A small craft is crossing the vast ocean of eternity. It is travelling in space. It is floating between the stars. It is moving in "the heavens". This little craft is called "Earth". Its most distinguished passengers are human beings. But it has also other passengers, namely all the other living beings that belong under terrestrial forms of life. It is a kind of "Noah's Ark". This craft is following a particular route that extends just as far as the "ocean" does. This route is called "time". Thus time and eternity are equal in duration. But time, like all other much frequented routes or public highways, is divided into units of measurement. The kinds of units of measurement that are perceived by the terrestrial human being as milestones in its cosmic journey are those we have become familiar with as years, months, weeks, days, hours and seconds. Of these the years are the most fundamental for this being. Every "New Year" is thus a fundamental "milestone" in the terrestrial human being's journey with the Earth through space. There are of course "landmarks" for far greater units of measure or distances on this journey, such as centuries, millennia, millions of years: but such units of measure are for "celestial travellers" who have attained to live in layers of consciousness where a thousand years are as one day, and one day is as a thousand years. And this kind of "passenger" is still very rare on Earth. For these travellers the Earth is still too primitive a means of transport. For such a state of consciousness it has not yet suitably comfortable "cabins", "saloons" or "staterooms" fit for real human manifestation or for beings that live and sense exclusively through "the holy spirit", for beings, with their masculine and feminine poles equally developed and united in balance, that have long since left the zone of the mammal behind them and, as completed "godlike human beings", have resurrected in "the kingdom that is not of this world". These beings have their special "crafts": beautiful, shining worlds; oases between suns; harmonies of colours, rays and love.
      This is not the case on Earth. It has not yet been made fit for "celestial travellers" of such rank. Its most distinguished accommodation can as yet still be regarded only as "stables", since it is intended for beings with partly animal consciousness, beings that by virtue of the energy of gravity of the male or female form and as individuals of the mammalian zone can by nature regard only the opposite sex as its "neighbour". So they can observe the great commandment "Love one another" to some extent only in relation to the opposite sex, or, like the animals, can still understand love only as marriage, offspring and family, and can thus experience love only as "seeds", not as "flowers" or culmination. The most distinguished "passengers" on the Earth must still share a room with the animals, must still "eat with the swine". The Earth is still merely a "ship" for unfinished beings, "prodigal sons", but on a journey in "the heavens" on course towards the eternal Father.