The Road of Life
The article: Mental Prisons
Chapter 4
The living beings are on different steps in evolution
But if this is the intention, why does it not happen?
Is there something wrong with summer or with the individual?
As regards summer and the divine nature represented by it, there can be nothing wrong.
It is the very highest revelation on Earth of God's creative power.
And since living beings, and terrestrial Man in particular, live in the midst of this divine revelation, one would think that they lived in a corresponding form of happiness.
But this is not so at all.
Although the human being has a developed intelligence and has the ability to think and research, he lives to a very great extent in unhappiness and suffering, sorrows and troubles; daily life becomes to the same extent something very different from "Paradise".
The manifestation of God or the meaning of life is thus out of contact with the consciousness of terrestrial Man or his ability to comprehend.
"Paradise", or the highest mental light, shines in the world, but the terrestrial human being does not see it and lives therefore in a corresponding degree of darkness.
But to live in darkness means being shut out from the light; it is to live in a kind of prison.
Now, one may think that the reason for the terrestrial human being living in a kind of prison is exclusively due to lacking evolution or development.
And this is of course also very largely true.
However it must be added that every step in evolution has its light side and its shadowy side.
These light and shadowy sides of each step in evolution arise through the special laws on which each step in evolution is based.
The fact is that each step in evolution has its special laws which to some extent differ from the laws of other steps in evolution.
If these laws are kept, there arises only mental light, which means happiness in the mentality of the beings on the step in question.
If, however, they are not kept, there will be darkness in the mentality or mental life of the beings in question.
This light and darkness on the steps of evolution vary greatly.
On the step of evolution of the tiger, it will mean happiness and well-being every time it has killed and devoured another living being.
If, on the other hand, it were prevented from killing, it would suffer and feel debilitated.
If we turn, on the other hand, to the highly developed intellectual humanist, we see that this being would be extremely unhappy if he happened to inflict on another being even the very slightest degree of injury or unpleasantness, while he would be thoroughly delighted every time he happened to do a fellow being some great or really effective service.
So the light side of the one step in evolution is killing, while the same principle constitutes darkness or the shadowy side of another step in evolution.