IV. The Eternal and the Imperishable

There are three of these forces, which we can demonstrate somewhat in the following manner. One of these forces manifest during life in that in the very earliest time of our life we “crawl on all fours” and then we lift ourselves upright. While we are transforming ourselves from the crawling child to the man who walks upright, we are following a certain line of force, within which we place ourselves, and with which we identify ourselves. This line of force, from a spiritually-scientific point of view, is very clearly visible in man. From below runs a line which goes from the center of the Earth into the Universe. In olden times this was described simply by saying that a line goes from the center of the Earth into the Universe, which line differs for each human being, and differs indeed in each epoch, but always goes from the middle of the Earth into the Universe. That is one of the important lines of force in man. The way it works in our physical life only continues as long as this life, for the physical force of gravity of our body equalizes this force. The moment this physical force of gravity no longer works as it does in the living body, the moment the living body becomes a corpse, this line of force from the center of the Earth to the Universe discloses itself as that which chiefly pushes and caries our particles of matter. Of course they are always driven on further by their own weight; but if we were to follow up what becomes of them through a long period of time, we should find that they disburse in the direction of this force, even if this takes centuries to achieve.