The Road to Paradise
Chapter 20
The being's acquisition of the most perfect ability to think and the cessation of reincarnation
Through physical existence the being gradually becomes illuminated by wisdom and love, and acquires the faculty to experience life at its height of perfection. On the physical plane it learns everything that it could not possibly learn on the spiritual plane. As matter on the spiritual plane automatically obeys the being's spiritual energy impulses without any resistance whatsoever, it cannot possibly learn to think in this kind of matter. In order that the spiritual energy impulses that the being is able to send out by means of its spiritual structure can take the form of thought, the being must inevitably learn to convert these impulses of energy into thoughts or mental constructions. It can learn to do this only on the physical plane, since matter on this plane does not automatically obey thought, but must be overcome by a mental or physical release of energy. Since it is a vital necessity to think logically when one is in the physical organism, one thus becomes accustomed to transforming one's spiritual energy impulses into logical thought forms or mental constructions in physical matter. Through this ability it therefore also becomes easy to fashion one's thoughts in mental substance or spiritual matter alone, without any connection with physical matter. The thoughts then become just as perceptible to the spiritual senses as their construction in physical matter is perceptible to the physical senses. But while the constructions in physical matter are solid and firm owing to the denser nature of this matter, the spiritual constructions are of a more refined nature and are maintained exclusively by virtue of the being's temporary will or temporary mental concentration. Quite apart from the incorporation of these mental constructions in the being's sphere of memory, they stand or fall with the being's concentration or will. Gradually, as the being's physical life proceeds in evolution, it acquires knowledge and gains experiences that, as mental images, form part of its consciousness, just as it itself, from the knowledge and experience it acquires through physical sensory perception, can manifest new mental constructions in physical matter. And thus the being's experience of life becomes an interplay of the experience and the creation of mental constructions. When the being has eventually evolved to the highest, most perfect level of thinking and humaneness, it cannot learn any more on the physical plane of existence. It can now produce its creation much more easily and perfectly in spiritual matter than in physical matter. And thus its rebirth in physical matter stops. Reincarnation has become superfluous. The being subsequently continues its passage of experiencing and creating through the great cosmic cycle in a perpetual spiritual existence. The living being experiences this existence in the following spiritual spheres or kingdoms: the "kingdom of wisdom", the "divine world" and the "kingdom of bliss". Here we find life's absolutely most perfect and therefore primary existence. Here the beings live at the very height of perfection. Here they experience the very culmination of the experience of life in the spiral cycle's epoch of light.