36.8  The being's experience of itself as God in a universe
Just as the energy of instinct culminates in the plant kingdom, the energy of gravity in the animal kingdom, the energy of feeling in the human kingdom, the energy of intelligence in the kingdom of wisdom and intuition in the divine world, so the energy of memory culminates in the kingdom of bliss. This faculty, however, is in a latent state or at the lowest point of its development in the real human kingdom. This means therefore that it is even a little weaker here than it is in the unfinished terrestrial human being. This faculty is thus at its full extent or culmination in the kingdom of bliss. This in turn means that the being here can remember its life in the spiral cycle from the time when it had only the faculty to sense vaguely; it can remember the details of its life in the animal kingdom, the human kingdom, the kingdom of wisdom, the divine world and the kingdom of bliss. But now, however, the being's experience in the outer spiritual world is correspondingly closed to its manifestation and experience. It has its day-consciousness only in its world of memory or recollection. It has no longer any conscious dealings with beings in the rest of the world outside its world of memory. So it lives in a closed world. As previously mentioned, this world is its world of memory, which is in turn its memory image of the details of the universe such as it has experienced it during its lives. Here in its memories or its universe it can wander backwards and forwards in time and space. It is an absolute monarch in this universe, which is built up of its memories. In this panorama or universe of memories only memory images exist of all the living beings with which it has had dealings, whether they be animals or people, mates or offspring, spouses, sons or daughters, friends or enemies and all other phenomena, light as well as dark, with which it has been in contact in its many epochs of life during its passage through the spiral cycle. All its experiences of life exist in glorified memory material. Also included here are its memory images of the Earth itself, the sun, the moon and the stars, and its memory image of the universe formed from these.
      As we know from previous analyses all these images are illuminated by the light of God's spirit. All dark memories seem therefore much milder or softer and are thus provided with a light, an aura that they did not have when they were experienced as physical phenomena on the material plane. Memories of unpleasant experiences thus seem lighter the older they become; indeed, they can even in the best cases feel pleasant and gratifying. This is why we have called this life sphere of memory the kingdom of bliss; we have also called it this because the joy of memory is not a joy of the same kind as that which we are used to calling joy. It is an inner, quiet feeling of pleasure, a pure, spiritual atmosphere that is promoted directly by the spiritual plane. Since pure physical joy is mixed with a lot of physical energy, indeed sometimes in abundance, this surplus energy finds vent in the being as the more or less noisy sound we know as laughter. In its loudest and most uncontrolled state it manifests itself as quite a roar. The joy that arises from a sufficiently matured remembered experience creates a very calm, light and pleasant atmosphere. It is not difficult for the developed human being to feel that this joy is a shining and warming radiance from a world, every single detail of which is dazzlingly gilded by the light from the profusion of rays of God's eternal spirit, and that this joy, through the developed faculty of memory, is made accessible as energy of bliss to the equally eternal son of God. We have termed the memories themselves gold copies because they are durable like gold. Just as gold is a durable metal, so is a thought combination that has become a memory likewise made of a durable kind of spiritual substance or matter.
      The kingdom of bliss consists therefore exclusively of the being's experience of its memories, which appear glorified or gilded by the all-penetrating profusion of rays of God's spirit. This kingdom differs from the other kingdoms in the spiral cycle in that it is not a kingdom with living beings or inhabitants who experience the kingdom together. Neither is it a kingdom that is manifested in such a way as to be accessible to external senses. It is accessible only to the faculty of memory. With this faculty one cannot experience other beings' memories. Since the kingdom of bliss consists exclusively of memories, what we call the kingdom of bliss is not a collective kingdom for shared experience like the other kingdoms of the spiral cycle, which are experienced with senses intended for the experience of the outer worlds. The kingdom of bliss, by contrast, is a one-being kingdom, which in turn means a kingdom in which there exists only one single being, namely its originator. The kingdom of bliss is a living being's world of memory. This is therefore an individual inner world consisting exclusively of the being's memories from its passage through the spiral cycle. As the being gradually evolves, the entire substance of its memory forms a copy of the being's experience of the eternal universe. So the I of the living being experiences the sixth kingdom of the spiral cycle as an inner sphere of consciousness that is inaccessible to other beings. Since it is its own living memory copy of the universe with all its details, as far as it has been able to experience it, its own inner world is a kingdom created as a copy of the eternal universe, and in which its I is the one and only existing living, sovereign ruler. As we have already mentioned, it can move forwards and backwards in time and space. It can recollect its terrestrial lives in previous millennia and the gold copies of its experiences in living, active colour, light and movement, when it wants to call these forth in its consciousness. It can see itself in all situations, its depressing and dark states just as well as its light and happy fates, such as it experienced them within the accomplished spiral cycle's five kingdoms of external manifestation. So here the being is permitted to experience itself as a sovereign ruler or godhead in a universe that is a gold-copied, living, recollected revelation of the Godhead's own all-embracing living and working universe, it itself being a living son of the originator and Godhead of this universe throughout time and space, throughout eternity and infinity.
      But bliss is also a created phenomenon. Like other created phenomena, after its beginning and its culmination it must degenerate and cease. We see then also in the symbol that the kingdom of bliss casts its reflection onto the plant kingdom, which, as we know, is the beginning of a new cosmic spiral cycle. We already know that this transition takes place in the form of the mineral kingdom. This, the degeneration of bliss and the transition to the new spiral cycle, is indicated in the symbol by the dark round figure in the kingdom of bliss.