NATURE

IN THE SAME WAY as the expression “soul” became a vague general conception among men, so is it also with the expression “nature”!

This word has also been used far too often as a great collective conception for everything they liked to dispose of easily, without having to rack their brains over it.

It was especially used for those things where man knew in advance that he would be unable to come to a clear solution.

How often is the word “natural” used without the user having anything definite in mind?

Man speaks of being “close to nature”, of beautiful nature, of boisterous nature, of natural instincts, and so on in numberless terms, by which they seek to define something in big outlines that can be more or less related to nature.

But what is nature? It is just this basic expression which must first of all be quite clearly understood before it is applied to every conceivable thing!

However, when you raise this question you will no doubt receive many explanations, presented with a greater or lesser degree of conviction as to the details; but you can clearly recognize from all this that men’s conceptions in this matter are very varied, and lack a uniform knowledge.

For this reason let us open up a way in this matter so as to obtain a definite picture in our conception of this word “nature”!

The best thing to do is to divide the conception about this into sections in our imaginative faculty in order to arrive more easily at an understanding of the whole.

Let us first take the coarse form of “nature”, thus the outward appearance!

For the sake of simplicity I will make an exception and begin with the thinking of earthman, and only at the end shall I reverse everything so that the correct course, i.e., from above downwards, is again placed before your gaze.

When nature is considered in its coarsest sense, thus viewed with your physical eyes on earth, it comprises material substance which has been “set aglow” and consequently animated and formed.

By material substance you must imagine the various layers of the World of Matter.

This includes in the first place all the pictures which you can perceive with your physical eyes, such as landscapes and all the stationary and mobile forms of plants and animals; expressed more comprehensively – everything you are able to perceive through your physical body with your gross material senses!

Excluded from this, however, is everything men have formed artificially whereby they introduce changes into what exists, as with houses and any other products.

This has then ceased to count as nature.

Here we already come closer to a fundamental distinction: That which man changes, i.e., that which he does not leave in its original state, no longer belongs to nature in its real sense!

However, since I also say that nature in its outermost manifestation is the World of Gross Matter, which has been set aglow and thus animated and formed, and since you already know from my Message that animistic forces permeate and set the Worlds of Matter aglow, you can directly conclude from this that nature can only be that which is most closely associated with the animistic forces.

Here I am referring to those animistic (substantiate) forces which form a ring round the Worlds of Matter.

This is a very special species of which we must now soon speak.

As a special species of Creation it must be separated from the great general conception of that which is Substantiate, which exists as a foundation in all spheres, reaching right up to the boundary where the Unsubstantiality of God begins.

The present conceptions of the Substantiate which I could already give you I shall have gradually to draw still further apart, if I wish to complete the picture which, with the increasing maturity of your spirit, you will be able to absorb.

Therefore nature is everything in the World of Matter which, being permeated and set aglow by the animistic forces (these I must yet describe more fully to you), was able to form and to unite, and which in its basic species was not changed by the human spirit.

Not to change the basic species given by the animistic – that is the prerequisite for the correct expression: “Nature”!

Thus the term “nature” is quite inseparably linked with the animistic which permeates the World of Matter.

From this you can also rightly conclude that nature is not necessarily bound to matter but only to the animistic, and that to be natural, and nature in general, are the undistorted effects of animistic activity.

Thus step by step we come ever nearer to the Truth; for in going further we can now also conclude that nature and spirit can only be comprehended separately!

Nature is based upon the activity of a very definite animistic species, while spirit, as you know, is something entirely different.

It is true that spirit is often placed right into the middle of nature through incarnations, but it is not nature nor a part of it, in the same way as nature is not a part of the human spirit either!

I know it is not easy for you to recognize clearly from these brief words what the question is, but if you delve into it properly you will be able to grasp it; and in the end it is your spirit above all which must become mobile through exerting itself to penetrate the Word which I can give you.

It is just the exertion required to achieve this which brings you the mobility that protects your spirit, keeping it from slumber and death, and pulling it up from the claws of the creeping Darkness.

Although people very often try with intellectual subtlety and malice to reproach me that it is just to gain influence that I oppress, scare and threaten men through my Word with hints as to the ever-lurking danger of spiritual slumber and death, I shall never cease to illustrate the dangers threatening your spirit, so that you will know them and no longer fall blindly into snares and temptations.

For I serve God and not men!

With this I give what benefits men, and not merely what pleases them in the earthly sense but kills them spiritually.

It is just that with which people seek to attack my Word maliciously in service to the Darkness (which is already defending itself desperately), it is just that which gives evidence of nothing but the fact that I serve God in truth and do not also try to please men with the Word in order to catch them for my Word!

Men must indeed be torn out of their self-chosen spiritual comfort, which can only put them to sleep instead of strengthening them and animating them.

Just as Jesus once said admonishingly that only he who is born anew inwardly can enter the Kingdom of God, together with His often repeated reference to the fact that everything must become new in order to pass before God!

And ever again men themselves speak about these weighty words with a ringing sincerity of conviction as to the truth contained in them.

But if they are confronted with the demand that they must first let themselves become new in spirit, then they cry out one lament after another, for they never thought about themselves in this respect!

Now they feel harassed in their comfort, and yet they were hoping to be admitted to Heaven with jubilant songs without themselves doing anything about it except to enjoy all the pleasures!

Now they try to drown the inconvenient Caller with their clamor in the conviction that they will once more accomplish the same as was done with Jesus, Whom they first morally branded and murdered as a criminal, rebel and blasphemer before all men, so that thereafter He could even be sentenced and killed with the apparent justification of the human laws!

Even if it is different in many things today there is no lack on earth of a cunning cleverness of the intellect which serves the Darkness for the purpose of skillfully distorting what is most simple and clear, and thus influencing the inoffensive and disinterested; in the same way as there have been at all times willing false witnesses, who can achieve much through envy and hatred or through the prospect of gain!

But the Holy Will of God is mightier than the actions of such people!

It does not err in its adamantine Justice, as is possible among men!

Thus in the end all Darkness with its evil volition must serve only the Light, hence bear witness for the Light.

But those men who exert themselves seriously to grasp the Truth of God will learn from this, will recognize the Sublimity of God, His Wisdom and His Love, and serve Him joyfully!

Beware of the indolence of your spirit, of comfort and superficiality, you men, and remember the parable of the wise and the foolish virgins!

It is plain enough in its great simplicity, so that everybody can easily grasp the sense.

Act upon it inwardly, then all else will come of itself.

Nothing can confuse you, for you go quietly and with firm strides along your path!

But now let us return to the expression “nature”, the conception of which I wish to mediate to you as a necessity!

I have already explained the first and most dense section thereof in broad outline.

As soon as man in his activities will, as a basis, allow nature really to remain nature, and will not seek to interfere with its species and change them, but simply achieve the upbuilding by fostering a healthy, i.e., an undistorted development, then he will also find and receive a crowning of his works in everything; which he could never previously hope for, because everything that has been forcibly perverted from its natural state can in its growth only bring forth what is distorted, which possesses neither firm support nor continual existence.

This, being fundamental, will also some time hence be of great value to the sciences.

Only in the way in which nature, with its animistic working in accordance with the Laws of Creation, brings about unions of material substances, only therein lies an upbuilding power and radiation; whereas in the case of other unions devised by men, which do not precisely accord with these Laws, radiations form which harm one another, perhaps even destroy and disintegrate one another, of the actual final results of which men have no idea.

Nature in its perfection according to the Laws of Creation is the most beautiful gift that God presented to His creatures!

It can bring only benefit as long as it is not distorted by change, and guided into wrong channels by the stubborn pseudo-knowledge of these earthmen!

Now let us pass over to a second section of “nature” which is not immediately visible to the physical eye!

This section consists mainly of medium gross matter, i.e., not the most dense and heavy kind which must be immediately perceptible to the earthly eye on account of its heaviness.

As regards medium gross matter the physical eye can only observe its effects in heavy gross matter.

To these, for example, belong the strengthening of everything that was formed through being “set aglow”, and its unfolding as it grows and ripens.

A third section of “nature” is the propagation, which occurs automatically at a very definite stage in the process of being set aglow and of development.

The propagation in the “glowed-through” gross material substance has therefore nothing to do with the spirit, but belongs to “nature”!

Therefore the urge for propagation is correctly designated as a natural instinct.

A very definite ripeness of the material substance, permeated and set aglow by the animistic, results in radiations which, when positive and negative kinds meet, unite and react upon the gross material, pressing upon it and causing it to become active.

The spirit has nothing to do with this, rather this activity is a tribute to nature!

It stands quite apart from the spiritual, as I have already hinted once before.

If we therefore call this exchange of radiations and uniting a tribute to nature this is right; for this is the way of the entire World of Matter that has been permeated and set aglow by the animistic up to a certain definite degree.

With it the World of Matter always seeks to bring about a renewal that accords with the Laws of Creation, which renewal on the one hand acts as a preserving agency and on the other hand requires propagation.

This Law of Nature as it manifests itself is the result of definite radiations.

It brings about preservation through the accompanying stimulation and renewal of the cells.

This is the primary and main purpose of this tribute which nature demands from the mobile creatures.

Nature knows no distinction therein and all the effects are useful and good.

But here again man has aggravated everything in his own case to the point of abnormality, and thus distorted and twisted it, although it is just he who could find a normal balance through special kinds of earthly activity.

But he pays no attention to what nature demands of him through its quiet reminder or warning.

By exaggerating everything abnormally he wants to direct or master nature with his ignorant stubborn volition; he often wants to force nature in a manner that must harm and weaken gross matter or even destroy it; and thus in this, too, he has brought about devastation, just as he has done in the entire Creation.

The human being who was at first only a disturbing agent has now become a destroying one with everything he thinks and does, wherever he may be!

He has therewith placed himself beneath all creatures!

First learn thoroughly to know the nature from which you long ago turned aside, then it will be possible for you to become human beings again, human beings who live in the Creative Will of God, and who will thus reap health through nature for a joyful upbuilding activity on earth, which alone can help and further the spirit towards its necessary maturity.

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