The Evolution of the Sun and the Earth

"It is true that for a certain period of its cosmic evolution our Earth has been separated from the Sun. The Sun and its beings advance along a more rapid evolutionary path. Our Earth and the beings belonging to it take a different couse. But these beings, and the Earth as a whole, will one day have progressed to the stage where union is again possible with the Sun--after a separate existence has enabled them to complete and perfect their present phase of development. For our Earth will again unite with the Sun. During the stage of Earth-existence itself, the Earth will reunite with the Sun, just as during the same phase of evolution it separated from the Sun. But during the Jupiter stage [the next incarnation of the Earth] there must again be a separation. The Earth beings must again be separated from the Sun during the Jupiter condition. Again there will be a reunion, and during the Venus-condition [the incarnation of the Earth following Jupiter] our Earth will be united permanently with the Sun, will have been taken up for all time into the Sun. During the Vulcan-condition [the incarnation of the Earth following Venus] our Earth will itself have become a Sun within the Sun and have contributed something to the Sun evolution, will have added something which, in spite of their higher rank, those beings who have always remained in the Sun could never themselves have achieved. Earth existence was necessary in order that human beings might evolve as they have evolved, with a consciousness that alternates between waking and sleeping. This is connected with the separation from the Sun. Beings who live always in the Sun do not have day and night. The sense-consciousness which we call the clear light of day, and which in times to come will evolve into higher conditions, carries with it into the Sun evolution the fruits of experiences connected with the things of outer physical space. In this way the Earth beings give something to the Sun, enrich the Sun. And out of what is thus acquired on the Earth, augmented by what is acquired on the Sun, the Vulcan existence comes into being. This Vulcan existence is actually a higher condition than that of our present Sun existence. The Earth evolves, the Sun evolves, until they can unite to constitute the Vulcan existence."

--Rudolf Steiner, The Influence of Spiritual Beings upon Man, pp. 21-22