THE SOJOURN OF MAN ON earth and in the beyond assists his development from an unconscious spirit-germ to a conscious ego, to a personality conscious of itself, with free will and the responsibility arising out of it.

That is the state man should strive for as soon as he has left Paradise, the Spiritual Realm, as an unconscious spirit-germ. In the throes of experiences, and through all kinds of influences assailing him, he must fight for his full spiritual maturity on his journey through the material substances of the World.

With the attainment of this goal he has completed his cycle through the World, and then returns to Paradise as a fully-conscious personality.

The development into a self-conscious human spirit is naturally to be found in the evolution of languages. For the spirit of man also forms the language. The more he unfolds his natural consciousness, the more is this expressed in the language, above all in the introduction and use of the word “I”.

Hence it follows that, for instance, in the languages of ancient times the “I” is still little used as a single word. It is completely lacking in the verbs, and is expressed solely in their endings. Only later, with increasing development towards self-consciousness, did the “I”, among some peoples, emerge, as it were, from its obscurity within the verbs, and was placed in front of them.

We observe the development of the human spirit to personal egoconsciousness, comprising millions of years, as a recapitulation concentrated into the childhood of present-day man. At the same time we notice that neither does the child yet use the word “I”, but to begin with employs its first name or a variation of it. Only later does it begin to make use of the word “I”, as the spirit gradually awakens to consciousness of itself.

If man reflects for once on the actual goal of his development, he will see that his ego has not remained alone. As a result of his wrong development the word “mania” has been added, as an expression of his inner condition as it manifests today, his desire for importance, and his intoxication with power.

Therefore it will not be easy for him to break free from the egomania prevalent today, in order to re-discover the interrupted path of natural development to the perfecting of his personality.

This involves above all the recognition that his sojourn in the earthly Gross Material World is only a path, and not the goal itself. Everything on earth is only a means to the end of spiritual development, to the completion of the cycle whose beginning and end lie in Paradise, the home of the human spirit, from which it has issued as a spirit-germ in order to return there as a complete human spirit.