Having passed through purgatory, or everything in the being that takes the form of dark mental states, we can now go on and have a look at the spheres of light or so-called "paradise". But we must first become clear about the fact that, in essence, darkness also belongs to the light. It is only at the point at which the living beings are satiated with experiences of darkness, or to the extent that they are beginning to feel loathing towards them, that "darkness" makes itself felt. It is this loathing that colours the experiences of darkness, which originally in the cosmic world plan are just as necessary as the experiences of light. As long as senses have still not developed in the being's organ structure that are strong enough to bear the individual's experience of joy or pleasure in the phenomena of the light, it is clear that the being cannot receive any particularly paradise-like experience in the spheres of the light, that is to say beyond the domain of darkness or the killing principle. All these beings will be deprived of receiving a truly paradise-like experience, or an experience in a sphere of joy beyond the physical world. But it is not the intention that undeveloped beings should not have a share of paradise. Absolutely all living beings without exception come through a paradise-like sphere that is adapted to each and every one of them, before they once again come back to the physical world.

The foremost distinctive characteristic of life is movement. Wherever there is movement there is life. Movement can, in its cosmic essence, absolutely never exist without being identical to one or another form of life. That we perhaps do not see this life, as is the case with the movement in the forces of Nature, storms, surf, the climate etc., does not alter the fact. As movement is thus an expression of life, all forms of movement will be experience of life and manifestation of life. The first form of movement here on the Earth is mineral energy. Everything that comes under the concept of crystallisation – ice and frost flowers, rock crystal and all mineral formations – are the first forms of life on Earth. But we call these substances or materials lifeless substances. They have no consciousness on the physical plane. But they nevertheless issue from an awake, day-conscious source of life. This source of life constitutes a sphere of consciousness that is not directly present on the physical plane. This is why our nails and teeth have no sensation. For example "toothache" is not a pain in the bone or mineral matter of the tooth itself, it is a pain in some animal matter that is connected to the tooth, which fastens the nerve in the tooth to the tooth.

All this movement in mineral matter must have some origin or other. That this form of energy or movement is consciousness or reveals thought can be proved owing to the fact that the movement obeys certain laws. It follows a plan and is thereby an expression of a creative process. Planning is the same as a combining of thoughts. What else can planning possibly be? But a combining of thoughts cannot possibly exist without being consciousness. And consciousness can in turn be either awake, day-consciousness or unconscious, instinctive, automatic functions. For example all the main organ functions in our body are such automatic functions. Were it not for the fact that our insides have been described and illustrated, photographed and sketched there would be millions of human beings that would have not the slightest idea of the myriads of functions that are taking place in their organism without their awake day-consciousness. All mineral life is an expression of such unconscious automatic functions.

So where are the living beings, or the I's, that are invariably the originators of these energies? They are absolutely not to be found on physical earth. They are not accessible to the eye, whether with the aid of a microscope or a telescope. Since this revelation of planned manifestation or creation is nevertheless a living, solid fact, this at the same time proves that it is a zone in existence that is not physical. And at this point we can see the first signs of the dawning of a world beyond the physical world. We are therefore faced with the first indirect effects of the presence of a spiritual world. But a world that has no awake day-consciousness directed towards the outer world can only be, in the case of the experiencing being, an inner world. As day-consciousness can never suddenly cease to exist – it is absolutely always present in one way of another – the beings must, if automatic functions are to be found on the physical plane as mineral energy, have their awake day-consciousness directed towards their inner world. The culmination of this form of existence we are already familiar with on the physical plane as our memory. This covers an inner world that is built up of all the experiences that we have experienced, both pleasant and unpleasant. In order to go deeper into this inner world we have to direct our concentration inwards to our own private sphere of thought and not outwards to the outer world. Since the beings that work through mineral matter actually have no physical body, their concentration can only be directed inwards to their own inner world. This inner world consists of these beings' experiences from previous lives. Here in the form of gold copies they experience everything that they have experienced previously in the physical world. From this sphere of light the beings are once again born into the physical world.

In the case of the first robber, he has been freed from purgatory by guardian angels and can go into the light. But what kind of a light is it? A man that is by nature a robber and a murderer here on the physical plane is a primitive being, that is to say a being that has incarnated in the sphere of civilised human beings not on the basis of a common religion or sense of morality, but exclusively due to an attraction to particularly favourable or vastly superior technical means of killing. What is a mere tomahawk or bow and arrow compared to civilised human beings' modern firearms and all the other refinements in this field. When such beings are born into the sphere of civilised human beings as a result of this wish, but have still not grown out of the lower morality of primitive human beings, these beings are not able to adapt to the judicial laws of modern society and so are seen as "criminals" and are punished. An example of such a being was the first robber on the cross. Such a being could not see anything wrong with his way of living. To him it was his highest ideal that everyone should think only of himself. This was the natural way of living and the natural morality in his previous existences. And as he has still not in his physical lives – in which he has been incarnated in the sphere of primitive human beings – succeeded in changing his morality, he cannot possibly experience his paradise in the same sphere as civilised human beings.

As such a being is no criminal in the eyes of the Lord – Providence knows very well that no being can represent a higher evolutionary step than the one they are on – one is forced to not believe anything other than that such a being is also given its paradise, its experience of light or joy. So what is this experience of joy like? It is quite simply a robbers' Eldorado. Once he has come through his outburst of anger and hatred towards society, he comes into a natural mental state that matches exactly the form of experience with which he can feel joy in existing. Here he has the opportunity of hunting other human beings, staging a coup with modern weapons, and experiencing how it is to be the very person he has not the slightest possibility of being on Earth. Here he can murder and kill; for him it is a kind of sport. He is still in a kind of Valhalla-like sphere – where living and dying without fighting can only be seen as a life for weaklings and slaves. In this paradise of the killing principle the robber experiences his own paradise. (One should bear in mind that here everything takes place in his imagination. Physical death does not exist in the spiritual sphere).

But life cannot continue in this way. The robber's imagination is so limited and has so little variation that he soon begins to tire. The same experiences turn into clichés, and he longs for change. And in an unconscious, ecstatic state of bliss, he passes through the light of the higher spheres – this light being adapted to suit his condition – passing through the true human kingdom, the kingdom of wisdom, the divine world and waking up in the kingdom of bliss, his own world of memories. Here he sees his experiences in the form of radiantly bright memories that bring him into a new ecstacy in the form of joy over the physical world. The dark experiences are still held in check. He does not remember them. From here he is reborn into the physical world, into the environment and the conditions that he in his last life on Earth was involved in when he died. And here his primitive impulses once again begin to come to the fore and again he comes into conflict with the laws of society and is subjected to one punishment after the other, and eventually the sufferings and difficulties associated with such an underworld make an impression on his mind and his sense of morality. Through these sufferings he becomes ennobled, he gains more and more compassion for his victims and becomes religious in the sense of being more humane and decent. In this way what he dreams of is also transformed into more humane forms that set their stamp on his paradise or spiritual existence, so that his paradise after death becomes correspondingly characterized by humaneness. To a greater and greater extent what he dreams of is to play the defender, the hero that saves other human beings from bandits and robbers etc.

We have a picture of this new state in the other robber on the cross. He already had so much humaneness that he found it unjustifiable that the world redeemer, the innocent being on the cross beside him, should be punished or tortured, whereas he found it perfectly justifiable that he and the other robber should be punished. We can even see how he reprimanded the first robber, just as we can also see that he longs for another paradise, another better existence. He places the greatest wish of his whole life, his deepest heart-felt sigh, in his prayer to Christ when he says: "Lord, think of me when you come into your kingdom". And we know that Christ told him that his wish would be fulfilled with the following words: "Today you will be with me in paradise".

As he can only experience those states that his imagination can create, his experiences will also here eventually be limited to a whole series of repetitions of the same experience. The experiences will begin to lose some of their interest, becoming lifeless clichés, even becoming boring, and as a result the being will then already be on his way out of this paradise of his. But with his nobler or humane attitude he will be able, on his journey through the higher spheres, to experience a little of the first zones of the true human kingdom, a kingdom that, on the physical plane, is the highest ideal for terrestrial human beings. And experiencing this he will go into an unconscious ecstacy and in this state pass through the kingdom of wisdom and the divine world and wake up in his own sphere of memory or the kingdom of bliss, from where he will once again be born into the physical world in the environment and under the very conditions that are compatible with his evolutionary step, with his fate and his dreams of a more perfect, physical form of existence.

We now come to Judas, the suicide. Once all the darkness had been removed, by suggestion, from Judas' psyche, what was there left? His dream was certainly to be Jesus' disciple. He now has the chance to experience the joy of all the idealism and striving for perfection of discipleship, which he could not practise on Earth, due to the fact that it was his own ideas that ruled over himself instead of the world redeemer's. But here, where he has given over his life one hundred percent to the saviour and to world redemption, he has the opportunity of experiencing the form that life and humankind takes when one puts into practice the world redeemer's great wisdom and way of being. Here the form that his life takes is the very highest that his imagination can manifest. His spirit is filled with every kind of holy energy. And filled with this holy energy he goes on and has the chance to have a look at the zones of the true human kingdom, a kingdom in which one has for a long time lived in contact with the law of neighbourly love. Once his imagination has been exhausted, the pictures fade away and a wonderful sense of ecstacy leads him through the kingdom of wisdom and the divine world, after which he wakes up once again in his own day-conscious sphere of memory, and from here he is reborn in an environment and a sphere in which he can serve the saviour and the world redemption that, in his zeal and self-consciousness in his previous life, he damaged.

Next we come to the disciple, John. We know that, in contrast to the other beings that we have mentioned, he died a natural death, in other words he died of old age. We also know that he was described as the disciple that Jesus loved. This of course does not mean that he was favoured above the other disciples – the love of the world redeemer or the initiated being includes everyone and has no favourites. What it means is that, of all the apostles, he was the one that came closest to fulfilling the law of love. He was a disciple who had mastered all kinds of dark shortcomings, hot temper, envy, jealousy and hatred. He was the disciple that came closest to the master's own mental state. He could neither kill nor wound his fellow human beings. Since the saying goes that birds of a feather flock together as they understand one another best, it is reasonable to suppose that this law also applied to the world redeemer and this particular disciple. It goes without saying that John, on account of his loving attitude, could understand more than the other disciples. And it also goes without saying that Jesus, also on account of the disciple's great love, could entrust him with things that he could not yet reveal to the others. It was therefore quite natural that these two beings had many conversations in private or were very much together. And hence the words: "the disciple that the Lord loved". We know that right until his death this disciple urged human beings to be good to one another. And when he was old and was unable to do anything else, he could still be heard to whisper the words: "My little children, love one another".

It is clear that this being would have no experience of purgatory, since there is nothing that needs to be removed by suggestion. He straight away enters his paradise. What he experiences now is all the beauty and love, all the humanism and happiness, that his imagination can possibly create. Such an advanced being has no small ability to think and no primitive imagination. Here, in an atmosphere that is fittingly stimulating, he sees clearly the whole of humankind in the dazzling light that, according to world redemption, it will one day constitute. Here he has developed his imagination to such an extent that he is no longer prevented from experiencing the sphere of the true human kingdom as it appeared already at that time on planets that were much further ahead, and consequently on a higher step in evolution, than the Earth. Here he undergoes a preparation for an initiation. And from here this apostle of love continues through the kingdom of wisdom with a certain amount of day-consciousness and also with day-conscious glimpses of the divine world, from where, satiated with light, he falls asleep in the ecstacy from which, through the kingdom of bliss, he once again wakes up in a mother's womb in a new physical existence, into an environment and sphere of consciousness in which he can receive cosmic glimpses or degrees of initiation on the physical plane, and the resultant transfigured existence in physical flesh and blood.

And we now come to the world redeemer, who died on the cross. Since he was already a being that had achieved initiation in previous existences, he was, already here on the awake, physical plane, day-conscious in the spiritual world. For this reason his death was a great manifestation of light that cast its beam of light not only over the Earth at that time but also down through the generations and the centuries, and which sparkles to this very day with undiminished strength on its two thousand-year-long journey over the Earth. But people have got used to the light, with the result it is no longer so strong. Since this being had been initiated, which means he was cosmically day-conscious in all six of life's spheres, we are not talking here about some kind of imaginative experience, but an experience of the concrete realities of the spheres. He went among the spirits that were detained, that is to say the unhappy spirits or souls in purgatory, and preached to them. We can be certain that here he was an enormously powerful inspiration to all the guardian angels that were helping the unhappy beings. It is quite clear that here more than anywhere else he gave expression to his love in the words: "I have come in order to seek out and save those who are lost". It is equally clear that here he met his dear disciple and freed him from his agony. And having passed by all the unhappy beings, the world redeemer continued on his way, but he did not forget his friends on the awake, physical plane. A being in such a state can, while it is still so close to the matter and physical wavelengths of the earthly sphere, materialise itself, as long as the conditions favourable to such a materialisation are present. And the world redeemer showed himself to his disciples at least one more time, when they were gathered together and the doors were locked against the Jews.

And having proved to his friends in flesh and blood that one can perfectly well exist beyond a crucifixion, beyond flesh and blood, and having thereby confirmed the immortality of living beings, the world redeemer continued up towards the kingdom of wisdom and the divine world, and here experienced in a day-conscious, awake way – and one with the Father – the entire divine world plan, and from here he could still send through the ether the inspiring power of his radiant stream of light down through the spheres to the terrestrial plane, down to the immense wave of light that he, in the form of his wisdom and his eternal words, had left behind him. This stream of light is a part of the spiritual world's wavelength that has become rooted in the physical plane. And in the highest layers of this sphere the world redeemer, as well as all other initiated or cosmically conscious beings, is day-consciously awake. And that is why he could also say: "when two or three are gathered in my name I am present". And it is so. He is present due to the shining halo of his consciousness. But his shining halo is the material of his spirit. And it is through the material of his spirit that his proclamation takes place. It is therefore not altogether impossible to be able to see Christ, Buddha, Krishna or any of the other great world saviours, if you can come sufficiently into contact with the uncorrupted layer of your consciousness, in other words through true neighbourly love.

But Christ or other initiated beings are all beings that have lived through all their incarnations on Earth and will not normally incarnate there any more; they have quite simply grown out of this planet. They no longer have any need for what it can offer in the way of physical experience. They therefore incarnate on higher physical worlds, or on planets that are for initiated beings in particular, that is to say planets that already today represent the perfect physical states that terrestrial human beings have not yet reached, which is the reason why they live in a state of war and suffering. Cosmic or initiated beings can already visit these worlds from the spiritual plane or in a disincarnated state, owing to the fact that their spiritual atmosphere is of such a height that it matches the wavelength of the cosmic planes. Initiated beings are born on Earth only in order to implant the spheres of the higher spiritual worlds into the terrestrial human consciousness. They come as missionaries to the zones of these lower worlds in order, through neighbourly love, to guide human beings on through their dark fates, on to perfection in their way of being, and consequently to guide them to the experience of immortality and the experience of the Godhead and their identity as sons of this highest source of life, or the state of being one with it.

Life is so wonderful that everyone has access to their own paradise. Eternal hell and eternal damnation are merely the dark fantasies of physical beings. And the same applies to the belief in true death and annihilation. No one can kill. No one can cause injustice and no one can suffer injustice. All experience lies in our own hands. Our identity as sons of God is connected to the privilege that all our experience, its form and extent, its colour and light, lies completely in our own hands. Existence is precisely the evil or the good, the light or the darkness, that we are ourselves able to transform it into. We are one with the Godhead and with the eternity behind life's sparkling, radiant abundance.