IF A NOBLE THOUGHT twitches in you, hold it back, do not speak it out, immediately, but nourish it; for it will condense when you hold it back in silence and gains strength like steam under counter pressure. The pressure and contraction testify to the property of a magnetic attraction according to the law that everything stronger attracts the weak. Thought forms of the same kind are thereby drawn in, on all directions, held in place, strengthening more and more the power of one's own, original thought, and thus works in such a way that the form generated first is intensified by the addition of foreign forms, and gradually changes , and takes on a changing shape until maturity. You feel all this well in you, but you always think that it is your own will all alone. But you never give purely your own volition in any case, there are always other influences as well!
What does this process tell you? That something perfect can only be created by combining together many other volitions from others! That means only in the union of many elements can anything perfect be created! Created? Is that right? No, but formed! For there is really nothing new to be created; in everything it is merely a matter of producing new forms, since all the elements already exist in the vast Creation. But these elements are to be pressed into service for the way to perfection, which is brought about through union.
Union! Do not pass over this lightly, but try to become absorbed in the concept that maturity and perfection are achieved through union. The principle rests in all Creation as a treasure that needs to be unfolded! It is closely related to the Law that only in giving can there also be receiving! And what is required to grasp these prin- ciples aright? Thus to experience them? Love! And therefore love indeed stands as the highest power, as unlimited might, in the mysteries of the great Life!
As with a single thought, union moulds, refines and forms, so is it with man him self and with the whole of Creation, which in a never ending fusion of existing, indi -vidual forms undergoes transformations through the power of volition, and thus be comes the way to perfection.
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A single individual cannot offer you perfection, but the whole of humanity, with all its varied characteristics, may do so! Each individual has something which is definitely part of the whole. And this is also why one so far advanced as no longer to know any earthly desires loves all mankind, not one individual, because only the whole of mankind can make the strings of his mature soul, laid bare through purification, sound the chord of heavenly harmony. He bears the harmony within himself, because all strings vibrate!
Let us return to the thought that attracted the other forms, and thereby became strong and ever stronger. It finally emerges beyond you in firmly united power-waves, breaks through your own personal aura, and exerts an influence upon your wider environment. Mankind call this personal magnetism.The uninitiated say: “You radiate something!” According to your nature, either unpleasant or pleasant. Attractive or repulsive. It is felt!
But you do not radiate anything! The process which engenders the feeling in these others has its origin in the fact that like a magnet you draw to yourself all that is spiritually similar. And it is this drawing that is felt by those around you. Yet in this, too, lies the reciprocal effect. Through the connection the other person then clearly senses your strength, and thereby “sympathy” awakens. Always bear in mind: Expressed according to our concepts, all that is spiritual is magnetic, and you also know that the stronger always overcomes what is weak through attraction, through absorption. In this way “from him that hath not (the weak one), even that which he hath shall be taken away”. He becomes dependent. There is no injustice in this, but it takes place according to the Divine Laws. Man only needs to pull himself together and will aright, and he will be protected from it. You will now probably ask: What happens when all want to be strong? When there is nothing left to be taken from anybody? Then, dear friend, there will be a voluntary interchange, based on the Law that only in giving can there also be receiving. There will be no standstill on that account, but all that is inferior is eliminated. Thus it happens that through indolence many become spiritually dependent, and sometimes, in the
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end, they hardly possess the ability to develop thoughts of their own. It must be emphasised that only the homogeneous will be attracted. Hence the proverb: “Birds of a feather flock together.” Thus drinkers will always find each other, smokers will have “fellow feelings”, likewise gossips, gamblers, and so on; yet noble characters will also come together for a high aim.
But it goes further: Whatever is drawn to another spiritually will eventually also manifest physically, since everything spiritual penetrates into the gross material, whereby we must bear in mind the Law of Returns, because a thought always remains connected with its origin and radiates back to it through this link.
I am always speaking here only of real thoughts, which carry within them the vital power of the psychic intuition. Not of the power wasted by the brain-substance entrusted to you as a tool, which forms but fleeting thoughts that only manifest in a wild medley as shadowy phantoms, and fortunately very soon fade away. Such thoughts merely waste your time and energy, and thereby you fritter away a gift en trusted to you. If, for instance, you seriously ponder over something, this thought becomes strongly magnetic within you through the power of silence, attracting all that is similar and thus becoming fructified. It matures and rises above the common place, thereby even penetrating into other spheres, from which it receives an influx of higher thoughts … inspiration! Hence, in contrast to mediumship, the basic thought in inspiration must proceed from yourself, must form a bridge to the beyond, to the spiritual world, in order to draw consciously from a spring there.
Inspiration has therefore nothing whatever to do with mediumship. In this way the thought is brought to full maturity within you. You approach its realisation, and bring into effect, condensed through your power, what already in countless elements was floating in the Universe before as thought-forms. Through unification and condensation of what has long existed spiritually you thus produce a new form! So in the entire Creation it is always only the forms that change, because all else is eternal and indestructible.
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Beware of confused thoughts, of all shallowness in thinking. Carelessness will exact a bitter revenge; for it will speedily debase you to the level of a playground for alien influences, through which you very easily become sullen, moody and unjust to your surroundings. If you have a genuine thought and cling to it, then the gathered power must eventually also press towards realisation; for the evolution of everything takes place entirely in the spiritual, since every power is purely spiritual! What then becomes visible to you are always only the final effects of a preceding spiritual-magnetic process, which takes place continually and uniformly according to a firmly established order. Observation of your thoughts and feelings will soon prove to you that all real life can in truth only be spiritual life, in which alone the origin and also the development lie. You must come to the conviction that everything you see with your physical eyes is in reality only the manifestations of the eternally driving spirit.
Every action, even the slightest movement of a human being, is indeed always first spiritually willed. The physical bodies merely act as spiritually animated instruments, which themselves only took shape through the power of the spirit. The same applies to trees, stones and the whole earth. Everything is animated, permeated and driven by the Creative Spirit.
However, since all matter, thus all that can be physically seen, is simply the outcome of spiritual life, it is not hard for you to comprehend that conditions on earth are also formed according to the nature of the spiritual life which immediately surrounds us. What logically follows from this is clear: Through the wise ordering of Creation man has been given the power to shape conditions for himself with the Power of the Creator. Happy is he who uses it only for good! But woe unto him who succumbs to the temptation to use it for evil! The spirit in men is only encompassed and darkened by earthly desire, which clings to it like dross, burdens it and drags it down. However, his thoughts are acts of will endowed with spiritual power. The decision to think in a good or evil way lies with man, and he can thus guide the Divine Power to good or evil purpose! Therein lies the responsibility that man bears, for reward or retribution will infallibly be his, as all the consequences of his thoughts return to the startingpoint through
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the established reciprocal action, which never fails, and which is quite inflexible in this matter, thus inexorable.Thereby also incorruptible, stern and just! Do people not also say the same of God? If today many opponents of religion reject the existence of a Godhead, this cannot in any way alter the facts I have cited. People need only omit the little word “God”, and engross themselves deeply in science, and they will find exactly the same, only expressed in different words. Is it not absurd, therefore, still to argue about it? There is no getting round the Laws of Nature, no man can defy them. God is the Power that activates the Natural Laws; the Power that nobody has yet grasped or seen, but whose effects every one, daily, hourly, indeed in every fraction of a second, must see, intuitively sense and observe, if only he wants to do so – in himself, in every animal, every tree, every flower, in every fibre of a leaf swelling and bursting its sheath to come to the light.
Is it not blindness to oppose this so obstinately while everyone, including these stubborn repudiators themselves, confirms and acknowledges the existence of this Power? What is it that prevents them from calling this acknowledged Power God? Is it childlike obstinacy? Or is it a certain shame at being obliged to confess that they have been obstinately trying all the time to deny something, the existence of which has always been clear to them?
Probably nothing of all this. The cause may well lie in the caricatures of the great Godhead held up to mankind from so many sides, which on serious investigation they could not accept. Any attempt to press the all-embracing and all-pervading Power of the Godhead into a picture must certainly debase and dishonour It!
On serious reflection no picture can be brought into harmony with It! Just because every man bears within him the awareness of God, he rejects with misgiving the narrowing down of the great inconceivable Power that created and guides him. It is dogma that is to blame for a great number of those who, in their antagonism, seek to overstep the mark altogether, very often against the certainty living within them.
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The hour is not far distant, however, when spiritual awakening will come! When the words of the Redeemer will be rightly interpreted and His great Work of Redemption rightly grasped; for Christ brought redemption from the Darkness by pointing out the way to the Truth, by showing as a man the path to the Luminous Height! And with His blood shed on the cross He set the seal to His conviction! Truth has never yet been different from what it was even then, and is today, and still will be tens of thousands of years hence; for it is eternal!
Therefore learn to know the Laws contained in the great Book of the entire Creation. To submit to them means: To love God! For then you will bring no discord into the harmony, but will help to bring the resounding chord to its full magnificence. Whether you say: I voluntarily submit to the existing Laws of Nature because it is for my own good, or: I submit to God’s Will, Which manifests in the Laws of Nature, or to the unfathomable Power Which activates the Laws of Nature … would the effect be any different? The Power is there and you recognise it, you simply must acknowledge it, because as soon as you reflect a little there is nothing else you can do … and thereby you acknowledge your God, the Creator! And this Power also operates within you when you are thinking! Therefore do not misuse it to evil purpose, but think good thoughts! Never forget: When you are producing thoughts you are using Divine Power, with which you can achieve the purest and highest!
Try never to forget here that all the consequences of your thoughts always fall back upon you in proportion to the power, importance and extent of the effect of the thoughts for good or evil. Since thought is spiritual, however, the consequences will return spiritually. They will thus affect you no matter whether here on earth, or later in the spiritual after your departure. Being spiritual they are by no means bound to the material either. Thus it follows that the disintegration of the body does not prevent the consequences from taking effect! The requital in the reaction will surely come, sooner or later, here or hereafter, with all certainty. The spiritual link with all your works remains firm; for indeed earthly, material works also have a spiritual origin through the creative thought, and will remain in existence even when everything earthly has passed away. It is therefore
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rightly said: “Your works await you, in so far as the effect has not yet reached you through the reaction”. If you are still here on earth when a reaction is due, or if you are again here, the consequences coming from the spiritual will exert their force according to their nature either for good or for evil, through your circumstances and your environment, or directly on yourself, on your body.
Here it must once more be specially emphasised: The true real life takes place in the spiritual! And that knows neither time nor space, and therefore no separation either. It stands above earthly conceptions. For this reason the consequences will strike you, wherever you may be, at the time when, according to the Eternal Law, the effect returns to its starting-point. Nothing is lost in the process; it is bound to come.
This now also answers the question so often asked: Why is it that obviously good people must sometimes suffer such bitter adversity in their earth-lives as to make it appear unjust? These are reciprocal effects, which must strike them! Now you know the answer to this question; for your existing physical body plays no part in it. Your body is not you personally, it is not your entire “ego”, but an instrument which you have chosen or which you were obliged to take according to the existing Laws of the spiritual life, which you may also call Cosmic Laws if that makes them easier to understand.
The particular earth-life is but a short span of your real existence. A crushing thought if there were no escape, no protecting power to counteract it. On awakening to the spiritual many a person would then have to despair, and wish rather to go on sleeping in the same old way. For he has no idea what awaits him, what will still strike him in the shape of reaction from former times! Or as people say: “What he has to make good.”
But take comfort! In the wise provision of the great Creation, as you awaken a path is also shown to you through that power of good volition to which I have already called special attention, and which mitigates or entirely pushes
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aside the dangers of the karma that is taking effect. This, too, the Father’s Spirit has given into your hands. The power of good volition forms a circle around you capable of disintegrating the evil pressing upon you, or at least of greatly modifying it, exactly as the atmosphere also protects the earth. But the power of good volition, this strong protection, is fostered and nourished by the power of silence.
Therefore I once more urgently exhort you, seekers: “Keep the hearth of your thoughts pure and then, above all, exercise the great power of silence if you wish to ascend.” The Father has already endowed you with the strength for everything! You have only to use it!
4. ASCENT
YOU WHO ARE STRIVING for recognition, do not entangle yourselves in a web, but become seeing! Through an Eternal Law you are burdened with an irrevocable obligation to make atonement. What you burden yourselves with through your thoughts, words or deeds can be redeemed by no one but yourselves! Consider, were it otherwise Divine Justice would be but an empty sound, in which case everything else would also crumble into ruins.
Therefore free yourselves! Do not delay a single hour in setting a limit to this enforced atonement! The honest volition for what is good, for something better, reinforced by a truly heartfelt prayer, will bring redemption!Without the honest, steadfast volition for good there can never be atonement. Evil will then perpetually find ever fresh nourishment to keep it alive, and thus require ever new atonement, unceasingly, so that through constant renewal it only appears to you as a single vice or affliction! Whereas it is a whole chain without end, continually binding anew even before the old could be severed.
Then there will never be redemption because of the demand for constant atonement. It is like a chain that keeps you fettered to the ground; and there is very great danger of being dragged still further down. Therefore, you who are still in this world or already in what you regard as the beyond, pull yourselves together at last and concentrate your volition on what is good!
With steadfast good volition the end of all atonements must come, since he who wills what is good and acts accordingly will incur no fresh debts demanding further atonement. This will then bring deliverance, redemption, which alone permit ascent to the Light. Listen to the warning! There is no other way for you! For no one!
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But thereby everyone also receives the certainty that it can never be too late. For the individual deed, that you will have to redeem and settle, certainly; yet in the moment when you earnestly begin to strive for the good you mark the end of your atonment. Rest assured that this end must come one day, and your ascent will therewith begin! You can then joyfully start working off all your karmaic burden. Whatever you then still encounter is for your own good and brings you nearer to the hour of redemp- tion, of liberation.
Do you now understand the value of my counsel to start exerting yourselves with all your strength for what is good, and to keep your thoughts pure? Not giving up, but pursuing this course with all your longing, all your energy? It will uplift you! It will change you and your environment! Bear in mind that every life on earth is a short time of schooling, and that you yourselves do not cease to exist when you lay aside your physical body. You will continually live or continually die! Continually enjoy bliss or continually suffer!
Whoever imagines that with earthly burial everything is also ended and balanced for him, may turn and go his own way; for he is only trying to delude himself thereby. Horrified, he will come face to face with the Truth and … will have to begin his path of suffering! His true self, deprived of the protection of his body, whose density surrounded him like a wall, will then be attracted, enveloped and held fast by what is homogeneous.
It will be more difficult for him, and for a long time impossible, to arouse the earnest volition for what is better, which could liberate and help him to ascend, because he is entirely subject to the influence of the homogeneous surroundings, which does not carry the kind of light-thought that might awaken and support him. He must suffer doubly under everything he has created for himself. For this reason ascent is much harder than when he was in the flesh, where good and evil dwell side by side, which only the protection of the physical body makes possible because ... this
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earth-life is a school in which every “ego” is given the opportunity of further development according to its free will.
Therefore rouse yourselves at last! The fruit of every thought will return to you, here or there, and you have to taste of it! No one can escape this fact! Of what use is it to try and bury your head timidly in the sand like an ostrich, to evade this reality? Face the facts boldly! You thereby make it easy for yourselves; for here progress is quicker. Make a start! But realise that all old debts must be settled. Do not expect blessings to rain down upon you immediately, as many fools do. Perhaps some of you still have a long chain to expiate. But he who despairs on that account only harms himself, because it cannot be spared and remitted him. Through hesitation he only makes everything more difficult for himself, perhaps for a long time impossi ble. This should spur him on not to delay another hour; for he only begins to live when he takes the first step! Happy is he who plucks up the courage to do so, for link by link he will be released. He can rush ahead with giant strides, jubilantly and gratefully overcoming also the last obstacles; for he becomes free!
The stones that his previous wrong-doing had heaped up before him like a wall, inevitably barring his advance, will indeed not be cleared away, but on the contrary will be carefully laid out before him so that he may recognise and surmount them, because he must bring about the balance for all his errors.
However, filled with astonishment and admiration, he will soon see the love that surrounds him as soon as he only evidences his goodwill. With tender forbearance the way will be made as easy for him as a child’s first steps, aided by its mother. Should there be things in his former life that were a silent source of apprehension to him, and which he would rather let sleep forever …quite unexpectedly he will be placed directly before them! He must decide, must act. In a striking way he is urged to do so through the enchainments.
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If he then ventures to take the first step, trusting in the victory of the good volition, the fateful knot is severed, he passes through and is freed from it. But hardly is this debt settled than already the next one in some form or other presents itself to him, requesting as it were also to be settled. Thus one by one the fetters that restricted and were bound to weigh him down are burst. He feels so light! And the feeling of lightness which some of you have surely experienced at one time or another is no illusion, but the effect of reality. The spirit thus freed from pressure becomes light and, in accordance with the Law of Spiritual Gravity, leaps upwards, to that region to which in accord- ance with its lightness it now belongs. And so it must rise steadily upwards towards the longed-for Light. An evil volition presses the spirit down and makes it heavy, whereas a good volition uplifts it.
For this, too, Jesus has already shown you the simple way leading unerringly to the goal; for deep truth lies in the simple words: “Love thy neighbour as thyself!”
With these words He gave the key to freedom and ascent! Because it is an irrefutable fact: What you do for your neighbour you do in reality only for yourselves! Solely for yourselves, since according to the Eternal Laws everything returns to you with- out fail, good or evil, either already here or there. It will surely come! Thus you are shown the simplest of ways in which this step to the good volition is to be understood.
You should give to your neighbour with your being, your nature! Not necessarily with money and goods. For then those without means would be excluded from the possibility of giving. And in this being, in this “giving yourself” in the
relation with your neighbour, in the consideration and respect you voluntarily offer him, lies the “love” of which Jesus speaks; lies also the help you give to your neigh- bour, because it enables him to change himself or ascend further, and because he
.
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gains strength from it. The returning radiations of this, however, will quickly uplift you in their reciprocal action. You will receive continually new strength through them. With a soaring flight you will then be able to strive towards the Light ...Poor fools are they who can still ask: “What do I gain by giving up so many old habits and changing myself?”
Is it a question of a business deal? And were they only to gain as human beings, to become ennobled as such, that alone would be reward enough. But there is infi- nitely more to it! I repeat: The moment a man begins to exert his good volition he also marks the end of his obligation to make atonement, which he must fulfil and can never escape. In this respect no one else can take his place. Thus with this resolution the end of the enforced atonement is in sight. Of such great value is this that all the treasures of this world cannot outweigh it. He thus struggles free from the chains that fetter him, which he is constantly forging for himself.
Therefore rouse yourselves from your enervating sleep. Let the awakening come at last! Away with the intoxication that brings the paralysing delusion that redemption through the Saviour has become a letter of safe conduct, enabling you to spend your whole life in careless selfishness, provided that in the end you embrace the faith, turn back, and depart this earth believing in the Saviour and His Work! Fools to expect such miserable, defective piecework from the Godhead! That indeed would mean cultivating evil! Remember this, and free yourselves!
5 RESPONSIBILITY
THIS QUESTION IS always one of the first, because the vast majority of people would be only too glad to throw off all responsibility, and cast it on anything rather than themselves. That this is in fact self-humiliation causes them no concern here. In this respect they are really remarkably humble and modest, but only so that they can go on living all the more merrily and unscrupulously.
It would indeed be so wonderful to be permitted to gratify all one’s wishes and calmly to let all one’s desires run riot, even at the expense of others , without having to atone for it. If necessary, the earthly laws can be evaded and conflicts avoided. Under their cover the more adept can even rake in quite a successful haul, and do many a thing that would not stand up to any moral examination. In addition they often even enjoy the reputation of being especially capable people. Thus with a little shrewdness one could really live very comfortably according to one’s own ideas, if ... there were not something somewhere that awakened an uneasy feeling, if from time to time there did not appear a rising disquiet that after all many a thing might be somewhat different from how one’s own wishes shape it. And indeed it is so! The reality is serious and inexorable.
The wishes of men can bring about no deviation whatsoever in this respect. Adamantine stands the Law: “What a man sows he will reap many times over!” These few words hold and convey much more than many a person thinks. They correspond minutely and exactly to the actual process of the reciprocal action resting in Creation. No more appropriate expression could be found for it. Just as the harvest yields a multiple of the seed, so man always receives back greatly multiplied what in his own intuitive perceptions he awakens and sends out, according to the nature of his volition.
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Thus man bears spiritually the responsibility for everything he does. This responsibility begins already with the making of the resolution, not just with the accomplished deed, which is simply a consequence of the resolution. And the resolution is the awakening of an earnest volition!
There is no division between this world and the so-called beyond, but all is only one single immense existence. The whole mighty Creation, visible and invisible to man, gears together like an amazingly ingenious, never-failing mechanism; it does not function separately. Uniform Laws support the whole, penetrating everything like nervestrands, holding it together and affecting each other in constant action and reaction!
When schools and churches speak of Heaven and hell, of God and the devil, this is right. It is wrong, however, to explain it as good and evil powers. That must at once plunge every serious seeker into error and doubt; for where there are two powers there must also logically be two rulers, hence in this case two gods, a good one and an evil one. And this is not the case! There is only one Creator, one God, and hence only one Power which streams through all that exists, animating and furthering it! This pure, creative Power of God flows continually through the whole Creation, lies in it and is inseparable from it. It is to be found everywhere: in the air, in
every drop of water, in the growing rock, the struggling plant, the animal, and naturally also in man. There is nothing where it would not be.
And just as it flows through everything, so it also streams unceasingly through man. Now the latter is so constituted that he resembles a lens. Just as a lens collects the sun’s rays streaming through it, and passes them on in concentrated form, so that the heat-giving rays, united on one spot, singe and set on fire, so man by virtue of his specific nature collects through his intuitive perception the Power
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of Creation streaming through him, and passes it on in concentrated form through his thoughts. According to the nature of this intuitive perceiving and the thoughts connected with it, he thus guides the self-acting creative Power of God to good or evil effect! And that is the responsibility which man must bear! Therein also lies his free will!
You who often seek so strenuously to find the right way, why do you make it so hard for yourselves? In all simplicity picture to yourselves how the pure Power of the Creator flows through you, and how you guide it with your thoughts in a good or in an evil direction. There you have it all, without trouble and without racking your brain! Consider that it lies with your simple intuitive perceiving and thinking whether this mighty Power will evoke good or evil. What a furthering or destructive power is thus given to you!
You need not exert yourselves till you perspire, you need not convulsively cling to some so-called occult practice in order to reach, through every conceivable and in- conceivable physical and spiritual contortion, some stage that is completely worth less for your true spiritual upward-swinging! Cease this time-wasting trifling, which has so often become painful torment, signifying nothing else than the former self-scourgings and mortifications practised in the monasteries. It is only another form of the same thing, which can bring you as little gain. The so-called occult masters and pupils are modern day Pharisees! In the truest sense of the word. They are the true reflection of the Pharisees at the time of Jesus of Nazareth.
Realise in pure joy that through your simple, good-willing intuitive perceiving and thinking you are able without effort to guide the one and mighty Power of Creation. The Power will then take effect exactly according to the nature of your intuitive perceiving and your thoughts.
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It works by itself; you need only guide it. This takes place in all simplicity and unassumingness! No erudition is required for this, not even reading and writing. It is given to each of you in the same degree! In this no difference exists. Just as a child playing with a switch can turn on an electric current that produces tremendous effects, so is it given to you, through your simple thoughts, to guide Divine Power. You may rejoice over this, may be proud of it, when you use it for the good! But tremble if you fritter it uselessly away, or even employ it for impure purposes! For you cannot escape the Laws of Reciprocal Action that rest in Creation. And if you had the wings of the morning, the Hand of the Lord Whose Power you thus misuse would strike you through this automatic reciprocal action, wherever you wished to hide.
Evil is brought about with the same pure Divine Power as good! And it is the kind of use made of this uniform Power of God, left to the free choice of each one, that bears within it the responsibility which no one can escape. Therefore I call out to
every seeker: “Keep the hearth of your thoughts pure, by so doing you will bring peace and be happy!”
Rejoice, you ignorant and weak ones; for to you is given the same power as to the strong! Therefore do not make it too hard for yourselves! Do not forget that the pure, self-creating Power of God also streams through you, and that you too, as hu- man beings, are enabled to give a definite direction to this Power through the nature of your inner intuitive perceptions, that is of your volition, for good as well as for evil, destructively or constructively, bringing joy or sorrow!
Since there is only this one Power of God, the mystery of why in every serious final struggle the Darkness must retreat before the Light, evil before good, is also cleared up. If you guide the Power of God to the good, it remains undimmed in its original purity and thereby develops a much greater force, whereas with the dimming into the impure a weakening takes place at the same time. Thus it is the purity of the Power which in any final struggle will always work effectively and be decisive.
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Everyone feels to the very finger-tips what is good and what is evil, without a word said. To brood over it would only cause confusion. Dull brooding is a waste of power, it is like a swamp, a clammy mire which paralysingly clutches and suffo cates all within its reach. But a brisk cheerfulness tears apart the spell of brooding. You need not be sad and depressed!
At any moment you can set out on your way to the Height and make good the past, whatever it may be! Do nothing more than think of the process of the pure Po- wer of God always streaming through you, then you yourselves will shrink from guiding this purity into the unclean channels of evil thoughts, because without any effort you can equally attain to what is highest and noblest.
You only need to guide it, the Power then works on by itself in the direction you desire. Thus you have happiness or unhappiness in your own hand. Therefore raise your head proudly, and face everything freely and courageously. Evil cannot approach unless you call it! As you wish it, so will it happen to you!
6 FATE
M EN SPEAK OF deserved and undeserved fate, of reward and punishment, retribution and karma. All these are only part-designations of a Law resting in Creation: The Law of Reciprocal Action! A Law which lies in the entire Creation from its earliest beginning, which has been inseparably interwoven with the great, never-ceasing evolution as an essential part of creating itself, and of development. Like a gigantic system of the finest nerve-strands, it supports and animates the mighty Universe, and promotes continual movement, an eternal giving and taking!Plainly and simply, and yet so aptly, Jesus Christ has already expressed it: “What a man sows that shall he reap!”
These few words render the picture of the activity and life in the entire Creation so excellently that it can hardly be expressed differently. The meaning of the words is inflexibly interwoven with life. Immovable, inviolable, incorruptible in its continual operation.
You can see it if you want to see! Begin by observing the surroundings now visible to you. What you call Laws of Nature are, of course, the Divine Laws, are the Creator’s Will. You will quickly recognise how unswerving they are in constant activity; for if you sow wheat you will not reap rye, and if you scatter rye it cannot bring you rice! This is so obvious to every man that he simply never reflects on the actual process. Therefore he does not become at all conscious of the strict and great Law resting in it. And yet here he faces the answer to a riddle, which need be no riddle to him.
Now the same Law which you are able to observe here takes effect with equal certainty and force also in the most delicate things, which you are only able to discern through magnifying glasses, and, going still further, in the ethereal part of the whole Creation, which is by far the larger part.
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It lies immutably in every happening, also in the most delicate development of your thoughts, which also still have a certain element of material substance. How could you imagine that it should be different just where you would like to have it so? Your doubts are in reality nothing more than the expression of your inner wishes!
In all existence, visible and invisible to you, it is no different, but each kind produces its own kind, no matter what the substance. Just as continual are the growing and developing, the bearing of fruit and reproducing of the same kind. This process runs uniformly through everything, it makes no distinctions, leaves no gap, it does not stop at some other part of Creation, but carries the effects through like an unbreakable thread, without interruption or cessation.
Even though the greater part of mankind, in their limitation and conceit, have isolated themselves from the Universe, the Divine or Natural Laws have not ceased on that account to regard them as belonging to it, and to go on working without change, calmly and evenly. But the Law of Reciprocal Action also stipulates that what- ever a man sows, thus where he causes an effect or consequence, he must also reap!
Only at the beginning of every matter is man free to resolve, free to decide where the Omnipotent Power flowing through him is to be guided, in what direction. He must then bear the consequences arising from the Power that was set in motion in the direction willed by him. In spite of this, many persist in asserting that even so man has no free will if he is subject to fate!
This foolishness is only meant to serve as a narcotic, or to be a grudging submission to something inevitable, a discontented resignation, but mainly a self-excuse; for each of these consequences falling back on him had a beginning, and at this beginning the cause of the subsequent effect lay in a previous free decision by man.
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This free decision has at some time or other preceded every reciprocal action, thus every fate! With a first volition man has each time produced or created something in which he himself has to live afterwards, sooner or later. When this will happen, however, varies greatly. It can still be in the same earth-life in which his first volition made the beginning for it, but it can equally well happen in the EtherealWorld, when the gross material body has been laid aside, or later still in yet another gross material earth-life.
The variations are not important here, they do not free man from the consequences. He carries the connecting threads with him continually, until he is redeemed from them, that is to say, “detached” through the final effect that ensues through the Law of Reciprocal Action. The one who forms is bound to his own work, even if he has intended it for others! If therefore a man today decides to do another an ill turn, either in thought, word or deed, he has thereby “put something into the world”, quite irrespective of whether this is generally visible or not, thus whether gross material or ethereal; it has within it power and therefore life, which continues to develop and work on in the desired direction.
How it will affect the person for whom it is intended depends entirely on the psychic condition of the one concerned, to whom it may thereby bring either much or little harm, perhaps also different from what was intended, or even none whatever; for again the psychic state of the one concerned is solely decisive for himself. Hence no one is exposed to such things unprotected. It is different with him who through his decision and his volition has given rise to this movement, that is to say, who was its producer. His product remains unconditionally bound to him, and after a short or long journeying in the Universe returns to him reinforced, laden like a bee, through the attraction of similar species.
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Here the Law of Reciprocal Action takes effect in that every single product in its movement through the Universe attracts, or is itself attracted by, various similar species, through whose union a source of power then comes into being, which sends back as from a power station reinforced power of the same kind to all those who through their products are connected as if by cords with the assembly-point of similar species.
Through this reinforcement an ever greater density also occurs until there finally arises from it a gross material precipitation, in which the one-time producer must now live and experience to the full what he once willed, in order at last to be freed from it. That is the origin and development of the so dreaded and misunderstood fate! It is just, down to the minutest and finest shading, because through the attraction of only similar species it can never bring in the returning radiation anything other than what was actually willed personally in the beginning. Whether for a particular individual or in general makes no difference here; for it is naturally also the self-same process when man does not specifically direct his volition to one or several persons, but lives generally in some kind of volition.
The kind of volition which he decides upon determines the fruits he must eventually reap. Thus countless ethereal threads cling to man, or he to them, all of which let whatever he once willed flow back to him. These currents result in a mixture that constantly has a strong influence on the forming of his character.
Thus in the mighty machinery of the Universe there are many things which contribute to how man “fares”, but there is nothing to which man has not himself first given cause. He furnishes the threads out of which in the un -tiring loom of life the cloak he has to wear is made. Christ plainly and distinctly expressed the same when He said: “What a man sows, that shall he reap”. He did not say, “can” he reap, but he “shall”. That is the same as saying: he must reap what he sows. How often does one hear
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otherwise very sensible people say: “It is incomprehensible to me that God should allow such a thing!” But it is incomprehensible that men can speak in this way! How small they imagine God to be with this remark. They prove thereby that they think of Him as an “arbitrarily acting God”.
However God does not at all directly intervene in all these small and great cares of men, such as wars, misery and other earthly matters! From the very beginning He has woven into Creation His perfect Laws, which automatically carry out their in corruptible work so that all is accurately fulfilled, forever taking effect uniformly, thus preventing any preference as well as any prejudice, an injustice being impossi- ble. Hence God has no need to trouble Himself especially about this, His Work is without flaws.
But one of the principal mistakes so many people make is that they only judge according to gross matter, regarding themselves as the centre therein, and taking into consideration one earth-life, whereas in reality they already have several earth-lives behind them. These, as well as the intervening times in the Ethereal World, are equal to one uniform existence, through which the threads are tightly stretched without breaking, so that in the effects of a particular earthly existence only a small part of these threads therefore becomes visible. Hence it is a great mistake to believe that at
birth an absolutely new life begins, that a child is thus “innocent”,See (Lecture : “The mystery of birth”) and that all happenings can be accounted for in only the short life on earth. If this were true, then the existing Justice would naturally require the combined causes, effects and reactions to occur during the span of one earth-life.
Turn away from this error. You will then soon discover in everything that happens the logic and justice which are now so often missed! Many are alarmed at this and afraid of what they still have to expect from the past through the reaction in accord ance with these Laws. But such are unnecessary worries for those who are in earnest about the good volition; for in the self-acting Laws also lies at the same time the certain guarantee
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of mercy and forgiveness! Quite apart from the fact that, with the firm beginning of the good volition, a limit is immediately set for the point where the chain of evil reactions must come to an end, yet another process of immense importance comes into force:Through the continuing good volition in every thought and deed, a constant reinforcement also flows retroactively from the homogeneous source of power, so that the good becomes more and more firmly established in man himself, emerges from him, and first of all forms accordingly the ethereal surrounding that envelops him like a protective covering in much the same way as the atmospheric layer round the earth affords it protection.
Now when evil reactions from the past return to this man to be redeemed, they slide off the purity of his surrounding or covering, and are thus deflected from him. But should they nevertheless penetrate this covering, the evil radiations are either immediately disintegrated or at least appreciably weakened so that the harmful effect cannot manifest at all, or only to a very minor extent.
In addition, through the resulting transformation, the actual inner man to whom the returning radiations are adjusted has also become much more refined and lighter through the continuous striving for the good volition, so that he no longer has any homogeneous affinity with the greater density of evil or base currents. Similar to wireless telegraphy, when the receiver is not tuned in to the energy of the transmitter.The natural consequence of this is that the denser currents, because they are of a different species, cannot take hold of anything, and thus pass harmlessly through without evil effect, redeemed by some unconscious symbolic action, the various kinds of which I will speak about at some later time.
Therefore set to work without delay! The Creator has placed everything in Creation into your hands. Make use of the time! Every moment holds gain or disaster for you!
7 RIGIDITY
EVERYTHING IN CREATION is movement. Brought into being strictly according to Law by the pressure of the Light, movement produces warmth through which forms are able to unite. Thus without Light there could be no movement, and therefore man can also imagine that in the proximity of the Light the movement must even be far more rapid and strong than at a vast distance from It. In fact the greater the distance from the Light, the slower and more sluggish becomes the movement. In time it may even lead to the rigidity of all the forms which had already taken shape when at first the movement was still more animated.
The expression “Light” in this connection does not, of course, refer to the light of some planet, but to the Primordial Light, which is Life itself, therefore God!
Following this picture of a great survey of what takes place in Creation, I wish for once today to direct attention to the earth, which is now revolving at a far greater distance from the Primordial Light than it did many millions of years ago, because it has been increasingly exposed to the weight of the Darkness through men, who in their ridiculous and stubborn conceit, due to a one-sided over-development of the intellect, drew away from God. The intellect is and will always continue to be directed only downwards towards coarse matter, because that is the purpose for which it was provided; on the assumption, however, that it should be able to receive absolutely undimmed all radiations and impressions emanating from above, out of the Luminous Heights.
All the work of the intellect for outward activity in coarsest matter, that is, in material substance, falls to the frontal brain. On the other hand, the back brain has the task of taking in from above impressions which are lighter and more luminous than coarse matter, and passing them on for further use.
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This harmonious co-operation of the two brains, given to men for their benefit, was disturbed by man’s one-sided surrender to purely earthly, that is, to gross material activities.
In the course of time it was completely stifled and tied off, as it were, because owing to its excessive activity the frontal brain was bound gradually to over-develop in proportion to the neglected back brain, which consequently became still less capable of receiving and also weakened. Thus over thousands of years the hereditary evil came into being through physical reproduction; for even newly-born children brought with them a frontal brain proportionately far more developed than the back brain. This held the danger of the awakening of the hereditary sin, through which man is compelled from the outset to direct his thoughts solely towards earthly things, and thus away from God.
All this will be easily comprehensible to every man of sincere goodwill; moreover, I have given many and detailed explanations of it in my Message.
All the evil on earth came into being because man, owing to his spiritual origin, could exert a pressure with his volition upon everything else existing on earth; whereas just because of this spiritual origin he could and also should have had an uplifting influence; for that was and is his real task in Subsequent Creation, in which all that is spiritual naturally takes the lead. It can lead upwards, which would be the natural thing, but it can also lead downwards if the volition of the spiritual is mainly striving only after earthly things, as is the case with earthmen.
In the knowledge of Creation which I have given in my Living Word, and in the related explanation of all the Laws automatically working in Creation, which may also be called the Laws of Nature, the whole weaving of Creation is displayed without a gap; it allows every process to be clearly recognised, and therewith the purpose of man’s whole life. With unassailable logic it also unfolds his “whence” and his “whither”, thus giving an answer to every question, provided man seriously seeks for it.
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Even the most malevolent opponents must halt here, because their cunning is insufficient to be able to invade and destroy the perfect com- pleteness of what has been said, and thus also rob man of this help. — —
I have said that the movement in Creation must become progressively slower the further away anything is from the Primordial Light, the starting-point of the pressure which subsequently brings about movement.
So is it with the earth at the present time.
Through the guilt of earthmen its orbits have become increasingly dis- tant. As a result the movements are becoming slower, ever more sluggish, and thereby much has already approached the stage where rigidity sets in. Rigidity also has very many stages; in its beginnings it is not so easy to recognise. Even while it is progressing, recognition remains impossible unless a flash of light for once stimulates the keenest observation. This recognition is difficult simply because everything living within the sphere of the steadily slackening movements is also drawn uniformly into the in- creasing denseness that leads to rigidity. This applies not only to the body of a human being, but to everything, including his thinking. It affects even the most minute things. Imperceptibly every concept also changes and becomes distorted, even those concerning the actual meaning of the language.
Since he himself is drawn along in the same sluggish vibration, man cannot notice this in his neighbour, unless from out of his inner being he seeks once more to fight his way upwards spiritually with the strongest volition and with tenacity, so as again to come a little nearer to the Light. His spirit will then gradually become more mobile, thus lighter and more luminous, and will influence his earthly recognition. Terrified and aghast with horror, however, he will then see, or at least intuitively perceive, how far the distortions of all concepts have already progressed in rigidity on this earth.
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The far-seeing view of how things really are is lacking, because every- thing has been pressed into narrow and obscure limits which can no longer be penetrated, and must in time completely stifle everything they embrace.
I have already often pointed out distorted concepts; but now, through the steady withdrawal from the Light, these are slowly proceeding on the downward path to rigidity. It is unnecessary to give individual examples, for either no attention whatever would be paid to such explanations, or they would be described as tiresome quibbling, because man is much too rigid or too indolent to want to give them serious reflection.
I have also already spoken sufficiently of the power of the word, of the mystery that even the human word can, for a time, work constructively or destructively on the weaving of Creation within the sphere of the earth. This is because through the sound, tone and composition of a word, creative forces are set in motion which do not work according to the intention of
the speaker, but according to the sense of the word in its meaning. The meaning, however, was originally given through the forces which the word sets in motion, and which are therefore exactly adjusted to the true meaning, or vice versa, but not to the volition of the speaker. Meaning and word arose out of the corresponding movement of forces, therefore they are inseparably one!
Again, man’s thinking sets in motion other currents of force which cor- respond to the essence of his thinking. Man should therefore endeavour to choose the right words to express his thinking, thus in so doing to perceive intuitively in a more accurate and clear manner. Suppose a man is asked about something of which he has heard, and part of which he may even have seen. When questioned he would maintain without hesitation that he knows it! In the opinion of many superficial people this answer would be correct,
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and yet in truth it is wrong and objectionable; for “to know” means to be able to give exact information about everything, every detail from beginning to end, without any omission and from one’s own experience. Only then can a man say that he knows it. Great responsibility attaches to the expression, and to the concept of “knowledge” associated with it!
I have also already pointed out the great difference between “knowledge” and what has been “learned”.Learnedness is by no means real knowledge, which can only be absolutely personal; whereas what has been learned remains the acceptance of something outside the personal. To hear something, and perhaps even to see part of it, is far from being the knowledge itself! A man should not assert: I know it, but the most he could say is: I have heard of it or seen something of it. If he wishes to act
correctly, however, truth would oblige him to say: I do not know it!
This would be far more correct in every way than to report about something which he himself has nothing to do with, and which cannot therefore be a real knowledge either; whereas through incomplete reports he would only cast suspicion on or incriminate other people, perhaps even plunge them unnecessarily into misfortune, without knowing the actual ins and outs.
Therefore carefully weigh with your intuitive perception every word
you intend to use. He who thinks more deeply, who will not be satisfied with already rigid concepts as a personal excuse for loquacious pomposity and malevolence, will easily understand these explanations, and in quiet examination will learn to look further in everything he says. A multitude of such restricted concepts, with their fatal consequences have already become habitual among earthmen. They are greedily snatched up and promoted by slaves of the intellect, who are the most willing adhere- nts of the Luciferian influencers of deepest Darkness.
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Learn to observe attentively and to use properly the currents in this Creation, which bear the Will of God, and thus God’s Justice in pure form. Then you will again find the true humanity which has been wrested from you.
How much suffering would thereby be avoided, and how many illdisposed persons among mankind would also be deprived of the opportunity to commit their deeds. This evil is also responsible for the description of the earthlife of the Son of God Jesus not corresponding at all points with the facts, as a result of which a totally false picture has gradually arisen in the minds of men up till now. The words given by Him were also distorted, as has happened with every teaching that was made into a religion and which was intended to bring upliftment and perfection of spirit to mankind.
And therein also lies the great confusion among all men, who increasingly fail really to understand one another, thus allowing discord, distrust, slander, envy and hatred to grow and flourish. All these are unmistakable signs of advancing rigidity on earth! Arouse your spirit, and begin to think and speak in a far-seeing and comprehensive way!
This naturally also demands that you not only work with the intellect, which belongs to coarsest matter, but also make it possible once more for your spirit to guide your intellect, which should serve the spirit as ordained by your Creator, Who from the very beginning has permitted you to come undistorted into existence here on earth.
So much is already in the first stage of rigidity. Soon your entire thinking may already be gripped by it and must flow through rigid, iron channels, bringing you nothing but uneasiness, suffering upon suffering, and finally forcibly degrading you from a human being to the state of an empty machine serving only the Darkness, far away from all Light.
8 CHASTITY
C HASTITY IS A CONCEPT that has been so unbelievably narrowed down by earthmen that absolutely nothing of its real meaning is left. It has even been dragged on to a wrong course; and as the natural and inevitable consequence this distortion has brought needless oppression, and even very often untold suffering, upon many people.
Ask where you will what chastity is, and everywhere in reply you will find several explanations in the concept of physical virginity; in any case, this is the highest that the perception of earthmen can reach.
This proves completely the inferior way of thinking of those who sub- ordinate themselves to the intellect, which has itself set the limits to every- thing earthly, because it cannot reach any further with its faculties that are born of the earthly.
How easy it would then be for man to be regarded as chaste and so cre- ate a reputation, while sunning himself in vain self-glorification. But this does not bring him one step upwards on the road to the Luminous Gardens, which as Paradise are the blissful and final goal of a human spirit.
It is of no avail to earthman if he keeps his physical body chaste and defiles his spirit, which can then never cross the thresholds that lead up- wards from one step to the next.
Chastity is different from men’s idea of it, far more comprehensive and greater. It does not demand that man should go against nature; for this wou- ld be an offence against the Laws vibrating in God’s Creation, and could only have harmful results. Chastity is the earthly concept of Purity, which is Divine. For every human spirit it is the endeavour to manifest
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gross-materially what is sensed as a reflection of something that really exists in the Divine Sphere. Purity is Divine, chastity its representation by the human spirit; thus a spiritual imag- e, which can and should become evident in earthly conduct. This should suffice as a fundamental Law for every matured human spirit in order to realise chastity.
But on earth, urged on by many a selfish desire, man is inclined to imagine he possesses something which he actually does not, solely for the purpose of having his wishes fulfilled. Selfishness takes the lead, and dulls the truly pure volition! Man will never admit this to himself, but simply allows himself to drift along. And when he can no longer persuade himself other wise, he describes this often very obvious attempt to satisfy his quest- ionable selfish desires as a decree of fate to which one must submit.
Therefore to guide and support him he needs still other hints which will let him experience and recognise what in truth chastity is as it lies in the Will of God, Who does not want any separation from nature on earth.In the Divine Sphere Purity is closely united with Love! Hence if he is to derive blessing from them, man must not try to separate the two on earth either. But on earth love is also no more than an evil caricature of what it really is. Thus unless it first undergoes a change it cannot unite with the true concept of purity.
To all those who strive to attain chastity, I herewith give a hint which provides the support that man needs on earth in order to live in such a way as rests in the Law of Creation, and as is therefore also pleasing to God:
“He who in his actions always remembers not to harm his fellow-man who reposes trust in him, not to do anything that may later oppress him, will always
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act in such a way as to remain spiritually unburdened, and may therefore be called truly chaste!”
These simple words, rightly understood, can fully protect and guide man through the entire Creation, and lead him upwards into the Luminous Gardens, his true home. These words are the key to all rightful activity on earth; for genuine chastity lies in them.
The Son of God Jesus expressed precisely the same in the words: “Love thy neighbour as thyself!” But you must beware of falling back into the old human faults, and of once more construing and partly distorting the meaning of the words so as to make them serve your own purpose, soothe you in your wrong-doing, and lull your fellow-men into carelessness or even help to mislead them.
Absorb such words as they are truly meant to be absorbed, not as appears convenient to you and suits your stubborn volition. Then for you they will be like the keenest sword in your hand, with which you can slay all Darkness if you but will. Let them become alive within you in the right way so that, filled with gratitude, you may grasp life on earth as jubilant victors!
9 CHILDLIKENESS
THE WORD “CHILDLIKE” is an expression which is in most cases wro -ngly applied by human beings in their careless and thoughtless manner of speaking.
Hampered by indolence of the spirit, this expression is not perceived intuitively enough to be properly grasped. But he who has not grasped it in its entirety will never be able to use it aright either. And yet it is just child- likeness that offers mankind a strong bridge for ascent to Luminous Heights, for giving every human spirit the possibility to mature, and for
reaching perfection in order to live eternally in this Creation, which is the House of God the Father that He places at the disposal of men, provided … that they remain guests therein who are agreeable to Him. Guests who do not cause damage in the rooms so graciously made over to them solely for their use, with a table at all times richly spread.
But how far removed is man now from the childlikeness he so needs! Yet without it he can achieve nothing for his spirit. The spirit must possess child -likeness; for it remains a child of Creation, even when it has gained full maturity. A child of Creation! In this lies the deep meaning; for the spirit must develop into a child of God. Whether it will ever achieve this depends entirely on the degree of recognition it is willing to acquire on its wande- rings through all the Spheres of Matter.
But with this willingness the deed must also manifest. In the Spiritual Planes will is at the same time also deed. There will and deed are always one.
However, this is only so in the Spiritual Planes, not in the Worlds of
Matter. The more dense and heavy a plane of the World of Matter is, the further removed is the deed from the will. Thee fact that density causes obstruction is demonstrated even by sound, which as it travels has to struggle through material substance, which obstructs it according to the
nature of the density. This can be clearly observed even over shorter distances.
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When a man chops wood or drives nails into the timbers of a building, the impact of his tool can be clearly seen, yet the sound of it only arrives a few seconds later. This is so noticeable that everybody must have experienced it at one time or another.
The process is similar, but still more ponderous, between the will and the deed of man on earth. The will flares up in the spirit, and is immediately deed in the spirit. But to make the will visible in the Gross Material World, the spirit also needs the physical body. Only on impulse does a physical body already act within a few seconds of the flaring up of the will. Thereby the more tedious work of the frontal brain is eliminated, which otherwise has to mediate the way of the will right up to the impression on the activity of the body. The normal way takes rather longer. Sometimes the result is only a feeble action, or none at all; because on its extended way the volition is weakened, or altogether suppressed, by the pondering intellect. In this connection, although not strictly relevant here, I would like to make a refe- rence to the effects of Creation’s Law of the Attraction of Homogeneous Species, which are overlooked and yet so clearly visible also in human activity: Human-earthly laws have been worked out by the earthly intellect, and are also carried into effect by it. For this reason schemes pondered with the intellect, thus premeditated actions, are as such more severely punished and judged as more evil than actions committed on the impulse of the mo- ment, thus unpremeditated. In most cases these latter are treated more lenien- tly.
In reality, there is a connection which is imperceptible to men, in the ho- mogeneity of intellectual activity under the compulsion of the Law of Crea- tion, for all those who unconditionally submit to the intellect. Too them this is quite understandable. Without knowing about it, the greater part of the
atonement for an impulsive action is therewith assigned to the Spiritual Plane. Legislators and judges have no idea of this, because they proceed from quite different, purely intellectual principles. With deeper reflection, however, and knowledge of the
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active Laws of Creation, all this appears in an entirely different light. Never- theless, in other earthly sentences and judgments, the Living Laws of God in Creation work quite independently on their own, uninfluenced by earthly -human laws and conceptions. It will surely not occur to any serious-minded person to think that real guilt, not merely what men first designate as guilt, could also be expiated at the same time before the Laws of God through a paid penalty dictated by the earthly intellect!
Already for thousands of years these have been, as it were, two separate worlds, separated by men’s actions and thoughts, although they should only be one world in which God’s Laws alone operate. Through such earthly punishment, atonement can only ensue if the laws and the punishments are
completely in accord with God’s Laws in Creation.
Now there are two kinds of unpremeditated actions.Firstly, those already described, which should really be called impulse; and then the kind that flashes up in the frontal brain, thus not in the spirit, and belongs to the intel- lectual category. The latter are unpremeditated, but should not receive the same mitigation as impulse-actions. However, to find out exactly the just dif -ference between the two will only become possible to those human beings who know all the Laws of God in Creation and are familiar with their ef- fects. This must be reserved for a time to come, when there will also be no more arbitrary actions among men, because they will have a spiritual maturity that lets them swing only in the Laws of God in all their deeds and
thoughts.
This digression is merely to induce reflection, it did not belong to the real purpose of the lecture. Take note, then, that in the Spiritual Planes will
and deed are one, but in the Material Planes they are separated through the nature of the substance. That is why Jesus once said to men: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak!” The flesh, which refers here to the gross material substance of the body, does not convert into deed everything that
has already been will and deed in the spirit. But also on earth the spirit in its gross material garment could compel its volition always to become a gross material
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deed, if it were not too lazy to do so. It cannot hold the body responsible for this indolence; for the body was given to each spirit only as an instrument, which it must learn to control in order to use it properly. —
Thus the spirit is a child of Creation. And it must be childlike therein if it wishes to fulfil the purpose for which it stands in Creation. The arrogance of the intellect caused the spirit to withdraw from childlikeness, because the intellect could not “understand” what it really is. As a result, however, the spirit lost its foothold in Creation, which in order to remain healthy itself must now expel it as a stranger, an intruder and a dangerous creature. And so it will come to pass that through their wrong thoughts and actions men will dig their own graves. —
How strangely it is that every man who wishes to experience the Christmas Festival in the true sense must first try to recall his childhood! This can surely be regarded as a clear enough sign of the fact that as an adult he is quite incapable of experiencing the Christmas Festival with his intui- tive perception. It is a definite proof that he has lost something he possessed as a child! Why does this not make men reflect! Again it is spiritual indo- lence that prevents them from serious reflection on such matters. “That is for children,” they think, “and grownups have simply no time for it! They have to think about more serious matters. ”More serious matters! By these more serious matters they mean only the pursuit of earthly ends, thus the work of the intellect! The intellect quickly represses memories, so as not to lose its supremacy if the intuitive perception is for once yielded to!
The greatest things could be recognised in all these apparently so trivial facts, if only the intellect would allow time for it. But it has the upper hand, and fights for it with all craftiness and cunning. That is to say, it is not the
intellect that fights, but actually that which uses it as a tool and hides behind it: the Darkness!
The Darkness does not want the Light to be found in memories. And how the spirit longs to find the Light, to draw new strength from It, can be recognised by the fact that with the memories of childhood Christmas Festivals there also awakens an
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undefined, almost painful longing, able to move many people for a brief mo -ment to tenderness. If such tenderness were used at once and with all one’s strength, it could become the best soil for the awakening! But unfortunately this only sends adults into a reverie, whereby the rising power is wasted and lost. And in the reverie the opportunity also slips by without the possibility of bringing benefit, or of having been used. Even though many a person sheds a few tears, he feels ashamed and tries to hide them, pulling himself together with a physical jerk that so often betrays unconscious defiance.
How much could people learn from all this. It is no coincidence that a tender sadness also weaves itself into the memories of childhood days. It is the subconscious sensing that something has been lost, leaving an empti- ness, the inability still to perceive intuitively like a child.
But you have surely often noticed the wonderful and refreshing influ- ence of the mere quiet presence of any person from whose eyes a childlike radiance sometimes glows.
The adult must not forget that childlike is not childish. But you do not know whence the childlike has such an effect, what it really is! And why Jesus said: “Become as little children!” To fathom what childlike is, you must first be clear that the childlike is by no means bound up with the child
itself. No doubt you yourselves know children who lack the true beautiful childlikeness! Thus there are children without childlikeness! A malicious child will never have a childlike effect, nor an unruly one who is really ill-bred! This clearly shows that childlikeness and the child are two things independent in themselves.
That which is called childlike on earth is a branch of the effect from out of Purity! Purity in its higher, not merely earthly-human sense. The human being who lives in the ray of Divine Purity, who makes room for the ray of Purity within himself, has thereby also acquired childlikeness, whether it be still in childhood or already as an adult. Childlikeness is the result of inner purity, or the sign that such a human being has submitted to Purity and serves It. All these are merely different modes of expression, but in reality they always amount to the same
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thing.
Thus only a child who is pure within itself, and an adult who cultivates purity within himself, can have a childlike effect. That is why he has a refreshing and vitalising effect, and also inspires confidence! And wherever there is true purity, genuine love can also enter, for God’s Love works in the ray of Purity. The ray of Purity is the path It treads. It could not possibly walk on any other. The ray of Divine Love can never find its way to him who has not absorbed the ray of Purity!
Man, however, has deprived himself of childlikeness by turning away from the Light through his one-sided intellectual thinking, to which he has sacrificed every thing that might have uplifted him. Thus he has firmly chained himself with a thousand fetters to this earth, that is, to the World of Gross Matter, which will hold him in its grip until he liberates himself from it. This,however, cannot come to him through earthly death, but only through spiritual awakening.
10. CREATION OF MAN
"GOD CREATED MAN after His own image and breathed into him His breath!” These are two happenings: the creating and the animating!
Both processes, as with everything, were strictly subject to the existing Divine Laws. Nothing can go beyond their scope. No Divine Act of Will will oppose these immovable Laws, which bear the Divine Will Itself. Also every revelation and promise takes place in regard to these Laws, and must be fulfilled in them, not otherwise!
So also the coming into existence of man on earth, which was a step for- ward of the mighty Creation, the transition of the gross material to an entire- ly new, higher state.
In order to speak of the incarnation of man it is necessary to know of the Ethereal World; for man in flesh and blood is placed as a furthering connect- ing-link between the ethereal part and the gross material part of Creation, while his root remains in the spiritual.
“God created man after His own image!”
This making or creating was a long chain of development, which took place strictly within the Laws which God Himself has woven into Creation. Put into effect by the Highest, these Laws work inflexibly and steadfastly at the fulfilment of His Will; automatically, as a part of Him, towards perfec- tion.
So also with the creation of man as the crown of the whole work, in whom all the species that lay in Creation were to unite. Hence in the Gross Material World, physically visible matter, there was gradually formed in the further evolution the vessel in which a spark from the Spiritual that was immortal could be incarnated.
Through the continuously striving forming there grew up in time the
10. The creation of man
most highly developed animal which, by thinking, already made use of va- rious aids for its sustenance and defence. Even today we can observe certain species of animals which make use of certain aids to secure and store their necessities of life, and which often show astounding cunning in defence.
The aforementioned most highly developed animals, which were swept away by upheavals that took place on earth, primeval ages ago, are today described as “primeval men”or "early-men". But to call them the ancestors of men is a great error! With equal right the cow could be described as “part-mother” of mankind, because in the first months of their lives most children need the cow’s milk to build up their bodies, and thus with her help remain alive and grow.
The noble and thinking animal “primeval man” has also not much more to do with the real man than that; for the gross material body of man is no- thing more than the indispensable instrument that he needs to enable him to work in all directions in the gross material earthly, and to make himself understood.
To assert that man is descended from the ape is a great hyperbole !
This is going so much far. Raising part of the process to represent the absolute full fact. The main point is lacking!
It would be right if man’s body really were “the man”. As it is, however, the gross material body is only his cloak, which he lays aside as soon as he returns to the Ethereal World.
How then did the first man come into existence?
The highest stage in the Gross Material World having been reached with the most perfect animal, a change for the purpose of further development had to come if there was not to be a standstill, which with its dangers could become retrogression. And this change was foreseen, and came:
Having issued as a spirit spark, sinking down through the Ethereal World and at the same time uplifting everything, there stood at its boundary, at the moment when the gross-material-earthly vessel rising upwards in its deve- lopment had reached the highest point, the ethereal-spiritual human being also
10. The creation of man
ready and prepared to unite with gross matter, in order to further and uplift it.
While the vessel in the World of Gross Matter had grown to maturity, the soul in the Ethereal World had developed so far that it possessed sufficient strength to retain its independence upon entering the gross material vessel.
The union of these two parts now signified a closer union of the Gross Material World with the Ethereal World, right up to the Spiritual. Only this event was the birth of man!
Procreation itself is still a purely animal act with men even today. High- er or baser intuitive perceptions attending it have nothing to do with the act itself, but they bring spiritual consequences whose effects become of great importance in the attraction of absolutely similar species.
Also of a purely animal nature is the development of the body up to the middle of pregnancy. Purely animal is really not the right expression, but for the time being I will call it purely gross material, and only enter into it more fully in later lectures.
In the middle of pregnancy, at a certain maturity of the growing body, the spirit intended for the birth is incarnated, which until then stays very much in the vicinity of the mother-to-be. The entrance of the spirit causes the first twitches of the small developing gross material body, thus the first
movements of the child.
At this point there also arises the peculiarly blissful feeling of the preg- nant woman, in whom quite different intuitive perceptions set in from this moment: the awareness of the presence of the second spirit within her, the sensing of it. And her own intuitive perceptions will also be in accordance with the nature of the new, second spirit within her.
Such is the process with every incarnation. But now let us return to the first coming into existence of man.
Thus the great epoch in the development of Creation had come: On the one side in the Gross Material World stood the most highly developed ani- mal, which was to provide the gross
10. The creation of man
material body as a vessel for the coming man; on the other side in the Ethereal World stood the developed human soul who was waiting to unite with the gross material vessel, and thereby give a further impetus for spiritualisation to everything gross material.
Whenever an act of procreation took place between the noblest pair of these highly developed animals, there was incarnated at the hour of incar- nation not an animal soul(See Lecture : “The difference in origin of
man and animal”), as until-now, but instead the waiting human soul bearing within it the immortal spirit spark. The ethereal human souls with predominantly developed positive abilities incarnated in male animal bodies, corresponding to the homogeneity; those with predominantly
negative, more delicate abilities in female bodies, which were closer to their nature. (See Lecture : “Sex”)
This process does not support the assertion that man, whose real origin lies in the spiritual, descends from the animal “primeval man”, which could only provide the gross material intermediate vessel. Even today it would not occur to the most extreme materialists to consider themselves directly related to an animal, and yet there is now, as there was then, a close physical rela- tionship, hence a gross material homogeneity, whereas the really “living” man, that is, the actual spiritual “ego” of man, has no homogeneity with or derivation from the animal whatever.
After his birththe first earthman really stood alone, without parents, because in spite of their high development he could not recognise the animals as parents, and was unable to have any communion with them.
Nor did he need it; for he was a completely intuitively-perceptive human being, and as such also lived in the Ethereal World, which gave him values that made up for everything else.
The severance of the woman from the first human being was an ethereal-spiritual one. (See Lectures "Sex") It did not take place in a
gross-material-earthly way, as in fact the descriptions in the Bible and ancient religious writings mainly refer just to spiritual
10. The creation of man
and ethereal events. Man as such stood alone, and during his growth prim- arily used the rougher, sterner intuitive perceptions for his subsistence, as a result of which the more delicate ones were increasingly pushed aside and isolated until, as the more delicate part of the spiritual man, they were com- pletely severed.
Secondly, this second part, which was absolutely necessary for upliftment,
in the gross material world, was incarnated in a second vessel, which in accordance with its fineness was of the female sex, while the rougher intuitive perceptions were left to the gross materially active man.
Exactly corresponding to the Laws of the Ethereal World, in which every- thing immediately takes on form, the delicate and passive manifesting in female forms, the stern and active in male forms.
Through her more valuable spiritual qualities, woman should and could in reality be more perfect than man, if she had only exerted herself to clarify ever more harmoniously the intuitive perceptions bestowed upon her, where -by she would have become a power that was bound to have a revolution- ising and greatly furthering effect in the entire Gross Material Creation.
But unfortunately it was just she who above all failed, because she sur- rendered herself as a plaything to the strong powers of intuitive perception assigned to her, which in addition she even dimmed and defiled through feeling and imagination.
What deep significance lies in the Biblical narrative of the tasting from the tree of knowledge! How the woman, incited by the serpent, offered the apple to the man. A better illustration of the event in the material sphere simply could not have been given.
The offering of the apple, emanating from the woman, was the woman’s becoming conscious of the effect of her charms upon man, and their intent- ional exploitation. But the taking and eating by the man was his response to it with the awakening urge to draw the attention of woman only to himself by beginning to make himself desirable through accumulating treasures
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and appropriating various things of value.
With this began the cultivation of the intellect, with its accompanying manifestations of greed, falsehood and oppression, to which men finally subjected themselves completely, thus of their own free will making them- selves slaves of their instrument.
But with the intellect as ruler it inevitably followed that, in accordance with its very nature, they also chained themselves firmly to time and space, thereby losing the ability to grasp or experience anything above time and space, such as everything spiritual and ethereal.
This was the complete severance from the real Paradise and from the Ethereal World, which they brought upon themselves; for it was now inevi- table that with the horizon of their ability to comprehend firmly bound to earthly matters through the intellect, and thus narrowly limited, they could no longer “understand” all that is ethereal, which does not know the earthly concept either of space or time.
Thus the experiences and visions of the intuitively-perceptive men, as well as the misunderstood traditions, became “fairy tales” to the intellectual men. The ever-increasing number of materialists, that is, those who are only able to acknowledge coarse matter bound to earthly time and space, finally ridiculed the idealists to whom, through their much deeper and more expan- sive inner life, the way to the Ethereal World was not yet quite barred; they called them dreamers, if not fools or even impostors.
All this was a long-lasting period of development, comprising millions of years.
But now at last we are very near the hour when the next great epoch in Creation sets in, which is unconditional upward-swinging, and brings what the first epoch with the coming into existence of man should already have brought: the birth of the spiritualised complete man! Of the man who has a furthering and ennobling effect on the whole of Gross Material Crea- tion, which is the real purpose of man on earth.
10. The creation of man
Then there will be no more room for the oppressive materialist, chained solely to earthly conceptions of time and space. He will be a stranger in every country, homeless. He will wither away and perish like chaff that separates from the wheat. Take care that in this separation you are not found too light!
12. HEREDITARY SIN
HEREDITARY SIN was a consequence of the original Fall of Man. The sin or wrong-doing lay in the over-cultivation of the intellect, associated with which was the voluntary chaining of man to space and time. There were additional effects resulting from purely intellectual activity, such as love of gain, imposing upon others, oppression, etc., which again brought many other, in fact all, evils in their train.
This process naturally had an ever-increasing influence on the forming of the physical body of those people who developed themselves in a purely intellectual way. Through being continually exerted, the frontal brain which produces the intellect became disproportionately enlarged. It was therefore quite natural that this change in structure expressed itself in the procreation of the physical body, and that at birth children entered the world with an increasingly developed and stronger frontal brain.
This contained, and still today contains, a predisposition or tendency towards an intellectual power dominating all else, which harbours the danger that the bearer of such a brain, on awakening it fully, not only chains himself to time and space, but also to everything that is earthly and gross material.
He then becomes incapable of grasping anything that is ethereal or primordial, and in addition entangles himself in all sorts of evil, which is inevitable where the intellect dominates. It is the coming into the world with this voluntarily over-cultivated frontal brain, containing the danger of a mere intellectual domination with its inevitable evil manifestations, which is the hereditary sin!
It is the physical inheritance of this part, called on account of its excessive artificial cultivation the “great” brain (cerebrum),which exposes man from birth to the danger of too easily entangling himself in evil.
12. Hereditary sin
At any rate the narrow-mindedness which results from enchainment to coarse matter makes it more difficult to recognise God.
This, however, does not free him from responsibility, which he retains, for he inherits only the danger, not the sin itself. He is in no wise compelled to allow his intellect to rule unconditionally and thus submit himself to it. On
the contrary, he can wield the great power of his intellect like a sharp sword to clear his path in the daily bustle of life, as directed by his intuitive perception, which is also called the Inner Voice.
But if through education and training a child’s intellect is brought to the point where it completely dominates, then the child is free from part of the guilt, or better said; the child share part of the reactions brought about by the Law of Reciprocal Action, because that part will then fall upon the educator or teacher who caused it. From this moment onward he is tied to the child till the latter is freed from this mistake and its consequences, even if this takes hundreds or thousands of years.
What a child so educated does after it has had the Opportunity to consider and retrace its steps, would then react upon it alone. Such opportunities arise
through the spoken or written word, through emotional shocks in life or similar happenings, which forcibly bring about a moment of deep intuitive feeling. Such opportunities are bound to come.
It would be useless to say more on this subject or to multiply examples, which would only be a repetition and lead to the same conclusion. He who reflects upon the matter will soon find a veil lifted from before his eyes. He will then have solved many questions within himself.
13. SON OF GOD AND SON OF MAN
FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS already a great error has persisted. The assumption that :
Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God and at the same time the Son of
Man is wrong! In order to bridge the gulf between God and humanity, which humanity itself had torn open by the one-sided cultivation of the intellect, which is bound to space and time, a part of the Divinity incarnated i.e entered into earthly existence, in Jesus of Nazareth. Thus Jesus was Son of God; as a part of Him He fulfilled His mission among humanity, which he could only accomplish in a physical body of flesh and blood. Even after the incarnation He still remained the Son of God.
If he was the Son of God, however, he could not also be the Son of Man, for they are two and essentially different. And He was and still is the Son of God! Who then is the Son of Man?
*(See Lecture : The Son of Man)
The disciples did notice that Jesus spoke in the third person whenever He spoke of the Son of Man, and they questioned Him about this. The Gospels were written based upon the writers’ own assumption that Jesus, the Son of God, and the Son of Man were one and the same person. From the outset, all of their reports were based upon this error, and thereby, unknowingly and unintentionally, misconceptions were spread.Whenever Jesus spoke of the Son of Man He spoke prophetically of His coming.
He Himself announced it because the coming of the Son of Man is intimately related to the mission of the Son of God. He said: “But when the Son of Man shall come...” etc.
Like everywhere in Creation, this is a cyclical process. The Godhead descended to humanity through Jesus, in order to bring the Truth and sow the seed. The seed sprouted, and the fruit ripens toward the harvest. At the present time within this cycle, humanity, matured through the Truth brought by the Son of God, shall foam upwards to the Godhead in the Son of Man, and through Him reestablish the close connection to God.
This is not to be thought of purely symbolically, as so many assume, but the Word will be fulfilled literally through a person, just as it was with Jesus. Between the two Persons, Jesus the Son of God and the Son of Man, lies the immense karma of humanity.
13. Son of God and son of man
Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Easter Festival where people of many nations were represented. The people sent out messengers to Gethsemane in order to fetch Jesus. It was the time when through their messengers, humanity, filled with hate and brutality, sought the Envoy of God. Now observe the moment when He stepped from the garden and they were standing before Him with weapons
and torches with thoughts of destruction.When the Son of God spoke the words: “I am He!” and thereby delivered Himself up to mankind, the immense karma with which mankind burdened
itself set in. From that moment on it weighed upon humanity, and in accordance with the inexorable Laws of the Universe forced it lower and lower to the ground, until the final resolutiondraws near. We are now close to it!
It will close in an elliptical cycle. The resolution comes through the Son of Man! When mankind will have become disheartened, desperate, demoralized and small, so very small through the severity
of events, then the hour will have arrived when they will yearn forand seek the Envoy of God! And when they find Him, they will, as before, send out messengers. They however will not bear
thoughts of hatred and destruction. But this time, through these messengers, humanity, broken down, humble and pleading but filled with trust approaches Him who has been chosen by the
highest Ruler of all the worlds to free them from their bondageand to bring them help and deliverance from spiritual and earthly distress.These messengers will also bring questions. And just as the Son of God once spoke: “I am He!” at Gethsemane, whereby the karma of humanity began, so this time God’s Envoy will again answer with the samewords: “I am He!” whereby this terrible human karma will be resolved. The same words which once burdened a hate-filled humanity with great guilt will remove the guilt from a humanity which now approaches again with the same question, full of fear yet trusting and pleading.
This karmic cycle is of gigantic proportion, and yet it is ledwith such certainty and precision that the prophecies are fulfilled in it. From the hour on when this word is spoken to humanity for the second time by an Envoy of God, the ascent begins. Only then will the Kingdom of Peace commence according to the Will of the Most High,but not before!
13. Son of God and son of man
On the one side you see the messengers of a hate-filled humanityapproaching the Son of God, fettering and mistreating Him and seeming to triumph over Him. Then follows the self-induced and continual decline in the inevitable reciprocal action. At the same time, however, there is also the strengthening and maturing of the seed that
was sown by Jesus. Now the Son of Man, the Envoy of God heralded by Jesus himself, approaches. He will carry on and complete the mission of the Son of God in His service, and will gather the harvest while separating the wheat from the chaff in accordance with Divine Justice.
Jesus, the Son of God, came among humanity out of love in order to restore the connection which humanity had destroyed. The Son of Man is the Man who is in God, and who closes the connection in the cycle so that pure harmony can flow through all of Creation once again.
14. GOD
WHY DO HUMAN BEINGS so timidly evade this word, which should be more intimate to them than anything else? Is it veneration? No! You are confused because neither school nor church ever gave you any clear explanation that could satisfy your inner longing for the Truth. The actual Trinity still remained fundamentally a puzzle to you which you tried to solve as best you could. Can a prayer in these circumstances ever become so
heartfelt, so confiding, as it should be? It is impossible!
Yet you should and must approach nearer to your God! How foolish it is to say that it might be wrong to concern oneself more completely with God! The indolent and comfort-loving even maintain it is sacrilege!
But I say to you that all Creation testifies that it is a necessary condition that you should draw near to God!
Therefore he who evades this is not showing humility but, on the contrary, boundless presumption! It is equivalent to demanding that God should approach man, instead of man trying to approach God in order to recognise Him. Wherever you look, wherever you listen, there is hypocrisy and indolence, all under the cloak of a false humility!
You, however, who no longer wish to sleep, who are fervently seeking and striving for the Truth, take note of this and seek to grasp it properly ...
There is but one God, but one Power! What then is the Trinity? God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
When mankind shut themselves out of Paradise by no longer heeding the guidance of the intuitive perception, which is spiritual and therefore
14. God
near to God, but freely chose to cultivate the intellect, subjecting them- selves to it and thus becoming slaves of the tool given them to use, they naturally fell further and further away from God. The cleavage occurred when humanity gave preference to worldly matters, which are uncondi- tionally bound to space and time. This is alien to the nature of God, and therefore makes it impossible to comprehend Him.
The gulf became wider with each generation, and men chained themselves more and more exclusively to the earth. They became the earthbound intellectuals who call themselves materialists. They even do so with pride because they have not the faintest idea of how they are chained.
Through being firmly bound to time and space it was natural that their horizon simultaneously became narrowed. How could the way to God be found in such conditions?
It was impossible, unless help came from God! And He was merciful! God in His Purity could no longer reveal Himself to the debased intellectual human beings, because they were no longer capable of sensing, seeing or hearing His Messengers. Those few still able to do so were ridiculed because the materialists, with their limited horizon bound to time and space,rejected as impossible all thought of any expanse beyond that. Such a thing was quite inconceivable to them.
Therefore the prophets whose penetrative power was too weak no longer sufficed, because even the fundamental thoughts of all religious movements had finally become purely materialistic. Thus it was necessary that a Mediator between the Godhead and erring humanity should come, One endowed with greater power than all the others had possessed, so that He would be able to penetrate. Shall one say for the sake of the few who, in
the midst of utter materialism, still longed for God? This would be right, but the adversaries would prefer to call it presumption on the part of the belie- vers, instead of realising the Love of God as well as the strict Justice in it, offering redemption equally through reward and punishment.
14. God
For this reason God in His Love, through an Act of His Will, severed a Part of Himself and incarnated It in flesh and blood, in a physical body of male sex – Jesus of Nazareth, Who thus became the Incarnate Word, the Incarnate Love of God, the Son of God.
This was a process of radiation which will receive further explanation later. Through this act the severed, but nevertheless closely-linked part became personal. Even after laying aside the physical body and reuniting closely with God the Father, He still remained personal. God the Father and God the Son are two, yet in reality only one! And the “Holy Spirit”? Christ Himself said that sins against God the Father and against God the Son could be forgiven, but never those committed against the “Holy Spirit”!
Does the “Holy Spirit” then stand higher or is It more than God the Father and God the Son? This question has occupied and worried many a soul and confused many a child.
The “Holy Spirit” is the Will of God the Father, the Spirit of Truth Which, severed from Him, works separately in all Creation, and yet like the Love, in the form of the Son, remains closely connected with the Father and one with Him.
The inexorable Laws of Creation which spread through the whole Universe like a network of nerves and bring about the unconditional reciprocal action forming man’s fate or karma ...are of the “Holy Spirit” or, more explicitly, are the activity of the “Holy Spirit”! (See Lecture : “The development of Creation”) That is why the Saviour said that no one may sin against the “Holy Spirit” unpunished, because through Its in- exorable and immovable reciprocal action the retribution falls back on the originator, on the starting point, whether it be good or evil.
14. God
As the Son of God, Jesus, is of the Father, so also is the “Holy Spirit”. Both are Parts of Him, belonging completely to Him, and inseparable from Him. They are like the arms of a body which can act independently, but still be- long to the body if this is to be complete. Yet they can only carry out inde- pendent actions as a part of the whole. Such is God the Father, in His Omnipotence and Wisdom! At His right hand, as Part of Himself, is God the Son, Love; and on His left is God the “Holy Spirit”, Justice. They have
both emanated from God the Father and belong to Him as a unity.
This is the Trinity of the One God!
Before Creation came into existence God was One! During the process of creating He severed a Part of His Will to work independently in Creation, and thus became two-fold. When later it became necessary to provide a mediator for erring mankind, because the Purity of God did not permit a direct connection to self-enchained humanity, out of His Love He severed a Part of Himself to act as a temporary bridge, in order to make Himself once
more understood. Thus, with the birth of Christ, He became a Trinity!
The difference between God the Father and God the Son was already clear to many, but the conception of the “Holy Spirit” was still confused. “The Holy Spirit” is Executive Justice, Whose eternal, irrevocable and incorruptible laws pulsate throughout the Universe. Up till now these laws have only been guessed at and variously described as ... Fate ... Karma ... Divine Will!
15. THE INNER VOICE
THE SO-CALLED “innervoice”, the spiritual part of man, to which he can listen, is the intuitive perception. It is not without reason that people say: “The first impression is always right!” As all such expressions and proverbs harbour profound truths, so also here. By the word “impression” is meant “intuitive perception”. For example, what a man intuitively senses at a first meeting with a stranger can either be a kind of warning to be careful, which may even go as far as absolute repugnance, or something pleasant mounting to a feeling of complete affinity. In some cases it may also be indifference!’
If now, in the course of conversation or further intercourse, this impression is brushed aside or entirely effaced through the judgment of the intellect, so that the thought arises that the original intuition was wrong, it almost invariably turns
out at the end of such an acquaintance that the very first intuition was the right one.
And this often occurs to the bitter suffering of those who allowed their intellect to mislead them through the deceptive nature of the other person!
The intuitive perception, which is not bound to space and time but connected with its homogeneous kind, with the spiritual, immediately recognised the true nature of the other person and did not allow itself to be deceived by the cleverness of the intellect. It is absolutely impossible for the intuitive perception to err! Whenever man is led astray there are two reasons for his errors – either the intellect or the feeling!
How often one hears it said: “In this or that matter I allowed myself to be guided by my feelings and got into trouble! One should only rely on one’s intellect!”
15. The inner voice
Such persons have mistaken their feelings for their inner voice. They praise their intellect and have no idea that it is just the intellect which plays such an important part in their feelings.
Therefore be on your guard! Feeling is not intuitive perception! Feeling emanates from the physical body. This generates instincts which, guided by the intellect, produce feeling. It differs greatly from the intuitive perception. The combined working of feeling and intellect, however, gives birth to imagination.
Thus on the spiritual side we have only the intuitive perception which is far above time and space (See Lecture : “Intuitive Perception”) while on the earthly side we have in the first instance the physical body, which is bound to space and time. From this body emanate instincts which, in co-operation with the intellect, arouse feelings.
The intellect, being a product of the brain bound to time and space and the finest and highest element in matter, is able with the cooperation of feeling to produce imagination.
Imagination, therefore, is the result of the working together of feeling and intellect. It is ethereal, but without spiritual power. For this reason imagination has
only a retroactive effect. It can only influence the feelings of its creator, but never of itself send out a wave of power to others.
Thus imagination only works backwards upon the feeling of its originator. It can only inflame his enthusiasm, but never influence his surroundings. This clearly
stamps it as belonging to an inferior order. It is different with the intuitive percep- tion. This bears within itself a spiritual power, creative and animating, and which fire send forth radiations and convince others.
Thus we can observe on the one side the intuitive perception, and on the other side the body, instincts, intellect, feeling and imagination.
15. The inner voice
The intuitive perception is spiritual and stands above earthly conceptions of space and time. Feeling belongs to fine gross matter, depending on instincts and intellect, and is therefore of a lower order. Although feeling consists of fine gross matter, it can never coalesce with and thus cannot dim spiritual intuition.
The intuition will always remain pure and clear because it is spiritual. And it will always be clearly sensed or “heard” by men if ... it really is the intuitive perception which speaks!
But the majority of people have closed themselves to this intuition by pushing their feelings in front of it like a dense veil or wall. Then they mistake the feeling for the inner voice, as a result of which they experience many disappointments.
This prompts them to rely even more on their intellect, never suspecting that it was just through the co-operation of the intellect that they could be deceived. As a result of this error they are quick to reject everything spiritual, with which their experiences had absolutely nothing to do, and turn more and more to that which is inferior.
The fundamental evil here, as in many other matters, lies in the voluntary subjection of these people to their intellect, which is bound to space and time.
The man who completely subjects himself to his intellect also subjects himself completely to the limitations of the intellect which, as a product of the gross material brain, is fast bound to space and time. In this way man chains himself exclusively to gross matter. All that a man does he does himself and of his own free will. Thus he is not being fettered, but he fetters himself. He permits himself to be dominated by the intellect (this could never happen unless he desired it himself), which by its very nature binds him to space and time and prevents him from recognising or understanding
anything which lies beyond.
Through the limitation of the perceptive capacity a veil firmly bound
15. The inner voice
to space and time therefore covers the intuition, which goes beyond space and time. This acts like a boundary, and man can either no longer hear anything whatever – his “pure inner voice” having been stifled – or he can only “hear” his feeling, which is closely connected with the intellect, instead of his intuition.
It would create a false idea to say that feeling suppresses the pure intuitive perception, for nothing is more powerful than the intuition! It is man’s highest power and can never be suppressed or prejudiced by anything. It is more correct to say that man makes himself incapable of recognising his
intuition.
If man fails it is always through his own fault, anever because of the strength or weakness of his specific gifts; for just the fundamental gift, the actual power, the strongest part of man, which is the bearer of all life and immortal, is given to all alike. In this respect no man has an advantage over
another. All differences are due only to the way in which it is used.
Neither can this fundamental gift, the immortal spark, ever be dimmed or tarnished. It remains pure, even amid the greatest filth. You need only tear the veil which you have wrapped around you through the voluntary limi- tation to which you have subjected your perceptive ability! Then, without any transition whatever, it will flare up again as pure and clear as it was at the beginning, unfolding itself fresh and strong to unite with the spiritual.
Rejoice that this treasure lies inviolable within you! It is of no impor tance whether you are esteemed by your neighbours or not. Every bit of dirt that has gathered like a dam around this spirit-spark can be cast aside throu gh honest goodwill.
If you have achieved this and again liberated the treasure, you are worth just as much as he who never buried it.
But woe unto him who through indolence completely
closes himself to willing what is good. In the hour of Judgment this treasure will be taken from him, and he will then cease to be.
15. The inner voice
Therefore awake, you who keep yourselves closed,you who have drawn the cover of your intellect, with its limited ability to understand, over your intuitive perception! Take heed and listen to the warnings that assail you! Whether it be in the form of a terrible grief, a great emotional upheaval, severe suffering, or a supreme pure joy, all of which are capable of bursting through the dark layer of base feelings, do not let any such thing go by with out profiting from it! They are aids which show you the way!
It is better if you do not first wait for them, but set out with the earnest volition for all that is good and for spiritual ascent. In so doing the separat- ing layer will soon become thinner and lighter again, till finally it disinte- grates altogether, and the still pure and untarnished spark bursts forth
into a blazing flame.
But this first step must and can only be taken by the individual himself otherwise he cannot be helped! Therefore you must discriminate sharply between desire and volition. Nothing is achieved by mere “desiring”, it brings no advance. There must be a volition which impels and carries it into action. A serious volition is the beginning of a deed.
Even if many a man must travel on various bypaths, because in the past he had entirely enslaved himself to the intellect, he should have no fear on that account. He also will gain! For him it means to clarify his intellect and slowly to detach himself from and remove all hindrances through every single experience he has to undergo on all the bypaths. Therefore, advance bravely! With an earnest volition every path will finally lead to the goal!
16. THE RELIGION OF LOVE
T HE RELIGION OF LOVE has been misunderstood, because the concept of love has in many ways been distorted and misrepresented, for the greater part of true love is severity! What is now called love may be considered as anything but not love! If all so-called love were relentlessly sifted to the bottom, nothing would remain but selfishness, vanity, weakness, desire for ease, conceit or instinct. Genuine love will take no account of what gratifies the other, of what is agreeable to him and gives him joy, but will only direct itself towards what will benefit him,
regardless of whether it affords him pleasure or not. That is genuine love and service!
If, therefore, it is written: “Love your enemies”, it means: “Do that which will benefit them! Punish them if they cannot otherwise be made to understand!” That is serving them! But justice must prevail, for love cannot be separated from justice – they are one! Misplaced indulgence would mean fostering the faults of the enemies and thus letting them slide further on the downward path. Would that be love? On the contrary, by acting thus one would burden oneself with guilt!
Through the unexpressed wishes of man alone the Religion of Love has deteriorated to a religion of laxity, as also the personality of the Bringer of Truth, Christ Jesus, has been dragged down to one of weakness and yield- ing, characteristics which He never possessed. It was just because of His all-embracing Love that He was so harsh and severe among the men of intellect.
That He was often overcome with sadness is natural when one considers His high mission and the human material He had to deal with. This sadness had nothing whatever to do with weakness. After eliminating all distortions and dogmatic restrictions, the Religion of Love will be a doctrine of the
strictest consistency, in which no weakness or illogical indulgence is to be found.
17. THE REDEEMER
T HE SAVIOUR ON THE CROSS! These crucifixes are erected by the thousands as a token that Christ suffered and died for the sake of humanity. On all sides they call out to the faithful: “Remember it!” In the lonely meadow, in the bustling city streets, in the private sanctuary, in churches, at funerals;on graves and at wedding celebrations – everywhere they serve to comfort, strengthen and admonish.
Remember it! Because of your sins the Son of God, Who came to earth to bring you salvation, suffered and died on the Cross!
The faithful Christian tremulously approaches them, in deep veneration and full of gratitude. With a glad feeling he leaves the place, conscious that he also has been released from his sins by the sacrificial death.
But you who are earnest seekers go and stand before the sacred, solemn token and strive to understand your Redeemer! Cast aside the soft cloak of ease that keeps you so pleasantly warm and creates a comfortable feeling of well-being and safety, allowing you to doze on till your last hour on earth!
Then you will be vigorously aroused from your half-slumber and, freed from your earthly fetters, you will suddenly find yourself facing the naked
truth. The dream to which you clung so persistently, and in which you sur- rendered yourself to inertia, will then quickly come to an end.
Therefore awake! Your time on earth is precious! Because of your sins the Saviour came – that is unassailably and literally true! It is also true that He died because of the guilt of humanity.
But this does not mean that your sins have been taken from you! The Saviour’s work of redemption was to take up the battle with Darkness in order to bring Light to mankind, to open the way to the forgiveness of all sins.
But each one must tread this path alone in accordance with the irrevocable laws of the Creator. Christ did not
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come to overthrow the laws but to fulfil them. Do not fail to recognise Him Who should be your best friend! Do not attach a wrong meaning to such true words! When it is quite rightly said that for the sake of man’s sins all this happened, it means that the coming of Jesus became necessary only because mankind could no longer find their way alone out of their self- created darkness, nor release themselves from its clutches. Christ had to show mankind the way.
Had they not entangled themselves so deeply in sin, that is, had they not taken the wrong road, then the coming of Jesus would not have been necessary. He would have been spared His life of struggle and pain.
Therefore it is quite right to say that He was obliged to come for the sake of men’s sins, if the latter in their pursuit of the wrong road were not to sink into the abyss, into darkness.
This does not mean, however, that the personal guilt of every individual is therewith remitted at a moment’s notice, as soon as he really believes in and lives according to the words of Jesus. But if he does live according to the words of Jesus his sins will be forgiven him. Of course only gradually, as soon as redemption sets in through the reciprocal action ensuing from the counter-activity of his good volition. Not otherwise! It is different with those who do not live according to the words of Jesus; for them forgiveness is absolutely impossible.
This does not imply, however, that only members of the Christian
religion can attain to the forgiveness of sins. Jesus proclaimed the Truth! His words must therefore also embrace all the truths in other religions. He did not want to found a church, but to show mankind the right path, which can equally well lead through the truths of other religions.
For this reason His words often accorded with the religions already existing. Jesus did not take these truths out of them but, as He brought the Truth, It must necessarily contain all that was true in the other religions.
He who does not know the words of Jesus personally, but who seriously strives for the Truth and for ennoblement, often lives completely in har- mony with the sense of these words, and will
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surely attain to pure faith and the forgiveness of his sins.
Beware, therefore, of a onesided outlook! It would be debasing the work of the Redeemer. He who strives earnestly after truth and purity will also not be lacking in love. Though sometimes beset with serious doubts and struggles, he will be led upwards spiritually step by step and, regardless of what reli- gion he may belong to, he will either here or later in the Ethereal World meet the Christ-Spirit, which in the final end will lead him on towards recog -nition of God the Father. Thus the Word will be fulfilled: “No man cometh unto the Father but by me!” “The final end”, however, does not begin with your last hours on earth, but at a certain stage in the development of spirit- ual man, for whom the passing from the Gross Material World to the Ethereal World is but a transition.
And now to turn to the great work of Redemption itself. Mankind was erring in spiritual darkness. They had created this themselves by subjecting themselves more and more to the intellect, which they had so assiduously cultivated. In so doing they limited their perceptive ability more and more until, like their brain, they became unconditionally bound to space and time,
and could no longer grasp the way to what is infinite and eternal.Thus they became completely earthbound, limited to space and time.
All connection with the Light, with Purity, with the spiritual, was cut off thereby. The volition of man was only capable of directing itself to earthly things, with the exception of a few who, as prophets, did not have the power to penetrate and make a free path to the Light. This situation opened all the gates to evil. Darkness welled up and flooded the earth, bringing disaster. This could only have one end – spiritual death! The most terrible fate to befall mankind! The guilt for all this misery lay upon mankind. They brou- ght it upon themselves by voluntarily choosing this course. They had wanted it to be so and cultivated it.
In their utter blindness they were even proud of their achievement with- out recognising the terrible consequences arising from their limited under- standing, which they so painstakingly forced upon themselves. To open a path to the Light from a humanity in such a state was impossible. The self- imposed limitation was already too great.
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If there was still to be any possibility of salvation help must come from the Light. Otherwise the downfall of man into darkness was inevitable.
Darkness itself, through its impurity, has a greater density, which brings about a heaviness. Because of this heaviness Darkness cannot of itself rise above a certain weight-level, unless from the other side some attracting power comes to its aid. Light, however, possesses a lightness corresponding to its purity, which makes it impossible for the Light to descend to the level of Darkness.
Thus there is an unbridgeable gulf between bothparts, in the middle of which stands man and his earth. According to the nature of his volition and wishes, man now possesses the choice of approaching the Light or of appro- aching the Darkness, of opening the gates and smoothing the way so that either Light or Darkness can flood the earth.
In this process men themselves are the mediators through whose power of
volition either Light or Darkness can gain a firm foothold there, from which it can operate more or less powerfully. The more Light or Darkness thereby gains in power on earth, the more each can pour over mankind what it has to give –either good or evil, well-being or disaster, happiness or unhappiness, the peace of Paradise or the torment of hell.
The volition of man had become too weak to be able to offer an anchorage for the Light in the heavy stifling Darkness, which had already gained the upper hand on earth.This anchorage was needed for the Light to hold on to and unite with in such that its undimmed purity and consequent unimpaired power could cleave the Darkness and thus deliver mankind. They would then be able to draw strength by tapping this source and find their way upward to the Luminous Heights.
It was impossible for the Light Itself to descend so far into the mire unless a firm anchorage was offered to It.
Consequently a mediator had to come. Only a messenger from the
Luminous Heights could, by incarnating, break through the dark wall which men’s volition had built and, in the midst of all the evil, create for the Divine Light that gross material foothold which would stand firm amid the heavy darkness. From this anchorage the pure rays of the Light would then be able to cleave through and disperse the dark layers so that humanity would not
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sink completely and suffocate in the Darkness. Thus Jesus came for the sake of mankind and their sins! This newly-created connection with the Light could not – because of the purity and strength of the Messenger from the Light – be cut off by the Darkness. Thus a new road to the spiritual heights was opened up for mankind. From Jesus, who had become the earthly foothold of the Light, rays penetrated the Darkness through the Living Word which brought the Truth. He could transmit this Truth unblemished
as He Himself was the Word and the Truth.
People were aroused from their spiritual lethargy through the miracles that happened simultaneously. In following these up they came upon the Word. Hearing the Truth that Jesus brought and reflecting upon It, there gradually awakened in hundreds of thousands the wish to follow this Truth and know more about It. By so doing they slowly strove upwards towards the Light.
Through this wish the Darkness surrounding them had to loosen its grip, and ray after ray of Light victoriously penetrated as people thought about these words and found them to be true. It became brighter and brighter around them and the Darkness, being no longer able to retain a firm hold on such persons, finally fell back and thus lost more and more ground. In this way the Word of Truth worked in the Darkness like a germinating mustard seed, as yeast does in bread. And this was the work of redemption of the Son of God, Jesus, the Bringer of Light and Truth!
The Darkness, which imagined it was already master of all humanity, rebelled against this in a wild struggle to make the work of redemption impossible. It could get no hold on Jesus Himself, for it fell back before His pure intuition. Thus it naturally made use of the willing tools at its disposal for the battle.
These were the people who quite rightly called themselves“intellectuals”, who yielded to the intellect and who, like the intellect, were fast bound to space and time. Consequently they could no longer grasp the higher spiritual concepts, which lie far beyond space and time, and it thus became impossible for them to follow the teaching of the Truth.
All these had the conviction that they stood on too “realistic” a ground, just as so many do today. Realistic ground,
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however, really means a very limited ground. The majority of these people represented power, being in positions of authority in government and church. Thus the Darkness, in furious self-defence, whipped up these people to commit the brutal assaults against Jesus through the earthly power that lay in their hands. By this the Darkness hoped to destroy the work of redemption.
That it was at all possible for it to exert this power on earth was due solely to the guilt of humanity which, through their self-chosen wrong attitude, limited their perceptive ability and thus gave the Darkness the upper hand.
And because of this sin of humanity Jesus had to suffer! The Darkness continued to fan the flame to the uttermost! Jesus would have to suffer death on the Cross if He stood firm in His assertion that He was the Bringer of Truth and Light.
It was the final decision! To flee or withdraw from it all
could save Him from death on the Cross. But that would have meant
victory to the Darkness at the last moment, because all the work of
Jesus would then gradually become nothing-ness, and the Darkness would
have victoriously engulfed everything. Jesus would not have fulfilled His Mission and the work of redemption started by Him would have remained unfinished.
The inner struggle in Gethsemane was sharp but short! Jesus did not shun physical death, but calmly faced it for the sake of the Truth He brought. With His blood on the Cross He put the seal upon all He had said and lived. With this deed He vanquished the Darkness completely, which had then played its last trump. Jesus won the victory – out of love for mankind, whose way to freedom and Light thus remained open, because His death fortified their faith in the Truth of His words. If He had withdrawn and fled and so given up His work, doubts would inevitably have assailed them.
Thus Jesus died for the sake of humanity’s sins! If mankind had not sinned, nor turned away from God by limiting themselves through the intellect, then Jesus could have spared Himself His coming as well as His path of suffering and His crucifixion. Therefore it is quite right to say: “On account of our sins Jesus came, suffered and died on the Cross!” But this does not mean that you do not have to redeem your own sins yourselves!It is only that now it is easy for you, because by
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bringing the Truth Jesus has shown you the way in His Words. Neither can the crucifixion of Jesus simply wash away your sins! Before such a thing could happen all the laws of the Universe would first have to be over- thrown. But that will not happen!
Jesus Himself often enough referred to “all that is written”, that is, to the Old Covenant. The new Gospel of Love does not intend to overthrow or annul the old Gospel of Justice, but to supplement and unite with it. Therefore do not forget the Justice of the mighty Creator of all things,which cannot be moved by even so much as a hair’s breadth, and which stands inviolable from the very beginning of the world until its end! It could never
permit any person to take another’s guilt upon his shoulders in order to redeem it.
So for the sake of the guilt of others, or because of the guilt of others, Jesus could come, suffer and die – could step forth as the Warrior for the Truth, but He Himself remained pure and untouched by this guilt. That is why He was unable to take it upon Himself personally. This does not lessen the work of redemption; instead it is a sacrifice that could not be greater.
Jesus came down for you out of the Luminous Heights into the mire.
He fought for you, suffered and died for you, in order to bring you Light and to show you the right way upward, so that you will not become lost in the Darkness and sink! That is how your Redeemer stands before you! That was His tremendous work of Love!
The Justice of God continued to exist, severe and strict, in the Laws of the Universe. For what a man sows that shall he reap, as Jesus Himself said in His Living Word! Divine Justice does not permit one farthing to be remitted. Think of this when you stand before this sacred, solemn token! Give fervent thanks that with His Word the Redeemer re-opened the way to the forgiveness of your sins, and leave the spot with the earnest intention to go the way shown to you so that forgiveness may really be yours!
To go that way does not mean just to learn the Word and believe It, but to live the Word! To believe It, to regard It as right, and yet not to act accord- ing to It in everything, would not benefit you at all. On the contrary, you would be worse off than those who know nothing of the Word.Therefore awake! Your time on earth is precious!
18. THE MYSTERY OF BIRTH
W HEN MEN DECLARE that great injustice lies in the unequal circumstances into which children are born, they do not know what they are saying. One person persistently affirms: “How, if justice exists, can it happen that a child is born burdened with a hereditary disease? The innocent child must be helping to bear the
sins of its parents!”Another declares: “One child is born in rich circumstances, the other in misery and bitter poverty. How then can one believe in justice!” Or again: “Granted that the parents deserve punishment, but it is not fair that this should happen through the illness and death of a child. That means that the innocent child must suffer!”
These and similar assertions circulate among men by the thousand. Even serious seekers sometimes rack their brains over it. The simple statement that “the inscrutable ways of God are all for the best” does not dispose of the urge to find the answer to
the “why”. He who is supposed to be satisfied with such a statement must either dumbly acquiesce or immediately suppress every questioning thought as wrong.
That is not what is intended! Through questioning one finds the right way. Apathy or forced suppression are reminiscent only of slavery. God, however, does not want slaves! He does not want apathetic subjection, but a free, cognizant looking upwards!
His wonderful and wise dispositions do not require to be enveloped in mystic darkness. They can only gain in their sublime, inviolable greatness and perfection when they lie exposed before us. Immutable and incorruptible, with even deliberation and certainty, they unceasingly carry on their eternal activity.
18. The mystery of birth
They take no heed either of man’s grumbling or of his acknowledgement, nor do they consider his ignorance, but they return to each individual with minutest accuracy the ripened fruits of the seeds he has sown. “The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine” is a common saying that so aptly describes this weaving of the inexorable reciprocal action in the whole Creation, the immutable laws of which bear and carry out Divine Justice. It trickles, flows, streams and pours over all mankind whether they
wish it or not, whether they yield to it or rebel against it. They must accept it as just punishment and forgiveness, or as a reward when they are uplifted!
If a grumbler or doubter could but once catch a glimpse of the transcenden- tal surging and weaving carried and pervaded by the inexorable Spirit, which penetrates and embraces the whole Creation, in which Creation rests, and which in itself is part of this Creation, a living never-ceasing loom of God, he would immediately be shamed into silence and realise with horror the presumption contained in his words!
The serene grandeur and infallibility that he would see there would force him apologetically into the dust. How small he imagined his God to be! And what sublime magnitude he finds in His works! He will then realise that his highest earthly conceptions are nothing but an attempt to belittle God and depreciate the perfection of His great work, through his futile efforts to compress it into the narrow confines brought about by the over-cultivation of the intellect, which can never rise above time and space.
Man must never forget that he stands in the work of God, that he himself is part of this work, and thus unconditionally subject to its laws! The work, however, not only embraces things visible to the physical eye but also the Ethereal World, in which the greatest part of man’s actual existence and activity takes place. His occasional lives on earth are only small sections of it, nevertheless always great turning points. Birthh on earth only forms the beginning of a special section in a man’s entire existence, but not the beginning
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of man himself. When man as such starts out on his course in Creation he stands free, without any threads of fate attached to him. These emanate from him later through his volition and proceed into the Ethereal World. On their way they are continually strengthened through the power of attraction of similar species, they cross and interweave with others, and react upon their
originator, with whom they had remained connected, thus bringing about fate or karma.
When certain threads return at the same time their effects intermingle, with the result that the originally sharp and distinct colours of the threads take on other shades and produce new combined pictures. (See Lecture : “Fate”) Each thread serves as a channel for the reactions until the originator no longer provides an ancho- rage for similar species in his inner being, i.e., when he himself no longer maintains this channel in good condition. Then these threads can no longer retain a foothold, cannot attach themselves to him, and must wither and fall away, regardless of whether they are good or evil. Thus every thread of fate is ethereally formed through an act of will in making a decision to take some action. This leaves its author and yet remains anchored to him, thus forming a secure path to homogeneous species, bringing them reinforcement and receiving from them in return added strength which flows back to the starting point. In this happening lies the help which has been promised to those who strive towards the good, or it contains the condition that “evil must continue to give birth to evil”. (See Lecture : “Man and his free will”) The reactions of these existing threads, to which he adds new threads daily, constitute the fate every man has created for himself and to which he must submit. All arbitrariness, and therefore all injustice, are thus precluded. The karma which a man bears with him and which seems one-sided predestination is, in reality, the inevitable result of his past, in so far as it has not yet been redeemed through reciprocal action.
The actual beginning of man’s existence is
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always good and so also is the end for many; with the exception of those who have become lost of their own accord, when through their decisions they first stretched out their hands to evil, which then completely dragged them down into perdition. The vicissitudes in man’s existence only occur in the between time, in the period of inner growth and maturing. Thus man always shapes his future life himself! He provides the threads and thereby decides the colour and design of the garment which is woven for him in the
loom of God through the Law of Reciprocal Action.
The causes working to determine the conditions into which a soul is born often lie far back, just as they determine the period under the influence of which the child will enter the physical world, so that during its earthly pilgrimage these conditions may continually influence it and achieve what this particular soul needs for its redemption, moulding, casting off karma, and further development. But this does not happen in a one-sided manner for the child only, but the threads spin on automatically so that the reciprocal action is also felt in the earthly surroundings.
The parents give the child just what it needs for its further development, just as vice versa the child gives to its parents, be it good or evil. For further development and advancement it is of course necessary in this connection to become free from an evil by personally experiencing it, whereby it will be
recognised for what it is and cast off. It is the reciprocal action which always brings about the opportunity for this. Without the operation of this law man could never become really free from anything that has happened to him.
Thus the Laws of Reciprocal Action hold as a great gift of mercy the road to freedom or ascent! Therefore there can be no question of any punishment. Punishment is a wrong expression, for in these laws lies the greatest love – the hand of the Creator stretched out towards forgiveness and liberation!
The coming of man to earth comprises procreation, incarnation and birth. Incarnation is the actual entrance of the human being into earthly existence. (See Lecture : “The creation of man”) A thousandfold are the threads that co-operate to determine an incarnation. But in these happenings, as always
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in Creation, the most scrupulous and absolute justice prevails and
contributes to the advancement of all concerned.
Therefore the birth of a child is far more important and valuable than is generally accepted. For its entrance into the physical world holds a new and special act of grace of the Creator, not only for the child but at the same time for its parents, even for its brothers and sisters if it has any, and for others who come in contact with it, in that they thereby all get a further oppor- tunity to progress in some way.
Through the necessary nursing during an illness, through heavy worries or misery, an opportunity may be offered to the parents to advance spiri- tually, be it the simple means to achieve some aim, the actual discharge of an old debt, or perhaps even a pre-redemptive measure against some threaten- ing karma.
With a person who has already begun to will what is good it very often happens that, through his voluntary decision to devote himself to nursing his own or some other child, a serious illness which was to have afflicted him as karma, according to the Law of Reciprocal Action, will mercifully be pre-redeemed in consequence of his good volition. A real redemption can only ensue in the intuitive perception, in the full experience. A genuinely devoted nursing often brings an even deeper experience than that of one’s own illness. There is deeper anxiety and pain during the illness of a child or of one who is really considered a loved one. And the joy at his recovery is equally great.
The deep intensity of this experience stamps its imprint so firmly on the intuitive perception, on the spiritual man, that it helps to change him, and
in this process the threads of fate that would otherwise still have struck him are cut off.
Through their severance or falling away the threads rebound like stretch- ed elastic in the opposite direction, to the homogeneous ethereal centres, the power of attraction henceforth pulling them from one side only. Thereby all further influence on the reformed human being is out of the question, because the connecting link is missing. Thus, if a person will freely and
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willingly take upon himself some duty towards another out of pure love, there are thousands of ways of achieving redemption in this manner!
In His parables Jesus has given the best examples. In the Sermon on the Mount and in all His other sayings He has clearly pointed out the good results of such practices. In so doing He always spoke of “thy neighbour”, thus pointing out the best, the simplest and truest way towards redemption of karma and towards ascent. “Love thy neighbour as thyself” He charged, thus giving the key to the gate leading to all ascent! It need not always involve a case of illness.
The necessary care and education of children quite naturally offer so many opportunities that they embrace in themselves all that comes into consideration to free a man from his karma. For this reason children are a blessing, no matter how they are born and developed. What applies to pa- rents applies equally to brothers and sisters and to all who have a lot to do with children. They also have opportunities to profit by this new-comer, be it only through striving to cast aside bad habits or similar things, by prac- tising patience and giving careful help of different kinds.
The child itself, however, is no less helped. Birth gives each individual the possibility to advance a mighty step upwards. If this does not happen it is the fault of the individual himself, because he did not want it. Hence every birth should be regarded as a benevolent and impartially distributed gift of God.
Those who, being childless, adopt a strange child will be no less
blessed, indeed the blessing will be all the greater on account of
the adoption, provided that it is done for the child’s sake and not
for personal satisfaction.
In an ordinary incarnation the power of attraction of what is spiritually homogeneous plays a leading role together with reciprocal action. Qualities regarded as inherited are not really inherited, but are merely due to this po- wer of attraction. Nothing spiritual is inherited from mother or father, for the child is as distinct a being as is each of the parents. It is only that the child has similar qualities through which it felt attracted to them.
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But it is not only this power of attraction of the homogeneous that is decisive in an incarnation; other existing threads of fate, to which the soul to be incarnated is bound, also play a part. Perhaps they are in some way connected with a member of the family into which it is led. All this contributes, attracts and finally causes the soul to incarnate. The case is different where a soul volunteers to undertake a mission, either to help some particular persons or to engage with others in some benevolent work for all mankind. Out of its own free will that soul then accepts in advance all that will happen to it on earth, so that here also there is no question of injustice. If all has been done in self-sacrificing love without thought of any reward, the reward must come as a result of reciprocal action.
Into families with hereditary diseases souls will be incarnated which, through the reciprocal action, need these diseases for redemption, for purification, or for advancement.
The guiding and supporting threads do not allow a wrong and thus unjust incarnation to take place. They exclude the possibility of any error. It would be like trying to swim against a current which follows its orderly co urse with iron and inexorable power, eliminating all resistance from the start, so that even an attempt to swim against it is altogether out of the question.
However, if its characteristics are precisely respected, it will bring nothing but blessing. All circumstances are carefully taken into conside- ration, also with voluntary incarnations in which diseases are voluntarily accepted in order to attain a certain purpose. If perhaps the father or mother burdened themselves by some sin with a disease, may be only by neglecting the strict laws Nature lays down for the health of the body entrusted to their
care, then the grief at seeing the same illness appear in the child would in itself be atonement and, if the grief is genuinely felt, would lead to purifi- cation.
There would be little point in giving specific examples, since every single birth would give a new picture differing from the others because of the many intermingled threads of fate. Even every homogeneous type must offer thousands of variations on account of the fine gradations of the manifold reciprocal actions.
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Let us give just one simple example! A mother loves her son so dearly that she resorts to all manner of means to prevent him from marrying and leaving her. She continually chains him to herself. Such love is wrong, purely self- ish, even if the mother, in her opinion, does everything to make her son’s life on earth as pleasant as possible. With her selfish love she has wrongly interfered in the life of her son. Genuine love never thinks of itself, but always of the advantage of the beloved one, and acts accordingly, even if it involves self-sacrifice!
The mother’s hour to be called away arrives, and the son stands alone.
Now, however, it is too late for him to arouse that joyful
enthusiasm for the fulfilment of his wishes, which only youth has
at its command. But, in spite of all, he has made some gain, for he
redeems something through this imposed renunciation. It may be a
similar characteristic in a former life, thereby avoiding the inner
loneliness of marriage, which he would otherwise have had to experience,
or it might be something else. He can only benefit through such
things. The mother, however, has taken over her selfish love with
her. Therefore the power of attraction of what is spiritually
homogeneous draws her irresistibly to people of similar qualities,
for in their vicinity she is able, through the intuitive life of
such people, to experience a small part of her own passion when
they practise their selfish love towards others. Therefore she
remains earthbound.
Should a procreation take place with persons in
whose vicinity she continually finds herself, she will incarnate
there through the link of her spiritual enchainment.
But then the tables will be turned! As a child she
will now have to suffer from the same characteristic in her father
or mother as she once caused her child to suffer. In spite of her
longing to leave the parental home, and the opportunities to do so,
she cannot free herself. Not until she recognises through personal
experience the injustice of such qualities will she atone for her
guilt and be freed from it! Through his union with the physical
body, that is, through his incarnation, a bandage is placed before
the eyes of every human being, which prevents him from surveying
his past existence. Like everything that happens in Creation, this
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also is for the benefit of the person concerned. Here again is a
proof of the wisdom and love of the Creator! If everyone could
precisely recall his previous existence he would merely stand aside
and remain a calm onlooker in his new life on earth, in the
consciousness that by so doing he was making progress or redeeming
something. However, instead of helping him to advance, this would
expose him to the great danger of sliding downwards. Life on earth
must be really experienced if it is to have any purpose!
Only what has been inwardly lived through in all its heights and
depths, what has been thoroughly perceived in one’s intuition, only
that may one truly call one’s own! If a man could always clearly
know from the very outset the exact course that would benefit him,
there would be no occasion for him to weigh and decide.
Hence he could acquire neither the strength nor the independence
that are absolutely necessary for him.
As it is, he takes every situation of his earth-life with greater realism. Every genuine experience leaves a firm imprint upon his intuition, upon the immortal part which, newly fashioned by these impressions, man takes over with him as his own, as a part of himself. But only that which he has really experienced, for all else is extinguished at physical death!
That which has been experienced remains, however, as the
clear extract of his earthly existence, as his gain.
Not all that has been learned has been experienced;
but only that which has been learned through experience becomes one’s own. All the rest of the learned lumber, for which many a man sacrifices his whole life, remains behind as husks. Therefore each moment of life can never be taken too seriously, so that our thoughts, words and deeds shall not deteriorate into meaningless habits, but pulsate with vital warmth!
Through the bandage placed before its eyes at the
time of its incarnation the newly-born child seems to be completely ignorant, and is therefore often erroneously regarded as being innocent. But it often brings a mighty karma with it which offers opportunities to redeem past errors by living through them and fully experiencing them. In cases of predestination karma is only the necessary consequence of all that has happened. Where it is a question of a mission karma, in so far as it does not belong to the
18. The mystery of birth
mission itself, is voluntarily undertaken for the purpose of
gaining earthly understanding and maturity in order to fulfil the mission.
Therefore man should no longer grumble about injustice at birth, but gratefully look up to the Creator, Who only grants new mercies with every single birth!
19. IS OOCCULT TRAINING ADVISABLE?...NO
THIS QUESTION MUST be answered with a definite “NO”!
Occult training, which generally includes exercises
for the attainment of clairvoyance, clairaudience, etc., is a
hindrance to a free development and to real spiritual ascent. As soon as the training is fairly successful it results in what informer times was described as a magician.
It is a process of one-sided groping forward from below upwards whereby the so-called terrestrial limits can never be crossed. All the phenomena likely to be achieved in such conditions will be of a lower and most inferior order, which cannot actually uplift a man inwardly, but may well lead him astray.
Through these efforts man is only able to penetrate
into his immediate ethereal environment, where the entities are often more ignorant than man on earth himself. All that he accomplishes here is that he exposes himself to unknown dangers,from which he otherwise remains protected by not opening himself.
One who has become clairvoyant or clairaudient
through such training will often see or hear things on this low plane which appear to be sublime and pure, and yet which are far from it. In addition there is his own imagination which, even more stimulated by his training, also creates a surrounding that the student actually sees and hears, with resultant confusion.
A man thus artificially trained stands insecurely
on his feet. He cannot discriminate, nor with the best will can he draw a sharp line between truth and deception or between the thousandfold ways in which the formative power works in ethereal life. Finally there are the base and, for him, decidedly injurious influences to which he voluntarily and
19. Is ooccult training...NO
with arduous efforts opens himself, and which he
cannot oppose with a higher power. Thus he soon becomes a rudderless wreck on an unknown sea, which is liable to be a menace to everything that comes into contact with it.
It is exactly the same as with a person who cannot
swim. He is quite capable of sailing in perfect safety over the unfamiliar element in a boat. This can be compared to earthly life.
But if during the voyage he removes one of the protecting planks from the bottom, then he tears a hole in his boat through which the water will enter, depriving him of his protection and drawing him down. Through his inability to swim he will thus become a victim of the unfamiliar element. Such is the procedure in occult! training Man only removes a plank from his protecting boat, but does not learn to swim! There are swimmers, however, who call themselves experts. In this category are those swimmers already possessed of a certain talent, which with a little training they make more effective, and also continually try to develop further.
In such cases, then, a more or less natural talent will unite with artificial training. However, even the best swimmer is confined within rather narrow limits. Should he venture too far his strength will give out, and he will finally be just as lost as a nonswimmer unless, indeed, help comes to them both.
In the Ethereal World such help can only come from
the Luminous Heights, from the pure spiritual realm. And this help again can only approach if the one in danger has reached a certain degree of purity in his psychic development, with which it can unite to give a firm hold. Such purity cannot be obtained through experimentaloccult training, but only through developing true inner integrity by constantly looking upwards to the purity of the Light.
If a man has followed this path it will in time bring him a certain measure of purity which will naturally be reflected in his thoughts, words and deeds. Then by degrees he will obtain a link with purer heights from which, through reciprocal actions, he will also receive
19. Is ooccult training...NO
increased strength. Throughout all the intermediary steps he then has a connectionwhich will hold him and to which he can cling. It will not be long before all that the swimmer has vainly tried to achieve will be given to him without any effort. But it is given with the care and precaution which are inherent in the inexorable Laws of Reciprocal Action, so that he gets only as much of it as his own strength can counterbalance, whereby all danger is excluded from the outset.
At last the separating partition, which may be compared to the planks of a boat, becomes thinner and thinner, and finally falls away altogether. That then is the moment when, in the same way as a fish is at home in water, he himself will feel quite at home in the Ethereal World right up to the Luminous Heights. That alone is the right way! What has been artificially forced by training is wrong. It is only the fish that is free from danger in water, because that is “its element”, for which it has been properly equipped in a way which a trained swimmer can never attain.When a man intends to take up this training, it is preceded by a voluntary decision, to the consequences of which he is then subjected. Therefore he cannot anticipate that help is certain to be given him! He had the freedom to decide beforehand!
But a man who induces others to take up such training, as a result of which they are exposed to all sorts of dangers, must take a great part of the consequences of the guilt of each individual upon his own shoulders. He will become ethereally chained to them all. After laying aside his physical body he must irrevocably descend to those who have departed before him, to those who have succumbed to the dangers, right down to him who sank lowest of all.
He is unable to ascend himself until he has helped
every single one to rise again, until their wrong path has been obliterated and everything neglected through such training has been retrieved. Such is the balance brought about by reciprocal action and, at the same time, the
19. Is ooccult training...NO
merciful means by which he can put right the injustice and ascend himself . If such a man has not only influenced othersthrough his words, but also through his writings, he will be hit even more severely, because his writings go on doing harm even after his earthly death. He must then wait in the Ethereal World till the last person he has led astray, and whom he is obliged to help on to the right path, has crossed over. Centuries may well elapse in this process!
However, this does not mean that the field of the Ethereal World should remain untouched and unexplored during life on earth! At the appropriate hour it will be given to those who are inwardly matured to feel at home where others would still be in danger. They will be permitted to see the Truth and pass it on. But at the same time they will also be able clearly to survey the
dangers which threaten those who, by means of occult training, wish to penetrate one-sidedly into the lower spheres of unknown regions. They will never advocate occult training.