4088 Spiritual death.... term "life"....

July 22, 1947: Book 50

The human being can live and yet be spiritually dead, but conversely he can also die and yet enter eternal life, except that this is a spiritual life, whereas the former only concerns the body, whereby the soul is in a state of lightlessness and consequently also without strength, thus a state of death is its fate, even if it lives in the midst of a joyful environment. For earthly life is only an illusory life which does not last, yet the human being who is spiritually dead is also without realisation and therefore places the illusory life before the actual life, the life of the spirit in eternity. But what are you human beings basically and really? You are spiritual, only enclosed by a material cover, and as soon as this cover falls, which is transient, the spiritual in you is free, no matter in what state the soul leaves the body.... It is free from its outer form, but not every soul is free to will and able to create. But wanting and being able to create out of itself is its bliss, it is the state which was its original purpose and which has been lost. Wanting and being able to create, however, is synonymous with life.... being able to be continuously active according to its will.... On earth, too, 'life' means being able to be active unhindered by physical weaknesses and infirmities, for an earthly life which is accompanied by the latter is not fully valued and is regarded as a shortcoming as long as the human being does not have the right knowledge about his earthly task. On earth, however, even the inactive person usually compensates himself by fulfilling earthly desires and thus helps himself to overcome his state of weakness or conscious inactivity.... idleness.... taking himself day by day, which was given to him for the upward development of his soul. In the spiritual kingdom, on the other hand, the soul must do without any anaesthetic, it must feel the state of its inactivity oppressive, it must become a torment to it so that it seeks to escape from it. Its lack of strength prevents it from changing its state on its own authority, it is poor in every respect and has to live in want until help is brought to it in its adversity through the prayer of people close to it on earth. For where love sends such a prayer after it into eternity, a glimmer of realisation will come to the soul in a flash. If it uses this, the light around it will soon become stronger and the dreadful torments of lightlessness will subside. But the desire for life now awakens in it and stimulates it to activity, but activity in the beyond is: to work in love, just as the soul can only gain eternal life on earth through a life of love, which only gives its soul the right life. And thus death need never frighten a person who endeavours to live a life of love on earth, for he will not die but live in eternity. But for the others, who only value earthly life alone, death will retain its sting, for they are truly in the state of death after their demise, only that they are not completely extinguished but that the awareness of their existence clings to them extraordinarily and often such that they only think of themselves and pay no attention to the hardship of the souls around them. And then they are in deepest danger of having to remain in the state of death for eternities, for only love can give life, because the law of love has to be fulfilled on earth as well as in the beyond, because without love there is no life and the human being can never be saved. Life and death can therefore be close together, a person's passing away need not signify his death, just as a person's life on earth can only be called life if the spirit is constantly active, if the person sets himself a spiritual aim and eagerly pursues it; if he works with love as his spirit tells him to do, for he will not die but live for eternity....

Amen

This proclamation is used in the following themebook:

Themebook	Title	Download
151	O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?	ePub   PDF   Kindle

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