V. Illness and Death

A cultivated person does not follow his urges and passions blindly; he has purified and transformed them into moral feelings and ethical ideals. When we compare a person with a savage, we realize that a Johann von Schiller,[^1] a Francis of Assisi[^2] or indeed the average civilized person has purified and transformed, through his “I,” these urges and cravings. Consequently the astral body consists of two parts, one that contains the original tendencies and another created by the “I.” We can only understand the work of the “I” on the basis of reincarnation; we must recognize that we are subject to repeated lives on earth, which means that when we are born we bring with ourselves the fruits, the outcome of earlier lives. These fruits are contained in four separate bodies as the measure of energy and forces available to a person in life. Thanks to what a person has attained already, one person will be born with strong energy and forces with which to work on the astral body, while another will soon exhaust what is available to him.