36.11  The limited sensory capacity of terrestrial mankind
The white figure on the left in the black area in the symbol symbolises the present sensory capacity of terrestrial mankind. We see that the figure stretches from the material part of the kingdom of bliss, that part being what we call the mineral kingdom. Then it extends through the plant kingdom into the animal kingdom. Unfinished mankind to a great extent still belongs to this kingdom. We see that after this the figure extends just inside the real human kingdom. Yet it is only through intuition or an incipient cosmic glimpse that this kingdom can begin to emerge for the mature but as yet unfinished human being. The rest of mankind's connection with this divine kingdom is merely through their belief in the handed-down religious dogmas, and has therefore nothing to do with personal experience of the above-mentioned elevated spheres. This part of terrestrial mankind is therefore to be regarded as illiterate as regards the real scientific truth about the solution to the mystery of life. The religious message of the humane world religions in relation to real cosmic knowledge about life's eternal and all-embracing truth, structure and world picture is to be likened merely to the sea air close to the sea.
      This sensory capacity of the unfinished human beings is promoted by four of the basic energies: the energy of gravity in a more or less unhampered state, the beginnings of the energy of intelligence and unintellectual or more or less inhuman feeling, and a degenerating faculty of instinct. Universal or neighbourly love is as yet only just beginning to dawn very dimly far out on the horizon of the mental sky. Cosmic faculties are as yet an almost unknown area for the man in the street.
      It is not so surprising that a mankind whose sensory capacity is promoted to a great extent by uncontrolled energy of gravity, that is anger, bitterness, murder, killing, war and destruction, lives in darkness, hell or Armageddon, this uncontrolled energy of gravity being of course a consequence of primitive and unintellectual feeling in which no neighbourly love as yet occurs. That this mentality cannot be changed by a mentality of the same kind is a matter of course. For this reason mankind cannot attain peace on Earth or emerge from darkness unless this combination of mental energies in the being's psyche is changed. And this change can occur solely through the development of universal love in the mentality and thereby in the way of being. And this development of neighbourly love takes place only through the beings' experience of their dark fate or karma. And mankind is at precisely such a stage in its transformation from animal to human being that its beings, in the form of world wars and other ways of creating death and mutilation, inflict oceans of sufferings upon their neighbour or fellow beings, animals and human beings. And these sufferings, according to the law of karma or retribution, have repercussions on their originator and become the correspondingly dark fate of these beings. This dark fate, as previously mentioned, gives rise in the beings to the beginning of the faculty for humaneness or universal love that causes them, as they come through their karma or sufferings, to become correspondingly more and more developed so as to no longer be able to hurt other living beings. With the development of this faculty the being hungers for cosmic science, and attains cosmic glimpses in order finally to attain permanent cosmic consciousness. It thereby becomes one with God, the finished human being in God's image after his likeness.
      We thus understand here why materialistic science cannot change people's warlike or deadly way of being. Despite the exceedingly great assets it has given and still gives mankind, it takes part in promoting darkness owing to its lack of cosmic knowledge. With the invention of sophisticated and deadly weapons of war that maim and destroy, it contributes to the perpetuation of atomic explosions, bombings, conflagrations and the obliteration of culture upon Earth's otherwise so sunny continents and oceans.
      How can a world where universal love or neighbourly love does not exist or in the best cases exists merely as a feeble, incipient faculty of humaneness, which, because of people's ignorance, has even been persecuted to a certain extent as an abnormality or vice with capital punishment as the maximum penalty, be anything other than an inferno of darkness for the beings concerned? Must one not praise the eternal Godhead for the fact that darkness, according to the law of karma, gradually gives rise to the faculty to not have the heart to hurt living beings? No being can thus continue behaving in an evil way towards other beings without inflicting the same behaviour on itself with the same strength as it has itself used towards the neighbour concerned. And here the beings' blood-shedding behaviour stops. Here the faculty to not have the heart to harm other living beings quietly begins its domain. And in an increasing light of universal love or neighbourly love the prodigal son of God is once again on his way to his Father. Behind him the glare of the deadly flames of hell disappear in the darkness. Ahead the eternal ocean of rays from God's spirit shines to greet the son of God who has arisen from darkness. And through space the eternal voice rings out: "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased".