Concerning the Spiritual Soul of Man Between Death and a New Birth

Just as we here on earth see a person with our outer senses, only the shape of his face, the shine of his eyes, the movements of his limbs, but we become aware that we ourselves are spiritual-soul beings, that in these formations of his face, in the shine of his eyes, in the incarnadine of his skin, in the movements of his limbs, a spiritual-soul element is of his skin, and in the movements of his limbs, a spiritual-soul element is living itself out. Thus, the person who is able to view the world spiritually and soulfully recognizes that it is not true when it is claimed that the sun and moon, fixed stars and planets, and the movements of the planets are only that which our present-day physical astronomy describes. This description is actually similar to that which someone would give if they only wanted to describe the external movements of a muscle in our face, if they only wanted to describe the movement of the eyelashes, and did not want to see the expression of a spiritual soul in the movements of the facial muscles, in this movement of the eyelids. The one who is able to look at the world spiritually and soulfully sees the physiognomic expression of a cosmic spiritual-soul life in the phenomena of the moon and the sun just as we see the expression of a spiritual-soul life in the human face. In the movements of the planets, he sees expressions of spiritual-soul events, just as one sees in the movements of the limbs of human beings the revelations of spiritual-soul impulses. And in these spiritual-soul backgrounds of what appears to us in the physical image of the outer physical sun, the outer physical moon, the stars and their movements, in this spiritual-soul that corresponds in the cosmos to the spiritual-soul of the individual human being, the human being lives, if he is a supersensible being, before he descends into earthly existence. And just as I can say here as an earthly human being: I have lungs and a heart within me, so as a supermundane human being, before I descend into the sensual-physical existence in order to constitute my physical body, I can say: I have moon and sun within me. However, I must be aware that I do not mean the sensual earthly reflection of the sun and moon, but that which underlies them as spiritual-soul. The entire spiritual world of divinity interweaves and lives in me, in that I am in a supermundane human existence. Only when one sees through this does one get that deep reverence for all real world existence into which man has been woven. For one now sees through the wonderful connections that exist between man and the universe. One learns to look at man as he stands there in his physical earthly existence, and one learns to say to oneself: In that which is enclosed within the walls of the skin, not only what you see with your physical eyes, what the anatomist can look at and unravel on the dissecting table after death, but the ultimate goal of all cosmic activity lives within it. The wonderful saying of ancient religious times, that man is an image of God Himself, takes on a new meaning of infinite intimacy. And inspired knowledge teaches us to look at what man actually experiences in connection with the spiritual-divine powers that underlie the cosmos in his pre-earthly existence.