Christmas, that great point of light in the cold, dark winter days, is approaching and brightening up the careworn, sorrow-stricken terrestrial human beings' daily lives. Those human beings who, apart from children, look forward to Christmas with the greatest anticipation are those who many, many years ago left the country of their birth and their family and friends and set out into the world to create a life for themselves in the great unknown. But even though these human beings manage to create a comfortable life with a happy home and family, their old home and country of birth is seen in their consciousness in a steadily ever increasing golden glow. The dream of seeing once again the fairy-tale place of their childhood becomes stronger and more and more scintillating. And there comes a day when this emigrant is on his way home to re-experience the place where the glowing memories of his dreams took place, and to tread once again the earth that to him has become sacred. In this place of his childhood happiness it is the memories of Christmas that sparkle the most. And that is what attracts the emigrant to travel home at Christmastime, to experience once again a Christmas where he as a little boy many years ago experienced his most beautiful Christmases, in the great security, affection and love of a mother and a father. And every year at Christmastime ships arrive bringing these Christmas travellers home to the country they have been longing for. The crew on these ships do what they can to create a festive, Christmas atmosphere for these travellers who are so full of hope and expectation, and as a result these ships have become known as "Christmas ships".

In this emigrant's Christmas journey we have as it were a symbol of a much greater Christmas journey, which all terrestrial beings are undertaking. In order to understand this journey, which is life's greatest journey, we are going to have to focus our attention on our surroundings and our fellow beings a little more directly and closely than we are otherwise used to doing in everyday life. We will then observe that all living beings are in movement. Movement is in turn the same as change. The beings change from one state to another. Every being's current state, whether as a plant, an animal or a human being, is merely a temporary state. It has replaced, in the case of all these beings, a preceding state, just as it will be replaced by a subsequent state. The beings have therefore come through countless different states before they reached the state that they are in at present, just as they will come through countless different states following their current state. No one can remain where they are in this process of change. They are all inevitably in on-going movement. This movement or journey has no beginning and no end. It is therefore endless. This endless journey is called "life". Since this journey is marked out by changes from one state or life-form to another and will continue to be, these states are landmarks. All landmarks mark out their existence in the way that they differ from the preceding and subsequent states. In this way they constitute an area or a position in these beings' eternal transformation. Such a position is in turn the same as what we call "space". The eternal journey therefore passes through innumerable such spaces. But since to the living being a space can never be anything other than something temporary, owing to the fact that change never comes to a standstill, the space is not merely a position in endless space; it also has a position in eternity. We call such a position "time". Every change that the living being has experienced has therefore not only its "space" but also its "time". Above every experience of change there will always be a "before" and an "after". In between this "before" and this "after" there exists the moment of experience. And we in turn express this as the "now" or the "present". Our journey through life or our experience of life therefore takes the form of three kinds of time: the "past", the "present" and the "future". Of these three kinds of time the first and the last are a mental or spiritual experience of the journey. To the physical being the "now" or the "present" are to be found on the material plane and constitute the purely physical experience. We cannot experience the "future" or the "past" on the physical plane. As we have said, here we can only experience the "present". Through these areas of time we experience life. These areas constitute an endless past, a fleeting present and an endless future. These three areas are the great ocean of life over which we travel on our eternal life-journey.

We survey this mighty ocean through "the present", which is one with our awake, physical day-consciousness. There is also "something" in the living being that undertakes this eternal life-journey and is thereby its originator. This "something" cannot in itself be past, future or present. It exists beyond these phenomena. It experiences the passage of these times in the form of changes. These are therefore "something experienced". But "something experienced" can only be perceived by "something that can experience". An experience cannot experience an experience. A change cannot experience a change. Behind time and space or behind the changes there exists "something" that creates and experiences the changes. This "something" is our innermost self or I. This self or I is, in its connection to the changes, a cosmic traveller.

Our eternal I is therefore on a journey over an endless sea of life. Our vessel or ship on this great journey is our organism and the resultant mentality and view of life. The image we have of life, which means of our fellow beings or of morality and behaviour, constitutes our ship's rudder. If our view of life constitutes the absolute truth about this life, our ship will be the most modern and perfect that can possibly exist. With it one can overcome all obstacles. But our ship can also be old and out-of-date. To the extent that our view of life diverges from the actual truth, our ship will be faulty and cause our navigation to be correspondingly imperfect. Our organism and mentality can be mutilated or crushed by even the slightest obstacles. All religious movements, sects and communities, all political parties, business partnerships and other material concerns as well as marriages and love affairs are each and every one, in connection with their originator's physical organism, this originator's temporary life-ship. And as ships are not always equipped with the instruments of navigation, compass, search lights and radar that are vital for preserving life, the navigation through life or the progress on the correct course will be correspondingly false and derailed. The cosmic traveller will be off course.

But as there is only one absolute course to the great goal of this life-journey, "paradise", which in turn means "the great initiation" or the finished human being in God's image, every derailment or mistaken course will lead the beings out into the ocean of life's storm centres and powerful surf crashing against cliffs and rocks where the travellers' ships, that is to say their organisms and normal fates, will be crushed and smashed to pieces, and their occupants or originators will suffer death by shipwreck. The ships collide with other wrecked ships, giving rise to serious injuries and sufferings. Here we are in the domain of unhappy fates or in the very "hell" of life. But despite everything, in the midst of the darkness of this Armageddon, there nevertheless exist points of light. The travellers are immortal beings and cannot therefore in themselves be annihilated, even though their physical ships, their physical organisms, have perished. Thanks to their immortal I and the eternal superconsciousness and other mental structures that are connected to it, they are now raised above the mortal organisms that are created out of matter, which can at the very most merely constitute their temporary life-ship. This immortal mental structure that the being has is, in a way, a kind of life jacket on the ocean of life. With its help every shipwrecked being will be led to safety, out of the crisis and the domain of darkness. This mental part of the being's structure cannot be destroyed by physical storms and crashing surf. With its help the being can live on the mental plane until, through the eternal life-principle that is also known as the principle of reincarnation, it can once more be given a new physical organism and thereby a new physical life-ship so that it can continue to sail on the ocean of life. But the new ship is no guarantee that we can reach the goal with it and avoid the storm centre and the dangerous, crashing surf. If the new ship is not better equipped with instruments of orientation with which the course or position can at all times be known, one will be constantly lost. One will constantly cause one's ship to be broken up as a result of shipwreck and not as a result of old age or general wear and tear, which ought to be the only reason to replace a ship. One will therefore have to build a new ship, that is to say, create a new organism unnaturally soon or too frequently. And can one not see that sometimes the new ships are destroyed when they run aground on rocks and are broken up right at the beginning? In fact, they have not even come out of the harbour before they are destroyed. Take the case of a mother who has an abortion and destroys her little child's organism or life-ship while it still lies unfinished in the harbour beside its mother's heart. This harbour should offer the greatest protection for the little being that still has an unfinished life-ship. How will such a mother and a father (who is an accomplice in this drama) – who through their own action are pointing their own life-ship directly into the storm centre of the ocean of life – be free of its terrors? Can we not see that the living beings' life-ships are being destroyed and mutilated no matter what age they are? Almost none of the life-ships reach the point where they have to be replaced as a result of old age or normal wear and tear. The life-ships do not become that old. Long before they have reached that point they run aground and are smashed. Can we not see that a great part of the current terrestrial human beings' physical organisms, that is to say their life-ships, are wrecked as a result of illness, unnatural calcification, gall or kidney stones, susceptibility to infectious diseases as well and other forms of weakness, quite apart from the sabotage the beings themselves in their panic and terror of death bring about to each other's ships in the form of war and the proliferation of the ability to murder, mutilate and destroy, just as greed, jealousy and vanity also poison and pollute their fates. Is not everyone at war with everyone else? Everyone is set on a faulty course, with the result that everyone is bound to suffer shipwreck. The ocean of life's storm centres and areas of crashing surf are not silent. Here we come across the death rattle and weeping and gnashing of teeth, accompanied by explosions and the sound of life-ships colliding and being crushed and disintegrating.

In God's world plan there is no hell that is not at the same time a Gethsemane, and no Gethsemane that is not a hell. This in turn means that there is no zone of darkness whatsoever in which there are not to be found lifeboat services and lighthouses guiding the way, just as there is no war zone in which there are not to be found glimpses of light guiding the way to the area of peace. And there is no sphere of depression and suffering in which angels of light are not standing ready to help the distressed. And in terrestrial human beings' Gethsemane or Armageddon, which is where war, blood-baths and death agonies culminate, God's bright, warmth- and life-giving radiance appears behind the battlefields, and the road into the light terrains of Gethsemane begins to open up. And through the great angel of light, the world redeemer or God's messenger to the Earth, the voice of God can be heard addressing the conscience- and sorrow-stricken robber and murderer, or those who have been shipwrecked on the ocean of life: "Today you will be with me in paradise". Today you will change the course of your life and leave behind your derailment, for "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me". "I and the Father are one". "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die". And the voice of God continues to be heard through his great messenger: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest". I am the lighthouse of life. Follow my light and you will be warned in good time of the dangerous cliffs, rocks and breakers. My course is the Father's course. And the Father's course is the great goal of life for living beings, namely "to make a human being in his image after his likeness". I am "God's image after his likeness". In that way I am God's living model for God's perfection of human beings. But "God's image after his likeness" is the same as "God's way of being". And God's way of being is in its turn such that absolutely every creation, whether great or small, will without exception in its final analysis be a joy and a blessing for living beings. Every deviation from this way of being is a false course on the ocean of life. Every deviation from "God's image" is an indication of the imperfect side of God's work of art: the human being in God's image. But being a joy and a blessing for everything living is in turn the same as loving one's neighbour as oneself, since everything living is in fact one's neighbour. One can therefore be a being that like the sun allows its light and its warmth to radiate or shine on the just as much as on the unjust, on one's enemies as much as on one's friends. This is the only true course over the sea of life that leads towards paradise and away from deadly storm centres and all-destructive surf, cliffs and rocks.

We can better understand this when, as a result of all one's own shipwrecks, we know that these only occur because we were not sufficiently developed to be able to avoid them. This was partly due to the fact that we did not have enough knowledge, and partly due to the fact that we were subject to forces that we were not yet able to overcome. If we had been able to overcome these forces, we would not have succumbed to shipwreck. All misfortune and suffering, all hostility and hatred is therefore due to ignorance. Where there is no ignorance in one's mind or way of being one is completely without "evil". Here lies the true course towards the light, since here one has oneself become the way and the light, one has become one with God. And in this way neighbourly love becomes "the fulfilment of all the laws". One is one with God, and one loves one's neighbour as oneself. This is the immense ocean of light of the Christmas gospel or world redemption, which has entered into the mental atmosphere or aura of the Earth. It is the seed in which all the generations of the Earth will be blessed. Here in the terrestrial Gethsemane we have discovered the great source of light or the spirit of God that moves eternally upon the face of the waters.

And world redemption or Christ's mission still continues to exist. Through this divine mission's cosmic fire, flaming torches have been lit beside all the current dangerous cliffs and rocks and crashing surf and deaths of the unfortunate shipwrecked people and countries. Through the "comforter, the holy spirit's" all-penetrating light in the form of cosmic analyses and guidance, the true course can now easily be found and stuck to. Every single nation as well as every single human being that steers its course towards this divine light will slowly and surely leave behind the ocean of life's storm centres and likely areas of shipwreck, they will leave behind Armageddon's regions of death and suffering, they will leave behind the domain of sorrow and hardship and they will arrive safely at the shining, bright harbour that is the great goal of every sailor. This harbour, which can now be glimpsed in the distance, is the ocean of love that is the great "peace on earth" of the Christmas gospel and the culmination of "goodwill" among all human beings. It is the great Christmas festivity that is called the "kingdom of heaven". Equipped with love as the compass and with the light of love in all the searchlights and pilots' guiding lamps, our life-ship is therefore a Christmas ship that leads us to the Christmas festivity as guests of the eternal Father of all life. And here we are presented with life's greatest Christmas gifts: the organic initiation or the great birth, cosmic consciousness, an eternally transfigured existence, awake day-conscious immortality. The prodigal son of God will have come home to his Father's kingdom.