I. Meditation: The Path to Higher Knowledge

If we grasp this experience of intuitive knowledge, then, in a picture, we have knowledge of what happens when we leave the physical body at death, then we know what it means to go through the gate of death. The reality we encounter, that the soul and spirit go over into a world of soul and spirit when they leave the body behind—we experience this reality beforehand when we have ascended to intuitive knowledge. That is, we know what it is like in a world where there is no body to provide support. When we have then brought this knowledge into concepts, we return to the body. But the essential thing is that we learn how to live without a body and acquire thereby the knowledge of what it will be like when we can no longer use our body, when we lay it aside at death and step over into a world of soul and spirit. Once again, this is not a question of philosophical speculation concerning immortality based upon initiation knowledge. It is, I would like to say, an experience, a pre-experience of what is to come. We know what it will be like. We do not experience the full reality of dying, but we experience immortality. This experience also becomes a part of our knowledge.