4. Ascent
You who strive for knowledge, do not entangle yourselves in a net, but become seeing!
An unalterable obligation to atone weighs upon you by Eternal Law, which you can never pass on to others. What you burden yourselves with through your thoughts, words or deeds, no one is able to solve but yourselves! Remember this, otherwise Divine Justice would be but empty sound, and with it all else would fall into ruins.
Therefore, set yourselves free! Do not delay an hour in setting a goal for this compulsory atonement! A sincere will for the good and the better, which receives greater strength by a prayer that is truly felt, brings salvation!
Without the sincere, firm will to do good, atonement can never take place. The inferior will then continually give itself new nourishment for further existence, and thus again and again demand new atonement, without ceasing, so that what is continually renewing itself appears to you only as a single vice or suffering! But it is a whole chain without end, always binding anew, even before the preceding could be loosened. There is then never redemption, for it demands continual atonement. It is like a chain that keeps you forged to the ground. The danger is very great that it will go still deeper down. Therefore, you who are still in this world or, according to your understanding, already in the afterlife, finally pull yourselves together to good will! With constant good will must come the end of all atonements, for the one who wills well and therefore does not grant new nourishment for renewed demands for atonement. And through this comes the deliverance, the redemption, which alone permits the ascent to the Light. Heed the warning! There is no other way for you! For no one!
But this also gives everyone the certainty that it can never be too late. Of course, you will have to make atonement for the individual offence, but the moment your efforts to do good begin in earnest, you will lay the marker for the end of your atonements; be sure that this end must one day come, and your ascent will begin with it. Then you can go joyfully to the working off of all atonements. What you then still encounter will be to your salvation, and will bring you nearer to the hour of redemption, of liberation.
Do you now understand the value of my advising you to begin with all your strength the good will, pure thinking? Not to abandon it, but to cling to it with all of your longing, all of your energy? It lifts you up! It changes you and your surroundings! Remember that every earthly sojourn is a short school, that with the laying aside of the flesh there comes no end for yourselves. You will live perpetually or die perpetually! You will enjoy happiness all the time, or you will suffer all the time. He who thinks that with the earthly burial all is done for him, all is balanced, let him turn and go his way, for in so doing he seeks only to beguile himself. Horrified, he will then stand before the truth and start his path of suffering ... he will have to go! His true self, stripped of the protection of his body, whose density surrounded him like a wall, will then be attracted, surrounded and held by that which is similar to him.
It becomes more difficult, for a long time impossible, for him to raise his earnest will to the better, which could free him, bring him higher, because he is subject only to the influence of his surroundings, which have no such light thoughts in them that could awaken him, support him. He must suffer twice from everything what he has created for himself.
For this reason an ascent is then much more difficult than in flesh and blood, where good walks next to evil, which only the protection of the earthly body makes possible because … this earthly life is a school where every "ego" is given the possibility of further development according to one’s free will. Therefore, finally pull yourself together! The fruit of every thought falls back upon you, here or there, you have to enjoy it! No man can escape this fact! What use is it to you if, like an ostrich, you seek to bury your head timidly in the sand before this reality? Look the facts boldly in the face! You are only making it easy for yourself; for there is quicker progress to be made here. Begin! But in the consciousness that the old must all be made good. Do not expect, as many fools do, that happiness will immediately fall through the door and the window into your lap. Perhaps some of you still have a huge chain to break. But he who despairs because of this only harms himself, because it cannot be spared and taken from him. By hesitating he only makes everything more difficult for himself, perhaps impossible for a long time. It should be an incentive to him not to miss an hour longer; for he only begins to live with the first step! Blessed is he who takes it; it will come off him, limb by limb. With giant leaps he can rush forward, exulting and thankful to take even the last obstacles; for he will be free!
The stones, which his previous wrong activity piled up before him like a wall, which had to hinder his progress, are now not cleared away, but, on the contrary, carefully laid before him, so that he recognizes them and overcomes them, because he must make up for all mistakes. But with amazement and admiration he soon sees the love that surrounds him as soon as he shows good will. The way is made easier for him with gentle care, as it is for a child from its’ mother when it first tries to walk. Are there things of his past life that frightened him in silent trembling, and which he would rather let sleep all the time...? Quite unexpectedly he is confronted with them! He must decide, must act. Unexpectedly, he is urged to do so by the chain of events. If he then dares to take the first step, trusting in the victory of good will, the karmic knot is loosened, he passes through and is freed from it.
But no sooner is the debt resolved than the other approaches him in some form or other, demanding, as it were, to be resolved as well. Thus one hoop after the other, which constricted him, which had pressed him down, jumps down. He feels so light! And the feeling of lightness, which many of you have certainly experienced, is not a delusion, but the effect of a fact. The spirit, thus freed from pressure, becomes light, and, according to the law of spiritual gravity, speeds up into that region to which it now belongs according to its lightness. Thus it must go steadily upwards, towards the longed-for Light. Evil will presses the spirit down and makes it heavy, but the good drives it up.
The great Master Jesus has already shown you the simple way for this also, which leads infallibly to the goal; for deep truth lies in the simple words, "Love thy neighbour as thyself!"
With this, he gave the key to freedom, to ascent! Why? Because it is considered inviolable: What you do to your neighbour, you do in reality only for yourself! For yourselves alone, since, according to the Eternal Laws, everything necessarily falls back on you, good or evil, whether it be here already or there. It comes! Therefore the simplest of ways is pointed out to you, how you are to take the step to the good will. With your being you shall give to your neighbour, your kind! Not necessarily with money and goods. Then the destitute would be excluded from the possibility of giving. And in this being, in the “giving of oneself” in dealing with your neighbour, in the consideration, respect, which you voluntarily offer him, lies the “love” which Jesus tells us, lies also the help which you render your neighbour, because in it he becomes able to change himself or to climb his height further, because in it he can grow stronger.
But the reverberations of it lift you up quickly in their reciprocal actions. Through them you constantly receive new strength. Then you will be able to strive towards the Light with whirring flight....
Poor fools who can still ask, “What do I gain by leaving so many the old habits and change?” Is it a bargain to be made? And if they would only gain in themselves as a human being, as such in a more exalted being, it would be reward enough. But it is infinitely more! I repeat: with the beginning of the good will, each one also sets the marker for the end of his compulsion to atone, which he must fulfill, from which he can never escape. No one else can stand up for him in this respect. By his decision he puts a foreseeable end to the compulsion to atone. This is a value that all the treasures of this world are not able to outweigh. He thus frees himself from the chains of slavery which he is constantly forging for himself. And therefore from sleep, which enervates. Let the awakening come at last!
Away with the intoxication which paralyzes the imagination that salvation through the Saviour has become a letter of safe conduct, so that you may indulge in “egotism” all your life long without a care, if at last you become believers, repent, and depart from this earth in faith in the Saviour and His Work! Fools to expect such paltry patchwork from the Godhead! That would be breeding evil! Think of it, set yourselves free!
