Claim. Human life moves through three respiratory stages — water (womb), earth (lungs of air), and air (spirit world of love) — each requiring destruction of the prior breathing organ to ascend.
Elaboration. SMM treats death as the third birth in a strict biological parallel: “People are born from the depths of water. The period in the womb is the period of existence in water… How is a fetus nourished? It is supplied through the navel. Its navel functions as a mouth… in the world of air, the spirit self is attached to the physical self like the embryo in the womb and feeds off the physical body. When the physical body grows old, the spirit self comes out and discards the physical body” (2.6. Death is a process to link three worlds, 299-69, 1999.2.4). The third stage breathes love rather than air: “We have to kick away the second womb and be connected to the third breathing organ of love” (ibid, 139-212, 1986.1.31). The earthly task is therefore to “form a new character of love” — to grow a love-organ before the body is discarded. Those who fail to form it cannot breathe in the spirit world.