For many people the term "the kingdom of heaven" is of no particular interest. If anything, they think it covers something very naïve, something that is in actual fact merely religious superstition and that has therefore no foundation in reality. This ignorance is not without risk, for someone who does not reckon on the kingdom of heaven is someone who does not understand his own existence. But living a life one does not understand is not in accordance with the meaning of life and can never, in any case whatsoever, bring one happiness, for someone in such a situation cannot avoid permanently sabotaging his own life, his own fate. And we see a multitude of sabotaged fates. Indeed, has not the whole of mankind up till now sabotaged its fate to a great extent? Has not one so-called world culture after another perished in blood and terror? And how is mankind preparing its future fate? Is training to sabotage life not the greater part of mankind's preparation? What about the so-called atom bomb and hydrogen bomb? Has inventing and developing them not involved a colossal amount of work? And has it not cost immeasurable sums of money? And has not the raising of this money cost millions of people their labour and their health? Has it not been at the expense of the perpetuation of the principle "In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread"? And who feels very secure about a future in which hydrogen bombs, the terror of terrors or hell can be let loose at any moment? And who is certain to survive this hell? And how can a life based on hell or a fatal attack and defence be any different to the life of an animal? Is not the poisonous snake's defence a defence or an attack based on its lethal capacity to transfer its life-threatening poison into its enemy's organism? Are not the lives of the lion and tiger, indeed of all beasts of prey, based upon the destruction of other beings' lives? What difference is there between human beings sabotaging life by defending and attacking, and animals sabotaging life by defending and attacking? The difference is that the human beings' ability to sabotage life compared to that of the animals is like an earthquake compared to a summer breeze. The attitudes of the animals and human beings to this life-sabotaging existence differ in that while it is a matter of course for the animals, and cannot possibly be otherwise, it is hardly such a matter of course for human beings. A lot of people do not want to base their lives on this sabotage, since it is inconsistent with what mankind's greatest wise men and founders of religions have taught them. In churches and schools mankind teaches its children that they must not kill, that they should love their neighbour and so on. And it has created laws that punish and even execute people if they murder other people or in any other way treat them unjustly. But at the same time it compels millions upon millions of its young men to be trained to murder and kill, partly in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, and partly through operating gigantic murder machines, atom bombs and hydrogen bombs that can wipe out large cities, their populations and cultural assets within seconds. A greater sabotage of life surely cannot be imagined. A greater proliferation of the violation of life's greatest commandment, "Thou shalt not kill", cannot exit. This zone of life is therefore many times worse than that of the animals. Our existence is not conditional upon people killing in order to live. They live in this zone of life only because they believe that they have to defend themselves by murdering and killing. But the Earth has reached a stage of evolution where it is able to shelter and feed a population many times greater than the present one. It provides such splendid opportunities that life here on its surface could become a paradise for its people at any moment, just as soon as they can wake up out of the fatal superstition in which they live regarding the protection of life. We see here that the present dying world culture constitutes the situation that is expressed in the parable of the prodigal son, where he suffered such degradation that he ate with the swine. Eating with swine means living exactly the same kind of life as an animal: protecting oneself with weapons, and eating the organisms of other living beings. This is what living the same kind of life as the animals means. But we also know that the prodigal son turned around and went back to his ancestral home where his father received him with great joy. The opposite of this animal existence in which people live and which they call culture exists; we know it as the "kingdom of heaven". This kingdom is neither an imaginary kingdom nor some kind of Utopia. It is a kingdom whose light shines forth, although we can as yet catch only a glimpse of its first feeble peep of dawn. We can observe this kingdom with our own awake day-conscious senses. We do not need to adhere merely to what the Bible says about the kingdom of heaven. It is a much greater fact of daily life than is expressed in this holy book. Where and what is the kingdom of heaven? It is said that "the kingdom of heaven is within you". It is therefore for the time being a mental state. This mental state cannot therefore be what causes people to do so-called evil, to kill and murder. On the contrary, this state causes them to have scruples when they have done something evil to humans or animals. In all people there is a faculty that decides what they have the heart to do and what they do not have the heart to do. This is the faculty of humaneness. That this faculty is in the process of developing in all people is evident because the capacity of this faculty is not equally great in all people. In some people it is not very far advanced. They have the heart to do very evil things to their neighbours. And in some it is so far advanced that they do not have the heart to hurt other beings. Such beings do not, for example, have the heart to kill animals. They do not have the heart to be fishermen or hunters. They are not therefore totally devoid of empathy for the fate and the suffering that fishermen, hunters and butchers inflict on animals. The opposite is true of vivisectionists. Sabotaging animals' lives so terribly does not affect them in the slightest. Here the mentality we call "the kingdom of heaven" is absent. Many people even pursue fishing and hunting as hobbies. It cannot be denied that these people here compromise themselves, showing themselves to be veritable primitives, even if they do have aristocratic or royal titles. Indeed, it is in these very circles that one finds angling and hunting. And of course the more slaughtered animals such a person is photographed with in present-day major daily newspapers, the more they reveal their life-sabotaging primitivity for people who are advanced as regards humaneness. People's lives are not conditional on them killing animals in order to live. Neither their flesh nor their skin is worthy food or clothing for developed people. They reveal merely the primitivity of the Eskimo or polar human being, a primitivity that is temporarily essential for the primitive polar human being who has to live in ice and snow, but is not essential for them. They also reveal their vanity by wearing expensive furs so as to display their wealth for to other people. But people cannot be blamed for this because they themselves do not decide where they stand in evolution. This does not, however, prevent us from observing people's mental growth from one state to another. But the knowledge one acquires about this does not of course give one any right to blame other people for their continued inclination towards hunting, fishing, fur clothes and meat-eating. This must continue until the people in question, with their insensitivity towards animals or living beings, have experienced the return of so many fateful consequences in the form of suffering that they no longer have the heart to harm any living being. Everyone will eventually come to this point. And it is this growth in the mentality of the ability to not have the heart to kill, to not have the heart to harm animals or human beings, that is the "kingdom of heaven".

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