30. Man And His Free Will

In order to be able to give a complete picture of this, much that lies outside of it that exert a more or less decisive influence on the main issue must be taken into account!
 
Free will! This is something that even great minds stop to think about, because if one is to be held responsible according to the laws of justice, then there must necessarily be a possibility of free decision.
 
From wherever one hears, from all sides comes the call: Where should there be free will in the human being, when in reality there is providence, guidance, destiny, influences of the stars and karma? The human being is pushed, planed, shaped, whether he wants to or not!
 
Serious seekers eagerly pounce on everything that speaks of free will, in the quite correct realization that an explanation is needed precisely for this. As long as this is missing, man is then not able to adjust himself correctly in order to assert himself in the great Creation as what he really is. But if he does not have the right attitude towards Creation, he must remain a stranger in it, will wander about, must allow himself to be pushed, planed and moulded, because he lacks the consciousness of purpose. Thus one thing leads to another, and out of natural consistency man has finally become what he is today, but which he is not actually supposed to be!
 
His great shortcoming is that he does not know where his free will actually rests and how it operates. This circumstance also shows that he has completely lost the way to his free will, that he no longer knows how to find it.
 
The entrance of the path to the understanding is no longer recognizable due to drifting sand that has been piled up. The tracks are blown over. Man walks around in circles, tiring out himself, until a fresh wind finally clears the way again. Of course, it is natural and self-evident that all the drifting sand swept up in a mad whirl can in passing still cloud many eyes, hungrily searching for the opening of the way. For this reason, everyone must exercise the greatest caution to keep his eyes clear until the last speck of this shifting sand has drifted away. Otherwise it may happen that one sees the path well, and yet, slightly obscured, steps aside with one foot, stumbles and falls, only to sink with the way already before him.__
 
The lack of understanding of the real existence of free will that people stubbornly continue to encounter is mainly rooted in the failure to understand what free will actually is.
 
The explanation lies in the term itself, but, as everywhere, here too people fail to see the really simple because of its simplicity, and look in the wrong place instead, and therefore does not come into the position of forming a picture of free will.
 
By will, the majority of people today understand that forcible attitude of the earthly brain when the intellect, bound to space and time, indicates and determines some certain direction for thinking and feeling.
 
But this is not free will, rather it is the will bound by the earthly intellect!
 
This confusion, which is used by many people, leads to great error and erects the wall that makes recognition and understanding impossible. The human being is then astonished when he finds gaps, encounters contradictions and is unable to bring any logic into it.

Free will, which alone has such an incisive effect on the actual life that it reaches far beyond into the world beyond, which imprints its stamp on the soul, and is capable of shaping it, is of a completely different kind. Much higher to be so earthly. It therefore has no connection whatsoever with the earthly gross material body, thus not even with the brain. It rests solely in the spirit itself, in the soul of the human being.
 
If the human being would not again and again grant the intellect unrestricted supremacy, then the far-seeing free will of his actual spiritual “ego”, could through its fine intuition, dictate the direction to the intellectual brain. As a result, the bound will, which is absolutely necessary for the execution of all earthly purposes bound to space and time, would then very often have to take a different path than is now the case. That fate also takes a different direction is easy to explain, because karma pulls other threads through the differently chosen paths and brings about a different reciprocal action.
 
This explanation, of course, cannot yet bring about a proper understanding of free will. If a complete picture of it is to be drawn, it is necessary to know how free will has already been exercised. Also, in what way the often so many-sided entanglement of an already existing karma took place, the effects of which is capable of obscuring free will in such a way that its existence can hardly or no longer be recognized at all.
 
Such an explanation, however, can only be given if we go back to the whole development of the spiritual human being and start from the moment when the spirit-seed of the human being sinks for the first time into the ethereal covering, the outermost edge of the World of Matter. –
 
Then we see that man is not at all what he imagines himself to be. He never has the unconditional right to bliss and to an eternal individual existence in his pocket. The expression: “We are all God's children” is wrong in the sense in which people understand or think of it! Not every human being is a child of God, but only if he has developed into one.
 
The human being is sunk into Creation as a spirit germ. This germ carries everything within itself to be able to develop into a personally conscious child of God. However, this presupposes that he opens up and cultivates the corresponding abilities for this, but does not allow them to wither.

Great and mighty is the process, and yet quite natural in every stage of the event. Nothing is outside of a logical process, for logic is in all Divine activity, since this is perfect and everything perfect cannot be without logic. Each of these germs of the spirit carries within itself the same abilities, since they originate from one spirit, and each of these individual abilities holds a promise, the fulfilment of which unconditionally takes place as soon as the ability is brought to development. But only then! This is the outlook of every germ at the time of sowing. And yet...!
 
A sower went out to sow: There, where the Divine, the Eternal hovers above Creation, and where the most ethereal part of Creation reaches the Realm of the Essentials, is the area of sowing of the human spirit-germs. Little sparks cross over the boundary from the Essentials and sink into the virginal soil of the ethereal part of Creation, as in the electrical discharges of a thunderstorm. It is as if the Creative Hand of the Holy Spirit scatters seeds into World of Matter.
 
While the seed is developing and slowly ripening towards the harvest, many grains are lost. They do not sprout, that is, they have not developed their higher abilities, but are rotten or withered and must lose themselves in the World of Matter. But those that have sprouted and rise above the surface are strictly sorted at harvest time, the dead ears separated from the full ears. After the harvest, the chaff is carefully separated from the wheat.
 
Such is the picture of the of the course of development in the big picture. In order to recognize free will, we must follow the actual development of the human being in more detail:
 
As the highest, as the purest, in its splendour is the Eternal, the Divine, the starting point of everything, the beginning and the end, surrounded by the Luminous Essentiality.
 
Now when sparks from the Essentials leap over into the soil of the ethereal offshoot of the material creation, a gaseous envelope of the same kind of substance closes around this spark in this most delicate region of the World of Matter. Thus the spiritual germ of the human being has entered into Creation, which, like all material things, is subject to change and decay. He is still free of karma and awaits the things that are to come.
 
The vibrations of the strong experiences, which take place uninterruptedly in the midst of Creation in all its becoming and passing away, reach into these outermost periphery.
 
Even if it is only the most delicate hints that pervade this gaseous ethereality like a breath, they are nevertheless sufficient to awaken the sensitive will in the spirit germ and make it attentive. It demands to “taste” from this or that vibration, to follow it, or, if you want to put it a another way, to let oneself be carried along by it, which is like letting oneself be attracted by it. Therein lies the first decision of the versatile spirit germ, which is now carried here or there according to its choice. In the process, the first delicate threads are already being woven into the fabric that will later become its tapestry of life.
 
But now the rapidly developing germ can use every moment to devote itself to the different vibrations that cross its path constantly and in various ways. As soon as it does so, that is, as soon as it desires it, it will change its direction and follow the newly chosen species, or, to put it another way, allow itself to be drawn by it.
 
Through its wish, it is able to change course like a rudder in the currents as soon, as one of them no longer suits it. Thus it is able to “taste” here and there.
 
In this tasting it matures more and more, slowly acquires the ability to discern and finally to judge, until it finally follows a more certain direction with increasing awareness and certainty. Its choice of the vibrations it is willing to follow does not remain without a deeper effect on himself. It is only quite a natural consequence that these vibrations, in which it swims, so to speak, through its free will, influence the spiritual germ in their reciprocity according to their nature.
 
The spiritual germ itself, however, has only noble and pure abilities within itself! This is the capital with which it should “flourish” in Creation. If it gives itself over to noble vibrations, these will, in turn, reciprocate with the abilities lying dormant in the germ, awakening, strengthening and raising them, so that in time they will bear abundant interest and spread great blessings throughout Creation. A spiritual person who grows up in this way becomes a good steward.
 
If, however, it decides predominantly in favour of ignoble vibrations, these may, in time, influence it so strongly that their nature remains attached to it and envelops the own pure faculties of the spiritual germ, overgrowing them and preventing them from coming to actual awakening and blossoming. In the end, these must be regarded as literally “buried”, whereby the human being concerned becomes a bad steward over the capital entrusted to him.
 
A spiritual germ is therefore not capable of being impure of itself, since it comes from the purest region and only carries purity within itself. But, after it has sunk into materiality, it can pollute its then also material covering by ‘tasting’ impure vibrations according to its own will, that is, by temptations, and can even thereby produce impurity in its soul through strong overgrowths over the noble externally, whereby it thus receives impure qualities in contrast to the inherited abilities of the spirit that it has brought with it. The soul is only the most ethereal, gaseous shell of the spirit, and exists only in the Material Creation. After a possible return into the higher Pure Spiritual Essentiality, the soul is stripped off and what remains is only the spirit, which otherwise could not enter the Spiritual Realm beyond the boundary of the Material Creation. Its re-entry, its return, then happens in a living, conscious form, whereas this was not yet the case with the outgoing spark in the beginning.
 
All guilt and all karma is only material! Only within the material creation, not otherwise! Nor can it be transferred to the spirit either, but only attaches to it. Therefore, a washing clean of all guilt is possible.
 
This realization overturns nothing, but only confirms everything that religion and the Church figuratively say. Above all, we recognize more and more the great Truth that Christ brought to humanity.
 
It also goes without saying that a spirit germ that weighs itself down in the World of Matter by impurity cannot return to the Spiritual Realm with this burden, but must remain in the Material World until it has cast off this burden, has been able to detach itself from it. It will naturally always have to remain in the region into which the weight of its burden forces it, for which the more or less great impurity is the decisive factor. If it does not succeed in getting rid of the burden and throwing it off until the Day of Judgement, it will not be able to soar upwards despite the purity of the spiritual germ which has always remained, but which could not develop according to its actual abilities because of the overgrowth of the impure. The impure holds it back by its heaviness and drags it with it into the decomposition of all that is material.
 
The more conscious a spiritual germ becomes in its development, the more its outer covering takes on the form of its inner nature. Either striving towards the noble or towards the ignoble, thus beautiful or ugly.
 
Every turn it makes forms a knot in the threads that it drags behind itself, which, with many wrong turns, with many to and fro in numerous meshes, can become like a net in which it entangles itself, whereby it either sinks in it because it holds it fast, or has to tear itself out of it by force. The vibrations to which it indulged itself on its journeys, nibbling or enjoying them, remain connected with it and trails behind it like threads, but in this way they also constantly send vibrations of their own after it. If it stays in the same direction for a long time, the threads further back can continue to have the same effect as the closer ones. However, if it changes its course, the vibrations further back will gradually become weaker in influence through the crossing, for they must first pass through a knot which has an inhibiting effect on them, because the knotting already provides a connection and fusion with the new, different direction. The new direction that then follows continues to disintegrate and dissolve the previous one in its different nature if it unlike the first. And so it goes on and on. The threads become denser and stronger as the spirit-germ grows, forming karma, the after-effect of which can finally gain so much force that it joins this or that “inclination” to the spirit, which is finally capable of interfering with its free decisions and gives them a direction that can be foreseen. Thus free will is then obscured and can no longer operate as such.
 
So free will is present from the beginning, but only that many a will is later so burdened that it is strongly influenced in the way already mentioned, that is, it can no longer be free will.
 
The germ of the spirit, which is now developing more and more in this way, must always come closer and closer to the earth, since the vibrations emanate from it most strongly and it follows them more and more consciously, or rather allows itself to be ‘attracted’ by them, in order to be able to enjoy more and more the types chosen according to its inclination. It wants to move from nibbling to real “tasting” and to “enjoying”.
 
The reason why the vibrations from the earth are so strong is that a new, very strengthening something is added here: the physical sexual force!
 
This has the task and the ability to “glow through” the whole spiritual intuition. Only then does the spirit receive the right connection with the Material Creation and can therefore only then be active in it with full force. It then embraces everything that is necessary to gain full validity in the World of Matter, to stand firm in it in every respect, to be able to have a penetrating and compelling effect, to be armed against everything and also to have protection against everything.
 
Hence the tremendous waves of power that emanate from the experience that takes place through human beings on earth. However, they only ever reach as far as the Material Creation goes, but in this they vibrate down to the most delicate regions.
 
A human being on earth who was spiritually high and noble and who therefore came to his fellow human beings with high, spiritual love would remain a stranger to them, would not be able to come close to them inwardly, as soon as his sexual force was neutralized. This would mean that there would be no bridge to understanding and spiritual empathy, and thus a gulf.
 
But the moment this spiritual love enters into pure union with the sexual force and is glowed through by it, the emanation takes on a completely different life for all the World of Matter, it becomes more real in the earthly and is thereby able to have a full and comprehensible effect on humanity and on all materiality. Only then will it be received and understood by them, and can carry the blessing into Creation which the spirit of man is to bring.
 
There is something powerful in the union. This is also the actual purpose, at least the main purpose of this natural instinct, which is so mysterious and immeasurable to so many, so that it may allow the spiritual to unfold its full force of action in the World of Matter! Without this, it would remain too foreign to materiality to be able to have a real effect. The purpose of procreation comes only in the second place. The main thing is the upswinging that takes place in a human being through this union. With this the human spirit also receives its full force, its warmth and vitality; it is, so to speak, complete with this process. Only now, however, does its full responsibility begins!
 
At this important turning point, the wise Justice of God not only gives the human being the opportunity but even the natural impulse to easily shake off all karma with which one has until then burdened one’s free will. In this way, the human being is able to free his will completely, in order to become a child of God, standing consciously and powerfully in Creation, to work in His Will and to ascend in pure, sublime intuitions to the heights to which he will later be drawn, as soon as he has laid aside his physical body.
 
If man does not do it, it is his own fault; for with the awakening of sexual force there stirs in him first and foremost a tremendous upward momentum towards the ideal, the beautiful and the pure. This can always be clearly observed in unspoilt youth of both sexes. Hence the enthusiasm of the adolescent years, not to be confused with the childhood years, unfortunately often only laughed at by adults. Hence also the inexplicable slightly melancholy, serious intuitions in these years. The hours in which it seems as if a young man or a maiden had to bear all the sorrow of the world, when inklings of a deep seriousness approach them, are not unfounded. Even the feeling of not being understood, which occurs so often, in reality carries much truth. It is the occasional recognition of the falseness of the world around them, which neither wants nor is able to understand the sacred approach to a pure flight of imagination, nor can, and is only satisfied, when this so strongly admonishing intuition in the maturing souls is dragged down into the “more real and sober” world, the more understandable, which they regard better adapted to humanity and, in their one-sided intellectual sense, consider the only normal thing.
 
Nevertheless, there are countless stiff-necked materialists who have felt the same serious reminder in the same period of their lives and even like to speak here and there of the first love of the golden time with a slight touch of a certain sentimentality, even a melancholy that unconsciously expresses a certain pain over something lost that cannot be described in more detail. And they are all right about this! The most precious thing has been taken from them, or they have carelessly thrown it away themselves, when in the grey everyday life of work or under the ridicule of so-called “friends” and “girlfriends”, or through bad books and examples, they timidly buried the jewel, the splendour of which nevertheless bursts forth again here and there during the rest of their lives, making the unsatisfied heart beat faster for a moment in an inexplicable shiver of a mysterious sadness and longing.
 
Even if these yearning are always quickly pushed back again and ridiculed in bitter self-mockery, they nevertheless testify to the existence of this treasure, and there are fortunately few who can claim never to have had such feelings. Such would also only be to be lamented; for they have never lived.
 
But even such depraved ones, or let us say pitiable ones, then feel a longing when they are given the opportunity to meet a person who uses this momentum in the right attitude, who has on earth become pure and already stands high inwardly on earth. In most cases, however, the effect of such a longing in such people is first of all the unwanted realization of their own lowliness and neglect, which then passes over into hatred, which can increase to blind rage. It is not uncommon for a person who is conspicuously high in spiritual standing to incur the hatred of entire masses without having given any outwardly recognizable reason for doing so. Such masses then know nothing more than to cry: “Crucify, crucify him!” This is the reason for the great number of martyrs that human history has to record.
 
The cause is the wild pain of seeing something precious in others that they themselves have lost. A pain they recognize only as hatred. In people with more inner warmth, who have only been held down or dragged into the mud by bad examples, when they meet someone who is inwardly high, the longing of what they themselves have not attained also often dissolves into boundless love and adoration. Wherever such a person may go, there is always only a for or an against about him. Indifference cannot stand.
 
The mysteriously radiating charm of an unspoilt maiden or youth is nothing other than the pure impulse of the awakening sexual force in union with the spiritual force of the highest and noblest, which is felt by those around him through the strong vibrations! The Creator has carefully ensured that this should only happen at an age when the human being can be fully conscious of his own will and actions. Then the time has come when he can and should easily shake off everything that lies in the past in connection with the full power that now lies in him. It would even fall away of its own accord if the human being were to retain the will to do good, which he is incessantly urged at this time. Then, he could, as the intuitions quite rightly indicate, rise effortlessly to the level to which he belongs as a human being! Behold the dreaminess of unspoilt youth! It is nothing other than the intuitions of an impetus, the desire to tear oneself away from all dirt, the burning longing for the ideal. The driving restlessness, however, is the sign not to miss the time, but to vigorously shake off the karma and begin with the ascent of the spirit.
 
Hence the great significance, the great turning point that the earth is for human beings!
 
It is something glorious to stand in this concentrated force and to work in it and with it! As long as the direction chosen by the human being is a good one. But there is nothing more pitiful than to squander these forces one-sidedly in blind sensual frenzy, and thus to paralyze one’s spirit, to deprive it of a great part of the impetus which it so urgently needs in order to rise.
 
And yet, in most cases, man misses this so precious transitional period, allows himself to be steered by the influences of “knowing” friends and acquaintances on the wrong paths, which hold him down and unfortunately, all too often, even lead him downwards. As a result, he is unable to throw off the darkening vibrations clinging to him, which, on the contrary, only receive a new supply of force, and will thus entangle his free will more and more until he is no longer able to recognize it.
 
This is how it was with the first incarnation on earth. With further incarnations that become necessary, the human being brings a much stronger karma with him. Nevertheless, the possibility of shaking it off begins again each time and no karma could be stronger than the spirit of the human being coming into full power, as soon as it receives the unbroken connection with the World of Matter through the sexual force, to which the karma belongs.
 
But if a human being has missed these times for the casting off of his karma and the associated regaining of his free will, if he has become further entangled, if he has perhaps even sunk deeply, he will nevertheless continue to have a powerful ally offered to him to fight karma and to ascend. The greatest victor there is, capable of overcoming everything. The Creator’s Wisdom brought it about in materiality that the times indicated are not the only ones in which man can find the possibility of quick help, in which he is able to find himself and his actual value, even receive an exceptionally strong impulse to do so, so that he becomes aware of it.
 
This magical force, which is at the disposal of every human being during his entire existence on earth in constant readiness to help, but which also arises from the same union of the sexual force with the spiritual force and can bring about the shedding of karma, is love! Not the covetous earthly love, but the high, pure love which knows and wants nothing but the welfare of the beloved, which never thinks of itself. It also belongs to the Material Creation and demands no renunciation, no penitence, but it always wants only the best for the other, fears for him, suffers with him, and also shares his joy.
 
At it has as its basis the similar longing for the ideals and the yearnings of unspoilt youth at the onset of sexual force, but it also spurs the responsible, therefore mature man up to the full power of his whole ability, up to heroism, so that the creative and fighting force is harnessed to the greatest strength. There is no limit to age here! As soon as a human being gives room to pure love, be it that of a man for a woman or vice versa, or that for a friend, or for parents, for a child, whatever, if it is only pure, it brings as its first gift the opportunity to cast off all karma, which then only releases itself purely “symbolically”, for the blossoming of the free and conscious will, which can only be directed upwards. As a natural consequence, the ascent then begins, the redemption from the unworthy chains that hold it down.
 
The first stirring intuition that arises when pure love awakens is the feeling of unworthiness towards the beloved other. Put another way, this process can be described as the onset of modesty and humility, and thus the reception of two great virtues. This is followed by the urge to protectively hold one’s hand over the other, so that no harm comes to them from either side, but rather that they are led along flowery, sunny paths. The “taking of one’s hands” is not an empty phrase, but quite rightly characterizes the rising intuition. In this, however, lies a giving up of one’s own personality, a great desire to serve, which alone could suffice to throw off all karma in a short time, as soon as the desire persists and does not make way for purely sensual desires. Finally, in pure love, there is the ardent desire to be able to do great things for the beloved other in a noble sense, not to hurt or offend him or her with any expression, thought or word, much less with an unattractive action. The most tender consideration comes alive.
 
Then it is a matter of holding on to these pure intuitions and putting them above everything else. Then no one will ever want or do anything bad. He simply cannot do it, but on the contrary has in it the best protection, the greatest strength, the most well-meaning adviser and helper.
 
That is why Christ pointed again and again to the omnipotence of love! Only this overcomes everything, can do everything. But always provided that it is not the only earthly desiring love that carries jealousy and its related vices.
 
The Creator, in His Wisdom, has thus thrown a lifebelt into Creation, which not only bumps into every human being once in earthly life, so that he may hold on to it and swing upwards!
 
This help is there for everyone. It makes no distinction, neither in age nor in gender, neither poor nor rich, neither noble nor lowly. That is why love is God’s greatest gift. Whoever grasps it is sure of salvation from any need and from any depth! He makes himself free and thus most quickly and easily regains his unfettered free will that leads him upwards.
 
And even if he were in a depth which must bring him to despair, love is able to pull him up with tempestuous force to the Light, to God, who is Himself is Love. As soon as pure love is stirred in a human being by some impulse, he also has the most direct connection with God, the Original Source of all Love, and thus also the strongest help. But if a human being possessed everything and did not have love, he would still only be a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, thus without warmth, without life.... nothing!
 
If, however, he finds true love for any of his neighbours, which strives only to bring light and joy to the other loved one, not to drag him down through senseless desires, but to lift him up protectively, then he serves him without being aware of actually serving, because it will make him more of a selfless giver and donor. And this service sets him free!
 
Many will say to themselves: “That is exactly how I do it, or at least what I am striving to do! By all my means I try to make life on earth easy for my wife or family, to offer them pleasures, by endeavouring to procure so many means that they can afford a comfortable, pleasant life and are carefree”. Thousands will beat their chests, feel elevated and think themselves good and noble. They are mistaken! That is not living love! It is not so one-sidedly earthly, but at the same time pushes much more strongly for something higher, nobler, ideal. Certainly, no one may neglect earthly necessities with impunity, that is, without disadvantage, thus should not disregard them, but these must not become the main focus of one’s thought and action. Above this floats the great and strong desire, so mysterious to many, to truly be to themselves, what they are before those by whom they are loved. And this desire is the right path! It always leads upwards.
 
True, pure love does not need to be explained in any greater detail. Every human being feels exactly what it is like. He often only tries to deceive himself about it when he sees his mistakes and clearly perceive intuitively how far away he actually still is from loving in truly pure way. But he must then pull himself together, must not hold back and finally come to failure; for there is no longer any free will for him without true love!
 
How many opportunities are accordingly offered to human beings to rise up and soar, but they do not make use of them. Their lamenting and seeking is therefore not genuine in the majority! They do not want to contribute anything themselves as soon as they are called upon to do so, even if it is only a small change in their habits and outlook. It is largely lies, self-deception! God is to come to them and lift them up to Himself without them having to give up a dear comfort and their self-worship. Then they too would consent to go along, but not without expecting special thanks from God.
 
Let these drones go their ways to destruction! They are not worth anyone’s trouble. They will pass by again and again, complaining and praying, at opportunities that present themselves. If one of these human beings ever seize them, he would surely rob them of their noblest ornament of purity and unselfishness in order to drag this most precious possession down into the excrement of the passions.
 
Seekers and knowing ones should at last take the trouble to make a diversion around these people! Let them not think that they are doing a work pleasing to God, if they always carry about His Word and His Holy Will so cheaply and offer it through attempted teachings, that it almost seems as if the Creator had to go begging through His believers in order to widen the circle of followers. It is a defilement when it is offered to those who grasp at it with filthy hands. The word must not be forgotten which forbids “casting pearls before swine”.
 
And in such cases it is nothing else. Unnecessary waste of time, which should no longer be wasted to such an extent without ultimately becoming retroactively harmful. Only those who seek should be helped.
 
The restlessness in many human beings that is appearing everywhere, the research and search for the whereabouts of free will, is completely justified and a sign that it is high time for it. It is intensified by an unconscious premonition that it will one day be possible. This keeps the search alive. But for the most part it is in vain. Most human beings today are no longer able to use their free will because they have become too deeply entangled!
 
They bartered and sold it away... for nothing!
 
But they cannot blame God for this, as is so often attempted through all kinds of interpretations, in order to talk themselves out of the thought of their own responsibility waiting for them, but must instead accuse themselves. And even if this self-accusation were imbued with the harshest bitterness, with the worst pain, it could not be severe enough to counterbalance the value of the lost good that was senselessly suppressed or squandered.
 
But nevertheless, man can still find the path to recovery as soon as he strives earnestly for it. But only when he wishes it from deep within him. If this wish really lives in him and never wearies. He must bear the most ardent desire for it. And if he had to devote his whole earthly existence to it, he could only gain by it; for the recovery of free will is serious and necessary enough for man. Instead of reclaiming, we may also say recovery, or freeing. It is in itself exactly the same thing.

But as long as a human being only thinks about it and broods over it, he will achieve nothing. The greatest effort and perseverance must fail, because with thinking and brooding he will never be able to get beyond the limits of time and space, that is, not to where the solution lies. And as thinking and brooding are at present regarded as the main way to all research, there is no prospect of progress to be expected, except in purely earthly matters. Unless people change fundamentally.

Use the time of being on earth! Think of the great turning point which always brings with it full responsibility!
 
It is for this reason that a child is still spiritually immature, in that the union between the spiritual and the material has not yet been created in it through sexual force. Only at the moment when this force emerges will its intuitions attain such strength that they are able to penetrate the Material Creation in an incisive, transforming and reshaping way, whereby it takes on full and complete responsibility of for itself. Before this, the reciprocal effect is not so strong, because the ability to perceive intuitively is much weaker. Karma cannot therefore be so powerful in the first incarnation on earth, but can at most be of importance at birth, in the conditions into which the birth takes place, so that these help the spirit in its earthly life to redeem the karma by recognizing its qualities. The points of attraction of the homogeneous species would play a great part in this. But all this only in a weak sense. The actual powerful and incisive karma only sets in as soon as the sexual force in humans is united with his spiritual force, whereby he not only becomes fully efficient in the Material World, but can far surpass it in every respect, if he adjusts himself accordingly.
 
Until then, even the darkness and evil cannot directly approach a human being. A child is protected from it by the gap to the Material World. As if separated. The bridge is missing.
 
Now many listeners will understand more clearly why children enjoy much greater protection from evil, which is proverbial. However, on the same path which forms the bridge of the entering sexual force, over which the human being can go contending in his full power, everything else is then naturally able to come in to him if he is not careful enough. But it can under no circumstances happen until he also possesses the necessary defensive power. There is not a moment of inequality that would allow an excuse to arise.
 
As a result, the responsibility of the parents grows to enormous proportions! Woe to those who deprive their own children of the opportunity to cast off their karma and to ascend by misplaced ridicule or by wrong upbringing, if not by evil examples, which also include all striving in the most diverse areas. The temptations of earthly life already lures to this and that. And since their actual power is not explained to adolescents, they either do not use their force at all, or too little, or they waste it in the most irresponsible way, if they do not make wrong and bad use of it.
 
Thus karma, which is inevitable in ignorance, sets in with ever-increasing strength, casts its rays by some tendency towards this or that, and thus restricts the actual free will in making decisions, so that it becomes bound. This is also the reason why the majority of humanity today can no longer exercise free will. They have bound themselves, chained themselves, chained themselves through their own fault. How childish and unworthy people show themselves to be when they try to reject the idea of unconditional responsibility and prefer to reproach the Creator for injustice in it! How ridiculous sounds the claim that they have no free will of their own, but are led, pushed, planed and shaped without being able to do anything about it.
 
If only they would realize for a moment what a pitiful role they actually play in such activities. If, above all, they would finally take a critical look at themselves with regard to the power they have been given, in order to recognize how senselessly they waste it on petty things and impermanence, how they elevate impermanence to a contemptible importance, how they feel great in things in which they must appear so small in relation to their actual destiny as human beings in Creation. The human being of today is like one who has been given a kingdom and prefers to fritter away his time with the simplest of children’s toys!
 
It is only natural and not to be expected otherwise that the mighty forces given to man must crush him if he does not know how to direct them.
 
It is high time for a final awakening! Man should make full use of the time and the Grace that is given to him through every earthly life. He has no idea how urgently it is needed. The moment he sets his now imprisoned will free again, everything that now often seems to be against him will serve him. Even the radiations of the stars, feared by so many, are only there to serve and help him. No matter what kind they are.
 
And everyone is able to do so, no matter how heavy the karma that still hangs on him! Even if the radiations of the stars appear to be predominantly unfavourable. All this only has an unfavourable effect on an unfree will. But even there it is only apparent; for, in reality, it is for his own good when he knows no other way to help himself. He is thereby forced to defend himself, to awaken and be alert.
 
Fear of the radiations of the stars, however, is not right, because the accompanying effects are always only the threads of the karma running for the human being concerned. The radiations of the stars only form channels into which all the karma that is at present floating around for a human being is drawn, as far as it fits in its nature to the respective homogeneous radiations. Therefore, if the radiations of the stars are unfavourable, only that unfavourable karma will fit into these channels, which matches exactly the type of radiations, nothing else. Likewise with favourable radiations. Channelled in this way, it can also have an ever more perceptible effect on the person. But where no bad karma is outstanding, unfavourable radiations from the stars will not be able to have a bad effect. One cannot be separated from the other. In this, too, the great love of the Creator is revealed. The stars monitor or direct the effects of karma. Accordingly, bad karma cannot have its effect without interruptions, but must give the person time to breathe in between, because the stars radiate alternately and bad karma cannot have its effect at the times of favourable radiation! It must then stop and wait until unfavourable rays occur again, so it cannot so easily depress a person completely. If good karma of a human being does not float alongside the evil karma, which has an effect when the rays of the stars are favourable, then favourable radiations at least cause suffering to be interrupted at times of favourable radiations.
 
Here, too, one wheel of events interlocks with the other. One pulls the other along in strict consistency and monitors it at the same time so that no irregularities can occur. And so it goes on, like a giant wheel. From all sides, the teeth of the wheels interlock sharply and precisely, moving everything forward, propelling it towards development.
 
In the midst of it all, however, stands the human being with the immeasurable power entrusted to him to give direction to this mighty wheel work through his will. But always only for himself! It can lead him upwards or downwards. The attitude alone is decisive for the end.
 
But the machinery of Creation are not made of rigid material, but are all living forms and beings which, by their co-operation, contribute to making all more powerful an impression. The whole wondrous weaving, however, serves only to help man, to serve him, so long as he does not throw himself in the way of his given force by childish waste and wrong application. He must at last fit himself into it differently, in order to become what he is supposed to be. To obey is in reality nothing more than to understand! To serve is to help. To help, however, means to rule. In a short time everyone can make his will free to be what it should be. And, with that, everything turns around for him, since he has first turned around inwardly.
 
But for thousands, for hundreds of thousands, even for millions of human beings, it will be too late, because they do not want it any other way. It is only natural that the wrongly placed force should shatter the very machinery which it would otherwise have served to do a beneficial work.
 
And when it breaks down, all those hesitant ones will suddenly think of praying again, but will no longer be able to find the right way to do so, which alone can bring help. If they then recognize the failure, they will quickly turn to cursing in despair and accusingly claim that there can be no God if He allows such things. They do not want to believe in inflexible justice, nor in the fact that they were given the power to change everything in time. And that they were told this often enough.
 
But with childish defiance they demand for themselves a loving God, Who according to their sense, forgives everything. Only in this do they want to acknowledge His greatness! How then should this God, according to their conceptions, do to those who have always earnestly sought Him, but who, precisely because of this seeking, have been kicked, ridiculed and persecuted by those who expect forgiveness?
 
Fools, who in their ever-newly-willed blindness and deafness run into ruin, who create their own ruin with zeal. May they be left to the darkness towards which they stubbornly strive in their know-it-all. Only through their own experience can they come to their senses. That is why the darkness will also be their best school. But the day will come, the hour, when even this path will be too late, because the time will no longer be sufficient to tear oneself away from the darkness and climb upwards after finally recognizing through experience. For this reason it is time to finally get serious about the Truth.