5. Natural Death and Spiritual Life

Only that which is already continually in the bosom of this death can succumb to it. By seeing through the continuous dying, the actual moment of death is recognized only as a kind of summary of that which is always there. And while we are constantly saving our life, I might say, from death, by always overcoming the forces of death in the physical life, but overcoming them by the fact that within us there is always that which is only seen by higher knowledge, so in physical death, by this the spiritual soul in us, precisely in physical death, that which in its individual addenda, in its individual elements, must be overcome from moment to moment of life, is overcome – completely overcome, I might say – in physical death. We overcome natural death in every moment through our spiritual life, which has nothing to do with death. And when one acquires such knowledge of the overcoming of mortality through immortality, then the riddle of death also presents itself to the human soul in precisely that renewed form, which I took the liberty of describing to you this evening, my dear audience.