In the Footsteps of Spiritual Ascent

THE WAY OF THE GRAIL – SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS – August 15, 2022

Czech original: Ve Šlépějích Duchovního Vzestupu · cesta-gralu.cz

Several human spirits have already been permitted to ascend upwards to the blissful planes along the way of the Light

They were those who recognised what an uplifting power the purity of the human inner being has for the Laws of Creation

In this recognition, which came to them with the awakening of their spirit, they then did not hesitate to step out at once upon a path which led in a completely opposite direction from those paths along which other men strode

The paths along which the majority of men direct their lives only join on new threads that must be atoned for

The conduct of men, proceeding from an inward immobility in intuitive perception, weaves only the threads of a fate which does not permit the ascent upwards

A great part of earthmen find themselves surrounded by their own woven threads of fate

The baneful consequence of this is their long wandering along paths stretching through distant planes of the materialities

The threads of fate causing endless atonement are woven out of attitudes formed from the many mistaken conceptions of earthly mankind

These mistaken conceptions persist upon earth and are passed on with tenacity from generation to generation

Billions cannot free themselves from these threads, for on account of the persisting spiritual lifelessness here upon earth they lack the strength to extricate themselves from the earthboundness of their habitual ways of life

Spiritually awakened men, inwardly inspired by nobler inner motives, set out, however, unlike the others, upon that path on which the receptivity of intuitive perception always came first

This receptivity guided them through a wholly different attunement of experiencing, with which they approached everything that came to meet them in their lives, and this then opened to them the actual treasures of Creation

It also enabled them gradually to free themselves from all that was past, which held them back in their striding upwards

Thereby they differed in a fundamental manner from the others

Although they were upon earth and bore exactly the same earthly body as the others, they were able with their spirit to develop within it such an inner liveliness and radiance of intuitive perception that already upon their further path through life wondrous happenings were permitted to take place, supporting them in their spiritual striving towards the Light

One of the spirits thus striding upwards was Buddha

Naturally both before him and after him there were here a multitude of glorious spiritual stories and paths of those men who imprinted their inner being into the threads of Subsequent Creation as golden traces in which others were then permitted to follow them

All these traces showed the direction which brought inward purification and uplifting to everyone who stepped into them

Although those who formed them are no longer here, these footsteps are permitted to go on shining as connecting lines of the spirit rising into the Light

He who stepped into these footsteps experienced within an inward opening which brought him the seeing of the world as the Work of God, filled with omnipresent and wonderful marvels

In openness to all the living animistic creating and also to all the inspirations from spiritual helpers, inwardly luminous men were permitted to live a wholly different life from their fellow men, who of their own will wander repeatedly only within the narrow circle of gross materiality, alternating with the shadowy places of the beyond

The inward opening to the Light and the living in accord with the Laws of Creation brought men, moreover, a refinement of receptivity to such a degree that they were permitted to recognise in advance the actual motives of other men with whom they found themselves in the various moments of life

Thus when others then spoke and acted in their presence, their receptivity followed those men's genuine pains or joys, not merely the outward manifestations, which correspond but very little to what takes place within men

In outward conduct there is often to be found rather the opposite of the actual experiencing

And to recognise this means gradually to awaken within oneself an actual spiritual mastery

The condition for it is the awakening and the deepening of a receptivity which is able to feel with and to vibrate in unison with what another man experiences, so that ways may be sought towards the harmony vibrating in the Laws of Creation

Such a thing is not possible without an inward refinement in intuitive perception

Refinement, in other words, brings a pure receptivity of intuitive perception through the strengthening of the spiritual spark

It therefore means no weakness, but on the contrary it means a becoming luminous and a strengthening of the inner faculties of receptivity to the highest degree that can be experienced through fellow feeling

Delicacy in spiritual understanding is in reality the ennobling of intuitive perception

And this ennobling of intuitive perception then permeates everything in man, in his ways of reflecting and of acting

In all his approach to life there blazes a living perceiving through the inner being

This is something altogether different from what is found in those men who only outwardly profess spiritual movements

Thus we may come to know men who, although they assert that they are seeking, or that they even already possess the knowledge of God and of the Truth, nevertheless never brought this knowledge with their inner being to an actual refinement in intuitive perception, so that it might become the equipment of their receptivity and of their nobility of character in their approach to their fellow men

When it comes to the moments in which they are to show the fruits of their knowledge of God, they act quite otherwise than it could come to them from God Himself as help and inspiration for their spiritual inner being

Marked by the intellect, from which they are not able to free themselves, it brings them again and again only thoughts of gross material goals

They are not able to see the earthly world as the Work of God, but behold in it only a space for the assertion of their own interests

In this respect we speak of men who are not able with their inward nobility of character and compassion to overcome the long-standing disposition of the intellect and of the instincts

Or they also subordinate themselves, in a voluntary acceptance of the principle of the fulfilment of duties, to such steps as are not seldom in conflict with the voice of the inward conscience, which is precisely the important connection for the weaving of pure threads of fate alone

To this belong very many particles of human conduct which outwardly still appear to the earthly world today as virtuous and valuable, but which in reality have long since been brought by the darkness into wrong tracks and thus cause hosts of human souls only new guilt, although in the doing of it men experience a supposed worth in their conduct

Thus there persist here, in a certain sanctity, the observance of ancestral duties, of the relation to the homeland or to the historical traditions of the nation

The struggle for these values is seen by many men as something most highly prized, however much these are matters of a purely gross material kind, bound only to one small stage of the existence of the human spirit

These imagined values, still highly prized by many men, issue from the times of mankind when it was closely connected with the inspirations of the animistic in the instinctive kind of struggle for survival

Moreover, the perceiving of these earthly kinships and of a cultivated patriotism has, under the influence of the fallen archangel, been dragged down from the original animistic nobility into a narrow baseness

All this, however, is to be raised to the spiritual plane of mutual help and of the cooperation of individuals

Through the coming of the Son of God, Jesus, and subsequently of the Son of Man, mankind is, however, to advance higher towards a purely spiritual connection with the heights

A calling from the Light, and thereby the exceptional standing of any nation, is today to manifest precisely in the strengthening of the intuitive faculties in the majority of the inhabitants of such a nation

Above all the paths of earthly life there is to arch, like a shining Light, the call of the actual home of the human spirit, which lies in the spiritual

And this sets in man the condition of the full irradiation of intuitive perception as an expression of the fullness of peace and of kindliness towards one's neighbour

All this, however, is today in reality already to be far surpassed by compassion and by love of a higher spiritual kind

Do men not see how earthly history here is mirrored in this as an endless round of guilt and of the consequences of necessary atonement without end

The conceptions of the worth of the idea that whatever is victorious in the earthly, in seemingly faithful service to the homeland, is also victorious before the divine Laws have on the contrary already been confirmed a thousand times over as in stark conflict with what is actually expected by God of the human spirit as a being endowed with the faculty of intuitive perception

The darkness has skilfully dressed up the virtues of man's fulfilment of the pledge of duties and of faithfulness to the legacy of the forefathers in service to purely earthly aims, whether this concerns belonging to a nation, to a region, to a family – all this, if genuine spiritual intuitive perception does not always participate in it, becomes a curse in the weaving of new threads demanding the atonement of the guilt caused by such conduct and by such attitudes towards one's fellow men

Whole empires of the past regarded themselves as faithfully serving God, while others in opposition fought against them, although they too revered God, but called Him otherwise, so that all those who in these battles were swept from this earth then had to recognise with horror that in the fulfilment of earthly duties they never stood in accord with the Holy Spirit of God, nor with the Spirit of Parzival, who is the king appointed by God the Father for this Creation

Again and again there were, and even now there are, blessed in the name of God weapons and plans of the intellect which caused and still cause only ever new guilt to the human spirits who hold weapons in their hands and bring earthly pain and death to their fellow men

Only new guilt is thereby heaped upon past guilt, and all are therein joined into a dense mesh which will not let them a step further until they awaken inwardly and until through their conscience there penetrates the deep cry of the spirit longing for liberation from this dreadful state, which seems to last upon this earth without end

Broad are these paths which have been trodden by generations and which lead nowhere else than, again and again within the Laws of Creation, to the necessity of atoning for all that is past

This is not progress, but it can only be called a curse which holds the human spirits in the materialities like a heavily fettering chain

Along these erring paths almost the whole of mankind, but for isolated exceptions, still strides today, and it gives no thought to anything that could bring about a change for the better in this

Men who in their lives, through the reading of countless books, have arrived at the supposition that they recognise the Will of God decide again and again only with base aims, the attaining of which in the earthly is then regarded as the achieving of a good result which requires the sacrifice of others

However much these men outwardly pride themselves on knowledge of a spiritual kind, inwardly they have remained poor and for the most part dulled, without true nobility of character and without the spark that would mark them as spiritually alive

And the hosts of those who themselves do not take part in the contriving of the ways, but in their smallness are merely the executors of tasks and of orders, without pausing over it with their intuitive perception, are just as guilty as all the contrivers of evil and of misery upon earth

Every day, moreover, brings many grounds for inward alertness and for clarifying that the individual man is to stand in life for himself in such a way that out of his volition and conduct only threads of pure radiance can henceforth be woven

It is sad that many followers of enlightened spirits have remained only in an outward professing of the footsteps of their predecessors, who in pure recognition of God and of His work were permitted to ascend upwards to the Light, and that these followers have not as yet been able to awaken within themselves the true essence which is the content of the spiritual striding towards the Light

It is then only the appearance of a spiritual life that is led by these men, for they are always easily governed by the outward happening in the material world

Of such men there is a great number, and their genuine awakening still awaits them

Beside them, however, here and there we are permitted with joy to see those who go through life in the fervent affirmation of their spirit

These appear modest, indeed outwardly inconspicuous, but by their attitudes and by their manner of expressing fellow feeling with the other creatures in Creation they prove that they are far nearer to God than the men mentioned a moment ago, who boast in words of their knowledge of God

Inwardly living men are often outwardly inconspicuous to this world

In reality, however, they stride resolutely and unwaveringly upwards in the footsteps left here for them by all those who have already ascended upwards into the spiritual home and whose inner being blazes with the spiritual faculty of the fullness of intuitive perception

Striding upwards, these men with their threads protected the earthly world from destruction for thousands of years, for their radiance made it possible for hope to be woven in by the weavers of the great development into the future of this universe

The future of life upon earth in reality always rested not upon the visible struggle of leaders and of their nations, but only upon the possibility for the weavers to weave the threads of further fate out of the delicate and noble purity of men wholly unknown in history

Above all, however, it always brought to them themselves a great blessing for their path through Creation

Refinement, and hence the ennobling of the spirit, predestines them for the ascent upwards in complete accord with the words of the beatitudes of Jesus

Inwardly pure men become those who are borne by the Laws of Creation upwards to the Light into the nearness of God through the promise contained in the beatitudes

They are borne thither automatically through the effects of the Laws of Creation, for they give ground for it by their disposition in spiritual liveliness with which they approach everything that meets them in life

Surrounded by the weaving of threads out of their pure kind of volition, which proceeds from intuitive perceiving and acting, they step into the footsteps of those who, endowed by the Light, were already permitted to receive their palm branch of those returned to the spiritual home

Happiness and an inward earnestness full of peace and at the same time thankful joy are the companions of such spirits

Daily much blessing comes to them in that they are permitted to experience ever more consciously the rightness of their conduct, which manifests first of all through pure humility and kindliness towards all the rest of the world

Out of their attunement the weavers are then permitted to weave the future world, which contains more harmony and beauty, and at the same time purity and a certain severity in the animistic manner of enforcing the Will of God

It is a world far from everything effeminate and which at the same time does not lack for a moment warmth of heart and pure fellow feeling

Thus through the striding in these footsteps not only individual spirits draw nearer to the Light, but in part the whole earthly world as well

But this in its true penetrating force is yet to come, so as to assert itself in the materially visible happening as a mighty uplifting of all life in this universe nearer to the Light

The striding in the footsteps imprinted into these planes by luminous predecessors is that which every man can lay into his working for the Light

Such a thing should lead the spirit ever anew to penetrate into the greatness of the life of intuitive perception

It would lead to an ever greater affirmation of life, up to the summit of an enthusiasm experienced in accord with the great harmony of Creation

Naturally it would open that receptivity, necessary for man, for all else that happens in Creation

Through men having generally yielded to the influence of the intellect, the capacity of experiencing what happens above matter here has closed to them

The world formed only by the coarsest outcrop of the materialities has drawn a tight circle around earthly mankind, which no longer permits it at all to perceive what happens higher in Creation

The greatness and the extent of man's actual existence is not perceived, who, if he ascends upwards to the Light, is permitted to come to know new vastnesses of worlds filling further parts of Subsequent Creation

Already in these more ethereal worlds, filled with more Light, the joyfulness of the existence of the souls dwelling there flows in an altogether different kind from what men here upon earth imagine

There is in these places more genuineness, which recalls so strongly the great stories of loving-kindness, of chivalry and also of the delicacy of truly fulfilled bonds of being in love, handed down here in earlier times, as men can only picture them in ideal images

Far removed is all the base and self-indulgently reflecting thinking of earthmen

All this is manifoldly surpassed by the capacity of fervently experiencing the present through intuitive perception

An uplifting and genuine nobility of character permeates everything, and what is shown outwardly to other souls is in every respect directly in accord with the actual intentions

Gone is the contradictoriness between the original volition and the words and deeds that follow

A unity of the inner being and of the outward prevails in everything as the foundation of mutual trustworthiness among those inhabitants of the luminous ethereal planes

That is also precisely the fundamental reason why everything, in its genuineness and trust, is experienced as a great mutual uplifting of souls, for beauty and the sincere longing to help one another can permeate everything

It is as though the earthly world of men were suddenly to begin expressing itself in the most beautiful words woven into verses, in which it is always possible with ease to perceive the depth and the strength of the inner being of the one who imparts them

This, however, is something that has vanished entirely from human existence here upon earth

The uplifting which would connect the world of earthmen with the luminous heights seems for the present to be severed, and everyone who still strives for such a thing is regarded as a dreamer, a visionary and a lover of unattainable ideals

This, however, bears witness not to the detachment of such men, but bears witness to the collapse and the decline of today's world, whither it has plunged under the influence of its earthbound intellectuality

Nevertheless, or precisely for that reason, every striving to raise human conduct to the level of a delicate receptivity in which the liveliness of intuitive perception is reflected is of worth

Whoever has distanced himself from this and to whom such a thing appears superfluous has already torn himself away from all that is meaningful in Creation and is far removed from the footsteps leading upwards to the Light

He goes with the majority of the rest of mankind along lost paths leading only ever more steeply into the denser spheres of an icy, unfeeling rigidity

Therefore there is now to resound a loud call for the awakening of spiritual intuitive perception in man

Only through awakened intuitive perceiving can the echo of the great harmony resound in man, which leads him high above all the ingrained errors of the world hitherto arranged by men

Only thus can he step into the footsteps leading to the Light

Whoever still binds his perceiving to the hitherto prevailing conceptions of the course of the world has not yet extricated himself from the cruel grip of narrow intellectual conceptions about the world

He necessarily remains a prisoner within himself, however much he supposes himself to be the master over his aims in life

He does not sense, moreover, that a great part of these aims in life was impressed upon him in a distorted form by the darkness, through opinions of the intellect already formed

What he regards as great and virtuous is in reality nothing if the living intuitive perception of the spirit is not contained in it

All the endeavours of many men for progress, or again for a return to traditions, go along ways which have their root only in the material and do not reach a particle higher

The spirit, however, needs to recognise the true goal and thereby at the same time to perceive from this viewpoint the earthly world as the Work of God, which was given to him as a gift for the anchorage of the gross material body, out of which the ascent to the Light is to proceed through living intuitive perceiving

In this respect it may be said that the world, as it has long been shaped by the prevailing volition of earthly mankind, is an entirely wrong foundation for any spiritual ascent

Therefore many an individual in his struggle needs, upon awakening, always first to turn about entirely and to step out in a direction other than that in which the majority goes

This, however, is only a temporary happening, for the complete dissolution of the hitherto prevailing arrangement of the human world draws near to the earth

It is for the shaking and the rearranging of the wrong paths hitherto

That which hitherto was formed only into isolated footsteps leading upwards out of the grip of endless threads of fate in the materialities is now, with the help of the Will of God, to open as the promised stream of Light for all who beseech God for deliverance from the grip of the darkness

But in order that it may be perceived as an influx of Light bringing strengthening, and not as rays consuming all that has been hitherto, the human spirit upon earth needs even now to strive with all his strength towards the awakening of his intuitive perception

For those who are ready to stride contrary to the way in which the majority current still goes, for them the influx of Light in the coming happening is a strengthening towards an easier finding of those footsteps leading to the Light

It means, however, raising one's perceiving above all the material aims of men hitherto and setting in the first place intuitive perceiving in loving-kindness and in fellow feeling with one's fellow men

That is the step leading to the restoration of the connection with the heights, in which life flows upon other principles than those to which the world of men here has hitherto given precedence

There is contained in it all that is needful for the finding of right decisions in any matter of life

Whatever hours a man may live through, his spirit is always permitted to keep its outlook towards the spiritual home and therein to form its volition and its conduct

In the genuine enlightenment of the spirit there is to be found the power for the weaving of pure threads into the whole harmony of Creation

It is a delicacy which is, however, a power overcoming all that is turned away from the Light

Now with kindliness and a smile, here with patience, there with the loving-kindness of the heart, and elsewhere with all-embracing forgiveness

Out of these deeds and this conduct are formed those footsteps of spiritual ascent which lead everyone who strides in them with the genuineness of his inner being only upwards to the Light

Such a spirit strides along a path formed by the helps from the Grail

The path leads to places which in their glory and greatness surpass all earthly conceptions of men about the Light

The greatness of God created planes of Light which are indescribable in their kind and content, for in them there dwells the inexhaustibility of all forms of beauty and glory

All this is open to the human spirit if he attains to these places

He must, however, do so himself, through his purest striving of living spiritual movement

And spiritual movement lies solely in the fullness of intuitive perception