As we mentioned before, the terrestrial human being is a "son of God". However, it is not at present aware of this identity. It sees itself at most as being a "sinful person". But when it is not conscious of being a "son of God", this proves only that its "divine filial" or "cosmic" consciousness is not yet fully born. That which one has not become aware of, one has not yet been born into. But when it sees itself as a "sinful person", this realisation discloses that it is currently living in two worlds. What makes the terrestrial human being a "sinful" being is its use of the methods and principles that are the highest ideals and living conditions of those beings we call animals. It is these animal ideals that translate into stealing, robbing, murdering or other forms of expression of the survival of the fittest and the serving of egoism, while the same ideals for the "human kingdom" signify the very highest breach of the law and thereby undermining of all normal well-being. When the terrestrial human being considers these manifestations as "sinful", this indeed shows that it is already to some extent "human", for otherwise it would view these ideals as the most perfect form of experience of life if, in this situation, it could possibly reflect on itself. So, it is dissatisfied with itself when it employs these animal methods. And it is this dissatisfaction that lets it feel itself to be a "sinful" human being. It has discovered other and higher ideals that it wants to be in contact with. As these higher ideals can be only an opposition or contrast to the animals' ideals, or rather to the animals' natural instincts or drives, and therefore must be selflessness and neighbourly love, which are of course the highest ideals of the "human kingdom", they prove that the being is to some extent a "human being".
      When these "animal ideals" have become an evil that it wishes to fight, and the "human ideals" are a good it wishes to acquire, it is hereby a fact or reality that it is subject to a "birth". It is in the process of being "born" as a "real human being". This "birth" is the same as its "transformation from animal to human". The real or perfect human being is not born therefore in the "kingdom of heaven", surrounded by all the delights of the mental or spiritual world, but in the "animal kingdom". The birth of the "son of God" occurs thus in the midst of "animal" surroundings and traditions. The stench and impurities of the "animal kingdom" are in his vicinity; indeed, is not his "cosmic birth process" through many terrestrial lives completely surrounded by the atmosphere of the "stable"? The "stable" or "animal kingdom" is thus forced to be the scene of the "son of God's cosmic birth". This birth consists precisely in that the being begins to see the "animal kingdom" as constituting a mere "stable" and no real shelter for the perfectly developed human being or the cosmically conscious son of God, who is a "Christ" at "one with the Father".
      The gospel tells us that the "birth of Christ" could take place only in a "stable" (the animal kingdom), because every other place was occupied. And in which other place in existence is a "Christ" supposed to be "born" than precisely the "animal kingdom"? In all other planes of existence the "Christ-being" is a living presence and as a result cannot be "born". He who is born cannot be born until he has undergone the real death. And the only zone in existence in which the "Christ-being" or rather "Christ-consciousness" can be "dead" is indeed only the "animal kingdom". It is no wonder that the Christmas Gospel expresses the "stable" as the birthplace of the "Christ-being". By the time the fate of the terrestrial human being sends out to such a high degree, as is the case, murder, war and mutilation, hatred and persecution and their consequences: sorrow, melancholy and ennui, it is only the "animal noises, stenches and fumes" that must necessarily be present in the "stable" and therefore surround the terrestrial human being's "cosmic birth" and thereby more or less make the "stable" unfit as a living room or shelter for the son of God or perfect human being. One can therefore understand here why the gospel promises terrestrial humanity a higher mental sphere in the form of "peace on earth" (the animal principle's total elimination within the mentality of terrestrial humanity) and the resulting "good will" (neighbourly love's radiant heat of the sun in everyone's eyes and embrace).
      That the newborn son of God must lie in a "manger", as long as he has only a "stable" for living quarters, is of course a given. It is not common to set any high human cultural worth upon a "stable" or living quarters for animals. There isn't usually found here any gently rocking cradles or soft and expensive cots, since everything here of course is intended for and adapted to animals alone. The infant Jesus or terrestrial human being must also during its stay in a "stable" as a newborn "Christ" or "son of God" be laid to rest in whatever could be laid hands on in the "stable", such as even a "manger".
      What then is the "manger" in the "cosmic sense"? The "manger" is the as-yet "mammalian" terrestrial human organism or body. The "newborn baby", the "heavenly being", also lays in an object intended for animals. But how else should even a son of God's spirit be able to manifest itself in a "stable" by any other means than by the phenomena found in the "stable"? How shall a "heavenly being" appear in the material world's "animal kingdom" other than through an animal body? There are as yet no real physical bodies for the perfect human being or "heavenly beings" to be found on earth.
      The son of God or "Christ-being" must therefore spend its first infancy in a "manger", which therefore means in a "mammalian" organism, because there is not yet found on earth real "human" organisms (etheric organisms created through the materialisation of higher physical and spiritual matter in combination). The son of God must therefore in this, its first tentative period of childhood, appear in a specific "male organism" or a specific "female organism".