In the epoch of life where mankind is situated at the moment the fear of death is stronger than ever. This is in a way not so remarkable since death has never before had such a rich harvest as it has in our modern, highly-praised culture. The fear of death and the manifestation of death and destruction are at such a stage of culmination that, rather than calling our era an epoch of life, one can call it an epoch of death. A colossal amount of mankind's energy goes into creating murder weapons with which they consciously can enable themselves to break the fifth commandment: Thou shalt not kill.

In all this darkness an opposite tendency does, however, also exist, that is, the desire to create peace and harmony, happiness and joy, which are precisely what all human beings are really longing for. The experience of life is thus an experience of two great forces, the death-bringing force and the life-giving force. The living being exists as the fixed point between these two forces or ways of manifesting energy. It constitutes the determining factor behind these energies, that is, behind death and life. We all have these two possibilities: to create death or to create life. What is then death, and what is life?

What we call death is a replacement of organisms or instruments for the experience of life, a replacement that takes place because of wear and tear or destruction. But the living being itself cannot die in the sense of being destroyed or wiped out for all eternity, just as it cannot either ever have "come into existence" or have been created from nothing. The living being, regardless of whether it at this moment appears as a plant, animal or human being or in forms of existence that the terrestrial human being cannot grasp or experience with its present faculty for sensing, is an eternal being. In periods of its eternal existence it is not day-conscious of this, since its ability to experience is limited and impeded for a while. That is what death is; no other death exists. "Resurrection" from this death is then the state in which the living being once again becomes awake day-conscious of its eternal existence and its identity as an eternal being. The terrestrial human being is on its way towards this resurrection. The terrestrial human being still belongs to some degree to the animal kingdom, that is, it finds itself in a zone where the energy of death, however paradoxical it may seem, is a vital necessity. Here one must kill in order to live. For this reason the animal kingdom becomes a world of death; resurrecting from this world means resurrecting to eternal life, which means, developing in this world the ability to experience that one is an eternal being that cannot die, even though one's body becomes a corpse. It is something one leaves behind, the matter or substance of the universe remaining constantly at one's disposal. The question is merely how one is able to build it up.

When a person lies, as a rule he puts himself in the situation that he must make up new lies in order to save himself from the effects of the old lies, and thus the lie here seems to become a vital necessity in this local area. The terrestrial human being's relationship to the killing principle works in a similar way. But it can no more be a vital necessity to lie in order to live than it is a vital necessity to kill in order to live when one no longer belongs to the animal kingdom proper. If the liar emerges from his immersion in all his lies, which gradually make life difficult for him and create a fear of being discovered, he will experience that the life that previously was full of limitations and restraints because of the lie now manifests itself in an entirely different way and shows undreamed-of possibilities. The same will happen for the human being when he gets out of his immersion in the killing principle, a principle that he and his fate have entangled him in in his present and past lives. The true vital necessity is the faculty for life itself. How does this faculty for life then work?

The faulty for life is to live for others; the faculty for life is to forgive others; the faculty for life is to live in order to serve and not to be served. The faculty of life is also preferring to suffer oneself than to let others suffer. But is there then not any connection at all between the faculty of life and the destructive principle? Yes, but only that it is everything that creates anger or bitterness that is destroyed, and that which creates anxiety, jealousy and envy, vanity, thoughtlessness and arrogance and so on. These mental climates disappear from the mind of the human being because the cause of them disappears, namely the faculty for death and the energy of death. The faculty for life will gradually also destroy all unnatural and deadly desires, which have arisen as experiments and comfort in the last areas of the zone of death: the craving for tobacco, alcohol and drugs. The faculty for life will overcome every tendency to gossip, slander and make derogatory remarks about other people, it will develop flexibility and the ability to behave towards others in such a way that the contact and the time spent together becomes a source of richness that none of the parties would want to do without. In brief: the faculty for life turns the human being into an artist of life, a virtuoso who "plays" his mentality in such a way that it becomes an artistic pleasure for his surroundings, that is, the "goodwill" promised by the Christmas Gospel. Those people who increasingly manifest the faculty for life will experience how their fellow beings open up for them, often in order to seek help and guidance. Great horizons open, and one will become a source of warmth and a shining sun for one's surroundings. Instead of the dark grave-zone of death with the animal spheres of killing, one now sees life in all its beauty, and experiences the closeness of the Godhead, indeed, becomes one with the Godhead, feels oneself as one with the Way, the Truth and the Life.