In the Light of Truth – The Grail Message, Volume 2 (Paperback)

Responsibility

This question is always one of the first, because the vast majority of people would be only too glad to throw off all responsibility, and cast it on anything rather than themselves. That this is in fact self-humiliation causes them no concern here. In this respect they are really remarkably humble and modest, but only so that they can go on living all the more merrily and unscrupulously.

It would indeed be so wonderful to be permitted to gratify all one’s wishes and calmly to let all one’s desires run riot, even at other people’s expense, without having to atone for it. If necessary, the earthly laws can be evaded and conflicts avoided. Under their cover the more adept can even rake in quite a successful haul, and do many a thing that would not stand up to any moral examination. In addition they often even enjoy the reputation of being especially capable people.

Thus with a little shrewdness one could really live very comfortably according to one’s own ideas, if … there were not something somewhere that awakened an uneasy feeling, if from time to time there did not appear a rising disquiet that after all many a thing might be somewhat different from how one’s own wishes shape it.

And indeed it is so! The reality is serious and inexorable. The wishes of men can bring about no deviation whatsoever in this respect. Adamantine stands the Law: “What a man sows he will reap many times over!”

These few words hold and convey much more than many a person thinks. They correspond minutely and exactly to the actual process of the reciprocal action resting in Creation. No more appropriate expression could be found for it. Just as the harvest yields a multiple of the seed, so man always receives back greatly multiplied what in his own intuitive perceptions he awakens and sends out, according to the nature of his volition.

Thus man bears spiritually the responsibility for everything he does. This responsibility begins already with the making of the resolution, not just with the accomplished deed, which is simply a consequence of the resolution. And the resolution is the awakening of an earnest volition!

There is no division between this world and the so-called beyond, but all is only one single immense existence. The whole mighty Creation, visible and invisible to man, gears together like an amazingly ingenious, never-failing mechanism; it does not function separately. Uniform Laws support the whole, penetrating everything like nerve-strands, holding it together and affecting each other in constant action and reaction!

When schools and churches speak of Heaven and hell, of God and the devil, this is right. It is wrong, however, to explain it as good and evil powers. That must at once plunge every serious seeker into error and doubt; for where there are two powers there must also logically be two rulers, hence in this case two gods, a good one and an evil one.

And this is not the case!

There is only one Creator, one God, and hence only one Power which streams through all that exists, animating and furthering it!

This pure, creative Power of God flows continually through the whole Creation, lies in it and is inseparable from it. It is to be found everywhere: in the air, in every drop of water, in the growing rock, the struggling plant, the animal, and naturally also in man. There is nothing where it would not be.

And just as it flows through everything, so it also streams unceasingly through man. Now the latter is so constituted that he resembles a lens. Just as a lens collects the sun’s rays streaming through it, and passes them on in concentrated form, so that the heat-giving rays, united on one spot, singe and set on fire, so man by virtue of his specific nature collects through his intuitive perception the Power of Creation streaming through him, and passes it on in concentrated form through his thoughts.

According to the nature of this intuitive perceiving and the thoughts connected with it, he thus guides the self-acting creative Power of God to good or evil effect!

And that is the responsibility which man must bear! Therein also lies his free will!

You who often seek so strenuously to find the right way, why do you make it so hard for yourselves? In all simplicity picture to yourselves how the pure Power of the Creator flows through you, and how you guide it with your thoughts in a good or in an evil direction. There you have it all, without trouble and without racking your brain!

Consider that it lies with your simple intuitive perceiving and thinking whether this mighty Power will evoke good or evil. What a furthering or destructive power is thus given to you!

You need not exert yourselves till you perspire, you need not convulsively cling to some so-called occult practice in order to reach, through every conceivable and inconceivable physical and spiritual contortion, some stage that is completely worthless for your true spiritual upward-swinging!

Cease this time-wasting trifling, which has so often become painful torment, signifying nothing else than the former self-scourgings and mortifications practised in the monasteries. It is only another form of the same thing, which can bring you as little gain.

The so-called occult masters and pupils are modern Pharisees! In the truest sense of the word. They are the true reflection of the Pharisees at the time of Jesus of Nazareth.

Realise in pure joy that through your simple, good-willing intuitive perceiving and thinking you are able without effort to guide the one and mighty Power of Creation. The Power will then take effect exactly according to the nature of your intuitive perceiving and your thoughts. It works by itself; you need only guide it.

This takes place in all simplicity and unassumingness! No erudition is required for this, not even reading and writing. It is given to each of you in the same degree! In this no difference exists.

Just as a child playing with a switch can turn on an electric current that produces tremendous effects, so is it given to you, through your simple thoughts, to guide Divine Power.

You may rejoice over this, may be proud of it, when you use it for the good! But tremble if you fritter it uselessly away, or even employ it for impure purposes! For you cannot escape the Laws of Reciprocal Action that rest in Creation. And if you had the wings of the morning, the Hand of the Lord Whose Power you thus misuse would strike you through this automatic reciprocal action, wherever you wished to hide.

Evil is brought about with the same pure Divine Power as good!

And it is the kind of use made of this uniform Power of God, left to the free choice of each one, that bears within it the responsibility which no one can escape. Therefore I call out to every seeker:

“Keep the hearth of your thoughts pure, by so doing you will bring peace and be happy!”

Rejoice, you ignorant and weak ones; for to you is given the same power as to the strong! Therefore do not make it too hard for yourselves! Do not forget that the pure, self-creating Power of God also streams through you, and that you too, as human beings, are enabled to give a definite direction to this Power through the nature of your inner intuitive perceptions, that is of your volition, for good as well as for evil, destructively or constructively, bringing joy or sorrow!

Since there is only this one Power of God, the mystery of why in every serious final struggle the Darkness must retreat before the Light, evil before good, is also cleared up. If you guide the Power of God to the good, it remains undimmed in its original purity and thereby develops a much greater force, whereas with the dimming into the impure a weakening takes place at the same time. Thus it is the purity of the Power which in any final struggle will always work effectively and be decisive.

Everyone feels to the very finger-tips what is good and what is evil, without a word said. To brood over it would only cause confusion. Dull brooding is a waste of power, it is like a swamp, a clammy mire which paralysingly clutches and suffocates all within its reach. But a brisk cheerfulness tears apart the spell of brooding. You need not be sad and depressed!

At any moment you can set out on your way to the Height and make good the past, whatever it may be! Do nothing more than think of the process of the pure Power of God always streaming through you, then you yourselves will shrink from guiding this purity into the unclean channels of evil thoughts, because without any effort you can equally attain to what is highest and noblest. You only need to guide it, the Power then works on by itself in the direction you desire.

Thus you have happiness or unhappiness in your own hand. Therefore raise your head proudly, and face everything freely and courageously. Evil cannot approach unless you call it! As you wish it, so will it happen to you!

Fate

Men speak of deserved and undeserved fate, of reward and punishment, retribution and karma.

All these are only part-designations of a Law resting in Creation: The Law of Reciprocal Action!

A Law which lies in the entire Creation from its earliest beginning, which has been inseparably interwoven with the great, never-ceasing evolution as an essential part of creating itself, and of development. Like a gigantic system of the finest nerve-strands, it supports and animates the mighty Universe, and promotes continual movement, an eternal giving and taking!

Plainly and simply, and yet so aptly, Jesus Christ has already expressed it: “What a man sows that shall he reap!”

These few words render the picture of the activity and life in the entire Creation so excellently that it can hardly be expressed differently. The meaning of the words is inflexibly interwoven with life. Immovable, inviolable, incorruptible in its continual operation.

You can see it if you want to see! Begin by observing the surroundings now visible to you. What you call Laws of Nature are, of course, the Divine Laws, are the Creator’s Will. You will quickly recognise how unswerving they are in constant activity; for if you sow wheat you will not reap rye, and if you scatter rye it cannot bring you rice!

This is so obvious to every man that he simply never reflects on the actual process. Therefore he does not become at all conscious of the strict and great Law resting in it. And yet here he faces the answer to a riddle, which need be no riddle to him.

Now the same Law which you are able to observe here takes effect with equal certainty and force also in the most delicate things, which you are only able to discern through magnifying glasses, and, going still further, in the ethereal part of the whole Creation, which is by far the larger part. It lies immutably in every happening, also in the most delicate development of your thoughts, which also still have a certain element of material substance.

How could you imagine that it should be different just where you would like to have it so? Your doubts are in reality nothing more than the expression of your inner wishes!

In all existence, visible and invisible to you, it is no different, but each kind produces its own kind, no matter what the substance. Just as continual are the growing and developing, the bearing of fruit and reproducing of the same kind. This process runs uniformly through everything, it makes no distinctions, leaves no gap, it does not stop at some other part of Creation, but carries the effects through like an unbreakable thread, without interruption or cessation.

Even though the greater part of mankind, in their limitation and conceit, have isolated themselves from the Universe, the Divine or Natural Laws have not ceased on that account to regard them as belonging to it, and to go on working without change, calmly and evenly.

But the Law of Reciprocal Action also stipulates that whatever a man sows, thus where he causes an effect or consequence, he must also reap!

Only at the beginning of every matter is man free to resolve, free to decide where the Omnipotent Power flowing through him is to be guided, in what direction. He must then bear the consequences arising from the Power that was set in motion in the direction willed by him. In spite of this, many persist in asserting that even so man has no free will if he is subject to fate!

This foolishness is only meant to serve as a narcotic, or to be a grudging submission to something inevitable, a discontented resignation, but mainly a self-excuse; for each of these consequences falling back on him had a beginning, and at this beginning the cause of the subsequent effect lay in a previous free decision by man.

This free decision has at some time or other preceded every reciprocal action, thus every fate! With a first volition man has each time produced or created something in which he himself has to live afterwards, sooner or later. When this will happen, however, varies greatly. It can still be in the same earth-life in which his first volition made the beginning for it, but it can equally well happen in the Ethereal World, when the gross material body has been laid aside, or later still in yet another gross material earth-life.

The variations are not important here, they do not free man from the consequences. He carries the connecting threads with him continually, until he is redeemed from them, that is to say, “detached” through the final effect that ensues through the Law of Reciprocal Action.

The one who forms is bound to his own work, even if he has intended it for others!

If therefore a man today decides to do another an ill turn, either in thought, word or deed, he has thereby “put something into the world”, quite irrespective of whether this is generally visible or not, thus whether gross material or ethereal; it has within it power and therefore life, which continues to develop and work on in the desired direction.

How it will affect the person for whom it is intended depends entirely on the psychic condition of the one concerned, to whom it may thereby bring either much or little harm, perhaps also different from what was intended, or even none whatever; for again the psychic state of the one concerned is solely decisive for himself. Hence no one is exposed to such things unprotected.

It is different with him who through his decision and his volition has given rise to this movement, that is to say, who was its producer. His product remains unconditionally bound to him, and after a short or long journeying in the Universe returns to him reinforced, laden like a bee, through the attraction of similar species.

Here the Law of Reciprocal Action takes effect in that every single product in its movement through the Universe attracts, or is itself attracted by, various similar species, through whose union a source of power then comes into being, which sends back as from a power station reinforced power of the same kind to all those who through their products are connected as if by cords with the assembly-point of similar species.

Through this reinforcement an ever greater density also occurs until there finally arises from it a gross material precipitation, in which the one-time producer must now live and experience to the full what he once willed, in order at last to be freed from it.

That is the origin and development of the so dreaded and misunderstood fate! It is just, down to the minutest and finest shading, because through the attraction of only similar species it can never bring in the returning radiation anything other than what was actually willed personally in the beginning.

Whether for a particular individual or in general makes no difference here; for it is naturally also the self-same process when man does not specifically direct his volition to one or several persons, but lives generally in some kind of volition.

The kind of volition which he decides upon determines the fruits he must eventually reap. Thus countless ethereal threads cling to man, or he to them, all of which let whatever he once willed flow back to him. These currents result in a mixture that constantly has a strong influence on the forming of his character.

Thus in the mighty machinery of the Universe there are many things which contribute to how man “fares”, but there is nothing to which man has not himself first given cause.

He furnishes the threads out of which in the untiring loom of life the cloak he has to wear is made.

Christ plainly and distinctly expressed the same when He said: “What a man sows, that shall he reap”. He did not say, “can” he reap, but he “shall”. That is the same as saying: he must reap what he sows.

How often does one hear otherwise very sensible people say: “It is incomprehensible to me that God should allow such a thing!”

But it is incomprehensible that men can speak thus! How small they imagine God to be with this remark. They prove thereby that they think of Him as an “arbitrarily acting God”.

But God does not at all directly intervene in all these small and great cares of men, such as wars, misery and other earthly matters! From the very beginning He has woven into Creation His perfect Laws, which automatically carry out their incorruptible work so that all is accurately fulfilled, forever taking effect uniformly, thus preventing any preference as well as any prejudice, an injustice being impossible.

Hence God has no need to trouble Himself especially about this, His Work is without flaws.

But one of the principal mistakes so many people make is that they only judge according to gross matter, regarding themselves as the centre therein, and taking into consideration one earth-life, whereas in reality they already have several earth-lives behind them. These, as well as the intervening times in the Ethereal World, are equal to one uniform existence, through which the threads are tightly stretched without breaking, so that in the effects of a particular earthly existence only a small part of these threads therefore becomes visible.

Hence it is a great mistake to believe that at birth an absolutely new life begins, that a child is thus “innocent”,* and that all happenings can be accounted for in only the short life on earth. If this were true, then the existing Justice would naturally require the combined causes, effects and reactions to occur during the span of one earth-life.

* Lecture II–10: “The mystery of birth”

Turn away from this error. You will then soon discover in everything that happens the logic and justice which are now so often missed!

Many are alarmed at this and afraid of what they still have to expect from the past through the reaction in accordance with these Laws.

But such are unnecessary worries for those who are in earnest about the good volition; for in the self-acting Laws also lies at the same time the certain guarantee of mercy and forgiveness!

Quite apart from the fact that, with the firm beginning of the good volition, a limit is immediately set for the point where the chain of evil reactions must come to an end, yet another process of immense importance comes into force:

Through the continuing good volition in every thought and deed, a constant reinforcement also flows retroactively from the homogeneous source of power, so that the good becomes more and more firmly established in man himself, emerges from him, and first of all forms accordingly the ethereal surrounding that envelops him like a protective covering in much the same way as the atmospheric layer round the earth affords it protection.

Now when evil reactions from the past return to this man to be redeemed, they slide off the purity of his surrounding or covering, and are thus deflected from him.

But should they nevertheless penetrate this covering, the evil radiations are either immediately disintegrated or at least appreciably weakened so that the harmful effect cannot manifest at all, or only to a very minor extent.

In addition, through the resulting transformation, the actual inner man to whom the returning radiations are adjusted has also become much more refined and lighter through the continuous striving for the good volition, so that he no longer has any homogeneous affinity with the greater density of evil or base currents. Similar to wireless telegraphy, when the receiver is not tuned in to the energy of the transmitter.

The natural consequence of this is that the denser currents, because they are of a different species, cannot take hold of anything, and thus pass harmlessly through without evil effect, redeemed by some unconscious symbolic action, the various kinds of which I will speak about at some later time.

Therefore set to work without delay! The Creator has placed everything in Creation into your hands. Make use of the time! Every moment holds disaster or gain for you!