In a few days time the church bells will be ringing over the whole Earth, well at least over the Christian part of the world. They will be ringing in Christmas. And the Christmas message of "peace on earth and goodwill toward men" will be proclaimed from all the world's churches. But even in the Christian world it has become up-to-date to believe that the whole business of Christmas, with the baby Jesus and the song of the angels etc., is a sentimental, old traditional superstition that has nothing at all to do with present-day reality. But even though you do not accept it as real, even though you believe that the description of the birth of Jesus is just an old, made-up story, the description itself is an expression of universal principles that are guiding human beings towards the "great birth". You can, if you want, completely ignore the birth of Jesus, but you cannot ignore the fact that there is not one single dark night when the stars do not shine. It is a universal principle in existence that where there is impenetrable darkness there is light. If it is possible, in the middle of the night, in the midst of the darkest part of the physical twenty-four hour period, for there to be light, moonshine or starlight, we can learn to see that also in the midst of life's darkness we have light. It is something that applies to all phenomena.

Nowadays a great many human beings have difficulty blindly believing in religious dogmas and teachings. Their religious instinct has degenerated and they are getting used to using their intelligence in an increasing number of areas of everyday life, with the result they have also become more and more used to the analyses of materialism. They study physical weight and measure and analyse everything that can be evaluated in terms of speed and volume, and this is all well and good when it concerns physical work and planning a job in concrete matter. But human beings are not just physical, and life is not just material. An enormous area of human beings' structure, and therefore the way they manifest their lives, is not physical. They cannot live on bread alone. If the rulers of countries have lost their belief in a spiritual reality behind the physical realities, it is essential that the song of the angels be heard all over the world every Christmas. This is not something that happened just once; it is a divine principle that continues to apply over the whole Earth every single Christmas. We will be able to see, cosmically, that it is a reality. I have seen angels, and there are others who have done so too, but it is not something that normally happens in public places where many people are gathered; there it would just be symbolic.

What do we understand angels to be? They are an expression of the forces that guide human beings forwards and help them when they need help. Such forces or energies always emanate from living beings, whether we can see them or not. Over the ages great sages have been born on Earth with a great deal of knowledge of life and its laws. They have been chosen to be "kings" or world redeemers for mankind. They have guided human beings forwards, not least by teaching them to love their neighbour as themselves. Such beings are angels in flesh and blood. Their consciousness is based on the "holy spirit" and because of this they can take part in helping human beings. There have been outstanding angels born in flesh and blood on Earth, and one cannot avoid noticing that such a being talks to the Godhead in the same way that a human being talks to his neighbour. The state of such a sage's being vibrates far and wide over the whole Earth.

What is the purpose of this cosmic impulse? Its purpose is to make sure that human beings do not drown in the killing principle; the most that can happen is that they sink into a state of spiritual latency. They cannot completely "die" – that would hinder the impulse. What one normally understands by the term "death" is a cessation of life that people with a materialistic view of life think takes place when the physical body dies. This is a great illusion and it is based on human beings' lack of knowledge about life. Life is eternal and cannot die, and life is the same as living beings. The closest living beings can come to death is to believe, as a result of their lack of knowledge about life, in death and to believe that they can kill other living beings and thereby "save life" for a little while. Wherever this mental state prevails, the "kingdom of the dead" or spiritual darkness exists, and terrestrial mankind is in such a state. But at the same time the cosmic energy is developing very powerfully in the darkness. It is developing more in the darkness than in the light because of the principle of contrasts. If you want to receive divine energy it is better to be in darkness, and it is therefore quite natural that this divine energy of love manifests in the middle of winter. Paganism, like Christianity, had a festival of light at midwinter, a solstice festival in which they celebrated that they were once again moving towards lighter times. They rejoiced in looking forward to the longer days, and this joy in itself had the effect of being spiritual light and warmth for human beings. It can be difficult for many people to come through the dark months, not just physically because of the cold and the dark, but they can find these months so depressing that mentally they succumb to nervous strain and depression. But those beings that live in accordance with the laws of life do what they can to help others and manifest an enormous amount of energy of love. From the divine world the energy of love is concentrated at a certain time, namely at the winter solstice or Christmastime. At this time there quite naturally arises in many human beings a tendency and an urge to be helpful and to give gifts and to create light and festivity in the midst of the cold and dark. Of course the way that we celebrate Christmas these days is affected by materialism, and many people say that shopkeepers just decorate their windows and streets and light candles in order to make money, but the result is nevertheless that it stimulates in human beings' minds the wish to give gifts. Without this urge to make other people happy, Christmas would not exist. It is the fact that people would "rather give than receive" that creates the kind of goodwill that the angels sang about. At other times of the year the opposite is often the case – people would "rather receive than give". But at Christmastime most people have the right attitude; it is "in the air". The Christmas principle is a cosmic principle.

Little by little human beings will leave behind those Christmas traditions that, from a cosmic point of view, can be seen as inhuman or verging towards being negative, such as excessive eating and drinking etc. In the future we will not celebrate the Christmas message by killing animals and eating the corpses of these fellow beings; that is something we will let go of. I am not saying this in order that you should sit and think about it on Christmas Eve – go ahead and eat your meat – but it is up to me to tell human beings how evolution will progress and how conditions will change. We will leave behind these principles, but it has to take place from within each individual human being's awareness of what their conscience allows them to do. Eventually we will understand that Christmas is meant to be a completely unselfish phenomenon.

Terrestrial human beings are not only in a physical midwinter period with snow and ice and a physical Christmas celebration, which with its material pleasures can create light and festivity in the time of darkness; they are also in a cosmic winter zone, a period of mental coldness and spiritual darkness, a time of death. Are we not witness to crises and unrest everywhere in the world? Are there not despots who want for ever more weapons and soldiers? Is there not tension and fear, even though it is only a few years since we had a world war? Since human beings are experiencing this period of mental darkness it is of great importance to understand that, just as physical winter has its Christmastime, there also exists a Christmas in the midst of the mental winter darkness, and we are about to reach this point. It is here that "angels speak and sing", it is here that we can hear the message of wisdom and neighbourly love, where we can grow out of materialism. Such a Christmastime is now in evidence in the mental winter zone that terrestrial human beings are in. It is "the comforter, the holy spirit" that will come when human beings are weighed down in a state of darkness. The comforter is not a principle but the spirit of God, it is the knowledge that exists of the eternal principles, the knowledge that can bring humankind so that it is in the image of God, the knowledge that now shines and sparkles in the form of cosmic analyses. In time it will be able to initiate a colossal Christmas spirit that we can have with us wherever we are, and which can teach human beings to see and understand what it is that is about to happen all over the world. It is now life's intention that one being after another will begin to see the resplendent halo that is in their midst in the form of divine knowledge, and in this way they can begin to acquire the great birth or cosmic consciousness. In previous times those human beings that had reached the point of acquiring this had to incarnate on more highly developed planets, but that is no longer necessary. Through the "holy spirit", with the help of the cosmic analyses, it can take place here. Of course, knowledge by itself is not enough, it also has to be put into practice in one's behaviour and way of being so that eventually it will become a habit in one's consciousness. Human beings will reach the highest form of knowledge, where they are a joy and a blessing for everything that they come into contact with.

Terrestrial human beings will not experience the great birth in a short time. For some it might take as little as three or four lives, but for many it will take longer. The cosmic analyses can help you to have a knowledge of the universal laws and principles that are equivalent to what you otherwise have of quite everyday things. And the whole point of this knowledge is that it should be used in everyday life. You will then experience life and the other living beings in a totally different way than before. You have to train yourself to do this by using your own energy and power; only then will the divine energy step in from the outer world. You cannot work with cosmic analyses without growing spiritually, and the knowledge that you have no one can take from you. But knowledge in itself is not enough. In order for it to have a meaning it has to be put into practice in your behaviour, you will then grow up and be able to live "like the angels". We have learnt that, in the words of a Danish hymn, "Christmas rings with the sound of angels", but what is meant by the "sound of angels"? It is the energies that issue from angelic beings, that is to say from those beings that understand that one should not be served, but that one exists in order to serve others, that is to say, to cooperate to benefit the whole. But we experience that human beings in the same house, in the same street, in the same country and on the same planet make life difficult for one another, spread gossip about each other, obstruct each other and even murder and mutilate each other. They elbow their way forwards at other people's expense and they do not spread "peace on Earth and goodwill toward all men". This peace and goodwill has to come from within each individual human being and must show itself in his or her behaviour and way of being, and that cannot come about through human beings' emotions alone, knowledge is also needed, as well as insight into the laws of life. By practising this insight all terrestrial human beings will one day arrive at the great birth, which is the same as cosmic consciousness or Christ consciousness.

It has been my mission to transfer these cosmic analyses into analyses based on intelligence, so that they match human beings' intelligence and their budding intuition. These analyses are a logical series of thoughts that are the same as the message of Christmas, but presented in such a way that they can inspire present-day human beings and in particular the human beings of the future. Wherever you have transformed these analyses into knowledge and insight, that is where there is there world peace, but wherever you do not understand them, there is still war. Wherever the cosmic knowledge is a reality in your brain and emotions, the faculty of love will blossom in relation to your neighbour. You will then not have the heart to do anything evil to another being; you have to love all living beings. First and foremost it is a question of arriving at the stage of being able to like those who do not like you. And you will come to the point where you will understand why others are the way they are, and at this moment cannot be any different than they are, even if they will go on being so in the future, perhaps even being robbers or murderers. You will understand that in life you can never be subjected to anything that you yourself are not the innermost cause of – it is never the other's fault. And you should not believe that it is the rulers of the various countries that decide whether the country is at peace or at war. You will understand that it is the Godhead using those human beings who still have the heart to create strife as tools with which to create the "unpleasant good" in terrestrial mankind's mutual karma. Some beings have to represent "the black colour" and "the grey colour" in "life's picture" – beings that are on a step in evolution that suits them – while others represent the brighter colours. When you understand that everything is guided by divine providence, you will not be afraid, no matter what happens. There is no need to be afraid, either of the Russians, the Chinese, the Americans or the Arabs etc. – they are all organs or tools of the Godhead. You are protected in relation to what you yourself have the heart to do or not do. You should focus on the Godhead. It is a question of coming to the understanding that the greatest principle, the greatest fact is this – to study life itself and act according to the law of love, that is to say, to love your neighbour as yourself and thereby to love the Godhead. And it is in order to help you to reach this point that the Godhead gives us Christmas in the midst of the darkness.