ERRORS THERE IS MANY A MAN who lifts up his eyes seekingly for Light and Truth. His longing is great, but very often he lacks earnest volition! More than half of the seekers are not genuine. They bring their own preconceived opinion. Should they have to change it in the slightest degree, then they would much rather reject all that is new to them, even if it contains the Truth. Thus thousands must go under because, entangled as they are in erroneous convictions, they have restricted the freedom of movement which they need to swing themselves upward to salvation. There are always some who imagine they have already grasped all that is right. They have no intention of subjecting themselves to a strict examination based on what they have heard and read. I am naturally not addressing such as these! Nor do I speak to churches and political parties, to fraternities, sects and societies, but only in all simplicity to man himself. Far be it from me to pull down what exists; for I am building up and completing the answers to questions as yet unsolved, questions that must arise in everyone as soon as he thinks just a little. Only one basic condition is essential for every listener: Earnest seeking for the Truth. He should inwardly examine the words and let them come to life, but not heed the speaker. Otherwise he derives no benefit. All who do not strive to do this are simply wasting their time from the start. It is incredible how naively the great majority of people cling tenaciously to their ignorance on such questions as whence they come, what they are, and whither they go! Birth and death, the inseparable poles of all life on earth, should not be a secret to man. There is a great deal of contradiction in the views of what constitutes the inner core of man. This is the result of the morbid self-aggrandizement of the earth-dwellers, who presumptuously boast that their inner core is Divine! Look at humanity! Can you discover anything Divine in them? Such a foolish statement should be branded as blasphemy, because it denotes a debasement of Divinity. Man does not carry a grain of Divinity within him! This idea is just morbid presumption, the cause of which is simply the consciousness of being unable to understand. Where is the man who can honestly say that for him such a belief has also become conviction? Whoever examines himself seriously must deny it. He will feel distinctly that it is only a longing and a desire to harbor something Divine within him, but not a certainty! It is quite right to say that man carries within him a spark of God. But this spark of God is spirit! It is not a part of Divinity. The term spark is a perfectly correct designation. A spark develops and flies out without taking along or bearing within it anything of the quality of the producer. It is the same here. A spark of God is not itself Divine. Where such mistakes can already be found in regard to the origin of a being, there failure must ensue in the whole development! If I have built on a wrong foundation, then one day the whole structure must totter and fall. For it is the origin that provides the mainstay for everyone’s whole existence and development! Anyone who seeks to reach far beyond his origin, as usually happens, reaches for something he cannot grasp, and thereby loses all support in the quite natural course of events. If, for instance, I reach for the branch of a tree which through its material consistency is similar to my earthly body, I can gain a hold on this branch and thus swing myself up on it. But if I reach beyond this branch, then through the different consistency of the air I can find no support, and … cannot therefore pull myself up either! Surely this is clear enough. It is exactly the same with the inner consistency of man, called the soul, and its core, the spirit. If this spirit wishes to have the essential support that it needs from its origin, then it must not of course seek to reach into the Divine. That would be unnatural; for the Divine lies much too far above it, and is of an entirely different consistency! And yet in his conceit man seeks contact with that sphere to which he can never attain, and thus interrupts the natural order of things. His wrong desire is like a dam forming an obstruction between himself and his necessary supply of power from the origin. He cuts himself off from it. Therefore away with such errors! Not until then can the human spirit develop its full power, which it still heedlessly disregards today, and become what it can and should be, lord in Creation! But mark well, only in Creation, not standing above it. Only Divinity stands above all Creation! – God Himself, the Origin of all being and life, is Divine, as the very word implies! Man was created by His Spirit! Spirit is the Will of God. Now out of this Will the first Creation came into being. Do let us keep to this simple fact; it provides the possibility for a better understanding. By way of comparison, just picture your own will. It is an act, but not part of man himself; otherwise man would in time dissolve in his many acts of will. There would be nothing whatever left of him. It is no different with God! His Will created Paradise! But His Will is the Spirit, designated as the “Holy Spirit”. Paradise, again, was only the work of the Spirit, not part of the Spirit Itself. There is a gradation downwards in this. The Creative Holy Spirit, that is, the Living Will of God, was not absorbed in His Creation. He did not even give one part of Himself to it; but He Himself remained wholly outside Creation. The Bible already states this quite clearly and plainly with the words: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”, not God Himself! After all, that is different. Thus man does not carry within him anything of the Holy Spirit Itself either, but only of the spirit which is a work of the Holy Spirit, an act. Instead of concerning himself with this fact, man already exerts all his energy to form a gap here! You have only to think of the prevalent conception of the First Creation, of Paradise! It absolutely had to be on this earth. The small human intellect thereby compressed the event requiring millions of years within its own sphere, limited by space and time, imagining himself to be the centre and axis of all that happens in the world. As a result he immediately lost the way to the actual starting-point of life. In place of this clear path of which he could no longer command a view, a substitute had to be found in his religious conceptions, if he was not to designate himself as the creator of all being and life, and thus as God. The term “faith” has given him this substitute until now! And all mankind has suffered ever since from the word “faith”! What is more, this misunderstood word, which was meant to restore all that was lost, became a cliff against which everything was wrecked! Only the indolent one is content with faith. It is also faith which can become the butt of scoffers. And the word “faith”, wrongly interpreted, is the barrier which today obstructs the road to mankind’s progress. Faith is not meant to be the cloak generously covering all slothful thinking, which like a sleeping-sickness gradually steals over and paralyses the spirit of man! Faith should really become conviction. Conviction however demands life, the keenest examination! Where even one gap, one unsolved riddle remains, conviction becomes impossible. Therefore no one can have genuine faith so long as he has a question unanswered. Even the words “blind faith” show that there is something unsound! Faith must be alive, as Christ already once demanded, otherwise it serves no purpose. But to be alive means to bestir oneself, to weigh and also to examine! Not dumbly accepting the thoughts of others. After all, blind faith plainly means lack of understanding. What a person does not understand, however, cannot bring him spiritual benefit either, for through lack of understanding it cannot come to life within him. But whatever he does not fully experience within never becomes his own either! And only what is his own helps him to ascend. After all, no one can walk and go forward along a road containing great yawning clefts. Where man’s knowledge cannot take him any further he must come to a spiritual standstill. This fact is irrefutable and no doubt also easily understood. Hence he who wishes to advance spiritually should awaken! He can never proceed on his path to the Light of Truth in his sleep! Nor with a bandage or a veil over his eyes. The Creator wants to have His humanity seeing in Creation. To be seeing, however, means to be knowing! And knowledge does not go with blind faith. Only indolence and slothful thinking lie in such a belief, not greatness! The privilege of being endowed with the ability to think also brings man the duty to investigate! In order to avoid all this, man out of laziness has simply so belittled the great Creator as to ascribe to Him arbitrary actions in proof of His Omnipotence. He who will but think a little must again find a great error therein. An arbitrary act implies the possibility of diverting the existing Laws of Nature. However, where such a thing is possible, perfection is lacking. For where there is perfection there can be no alteration. Thus a large part of humanity erroneously represents the Omnipotence of God in such a way that those who think more deeply would have to regard it as a proof of imperfection. And therein lies the root of much evil. Give God the honor of perfection! Then you will find the key to the unsolved riddles of all life. – It shall be my endeavor to bring serious thinkers to this point. A sigh of relief shall go through the circles of all seekers for the Truth. Finally they will joyfully recognize that there is no mystery, no gap in the entire course of world events. And then … they will see clearly before them the road to ascent. They only need to follow it. – In all Creation there is no justification whatever for mysticism! There is no room for it, because everything should lie clearly and without gaps before the human spirit, right back to its origin. Only what is above that will have to remain a most sacred mystery to every human spirit. Therefore it will never be able to grasp what is Divine. Not with the best will and the greatest knowledge. But in this inability to grasp what is Divine lies the most natural thing for man that one can think of; for as everyone knows, it is not possible for anything to go beyond the composition of its origin. Nor for the spirit of man either! A boundary is always set by the difference in composition. And the Divine is of an entirely different consistency from the spiritual, in which man originates.1 The animal, for instance, can never become a human being, however highly developed its soul may be. From its animistic substance there cannot possibly blossom forth the spiritual which brings forth the human spirit. In the composition of all animistic substance the spiritual basic species is missing. Man, who has issued from the spiritual part of Creation, can in turn never become Divine either, because the spiritual has not the nature of Divine substance. The human spirit may well be able to develop to the highest degree of perfection, but must nevertheless always remain spiritual. It can never go above itself into the Divine. Here again the different consistency naturally forms the ever impassable limitation upwards. The World of Matter does not come into it at all here since it has no life of its own, but serves as a covering, motivated and formed by the spiritual and the animistic. The mighty field of the spirit extends through all Creation. Therefore man can, should and must fully grasp and recognize Creation! And through his knowledge he will rule therein. But rightly understood, to rule, however severely, simply means to serve! – At no point in the entire Creation, up to the highest spiritual, is there any deviation from the natural happening! This fact alone surely makes all things much more familiar to everyone. The unhealthy and secret fear, the reluctance to face so many things as yet unknown, thus fall away of their own accord. With naturalness a fresh breeze blows through the sultry atmosphere formed by the morbid imaginings of those who like to cause a great stir. Their sickly fantastic creations, which terrify the weak and are mocked by the strong, have an absurd and childishly foolish effect on the sight that is becoming clear, and that finally, joyful and happy, takes in the glorious naturalness of every happening, which always moves only in simple straight lines that can be clearly recognized. It runs through everything uniformly, in the strictest regularity and order. And this makes it easier for every seeker to obtain the broad, free view right to the point of his actual origin! For this he needs neither painstaking research nor imagination. The main thing is for him to stand aloof from all those who in their muddled secretiveness try to make a scanty part-knowledge appear greater. It all lies so simply before men that owing to the very simplicity they often do not come to recognition, because from the outset they assume that the great work of Creation must be much more difficult and intricate. Here in spite of the best volition thousands stumble, they raise their eyes seekingly to the heavens, not realizing that without effort they have only to look before and around them. They will then see that through their existence on earth they are already standing on the right road, and need only go calmly ahead! Without haste and without effort, but with open eyes and a free, unprejudiced mind! Man must at last learn that true greatness lies only in the most simple and natural happening. That greatness implies this simplicity. So is it in Creation, so also in himself, who belongs to Creation as a part of it! Only simple thinking and intuitive perceiving can give him clarity! Such simplicity as children still possess! Calm reflection will show him that, in the ability to comprehend, simplicity is identical with clarity and also with naturalness! The one simply cannot be thought of without the others. They form a triad that expresses one concept! Whoever makes it the foundation-stone of his search will soon break through the nebulous confusion. Everything that has been added artificially will then collapse into nothingness. Man will realize that the natural order of events may nowhere be eliminated, and that at no place is it interrupted! And therein the greatness of God also reveals itself! The unchangeable vitality of the self-acting Creative Will! For the Laws of Nature are the inexorable Laws of God, continually visible to all men, appealing to them, testifying to the Greatness of the Creator, of an unshakable regularity, admitting of no exception! Of no exception! For a grain of oats can again bring forth only oats, likewise a grain of wheat only wheat, and so forth. So is it also in that first Creation, which as the Creator’s own Work stands nearest to His Perfection. There the fundamental Laws are anchored in such a way that, driven by the vitality of the Will, they were bound in the most natural order of events to result in the coming into being of the further Creation, right down finally to these celestial globes. Only becoming coarser the further Creation draws away in the process of development from the Perfection of the origin. – Let us first of all just consider Creation. Imagine that all life therein, no matter in what part it is found, is of two kinds only. The one kind is self-conscious and the other unconscious of itself. It is of the utmost value to observe these two different categories! This is connected with the “origin of man”. The differences also give the stimulus to further development, to the apparent struggle. The unconscious is the basis of all the conscious, but its composition is of exactly the same nature. To become conscious is progress and development for the unconscious, which through association with the conscious is continually being stimulated also to attain to this consciousness. In the process of developing downwards, the first Creation itself brought successively three great basic divisions: As uppermost and highest is the spiritual, the Primordial Creation, followed by the denser and thus also gradually heavier Sphere of Animistic Substance. Lastly as the lowest, and because of its greatest density the heaviest, still follows the great Realm of Matter which, severing itself from Primordial Creation, has gradually sunk down! Through this there finally remained as the uppermost only the Primordial Spiritual Substance, because in its pure nature it embodies what is lightest and most luminous. It is the oft-mentioned Paradise, the crown of all Creation. With the sinking down of that which becomes denser we already touch upon the Law of Gravitation, which is not only anchored in matter, but has an effect in all Creation, from the so-called Paradise down to us. The Law of Gravitation is of such decisive importance that everyone should hammer it into his mind; for it is the main lever in the whole evolution and process of development of the human spirit. I have already said that this gravitation applies not only to earthly consistencies, but also works uniformly in those parts of Creation which earthmen can no longer see, and which they therefore simply call the beyond. For a better understanding I must still divide the World of Matter into two sections. Into ethereal matter and gross matter. Ethereal matter is that matter which cannot become visible to the physical eye, owing to its different nature. And yet it still is matter. The so-called “beyond” must not be confused with the longed-for Paradise, which is purely spiritual. The spiritual must not be taken as something “to do with thoughts”, but the spiritual is a consistency, just as the animistic and the material are each a consistency. Therefore now this ethereal matter is simply called the “beyond”, because it lies beyond earthly vision. Gross matter, however, is this side, all that is earthly, which on account of its similar species becomes visible to our gross material eyes. Man should get rid of the habit of regarding things that are invisible to him as also incomprehensible and unnatural. Everything is natural, even the so-called beyond, and Paradise, which is still an immense distance from it. Now just as here our physical body is sensitive to its surroundings of a homogeneous nature, which it can therefore see, hear and feel, so is it exactly the same in those parts of Creation whose consistency is not like ours. The ethereal man in the so-called beyond feels, hears and sees only his homogeneous ethereal environment; the higher spiritual man again can only feel his spiritual environment. Thus it happens that many an earth-dweller now and then already sees and hears also the Ethereal World with his ethereal body, which he bears within, before the separation from the gross material earthly body takes place through physical death. There is absolutely nothing unnatural in this. Side by side and cooperating with the Law of Gravitation is also the no less valuable Law of Homogeneous Species. I have already touched upon this in saying that one species can only recognize the same species. The proverbs: “Birds of a feather flock together”, and “like father, like son” seem to have been sensed from the Primordial Law. Together with the Law of Gravitation it swings throughout Creation. In addition to those already mentioned there is a third Primordial Law in Creation: The Law of Reciprocal Action. The effect of this Law is that man must reap what he has once sown, unconditionally. He cannot reap wheat where he sowed rye, nor clover where he sowed thistles. In the Ethereal World it is exactly the same. In the end he will not be able to reap kindness where he felt hatred, nor joy where he nourished envy! These three fundamental Laws form the cornerstones of the Divine Will! They alone automatically work out reward or punishment for a human spirit, with inexorable justice! So incorruptibly, in the most wonderful delicate gradations, that the thought of a slightest injustice in the gigantic world happening becomes impossible. The effect of these simple Laws brings every human spirit exactly to the place where, according to his inner attitude, he does belong. Any error here is impossible, because the manifestation of these Laws can only be set in motion by the inmost condition of a human being, which will, however, set it in motion without fail in every case! Thus to bring this about the spiritual power of the intuitive perceptions which is in man is needed as the lever! Nothing else has any effect. For this reason only the real volition, man’s intuitive perception, is decisive for what develops for him in the world that is invisible to him, and which he must enter after his earthly death. There neither pretense nor self-deception will help him. He must then unconditionally reap what he has sown through his volition! What is more, exactly according to the strength or weakness of his volition, it sets in motion to a greater or lesser degree the homogeneous currents of the other worlds, no matter whether they are hatred, envy or love. An absolutely natural process, of the greatest simplicity, and yet with the inexorable effect of adamantine justice! He who tries to go seriously and deeply into these happenings in the beyond will recognize what incorruptible justice lies in this automatic working, and will see in this alone the inconceivable Greatness of God. He does not need to interfere, after having given His Will as Laws, thus perfect, into Creation. He who in the course of his ascent again enters the Spiritual Realm is purified; for he had first to pass through the self-acting mills of the Divine Will. No other road leads to the proximity of God. And how these mills work on the human spirit depends on its former inner life, its own volition. They can carry it blissfully into the Luminous Height; or on the other hand they can also pull it agonizingly down into the night of horror, indeed even drag it to complete destruction. – It should be realized that at the time of its earthly birth the human spirit which has matured to the point of incarnation already wears an ethereal cloak or body, which it has needed on its journey through the Ethereal World. During its earthly existence this also remains with it as a connecting link to the physical body. Now the Law of Gravitation always exerts its main effect upon the densest and coarsest part. Thus during life on earth upon the physical body. But when this dies and falls away, the ethereal body again becomes free, and in this moment, being unprotected and now the coarsest part, is subject to this Law of Gravitation. When it is said that the spirit forms its body, that is true as regards the ethereal body. The inner quality of man, his desires and his actual volition lay the foundation for it. In the volition lies the power to form ethereal matter. Through the urge for what is base or for mere earthly pleasures the ethereal body becomes dense, and therewith heavy and dark, because the fulfillment of such desires lies in the World of Gross Matter. Thereby man binds himself to what is coarse and earthly. His desires draw along the ethereal body, that is to say, it is formed so densely that its consistency resembles as nearly as possible that of the earthly body. This alone holds the prospect of being able to participate in earthly pleasures or passions, as soon as the physical body has fallen away. Whoever strives after such things must sink through the Law of Gravitation. But it is different with those people whose minds are mainly directed towards higher and nobler things. Here the volition automatically makes the ethereal body lighter and thus also more luminous, so that it can draw near to what to these human beings is the goal of their earnest aspirations! That is, to the purity of the Luminous Height. Expressed in other words: Through the prevailing goal of the human spirit, the ethereal body in earthman is at the same time so equipped that after the death of the physical body it can strive towards this goal, whatever kind it may be. Here the spirit really forms the body; for its volition, being spiritual, also bears within it the power to make use of ethereal substance. The spirit can never evade this natural process. It happens with every volition, no matter whether it is pleasant or unpleasant for the spirit. And these forms remain clinging to it as long as the spirit nourishes them through its volition and intuition. They advance or retard the spirit according to their nature, which is subject to the Law of Gravitation. Yet the moment the spirit changes its volition and intuition new forms will thereby immediately arise, whereas the old ones, no longer receiving nourishment because of this change, must fade and dissolve. In this way man also changes his fate. Now as soon as the earthly anchorage falls away through the death of the physical body, the ethereal body which is thereby released either sinks down or floats up like a cork in the Ethereal World, which is called the “beyond”. Through the Law of Gravitation it will be held fast exactly in that place which corresponds with its own weight; for then it cannot move further, either up or down. Here it will naturally also find all homogeneous species or all like-minded people; for like nature implies like weight, and like weight of course like nature. According to how man was himself, so will he have to suffer or be able to rejoice among those of like nature, until he changes anew inwardly, and with him his ethereal body, which under the effect of the altered weight must either lead him further upwards or downwards. Therefore man can neither complain nor need he give thanks; for if he is raised towards the Light it is his own consistency that inevitably causes him to be raised; if he falls into the Darkness, it is again his condition that forces him to do so. But every human being has reason to glorify and praise the Creator for the perfection that lies in the working of these three Laws. The human spirit is thereby unreservedly made the absolute master of its own fate! For its true volition, thus the genuine inner condition, must cause it either to rise or to sink. If you try to get a true picture of the effect of these Laws, singly and working together, you will find that they contain reward and punishment, mercy or also damnation, minutely weighed for each one according to his inner state. It is the most simple process, and shows the lifeline provided by every serious volition of a human being, which can never break and never fail. It is the greatness of such simplicity that forcibly drives him who recognizes to his knees before the infinite Sublimity of the Creator! In every happening and in all my explanations we always again and again meet clearly and distinctly the effect of these simple Laws, whose wonderful interaction I must yet describe especially. Once man knows this interaction he thus also has the step-ladder to the Luminous Realm of the Spirit, to Paradise. But he then also sees the road that leads down to the Darkness! He need not even tread these steps himself, but the automatic mechanism raises him on high or drags him down, entirely according to how he adjusts the mechanism for himself through his inner life. Which way he wishes to let himself be borne along is always left to his decision. Man must not allow himself to be confused by scoffers. Rightly viewed, doubt and derision are nothing but the expression of wishes Quite unconsciously every doubter expresses what he wishes for himself, thus exposing his inner self to the searching glance. For denial and defense also harbor deeply hidden wishes which can be easily recognized. It is sad, or even revolting, to see what negligence or poverty of mind is thus sometimes revealed, because just through this a man often drags himself inwardly down below the level of any ignorant animal. One should have compassion for such people without, however, being indulgent; for indulgence would indeed mean cultivating indolence in serious investigation. He who seeks earnestly must become sparing with indulgence; otherwise he will ultimately harm himself without helping the other thereby. But with growing recognition man will jubilantly stand before the wonder of such a Creation, and consciously let himself be borne aloft to the Luminous Heights which he may call his home!
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 22:03:50 +0000
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