need—in the same way in which a light is needed in a dark room—something which we unfold here on earth in the innermost depths of our soul. Life on earth should not be looked upon as a prison. In the natural course of development man must, of course, pass through the portal of death and he must pass through the life between death and a new birth, but the whole of life exists in order that each part of our being may add to us something we need, something new, and in the present cycle of evolution, life on earth should give us something that flames like a torch, so that we do not simply live through our spiritual existence, but recognize it; our life in the spiritual world will then be flooded with light. The light which illumines us is the imperishable element which we gain from birth to death for our life between death and a new birth.