The Connection Between Humans and the Spiritual World

If we really think about this, we will realize that human beings are something other than the beings we often make them out to be in our criticism. If we had the ability in the physical world to always see how the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces work in human beings, we would judge people very differently. Not that we would perhaps be less critical, for when we divert our judgment from human beings, we must fight not human beings, but Lucifer and Ahriman. But we would be infinitely more tolerant toward human beings as human beings. Those who live in the soul life between death and a new birth practice this tolerance both toward the beings who are with them in the spiritual world and toward those beings who are still embodied here as human beings in physical life. And it is simply part of the nature of those who have passed through the gate of death that they acquire this tolerance, that they always see through: this or that part of a human being belongs to Lucifer or Ahriman. They do not say: This is a bad person who follows evil desires — but they see through: Lucifer has this much share in him. He does not say, “That is an envious person,” but rather, “Ahriman has such and such a share in him.” This is how those who live up there between death and birth judge, because it belongs to their nature, just as it belongs to our nature to have healthy eyes when we are naturally healthy. Since this belongs to the nature of the dead, it causes the dead immense pain when they maintain the connection they established in physical life and encounter a different attitude here. Let us suppose that, out of personal antipathy, we harbor a particular hatred toward a person who was also connected with the dead. then this hatred causes immense pain to the deceased, who may be connected to us, and this hatred must always be overcome by the deceased like a sword, like a barbed sword, like a spear drawn against him, when the deceased, as he must, because he is connected to us, wants to approach us.