51. Spirit

So often the word “spirit” is used, without people knowing what spirit actually is. Some simply call spirit the inner life of a human being, others throw soul and spirit together, and is often used as well to speak of a person being spirited, thinking of nothing more than simple brainpower. There is talk of flashes of inspiration and many other things. But no has set out to explain what spirit really is. The highest thing that has been understood by it so far is the term: “God is spirit!” Everything is now derived from this consideration. Humans sought thereby to understand God Himself through this assertion and to find an explanation about Him in it.
 
But this precisely had to branch off from reality again and therefore also entail confusion; for it is wrong to simply say: God is Spirit.
 
God is Divine and not spiritual! Therein lies the explanation. One must never refer to the Divine as spirit. Only that which is spiritual is spirit. The previous error of perspective can be explained by the fact that humans come from the spiritual, and is therefore unable to think beyond the spiritual, so that for them everything spiritual is the highest. It therefore natural that they would now like to regard the most undimmed and perfect thereof as the origin of all Creation, that is, as God. Thus one can assume that the mistaken notion arose not only from the need to imagine their God as being of their own kind, even if perfect in every respect, in order to feel more intimately connected with Him, but the cause for this lies mainly in the inability to grasp the actual Summit of God.
 
God is Divine, only His Will is spirit. And out of this living Will arose the spiritual environment immediately closet to Him at the beginning, Paradise with its inhabitants. But out of this Paradise, thus out of the Divine Will that had become form, came humans as spiritual seeds to take their course through further Creation, as particles of the Divine Will. Humans are therefore actually the bearers of the Divine Will, and therefore the bearers of the spirit in the entire Material Creation. For this reason they are also bound in their actions to the perfect Original Will of God, and must bear full responsibility for it if they allow it to be overgrown impurely by external influences of the World of Matter and, possibly under certain circumstances, to be completely buried.

This is the treasure or the currency that was to yield interest and compound interest in their hands. From the false premise that God Himself is Spirit, that is, of the same nature as the origin of humans themselves, it is clear that humans could never form a correct picture of the Godhead. They must not only imagine it as the most perfect of themselves, but must go far beyond that to a nature that will always remain incomprehensible to them, because they will never be able to grasp it in their own spiritual nature.
 
Spirit is therefore the Will of God, the lifeblood of all Creation, which must be permeated by it in order to be sustained. Humans are the partial bearer of this spirit, who, by becoming self-conscious, is to contribute to the uplifting and further development of the whole of Creation. This requires, however, that they learn to use the forces of Nature correctly and utilize them for their combined advancement.