THE WORLD! When man uses this word he often utters it thoughtlessly, without forming a picture of what this world he speaks of is really like.
Many, however, who try to picture something definite visualize countless celestial bodies of the most varied nature and size arranged in solar systems, pursuing their courses in the Universe. They know that ever new and more celestial bodies can be seen as stronger and more far-reaching instruments are produced. The average man is then satisfied with the word “infinity”, and thereby the error of a wrong conception sets in with him.
The World is not infinite. It is the material Creation, that is, the Work of the Creator. This Work, like every work, stands beside the Creator, and as such is finite.
So-called advanced thinkers often pride themselves on having the recognition that God rests in all Creation, in every flower, every stone; that the driving forces of nature are God, thus everything that is beyond investigation, what is sensed but cannot really be grasped. An ever-active Primordial Energy, the Source of Power, Itself eternally evolving anew, the Unsubstantiate Primordial Light. They consider themselves mightily advanced in the consciousness of finding God everywhere, of encountering Him everywhere, as an all-pervading driving Power, ever working towards the one goal of further development to perfection.
But only in a certain sense is this true. What we encounter in all Creation is only His Will and thus His Spirit, His Power. He Himself stands far above Creation.
From its very inception the Material Creation was bound to the unalterable Laws of evolution and dissolution; for what we call the Laws of Nature are the Creative Will of God, which in its activity is continually forming and dissolving worlds. This Creative Will is uniform in all Creation, to which the Ethereal World and the Gross Material World belong as one.
The absolute and immutable uniformity of the Primordial Laws, thus of the Primordial Will, ordains that in the most minute process of the gross material earth the course is always exactly the same as it must be in every happening, thus also in the most stupendous events of the entire Creation, and in the creative process itself.
The strict form of the Primordial Will is plain and simple. Once it is recognized we easily discover it in everything. The complexity and incomprehensibility of many happenings lies solely in the manifold interlacing of the detours and bypaths formed by the varied volitions of men.
Thus the Work of God, the World, is as Creation subject to the Divine Laws, which are constant in all things and perfect; it also issued from them, and is therefore finite.
The artist, for example, also is in his work, merges with it, and yet personally stands beside it. The work is limited and transient, but not the talent of the artist on that account. The artist, that is, the creator of the work, can destroy his work, in which lies his volition, without himself being affected by it. Nevertheless he will still remain the artist.
We recognize and discern the artist in his work, and he becomes familiar to us without our needing to see him personally. We have his works, his volition lies in them and influences us, he confronts us in them, and yet may himself be living his own life far away from us.
The creative artist and his work faintly reflect the relation of the Creation to the Creator.
It is only the cycle of Creation, in its continuous coming into being, disintegration and reformation, that is eternal and without end, thus infinite.
All the revelations and prophecies, too, are fulfilled within this happening. Finally the “Last Judgement” for the earth will also be fulfilled in it!
The Last, that is, the Final Judgement, comes one day for each material celestial globe, but it does not take place simultaneously in the whole of Creation.
It is a process necessary in that particular part of Creation which reaches the point in its cycle where its disintegration must set in, so that it can form itself anew on its further course.
This eternal cycle does not refer to the orbit of the earth and other stars around their suns, but to the great and mightier cycle which must in turn be followed by all the solar systems, while they in themselves also carry out their own movements separately.
Again, by reason of the consistency of the Natural Laws, the point at which disintegration of each celestial globe must begin is precisely determined. A very definite place at which the process of disintegration must develop, irrespective of the condition of the celestial globe concerned and of its inhabitants.
The cycle drives every celestial globe irresistibly towards this point, the hour of disintegration will be fulfilled without delay; as with everything in Creation this actually denotes only a transformation, the opportunity for a further development. Then the hour of the “either – or” has come for every human being. Either he is raised high towards the Light if he strives for the spiritual, or he remains chained to the World of Matter, to which he clings if out of conviction he declares that only material things are of value.
In that case, through the lawful consequence of his own volition, he is unable to rise from the World of Matter, and on the last stretch of the way he is drawn with it into disintegration. This then is spiritual death! Equivalent to effacement from the Book of Life.
This process, in itself quite natural, is also designated as eternal damnation, because he who is thus drawn along into disintegration “must cease to be personal”. It is the most dreadful thing that can befall man. He is considered as a “rejected stone”, which cannot be used for a spiritual building and must therefore be ground to dust.
This separation of spirit from matter, likewise taking place by reason of quite natural processes and Laws is the so-called “Last Judgement”, which is connected with great upheavals and transformations.
Surely everyone will readily understand that this disintegration will not take place in one earth day; for in world events a thousand years are as one day.
But we are well into the early stages of this epoch. The earth now approaches the point at which it diverges from its hitherto existing course, which must also make itself strongly felt in gross matter. Then the separation among all men, which has already been prepared for some time, but which until now has only manifested itself in “opinions and convictions”, will set in more sharply.
Every hour of an earth-life is therefore more precious than ever. He who earnestly seeks, and is willing to learn, should exert all his strength to tear himself from base thoughts, which must chain him to earthly things. Otherwise he is in danger of remaining attached to the World of Matter, and being drawn with it towards complete disintegration.
Those who strive for the Light, however, will gradually become detached from the World of Matter, and will finally be uplifted to the home of all that is spiritual.
Then the division between Light and Darkness will be finally accomplished, and the Judgement fulfilled.
It is not “the World”, that is to say all Creation, which will perish thereby, but the celestial globes will only be drawn into the disintegrating process when their course reaches the point where dissolution, and with it also the preceding separation, is due to set in.
This is accomplished through the natural effect of the Divine Laws, which have lain in Creation from its very beginnings, which brought forth Creation itself, and which also now and in the future unswervingly bear the Will of the Creator. In the eternal cycle there is a perpetual creating, sowing, ripening, harvesting and dissolving, so that, newly invigorated through the change in the combination, other forms may again evolve, speeding towards a new cycle.
In considering this cycle of Creation, one may picture a gigantic funnel or a gigantic cave, from which in an incessant stream there perpetually gushes forth primordial seed, striving in rotating movements towards fresh union and development. Exactly as science already knows and has correctly noted.
Through friction and amalgamation dense nebulae are formed, and from these again celestial globes, which through immutable Laws group themselves with absolute consistency into solar systems; and rotating individually, they must unitedly follow the great cycle which is the eternal one.
Exactly as it is in the process that is visible to the physical eye in connection with plant, animal and human bodies, where there ensue from the seed the development, forming, maturity and harvest or decay, thus entailing a change, a disintegration, leading to further development, so is it also in great world events. The gross materially visible celestial globes, surrounded as they are by a far greater ethereal environment that is therefore invisible to the physical eye, are subject to the same process in their eternal cycle, because the same Laws are active in them.
Not even the most fanatical sceptic is able to deny the existence of primordial seed, and yet it cannot be seen by any physical eye because it is of a different substance which lies in the “beyond”. Let us again simply call it ethereal.
Nor is it difficult to understand that in the natural order of things the world that first forms itself from primordial seed is equally ethereal, and not discernible with the physical eyes. Only later the coarsest precipitation further resulting from it gradually forms, dependent on the Ethereal World, the Gross Material World with its gross material bodies; and it is only thatwhich can be observed from its minutest beginnings with the physical eyes and with all additional gross material aids.
It is no different with the covering of the real man in his spiritual nature, of whom I shall yet speak later. During his wanderings through the various worlds his garment, cloak, shell, body or instrument, no matter what one cares to call the covering, must always be of the same substance as the particular environment which he enters, so that he can make use of it as a protection and necessary aid if he wishes to be able to work directly and effectively therein.
Since the Gross Material World is dependent upon the Ethereal World, it follows that whatever happens in the Gross Material World also reacts on the Ethereal World.
This immense ethereal environment has likewise been created from the primordial seed. It takes part in the eternal cycle, and is finally also driven towards and sucked into the rear end of the aforesaid gigantic funnel, where disintegration takes place, in order to be thrust out again at the other end as primordial seed for a new cycle.
As with the action of the heart and the blood circulation, the funnel is like the heart of material creation. Thus the process of disintegration involves the whole of Creation, including the ethereal part, because everything that is material is again dissolved into primordial seed in order to form itself anew. There is nothing arbitrary in this, but everything develops out of the natural consistency of the Primordial Laws, which permit of no other course.
Hence at a certain point of the great cycle the moment arrives for all that is created, whether gross material or ethereal, when the process of disintegration is prepared independently from out of what is created, and finally breaks through.
Now this Ethereal World is the transitional dwelling-place of the earthly departed, the so-called beyond. It is closely connected with the Gross Material World, which is part of it and one with it. At the moment of death man, with his ethereal body, which he bears along with the gross material body, enters the homogeneous ethereal environment of the Gross Material World, while he leaves the gross material body behind on the latter.
Now this Ethereal World, the beyond, belonging as it does to Creation, is subject to the same Laws of continuous development and disintegration. With the setting-in of decay, a separation of the spiritual from the material again takes place in a perfectly natural way. According to man’s spiritual state in the Gross Material World as well as in the
Ethereal World, the spiritual man, the real “ego”, must either move upwards or remain chained to the World of Matter. The serious longing for Truth and Light will, by virtue of the change it works in him, make each person spiritually purer and thus more luminous, so that this condition must naturally detach him more and more from dense matter, and drive him upwards in proportion to his purity and lightness.
However, he who believes only in matter keeps himself bound to matter by his conviction, remaining chained to it, and thus cannot be driven upwards. Through a decision personally desired by each individual, a separation therefore takes place between those striving towards the Light and those connected with the Darkness, in accordance with the existing natural Laws of Spiritual Gravitation.
Thus it becomes clear that one day there will be a definite end also to the possibility of development through the purification-process in the so-called beyond for those who have departed this earth. A final decision! Men in both worlds will either be so far ennobled that they can be uplifted to the Regions of Light, or they will remain bound in their base nature through their own volition and thereby be finally hurled down into “eternal damnation”. This means that together with matter, from which they cannot detach themselves, they will be drawn towards disintegration, will themselves suffer painful disintegration, and therewith cease to be personal.
They will be scattered like chaff in the wind, crumbled to dust and thereby erased from the Golden Book of Life!
Hence this so-called “Last Judgement”, that is, the Final Judgement, is likewise a happening which through the operation of the Laws upholding Creation takes place in an absolutely natural manner, and in such a way that it could not be otherwise. Here, too, man always receives only the fruits of what he himself has willed, that is to say, what he himself brings about through his conviction.
It does not diminish the greatness of the Creator, but can only give cause to regard Him as even more sublime, to know that all that happens in Creation is strictly consistent and takes place automatically, that the direction of men’s fate is always determined by themselves alone through their wishes and volition, and that the Creator does not look on and intervene to reward or punish.
The greatness lies in the perfection of His Work, and this compels us to look upwards in reverential awe, since the greatest Love and the most incorruptible Justice must lie without distinction in the mightiest as well as in the most minute happening.
Great also is man, placed as such in Creation as master of his own destiny! Through his will he is able to lift himself out of the Work, and at the same time contribute to its higher evolution; or he can drag it down and become entangled in it so that he can no longer free himself and will continue with it towards dissolution, whether in the Gross Material World or in the Ethereal World.
Therefore strive to free yourselves from all ties arising from base feelings; for it is high time! The hour approaches when the period allotted for this will have expired! Awake in yourselves the longing for the pure, the true and the noble! –
Far above the eternal cycle of Creation there floats like a crown in the centre an “Azure Island”, the abode of the blessed, of the purified spirits, who may already dwell in the Regions of Light! This Island is separate from the World. Therefore it has no part in the cycle; but in spite of its height above the rotating Creation, it constitutes the support and the centre for the outgoing spiritual forces. It is the island that bears on its height the much-praised city with its streets of gold. Here nothing is subject any longer to change. No “Last Judgement” is to be feared any more. Those who can dwell there are “at home”.
But as the last, as the highest on this Azure Island, inaccessible to those not specially called, stands the . . . Grail Castle, so often spoken of in poetry!
Encompassed by legends, the object of longing to so many, it stands there in the Light of Greatest Glory and harbors the Sacred Vessel of the Pure Love of the Almighty, the Grail!
The purest of spirits are appointed as guardians. They are bearers of Divine Love in its purest form, which is very different from what men on earth imagine it to be, although they experience it daily and hourly.
Through revelations, tidings of the Castle were brought down stage by stage the immense distance from the Azure Island through the Ethereal World, until finally, through a few deeply inspired poets, they also became known among people of the gross material earth. Passed on downwards step by step, the Truth also unintentionally suffered various misrepresentations, so that the final version could only be an increasingly dimmed reflection, which gave rise to many errors.
If now from some part of the great Creation in dire distress, suffering and ardent appeals rise to the Creator, then a Servant of the Vessel is sent forth as a bearer of this Love to intervene helpingly in the spiritual need. What floats merely as a myth and a legend in the Work of Creation then enters Creation as a living reality!
Such missions, however, do not often occur. Each time they are accompanied by incisive changes and great upheavals. Those who are thus sent bring Light and Truth to the erring, Peace to the despairing; with their message they stretch forth their hands to all who seek, offering them new courage and new strength, and guiding them through all Darkness up to the Light.
They come only for those who long for help from the Light, but not for the scoffers and the self-righteous.
THE WORLD
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