THE FAMILY BOND

THE INTIMATE HOME!

These words vibrate in a way which clearly indicates what a home that man establishes for himself here on earth must be like.

The expression is quite right, as is everything given to men by the word, but here also man has distorted the clear meaning and dragged it down with him through his decline.

Thus man deprived himself of one foothold after another which could offer him support during his life on earth.

And due to men’s wrong way of thinking all that was originally pure was badly obscured, and frequently it was even wantonly changed into a slough which developed into a mass grave for souls.

This also includes the family bond in its past form, the family bond so often praised and emphasized as something noble and rich in character with a specially high value, as something proffering man great support, strengthening and furthering him and making him an estimable citizen on earth, who becomes capable of stepping out secure and protected in his struggle for existence, as men today like to call every life on earth.

But how foolish you are, you men, how narrowly you have constricted your outlook on everything, particularly on that which concerns you and your wanderings through the Creations.

It is just the family bond you value so highly which is one of those pits that with absolute certainty demands innumerable victims – and gets them too!

For through the unwritten laws of human customs many people are flung into it without consideration and held fast by a thousand arms until, with their souls languishing piteously, they adapt themselves defenselessly to the indolent mass, which drags them along into the depths of feeble impersonality!

And strangely enough it is particularly all those people tenaciously trying to cling to such wrong forms who imagine they can thereby stand successfully before God as being especially valuable.

But I say to you that they, too, must be counted among those who are dangerous, who impede instead of furthering the development and strengthening of many human spirits!

Tear open the gates of your intuitive perception at last, so that you may now recognize for yourselves the wrong that has settled itself into all matters and habits which man made for himself, for he formed them under the domination of the distorted intellect, which was led by Lucifer!

I will try to give you a picture which can bring you nearer to an understanding.

It is closely connected with the great and lawful rotation in Creation which, stimulated by the Law of Movement, is meant to keep everything healthy, because vigor and strength can only be maintained through right movement.

Let us assume what it is intended to be like on earth, not what it is like now!

Then all that is spiritual on earth would resemble a clear liquid, which is and remains in a perpetual rotating movement, so that it does not thicken or perhaps even congeal.

Also imagine a lively, babbling brook!

How delicious is its water, how refreshing and invigorating, offering a restorative to all who are thirsty, and thereby bringing joy and dispensing blessing along the course it pursues.

But if here and there a small portion separates from this water, leaping to the side independently, then in most cases the part which has severed itself soon becomes stagnant as a small pool.

Through its isolation it quickly loses its freshness and clearness and gives off a stale smell, because without movement it gradually becomes putrid, it is bound to become bad and foul!

It is exactly the same with the spiritual swinging of men on earth.

As long as it rotates harmoniously according to the Law of Movement, without any retardation or haste, it will also develop beneficially to unsuspected strength, thereby bringing continuous ascent in its train, because it is simultaneously furthered by every species of vibration in the entire Creation.

Nothing obstructs it, but everything unites with it joyously, helping and strengthening its working.

Such was once the swinging a long, long time ago, and with a healthy unconstraint and naturalness every human spirit developed joyfully and rose ever higher in his recognizing.

He gratefully absorbed all the rays that could be sent from the Light to help him.

And thus a fresh stream of spiritual power of the Living Water flooded as far down as to the earth, and from there peacefully back again to the Source of Preservation, in the form of grateful worship and as the outflow of continual experiencing.

Everywhere the consequence was a glorious thriving, and spontaneous chords of undimmed purity resounded throughout the entire Creation like a jubilant song of praise in the happy, unhindered rotation of harmonious movement.

This is how it was until the distortion of the recognitions through forming wrong basic conceptions began in man’s vanity.

This brought about disturbances in the wonderful co-operation of all the rays in Creation which, through their continually increasing power, must finally enforce the collapse of everything that closely united with them.

In addition to many other things these disturbances also include the present-day rigid family bond in its wrong form and its almost unbelievable extension.

You need only picture it to yourselves!

In the harmonious swinging and rotating of the upward striving spirit, which radiated around the earth invigoratingly and which, together with the Animistic, dispensed blessings, penetrated it brightly and pulled it upwards with itself through the strong longing for the Light, obstructions suddenly appeared in the form of small solidifications which went along only sluggishly with the rotation.

It is like a soup which is cooling off, where the fat congeals and separates.

You can perhaps understand it even better when I compare the process with unhealthy blood which thickens here and there, and which can only flow sluggishly through the body, thus hampering the necessary and preserving movement of pulsation.

This picture will enable you better to recognize the fundamental, serious significance of the spiritual pulsation in Creation, which – as a minor reflection – finds its coarsest expression in the blood of the physical body.

You can understand this more clearly than you can the illustrations of the soup and the gurgling brook.

Another comparison which may also help is when disturbing grains of sand are thrown into a well-oiled machine!

As soon as the family bond, which in itself is quite natural, develops along unhealthy and wrong lines, it is bound to have a hampering and debasing effect in the necessary swinging of the Law of Movement of joyful upward striving; for the present idea about the family sticking closely together is only based on the upbringing, and on the preservation of gross material advantages and comforts as well, nothing else!

Thus there gradually came into being the family “lumps”, which due to their peculiar characteristics simply cannot be called anything different, and which burden and paralyze all spiritual swinging.

For those who belong to them bind each other, hang upon each other, and thereby form a heaviness which holds and drags them down ever further.

They make themselves dependent upon each other, and gradually lose the pronounced individual personality which as characteristic of a spiritual being thus also obliges them to be so.

With this they heedlessly push aside the command contained for them in the Will of God, and turn themselves into a kind of group souls, which due to their nature they can never really become.

Each member interferes with the path taken by the other, often even wanting to prevail over the other, thus knotting untearable binding threads which chain them all together and press them down.

They make it difficult for the individual to sever himself from it when his spirit awakens, and to stride by himself along the path on which he can develop and which fate also prescribes for him.

Thus it becomes impossible to rid himself of his karma for the God-willed ascent of his spirit.

As soon as he wishes to undertake only the first step along the path to freedom of his spirit, which will be the right one only for him and his particular nature (but not at the same time for all those who call themselves members of the family), then a great shout is immediately set up, together with admonitions, petitions, reproaches or even threats from all those who seek to pull this “ungrateful one” back into the constraint of their family love or views!

What all is achieved with this, what is quoted about it, especially when it concerns the most precious things a man possesses, such as the power of decision of his free volition in spiritual matters, the power of decision which is given him by God and which is also necessary, for which solely he alone and nobody else in his place is held responsible by the Law of Reciprocal Action!

It is the Will of God that man should absolutely develop an individuality of his own, with the most pronounced awareness of his responsibility for his thoughts, volition and actions!

However, the possibilities for developing one’s own personality for the strengthening of an independent capacity of decision, and above all the necessary fortification of the spirit and the preservation of its mobility for constant wakefulness – all of which can arise only as a result of being dependent upon oneself – all this becomes utterly submerged in the fettered family bond!

It dulls and suffocates the budding and joyful blossoming of what is most precious in man, of that which marks him before other gross material creatures as a human being, that which is the individual personality, for which his spiritual origin qualifies and destines him.

It cannot come to the point of unfolding; for if the family bond is of an unfair kind, if it lays claim to rights which do not really exist at all, then it often becomes a shocking torment, ruptures the peace and destroys all happiness.

The consequence is that finally any buoyancy is blown away.

Just for once call upon those people who already had to suffer under this and whose souls thereby languished – they will comprise numbers almost beyond counting!

And when the love of earthmen, or at least the feeling which earthmen call love, penetrates the family bond in a benevolent way, this is not much better either; for then each one constantly tries to make everything as comfortable as possible for the other, to spare him just that which would force his spiritual powers to develop… out of love, solicitude, or family duty!

And persons whose every path is smoothed are often envied, and perhaps even hated on account of it!

In reality, however, they are only to be pitied!

For the love so wrongly directed, or the customs of a family bond applied in the wrong way, should never be considered as a good action; instead they have the effect of a slow poison which with infallible certainty prevents the powers of those concerned from developing, thereby only weakening their spirits.

The periodic compulsion which is provided for in the natural course of things is taken away from men, the compulsion which challenges all their spiritual powers to unfold, and which especially in this way offers the best and surest aid for their spiritual development, as a Grace of the Omnipotent Creator in which great blessings for the preservation and furthering of everything are contained.

Today’s notorious and valued family bond in its wider meaning is like a dangerous sleeping draught for every human spirit, tiring and paralyzing him.

It obstructs and hinders the necessary spiritual ascent, because the individual members of the family are spared the very things that can help to strengthen them.

Spiritually weary hothouse plants are raised and cultivated, but not strong spirits!

A thousandfold are the kinds of harmful, hampering customs which the wrongly-applied family bond brings in its wake as evil consequences.

You shall yet learn to recognize them very quickly and easily if you only become capable of considering everything from the right point of view, which must bring life and movement into this hitherto sluggish mass of easy-going family “lumps”.

These family lumps wallow about, dam and block the God-willed circulation of healthy spiritual movement, which accords with the Laws of Creation, paralyzing and poisoning all joyous vitality, while at the same time they embrace as if with a thousand clasps the upward striving human spirits, so that they will not escape or bring disquietude into the long-accustomed run of things, which would disturb the self-complacent attitude of these family lumps.

You will realize with horror how you yourselves are still stuck in many such threads, similar to a fly caught in the web of a death-dealing spider!

Once you only make a move, once you try to struggle free from this in order to attain to your God-willed spiritual independence (because you alone have to bear the responsibility), then you will realize with a shudder how far-reaching the effect of your mere attempt to move suddenly becomes; and only through this can you recognize how manifold are these threads into which wrong customs have relentlessly woven you!

You will be seized with alarm at this recognition, which you can only find through experiencing.

However, you will get the experience quickly, it will flare up around you as soon as your surroundings see that you are in earnest about changing your way of thinking and intuitive perception, that your spirit wants to awaken and wander along its own paths, the paths which are ordained for its development, and also at the same time for its liberation and redemption as the reciprocal action arising out of former decisions.

You will be surprised, indeed dismayed, to see that they are perfectly willing to forgive you every gross error, everything, even the very worst, except the effort to become spiritually free and to have personal convictions about it!

Even if you do not want to say anything at all about it, if you leave others in peace over it, you will see that all this can change nothing, because they do not leave you in peace!

If you calmly observe and investigate, however, it must only strengthen you in recognizing all the wrong that people carry within themselves.

For they show it very plainly by the way in which they present themselves in their sudden and newly-awakened zeal to hold you back!

A zeal which only arises on account of the disquietude brought about by the unaccustomed, and which comes from the urge to remain in the usual lukewarmness and not to be disturbed therefrom!

It is fear of being suddenly confronted with a truth, which is utterly different from that with which they have so far lulled themselves in indolent self-complacency!

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