1373 Spiritual and physical nourishment....

April 7, 1940: Book 23

The needs of the body and the soul are completely different. For its preservation the body needs those nutrients which are again taken from the realm of the earthly.... therefore, earthly things must be nourished with earthly things in order to exist, i.e., it is divine will that the human being's earthly body is also to a certain extent dependent on God's creations which are at his disposal and which again fulfil their earthly task by serving to maintain the human body. So man can never free himself on his own authority from these otherwise seemingly insignificant works of creation, he inevitably needs them and is therefore in certain dependence on everything that contributes to the preservation of his earth life. And this is wisely arranged by the eternal creator. He has thus established the connection between everything spiritual, everything is needed in creation and consequently nothing is without purpose.... The spiritual in every work of creation always pushes towards the spiritual of the one it is meant to serve. And the connection of everything spiritual is always connected with the liberation from the old form. So serving the spiritual also means its redemption....

The merging of the spiritual of the one and the other form also means increased activity, i.e. being of service to the human being who needs this work of creation. Man's body needs many things in his life and all these must be supplied to him in order to either achieve the inner structure or also to serve the outer shell to protect it. Everything that man needs in his earthly existence is provided for in God's creation....

In particular every spiritual substance is withdrawn from matter as soon as it is taken up by living beings as food, therefore for the preservation of the outer form. This spiritual substance now joins the spiritual of the living being, so that in a certain period of time the spiritual again attains maturity to change into another form, which again sets greater tasks to the being. Increase of the spiritual through fusion of individual entities and maturing of these through service in God's intended sense is always and constantly the purpose of the change through all works of creation. And in the last stage as man now likewise the body, the outer form, and the soul.... the spiritual in man, must be provided with supply of spiritual substance for the purpose of perfection, and indeed now no longer what is taken up by the body as food benefits both.... the body and the soul.... but it is again up to the will of man whether the soul also receives spiritual nourishment at the same time. And indeed, this nourishment must be offered to it in addition to the purely bodily nourishment and must also be thought of at the same time as the soul receives the latter, so that the latter also serves the increase of spiritual substance in addition to the preservation of the body. The human soul can therefore be considered in two ways.... the spiritual in the form can be extraordinarily increased through the right reception of natural food and drink, and this increased spiritual can again reach an extraordinarily high degree of maturity through the supply of spiritual food.... through the word of God.... reach an extraordinarily high degree of maturity, so that the outer form has now fulfilled its last purpose, therefore the spiritual no longer needs such for higher development, but has reached the goal that was set for it for the earthly career and therefore soars up into light heights without any outer fetters. Extraordinarily much can be achieved in the last stage of development, but free will is always the reason for this, since it is now up to the human being himself to shape his soul, everything spiritual in him, but the success of the endeavour is also extraordinarily valuable, for it is complete liberation from the form....

Amen

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