The Joy of the Blessed – the Home in Sight – Part Iii

THE WAY OF THE GRAIL – SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS – May 23, 2023

Czech original: Radost Blažených – Nadohled Domovu Část Iii. · cesta-gralu.cz

If in the planes of the spheres of the beyond a soul receives, in proportion to its purity and inner liveliness, the grace to be permitted to ascend higher into places irradiated by a brighter Light, then its perceiving of its own self-awareness becomes ever stronger, and thereby also more filled with joy over all that it is permitted to come to know

Many souls experience this so strongly that not seldom they speak with enthusiasm of how only on these sunlit heights do they intuitively sense the true meaning of the words “to be permitted to live”

And at the same time as, together with that living receptivity for all that exists which is part of the life there, the prospect of an ever more knowing recognition opens out to them, all that was experienced in connection with the gloomy times of earthly existence changes, on the contrary, into a dream of the past

It is therefore the exact opposite of the way in which people here on Earth regard the continuation of their life after its earthly end

If from the standpoint of earthly awareness here the world beyond the boundary of gross material sense-perception appears as something indeterminate, uncertain and easily called into question, since it lies in misty ignorance, then to the souls inhabiting the brighter part of the ethereal worlds the backward look upon past lives on Earth appears as a dream out of which, at the stage of their awakening in the soul covering, they were first permitted to awaken into true life

Here, however, it must be remarked that every part of the existence of the human spirit has its immense value, for it is an inseparable part of his ripening towards the degree of rounded self-consciousness, which alone as such makes it possible for the gate into the true spiritual home to open before a flame of the spirit shining in this way

Earthly life has immense value for the development of man's inner being, which is closely bound up with how far precisely this time is lived through fervently and purely under all the conditions offered throughout the whole time of earthly existence

Out of the threads woven from man's striving during earthly life there is then further formed that path which leads into the planes of the luminous ethereal regions

Everything depends solely on how far he passes through all the bends and perhaps also the reefs always with the higher ideals of purity and nobility of character

At the same time, however, there is not much to reproach in the described experiencing of the souls in the luminous spheres of the ethereal worlds, for it concerns a truly significant difference between what is called life here on Earth and life beyond the Earth

Whereas many people in earthly life literally vegetate as regards their spiritual intuitive perceiving, when they come somewhat higher into the planes of the ethereal their inner being is permitted to blaze up in a joyful inward assent to life, to such a degree as bears not the slightest comparison with what they lived through in the time of incarnation in the gross material world

A great part of the blame for this difference in experiencing is of course borne, in this world of gross matter, by the earthly consciousness, so heavily marked by the activity of the brain, in which the intellect manifests, with its narrowed kind of comprehension and its ponderous inertia, as the greatest brake upon all that is intuitive

Of course earthly man admits nothing of the kind, because he supposes that he has full mastery over all his thinking and acting and that there can therefore be no other, higher degree of perceiving than the one his temporary earthly bodily covering offers him

Many a one would argue to the point of exhaustion that his earthly consciousness is the best that could have come to him and that there is nothing better beyond it

He would perhaps even muster a quantity of confirmations for his theory, which, however, he always rests solely and only upon the experience of his consciousness here in gross materiality, where the foundation for thinking and acting is furnished him for the greatest part by the brain of his body

The brain, however, is precisely that cause which sets an obstacle to any higher comprehension, and therefore all that in sparkling vitality, in swiftness and also in greater definiteness belongs to the experiencing of receptivity of the ethereal kind in every brighter soul must remain denied to the earthly designation for keenness and to all the other capacities of the brain

Everyone is permitted to know this difference only when the influence of the brain's limitation falls away from him and his awareness is more strongly bound with the intuitive capacity of experiencing, which asserts itself with natural penetration in the finer soul covering in the planes of the brighter worlds

Then all at once everything is far more full-valued for the souls there, and compared with life here on Earth all experiencing is perceived with an unheard-of liveliness and also a comprehension of which, in connection with the gross material bodily brain, there could not have been a moment's thought

The souls surrounded by luminous radiance therefore rejoice that it is given them to live through their perceiving far more freely, and everything that surrounds them is also received by them at every moment incomparably more inwardly and directly than was the case in the world of gross matter

It appears as though everything were pervaded by an entirely different degree of transparent clarity and sparkling brilliance

But this holds good not only for a certain perceiving of the surroundings by the ethereal sense-capacities of the soul, it holds good just as much for its own comprehension, or also for the widening knowledge of the new place in which the soul is permitted to dwell

Everything has advanced to a fresh degree of perceiving, which is due precisely to the higher power of radiation of the inward spiritual flame, which more easily glows through the finer soul covering and thus makes it more conscious

This, moreover, is an entirely automatic happening, granted to everything spiritual that develops in the right direction, that is, upwards to the luminous planes of its spiritual home

If the human spirit rises upwards, then everything becomes easier for him and, in free experiencing, stronger as regards the power of perceiving and the breadth of his capacity to hold knowledge

Hand in hand with this goes the perception of a joyful delight in the life bestowed by the Creator, for it is a lawful happening in Creation

It is the same with the ever more conscious service to the Light, or also to God, or, put otherwise, to the Will of God

For the soul this does not mean a subordinating of itself to something stronger, perhaps against its own wish or against its own will, but on the contrary the soul is drawn to it by the natural force of the law, which we may liken to the picture in which that which the soul perceives as meaningful calls forth in it the experience of a higher degree of its own worth

Thus the soul, driven by the longing for an ever stronger experiencing of its own worth, is from a certain degree of consciousness onwards drawn by threads onto a path which offers it such a thing in the best possible arrangement

And because these paths are formed by the Alphar, those weavers who serve the Will of God faithfully, the soul naturally hastens in its recognising and intuitive sensing towards harmony with the Will of God, for this offers it an ever stronger field of activity and thereby also an ever stronger experiencing of its own worth

The Will of God offers to the soul, and precisely also to the very spiritual essence of man, always the best that it needs in order to attain the state of full-valued activity

This again calls forth only new tides of happiness and bliss, which never permit a state of dullness, for they lead the soul and afterwards also the fully ripe human spirit to new tasks or opportunities of meaningful activity in Creation

The Will of God is therefore in no way something forced upon the soul, or upon earthly man here, by the Creator, as is supposed according to religious notions and also generally on the part of the opponents of the thought of man as a part of the Work of God, but it is a permanently offered path of the very best kind, which at the given moment is to be found on the individual stages of being of spiritual development

It is needful along with this constantly to hold fast the awareness that for the human spirit that full value, arising out of accord with the Will of God, is always bound up with nobility of character and with all the virtues that can be given to the spirit for unfolding in its human species

Here, then, we may see that what people here on Earth often call a full-valued life must in the end always remain only a reflection of the true liveliness offered to the human spirit higher up, if he rises rightly and in peacefulness towards the Light

In the earthly world life, compared with the brighter planes of the ethereal regions of Light, remains only dim, not wholly translucent

Only from time to time does a person here on Earth swing himself up to such a degree of experiencing as corresponds to the places high above this Earth

Nevertheless the possibility of strong intuitive experiencing exists here too for all who find themselves here, but today there are truly only few people who also manage to let their inner being take full part in every hour of the day

For thousands of years people here have accustomed themselves to an inert and superficial drifting through matter, which is enlivened only here and there by an experience of a sensual kind through the awakening of appetites and drives, or also by a brief state of a certain satiety or often even of an intoxicated blaséness, which, however, has nothing in common with the fulfilling bliss which a purely vibrating soul in the beyond is permitted to experience

The measure of connectedness with the harmony of the whole of Creation, and thus with the Will of God, is perceptible in the spheres beyond the Earth through the soul body that has become luminous many times more sensitively than is the case in the density of today's earthly bodies of men

This brings to the souls dwelling there a state of rejoicing and joy such as we do not find here on Earth

The density caused by the sinking of this part of the world under the influence of the excessively material and also base volition of men does not permit a state of lasting, childlike-pure enthusiasm for the good to be maintained and further developed

That is why the earthly world lags so far behind all that bears within it the real essence of the moment of the present, out of which the arising threads of experience always have the highest value

All this and far more besides is that soul permitted to become aware of which, thanks to its inner liveliness and purity, is granted the possibility of stepping into the planes of the luminous ethereal worlds

Enchanted by all this, the soul at first longs to communicate something of it to those whom it regarded as its dear ones on Earth and who, unlike itself, remain further bound in their bodies

Looking down, however, it gradually recognises how vain such an effort would be, because the impermeability of matter does not today permit the bodily nervous systems of men to transmit that much needed vibration which would be necessary for something more to sound forth within them, something that would lift them to a level on which they might perhaps for a brief while be able to sense intuitively the glory which that soul is itself permitted to experience

Thus there remains in the soul only for a certain time a quiet prayer for the strengthening of those who in the earthly struggle are, seen from its standpoint, still deep below, that one day they too may be permitted to come into the places which have opened for them out of the arms of the grace of the Light as fabled ethereal gardens and landscapes destined for a new, blissful recognising of God's Work

Gradually, however, the soul is drawn into so many new experiences that a repeated returning in its attunement in a downward direction, even for the earnest purpose of intercessory prayers, it would regard for itself as a step backwards, which at that moment it perceives as a certain transgression

The Will of God calls it further to the new, while there remains with it the lasting trust that, just as the grace was granted to it to arrive here, so also for all other people who are pure within the Love of God will prepare paths, so that one day they may reach these glorious places

Gradually it also beholds in new prospects how great a part of the way still lies before it before it may one day reach the places from which there descends the ever distant and at the same time so magnetically attracting stream of Light, and also the delicate sound of inexpressible beauty which it is permitted from time to time to catch in inward absorption

It is that call of the heights of the true home, which must surely be the most gracious place of all existence

It is that nearness of God vibrating upon the steps that rise upwards to God's throne, which stands yet much further away, in the heights of the golden clouds forming out of the flaming rays of a radiation that crosses the boundary from the divinely unsubstantiate into the divinely substantiate realm above Creation

At least so does the soul perceive and experience it with all its ethereal perceiving, which is a thousand times finer than the nervous system of the gross material body

With its whole essence it lives through that greatness and perfection of all the happenings which continually take place around it in order to support it, to lead it and to make it again and again more knowing than it was a short while before

Many souls in the luminous regions have of late been gifted with the knowledge of the Son of God and of the Son of Man, and in their inward attunement there shines the bright flame of an intimation of the Truth of God

The Ray of Parzival has bestowed upon the luminous ethereal planes a gift of recognition such as could not until now be found there

And also the arriving souls with an acquaintance with the knowledge of the Truth are permitted only here gradually to unfold to fullness the greatness of the content that rests in the knowledge of the Truth

All that on Earth surrounded the recognition of the Truth as the ponderous and binding dross of human thoughts clinging to the grains of the recognition of the Truth gradually loses its power in these places

The higher the soul stands, the more strongly does all that has hitherto been influenced by the earthly view of what is right or wrong change into a distant murmur which, like a roaring that recedes, transforms itself into a receptivity for the delicate sound of a new recognition of the true significance of human deeds below in the materialities

The genuineness of the knowledge of all that is connected with the earthly path of Parzival and with all those who were permitted to accompany him is here, in complete openness and to the surprise of many, freely recognisable, if they wish to recognise it

To the great relief of many, the oppressive stones of earthly dogmas and also of seeming convictions fall away here, showing themselves to be wholly erroneous and shaped by the limitation of the intellect

Much dissolves quickly like snow in the sun, not to confirm the victory of those who already on Earth were in their intuitive perception nearer in this or that respect to the Truth, but solely and only for the common free experiencing of all who are permitted to ascend to these places

The common harmony arising out of true recognition unites all and invites them to draw anew from the living pictures which rise out of the inexhaustible source of knowledge about Creation, about all the creatures and inhabitants of this glorious Work, and also about God Himself

The blessed souls here also discover how the Light values even the smallest things, which as a rule are not recognised by people on Earth and are certainly never esteemed in others on Earth

It is precisely out of these vibrations of the inner being of earthly men that the most important threads are woven for the freeing of the earthly world from its burden of darkness, and for the souls themselves for their own path upwards to the luminous home

The struggle for victory in the outward, visible and tangible world still overshadows everything else on Earth with preponderance, yet it is not the condition set by the Light for true victory

The Light makes no claim upon men for this struggle, because real victory rests in the purity of man's inner being

But as the earthly world recedes for the soul in the place where it is newly permitted to dwell, and all that is earthly becomes only that dream of the past already mentioned, there emerge out of that distant time the delicate vibrations of true humanity which surrounded man there where as a rule he took no notice of it at all

Apart from other great recognitions, of which the soul receives very many in the luminous spheres, these vibrations are the most precious thing that carries the soul further in its ripeness and wisdom, which makes it ever more whole in its strengthening brightness and radiance

Therefore people should already on Earth become aware of what kind of moments those are which have high value in the first place from the standpoint of the Light, and not from the standpoint of how this or that is extolled by others in the visible world

For the greater part it is not the acting that is outwardly visible to other people, but it is the inward disposition which remains with a man also in the hours when others do not see him, or when all that is important in him unfolds on the plane of his thoughts and of the impulses of his inner volition

Here, then, the true boundaries of man's inner purity and nobility of character appear, those boundaries which go on together with the soul covering into the finer spheres

And it is precisely all this that the soul is then permitted to see, and these are also the most valuable pieces of its true riches, with which it can further show itself worthy of all the graces given to it in proportion thereto

But this is no bargaining or pointing to one's own worth, for all that had already far below to be dissolved first in the pure fervour which the soul had to prove upon its entry into the ethereal world

Nor is it done by any examining or other manner of judging by someone appointed for it, but it is an entirely automatic happening which unfolds from the moment when the soul has wholly freed itself from the threads which at that moment bind it to the now motionless shell of the earthly body

It is surrounded by helps and at the same time drawn forward by the threads woven out of its own previous volition

All that is pure and strong in its fervour clears the way forward for it, however varied the shapes and forms this takes at first, to whose nature the soul needs first to accustom itself and to make its own again after its return into this plane of being

But even this goes swiftly and with a certain spontaneity, if the foundation within the one who has entered the beyond retains a sufficiently healthy liveliness and above all childlike purity

Very much is bound up with this disposition which determines the further path, whether it will lead freely and swiftly upwards, or cause a becoming stuck in some place of the twilight worlds, or perhaps even draw the soul further downwards into the planes lying still further beneath the gross material hermetis, which appears as a denser floating sediment within a far larger section of the ethereal composed of many planes of spheres

The soul itself, through its volition, is the determiner of where its paths will lead, paths which are nothing other than worlds formed by the hands of the Alphar out of ethereal substance for this or that kind of luminosity and ripeness of souls

As has already been said, however, for all brighter and purer souls a path is set which we may call a path lying in the arms of the helps of the Light

To this correspond also all the intermediate stages through which the soul is drawn, finding itself temporarily in the state of a newcomer, when everything becomes for it again a being reminded and also a renewed acquainting with all that works and serves to help it in planes wholly different from the density of earthly matter

If there is in it sufficient purity and fervent will towards the Light, everything proceeds along automatic paths which are many times swifter, more careful, more certain and also more knowing than the way a newcomer just born into the earthly world is cared for here on Earth

This is because this ethereal world is fully administered by the animistic weaving, without the possibility of any great influence of men

Therefore we may speak of the complete automatism of many happenings which fulfil themselves at once as soon as the impulse of the soul's volition is given, or that of other effects of powers of a higher kind, which are always strictly subject to the work of the Light

And everything is also very easily comprehensible for the soul, if it longs to seek in the unfolding happening the right principles that manifest therein

It is permitted to see and to recognise it, and this always brings it only an ever greater reason to praise the Creator, from whom in Creation all things come

It would fill whole books were we to describe, for instance, only the path of a single soul and try in doing so to capture all that takes place and what it experiences therein at the same time, and also how many weavers' hands are at work so that all this may have manifestations corresponding exactly to the condition of the inner being of the soul concerned, newly arriving into the ethereal planes which open with prospects of undreamed-of paths

Yet it would never capture the reality of the state which can only be lived through in the given places in the luminous ethereal spheres, for the reader would receive what is described again and again in the manner which the earthly intellect forces upon him by its work

Although within he would feel that glorious transparency and the happiness bound up with it which reigns there for all who are permitted to be in those places, the intellect would always try to connect the pictures with the gross material world, which it needs as a support for comprehending happenings

But this is not the fault of gross materiality, but solely and only of the manner of thinking which is established here and which is taken by the greatest part of humanity as an unshakable reality confirmed by all the sense-perceptions of the earthly body

In reality, however, people can inwardly draw nearer to the experiencing that is part of the brighter spheres of Creation

For this they need only to loosen their inner being and let their spirit receive the pictures in the liveliness which belongs to them

Almost every person can work his way to this, if only he truly longs for such a thing

Thereby that ponderous crust, as the regions of thought around the Earth may be called today, would in the end also be set in motion

Through a higher liveliness and also through the right reception of knowledge about the worlds and happenings which belong to the places of Creation lying above matter, it would gradually lead to the finding of forms and concepts which of themselves would bring the blessed streams of Light into the earthly world

That would bring a gradual change into the world of thought of men and into the perception of all the attitudes arising from it in everyday working and resting life

Everything would quickly acquire another significance and meaning, which would gradually bring further inspirations, out of which in the end the whole earthly world too could blossom into a glory which today it largely lacks

Thus it would also become something wholly self-evident in its earnestness that at about the time of the thirtieth of May a new portion of the gracious Power of God pours into the whole of Creation, which permeates all its parts until at last it reaches also the humanly spiritual species on this Earth

People would make their own all that it is possible to do in order to draw near to the experiencing that is proper to all those souls now dwelling in the planes of the luminous spheres of the ethereal materialities

Thereby there would arise a great, united spiritual alliance permeating all the parts of Creation at one and the same time in a common praising of the Creator

The Power and blessing which would flow from this to the Earth is not even imaginable today, for with rare exceptions we find here far and wide only the inner vegetating of the inhabitants of the Earth

But even in this everything is already changing, and the great break in the development hitherto is drawing near, a development which is no longer to have the direction of intellectuality, but is to become a time of the predominance of the spiritual in the capacity of intuitive sensing and of the more inward experiencing of those who will be permitted to dwell further on Earth in the future

This will in fact in the end automatically bring the raising of the Earth higher, and thereby that mentioned connection with all the planes of Light will become a reality for this Earth in any case

The question remains which of today's people is rightly prepared in his inner purity and liveliness for this great change

To this only a great wish can be added, that the number of such people may be as great as possible

Among other things it is also that great wish of those knowing souls who in the spheres of the luminous ethereal landscapes are permitted from time to time to return for a moment in attunement to their earthly life and to perceive that immeasurable difference reigning between their state of the present and the distant dream of their past earthly existence

It is the inexpressible wish of all luminous souls that mankind in as great a number as possible may inwardly awaken and at last stride out in a new direction, thus following the Call of God from the castle of the Grail brought by Parzival