BD.1874
April 3, 1941

IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

The teaching of the immortality of the soul is not accepted by many people, because they compare it always with the earthly, that is perishable. Nothing on Earth is permanent. According to the opinion of these people everything passes away, and therefore they believe that no exception should be made cf. this natural law. The earthly body indeed decays, i.e. it seemingly disintegrates and passes away. But man does not consider that the apparent disappearance is solely the means of transition to a new forming. On same reflection man has to recognize that all earthly must serve a purpose, and he will observe that even the smallest and most insignificant Creations are related somehow to one another and therefore are not purposeless.

If such a Creation -Work fades away, then numerous other Creations absorb the remainder of the first-one and therefore serve in this way the new-one, and continue to live in the new Creations. Man has only to observe seriously an outward transformation and then he must admit also that the inner life cannot vanish. And this inner life he has to grant also at least to man. He has to make it clear to himself that the soul of man - the emotional life - is not just somehow ended - that this emotional life is the true sense of every embodiment. The outside form serves for nothing, unless the inner core is recognized by mankind. The construction of a human being requires always the same components: body, soul and spirit. The body - the outer cover - carries out the functions which the soul decides. Therefore the body is only the organ through which the will is realized. At the moment of death the soul no longer needs any of the organ that serves it as on Earth, - that means in the visible Creation-Work - because it changes its present residence and passes into regions where nothing has to be done that is apparent to the outside. The body that was only the means for the earthly course where the soul should have formed itself to be the carrier of the divine Spirit, becomes null and void.

The Spirit, the third component of the living Creature, lies indeed dormant in every man, but becomes active only when the will of the soul pays more attention to it than to the body. Thus, when the soul does not take the earthly demands so seriously then the claims of the Spirit, that always means a neglect of the earthly needs. Body, soul and spirit indeed belong together, but they may have separate goals. The soul can direct its will more towards the demands of the body, but it also can disregard them and instead make its will useful only to the Spirit within itself. It is just this direction of will that decides its life in the hereafter, that means, the state in which the soul lingers after the earthly life, which can bring to it Bliss or harm.

Therefore the earthly life - the function of the body - is only a temporary state in which the soul finds itself. The soul impels the body to all actions on Earth, but it must not in any way be thought extinct, so the body can no longer carry out its function. The soul has indeed left the body because it moves into regions where it no longer needs an exterior cover.

But to consider the soul as something finished would be completely wrong, because the soul is something that cannot pass away. Indeed, it can no longer influence the body to its functions when man's body is dead. It can fall into a state of indolence through lack of maturity, i.e. if it has not given enough consideration to the Spirit within itself. But never does the soul "cease to exist". Because it is something spiritual that is everlasting, while the body consists of earthly stuff, of matter, and therefore is subject to constant changes that finally disintegrate into its components as soon as the soul has left the body.

AMEN