Conclusion
Mockery, which eases many potentially disastrous situations, has seized upon the ‘pious’ who have turned piety into a parade with ‘hymnals’ and devotional objects while they turn their eyes heavenwards and create a self-righteous and unctuous fuss.
But we must not forget that it is now difficult for some – in fact they are likely to be numerous – to have any belief at all in the value of genuine ‘piety’. –
Even if they were ‘pious’ in the best sense of the word, they feel that they are also the target of the justified mockery, although it is aimed at sanctimoniousness and hypocrisy, and they hardly dare openly admit that a life without genuine piety seems shallow and empty to them.
One may criticise as folly the mistrust the faint-hearted have in their most worthy feelings, yet there is found in this timidity at the same time a high regard for genuine piety and real devotion; for those who are anxious fear in their hearts the desecration of an inner experience which is sacred to them…
And yet one could claim that only subjective values were here under discussion, and that genuine piety therefore was only a need felt by the few, to whom it is appropriate in accordance with their nature. –
Since I promised that I would guide you who are seeking the ‘meaning of life’ safely along the right path, I must now, in concluding my guidance, also try to demonstrate to you that you can never grasp and comprehend the meaning of life if you are not filled with genuine piety! – – –
I said to you earlier that you must learn a new way of asking: – that you should not ask about the ‘meaning of life’, but ask how you can give your life ‘meaning’…
But if you ask in the way I taught you to ask, truthfully I can do no better in conclusion than to give you the following counsel:
Fill your heart with true, genuine and pure piety!
In this way only you will give your life eternally valid ‘meaning’! – – –
Nonetheless, I hope that you did not ask your question about the ‘meaning of life’ simply out of that superficial curiosity which merely asks how narrow, earthly reason – even if it is the reason of the wisest of the wise – could reasonably ‘explain’ our existence?! –
The purpose of my teaching is really not to feed such curiosity; far from my concern are those selfish, anxious ‘children of this world’ who only ever want to find out what is there to come, instead of always acting in such a way that they might inherit only the best of things…
Let those who ‘feel hurt’ here, may have been hit, as it were, with a whip and wake up at last from their twilight dreams and be ready – to acquire their best, their rightful inheritance!! –
When I speak of you being able to give your life ‘meaning’, I am concerned with showing you that this life, – itself the ineluctable ‘outcome’ of so many ‘causes’ – will in turn be the cause of a new outcome; and that now you have the might to determine the outcome inasmuch as it is within your might to reshape this life! – – –
It is not a question of just producing sublime feelings in you, or even awakening within you the childish vain faith, as though you had a ‘mission’ and were of utmost importance to the Godhead in everything you did! –
You may be the most powerful and sublime man on this earth, descended from an ancient lineage, possessing the inherited will to rule and immeasurable wealth. Yet you remain as an earthly
man before the judgement of the eternal, a miserable, foolish worm liable to be crushed underfoot, even though the heart which commands that foot would gladly spare you!!!
The reshaping of your life which reshapes the outcome of your life, demands more of you than just a transformation of your feelings, – it demands that you transpose your will, presently craving for earthly importance, to the realms of eternal experience! –
You may be the most powerful of the powerful, or you may be the poorest of all beggars, yet in both cases you must know that all this is truly irrelevant – in every respect meaningless before the
countenance of the priests and kings of essential reality, the eternal spirit; even if they grant you here on earth your importance, in accordance with your own earthly value, to the extend that you make this possible for them yourself! – – –
Spiritual law wants from you wakeful and well considered action! – –
Truly, ‘too much’ as it were, is not required of you!
You must only prove that you are serious in your striving; you can produce evidence for this simply by using the power given you over earthly things to secure your eternal treasures, where “neither moths nor rust doth corrupt”! – – –
There will be no ‘acquittal’ and no ‘commutation’ of what is required, however much you think eternal love would like to grant you acquittal and commutation! –
You must also take beware of thinking that you could perhaps pull the wool over the eyes of the eternal spirit by appearing to do what is required of you, while neglecting those things which resist your earthly self-esteem! – –
You will not be ‘judged’, but you will judge yourself by the way you use those things under your power on earth!
If you are but a poor beggar, you may be sure that whatever you can effect from your poverty will certainly not be accorded less value than the great deeds of the wealthy, – but if you live in wealth, your earthly deeds will only have spiritual validity appropriate to this wealth…
From what you are given, you will have to make a rightful contribution to increasing the spiritual capital in this world of visible things! –
You must know, and feel yourself, what the eternal spirit, from which you originate, requires of you with respect to your material contribution in this world of material values, – you will certainly make no spiritual progress if you seek to withdraw from those areas where you should contribute what you can in earthly values…
It is far from being a question of distributing your possessions, – but your possessions determine your possible contribution in anchoring the spiritual on earth; and by the same measure is determined your obligation to give from the wealth assigned to you. – –
The spirit only requires that your spiritual striving always includes your external life, and that all external power you are given is put into the service of eternity…
Never will more be required of you than what you can really achieve without neglecting the duties arising from your external life. –
The day will certainly come, however, when you would bitterly regret not having fulfilled those things the spirit required of you! – – –
Since you can never flee from your eternal life, it is wisdom indeed to adapt to its laws already in this earthly life.
This earthly life too is but rooted in your eternal life which is little concerned by your denial of its existence!
You will only be able to give a ‘meaning’ to this life by seeking to experience it wakefully and consciously as a part of your eternal life! – –
But you can only do this if you repudiate the malicious error which would deceive you into thinking that you could one day consciously live in eternity without previously having given spiritual form to your life on this earth! –
If you would give ‘meaning’ to your life, carry out everything you might undertake here in such a way that eternal values are also promoted by your deeds! – – –
Truly, your life only has ‘meaning’ when it effects continuous propagation and its fruits shall remain with you for all eternity! – – –
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