125. First section. The most advanced human beings in the first section will be very near to those people in the first category because their intelligence does not fall very far short of their level of feeling. So their consciousness will exhibit only mild forms of unbalanced outbursts and manifestations. To a large extent they have acquired many of the qualities characterizing people in the first category, but in a somewhat unfinished form. That is to say, they are still only periodically fully animated by humility, tolerance and unselfishness, and that will take place in those periods when their intelligence is strong enough to maintain their disapproval of - or disgust with - ambition, egoism, intolerance, arrogance, meat-eating and drug-taking. At such times, these people may show exceptionally strong receptivity for pure spiritual forces, and in certain cases they can experience the first, weak, preliminary signs of the Great Birth. But as this stimulation of the will by the intelligence has not yet become an inclination, a habit or a natural talent, then after a time it can become tired and weak, and the lower tendencies will again take possession of the consciousness - though not, of course, to a particularly harmful level. So people in the second category's first section can never become murderers, robbers or thieves, for the stage of their religious faculty or moral standard would be much too high. On the other hand, they may well become pessimists and, as some elements of ambition and milder forms of egoism still remain in their consciousness so that they have more or less selfish expectations which are not always fulfilled, they can thereby still experience disappointments and irritations which, in extreme cases, can lead to melancholia and imagined martyrdom with corresponding disadvantageous reactions on the physical side. But thanks to their well- developed spiritual side on a deeper level, such dark and pessimistic periods are merely passing phases - particularly so when they have been in touch with the preliminary signs of the Great Birth. Such a divine contact can never be forgotten, and to the person who has once had that experience it will shine as a beacon in the darkness, to which he will return again and again. Through that help he will at last have sight of the lost land and enter into a healthy and optimistic state, a state which will therefore be of a permanent nature when his faculty of intelligence becomes so strongly developed as a natural tendency or habit that it pervades his faculty of feeling with a sense of reason which is thoroughly sound and clear, not only from a theoretical but also from a practical viewpoint. But until this has taken place, that person will suffer relapses to a greater or lesser degree. In other words, as long as an individual still retains in his mental attitude primitive or lower tendencies which he is unable to control, he cannot gain a permanent continuity of existence in a zone of higher consciousness - which in this case means the "Great Birth's forecourt".
      So the individual in the second category may well find himself inside this "forecourt" as long as his lower nature is dormant, but as soon as its starts to become active in the slightest way, he is no longer there but - sometimes even unnoticeably - has already shut himself out. Nobody can therefore, in any way, manage to remain continuously in that zone or forecourt on the basis of ambition or selfish aims but only, and for certain, by being spiritually cleansed of such aims and tendencies. The individual's egoistic inclinations and desires become thus an insurmountable barrier for achieving the total Great Birth and cosmic consciousness and become in themselves a safeguard against injury or catastrophe which that individual and his surroundings could suffer if that particular fulfilment took place at too early a stage (this refers to a later part of Livets Bog). Therefore the undeveloped natures of such individuals should be regarded as "guardians of the threshold to the Great Birth's forecourt".
      Because the human beings in the second category's first section are so near in development to the Great Birth's forecourt - just as who are those already there - they will not have very great material demands, desires and needs, and therefore will be found for the most part in inferior and inconspicuous occupations. However, there are a few exceptional cases in which certain of them cannot avoid being noticed on account of their outstanding abilities as artists or authors. In this same section one can also find those whose financial possessions are more than their modest needs actually require, but such people will always prove to be instruments chosen by Providence to give economic help and support in spreading the culture of the spirit, for they have the necessary qualifications to be able to give with discretion and without any claims. People within this section also belong to the zone of infertility, although in certain cases there are some who still belong to the zone of marriage. As the people in this section have grown beyond the stage of dogmas and religious sects - or at least only in certain cases might possibly be members of some more recent, most advanced spiritual associations whose highest directions and ideals they can contact - they will all without exception (just as the people in the first category) welcome impartially and without bias any release of the new world impulse. But, as we mentioned earlier, they are not quite balanced and still have somewhat incomplete natures, so in certain circumstances they are unable to maintain impartiality and unselfishness and begin to have hopes and expectations which are not quite pure and which therefore cannot harmonize with the dawning signs of the new world impulse. Confronting that impulse will therefore sometimes be a source of deep uneasiness in their minds. But we know already this simply means that all such people are beginning to have their first encounter with the "guardians of the threshold", and even though these experiences can be unpleasant, their sole object is, in fact, to show these aspirants to the "great forecourt", and show them in what way their "garments" are not yet clean and which small details they have still to bring in order before the holy place can be entered. The "guardians" in question are therefore unmistakable signs of the nearness of the Great Birth and the experience of God's kingdom on Earth. So all these human beings have only reason to be happy, for they will gradually become the true advocates and pioneers of the new world impulse and, like those in the first category, they will constitute parts of the embryonic body of the divine Kingdom on Earth.