FATHER, FORGIVE THEM, FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO!

WHO DOES NOT know these momentous words which Jesus of Nazareth uttered when He hung on the cross?

They are one of the greatest prayers of intercession ever spoken.

Clear and explicit!

And yet, despite this, for two thousand years these words have never been understood!

They were interpreted one-sidedly, and only in that way which appeared to be agreeable to men.

There was not one person to raise his voice and call out their proper meaning in all clearness to mankind, and especially to Christians!

But not only that!

Every soul-stirring event in the earth-life of the Son of God was put into a false light by the one-sidedness of the transmission.

But these faults are not only exhibited in Christianity, they are to be found in every religion!

It is understandable if disciples place first and foremost all that is personal about their teacher and master, especially when this master was so abruptly and brutally torn from their midst and, although utterly innocent, exposed to the most terrible suffering and coarsest mockery, and finally put to the most agonizing death!

Such events would be deeply engraved on the souls of those who had come to know their teacher in the most ideal way while they lived together, and would quite naturally cause them to place the personal element foremost in everything they remembered.

But the sacred Mission of the Son of God lay in His Word, in bringing the Truth from Luminous Heights, in order to show mankind their way to the Light!

This had been closed to them up till then, because their spiritual development had previously made it impossible for them to walk on that road!

The suffering thereby wrought upon this great Bringer of Truth by mankind stands entirely on its own!

However, what was quite understandable and natural with the disciples resulted in many great errors in the later religion!

The essence of the Divine Message receded far into the background before the personal cult of the Bringer of Truth, which Christ never intended!

For this reason mistakes are now evident in the Christian religion which will lead to the danger of a breakdown unless the errors are recognized in time and, through open confession, are courageously set right.

It cannot be expected otherwise than that the smallest amount of serious progress must make all these gaps visible!

But then it is decidedly better not to avoid them, but to tackle them boldly.

Why should not this purification be instituted by the leadership itself, freshly and cheerfully, with a free upward gaze towards the Supreme Godhead?

Great numbers of men would feel as if freed from a pressure, which they had indeed perceived but never really recognized as such, and would gratefully follow a call leading them into the light of joyful conviction!

In following the habit of those who blindly subject themselves to an unlimited control of their intellect, and who thereby severely diminish their ability to comprehend, they placed the same value on Christ’s earth life as on His Mission.

His family relationships and all the earthly events received even greater attention than the main purpose of His Coming, which consisted of bringing enlightenment to the matured human spirits about all the real happenings in Creation, wherein alone they would find the Will of God, which is woven into it and thus made available to them!

It was the bringing of this Truth, up till then still unknown, which quite by itself necessitated Christ’s coming upon the earth.

Nothing else!

For without truly recognizing the Will of God in Creation no man can find the road of ascent to the Luminous Realm, much less walk upon it!

Instead of simply accepting these facts as such, becoming absorbed in the Message and living accordingly, as the Bringer of Truth repeatedly and emphatically demanded, the founders of the Christian religions and churches created a personal cult as the principal foundation, which forced them to make the suffering of Christ mean something entirely different from what it really was!

They needed it for this cult!

Finally, in the course of further development, this quite naturally produced one great error after another, which became obstacles for a great number of people, preventing them as yet from properly recognizing the right way.

This wrong structure, based on lack of objectivity, alone brought about the distortion of all the happenings, it being inevitable that factual impartiality was bound to cease from the moment when the principal cult became purely personal!

Thus the urge developed to anchor the Mission of the Son of God mainly in His life on earth.

Indeed this became a necessity!

That this is a wrong step to take Christ Himself proved by His whole attitude.

More than once He clearly and sharply rejected the personal attitude taken towards Him!

In every word and every action he continually pointed to God the Father, Whose Will He fulfilled and in Whose Power He stood and acted.

He explained how mankind should henceforth learn to look up to God the Father, but He never spoke of Himself in this connection.

Since His words dealing with this point were not heeded, it became inevitable in the end that Christ’s suffering on earth was supposed to be regarded as necessary and as ordained by God, and it was even declared to be part of His main task in coming to earth.

According to this view He came from the Luminous Heights only in order to suffer here on earth!

As He had not burdened Himself with any guilt, there remained only one explanation: He must have taken the sins of others upon Himself in order to redeem them from those sins!

What else was there left but to continue to build in that manner on the foundation thus established?

And the exaggerated self-esteem which is not altogether unknown, and from which all mankind suffer, provided the nourishing power and fruitful soil for this.

It is the result of the great Fall of Man, which was directed against the spirit, and which I have often explained in detail.

In evaluating his intellect too highly man only comes to know himself and not his God, all the bridges to Whom he has thus destroyed.

Only a few here and there have a very weak connection with the Spiritual Sphere which, however, allows them to perceive very little, and never really to know.

Thus the right and natural thought completely to separate the earthly sufferings of Christ, as a special happening, from the Divine Message occurred to no one!

Nor did anyone recognize all the enmity, persecution and torment as the serious and grievous crimes they really were!

It is a new and great wrong to gloss over them as a necessity!

Indeed His sufferings and agonizing death on the cross deserve the radiant light of highest glory, because the Son of God did not shrink from an evil reception among the tyrannical and revengeful people!

This was anticipated after the Fall of Man, but in spite of this He brought His so urgently needed Message of Truth to earth for the sake of the few who were good!

This deed is to be appraised all the higher, because it is actually a question of only a small proportion of mankind who thereby wish to save themselves!

But it is a new sacrilege against God when the crimes mankind committed at that time are supposed to be so mitigated through false assumptions as to make it appear that men had only been the tools of a necessary fulfilment!

These errors give rise to a feeling of uncertainty among many thinking men about the consequences of Judas Iscariot’s deed.

With full justification!

For if the death on the cross was necessary for mankind, then Judas and his betrayal provided the necessary means towards it, and in the spiritual sense he was not really punishable for what he did!

The truth about the actual happening, however, abolishes all these disagreements, the justified appearance of which only confirms the fact that the assumptions accepted in the past must really be false!

Where the right view prevails there is no room for such unexplained questions, and the quite natural happening can be considered from every point of view without meeting with any hindrance.

Man should at last have the courage to recognize the cowardice in this glossing over, which is only kept concealed by the sagacity of his earthbound intellect, the greatest enemy of everything that is able to rise above it, a fact that is always clearly visible with every base companion!

Or let him consider it a veiled self-aggrandizement which springs from the same source!

It is wonderful to have such an imagination as to consider oneself so precious that a Divine Being would fight for one and take upon Himself every kind of suffering only in order to be allowed to offer poor wretched man a place of honor in the Divine Realm of Bliss!

Such, plainly and bluntly expressed, is really man’s basic view, which looks no different if one removes with a firm hand all the frippery from its outer forms!

I need hardly point out that such a view can only arise through a most seriously restricted capacity to perceive all non-earthly happenings.

This again is one of the grave consequences of the glorification of the earthly intellect which intercepts every free, broad outlook.

The worship of this idol “intellect” has naturally grown steadily since the Fall of Man, until it has now developed into the powerful earthly Antichrist or, more explicitly, into all that is anti-spiritual.

This is clearly evident today wherever one looks, and does not require a keen eye to observe it.

And since the spiritual alone can provide the bridge by which to approach and to understand all that is Divine, the granting of supreme power to the earthly intellect, to which all the sciences proudly confess today, is nothing but an open declaration of warfare against God!

Not only the sciences, but all mankind today move under this sign!

Even everybody who calls himself a serious seeker carries this poison about with him!

Thus it is not unnatural that the Church must also have much of this within it.

In the rendering and interpreting of all the words of the Savior, therefore, much has crept in which has its origin only in the earthly cleverness of the intellect!

This also is the serpent of which the Bible story warns and which entices man ever again – the serpent of intellectual sagacity which alone is always confronting man with the subtle question: “Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?”

As soon as every decision is left to the serpent, i.e., to the intellect alone, it will always, as has been rightly indicated in the Bible, choose what is hostile to or what leads away from God, that which is purely earthly and much lower, to which the intellect belongs as its highest manifestation.

Thus it cannot grasp what is higher!

Man has been endowed with the intellect so that in every life on earth he has a counterpoise pulling downwards to balance the upward striving spirituality.

It was given to him for the purpose of preventing him from floating in spiritual heights only, and thereby forgetting his task on earth.

The intellect is also meant to facilitate his whole life on earth.

But, above all, it is intended to transmit the strong upward urge for what is sublime, pure and perfect, which is an absolutely inherent quality of the spirit, to the small earthly, so that it has a visible effect in the material world!

It should act as the handyman of the living spirit, as its servant, not as the one to make decisions and take the lead.

It is to help create the earthly or material opportunities for the carrying out of spiritual urges.

The intellect is to be the tool and the servant of the spirit.

If, however, all decisions are left to the intellect alone, as is done now, then it ceases to be a counterbalance and helper, but throws only its own weight into the scale of every decision.

This can quite naturally only be followed by a sinking downward, because the intellect draws down.

No other course is possible because the intellect belongs to the World of Matter and is firmly bound to it, whereas that which is spiritual comes from above.

Instead of extending a helping hand to the spiritual, and becoming strong and great in so doing, the intellect, as soon as everything is left to it, rejects and repudiates the stronger hand proffered by the spiritual.

It cannot do otherwise and acts in these matters only in accordance with the laws of its own nature!

It should be noted that the earthly intellect becomes an enemy of the spirit only when it is elevated above the latter, not before!

For if it stands under the dominion of the spirit, as it naturally should in accordance with the Creative Will, it remains a faithful servant which can be appreciated as such.

But if, contrary to the Laws of Nature, the intellect is given a position of authority, where it does not belong, the consequence is that it will suppress everything that could disturb it in order to maintain itself on the usurped throne.

It automatically closes the doors which, if kept open, would throw light upon its deficiencies and narrow limitations!

This is a counterpart of the actions of those people who feel their abilities developing in well-ordered circumstances and under good leadership, and who then over-estimate them and, in throwing over the old order, through their inability to achieve what is higher plunge a nation into want and misery!

Just as these can never realize their error and, both to themselves and before others, always try to blame past circumstances alone for their own incapacity, so will it be equally hard for the human intellect to recognize that it can never undertake the work of the higher-ranking spirit without causing grievous harm and finally bringing about destruction.

It is always the same picture everywhere, an eternal repetition of the same happening!

Man himself should meditate deeply and calmly upon this process!

Everything would then soon become clearly understandable, and must also appear very natural!

It was the same with the founders of churches and religions; this condition drew a veil over the great simplicity of Divine Truth and prevented every possibility of a right understanding.

Mankind could not burden themselves with anything more terrible than this voluntary limitation, this incapacity to perceive all that lies beyond earthly matters, i.e., by far the greater part of all happenings.

However, as a consequence, this literally lies above their so narrow horizon!

Now let a man try to fight against the impenetrability of this wall!

He would be very soon obliged to acknowledge the truth of the poet’s words: “The gods themselves fight in vain against stupidity!”

This stout wall can only be penetrated by each individual personally from within, for it was built up from within!

But they do not wish to do so!

Therefore there is failure everywhere today!

A picture of desolate confusion and much distress wherever one looks!

And on top of this pile of ruins there stands, hollow and puffed up with pride, the author of all this wild confusion … “modern man” as he most of all likes to describe himself!

The “progressive” who in reality has constantly retrogressed!

The man who also calls himself a “sober materialist”, expecting to be admired for it!

To this must now be added the many schisms and the ever-increasing hatred for one another, despite the uniformity of their voluntary enslavement!

The cause lies neither with employer nor employee, neither with capital nor lack of it, nor is it due to the church or the state, or to the different nations, but it is only the wrong attitude of each individual which has brought about the present state of affairs.

Even the so-called seekers for the Truth are now seldom on the right road!

Nine-tenths of them turn into nothing but Pharisees who look arrogantly down upon their fellow-men and criticize them, while at the same time quarrelling among themselves!

Everything is wrong!

First of all there must come the inevitable fulfilment of a dreadful end before some few can awaken out of their sleep!

As yet it is still possible for everyone to turn back!

But soon and at last there will come a “too late” for all time, contrary to the hopes of so many believers who favor the erroneous view that it probably needs a longer or shorter period for the necessary purification, depending on the individual himself, but that in the end his path must again lead to the Light, to eternal joy and to happiness in God’s proximity!

This thought is an agreeable consolation, but it is not correct, and it does not correspond to the Truth!

Let us once again calmly and clearly, but in broad outline, survey the great evolution of Creation and of man who belongs to it!

In so doing observe closely the operation of the Primordial Law of Homogeneous Species, and all it embraces in the way of immutable and necessary consequences in every happening, as I have so often explained!

The World of Matter is like a huge cultivated field which, being the heaviest section, moves in a gigantic circular course at the lowest part of the entire Creation.

There, beginning with the primordial seed, all is in constant motion perpetually developing, increasingly uniting and forming, right up to the visible globes, of which the earth is one.

In the process of maturing they reach the greatest perfection and bear fruit, a condition which corresponds with our present time, only automatically to decay again in the approaching state of over-ripeness according to the Laws of Creation, and to dissolve back into primordial seed, which in turn will continually receive opportunities of entering into fresh combinations and of evolving anew.

Such is the overall picture presenting itself when quietly viewed from On High!

Matter as such is nothing but the substance used to create forms or coverings.

It only comes to life when it is penetrated by the nonmaterial animistic substantiality in the sphere above it.

Through this union it is set aglow!

This amalgamation of matter with the non-material animistic substantiality provides the basis for further development.

All the souls of animals are formed out of animistic substantiality.

Above the two basic divisions of matter and animistic substantiality lies as the highest division of Creation the spiritual.

As my readers already know, this has its own special nature.

From this spiritual substantiality issue the seed-germs which are intent on developing into self-conscious human spirits.

It is only in the field of matter that such a seed-germ of spiritual substantiality can develop into a self-conscious human spirit, much the same as a wheat seed will grow in the soil of a field into a ripe ear of corn.

Its entry into the field of material substance, however, is not possible until the latter has reached a certain stage of development, when its nature is suited to absorb the spirit, which ranks highest in the entire Creation.

That is the time in which Creation produces the most highly developed animal body, after which it is no longer possible for any further development to take place through an animal soul issuing from animistic substantiality!

A small counterpart, a repetition of this great cosmic event, is for example continually provided later on by the earthly birth of the human soul.

Indeed, with man who is the crown of Creation, and thus the highest created being, the whole course of cosmic events is reflected.

The human soul, too, can enter the child’s body developing in its mother’s womb only when this body has reached a certain stage of maturity, not before!

In fact it is only the requisite stage of development as such which opens the way for the soul to enter.

This moment lies in the middle of pregnancy.

Thus in the great cycle of cosmic events the time of the highest development of the animal body also falls in the middle, i.e., midway in the cycle of all matter!

Let the reader mark this closely!

When the animistic substantiality of the animal soul had at this particular point achieved the highest it could achieve in the development of the body from the World of Matter, this automatically opened the way for the entrance of the spiritual standing above it.

The spirit-germ, on the other hand, being the lowest of its spiritual species, could only enter into the highest masterpiece that animistic substantiality below it had produced, i.e., into the most highly developed animal body.

Due to its higher quality the spirit naturally takes over all direction immediately upon entering, and can henceforth lead the body it inhabits, as well as its entire earthly environment, further along the road of development, something which animistic substantiality would have been unable to accomplish!

In this process the spirit itself naturally develops simultaneously.

This is a cursory sketch of the activity within Creation, the exact details of which I shall give in later lectures right down to the most minute parts.

But let us return to the first entry of the human spirit-germs into this World of Matter, i.e., let us return to the point midway in the cycle of the World of Matter!

The most highly developed animals of that time, which are today erroneously described as Primeval Men, became extinct.

Only those bodies among them were developed towards ennoblement into which spirit-germs had entered instead of animistic animal souls.

The spirit-germs in them matured through varied experiences, raised the animal body to the human body known to us now, and separated themselves into races and nations.

The great Fall of Man lay behind them.

It was the first act involving a voluntary decision after the spirit-germs had become self-conscious, and was caused by their placing the intellect above the spirit.

This in turn permitted the portentous hereditary sin to grow, which very soon made the hollow fruits of the governing intellect become clearly and easily recognizable.

The hereditary sin is the one-sided development of the brain through the exaggerated activity of the intellect, which as such is then perpetually inherited.

I have often mentioned this fact and shall in due course speak about it in much greater detail.

There will probably also be men who, when they grasp the way pointed out to them, will be able to help joyfully with the great work of enlightenment!

Without ceasing the great cosmic cycle continued on its course.

But erring mankind brought standstill and confusion into the progress which was necessary.

In the midst of this turmoil the Jewish people came under the well-known and oppressive scourge of the Egyptians.

Their tribulation and great longing for liberation hastened the maturity of their souls.

Thus they outstripped all others spiritually, because this strong emotional upheaval enabled them above all to see themselves as they really were, and also to look into the souls of their oppressors!

After they had clearly perceived that neither anything earthly nor the keenest cleverness of the intellect could help any longer, whereby they also recognized the emptiness of their own souls, their spiritual eye learned to see more keenly, and gradually there arose at last a conception of the actual Godhead truer and higher than any they had had before!

And stricken with grief, their prayers rose once again with much greater fervor.

Through this the Jewish people were able to become “the chosen people”, who for a period preceded all other people spiritually, because for their time they possessed the purest conception of Divinity, a conception as high as possible considering the existing maturity of the human soul.

Maturity of the spirit, however, must not be confused with knowledge acquired by learning, but you must always bear in mind that being spiritual is the same as having deep inner feeling (gemütvoll).

The advanced spiritual maturity of the Jews at that time enabled them to receive through Moses the Will of God clearly expressed in the form of laws, which constituted the greatest treasure and the best and most powerful support for the further development.

Just as world happenings will quite naturally always concentrate only where the maturity is greatest, so it gradually came to focus at that time upon the human race of the Jews, who were increasing in spiritual maturity.

But here again world events must not be confused with earthly world history, which is far removed from actual world events, and which mostly only portrays the effects of the often wrongly applied free will of the human spirit, which in turn always casts many stones into the actual happening, thereby often producing temporary distortions and earthly confusion!

The Jewish people of that time were ahead of the others in their religious cult and therefore stood closest to Truth in their views.

The natural consequence of this was that in accordance with the Law of Reciprocal Action the annunciation of an incarnation out of the Light was also bound to come upon this road which, being the most correct, led closest to the proximity of Truth!

Through their greater distance from the Truth all the other roads were closed to such a possibility, because they were lost in errors!

Again, in conformity with the Law of Attraction of Homogeneous Species, so absolutely necessary for any activity, it was not possible for a Bringer of Truth from the Light to come to an incarnation by any other road than that which lies closest to the Truth, and which therefore resembles His homogeneity most nearly.

Only this provides the necessary hold and attracts, whereas erroneous views repel and directly close the road upon which the Light might come and enter!

The Law of Reciprocal Action and the Law of Attraction of Homogeneous Species must also operate in this case without fail!

The Primordial Laws either open or close a road in their uniform and unswerving effects.

When in the course of time the Jews again allowed the intellect to dominate in their religion, breeding sordid place-hunting, the heavy hand of the Roman helped to keep a small group in the right recognition, so that the Word could be fulfilled!

Just as a spirit-germ in its still unfinished but yet higher spiritual nature can only enter that part of the world which is in a corresponding state of development, but never one which is unripe, nor one which is too ripe (as is the case today with our part of the world where only souls can live which have already been incarnated several times), so the process is no different with the incarnation of a Bringer of Truth
from the Light.

His Coming can only take place in that section of humanity which is most matured for this purpose.

In the case of a Divine Messenger the conditions of all the laws had to be observed most exactly!

He could only be born among those whose conceptions came closest to the Truth.

Just as a spirit-germ can enter the World of Matter only after the animistic has achieved the highest peak in its working, when standstill and thereby retrogression must occur unless the spirit-germ enters, so just before Christ’s Coming a point was reached in the World of Matter where the spiritual, through the confusion caused by hereditary sin, could not continue to develop.

The free will resting in the spirit, instead of furthering all that existed, had cut off the upward development towards the Heights which is willed in Creation and, through the elevation of the intellect, had one-sidedly directed all its abilities to what is material only.

The animistic, which does not possess free will, had carried out the development of Creation exactly in conformity with Nature, that is, completely in accordance with the Divine Will of the Creator.

The spiritual, however, with its gift of free will, had through the Fall of Man rendered itself incapable of playing its part, and brought only confusion and standstill into the further development of matter.

The false application of the ability given to it to direct the Divine Creative Power, as a necessary step forward in the development of matter, was even bound to lead to descent instead of to the highest development!

Through the Fall of Man the human spirit forcibly retarded all real further development, for mundane technical achievements are not actual progress in the sense of cosmic events willed by God.

Therefore the quickest aid, intervention by the Creator Himself, was necessary!

With every further century evil would have so increased that the possibility of a way to Divine Help would gradually have become entirely out of the question, because the dominion of the intellect would in the course of time have completely cut off any understanding of all that is truly spiritual, and even more so of what is Divine!

Thus there would have been no anchorage available for an incarnation from the Light!

It was out of this distress that there arose the great Divine Mystery that God in His Love made the sacrifice for Creation of sending down to earth a portion of Divinity in order to bring Light to those who had gone astray.

The animistic in the World of Matter had fulfilled its task in the development of Creation.

The spiritual, however, had completely failed through mankind.

But, even worse, the spiritual had used the power of decision, which was granted to it for the furthering of Creation, to achieve exactly the contrary!

Thus it became hostile to Divine Volition, using for this purpose Divinity’s own power supplied to it to do God’s Will!

Man may well ponder how great is his guilt in this!

The birth of Christ was a Divine Act of Love for the entire Creation, which was in danger of being undermined by the erring human spirit!

This also necessitated that the Divine part then incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth must reunite completely with the Father, as Christ Himself had repeatedly emphasized!

He must again become One with Him!

It was only through Christ’s Message that the gates to Paradise were unlocked for mature human spirits.

The ability to understand the way there aright did not exist until then.

This Message was meant for earthmen as well as for those already departed, as is every Divine Message and every Word of Luminous Truth!

After learning about the severity of the Laws, men also heard in the Message of a Love which up till then they would not have been able to comprehend, but which they were now meant to engender within themselves.

Yet this Message of Love did not overthrow the laws, but only developed them!

They were meant to remain as the firm foundation which, in their effects, would produce such love!

Later on attempts were made to build upon this Word of the Son of God, but I have already pointed out in the beginning of my lecture the errors that crept into these attempts through many wrong assumptions.

Let us cast a glance at the history of Christianity!

It will teach us the best lesson and at the same time throw a ray of light upon all religions.

We find the same faults everywhere!

Without exception every Bringer of Truth, whether great or small, has had to suffer mockery and scorn, persecution and attack by his dear fellow-men, who in just the same way today always like to consider themselves too clever and too wise to accept the explanations of the Will of their Creator from His Messengers, especially since these Messengers never in fact issued from any of mankind’s great institutions of learning!

An explanation of the Divine Will is fundamentally nothing but the interpretation of the course of His Creation, in which men live and of which they are also a part.

To know Creation, then, means everything!

If a man has this knowledge it is very easy for him to make use of all it contains and offers.

This ability to make use of it in turn brings him every advantage.

Thus he will soon recognize and fulfil the real purpose of his existence and, furthering everything, he will rise towards the Light, a joy to himself and nothing but a blessing to his surroundings!

But men scoffed at every Messenger and thus also at the Message itself.

Not once did it happen that such a Messenger was made welcome, no matter how much good He did!

He always remained an annoyance, as can of course be easily explained if one considers the enmity of the intellect towards God, which in itself proves that this enmity towards God is a definite fact.

Christ clearly sums up all these happenings when He speaks of the master who sent out his servants to collect what was due to him from his tenants.

But instead of receiving the rent the servants were scoffed at and beaten before they were scornfully sent back empty-handed!

Once again this is glossed over by calling it a parable!

In snug comfort one always seats oneself beside these facts, without ever applying them to oneself!

Or one has the desire to explain that it is a distinction conferred by God upon His Messengers if they have to suffer in this manner, instead of regarding it as a crime on the part of mankind which is not willed by God!

Because the intellect needs tinsel and sham to cover its limitations, which would otherwise become plainly visible, it makes almost desperate efforts to look down with absolute contempt upon the simplicity of Truth, which it fears will become a danger!

It needs jingling bells for the cap it is wearing, and many great words to keep attention centered upon itself!

But its contempt for the unvarnished simplicity of Truth has long since turned to uneasiness!

More and more bells are added to this gaudy fool’s cap which, through convulsive contortions and antics, are made to jingle louder and ever louder in order to maintain itself for as long as possible on the usurped throne!

But of late these antics have become a dance of despair, which will soon become the last dance of death!

The exertions are increasing, they must increase, because ever more distinctly the hollowness is forced to reveal itself in spite of all this jingling!

And in the greatest and most furious antic which is being prepared the gaudy cap will at last fall from the head!

Then the crown of unvarnished Truth will lift itself, radiant and steadying, up to that place which alone is its due!

And those serious seekers who have become quite confused by these grotesque and incomprehensible distortions will at last receive a firm foothold and support for their view!

Without any exertion they will be able fully to comprehend the whole Truth, whereas up till now it was certain to cost great trouble to unearth even a minute particle!

Let us return to simplicity in thinking!

Otherwise no one can fully grasp that which is great and can thus never attain to it!

Think as simply as children!

That is the true meaning of the great words: “If ye do not become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!”

The way there can never be found with the complicated present-day thinking!

Even in the churches and religions it is no different as yet!

If these maintain that sufferings help one to ascend and that therefore they come under the mercy of God, this contains a small grain of Truth, but badly distorted in a glossing over sort of way!

For God does not will that His people should suffer!

He wills only joy, love and happiness!

The way within the Light cannot be otherwise!

The way towards the Light has stones only if man first places them there!

The grain of Truth in the doctrine of suffering is that with this suffering a certain guilt may be redeemed.

This can only happen, however, when a man consciously recognizes that he deserves this suffering, as did the penitent thief on the cross.

The way all the world goes on living today is just senseless!

Even those who talk about the redemption of karma in such a clever way!

They err, because it is still much more difficult than these would-be sages imagine.

For karma reactions do not always bring atonements.

Let every man mark this well!

On the contrary, they may drag him still further down!

Notwithstanding the reaction due to guilt, the ascent of every man solely depends on his inner attitude.

How he sets his course inwardly, whether upwards, straight on, or downwards, thus and not otherwise will he proceed in spite of all he experiences!

Here it becomes clear that he is not, nor ever can be, the plaything of fortune, but must direct his actual course alone through the power of his free will!

In this respect a man’s will always remains free up to the last moment.

In this every man is truly his own free master, only he must never forget that according to his attitude the consequences lead him upwards or downwards!

If, however, he sets his course in an upwards direction with insight and a firm will, evil reactions will hit him less and less, and will finally have only a symbolical effect, because through his ascent he has already been removed from the nether regions of evil reactions, even though he may still be on this earth.

It is not at all necessary that a man must suffer if he strives towards the Light!

Away, therefore, with the bandage which many placed before their eyes so that they would not tremble at the sight of the abyss that has yawned before them for a long time!

Temporary relief from anxiety afforded by such a bandage is not strength-giving help, but only a loss of time through negligence which can never be retrieved!

There has never yet been a right explanation and justification for the suffering on earth.

Therefore narcotics were offered in the form of palliatives, which over and over again are thoughtlessly handed out to the sufferers in more or less clever language.

The great fault of one-sidedness in all religions!

And if a desperate seeker for once requires too precise an answer, then that which is not understood is simply pushed into the realm of Divine mystery.

All unsolved questions have finally to end up there, as in a harbor of refuge, clearly showing thereby that they are on the wrong course!

For the end of every right course is clearly visible and does not terminate in something that is impenetrable!

Wherever the “inscrutable ways of God” have to serve as an explanation, there ignorance is unmistakably in evidence!

There need not and must not be any mystery within Creation for man!

For God wills that His Laws working in Creation should be quite familiar to man, so that he can adjust himself accordingly, and with their help can complete and fulfil his course through the world more easily and without ignorantly going astray!

Thus it remains one of the most fatal conceptions to consider the brutal murder of the Son of God as a necessary propitiatory sacrifice for mankind!

To think that this brutal murder of His Son would reconcile God!

Because no logical explanation can be advanced for this peculiar conception, in the ensuing confusion one again slips behind the frequently used protective screen of Divine mystery, making it something which can never become understandable to man.

Yet God is so clear in everything He does!

He is lucidity itself!

He created Nature out of His Will, and therefore what is natural must also be right, since the Will of God is absolutely perfect!

But the propitiatory sacrifice on the cross must be unnatural to every sane mind, because being against the innocent Son of God it is also unjust!

All twisting and turning is useless!

Rather should a man frankly confess that such a thing is truly beyond all comprehension!

However much he likes to exercise his mind he will never come to any conclusion.

The fact is that in this case he can no longer understand his God.

But it is God’s Will that He should be understood!

And He can be understood, since the expression of His Will clearly rests in Creation and never contradicts itself.

Only men take the trouble to introduce what is incomprehensible when making religious investigations!

The structure men so laboriously erected with the fundamentally false idea of a necessary vicarious sacrifice in the death on the cross is already destroyed by the words of the Savior Himself at the time He was nailed to the cross!

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”

Would this intercession have been necessary if the death on the cross was meant to be a necessary propitiatory sacrifice?

“For they know not what they do!”

This is an accusation of the gravest kind!

A clear indication that what they were doing was wrong, that this deed was nothing but an ordinary crime!

Would Christ have prayed in Gethsemane that this cup of suffering might pass from Him if His death on the cross was necessary as a vicarious sacrifice?

Never!

Christ would not have done so!

It was because He knew that the tortures awaiting Him were nothing but the consequence of the free will of man that He prayed thus!

For two thousand years men have blindly passed this by, accepting with their empty minds what is absolutely impossible instead!

It is indeed distressing frequently to hear it seriously affirmed that the more favored ones among today’s disciples of Jesus, male as well as female, are endowed with physical suffering, such as stigmata!

Such a view, of course, only originates in the false interpretation of Christ’s suffering on earth!

Indeed it could not be otherwise!

I still have to mention how personally serious these consequences can become!

How much thoughtlessness and what rigid servility are required so to depict the Almighty Creator that He could be thought to act in such a way!

It is without doubt the most sinful debasement of the Sublime Godhead, for the conception of Whose Essential Nature the most beautiful cannot be beautiful enough and the best is still not good enough, in order to come only a little closer to reality!

And to think that this great God should be capable of demanding that man whom He has created is to writhe in pain before Him when He accords him grace!

How can anyone holding such views ascend?

Men shape their God as they wish to have Him; they dictate the direction of His Volition!

And woe to Him if He is not what they think He ought to be!

Then He is rejected forthwith, just as they condemn and fight against all those who dare to see God as much greater and more sublime!

But no greatness is to be found in the past conceptions of man!

On the contrary they merely bear witness to man’s unshakable belief in his own worth.

God has to beg for the favor of mankind!

He Who was allowed to receive back from their bloodstained hands His Son Whom He had once sent to help them with the saving Message – scorned, mocked, scourged and tortured!

Does one still wish even today to affirm that all this was a necessary propitiatory sacrifice for God?

When Christ Himself in His agony and absolute despair at their blindness cried out:

“They know not what they do”?

Is there any possibility at all to lead mankind on to the right road?

The most drastic happening is still too weak to accomplish this!

When will man at last recognize to what depths he has actually sunk?

How empty and hollow are the conceptions he has conjured up for himself!

As soon, however, as one digs a trifle deeper one comes upon selfishness in its most undisguised form neatly hidden away.

Even if now people on all sides speak of seeking God in high-sounding words, this again is great hypocrisy and the usual self-complacency entirely devoid of any really serious longing for pure Truth!

They only seek for self-worship – for nothing else!

No man seriously strives to understand God!

With a benign smile they disregard and quickly push aside the simplicity of Truth, for they imagine themselves to be much too knowledgeable, much too high and much too important as that their God could still deal with simplicity.

To uphold their honor He must be much more complicated!

Otherwise it would not be worth believing in Him!

In their view how can they possibly be expected to recognize something that is easily understandable to every unlearned person!

Anything like that cannot be considered great!

Today they dare not occupy themselves with such things, otherwise they would be liable to make great fools of themselves!

Let this be for children, old women and the unlettered!

Anyhow it is not for men with such well-trained intellects, with such intelligence, as are so much in evidence among the “cultured” of today!

Let the ordinary man concern himself with that!

Education and learnedness apply their standard of greatness only to what holds the possibility of being the most difficult to comprehend!

Ignorant indeed are those who think thus!

They are not worthy to receive one further drop of water from the Hand of the Creator in the weaving of Creation!

They have so limited themselves as to preclude the possibility of recognizing the radiant sublimity which lies in the simplicity of the Divine Laws.

They are literally incapable of doing so or, to put it more bluntly, too stupid owing to their one-sidedly stunted brain, which from the hour of their birth right up till now they carry around with them like a trophy of the highest achievement!

It is indeed an act of mercy if the Creator will leave them to perish in the structure they have erected!

For wherever one looks all is hostile towards God, distorted by the morbid ambition of every man of intellect, whose incapacity is evident everywhere!

And this has been going on with increasing intensity for thousands of years!

It has inevitably carried the poison into the churches and religions, a corrosive evil which was the inevitable consequence of the Fall of Man, wherein man decided in favor of the absolute dominion of the intellect!

This wrongfully usurped authority has at all times deceived those it has enslaved in everything that concerns the Divine, even in all that is spiritual!

He who does not cast down this throne within himself and thereby become free must perish with it!

One can no longer speak of poor mankind, for they are consciously guilty, as guilty as ever a creature could be!

The words: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do” are no longer appropriate for man kind of today.

They had more than one opportunity to open their eyes and their ears.

They act in full consciousness, and all reactions must therefore hit them with full force, unabated!

If now the ring of all the past happenings closes, then the reaping, the harvest, and the separation for this part of Creation will take place.

Since the creation of the entire World of Matter this has never occurred before!

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