One must look in another direction to see the sun or the moon; one must not look at the earth. How to die before death is something that man today does not know; and he does not care to know. The central theme of life today is self-assertion. When a person speaks about himself he wants to make himself ten times more important than he is. He cannot help it; if he does not do so the others will not understand. I even heard one man say to another, "Your modesty is your greatest misfortune."

Every man has to be self-asserting, continually guarding his interests in order to live. There are many who toil from morning till evening, guarding their self-interest and thinking about nothing else. And what is it all for? In order to exist. But even germs and grubs exist and enjoy life much better! Birds fly in the air and are quite happy; but man is loading his heart with a thousand troubles, making his responsibilities greater and greater. And in the end he gains nothing; his health is spoiled, his spirit wrecked. He does not know any more where he is, nor where his spirit is; and if he has nothing here he has nothing in the hereafter. Many die without ever having given a thought to the deeper side of life. Not that they did not care for it; but they could not find time for it; they had too much to do in life.

One might ask, why is this condition so tragic, why can it not be improved? The answer is that it is natural. What is man? Man is a process; manifestation is a process through which the spirit goes from one condition to another condition, from one pole to another pole. And through this whole process the attempt of the spirit is to find itself. In that process the spirit first loses its freedom; freedom is lost in order to arrive at freedom. That is the tragedy. Yet in the end there is happiness, for the whole of creation was intended for the fulfillment of this object.

To every thinking soul, to every feeling heart, tragedy appeals. Why? Became tragedy is going on continually. Man would like to get away from tragedy, but it appeals to him became the soul is always in that condition; it is longing for freedom though it does not know what it is.