6. Intuitive Insight in the Happy and Serious Hours of Life

Such a moment of awakening can be a deeply dark moment in an otherwise happy life. In such a moment, what has been characterized comes to mind: the alienation of the soul from itself. And what a person has enjoyed in happiness and success, what he has just gone through, he sees sinking, so to speak, and sinking so much that he cannot hold on to it because he does not have the strength to hold on to it. That we lose ourselves in life when we steer into happiness and success without spiritual knowledge can come to our soul in a very special way through such a waking up. For we recognize through spiritual science that the moments we achieve in happiness and success can only become truly strengthening forces for our eternal self, passing through the gate of death into eternity, if we do not lose ourselves but maintain ourselves in the experience of happiness. Spiritual science is not intended to sour or begrudge man happiness; spiritual science does not want to take away or weaken an ounce of happiness and joy. But what it does want to point out is that happiness that is experienced without the characterized connection with the world cannot connect with the deepest forces of our ego. For anyone who goes through the world without spiritual knowledge, unstrengthened in relation to his I, derives nothing from happiness but only a longing for new happiness, and from this in turn only a longing for further happiness. He does not derive from the one experience of happiness the strengthening forces for all subsequent life. But he who carries into happiness those powers that open up to him when he seeks spiritual knowledge draws from happiness sustaining, invigorating strength, which he carries into his ego because he has strengthened it through spiritual science; and he carries with him for all eternity what happiness and success can give him.