The Immortality of Living Beings
The article: The Immortality of Living Beings
Chapter 6
The immortal structure of the living being
By observing himself the unprejudiced intellectual human being can find his way to his own immortal structure.
This has already given rise to a special word in the language to express it.
This word is "I".
This word is, as a rule, accompanied by other words.
We say, for example, "I ran", "I was happy", "I was hungry", "I was ill", and so on.
From these expressions it is evident that the I constitutes the source of that for which the accompanying words are an expression.
The accompanying words are thus an expression for something that the I does.
The I is thus the highest "Something" in us.
It constitutes the true self.
Now the question is what this I is.
In the first place we have to recognise that it is this I that, by virtue of its organism and consciousness, creates, wishes or desires; just as it is this Something that has a will and controls the organism.
It is this I that is the innermost cause of the organism.
It is what experiences and creates in the organism.
When this I leaves the organism the latter lies as if unconscious or asleep.
If the I does not return to the organism, this organism becomes a corpse.
And we say of this being that it is dead.
It is very important to come to an understanding of the structure of this I, since we would otherwise never arrive at an understanding of our immortality.
Our I thus creates and experiences.
But it cannot be identical with "the created".
It is an unshakable condition that "the creator" must exist before "the created".
But if the creator, which means the I, existed before "the created", "the created" cannot be its analysis.
This in turn means that the I or the creator must be nameless in its true structure.
Whatever we say about this I can only be an expression for something this has created or produced, and not the I itself.
If we say that it is evil or good, large or small or the like, then these words cannot be an expression for the self or the I but are merely an expression for something this I has created.
The I itself shows itself here as something that exists independently outside "the created", something that in itself cannot have been created and must therefore constitute an eternal reality.
It must of necessity be nameless, and I have expressed this highest Something in the living being as "X1".
Our I is thus immortal.
It has never begun and it can never come to an end.
But as it does not constitute "the created", it is in itself total stillness.
It cannot therefore be sensed.
If it constituted something that, like matter, was in movement or vibration it would be accessible to sensory perception.
But it is in itself beyond all accessibility to sensory perception by virtue of the fact that it constitutes total stillness and is therefore not able to create the reaction in our set of senses that is identical with experience.
For the senses it must therefore appear as "Nothing".
However, this "Nothing" is of necessity an illusion, since it is an unshakable fact that this directing, experiencing and creating I exists as our innermost and real self.
But, in its innermost nature and differing from everything else, this I does not constitute a living being.
It can be expressed only as "Something that is".
This Something, however, can create and experience.
It can attach itself to a physical body by virtue of which it can manifest itself to other living beings and likewise, through the aforesaid body, experience the manifestations of these living beings.
There is thus a reality attached to the I that enables it to connect itself with matter, which is the material for its manifestations.
This reality thus constitutes the main organ and the headquarters for the individual's ability to experience life.
This ability must be just as eternal as the I.
If there had been a time when the I did not have this ability to experience, which is in reality the same as its general ability to create, how should it then have come into existence?
Without a creative ability nothing can be created.
A creation cannot arise out of nothing; something cannot come from nothing any more than something can become nothing.
This, the I's creative ability, is thus, like the I, an eternal reality.
But an eternal reality is not space- and time-dimensional, it cannot be measured or weighed.
The I's general creative ability in its innermost structure cannot therefore have any analysis other than this – that it also constitutes "Something that is".
I have therefore expressed this, the I's creative ability, as "X2".
This creative ability, through its connection with matter and that structure built up by virtue of this, is termed the "superconsciousness" of the I.
To this superconsciousness there is again in turn attached an area of the living being's structure that appears for us as the I's "subconsciousness".
Through this subconsciousness the I experiences its "day-consciousness" and "night-consciousness".
This subconsciousness is borne by six organisms or bodies, one for each of the six basic energies: "instinct", "gravity", "feeling", "intelligence", "intuition" and "memory".
To the subconsciousness belongs the physical body through which the other bodies more or less reveal themselves and take part in creating the I's ability to experience, and its consciousness, its character and use of will, its wishes and desires and so on.
These subconscious bodies are time- and space-dimensional.
They are created or built up, reach a culmination and perish again.
They constitute only tools and must, like other "created things", be subject to wear and tear and are thereby, as mentioned above, perishable.
But the ability to create new organisms or bodies is seated therefore in the superconsciousness, which is not perishable.
By virtue of this, the I is able to survive everything that is temporary, including the death of its own physical body, and is additionally able to build up new bodies when the appropriate conditions are present.
This subconsciousness is, in its innermost principle, just as imperishable as the I's superconsciousness or "X2".
Only the organisms and bodies created through the subconsciousness are perishable, which is the reason why they are time- and space-dimensional, but the structure of the subconsciousness is eternal.
It is also therefore nameless in its innermost structure and can be expressed only as "Something that is".
I have therefore called this area of the living being's structure "X3".
These three "X's" constitute precisely the three conditions that are required in order that a "Something" can appear as a living being.
These three principles cannot be separated.
If we omit one of them, the other two are without meaning: the I would not be able to appear as a living being; manifestation and the experience of life would be total impossibilities.
These three analyses therefore belong inseparably together and thereby constitute the living being's immortal structure.
The living being thus constitutes a unit consisting of three inseparable eternal principles determining that the above-mentioned being appears as an eternal, immortal individual beyond time and space.