In the Bible it is said that no one will enter the kingdom of God whose soul is not born again, and being born means being alive. It is not only a gay disposition or an external inclination to merriment and pleasure that is the sign of a living soul; for external joy and amusement may come simply through the external being of man, although even in this outer joy and happiness there is a glimpse of the inner joy and happiness which is the sign of the soul having been born again. What makes it alive? It makes itself alive when it strikes its depths instead of reaching outward. The soul, after corning up against the iron wall of this life of falsehood, turns back within itself, it encounters itself, and this is how it becomes living.