Resonances to the Grail Message 1
by Abdrushin
1stBOOK ◄ ► 2ndBOOK
5. Voluntary martyrs, religious fanatics
Men who voluntarily inflict pain and privation upon themselves in order to become pleasing to God are repulsive! None of them will ever attain to the Kingdom of Heaven!
Instead of showing gratitude for their existence by enjoying the beautiful Creation, they torment and torture their bodies, which before were often quite healthy, in the most wanton manner, or harm them by various self-imposed privations and renunciations only... in order to be considered great in the eyes of men, or to achieve personal satisfaction and exaltation under the delusion that they have accomplished quite an exceptional feat.
All this is nothing but an evil and obnoxious outgrowth of the most gross and base conceit! The desire by every means and at all costs to pass for something before others! Almost always such persons fully realize that they can never command attention in any other way. They intuitively perceive quite clearly their inability to distinguish themselves by achieving something great. They are convinced of their own insignificance.
In their self-delusion they consider this conviction as to their insignificance to be humility! But it is not humility, and they immediately prove it by their desire to attract attention. Only self-complacency and vanity drive them to such repugnant acts. These are not pious ones or humble servants of God, nor should they be considered saints, but only willful sinners! As such they even expect to be admired for their sins and to be rewarded for their indolent attitude towards work!
If it never dawns upon many of them that this is a great sin, because in striving for “self-exaltation” they themselves do not wish to recognize it as such, this does not alter the fact that ultimately every action remains always and only what it really is, and not what man wishes to make himself and others believe it is.
Such men are nothing but sinners before God, because by their willful or stubborn behavior they oppose His Primordial Laws of Creation, for they do not give the bodies entrusted to them the necessary nourishment and care in order to develop that strength which will enable them to provide a strong soil for the spirit on earth, and to make healthy and vigorous tools for defense and reception, serving the spirit powerfully both as shield and as sword at the same time.
Willfully to oppose the Laws of Nature in order to stand out and attract attention is nothing but the result of a diseased brain, for a healthy man will never imagine that he can change or improve the Will of God expressed in the Primordial Laws of Creation, even by as much as a hair’s breadth, without harming himself.
How foolish, how childishly wayward or ridiculous does it appear when a man spends a lifetime in a hollow tree, when he allows a limb of his body to become completely paralyzed, or when he lacerates or defiles himself!
Let man exert himself as he will to find a reason which would justify such behavior, or which would even offer some sense for it; it is and remains a crime against the body entrusted to him, and therefore a crime against the Will of God!
To these also belong the innumerable martyrs to vanity and fashion!
Pay no further attention to such people! You will see how quickly they change, how shallow are their convictions.
A fanatic ruins himself by his stubbornness! He is not worth grieving over, for such a human spirit never has any values to show.
And just as thousands of people severely maltreat their physical bodies in this manner, therewith maliciously turning against the Will of God, so is it also done in a thousand ways against the soul!
Great is the number of those, for instance, who continually live under the self-created delusion that they are outcasts in the world. Bereft of happiness, neglected by their fellow-men, and so on. Yet they themselves make demands upon their fellow-men which are far from justified; their envy has a disintegrating effect upon their surroundings, whereby they heap an ever-growing and heavy burden of guilt upon their shoulders. These comprise the vermin which must be crushed under foot in the Judgment, so that undimmed peace, joy and happiness may at last reign among men.
However, not only do they torment their neighbors with their moods, but they also injure their own soul bodies in much the same way as religious fanatics harm their physical bodies. In so doing they especially transgress against the Divine Laws, for they recklessly injure all those necessary cloaks which are entrusted to their spirit, so that they cannot be used by the spirit in their fresh health and full vigor.
Far-reaching indeed are the consequences of such deeds on the part of those who thus abuse their physical or soul bodies! Their spirits are hampered and harmed in their urgent and necessary development, and may even be led into eternal disintegration, into perdition. But even as they fall they will still suffer from the delusion that they are the victims of injustice!
Basically, however, they are only contemptible creatures, unworthy to enjoy any happiness!
Disregard and avoid them, therefore, for they do not merit even one good word!
