In the Light of Truth

53. I am the Lord thy God!

Where are the people who really apply this highest of all commandments? Where is the priest who teaches it purely and truly?

“I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have none other gods but Me!” These words are given so plainly, so unconditionally, that any deviation should be utterly impossible! Christ also repeatedly pointed this out quite clearly and strictly. It is all the more deplorable that millions heedlessly overlook it and devote themselves to cults which are in sharp opposition to this highest of all commandments. Worst of all they disregard this commandment of their Lord and God with devout fervor, under the delusion that they are honoring and pleasing Him with what is an obvious transgression of His commandment!

This great error can only be kept alive through a blind faith which excludes any scrutiny. For blind faith is nothing but thoughtlessness and spiritual indolence on the part of those who, like slackers and late sleepers, try to put off as long as possible the moment of awakening and of getting up because it involves duties from which they shy away. They loathe all exertion, for it is much easier to let others work and think for them.

However, he who lets others think for him puts himself in their power, reduces himself to lackey status and thus becomes un-free. But God gave man the power to decide freely and the ability to think and perceive intuitively, in return for which man must naturally render account of everything this ability to make free decisions entails! Thus God wanted free men and not lackeys!

It is sad when out of laziness man makes himself a slave in the earthly sense, but the consequences are terrible when he debases himself spiritually so far as to become the dull-witted adherent of teachings which are in opposition to the explicit commandments of God. It avails them nothing to try and lull the misgivings to sleep which now and then assail them with the excuse that those who introduced the errors into the teachings must, after all, carry the greatest responsibility. This in itself is true, but in addition, each individual is specifically responsible for everything he thinks and does. Without exception, none of it can be remitted.

He who does not use the given ability to think and perceive intuitively to its fullest extent is guilty!

It is not a sin but rather the duty of every man, upon awakening to maturity, through which he enters into full responsibility for himself, to begin to think about what he has been taught up till then. If he cannot bring his intuition to harmonize with one or another point in the teaching, he must not blindly accept it as being correct. He harms himself alone through this, as if he had made a bad bargain. That which he cannot retain out of conviction he should leave alone, otherwise his thoughts and actions will become hypocrisy.

He who neglects something which is really good because he cannot understand it is not nearly as despicable as he who without conviction adheres to a cult he does not quite understand. All thoughts and actions resulting from this lack of proper comprehension are hollow and, because of this hollowness, there can naturally be no good reciprocal action, for hollowness does not provide living soil for anything good. Thus it becomes hypocrisy, which amounts to blasphemy, because it is an attempt to deceive God by feigning something that does not exist. Living intuitive perceptions! That makes the one practicing it despicable, an outcast!

Although they may be devout and fervent, millions who thoughtlessly do homage to things that are directly opposed to the Divine Commandments are absolutely fettered and completely cut off from spiritual ascent.

Only free conviction has real life and can therefore create living values! Such a conviction, however, can only arise from rigorous examination and from inner intuitive perception. Where there is the slightest lack of understanding, not to mention doubt, conviction can never be attained.

Only complete understanding, free of any gaps, is synonymous with conviction, which alone has spiritual value!

It is truly painful to observe how in churches the masses thoughtlessly make the sign of the Cross, bow down, and kneel. Such robots should not be numbered among thinking men. The sign of the Cross is the sign of Truth, and therefore a sign of God! He who uses this sign of Truth while his inner being is not genuine in every respect, or when all of his intuitive senses are not fully adjusted to absolute Truth, burdens himself with guilt. It would be a hundred times better for such persons to refrain from crossing themselves until such time as their whole soul has become attuned to the Truth, thus also to God Himself and to His Holy Will, for God, their Lord, is the Truth.

It is idolatry and an open transgression against the holiest of all Commandments of their God when they pay homage to a symbol, homage which is due only to God!

“I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have none other gods but Me!” This is stated so explicitly. In brief, distinct and clear terms, without allowance for even the slightest deviation. Christ also specifically pointed to the necessity of keeping this commandment. Purposely and significantly He called it the supreme law when speaking to the Pharisees, i.e. the law that must not be broken or perverted under any circumstances. At the same time this implies that nothing else that is good, nor any other religious belief, can have full value unless this supreme law is strictly and completely obeyed! That indeed everything depends upon this!

Let us, for example, consider without prejudice the homage paid to the monstrance! Many people see this as a conflict with this clear, supreme commandment.

Does man expect his God to descend into this exchangeable host, thus explaining why he accords it Divine honors? Or that God is compelled to enter such a host on account of its consecration? One is as unthinkable as the other. Neither can such a consecration bring about a direct connection with God, for the way to God is not so simple and so easy. Nor will man or the spirit of man ever be able to reach this final goal.

When one man prostrates himself before a carved wooden figure, another before the sun, and a third before the monstrance, they are all trespassing against God’s supreme law if in doing so they see in it the Divine, i.e. the Living God Himself, and consequently expect from it direct Divine Grace and Blessing! The actual trespass and open idolatry lie in such a false assumption, expectation and intuitive perception!

Yet this kind of idolatry is often practiced with the greatest fervor, although in different forms, by the adherents of many religions.

Every man who fulfills his duty of serious thinking, which his abilities oblige him to, must come into a conflict which he can only silence forcibly and temporarily through the error of blind faith, in the same way as a lazy sluggard who prefers to sleep the time away rather than attend to his daily duties. Every earnest man, however, will definitely perceive that first and foremost he must seek clarity in all that is to become holy to him!

How often did Christ explain that men should live His teaching in order to derive profit from it, i.e. to commence spiritual ascent and attain everlasting life. The words “everlasting life” themselves express spiritual activity, not spiritual indolence. When He spoke of living His teaching He expressly and clearly warned against a dull acceptance as being wrong and useless.

Genuine experiencing can naturally always only occur in conviction, never otherwise. Conviction, however, can only arise through complete understanding. Understanding in turn requires deep reflection and personal examination. The teachings must be weighed with one’s own intuition. It therefore obviously follows that blind faith is utterly wrong. All that is wrong, however, can easily lead downwards, towards perdition, but it can never lead upwards. Ascent is synonymous with liberation from all pressure. As long as there is still pressure being felt somewhere, there can be no question of liberation or redemption. That which is not understood, however, constitutes a pressure, which is not released until the point of pressure or the gap is eliminated through complete understanding.

Blind faith always is synonymous with lack of understanding, and can therefore never be the same as conviction, nor can it bring liberation and redemption! People who have imprisoned themselves within a blind faith cannot be alive spiritually. They are as if dead and therefore worthless.

A man who begins to think aright, to consider all happenings calmly and attentively and to connect them together logically, will of his own accord, come to the conviction that God in His Perfect Purity, according to His Own Creative Will, cannot descend to the earth!

The absolute Purity and Perfection, i.e. the very Divinity, exclude the possibility of descent into the World of Matter. The difference is too great for a direct union to be possible at all, without taking into account the necessary transition stages required by the animistic and material substances lying in between. Taking into account the transition stages can only be accomplished by an incarnation in the flesh, as happened in the case of the Son of God!

As the Son of God “has been re-united with the Father”, has returned to His origin, He is again part of Divinity and thus is also separated from what is earthly.

Any exception to this would mean a bending of the Divine Creative Will, which in turn would show a lack of perfection.

But since perfection is inseparable from Divinity, there remains no other possibility than that His Creative Will is also perfect, which is the same as being unalterable. If all men were perfect too, it would naturally follow that everyone would and could always and only take the same road as the other.

Only imperfection permits differences!

In fulfillment of the perfect Divine laws it was impossible for the Son of God, after His “return to the Father”, just as for the Father Himself, to be personally in the sphere of matter or to descend to the earth. Not without becoming man in accordance with the Creation Laws!

For these reasons Divine worship of any material object must represent a transgression against the supreme Law of God; since Divine honors should only be accorded to the Living God, Who on account of His Divinity cannot be on earth.

In accordance with the Perfection of God, as expressed in His Creative Will, the gross material body of the Son of God in turn had to be purely physical, and must therefore not be called or considered Divine.*(Lecture: The resurrection of Christ's physical body)

It follows that everything which contradicts this will cast doubt on the absolute Perfection of God and must therefore be wrong! This is an unquestionable and infallible standard for an appraisal of the right faith in God.

It is different with pure symbolism. Every symbol serves a good and helpful purpose as long as it is seriously regarded as such; for the sight of it will help very many people toward greater and deeper concentration. Many a man who looks upon the symbols of his religion will find it easier to direct his thoughts more clearly towards the Creator, no matter what name he uses to make Him more conceivable. It would therefore be wrong to doubt the high value of religious ceremonies and symbolism, as long as they do not degenerate into adoration and worship of the material object.

As God Himself cannot descend to the earth in the Gross Material Sphere, it is up to the human spirit alone to make its way upward to the Sphere of Spiritual Substantiality from which it originates. And to show this way Divinity descended by becoming man, for in Divinity alone lies the Original Power from which the Living Word can flow. But man must not imagine that Divinity remained on earth in order that every person might at once be accorded grace in a very special manner just by wishing for it. For the purpose of obtaining grace the immutable Laws of God lie in Creation, and it is only through strict adherence to them that grace can be received! He who wishes to ascend to the Luminous Heights must adjust himself accordingly!

Nobody shall compare God in His Perfection with an earthly king who according to his own imperfect human judgment can arbitrarily repeal sentences passed by his equally arbitrary judges. The Perfection of the Creator and of His Will, which is One with Him, render such a thing impossible!

The human spirit must at last get used to the thought that it must bestir itself most energetically to obtain grace and forgiveness and thus fulfill the duty it has indolently neglected. He must pull himself together and work on himself if he would not fall into the darkness of the damned! To trust in our Savior means to trust in His words. To let His words come to life in deeds! Nothing else will help! Mere hollow faith is of no avail. To believe in Him simply means to believe Him. Anyone who does not work assiduously to climb the rope tendered him through the Word of the Son of God is irretrievably lost!

If a man really wants to have his Savior he must finally bestir himself to spiritual activity and work which is directed to more than mere earthly advantages and enjoyments, but must strive to climb up to Him. He must not in his presumptiously expect his Savior to descend to him. The way upwards is shown in the Word. God will not run begging after mankind when they build up a false picture of Him and thereby turn away and go on wrong paths. It is not as easy as that. Because such an absurd notion is deeply rooted in many people through a false understanding, mankind must first learn to fear their God again. They must recognize through the inevitable reciprocal action of their comfortable or dead faith that His Will is adamant in its Perfection and cannot be bent. He who will not conform to the Divine Laws will be hurt or even crushed, as must also happen ultimately to those who practice idolatry by according Divine homage to something that is not Divine! Man must learn to recognize the fact that: the Savior is waiting for him, but He will not come and fetch him!

The faith, or rather the delusion, held by the greater part of mankind of the present day was bound to fail them, and even lead to misery and destruction, because it is dead and without real life!

As Christ once drove out the money-changers who were defiling the Temple, so must men first be whipped up out of their indolence regarding their thoughts and intuitive perception about God! But let him who does not wish otherwise sleep on, let him recline comfortably on the soft cushion of the self-delusion that he has the right faith if he thinks little, and that to ponder is, after all, sinful. The awakening which is nearer to him than he expects will be terrible. He will receive in proportion to his indolence!

How can a man who believes in God, who has reflected upon His Nature and His Greatness, and who, above all, knows how the perfect Divine Will rests in Creation as the active Laws of Nature, expect that his sins can be forgiven through some penance imposed upon him, in direct contradiction to the Divine Law of absolute Reciprocal Action. This would be impossible even for the Creator; for the Laws of Creation and of Development, which have issued from His Perfection, are in their effects solely and completely responsible for the automatic dispensation of reward or punishment, which they carry out with immutable justice, in the ripening and harvesting of the good and evil seeds sown by the human spirit.

Whatever God wills, every new act of His Will must always bear within itself perfection, and can therefore never deviate in the slightest degree from previous acts of will, but must be completely consistent with them. God’s Perfection necessitates that everything, literally everything, must continually follow the same course. Forgiveness of sins and consequently immediate atonement is utterly impossible unless the Divine Laws resting in Creation and to which every human spirit is subject if he wishes to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, have been fulfilled.

How can a man upon some reflection expect any deviation? This would be a downright diminishment of his Perfect God! When Christ during His life on earth said to this or that man: “Thy sins are forgiven thee”, this was quite correct; for in his earnest prayer and firm faith lay the best guarantee that in future the man concerned would live according to Christ’s teaching thus was bound to receive forgiveness of his sins, because he had adjusted himself aright to the Divine Laws of Creation and no longer acted against them.

Now, if a man at his own discretion dictates penance to another, after which he declares the other’s sins to be remitted, he deceives himself and the man who came to seek his help, whether consciously or unconsciously and unscrupulously sets himself far above the Godhead!

If only men would at last think of their God in a more natural way! Their God Whose Volition created living nature in the first place. But in their blind deluded faith they form a picture of Him which is an illusion, whereas He is of course anything but that. It is just in the Natural Perfection or Perfect Naturalness of God, as the Primordial Source of all being and the Starting Point of all that lives, that His greatness is so powerful and beyond the grasp of the human spirit. Many of the teachings, however, contain so much willful distortion and confusion as to make it unnecessarily difficult and sometimes quite impossible for man to preserve a pure faith because of the lack of all naturalness. And how many incredible contradictions are contained in some of them!

For instance, they frequently contain as a basic tenet the Omniscience and Perfection of the Will of God and of the Word that issues from It! However, this must naturally carry with it an immutability that cannot be moved by a hair’s breadth, for Perfection cannot be conceived in any other way. The actions of many religious leaders, however, show doubt in their own teaching, because they stand in direct contradiction to it, and by their deeds they openly disavow its basic tenets! For example, the hearing of confession and the imposition of penance, the sale of indulgences whether for money or for prayer, which is supposed to be followed by the immediate forgiveness of sins, and other similar customs, are, on calm reflection, a denial of the Divine Will resting in the Laws of Creation. He who keeps his thoughts away from erratic, unsupported notions will see in this nothing but an absolute belittlement of the Perfection of God.

It is quite natural that man’s erroneous presumption in considering himself capable of forgiving sins, and similar transgressions against the Perfection of the Divine Will, were bound to lead to gross abuse. How much longer will man continue under the foolish delusion that he is able to drive such an unclean bargain with the Just God and His unalterable Will!

When Jesus the Son of God once said to His disciples: “Whosoever’s sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them,” then these words were not meant as a general license to act arbitrarily.

That would have been equivalent to upsetting the Divine Will as embodied in the immutable power of reciprocal action, which in its active working carries reward and punishment with incorruptible and Divine, thus perfect, Justice. It would have meant an authorized interruption of this law.

Jesus would never have been able to do this, nor did He do it, for He had come to “fulfill” the laws, not to overthrow them!

With these words He meant the lawful process resting in the Creative Will, whereby one human being can forgive another that injury which he has suffered through him personally! Being the victim, he has the right and also the power to forgive; for His sincere forgiveness will turn aside and break the power of the karma which would otherwise surely develop for the other through reciprocal action, and in this live act lies at the same time real forgiveness.

Such forgiveness of the originator or perpetrator can only come from the person who suffered the offense, not otherwise. It is for this reason that there is so much blessing and deliverance in personal forgiveness when it is honestly meant and intuitively felt.

A person not immediately involved is quite naturally excluded from the threads of reciprocal action and cannot actively and effectively intervene because he is not connected. He can only intercede by prayer in such cases, the effect of which, however, depends on the condition of the souls of those immediately concerned. He himself must remain on the outside and therefore cannot bring about forgiveness. This rests in God’s Will alone, which reveals Itself in the laws of just reciprocal actions, against which He Himself would never act, because, out of His Will, they were perfect from the beginning.

It lies in the Justice of God that whatever happens or has happened can only be forgiven by the injured person, either here on earth or later in the Ethereal World. Otherwise the full force of reciprocal action must impact the originator with the result that the debt would then be redeemed. This reciprocal action, however, will simultaneously bring about the forgiveness of the person concerned in a way that interweaves the reciprocal action and the person affected. There is no other possibility, as the connecting threads remain unbroken until this happens. This is not only an advantage for the perpetrator but also for the person harmed because the latter could not wholly enter into the Light either without first having granted this forgiveness: implacability would prevent him.

Thus no man can forgive the sins of another by which he was not personally harmed. The Law of Reciprocal Action would remain uninfluenced by anything not interwoven in the web by a living thread, which only direct involvement can form. Reformation alone is the living road to forgiveness!*( Lecture No. 6: Fate)

“I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have none other gods but Me!” should remain burned into man’s spirit in letters of fire as a natural protection against any form of idolatry!

He who truly acknowledges God in all His greatness must have an intuitive sense that all other practices are sacrilegious.

A man may and should go to a priest to receive instruction, providing the latter is really capable of giving it. If, however, such a priest demands of him to belittle God’s Perfection through carrying out some action or false mental concept, then he must turn away from the priest, for a servant of God is not at the same time an authorized representative of God with the right to demand and to grant in His Name.

This matter also has quite a natural and simple explanation which straightforwardly shows the right way.

An authorized representative of God can, naturally, never be a human being, unless he had come directly from Divinity and thus bears the attributes of Divinity within himself! Therein alone lies any authorization.

But since man is not Divine, it is therefore impossible for him to be an authorized representative of God. The Power of God cannot be conferred upon any man, because Divine Power lies only in Divinity Itself!

This logical fact in its very simplicity automatically and absolutely precludes all possibility of the election by men of an earthly Prefect for God, or of the proclamation of a Christ. Any attempt to do so must bear the stamp of impossibility.

It follows that in such matters neither an election nor a proclamation by men has any validity, but only a direct sending by God Himself!

Man’s opinions in these matters are of no account. On the contrary, judging from all that has happened in the past, they have always been far removed from reality and did not harmonize with the Will of God. Thinking people cannot comprehend the unhealthy progression in man’s attempts again and again to reach beyond their actual value. Men, in their highest state of spiritual perfection, can only ascend to the lowest level in the conscious part of the eternal Sphere of Spiritual Substantiality! Whereas, except for a greater intellect, a large number of men today differ very little in their intuitive perception, their thinking and their striving, from the most highly developed animals.

Like insects they hustle and bustle about as busily as if it were a question of attaining to the highest goal with the utmost haste. When their aims are more closely and carefully scrutinized, however, the hollowness and insignificance of their feverish efforts, which are indeed unworthy of such zeal, will very soon become apparent. And out of this chaotic teeming rises the insane arrogance which presumes that it can choose, accept, or reject, an Envoy of God. This would be a judgment of something which they will never be able to comprehend, unless this superior being inclines towards them to make Himself understood. Today, everyone boasts of science, intellect and logic, while accepting the great inconsistencies inherent in so many currents of the time.

In the case of thousands of people it is not worth wasting more words on this matter. They are so taken with their own knowledge that they have lost all ability to reflect on anything simply and unpretentiously. These words are only addressed to those who are still natural enough to develop their own sound critical abilities as long as they are given aguideline. Those who do not blindly join first this and then that popular movement, only to fall away just as quickly upon the first doubt expressed by one who has no knowledge.

Just a little calm reflection should lead to the recognition that no species can evolve from another species which has nothing in common with the first. The simplest knowledge of the Natural Sciences will verify this. As the ramifications of the Natural Laws operating in the World of Gross Matter have their origin in the living Primordial Source of God, it is clear that these same laws must also be found with the same immovable logic and consistency further along the path towards Him, becoming even purer and clearer the closer they are to the point of origin.

Just as impossible as it is to transplant a human spirit into an animal here on earth, thus turning the living animal into a man, so is it also impossible to transplant an element of Divinity into a man. Nothing can ever evolve that is different from what the origin comprised. In the evolutionary process the original substance allows for different kinds and forms of combinations, as can be seen in the grafting of trees or in cross-breeding, but even the most astonishing results must remain within the basic substances as determined by their origin.

A mixing between earth-man and animal can only occur within the confines of the gross material bodies because these have their origin in the same materiality. The inner origin of man and animal cannot be bridged.*(Lecture No. 49: The difference in origin between man and animal)

It is impossible either to add something to or to take something away from that which stands above the point of origin, i.e., something that was not contained in the original substance, as is the case with the difference between the spiritual origin of man and Divinity*(Lecture No. 51: Spirit).

Christ, as the Son of God, came from the Divine Unsubstantiate; He bore Divinity within Himself on account of His origin. But it would have been impossible for Him to transmit this Living Divinity to any other man, who can only originate from the Sphere of Spiritual Substantiality. Therefore He could not authorize anyone to perform acts that belong to Divinity alone as, for example, the forgiving of sins. This can only take place in the effect of the fundamental principles of Divine Will of the precisely self-balancing reciprocal actions resting in Creation in which the unalterable Justice of the Creator automatically lives in a Perfection that is beyond the comprehension of the human spirit.

Therefore the authority given man by the Son of God could relate merely to such human matters as corresponded with the human spirit’s origin, but never to anything Divine!

It is true of course, that ultimately man’s origin can be logically traced back to God, but it does not lie in God Himself, rather outside Divinity. Therefore man’s divine origin is merely an indirect one, and therein lies the great difference.

The authority, for instance, that attaches to the office of a Prefect could only be automatic if it were acquired through the same direct descent. Everyone can readily understand this, because an authorized representative must possess all the qualifications of his superior in order to represent him in a mission or a post. Such a representative would therefore have to come directly from the Divine Unsubstantiate, as did Christ.

If a man, takes on this office nonetheless, even though in good faith, it naturally follows that his orders could have no more than purely earthly validity or life. Those, however, who see something greater in him are suffering from a delusion, which they will only recognize as such after they have passed over, and the time they have spent on earth will be entirely lost towards spiritual ascent. Lost sheep following a false shepherd.

What holds true for this supreme commandment: “I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have none other gods but Me” also holds true for the other commandments, which are often disregarded and trespassed against because they are not understood.

And yet, the commandments are in reality nothing but an explanation of the Divine Will which has been resting in Creation from the very beginning, and which cannot be circumvented by a hair’s breadth.

Viewed in this light, how foolish becomes the principle of so many that “the end justifies the means” which contradicts every Divine Thought and all Perfection! What mad confusion would ensue in the Laws of the Divine Will if they could be shifted about in such a way. Anyone having the slightest idea of what perfection means cannot but reject such impossibilities from the very beginning. As soon as a man tries to form a true picture of the Perfection of God he will find that this will serve him as a guide and staff for quicker understanding of all things in Creation! To know and to always keep in mind the Perfection of God is the key to the understanding of God’s work, to which man himself belongs.

Then he will recognize the compelling power and the serious warning of the Word: “God will not be mocked!” In other words: His laws fulfill themselves or operate immutably. He lets the wheels turn as He established them at the point of Creation. A small human being will alter nothing in this. Should he try to do so all he would accomplish would be that he and all who followed him would be torn to pieces. Believing otherwise will be of no avail to him.

Blessing can only be given him who fully and completely adjusts himself to the Will of God which bears Creation in its natural laws. But only he can do this who understands them rightly.

The teachings which demand blind faith must be rejected as dead and therefore harmful; only those teachings can bring liberation and redemption which, like the teachings of Christ, prompt man to become alive, that is, to reflect and examine, so that conviction can grow out of real understanding!

Only those exhibiting the most reprehensible thoughtlessness can imagine that the purpose of man’s existence consists primarily in the pursuit of physical necessities and pleasures, and that at the last moment, through some outward ceremony and beautiful words, he could be conveniently freed from all guilt and from the consequences of his own indolent carelessness during his life on earth. The passage through life and the step into the beyond at physical death is not the same as an everyday journey for which one only needs to buy a ticket at the last moment.

With such a belief man doubles his guilt! For every doubt in the incorruptible Justice of the Perfect God is blasphemy! To believe in an arbitrary, easy forgiveness of sins, however, is manifest proof of doubt in the incorruptible Justice of God and His Laws and, what is more, it directly confirms the belief that God acts arbitrarily, which amounts to the same thing as being deficient and imperfect!

Poor pathetic believers!

It would be better for them if they were still unbelievers, for then they would be unhindered and could more easily find the way which they imagine they have found already.

Salvation lies only in not timidly suppressing burgeoning thoughts and awakening doubts in so many things, for they are but the healthy urge for Truth!

To wrestle with doubt is a process of examination which indisputably must be followed by the rejection of all dogmatic ballast. Only a spirit completely liberated from all misunderstanding can rise in joyful conviction to the Luminous Heights, to Paradise!

[Grail Message by Abdrushin]  [Resonances to the Grail Message]