The tree of knowledge is something that we have become familiar with. Eating of this tree is the same as relishing or satisfying all kinds of material or egoistic desires. These desires for advantageous matter (money, goods and gold) and the pleasurable existence that they afford have become so strong that the living being or neighbour has, for this being, ended up playing the role of a minor detail. This neighbour is thus ultimately nothing more than a means whereby the being can perhaps gain possession of the desired matter or goods that life has to offer, quite irrespective of the effect it would have on this neighbour's life. It is clear that this neighbour will become a hidden or camouflaged slave wherever this exploitation of the neighbour cannot happen openly. How else could the matter be converted in a pleasant way to favour the egoistic being? To do it oneself would not be nearly so pleasant as if one's neighbour were to do it. The important factor in obtaining the good things in life is therefore increasingly to get one's neighbour to bear the blows, taking over all the hard-ships, so that the good things that are won through these hardships can fall to the egoistic being who has the greater power. This is how it came about that terrestrial human beings' existence appeared in two forms, namely the state of being a master and the state of being a slave. Neither of these two material forms of existence were natural, free forms of experiencing life. The existence as master was just as fettered as the existence as slave, even though it appeared to be able to give its originator temporary, material benefits. But as nothing less than these benefits could satisfy the egoist's desires, and as the absolutely only way these desires could in turn be maintained was with the help of slaves, the beings of the existence as masters were thus totally dependent on these "slaves". A being that has developed such a strong desire or such an extreme appetite for life that this can be satisfied only with the help of the labour and capability of a greater or lesser number of other people, is definitely imprisoned in this capability. The only way he can secure this form of existence that to him means life and well-being is by using power to hold his fellow beings down, keeping them powerless, so that he can take possession of the products of their labours. They have thus long ago ceased being to him his real neighbours, or fellow beings on an equal footing. They are to him only the sort of beings he is forced to keep out of necessity, because he has become used to an appetite for life that he cannot satisfy by means of his own personal energy. They are thus merely a kind of "domesticated animal" that in turn is only treated as a kind of superior "item of property". But to the extent that the neighbour is perceived only in this way as an item of property, as matter, the being in question will have ceased to be able to "see in a human way". He will thus have lost his normal cosmic sight, through which he would otherwise be able to see his neighbour as a "living fellow being" and not as a mere "tool" or item of property that he can exploit as he desires. But being able to see living life only in this way – as a quantity of inferior dead matter that one can trifle with or sneer at if one feels like it – is clearly the same as no longer being able to experience what is really living or what is real life. But when one has lost part of one's sight or one's faculty to sense, one is inevitably imprisoned by the blindness that this loss of ability to experience brings about. The egoistic being, the being that is a master, whose appetite for life is so strong that it can be satisfied only by exploiting the neighbour as a "domesticated animal" or as matter is thus to a corresponding degree mentally imprisoned. This makes it clear how scientific the world redeemer's words are when he says that it is just as impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. To "enter the kingdom of heaven" is the same as to see one's neighbour, not as a "domesticated animal", not as a bundle of matter, but as a "living being" that one loves as one loves oneself, and by means of which one's experience of life cannot fail to be a permanent delight and joy.
      The fact that existence as a slave is also a fettered physical state, and thereby to a corresponding degree a mental prison, ought to be obvious to most people. Here the being is deprived of an extremely large part of the fruits of its own labour, namely, that part that is stolen by its master. But to lose part of the fruits of one's labour is to lose part of what is one's right, which means part of one's freedom. And a being that has lost part of its freedom is to a corresponding degree imprisoned. Both the master and the slave are, mentally, prisoners on life sentences. They have absolutely no sovereignty of consciousness. They are both slaves of matter. The master is so dependent on and preoccupied with matter that he can no longer see the difference between matter and fellow beings. To him the fellow being is merely a means or a tool with which to fulfil his desires. And to the slave, the master has also really ceased to be a neighbour or a fellow being. He has become a kind of force of Nature, a fate that out of necessity one has to be subject to in order to receive one's daily bread. Both the master and the slave are thus mutually a necessary evil for each other. But a being that is a necessary evil is only a means whereby one experiences life. But merely perceiving a living being as a means, as nothing more than an indispensable tool in everyday life, is not perceiving that being as one's neighbour. This attitude to the living fellow being or the neighbour can never ever realistically be anything other than sheer experiencing of matter. And as such beings only love their marriage partners and offspring, who in turn in a way are their own flesh and blood, and this means that this love is merely a sympathy for themselves, everything that is alive around this being is thus mere matter. But because not just experiencing matter as matter, but also experiencing what is living or life itself – living beings – as matter is the same as merely experiencing death or what is dead, the living being on this level can from a cosmic point of view be looked upon only as a dead being. But to live life as a dead being is the same as to live in a mental prison. Such a form of existence constitutes in turn the culmination of the contrast to the experience of sovereignty regarding mentality and consciousness, which in turn is the same as experiencing life as the manifestations of a truly living being or a godhead.