Wrong courses

 

With few exceptions, mankind labour under a boundless delusion which is fatal for them!

God has no need to run after them and beg them to believe in His existence. Nor are His servants sent out forever to admonish people on no account to turn away from Him. This would indeed
be absurd. To think and expect such things is a dishonouring and debasing of the sublime Godhead.

This erroneous conception causes great harm. It is fostered by the behaviour of many truly earnest pastors who, out of a real love for God and men, try again and again to convert people who turn only to material things, to convince them and win them over to the church. All this only tends immeasurably to increase man’s conceit in regard to his importance, of which there is more than enough already, and in the end really to place many under the delusion that they must be begged to strive for what is good.

This is also the cause of the strange attitude of the majority of all believers, whose example is more often a deterrent than an inspiration. Thousands upon thousands feel a certain inner satisfaction, an exaltation, in the consciousness that they believe in God, that they utter their prayers with such earnestness as they are capable of bringing up, and that they do not intentionally harm their neighbours.

In this inner exaltation, they feel a certain reward for goodness, thanks from God for their obedience, and they sense a being linked with God, of Whom they also think at times with a certain sacred thrill that produces or leaves behind a state of bliss, in which they revel.

But these legions of believers take the wrong course. Living happily in a self-created delusion, they are unaware that it numbers them with those Pharisees who, with the genuine but mistaken feeling of gratitude, bring their small sacrifices: Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are. This is not expressed in words, nor really in thought, but the inner uplifting feeling is nothing more than this unconscious prayer of thanks, which Christ too has already shown to be false.

In these cases the inner exaltation is nothing more than the setting free of self-satisfaction engendered by prayer or forced good thoughts. Those who call themselves humble are mostly very far from really being humble! It often requires self-restraint to speak with such believers. In such a frame of mind they will never at any time attain to the bliss which they are confident they already possess! Let them take heed lest they be altogether lost through their spiritual arrogance, which they consider to be humility.

It will be easier for many who now are still absolute unbelievers to enter the Kingdom of God than for all the legions with their conceited humility, who do not really stand before God in simple supplication, but indirectly demanding that He reward them for their prayers and pious words. Their petitions are demands, their inner being hypocritical. They will be swept away like empty chaff before His Countenance. They will have their reward, certainly, but it will be different from what they imagine. They have already satiated themselves long enough on earth in the consciousness of their own value.

The feeling of well-being will rapidly disappear on passing into the Ethereal World, where the inner intuitive perception, which is scarcely sensed here, will come to the fore, while the feeling hitherto mainly produced only by thoughts will be blown to nothing.

This inner, silent, so-called humble expectation of something better is really nothing but a demand, even though it be expressed differently, in however beautiful words.

Every demand, however, is a presumption. God alone has to demand! Nor did Christ come pleading to mankind with His Message, but warning and demanding. He certainly gave explanations about the Truth, but He did not enticingly hold out rewards before the eyes of His hearers to spur them on to become better. Calmly and sternly He commanded serious seekers: Go thou and do likewise!

God stands before humanity demanding, not enticing and pleading, not lamenting and grieving. He will calmly abandon to the Darkness all the wicked, even all the wavering ones, so that those who are striving upwards shall no longer be exposed to their attacks; enabling the others thoroughly to experience everything they consider to be right, and thus come to the recognition of their error!