XX. Sleep and Waking, in the Light of the previous Observations

Whilst Man is in this state, awake to the life of the world around him, through all the feelings that inwardly arise in him there run non-earthly, cosmic impulses that reach from a far distant cosmic Past into the Present. He is not conscious of this. A being can be conscious of that alone, in which it takes part through its own dying forces, not through the forces of growth which feed its life. Thus Man comes to Self-realization through the loss from his mind's eye of that which is the very basis of his own inner being. This however is precisely what enables him, whilst in the waking state, to feel himself utterly immersed in the thought-shadows. No flicker of life disturbs the inner state of participation in the world of the dead and dying. This ‘life amid the dead and dying’ conceals however the essential characteristic of the Earth-world, namely that it is the life-seed of a new Universe. Man in his waking state does not perceive the Earth as the Earth truly is; her first beginnings of new cosmic life escape him.