86. In contrast to a stronger light, a weaker light will more or less be an expression of darkness. Thus the animal kingdom's "light", or form of consciousness, has to appear as darkness or imperfection in contrast to the real human kingdom's form of consciousness or stronger light. And to the same degree as people begin to feel or experience the form of consciousness belonging to the real human kingdom, so this form becomes an ideal for all individuals and just to that same degree the longing for this kingdom grows, while in a corresponding degree they feel antipathy towards the animal form of consciousness. As this longing and this antipathy appear as the releasing factors for a transformation from animal to human, and this transformation is identical with "the Expulsion from Paradise", so this "expulsion" will in reality not be expulsion, but will come about solely upon a basis of all the human beings' own wishes and free will. The darkness caused by this transformation or "expulsion" is not the outcome of being "accursed" either, but on the contrary, in its cosmic analysis, it is to be considered as identical with an education which will enrich the individual with those qualifications which make him capable of living so closely in contact with the laws of the real human kingdom, that later on he can be born as one of that kingdom's own beings and can appear as a "divine human being".
      That this "education" is at times of a painful nature is simply because, cosmically speaking, it also has to act as a "danger signal". It is like a "bell that rings" when the individual is going astray, and the more the individual strays from the natural way, the louder will it "ring". From a cosmic aspect, all the pain in the world, physical as well as mental, constitutes, therefore, the greatest form of protection for all living beings; it is a guard rail to prevent the individual from falling into the abyss of eternal death. If it were not for pain, no individual would be sustained in an eternal existence; no living beings would ever be brought back from the wrong road, but would continue on it, which again would be the same as an eternal silence, for without pain, no contrast to life, and without contrast - no manifestation, no road towards perfection, no evolution, no experience of existence, but a universal equilibrium preventing any form of movement. An eternal death would be the master of life. But thanks to pain, the opposite is a fact. Life is the master of death, and pain a divine blessing.
      Pain shows the way to God, to Truth and to Life.