The Joy of the Blessed – Part Ii

THE WAY OF THE GRAIL – SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS – May 8, 2023

Czech original: Radost Blažených – Část Ii. · cesta-gralu.cz

If there dwelt on earth more knowledge and also more understanding for everything that lies beyond the boundary of the gross material world here, then surely so many men would not fear the earthly end of their life, as is now ingrained in the greater part of society

It is a sign of the lacking knowledge of those great connections which stretch above human life

Never was the earthly world so far from true knowledge as it is now, in the period of the strongest rule of the intellect, when, strangely enough, present-day mankind arrogantly supposes itself to be at its highest step of all knowledge

What a contradiction surely rules in this, when the concept “science” is uttered and beside it there sounds the phrase “true knowledge about life”

Science knows nothing about the true knowledge of life, and that especially in connection with the intuitive inwardness of man

One may raise the smiling question why, then, there is such great fear here, why such anxieties about the unknown after the end of life persist here, if according to science we have today a knowledge of great extent, which leads to self-confident declarations that earthman already rules almost everything that surrounds him

The end of life is a simple happening, ever present since the beginning of all the ages of men on earth

And this happening, which constantly accompanies mankind, is with today's society a cause of fear, and that just as much in the case of all the most ordinary men as of the most eminent scientists, professors and researchers debating in endless conversations about theories of how the universe came into being

Scarcely does the time of his end reach a man, and all scientific findings and theories are at an end, because they are unable to give answers to questions which are in reality so earnest and at the same time the most fundamental

Science gives no answers to the questions concerning what comes after the ending of human life on earth

All this, and much else in life that goes beyond the boundaries of gross matter, testifies to the complete ignorance of today's world about what the meaning of human existence is

At the same time it alas points again and again only to the barrenness of the scientific approach to human life

Earthly life is first of all to be recognised as an immensely valuable stretch of the development of the spiritual spark dwelling within us

The spiritual, however, is today pushed entirely into the background, although it is in reality the most important thing for the answers to the questions why we enter this world and again depart from it after a certain given time

But earthly science passes all this over, and to a certain degree also discredits it in proclaiming the theory that nothing else outside this world is proved, and that therefore only the earthly has such value that attention should be devoted to it

Such a thing may be designated as an entirely clear proof of the complete ignorance of the meaning of human life

Let us but once consider with calm and with clarity in our thinking

If there were nothing further, then surely so many questions about what comes afterwards would not have remained among men for whole millennia

It would surely have to leave everyone entirely calm inwardly at any thought of the earthly end of life, because it would be a natural state of the material cycle

In contrast to this, however, there are here many manifestations which confirm that the inward existence of man continues, and therefore there is here so much unrest in the question of how it all is

The rejecting, and at the same time the intuitive sensing, not to be displaced by anything, of something existing which continues, calls forth the questions just mentioned

But these questions in themselves cannot yet be called knowledge, but they are only a confirmation of that great ignorance about what follows

We may thus say that only a confused ignorance prevails here about what is after the end of human earthly life

Science, however, has so far always consciously refused to occupy itself with such a thing, calling into question any questions around it, and therefore it in particular has a great share in the nourishing of the general ignorance of the greatest part of men in this so earnest matter, which the earthly end of life without doubt is

With this ignorance, however, everything else necessarily takes a distorted direction, for where the main knowledge is lacking, everything else may perhaps be temporarily extolled and celebrated as great learning, but by law it will for ever remain entirely secondary and inferior

Science can and is to improve the earthly conditions of the life of men, provided these remain for ever in accord with the other forces working here, for instance with the animistic ones, but never is science of the material kind to exalt itself above the true knowledge which concerns the whole path of man, that is, primarily the spiritual part of his personality

Only the realisation of this spiritual path of man, given from the beginning, in what is really important for this inward part of human existence, will bring true enlightenment

And the prospect of a greater enlightenment in the knowledge of all that is a part of the great existence of the human spirit is now to come, so that along with it much, indeed almost everything, in the ordering of the importance of the earthly way of life may be changed

In reality there is for the human spirit no boundary between this world here and all the other planes of existence

There is only that inexorable moment of the dividing break, which is bound up with the leaving of the earthly bodily shell, and thereby with the severing of the thread of earthly life

It is just this inexorability of the dividing-line which creates for materially minded men the impression of the end of life

It enters the life of earthmen so harshly, so incorruptibly and also so irreversibly that it calls forth in the greatest part of them a shock, if they ever encounter it quite closely

This angle of view, however, belongs to all that looks upon the passing over into the finer planes only from the side of the men remaining behind on earth, who consider it a loss of something which for them was being fulfilled in the earthly dimension of its transience

The leaving of the earthly shell, that is, the going onward of the finer coverings of the spirit, means for those bereaved today for the most part always only harm and loss

With their sight and with all their material senses they perceive and see the motionless shell which but a moment ago was filled with life, and they experience in it a loss, for with the moment of departure everything that was before became the past

They do not see, however, that the path of the one who has departed continues and very often leads into planes which we may call, in comparison with the earthly world, so much brighter and more blissful that, were it possible, even a fragment of the fullness of peace and of the joyfulness which rules there would mean here on earth an upheaval in the whole way of living

That luminous fullness of peace remains bound to the places there precisely because in them everything purer and more inward can be manifested more, which here on earth is generally considered by men as unbecoming

That which in the planes of the ethereal luminous places is a lasting presence is a higher degree of pure intuitive perceiving, such as men here on earth are no longer able to manifest towards their fellow-men nor towards the whole surrounding world

Men here on earth consider it unbecoming, because there lives in them the anxiety about vulnerability on the part of other men around them, were they but to show more of their inner, nobler motives towards their fellow-men

It has therefore become something entirely rejected, rather than being a part of this intuitively cold and thereby, alas, very empty world of men here

It is considered unbecoming to go with an open heart and with sincere intuitive perceptions into all the moments of the day, as with something which rightly belongs to man and to his experiencing

The duplicity which has been accepted for this world divides it into two parts, which, however, cannot work side by side in this way for long without harm arising from it for man, harm which manifests itself in rootlessness, in inner disruption and in an overall state in which in many places emptiness and the senselessness of his doings lie in wait for man

This holds good for all those who no longer bear in their inner being the sense for higher values and content themselves only with the plain satisfying of material wishes and urges

These men here on earth necessarily suffer and experience an unutterable tension, when their inner being experiences one thing and outwardly they must act otherwise

It is a mask of the earthly world, which has become something that is considered normal

In reality there are very many men who from time to time perceive that the earthly world cannot satisfy them in the flashes of their longing for something higher, nobler and more meaningful, which somewhere deep within them makes their spirit quiver

That is that echo of the attuning to all that is higher, which sounds down to the earth from the places where souls filled with purity rejoice in their conscious connection with the work of Creation and advance in the highest creative happiness step by step upward, nearer to the radiant Light which descends to them in the form of the all-surpassing stream of the Loving-Kindness of God

But precisely because here on earth, together with the paralysis in the manifesting of intuitive perception and of good in the everyday life of men, this connection is lacking, it has become the usual state that something finer, which longs more for those places in the planes of luminous ethereal substance, is considered a weakness and a wrong conduct of man

Through the disappearance of a greater intuitive perceiving the world here has withdrawn and has lost the connection with the places towards which the greatest part of human souls naturally gravitates in their essence, because the longing for good and for pure joy glows in their inner being out of the very nature of the inner spiritual spark, which still glows and shines in them

Hence that contradiction which we find here every day with the majority of men, and which gradually vanishes when the soul can really climb up to the places to which it belongs according to its inner quivering and maturity, which glow in it as the most natural manifestation of the inner spiritual life

Thus, after the laying aside of the earthly shell, all those intuitive perceptions and longings for good and purity can gradually become a natural part of the manifestations of the soul in the ethereal worlds

Along with this there goes only an ever greater joy, for in it the soul recognises that great wisdom and naturalness which leads it and surrounds it omnipresently

Swiftly gone is all the fear and all the anxieties which were a part of the commonly offered forms of the intellectual manner of reflecting and inferring, proceeding purely from the brain alone, whenever there was any speaking of what is after the end of earthly life

The soul recognises how frightfully all thinking about these things is narrowed, and how greatly the fear and mistrust have spread which were multiplied in the world of thought by those men who, rightly on the ground of their unworthy life, feared what the hands of the Alphar had to form for them out of their baleful inclinations and low desires, as the continuing planes corresponding to their turning away from the Light

But a great part of the souls need not share this state of anxieties and fears, for their paths through the ethereal planes are only the more filled with the genuineness of their volition, which in its foundation was better than it could manifest itself during the time of life on earth

At the moment when the soul finds within itself again the peace which it always sought on earth, it grasps by what a delusive world it let itself be ruled and bound on earth, although this was never willed in God's intention, but was created by the thought-attitude of those men on earth who succumbed to the intellect and, along with it, to a certain rigidity, which after the millennia that have passed became the norm for the designation “a right earthly life”

For a certain time this tears through its inner being, for at that very moment it sees with sharpness all the falseness of the manner which is considered the right living of earthly life

It would like to shake earthmen, but it sees that this is not possible, for it too was itself no different during the time of its earthly incarnation

Then it turns and walks upward towards the Light, which calls it ever more into its nearness

Upon its soul body there also manifests itself at that moment everything that drives it towards the true state of its development

If the soul on earth was still an earthly child, which for some reason ended prematurely its time in the earthly body, then the soul gradually returns into the state of its original maturity

The child becomes at accelerated speed a youth or a maiden, and thereafter swiftly that mature soul which it was before it entered into union with the earthly body

Then the soul intuitively perceives itself to be such as it was before it prepared to enter into union with the earthly body

The childlike form, which was bound to the age of the earthly body, swiftly fades away, and the soul is again that which in part it always also intuitively perceived itself to be in the earthly body of the age of a child

It is exactly the same in the case of the earthly sex, when the soul thereafter often returns into its earlier disposition towards a feminine or a masculine working, however much it had previously, for the purpose of the incarnation, united itself with an earthly body which it perceived as needful for its ripening

It is a transformation which here on earth will never find corresponding conditions, for gross matter will always remain an obstacle to the completing of a full change

But the higher it finds itself, the easier is this return to the original state, for all who abide there consider it a matter of course

They intuitively sense that it was something needed for understanding and for further progress in maturity, and therefore the state of the soul into which the newcomer returns from its wandering upon earth is considered the genuine state of being, which is not called into question even for a moment

It is also a matter of course that there it is not possible to find even a fragment of mockery, nor questions as to how such a thing is possible in the case of the given soul

The luminousness there gives to everything a certain measure of conscious understanding, which here on earth is something remote

The purity and maturity of the luminous planes of the ethereal worlds entirely excludes any form of the wounding of the deep intuitive perceptions, which just here on earth are scourged by the aggressiveness of the low motives of immature and dark spirits until they bleed in the grievous inner pains of many men

Such a thing is a thing of the past in the places of the fullness of peace of the luminous planes, and therefore the soul can manifest itself entirely as its motives proceeding from the spiritual spark determine

Therefore every human spirit should strive to swing himself higher in his thoughts and virtues here on earth, for thereby he only confirms that he really belongs higher, in the planes of peace and of the creative cooperation of all those spirits who on the ground of their knowledge are advanced in their ability to live permanently by noble motives

The genuine fervour of inward striving directs his further steps only into the planes where there are places irradiated by light, offering the soul a free experiencing of joy, for places imbued with the currents of nobility of character and of maturity call forth in every more luminous soul the intuitive perception of the nearness of home

There is there all that which the soul lacked on earth either altogether or had only in a very reduced measure, and for which in its attunement it thirsted, because it considered it inseparable from the nature of a pure human life

The humanity so long unfulfilled on earth, bound up with fervent intuitive perceiving, suddenly becomes for the arriving soul that for which it longed in the highest measure of its understanding of good and of loving mutuality among men

Then suddenly this world becomes reality for it, whether because it had previously come from there to earth for further experiencing and for the making amends of its threads of immaturity, or also because through its development it has newly ripened into these places through its fervent longing for the nearness of God, when in God it began to find something more than merely a concept for the rigid dogmatic profession of ecclesiastical conceptions about the Creator

So many souls rejoice in retrospect over the moment when, at the hour of the earthly end, a new way opened before them, which in spite of the conceptions prevailing on earth is not a way of punishments and of vengeance, but for the wandering soul is a way of exactly formed surroundings, which reflect every living vibration of its intuitive perception

Out of the initial anguish there comes full trust in the great Wisdom and Justice of God, in which every inner stirring of pure intuitive perception and of the higher virtues finds its place

How great is the difference between these planes, which in spite of their luminousness and fullness of peace are still far from the real home of the spirits, and the conceptions about the world after death, distorted in the earthly world

Many a soul is enraptured by how genuinely the Laws of God work, in contrast to the earthly conceptions of men who squeeze the Divine into their forms of justice

So much sublime beauty and purity surrounds the soul, if it bore within itself the will to good and found the support for this good in the inner quivering of its intuitive perception

Bliss is that concept which suddenly takes on the dimension of a real experiencing in a world of peace-filled creating and of the gaining of new recognitions, which are handed on there as a sacred equipment in the most inward moments of complete surrender to the Light

So high do the worlds of the finer planes of the ethereal substances appear to that soul which was permitted to come thus far

At the same time the soul also recognises how many steps still lie before it, through which it needs to wander and which it needs to live through, so that it may one day be prepared to enter the true home of the eternal gardens

Nothing of this frightens it, it has no fear or anxiety about anything, because it is led by loving helpers and it may also itself help those who are behind it

It is filled with happiness that it may experience this, and gradually it also perceives the earthly world in its proportion as something partial, which afforded it the possibility of a stretch of experiencing through the union with the earthly body, which, however, at a distance it considers merely an instrument for the connection with gross material matter

Looking back, it beholds in it all quite a different value from that which it attached to it during the time of its earthly life

Much also seems incomprehensible to it in how it could have succumbed to it and how for a certain time it let itself be confused by the appearance of things which seemed important to it on earth, although in reality this was entirely secondary in comparison with the will to a pure and good volition

Gradually it is a thing of the past, because there is here so much that is new that there is neither time nor space enough for it to be permitted to embrace and receive it all

The one consequence of this is a lasting thankfulness flowing out of the experiencing of the happiness and joy which permeates it all, as an all-overwhelming state of being for the soul

Would that the earthly level of life here might also one day draw near to this state

So much refreshment and so many helps as lie hidden in it would pour out upon the earthly world like the water of resurrection

But one day it will come and will be the present here too, which among other things will also close the gulf gaping until now between this world of gross matter here and the planes to which those depart who have reached the end in their earthly bodies

Then many threads will unite which will bring to earth the experiencing of the Truth, and the knowing about the true spiritual life will become the foundation for the intuitive sensing of the great Loving-Kindness of the Creator, and also for the intuitive sensing of the starting-point of all life in this work of Creation, which is to be found in the highest hall of the primordially eternal castle of the Grail between Creation and the plane of the Divine