In previous lectures I have spoken a lot about the love for our neighbour, and by our neighbour we generally mean our fellow human beings and our other fellow beings in the mesocosmos. Many of my lectures have also been focused particularly on improving the relationship between the individual human being and the one great being in the macrocosmos, which we express as "the one true God". These two forms of love, the love for the Godhead and the love for our neighbour in the mesocosmos, are two of the absolutely necessary factors of life that must form the foundation for the real human being's unfolding of life and experience of a life that is free from all the unpleasantnesses we usually express collectively as "evil".

The microcosmos is populated by myriads of living beings, without whose existence our present life would be an impossibility. There would be no physical matter and thus no physical bodies either if there were no such thing as organs, cells, molecules, atoms and electrons. All these life units in matter are living beings; they are also our neighbour. And just as, for the creation of our fate, how we treat our neighbour in the mesocosmos is not unimportant, how we treat the beings who live in our organism and are in a way our "subjects" is absolutely not unimportant either. Our I's relationship with these beings is just as regulated by law as our relationship with our fellow human beings. Here too this applies: "What you sow, you shall also reap", and thousands, indeed, millions of people around the world today must reap the kind of fate we call diseases and physical ailments, since in this or previous lives they have treated their "subjects" or microbeings in the same way as the tyrants of the past treated the peoples of their kingdoms.

One can say that the terrestrial human being lives on two fronts: an outer front and an inner front. And for countless people both of these fronts are currently "war fronts" of a kind. The only thing that can overcome the war on the external front, whether it is war between nations or it is all the forms of war that people use between each other in everyday life, is the display of the principle of neighbourly love. But the same is true on the inner front, in the individual's own private world. Again, only the principle of neighbourly love can stop war or disaster. Yet, to understand this one must also understand that neighbourly love is not merely emotion. An overly emotional state can easily degenerate into both sentimentality and fanaticism. True neighbourly love is a combination of feeling, intelligence and intuition. All these energies of consciousness must be mobilised so that the war can be stopped on both the outer and the inner front. One must take into account one's neighbour instead of ruthlessly doing whatever comes into one's head. One has to think about whether what one wants to do can be harmful to, indeed, potentially simply be conducive to suffering for one's neighbour. And just as one must do so towards one's neighbour in the mesocosmos, in order for peace to be created there, one must also do so in relation to the living beings who together constitute the organism that carries one's day consciousness on the physical plane.

If one does not take sufficient account of one's fellow beings in the physical world in this incarnation, one will meet one's own way of being in others in the future in both this and in coming incarnations, until one learns to show consideration. And if one does not take sufficient account of the living beings in one's organism in this incarnation, one will also encounter its effect as fate in both this and in future lives. How can one show insufficient consideration of one's micro-individuals? By consuming incorrect food, by filling one's body with alcohol, tobacco and narcotic agents, and, what many fanatical vegetarians and abstainers do not always take sufficiently into account, by filling one's consciousness with incorrect thoughts. With regard to food, it is common practice among the terrestrial human beings, as it has been for millennia, to kill animals and cook their flesh and blood and organs, and only very few people can yet see that there should be anything wrong in that. As long as people do not feel any discomfort about it, they must of course also continue to feed themselves in this way, but there are already quite a few people who are starting to feel discomfort about it. Perhaps without them therefore starting to think more deeply about it. But this discomfort is a beginning of a different view of nutrition, where a more humane and love-promoting attitude will come into play. It will improve conditions on both the outer and inner front. It will improve the conditions or the fate on the outer front in such a way that, when one ceases to co-operate in the killing of the animals, one creates a greater protection for oneself or for one's organism against being killed. The animals are indeed also our neighbour; they are "younger brothers" in evolution and are on their way to evolutionary stages comparable to those in which the terrestrial human beings find themselves.

On the inner front, that is in the human being's own organism, the conditions or fate will also be gradually improved when one ceases with animal food, because the vibrational speed of this food is less and less on a wavelength with the vibrations that constitute the organ functions of the developed human being and the microworld. But the terrestrial human being has of course been comfortable with animal food for millennia, many people will object. It is tradition and customary practice, and you cannot break with that! There is so much in the past that has been the customary practice for the human beings, yet which is no more. It is natural when it is an evolution that takes place. Have we not broken with many of the traditions of the past that we today think are crude and barbaric? Someday one will be of the opinion that consuming animal organisms as food is just as barbaric as we think cannibalism is. Now, you must not misunderstand me and think that I am criticising people who eat meat. Personally, I prefer to be with a loving and tolerant meat-eater than with a fanatical and intolerant vegetarian. But it is my task to show people all those areas where they are violating the law of existence, that is to say the law of love, and therefore it is necessary that I demonstrate all those transgressions that take place in the human being's relation to its own micro-world. I do it not to bother anyone, but exclusively to show people both on the outer and the inner front the way to the state where pain and suffering no longer need to exist.

Animal matter is unfit as food for many developed people because it has a state of vibration that is not on a wavelength with the substances with which food is supposed to combine with through digestion in the stomach. It cannot be transformed into such fine bodily material that the refined spiritual being must use for its construction and maintenance. Aside from being the cause of an internal struggle in the organism that draws energies from the life force of the spiritual human being, such food provides a large amount of waste products and only a very small degree of life force. When the body has to supply this large, partly useless digestive work and gets only very little life force back, this excessive output of energy in the long run becomes a sabotage or undermining of the being's physical well-being. This can lead it eventually to not possessing enough life force to promote all the demanding functions of the organism, and then digestive difficulties, calcifications and fossilisations begin to assert themselves; kidneys and liver become ill and many other defects signal that the organism is in a state of alarm and disaster is approaching.

But it is not only through incorrect nutrition that the human being can create a mismatch between itself and its micro-individuals. Also through the enjoyment of narcotics, tobacco and alcohol, the terrestrial human being creates catastrophic conditions in its own world and thus for all the beings who live and move and have their being in that world. These stimulating drugs have in reality no natural need for the terrestrial human being. They are artificial stimulants and they can create an artificial hunger in the organism that, precisely because it is artificial, cannot get a natural satiation, but demands still more and more without being satiated. Therefore, there are drug addicts, chain smokers and drinkers; people who are hungry for something that cannot be satisfied at all and who destroy their organism and create hell for the microbeings whose zone of life experience it is. These poisons affect not only the physical organs and microbeings, but they also have a paralysing effect on the spiritual life and can in the worst case cause the being to be born as mentally disabled in a future incarnation, in the mildest cases that its ability to concentrate is reduced.

One factor that absolutely must not be overlooked when it comes to the human being's relationship to its own microworld is thoughts. Whenever one fills one's consciousness with angry, bitter or hateful thoughts, indeed, one becomes only a little irritated, one sends currents through the nervous system that can create short circuits and thus catastrophe. These currents poison the blood that is carried around the organism, and for the developed human being such poisoning can be catastrophic. Both the heart, lung and stomach area can be easily exposed to violent attacks, and the more developed a person is, the more susceptible it is to such mental infections; it cannot actually tolerate getting angry or irritated at all without exposing itself to too strong worries and regrets. But no human can avoid that, can they? We cannot avoid meeting with those situations that can create irritation, worry or sorrow in our consciousness, but a human being can be evolved to face these situations with such a balance between its emotion, its intelligence and its intuition that events do not create catastrophes in its spiritual and physical world.