Every living being is in reality a phenomenon that is in movement, and this is the case not only in the sense of their physical bodies moving from one place to another. Behind physical movement there exists another form of movement that we call change. All living beings are subject to a certain process that makes it impossible for them to continue to be the same being as before. This process of change is a physical as well as a spiritual reality. We experience physical change as childhood, youth, adulthood and old age and we can experience with our physical senses that in the course of a physical incarnation the organism undergoes these changes. But a physical life is not merely a physical organism undergoing change. Behind this outer change there lies an inner, mental change based on experiences that have been gathered. Every new experience is an enrichment of the consciousness. All living beings on this globe are subject to a process of change, that is to say a development from primitive mental states right up to high-intellectual states in organisms that will be far better tools for experiencing and for giving expression to creative abilities than the present-day physical organisms are. This great process of change is particularly relevant to those beings that appear on Earth as human beings. And the reason why it has such relevance to human beings is because they have come so far in evolution that they can begin to experience the process day-consciously, in contrast to animals that still only experience through instinct and more primitive feeling.

There exists one fundamental difference between terrestrial human beings and the other beings on this globe that belong to the animal kingdom, namely, that terrestrial human beings are on their way out of the animal kingdom and on towards a higher stage of evolution, whose principles and laws are already beginning to make their mark to some extent in their consciousness. Terrestrial human beings are experiencing a mental movement, in the form of a transformation process from animal to true human being. In animals mental movements are dominated by instinct and create no conflict in the mentality, whereas in terrestrial human beings there exists both an animal mentality that is degenerating and the beginnings of a human mentality, and the tension between these two kinds of mentality inevitably creates conflicts and inner struggles in the minds of human beings. Animals are guided and driven by their instinct of self-preservation that makes them do the right thing in each particular situation that they are experiencing. And "the right thing" for an animal will always be whatever is of benefit to itself and the survival of its species.

But traits are developing in the consciousness of terrestrial human beings that are directly opposed to those found in animals. Whereas animals are driven by their instinct of self-preservation, human beings have increasingly to exercise their awake, day-conscious will to make up their own minds about what form their lives will take. This awake day-conscious exercising of will is often in opposition to the instinct of self-preservation that terrestrial human beings have inherited from the animal kingdom and that still dwells in them as a habitual consciousness. A conflict therefore arises. Whereas in the case of animals being guided by selfishness or their instinct of self-preservation brings about a natural and happy experience of life, in the case of human beings following this tendency creates misery and suffering. Human beings do not perhaps notice it straight away, owing to the fact that their instinct of self-preservation is a habitual function, but gradually they experience the effects of their selfishness, and these experiences create movement or transformation in the consciousness. A change of course is taking place. Where previously the course was set towards "the right of the strongest", and the idea of being of benefit meant being of benefit to oneself, terrestrial human beings now, in order to experience happiness, have to begin to create it themselves with their will by mastering their selfishness and their inborn animal instincts and desires. They have to use their will to force themselves to give up many of the phenomena that they crave but that they can begin to see would cause hardship and suffering to other beings. To the extent that they can do this by applying their will, shall they grow into a new stage of life. Their life will begin to follow a course, the goal of which is to live life so that it benefits the whole, and the results or effects of which are not killing, stealing and fighting, but neighbourly love and a display of intellectual abilities that will transform the Earth into a world where humanity, art and science will flourish as never before, and where the individual states will be united into one single state of human beings in which the concept of "the right of the strongest" is unknown.

Much has already been done to help mankind reach such a state, but there is still something missing before human beings can get there. Religions have helped human beings quite a long way along the road, and some people can still be helped by their blind belief in the salvation offered by religion, but an increasing number of people in all parts of the world are finding that it is not enough merely to believe. Their purely scientific attitude towards life as well as their well-developed intelligence means that they are unable to believe in dogmas or to find inspiration in ceremony. They are asking for facts and want to understand rather than just believe. They have no "compass" by which to steer their course. Human beings are like a fleet of small ships sailing on a great, mental ocean. They have the same harbour as their goal but have extremely different ideas about the course they should follow to get there. For this reason this ocean is in tremendous chaos and catastrophic collisions are taking place all the time. It is not only individual ships that are colliding and being damaged or destroyed; entire fleets are being sunk. World wars, revolutions, sabotage or whatever these war-like acts are called nowadays are examples of the collective sinking of ships on this mental ocean. The ships may go down, but the captain will always get a new ship to sail, and in this case the captain is the living being's I that has to try to find the true course towards the common end, the common harbour, which is that mental state that is characterised as "the human being in God's image".

Many of the seafarers are apt to think that they are the only ones to know and sail the absolutely correct course, while they are really on the wrong track and will never reach the harbour using the means that they have to navigate by. They try, sometimes through the use of brute force and power, and sometimes by making fantastic statements, to persuade other ships to follow them in their course. They are bound to certain theories and ideas, whether political, religious or of some other nature, that they claim lead to the aim that is common to all human beings. But no religious movement, no sect or world religion and certainly none of the political parties that exist today will ever reach the stage where it has the entire population of the world as its followers. All these "movements" are moving in more or less the wrong direction. Their "compasses" are misleading. But how do these life-compasses show themselves to be misleading? We can tell from the way in which these political and religious movements as well as many idealistic associations talk about neighbourly love and humanity without understanding anything of the essential nature of love. They have a great liking for some things and a strong dislike towards other things, a dislike that in certain cases can be expressed as "holy wrath", "righteous indignation" or even hatred. But it is impossible for the ships on the mental ocean to reach the harbour that they long for as long as they still have hatred or antipathy on board. The true human love that Christ demonstrated to human beings, and which all the greatest sages of the past have talked about, does not respond with antipathy towards anyone or anything. Christ said that, "You should love those that hate and persecute you", and spoke about forgiving not only seven times but seventy seven times seven times a day. No human being is likely to have to forgive more times than that in any one day. But can one really learn to forgive? Not as long as one uses only one's feelings. Only when one really understands with one's intelligence that no human being can at any moment be any different than they are, owing to the fact that they represent with their behaviour a particular temporary stage in evolution based on experiences that they have acquired in the past, only then can one see that "they know not what they do". If they really knew, they would not do it. If one cannot oneself bear to do what another person has done, it is due to the fact that one has in one's consciousness a personal experience that it is not right to do it. But the other person still has no such experiences in their consciousness, which is why they act the way they do. But at some point in the future they will gain the experiences because they have to reap what they have sown, and they will then no longer be able to bear doing such things either. One cannot expect any living being to act on the basis of experiences they do not yet have. That would be the same as expecting a child to behave like an adult. In the cosmic perspective there are many adults on Earth that still behave like children, but over the course of future incarnations they will also become more and more "adult", that is to say, more and more human in the way they think and act.

At this point there are bound to be some people who will say, "But is not this so-called spiritual science also just a religious sect that is out to gain followers and claims to have the sole right to the truth?" "Is it not also a ship that is trying to persuade others to follow its course?" In answer to this I would say that no association, sect, religious community or party of any sort will ever be formed in connection with my work. And equally, no person will ever be persuaded to become a "member", as there is nothing to become a member of. People who feel drawn to my cosmic analyses and feel a strong desire to study the world picture that I have described in my main work, Livets Bog, and other books, do so because of an inner shift or transformation that is already taking place in their mentality. If they did not already have certain experiences in their consciousness, they would not be interested in my work at all. An inner organic function must be in place, and this function we call neighbourly love, that is to say, a human form of love that does not also contain hatred of so-called "evil" and "injustice". As everything "evil", "unjust" and "demonic" is the outcome of an unfinished state, it is not possible for it to be at the moment any different than it is. But there is definitely no intention that all this should continue to exist on the globe. Evolution or the transformation of living beings is making steady progress, even though human beings sometimes think that it is not going fast enough.