The man who spends his days on earth in pondering about himself can never ascend, but remains hampered.
So many people live in the belief, however, that just such pondering and self-observation is something especially great which helps them to ascend. They have many words for it that veil its true nature. One person ponders in repentance, another in humility. Then there are still others who ponder assiduously in order to discover their faults and the way to avoid them, and so on. But it all remains a continuous pondering which seldom or never permits them to experience true joy.
That is not what is willed. It is a false road and never leads upwards to luminous and free realms. For through this pondering man binds himself! He directs his gaze forcibly upon himself only, instead of upon a high, pure luminous goal!
Cheerful, hearty laughter is the strongest antidote to darkness. Only it must not be a laugh of malicious pleasure!
On the other hand pondering weighs a person down. This alone is enough to explain that it keeps down and also pulls down. —
Nor is the real basis of continual pondering a good volition, but only vanity, ambition and conceit! It is not the pure longing for the Light that gives cause to this pondering, but a craving for self-esteem that kindles it ever anew and perpetually nourishes it!
In self-torment such a man continously thinks about himself, zealously observes the alternating pros and cons in his soul’s processes, feeling vexed at times and then finding solace again, until finally he himself notices with a deep sigh of calm self-satisfaction that once again he has “overcome” something and moved a step forward. I purposely say “he himself notices” for it is really he alone who does most of the noticing, which is invariably nothing but self-delusion. In reality he has not advanced a single step, but goes on making the same mistakes over and over again, although he imagines they are no longer the same. But they are the same, always the old mistakes, only their form changes.
Such a man never advances in this way. However, in his personal observations he imagines that he is overcoming one fault after another. But he always revolves in a circle around himself, while the basic evil hidden within him does nothing but continuously create new forms.
A man who is always observing and pondering over himself is the personification of the fighter against the nine-headed snake, where no sooner that each head is cut off a new one grow afresh, making the struggle endless, with nothing to mark in the way of progress on the fighter’s side.
As a matter of fact this is also the ethereal process of the activity of a ponderer, which people in the last Antiquity were still able to behold, when at that time they considered anything not gross-material as gods, demigods or other kinds of entities. —
Only a man of cheerful volition who keeps his gaze freely concentrated upon a sublime goal, instead of continually focusing all his attention upon himself, only he will advance and ascend towards the Luminous Heights. No child learns to walk without frequently tumbling, but it almost invariably gets up with a smile until it is able to walk in safety. That is what man must do on his path through the world. Do not despair, lament or complain when you sometimes fall. Get up briskly and try again! You must learn the lesson from each fall through your intuitive perception, however, and not through mental observation. Then there will quite suddenly come a time when you need no longer fear another fall, because you have inwardly absorbed everything the previous ones have taught you.
Thus man can only absorb through actual experiencing. Not through observation. A ponderer never comes to the point of experiencing; through his observing he always places himself outside every experience; looking at himself with his dissecting and analytic mind as if at a stranger, instead of exercising his intuitive perception to the full on his own behalf. However, if he looks at himself he must stand beside the intuitive perception; the very words to look at oneself, to observe oneself, imply this!
This also explains that he is but serving the intellect, which not only hinders every genuine experience with the intuitive perception, but utterly eliminates it. He prevents the effect of every outward happening in the material world from penetrating further than the frontal brain where it is first received. There it is arrested, presumptuously dissected and analyzed, so that it does not reach the intuitional brain, through which alone the spirit could accept it for experiencing.
For mark my words: just as the human spirit must direct its activity from within outwards, i.e., in proper sequence over the intuitional brain to the intellectual brain, so the effects of outward happenings can only take the reverse course if they are to be absorbed by the human spirit as experiences. Thus the impression of outward happenings in the material world must, in coming from the outside, always go through the intellectual frontal brain and thence via the intuitional back brain to the spirit, not otherwise. And the activity of the spirit must take exactly the reverse direction towards the outside, because the intuitional brain alone has the ability to absorb spiritual impressions. The ponderer, however, clings convulsively to the impression of an outward happening in his intellectual frontal brain. There he dissects and analyses it, and does not pass it on to the intuitional brain in its full value, but only partly; these parts even distorted through excessive intellectual activity, and thus no longer as real as it once was.
For this reason there can be no progress for him, no spiritual maturing, which can only come about through the real experiencing of outward happenings.
Be like children in this. Absorb everything fully and experience it immediately within yourselves! Then it will again stream back through the intuitional brain to the intellectual brain, from where it can either serve for a strong and successful defense or increase the receptive capacity, depending on the nature of the outward happenings, the radiations of which are called influences or impressions from without.
Man will receive his training for this during the Millennium, which shall become the Kingdom of Peace and Happiness, the Kingdom of God on earth. Owing to his exacting desires man again misunderstands what this means, because in his conceit he can no longer form anything in the right and healthy way. The expression the Kingdom of God on earth calls forth a tremulous joy in the ranks of all those hoping for it. They really think of it as a gift of joy and happiness which will fully correspond to their longing for tranquil enjoyment. Actually however, it will be a time of the strictest obedience for all mankind!
Today nobody is willing to accept the fact that therein lies a demand! The expression “The Kingdom of God on Earth” however, means nothing other than that only God’s Will prevails there, absolutely and unalterably! That man’s volition and desires must at last completely subordinate themselves to the Will of God!
Peace and happiness will then ensue because all disturbing elements will be forcibly removed from the earth, and will be kept away from it in the future. To these primarily belongs the man of today. For it was he alone who caused the disturbances in Creation and here on earth. But after a certain hour has struck no disturbing one will be able to live on this earth any longer.
This will come about through the transforming of the radiations, which takes place through the Son of Man and his star. Peace will be enforced, not come as a gift, and to keep the peace will then be demanded, firmly and relentlessly!
Such will be the Kingdom of Peace and Happiness, the Kingdom of God on earth, in which man must be deprived of ruling by his volition, which he was permitted to keep hitherto; for being spiritual among the developed ones upon this earth he must, as the highest creature, therefore rule in strict accordance with the Primordial Laws of Creation. With the entrance of the Will of God into Subsequent Creation, however, the predominance of man’s volition will be automatically disabled.
In future there will be only able to exist that man and all those creatures which voluntarily adjust themselves to the Will of God! Those which live and think and work accordingly! This alone offers the possibility to live in the coming Millennium!
Impress it upon yourselves once more, as clearly as you can. It is the foundation for everything, indeed, for your entire existence! so that you, little flock, will stand inwardly firm on this new ground from the beginning!