That Which Is Overlooked

THE WAY OF THE GRAIL – SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS – November 29, 2021

Czech original: To, Co Je Přehlíženo · cesta-gralu.cz

The greatest part of earthmen overlook the whole connectedness of their being

They do so in subjection to the world here

Yet the awareness of the wholeness of being is upon the path of ascent towards the Light many times more important than the attention which is devoted by men to providing for themselves in this short stretch of the existence of gross material life

It is a long list of things which for the human spirit in an earthly body are a thousand times more important than the fulfilling of small earthly duties and the settling of cares of a purely material origin

And yet that would still be far from all that is urgently needful for the spiritual being in order to attain that maturity which alone opens the gate into the planes of the luminous home lying high in Creation above this universe

And precisely the maturity of the spirit is the most important fulfilment for the sake of which we come to the earth

Alas, all that is truly spiritual is overlooked by men, and therefore there can today be no speaking at all of a conscious striving towards the maturity of the spirit

We may rather speak of a bare subsisting, or in the better case of the life struggle of individuals to maintain for themselves at least a certain spiritual awareness

Awareness, however, is still far from being maturity

Nor can maturity be taken to mean any intellectual knowledge about the teachings which describe the spiritual worlds, the writings of various creeds, nor even a knowledge in thoughts of the work In the Light of Truth

To have a knowledge from reading, which shows itself in the ability to enumerate the individual degrees of Creation, the divisions of the materialities, or the reading about the activity of the spiritual and of the animistic servants according to the forces of their working, is still far from being a real maturity of the spirit

That is because the reading of a text in thoughts is not of itself that spiritual liveliness such as it is to be and such as is to lead to the ennobling and thereby to the ripening of the inner spark in man

It is thus to be something entirely different

Maturity lies in the manifesting of the spiritual inner being of man in every moment of the present, in which with an ever stronger inner certainty in the recognising of Good and of the Light man strives to stand in accord with the Will of God in all the moments of the day

It is not so difficult to sense intuitively where the right direction points, the direction which is connected with the great harmony of the work of Creation

It is not difficult, for every one of us is naturally led to it, so that he may perceive the vibrations of goodness and of kindness towards his fellow men and towards the world, if he so wills

It is thus not difficult for the spirit, but at the same time it is far too complicated for the intellect, which today with the majority prevails over the very essence of the spirit and which is often strongly subjected to the conditions that rule upon earth

A living spirit often longs for the good, yet the intellect for the most part loses itself in the seeking of an outward way amid the everyday cares

Let us look with childlike simplicity at the direction which leads to the Light and thereby to maturity

The ascent of the spirit lies in the holding fast to the simple awareness of dealing purely and reverently towards men and towards nature under all circumstances

That grave condition is to be a human spirit that has become luminous – under all circumstances

For this, man has at hand for all moments his intuitive perception, which is precisely through experiencing to be fully turned to account and ennobled

Where the intuitive perception is to be found, there the receptivity for a healthy measure in everything that man does is also present

That again is a great difference between the intuitive perception and the intellect, for the intuitive perception recognises in its receptivity the healthy measure, whereas the intellect does not

This can be applied to everything, for any excess is harmful

Everyone can also perceive it, for hand in hand with the healthy measure there goes the connection with the harmony of the whole of the work of Creation, and through this harmony the spirit may experience joy

It holds good for the individual, for the family, for a healthy society and also for the whole earth

And above all it holds good as a condition in the connection with the animistic world too, so that one may speak of a joyful co-operation between the human spirit and the animistic servants of all kinds and sizes

In order that the spirit may rightly perceive the healthy balancing of the harmony, it needs for this to be independent and free in its deciding

And in order that the spirit may be truly free and at the same time certain within itself, it needs to move forward with lightness and with a childlike simple freedom

He must do it himself

Only thus can he hold within himself the purity of perceiving and also those sublime ideals which stream to the spirit as a help out of the heights of Creation only when he himself is certain within himself and thereby ever free in the weaving of the threads of his fate

In order that one may speak of certainty in the walking forward, every man needs out of himself to perceive his path in such a way that all that he does upon this path may ever give him a sense of the greatness of the eternity of his being

Where an obscurity lies, upon it the inner being of man is to work so that it may be illumined, if it is urgent

But again, even in this urgency it is needful to seek the connection with the wholeness of the being of man, and not in superficiality to succumb to the brooding of the intellect

Where the spirit perhaps does not know what to do, there it is not to hurry, but is at the same time to cultivate patience within itself, without thereby losing its vigilance in the given matter

Whatever then comes in the course of the days, perhaps even suddenly, as it were “of itself”, to complete the given matter, that is at once to be livingly joined and worked through with the intuitive perception for the completing of the whole picture of the knowledge of the spirit

There is in this nothing to which an answer could not come to the spirit, if the questions spring from its genuine longing for knowledge about the work of Creation

Nowhere do obstacles lie upon the path, there are here only the individual degrees of maturity which the spirit needs to attain through its own striving

Upon nothing that takes place within the work of Creation does any mystery lie, there is here no refusal of a request for knowledge, but to everything there leads only the natural condition of the attaining of the maturity of the spirit

And the maturity of the spirit springs only out of its own independent striving and mobility forward

It is, however, a work in the highest degree refreshing, which with every exertion of striving brings strengthening almost immediately, if it is a work of the spirit

Where the intellect works, there weariness and exhaustion soon come without any great progress forward

By this everyone can discern when the spirit works and when the intellect

The intellect, often revolving in thoughts, broods and goes over again and again that which has meanwhile already lost its freshness, which has faded away and has become the emptied husk of a picture without life

Yet in that very moment there already awaits the spirit the new, which brings fullness and strength in a work that is living precisely in the strongest experiencing of the moment of the present

The spirit wishes to be freed from the yoke of the ponderousness of the world here, for only thus can it best find the way for its ascent and also, here, for the solving of all the difficulties upon earth which await man

The path towards maturity is not without mistakes, which the spirit makes many times

Yes, even the spirit can err in its intuitive perception, which is still itself becoming firm and ripening in the gaining of a true knowledge about its being

But these mistakes are ever smaller and more symbolic, provided the spirit is mobile and does not let itself be bound too much by the earthly cunning of the intellect

Nor are these the mistakes which malevolent men often designate as fateful, precisely in order to make others uncertain in their independence

Into every such erring of the spirit, which arose perhaps still as a consequence of its failure to grasp this or that, the Light brings forgiveness, and that in direct proportion to the purity of the volition which was experienced in the moments of deciding upon the given intuitive perceiving, thinking or perhaps even dealing

Where a mistake springs out of a pure volition in which perhaps here and there there was not yet sufficient maturity, there it is better for the spirit and for its development than where a man haughtily reproves another merely in order to assert his will over him, wishing to hold his fellow man in anxiety and in fear of the future

And where in this someone shields himself behind God's judgment upon others, there we may as a rule find with such a one only a longing for power rather than a longing to help his fellow men with the highest fervour of his intuitive perception

A mature spirit, versed in the real threads above individual men and above the whole of mankind, will on the contrary in his thoughts always in the first place seek ways of helping his fellow men instead of judging them

Judgment upon a human spirit in the determining of the unalterability of the end of its being can be pronounced only by him who bears within himself the Divine, and by no one else, neither by any spirit nor by any animistic creature, even were these to belong to the most highly placed creatures in Creation

The mobility of these flying threads, arising and being born anew, vibrating in the very finest shades, is so living that to survey it requires a difference of kind proceeding out of the places above this Creation

The clarity of surveying the threads of spiritual development in Creation is given to no one in such a measure that he could deduce from them an unalterable condemnation or, on the contrary, an unquestionable victory

John himself, who was raised into the heights of the Light in order that a fragment of the happening which Parzival beholds in his All-Wisdom and incomprehensible all-embracing quality might be shown to him, sank upon his knees and begged for the taking away of the weight which pressed upon his spirit when he was permitted to glimpse a little of the happening under the touch of the divine grace which came to him for a few moments from the King of the Grail, when the call resounded to him that he should write it all down

Neither the human spirit nor any spirit in Creation is ever able to survey the whole, which belongs solely to the all-wise Justice of God

Not even the Vaenen themselves are able to do so, who are the weavers of the threads of fate, for although they weave the threads, their wisdom leads them to refrain from any judgment upon anyone for whom they guide the threads of fate with their hands

Anything of the kind can be done only by him who has the Divine within himself as his innermost core and who at the same time, under the All-Knowing eye of God the Father, always fully and surely surveys all the places through which the threads of fate lead and whether they still bear within them a gleam of the hope of rebirth or no longer

Who among men would wish to say this about his fellow men with a certainty for which he himself would at the same time bear the complete responsibility of his own spirit

The answer to this question may be spared, for to stand in that moment in the direct bearing of responsibility and to pronounce a verdict upon another is impossible

Or else it is possible only where there shows itself with a man an immaturity bound up with weaknesses of the soul such as irascibility and the will to dominate, and not seldom the ground is also the endeavour to harm other men because they appear freer and more unconstrained than the inner being of that immature man

But let us leave aside these difficulties, of which there are very many upon earth among men and which bear witness to the entanglement and the wandering of such souls as have in part lost the connection with the inner radiance of their spiritual spark, which, if it were truly released from the grip of the distortions of the soul, would at once long to sound in accord in a joyful song with the whole work of Creation and likewise also with other men

A liberated spark in the inner being of man would not heed the mistakes so much, but would see the struggle, or even a similar misfortune, of the other souls that have gone astray, and would long to help them instead of judging them and wishing to cast them down into the depths of destruction

So it is, moreover, in all the more luminous planes of the ethereal part of the Subsequent Creation, where souls that have already become more luminous and more mature look upon those who are situated lower as upon ones in urgent need of help in an inward awakening

The souls see the simple path, which only in retrospect appears to them as a great divine gift, never to be repaid by man, and they rejoice that they were permitted to recognise it all unto their knowingness, which fills them ever more strongly

But something of the kind we too can experience already here upon earth

For this it is only needful to awaken fully in the inner being

Every awakened spirit can thereby walk forward with ease, and that precisely and especially in the present time upon this earth, when much knowledge has already been brought near and lies only a small distance before the spirit, calling him to exert his strength and to gain that knowledge for his own possession

It is not, however, a path of zealous obstinacy, but it is a path of free unconstraint, which is in the first place conditioned by the experiencing of the moment of the present

All that comes to man is to be fully experienced and thereby worked through by the spirit by means of the capacity of the intuitive perception

Only in the experiencing of the moment of the present by the spirit can compassion and intercession for others gush forth out of the inner being of the intuitive perception, just as only in such an attunement can the healing forces of the animistic or even of a higher kind stream through man

Everywhere where the spirit longs to sound in accord with the good and thereby also with the whole harmony of the work of Creation, everywhere there it will then manifest itself as a man of intuitive perception who longs always to deal honourably towards his fellow men and creatively to seek a way to support every pure striving

But even when the picture of the concept of happiness is set before him, man for the most part has before his eyes only the earthly form of it, whether it be success bound up with those close to him, with the family, with possessions, with prosperity, or with the surroundings in which he lives as a member of a nation, and not least he then sees the picture of his health, the fulfilling of longevity and much else besides that is bound up with the earthly conception of happiness

However various the mentioned pictures may yet be, for the most part they will be bound up with this world of matter, and little room will remain for a true spiritual understanding of the concept of happiness

And yet it is precisely that happiness which is to be beheld in everything that comes to man, in all that accompanies him through life, so that it may be rightly assigned to that order of precedence which alone is right

The concept of happiness for the spirit is connected with the perceiving of a walking upon the right path which leads towards the Light in the planes high above the world here

Happiness and success are to be experienced in a living connection with the spiritual fulfilment of earthly life

Spiritual fulfilment is connected with purely woven threads which make it possible for the spirit to rise ever more into the nearness of God, to experience this nearness and to draw out of it further strength for service in Creation

And that is precisely the most important thing which is to be pursued by man far before all that is earthly

The pure weaving of the threads of fate for one's own spirit

Therein the intellect can never be contained, nor calculation, because a pure weaving can have its foundation only in a living approach of the spiritual inner being towards everything that happens to man and wherein he himself manifests himself towards the surrounding world

This cannot be thought out, nor prepared in advance, but on the contrary there is always to be readiness in man, with the highest alertness of the intuitive perception, to deal honourably, obligingly, creatively and also always with the most genuine capacity for forgiveness

Only after this attunement is the rest of the approach to the earthly world to follow

Moreover, when in such a living approach the spirit leads the thoughts and the intellect to the seeking of ways through the earthly world, then nothing can arise out of it which would inscribe itself into the threads of fate as a grave obstacle forming a barrier to the ascent upwards

It will also always bring a sufficiency of helps and of inspirations for the solving of all the moments in life, so that man may always stand firm with the nobility of character and the greatness of his spirit

There is much in the learned approach to life, taken over from other men, which sets itself for the spirit as brakes hindering the real experiencing of life in the sense of the fulfilment of its great gift, which lies within it for every man

Therefore many men also become entangled therein and do not know what to do with the individual obstacles which appear to them fundamental, although in reality they are not

The pilot in all situations needs to be the livingly vigilant presence of the intuitive perception, which grants the genuine volition of the spirit a free passage from within outwards, always in an ever more fully formed nobility of expression

Only in this strong attunement lies the connection with the whole of the work of Creation and with all the helps which stand ready and prepared for a livingly manifesting spirit

But all that this attunement bears within it, and wherewith it connects the spirit with the thousandfold helping threads of the Light, present-day men can only with difficulty imagine

Honour to all those exceptions among earthmen who still maintain this attunement within themselves in the highest alertness and receptivity

They still have within them an open connection with the spiritual worlds

They draw from them strengthening and also a higher survey above all the earthly bustle, which appears to them as an open book of the Laws of God, in which everything that takes place is a confirmation of the simple Truth of the Will of God working in Creation

This, however, leads to nothing else than to an ever more fervent assent to life in the materiality, together with all the spiritual and animistic creatures to be found here

It leads to a fervour of accord with a pure and loving compassion for those who are found to be honestly striving and yet still erring

Then in their blunders and in their stumbling he who is truly connected with the spiritual planes of Creation sees no ground for condemnation, but regards it only as a challenge to seek ways in which he can effectively be of help here or there

He also perceives that he himself can ever learn, for many moments of experiencing which can be made fervent and can be ennobled are made ready by the Wisdom of God for him too, resembling an inexhaustible stream of new experiences

And thereby the spirit can move ever further upwards in the moment when it is turned to account by him as a knowledge which bears within it the confirmation of the simplicity and at the same time of the manifoldness of the manifestations of the Laws of God in Creation

Everything around him speaks in a new, joyful and free language which brings an ever deeper gifting of the spirit

And that is precisely why the spiritual spark, which becomes luminous into a living flame of the spirit, came into these regions of the materialities

Not, perhaps, for a struggle to assert itself in the temporarily set conditions of human society with its excesses and confusions, but for the unfolding of the strongest possible experiencing of an intuitive receptivity for that which is truly important and that which is secondary

And alas, the present world, as the flowering of all the past ages upon earth, shows how the most important thing, towards which even children should be led in a simple and clear language, is forgotten and overlooked as something secondary and of no account

The most precious thing, that which makes man a spiritual creature who was to bring brightening into these distant planes of the dense materialities, is overlooked under the impression of the importance of all that which is only a temporary attendant arrangement in the given social order upon earth

So many cultures, so many forms and so many diverse currents of thought have already succeeded one another here, and the spirits who always bound themselves with these for a time only, and who bind themselves still today, give them precedence over the wholeness of the great Harmony of the work of Creation

Precisely that great Harmony out of which the answer to all the pains of earthmen descends to these places

The way out, which is ever only sought, is to be found in the individual man, it wishes to be discovered and unfolded, because by its essence it is a part of man himself

The spiritual awakening in the recognising of the true meaning of life is the foundation for this way out

The awakening leads to discovering and to a gradual new understanding of the world

But it requires, together with humility, a lasting liveliness and a fervent intuitive perceiving, without which there is no true becoming luminous and no strengthening of the spiritual spark

Precisely all this the spirit is not to push aside in the supposition that it perhaps needs to direct its forces to the solving of earthly duties, or of difficulties and cares

The way out towards a right approach to duties, to cares and to difficulties, as well as towards the experiencing of the strongest spiritual moments, is always conditioned by the stepping forth of the inner being of man out of that enslaving position which today endures with the greatest part of men

A healthy intuitive perceiving is stifled and weakened by the cunning devices of the intellect, which ever balance between earthly quiet and the endeavour to fulfil duties which stand in contradiction to the spiritual intuitive perception

Where the earthly triumphs in its enslaving predominance over the spirit, there the intuitive perception can never become truly ruling

The spirit cannot be a vassal of matter and of its forms if these stand wrongly

An honest struggle is always to be waged, with the capacities of the intuitive perception of the spirit, to change all the wrong outward forms so that they may draw nearer in their kind to the great harmony of the work of Creation

That, however, does not happen through revolt nor through a deliberately provoked fight, but solely and only through a noble and calm persisting in the direction which the spirit perceives as right

And the right direction in Creation leads every spiritual creature to a personal responsibility for its being and for all the entrusted coverings which are laid upon the spiritual spark as a helping protection upon its paths through the work of the Subsequent Creation

Only the fulfilling of one's own responsibility, resting upon a mature recognising of the Creator's Laws in all the forms of Creation, makes it possible to go truly with a fervent heart to one's fellow men and effectively to pass on to them one's forces as a help

Everything else must also in the end fail and show itself as remote from the true volition to help

Alas, that is precisely what is today most overlooked by men upon earth

Every single moment is therefore to be used for the becoming aware of the wholeness of human being, which is bound up with the promised spiritual home in the luminous planes of Creation