2. Awake!
Awaken, you humans, from your leaden sleep! Recognize the unworthy burden you carry, which weighs on millions of people with unspeakably tenacious pressure. Throw it off! Is it worth carrying? Not for a single second!
What does it hold? Empty chaff that flutters shyly before the breath of truth. You have wasted the time and strength for nothing. Therefore, break the chains that hold you down, free yourselves at last!
The man who remains inwardly bound will be eternally a slave, even if he were king.
You bind yourselves with everything you aspire to learn. Consider: With learning you always force yourself into alien forms that others have devised, you willingly join an alien conviction, you only make your own what others have experienced in themselves, for themselves. Remember: One is not for all! What is useful to one can be harmful to another. Each individual has his own path to perfection. His tools for this are the abilities he carries within himself. He has to orientate himself according to them and build on them! If he does not do this, he will remain a stranger within himself, always standing next to what he has learned, which can never come alive in him. Any gain for him is thus excluded. He vegetates, progress is impossible.
Take heed, you who earnestly strive for light and truth:
Each individual must experience the path to the Light within himself, he must discover it himself if he wants to walk on it safely. Only what a person experiences within himself, with all the changes he feels, has he fully grasped!
Suffering and joy are constantly throbbing to encourage and rouse spiritual awakening. For a few seconds, the human being is very often detached from every triviality of everyday life, and in happiness as in pain, feels a foreboding connection with the spirit that flows through all living things.
And everything is life, nothing is dead! Blessed is he who grasps and holds such moments of connection, who swings upwards on them. In doing so, he must not adhere to rigid forms, but each one should develop himself, out of his inner being.
Have pity on the scoffers and all those who are still alienated from spiritual life. Do not be angry with them when they become sarcastic, for these are only to be pitied. Like drunkards, like sick people, they stand before the great work of Creation that offers us so much. Like blind men who grope their way through life on earth and do not see all the glory around them!
The poorest are bewildered, they are asleep; for how can a man, for example, still claim that only what he sees is? That where he cannot notice anything with his eyes, there is no life? That with the dying of his body he himself also ceases to be, only because hitherto in his blindness he has not been able to convince himself of the contrary by his eye? Does he not already know of many things now how narrowly limited is the faculty of the eye? Does he not yet know that it is connected with the capacity of his brain, which is bound to space and time? That for this reason he cannot recognize with his eye everything that rises above space and time? Have none of these scoffers yet been made aware of such logical reasoning? Spiritual life, let us also call it the Beyond, is after all only something that stands entirely above the earthly division of space and time, which therefore requires a similar way of being recognized.
But our eye does not even see that which can be divided into space and time. Think of the drop of water, of whose unconditional purity every eye bears witness, and which, viewed through an aggravated glass, harbours millions of living creatures that mercilessly fight and destroy each other within it. Are there not sometimes bacilli in the water, in the air, which have the power to destroy human bodies, and which are not visible to the eye? But they become visible through the sharp instruments. Who will then dare to assert that you see nothing new, nothing still unknown, as soon as you sharpen these instruments more? Increase them a thousandfold, a millionfold, the seeing will therefore not come to an end, but ever new worlds will open up before you, which you could not see before, nor feel, yet they were there. Logical thinking brings the same conclusions to everything that the sciences have been able to gather so far. There is a prospect of continuous development, but never of an end.
What then is the beyond? Many are misled by the word. Beyond is simply everything that cannot be recognized with earthly aids. Earthly aids, however, are eyes, the brain, and everything else of the body, as well as instruments which help the parts to exercise their activity even more sharply and precisely, to extend it further. One could therefore say: the beyond is what is beyond the cognitive capacity of our physical eyes. But there is no separation between this world and the next! No gulf either! It is all unified, like the whole of Creation. One power flows through this world as well as the next, everything lives and works from this one stream of life, and is thereby quite inseparably connected. From this the following becomes understandable. If one part of it is diseased, the effect must be felt in the other part, as in a body. Diseased substances of this other part then flow over to the diseased part through the attraction of the like kind, thus intensifying the disease still more. But if such a disease becomes incurable, the necessary compulsion flows from it to forcibly expel the diseased member, if the whole is not to suffer permanently. And the danger causes unhealthy interaction, which is made more difficult, sometimes unthinkable, by the wrong attitude.
For this reason, adjust your thinking. There is no this world and no beyond, but only a unified existence! Man alone invented the concept of separation because he cannot see everything and thinks of himself as the centre and main point of the environment visible to him. But his sphere of action is larger. With the error of separation, however, he only restricts himself, forcibly, hinders his progress, and gives room to the unbridled imagination, which brings forth monstrous images. Is it surprising then when, as a result, many have only a disbelieving smile, others morbid adoration that becomes slavish or degenerates into fanaticism? Who can still be astonished at the timid fear, even dread and terror, which are brought up in some? Away with it all! Why this torment? Overthrow this barrier which man's error sought to erect, but which never existed! The hitherto wrong attitude also gives you a false foundation on which you strive in vain to build up true faith, that is, inner conviction, without end. In doing so, you come up against points, cliffs, which must make you waver, doubt, or force you to smash the whole construction again, in order then perhaps to give up everything despondingly or resentfully. The damage is all yours, because for you it is not progress but standing still or going backwards. The path you will have to take one day will be prolonged.
If you have finally understood Creation as a whole, as it is, do not make any separation between this world and the beyond, then you have the straight path, the actual goal comes closer, and the ascent gives you joy, gives you satisfaction. You can then also feel and understand the interactions much better, which pulsate through the whole, the united, warm with life, because all activity is driven and held by the One Power. The Light of Truth breaks upon you with it!
You will soon realize that for many it is only comfort and laziness that is the cause of mockery, only because it would cost effort to overturn what has been learned and thought so far and to build up something new. For others it interferes with their accustomed way of life and therefore becomes inconvenient for them. Leave such alone, do not argue, but helpfully offer your knowledge to those who are not satisfied with transient pleasures, who seek more in earthly existence than to fill their bodies like animals. Give those the knowledge that becomes you, then do not bury the treasure, for with the giving your knowledge also becomes reciprocally richer, stronger.
An eternal law is at work in the universe: that only in giving can one also receive, when it comes to values that are permanent! This reaches so deeply, permeates the whole of Creation like a sacred legacy of its Creator. To give selflessly, to help where it is needed, and to have understanding for the suffering of one’s neighbour as well as for his weaknesses, is to receive, because it is the simple, true path to the highest!
And this earnest wanting immediately brings you help, strength! A single, sincere and deeply felt wish for the good, and as with a flaming sword, from the other side, which is still invisible to you, the wall will already be cut down which your thoughts had hitherto erected themselves as an obstacle; for you are, after all, one with the Beyond which you feared, denied or longed for, are closely and indissolubly connected with it.
Try it; for your thoughts are the messengers you send out, which return heavily laden with what you have thought, whether good or evil. It happens. Remember that your thoughts are things, that they form themselves spiritually, that they often become structures which outlast the earthly life of your body, then much will become clear to you. Thus it is also quite right to say: For their works follow them! Thought creations are works that await you one day! They form light or dark rings around you, which you must pass through in order to penetrate the spiritual world. No protection, no intervention can help here, because you have self-determination. The first step towards everything must therefore come from you. It is not difficult, it lies only in the will that announces itself through thoughts. Thus you carry heaven as well as hell within yourself.
You can decide, but then you are unconditionally subject to the consequences of your thoughts, of your will! You create them yourself, the consequences, therefore I call out to you: Keep the hearth of your thoughts pure, you will create peace and be happy!
Do not forget that each thought, generated and sent out by you, attracts all the same kind on its way, or adheres to others, thereby becoming stronger, ever stronger, and finally also hits a target, a brain, which perhaps only for a few seconds forgets itself and thus gives such floating thought-forms space to penetrate and work. Just think of the responsibility that will fall upon you when the thought once becomes a deed, through someone on whom it could have an effect! This responsibility is already triggered by the fact that every single thought keeps constant contact with you, just as if by an unbreakable thread, in order to then return with the strength it has acquired on the way, in order to burden or delight you again, depending on the kind you have produced.
Thus we stand in the world of thought, and with the respective way of thinking also give space to the thought-forms similar to it. Therefore, do not waste the power of thought, but gather it for defence and for sharp thinking that goes out like spears and affects everything. Thus create from your thoughts the holy spear that fights for good, that heals wounds and promotes the whole of Creation!
To act and to advance, therefore, adjust your thinking to it! In order to do this, you must shake many a pillar that supports traditional views. Often it is a concept which, wrongly grasped, does not allow the true path to be found. He must go back to the point where he started. A ray of light overthrows the whole edifice which he has laboriously erected for decades, and then, after a short or long stupor, he goes to work again! He must, since there is no standstill in the universe. Let us take the concept of time, for example:
Time passes! Times change! That's what you hear people saying everywhere, and involuntarily an image comes to mind: We see times passing us by in flux!
This image becomes a habit and also lays a firm foundation for many, on which they continue to build, directing all their research and pondering towards it. But it is not long before they come up against obstacles that contradict each other. With the best will in the world, everything no longer fits. They get lost and leave gaps that can no longer be filled despite all their brooding. Many a person then thinks that at such points faith must be taken as a substitute when logical thinking finds no support. But that is wrong! Man should not believe in things he cannot understand! He must seek to understand them, for otherwise he opens wide the door to error, and with error truth is always devalued.
Belief without understanding is only inertia, indolence of thought! It does not lead the spirit upwards, but presses it down. Therefore, let us look upwards, let us examine, let us investigate. The urge to do so does not lie in us for nothing.
Time! Does it really pass? Why do we come up against obstacles when we try to think about this principle? Very simply because the basic idea is wrong; for time stands still! But we hurry towards it! We rush into time, which is eternal, and search for truth in it. Time stands still. It remains the same, today, yesterday, and in a thousand years! Only the forms change. We dive into time to draw from the bosom of its record, to further our knowledge in the collections of time! For nothing has been lost to her, everything she has preserved. She has not changed because she is eternal. You too, O man, are only ever the same, whether you appear young or old! You remain the same as you are! Have you not already felt this yourself? Do you not clearly notice a difference between the form and your "ego"? Between the body, which is subject to change, and you, the spirit, which is eternal?
You seek the truth! What is truth? What you feel to be truth today, you will recognize as errors tomorrow, in order to discover grains of truth in the errors again later! For revelations also change their forms. So it goes on for you with incessant searching, but in the change you become mature!
Truth, however, always remains the same, it does not change; for it is eternal! And since it is eternal, it can never be grasped purely and truly with earthly senses, which only know changes of form! Therefore become spiritual! Free from all earthly thoughts, and you will have the truth, you will be in the truth, in order to bathe in it, permanently outshone by its pure light; for it surrounds you completely. You swim in it as soon as you become spiritual.
Then you will no longer need to learn sciences laboriously, you will not need to fear errors, but will already have the answer to every question in the truth itself, even more, you will then have no more questions, because you, without thinking, know everything, embrace everything, because your spirit lives in pure light, in truth!
Therefore, become spiritually free! Break all the bonds that hold you down! If obstacles come, cheerfully meet them, for they mean the way to freedom and strength for you! Consider them as a gift from which you will gain advantages, and you will easily overcome them.
Either they are put in front of you so that you learn from them and develop, thereby equip yourself to advance increasingly, or they are consequences of a debt which you can clear up with them and from which you can free yourself. In both cases they will bring you forward. With renewed vigour, move through it; it is for your salvation!
It is folly to speak of strokes of fate or trials. Progress is in every struggle and every suffering. Men are thus given the opportunity to erase shadows of past transgressions, for not a farthing can be remitted from it to the individual, because the cycle of Eternal Laws is immovable even over it in the universe, in which the creative Father's Will is revealed, who thus forgives us and erases all darkness.
The slightest deviation from this would have to throw the world into ruins; so clearly is everything set up and so wisely.
But whoever now has to make up for a great deal from the past, will this person not then despair, will he not dread the redemption of the debt?
He can begin confidently and joyfully, can be without worry as soon as he honestly wants to! For a balance can be created by the counter-current of a force of good will which, like other thought-forms, comes alive in the spiritual and becomes a strong weapon, capable of stripping away every burden of darkness, every heaviness, and leading the "ego" towards the Light!
Force of the will! A force undreamed of by so many, which, like a never-failing magnet, draws the same forces to itself in order to grow like an avalanche, and, united with spiritually similar forces, works backwards, reaches the starting point again, thus hits the origin or better the producer, and lifts him high up to the Light or pushes him deeper down into the mud and dirt! Depending on the way in which the originator himself first willed it. He who knows this constant, certain reciprocal action that lies in the whole of Creation, and which is triggered and unfolds with unalterable certainty, knows how to use it, must love it, must fear it! To him the invisible world around him gradually comes to life; for he feels its effects with a distinctness that dissolves all doubt. He must feel the strong waves of restless activity which act upon him from the great universe as soon as he pays but a little attention to it, and at last he feels that he is the focus of strong currents like a lens which catches the rays of the sun, unites them to one point, and there produces a force which has an igniting effect, which can flow scorching and destroying, but also healing and invigorating, blessing, which is also able to kindle blazing fire! And we too are such lenses, able through our will to send out these invisible currents of power that strike us, gathered into one power, for good or evil purposes, to bring blessing or also destruction to humanity. We can, and shall, kindle a blazing fire in the souls, a fire of enthusiasm for the good, the noble, for perfection!
This only requires a force of will that makes man, in a certain sense, the master of his creation, the master of his own destiny. His own will brings him destruction or redemption! Create for him the reward or the punishments oneself, with inexorable certainty.
Now do not fear that this knowledge of the Creator will drive you away, weaken your previous faith. On the contrary! The knowledge of these Eternal Laws, which we make use of the whole work of Creation appears to us even more sublime, it forces the deeper inquirer devoutly to his knees by its greatness!
Man will then never want evil. He will gladly reach for the best support there is for him: Love! Love for the whole wonderful Creation, love for his neighbour, in order to lead him up to the glory of this enjoyment, this consciousness of power!