Purity in the World of Thoughts

THE WAY OF THE GRAIL – SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS – May 21, 2020

Czech original: Čistota Ve Světě Myšlenek · cesta-gralu.cz

A great condition for the betterment of life on earth is the cleansing of the world of thoughts

Also, in order that the individual man may feel himself truly free, he needs to gain within himself the dominion of purity in his thoughts

This, however, is something which demands a living will in the inner volition of man

Without this will nothing will change, and the phantoms of thoughts will indeed transform themselves about him like nebulae flying above the ground, yet it will be only a change in the appearance of the forms, which in reality will still bear the selfsame core of the inner volition

Every man needs to develop towards a higher ennobling of the hearth of his thoughts

He who does not develop, who does not move upwards, or who during his life even sinks deeper than he stood at his entrance upon earth, he bears, from the view of the Light, the designation of a sleeping spirit condemned to perdition

Already among the ancient peoples it was a common thing that men who were not willing to work inwardly upon themselves were thrust ever more to the edge of the community, until at last they became those who were held to be wholly unclean, and no one wished to associate with them, to speak with them or to touch them

It was moreover their own choice, issuing from a volition of baseness and superficiality which arose out of their spiritual sloth

The ancient peoples had the ability to perceive at least a part of the world of thoughts, and thereby to look into the true motives of the deeds of men

This was because the phantoms of thoughts form about man the living shapes of his inner wishes and give them at once a raiment of pictures and happenings, which may be called the fore-stage of the forming of thoughts

In the moment when this raiment is woven and formed, there arise also at once the thoughts in words and pictures perceptible to man through the “sounding” of thoughts in his head

The forms mentioned arise only just before the actual sounding of the words in the mind of man

They also furnish the groundwork for the rendering into words which the intellect then perceives as the sounding of its own thoughts

It must here be added that we speak of thoughts arising from within outwards, that is, of those thoughts which are born in the livingly creating hearth of thoughts with the participation of the volition of the spirit

These thoughts, in the moment when they are born and thus “sound” in the head of man, mingle also at the same time immediately with the perceptions which come to us from stimuli from without and which we receive with the sense-instruments of our body

At a certain place in the brain these two streams then meet and form the daily thinking, the feelings, and also, reciprocally, they direct the stimuli for a new intuitive perceiving of man

For our present observation of the purity of the world of thoughts we shall describe the fundamental stream going from within outwards, which is also the most important for the human spirit, for it bears witness of himself, of his actual inner state

The hearth of thoughts, of the vibrations of volition welling up from within, is the place where the clearest ethereal likeness is woven of what the spirit of man truly is, of what he wills and for what he longs

Out of this arise the forms which are the most important for the testimony of the state of the spirit, for they reflect the degree of the strength and of the purity of the conscience of man

Just a little further on, these inner motives already mingle with outward perceptions and influences, and it is then harder to recognise them in the medley of the total thinking, for of influences from the outer gross material world there is a great multitude at one and the same instant

We speak here therefore of the forms entering from the very inner volition of the inner being of man, whereby these forms bear witness of the state of his inner being

This testimony of the state of the inner being consists of the vibrations of the intuitive perception, or in other words of the motives within

We can find them at every moment, for they bear within themselves an all-carrying enthusiasm and joy, understanding, fellow-feeling with others, just as they can bear vibrations of indifference, of contempt, of vexation, of irritability, of antagonism and of all else that is born in the shape of the motives of the inner being of man

Everyone can become aware of them if only he but wills it a little

The motives are always here even before they are clothed in the covering of forms and thereafter in the sounding of thoughts

The arising of the forms which reflect the motives precedes by a very little the actual sounding of the thoughts in the intellect of man

Of these forms there are often several following swiftly one upon another, just as there are many motives of the intuitive perceptions in the inner being of man

At one and the same time there thus often arises a world of motley wonder-working

Contradictory motives and moods alternate every moment in the inconstancy of the attunement of the inner being of man

It may then be called a changeable nebula which arises therefrom in the world of thoughts of man and surrounds him in his nearness

According to the strength and the kind of the volition, this environment of man then unites itself in homogeneity with the motives of other men, for homogeneity creates sympathy with others who are of the same thoughts and opinions, and then the thought-forms, mutually strengthened, often draw in far-reaching streams above the whole earth

Each one of us literally swims in his own world of thoughts, which, being like a medley of all manner of pictures, works as a changing and mutually interpenetrating living cloud of many colours

From a radiance brighter than the shining of the sunbeams down to a leaden gloom – thus do we find about men well-nigh all that can be imagined

Often it is as though about man in one single moment several scenes, like a running film-strip, were unfolding all at once

The pictures, which bear within themselves living movement and development, overlap and lay themselves one upon another

Scarcely has one form arisen than it already passes away, that behind it, like a jet of mist above man, a new form may emerge

Even as the thoughts of men run on, we can here in this thought-phantom world observe a headlong development and passing away, out of whose germs there is at last often born nothing but complete chaos and confusion and the uprooting of man which follows therefrom

In the distracted inconstancy and contradictoriness of the volition there takes place, upon the very threshold of the volition of man, a shaking of psychic tremors in immensely swift changes

Notwithstanding the swiftness which often marks the tangle of pictures manifesting themselves in the sequence of the thought-processes, an exact order prevails here, wherein under the pressure of the little animistic weavers nothing that arises in man is left out, not even the very smallest

At the same time all is recorded in the threads of the great Laws of Creation, and out of them there then returns to man precisely such happening as corresponds to the arising and the subsequent adjustment of all the motives of the inner being

The substance out of which the likeness of the thoughts is formed is of such a kind that the lightning-swift rebirth and transformation of the forms can always be accomplished, although it might perhaps appear to man that in such a swift sequence of changes the recording within the materialities is not to be realised

The kind of finer substantiality which belongs to the world of thoughts permits it, however, and the forms often change with such a swiftness as is unattainable even to the speed of a ray of light in the universe

Notwithstanding this swiftness, all things, down to the last speck of dust, are therefore recorded and worked upon by the animistic weavers mentioned, who are always about the individual man in numerous array

This nimbleness belongs to their work and is in no wise exhausting for them

To the earnest reader, however, there must arise a picture which shows what confusion this must create at first sight, if we think upon the inconstancy of the thoughts of the men of today

That hand in hand with it there must go a happening which we may call self-destroying for man is more than comprehensible

The instrument of the brain was never given to man for such a wild play, for in the beginning there was in men a greater constancy of the inner motives, and there was also more simplicity and plainness in the forming of thoughts

By plainness, however, there is not here meant inferiority or foolishness, but on the contrary a greater power of thought and persuasiveness, and at the same time also a higher concentration upon more important aims

He who makes it his own to let his thoughts flow in a greater tranquillity, and whose pure spiritual volition will always give him support towards creative, harmonious and noble motives, he will gradually gain the ascendancy over the rest of the world of thoughts which is to be found about other men

Whereas out of the more strongly intuited worlds of thoughts of a great part of the men of today there grow up most often demonic structures, in order to gain dominion over their creators, with the man who bears within himself strong thought-forms of good and of noble thinking towards others the selfsame substantiality will form itself into shining forms of helping beings, which will be the bearers of hope and of strengthening in the world of thoughts and also in the very world of gross materiality

Thus about such a man, thinking freely and at the same time purely, there will form itself a world of thoughts which will always bear within itself the ascendancy and the victory over the surrounding chaos

Thereby his persuasiveness and the assurance radiating from him will of necessity be strengthened, he will stand with ascendancy above others

His presence alone, through his world of thoughts, will work as balsam upon the distraction of wounded souls in his nearness

Through the calming and the ordering of his thoughts he will transform the wild whirl of forms into a nobly ordered garden of the pure and clear fruits of his inner volition

Thereby he himself will attain a calming and a greater attunement towards the good, and his thoughts will clearly serve the Light

Above all things there will arch itself within him, like a radiant rainbow of victory, the inner attunement of joy and of harmony

He will emerge out of the mad chaos of the present time, and many bitternesses and gloominesses which are an inseparable part of the present world of men will fall away from him

Together with trust in the high guidance from the Light he will gradually find within himself the strength to overcome much that at first sight may appear unmasterable, insoluble

His spirit, in clear blazing for the Light, will become the true administrator and ruler over his thoughts

Gone will be the times when it was the reverse, when it was precisely the world of thoughts which in its chaos and disorder of unlovely forms worked back upon his inner being and rent his soul body

In the present time of the heightened streaming of the forces which the advancing Light brings, he will then, in such a rebirth of thought, change the course of the effects of the forces

Instead of the ever-strengthening “Touch of the Light” calling forth in him new wounds and new burdensome stumblings through life, in the right setting of his inner being and of his thoughts towards the Light he will thereafter be borne by that selfsame power of the Light as upon the mighty wings of Orkanos

Therefore the change of the manner of thinking is an inseparable part of the transformation of man in his spiritual striving

It must change, for the chaos and the present inconstancy of thoughts is a harmful handling of so delicate an instrument as is the brain

He who does not master the transformation in a new setting, in the becoming luminous of his own thinking, he can expect in the coming years nothing but an increasing distraction and uprooting, leading even to the incipient state of a mad thinking and acting

It is like an instrument which over a long time exceeds the technical capacities set by its constructor

At the revolutions at which it moves there will at last come a loosening, or a failure of some one of the parts of the machine, and this will fly asunder at full speed

Even so will it now be with the thinking of a great part of men, who heed not the even flowing and above all the purity of their thoughts

In the growing pressure of the Light they will become the victims of the unmastered state of their thought-processes

Therefore we have here such an increase of the illnesses which bear witness of the unmasterable state of the instrument of the brain

If to this state we add the strengthening effects of the Furies and also the enslaving dominion of the demons, then it is evident that many men stand literally before a destroying storm of the invisible worlds working about them, which rolls upon them from all sides

Men who take no interest in the existence of the worlds of thoughts, or who perhaps do indeed know of them but heed not to move consciously upwards within them towards a higher purity, will now receive the answer in the shape of the returning effects of the Laws of Creation

The work of the animistic servants now pours immense forces into the cleansing return of all that belongs to each individual man as his own creations

To guard oneself against this is possible only through a complete transformation of one's inner being and also through the becoming luminous in the place where the mentioned hearth of his thoughts is to be found

Through all in him there needs to penetrate a pure joy bound up with trust in the help of God

Therefore there sounds here that call for as many men as possible to join themselves to the Circles of the Peaceful

The ability to ennoble thoughts is given to every one of men

This ability issues from the spiritual power of man and must always create and weave the substance which is reflected in the world of thoughts about us

It is a certain kind of duty which every human spirit takes upon himself with his entrance into an earthly body

Ennobling, becoming luminous, the raising upwards, all this embraces within itself the demand for the care of everything that is granted to the spirit on his way through the Subsequent Creation by the Creator for his use

No one is exempt from this duty, which comes automatically with the bestowal of the earthly shell, and where it is of course expected from the Light that this shell will, in the course of the earthly years, be polished by the spirit into the purest jewel, which at the end of its way shall shine as a luminous, wholly spiritualised gross material covering of the spirit

What, however, is the reality over against this, which bears witness of the negligence and often of the complete destruction of the great gift that bears the grace-filled name – to be permitted to incarnate into the earthly world

Instead of ennobling, of a visible spiritualising, we can observe with the greatest part of men a falling downwards, towards decay and impotence of a bodily and also of a mental kind

This is the sign of a great and tragic failure to understand the actual meaning of life here on earth

Instead of exaltation we find for the most part nothing but decay, baseness, vulgarity and coarseness

This holds good in many places, and education plays in it well-nigh no part

Behind the walls of the home, in friendly chatter, vulgarity and coarseness at once emerge in some manner upon the surface

Honour to all the exceptions who wage an honest struggle for the worth of their spiritual being and hold about themselves forms of beauty and of a sharply formed purity

They are like springs of translucent refreshing power, which through its coolness and its clarity brings strengthening to the whole work of the Subsequent Creation

If men did but know how greatly precisely this bears witness of the neglected state of the hearth of their thoughts

The advance in inner purity is the most important thing which man shall keep in view at every time of his walking through life

This means work upon himself and striving expended above all to this end, that the spirit may become, in his pure blazing, the ruler over all that shall serve him as support and foundation on his way of development

Here on earth it is precisely the forming of thoughts which issues as the fundamental bridging towards his own manifesting in the earthly world

Thoughts are the starting-point for an effective development in life, upon which here on earth all else stands and falls

If man does not advance so that his thoughts occupy themselves with the truly important prospects for his walking through life, then progress will never be attained by him

The partial experiences in his living through will not be able to be turned to account for the true knowledge which the spirit needs for the gaining of wisdom and of maturity

Chaos and confusion will continually circle about him without prospect of a clearer ordering

Ascent and progress lie solely in the clarifying of the thoughts streaming from the volition of the inner being of man, which is always bound up with the ability to perceive one's conscience

Therein lies also a certain protection against the grave changes approaching upon earth

The mentioned “Touch of the Light” will work vehemently in the world of thoughts

It will bring an unprecedented demanding pressure for a change of the thoughts of man towards a pure and clear manner of weaving thought-forms, to which man will adapt himself, or else this pressure will bring him destruction

Ennobling cannot come merely in the words which men use, or in an apparent progress in the so-called diplomatic self-control of man in his outward dealings with other men

Such an advance is in reality only a manner of outward conduct recognised and learned by the intellect, whereas the actual battle takes place upon the plane of the spiritual birth of thoughts

Only when the place in which the thought-forms are created changes, that is, the known hearth of thoughts in its very essence, only that will be held from the Light to be an actual transformation for the better

All else is often nothing but dissimulation before others and before oneself, and it will profit man nothing

In apprehension should be everyone who has until now held himself to be better than others because he has learned to govern his tongue and his gestures in company and knows how to avoid unfitting words, or outwardly lets nothing of his inner motives be seen, while yet his inner being is overfilled with proud thoughts, with arrogance towards others, with ill-will towards those who walk other ways than he himself holds to be right

In the pictures about him there interpenetrate forms which are visible and perceptible and which often bear witness of his true inner state

Such men are often like the Pharisees, who outwardly endeavoured to appear virtuous before others in their heeding of the observance of things learned, while Jesus, upon beholding the actual state of their inner being, had to shudder, for He saw the preponderance of pride and of evil within them and about them

The most honest striving for a truly pure being is the sole measure by which men on this earth will now be judged

He who stands firm in this testing pressure, he will be permitted to be called further a man, a human spirit striving for good and for joy in the whole work of Creation

Free shall be the flowing of the pure stream of spiritual volition in man, who will at last feel himself, in his mature and wise benevolence, wholly free, as the spirits in the luminous heights are free

The stream of purity out of his inner being will weave beautiful strengthening forms which will inspire and strengthen other men upon their ways

Blessed are they who are able to cleanse their inner being and to free the way for it, that they may always and everywhere be personalities who walk in the oneness of their intuitive perceiving with their thoughts and with their deeds

For this, for this work are we here on earth, that in the clarifying of our way we may come to know the greatness and the wisdom of God, which has created for us the space for the continual becoming luminous and ennobling of ourselves

He who sets forth upon this way, he will always in jubilation and in joy praise the Creator, for he will experience the great knowledge that precisely here on earth is that great place of the turning towards the ascent

The time spent in this place of turning shall be fully used

Every moment shall be an inspiration and a stimulus for the becoming luminous of the hearth of thoughts to the highest degree of radiance which joins itself to him on his way upwards to the Light, to the spiritual home

The inner living will expended for it is the most precious thing that man can do for himself and for others