The Grail Message - The Call for the Helper - 2. lecture
SPIRITUAL ISSUES > Grail Message
‘The Call for the Helper’
An introduction to the work ‘In the Light of Truth’ by Abd-ru-shin (1875–1941)
We human beings are often inwardly very disjointed! On the one hand we bask in the awareness of our high levels of technological proficiency, by means of which we have subjugated the earth. Our homes are warm, comfortable and can withstand the wind, weather and cold or, otherwise, the air is cooled in hot conditions. Our means of transportation offer great comfort and are becoming ever safer and faster. Advances in aviation have enabled us to travel in a short time to distant countries and continents. A wide range of information about everything is delivered to us by various media. Thus the list of our achievements could go on and on. Our intellect, which by the very nature of things is responsible for shaping and improving our earthly circumstances, has unfolded brilliantly in the sphere of technology and has achieved masterly feats, such as, for example, the truly remarkable changes in the transmission of information and communication brought about by the invention and development of computers and the Internet.
But on the other hand, our intellect, of itself, cannot come to grips with certain matters, because it lacks the ability to do so. These matters lie outside the sphere of technology and include the recognition of God, values, a sense of right and wrong, the inclusion of ethical and moral considerations, intuition, a striving for balance and much more besides. For this we require a conscious, strong spirit, which should guide the development of our intellect in a sensible, upbuilding direction as well as able to place the preservation of nature and the greater good above any egotistic considerations – which sadly on the whole it fails to do!
Thus it is largely accepted as inevitable and usually with mere shrugging of the shoulders that the earth is plundered, poisoned and overtaxed on an unimaginable scale and that our way of managing things economically brings enormous instabilities worldwide and untold suffering for billions of people. Furthermore, basic human rights are violated in many countries, which, of course, does not stop us as from being all too willing to do business with these regimes.
On a different scale, it does not disturb us greatly that our car consumes, on average, seven times as much fuel as would be technologically feasible and that this wastage is accepted naturally as part and parcel of our personal status. Nor do we seem overly concerned that our energy consumption together with our electricity generation heats up the planet dangerously and leaves nuclear waste which will remain life-threatening for a million years or so, and that tens of thousands of people starve every day, while we in affluent societies fill the petrol tank with valuable foodstuffs turned into biofuels – and much more besides!
We are also mostly unwilling to deal with the fact that millions of people, especially the young ones, are sinking away into the illusory virtual worlds of computers and the Internet, and in so doing lose their reference with nature, which is an essential basis for a healthy life.
We human beings are therefore heading towards an enormous crisis, because the one entity that matters and which alone is in a position meaningfully to direct our intellectual actions, that is, the spirit, is too weak to be able to assert itself against the egotistical striving of our intellect, which is driven by self-interest and a love of ease.
But this is not yet everything: The more we allow our intellect to prevail alone, the more brilliant we believe ourselves to be. Let us be honest: Do we not consider ourselves with our abilities as the crown of Creation? As the human generation that is at its peak proficiency, towering far above the ‘underdeveloped’ generations that preceded us? And this in spite of the fact that the repercussions of our great failure confront us everywhere glaringly, and that in the final act of lunacy we are on the verge of destroying the very basis of our existence! This, at a time when the ability to recognise God, which would be self-evident in a truly advanced mankind, may never have been as feeble as just at the present time!
In short: We are in our psyche in exceptional need of help – without generally being aware of it. Only during especially clear moments does our inner voice still penetrate sometimes to our day-consciousness and we long for a helper, a clear signpost through the chaos of the present time. At the same time we still allow our intellect to overshadow this clearly perceived need. This gives rise to an unholy brew, which even makes it even more difficult for those human beings who long for and actively seek this signpost. That very situation is described in the second lecture of the Grail Message:
‘Just let us look more closely at all those people who today with special eagerness are seeking a spiritual helper, those who, inwardly uplifted, are awaiting him. In their opinion they themselves are already thoroughly prepared spiritually to recognise him and to hear his word!
‘On calm observation we notice a great many factions. Christ's Mission, for instance, affected so many people in a strange way. They formed a false picture of it. As usual, this was due to their wrong self-assessment, their presumption.
‘Instead of the former veneration and the preservation of a natural gulf and sharp demarcation towards their God, there has arisen on the one hand a plaintive begging which always wants only to receive, but on no account to contribute anything itself. They certainly accepted the “pray”, but refused to acknowledge that this was also coupled with “and work” – “work on yourself”.
‘Again, on the other hand, people imagine they are so self-reliant, so independent, that they can do everything themselves, and with a little effort even become Divine.
‘There are also many people who only demand and expect God to run after them. Inasmuch as He had already once sent His Son, He proved thereby how greatly concerned He is that mankind should draw near to Him, indeed that He probably even needs them!
‘Wherever one turns there is nothing but presumption to be found in all things, no humility. True self-assessment is lacking.
‘In order really to be a human being, and begin his ascent as such, it is first of all necessary for man to descend from his artificial height.
‘Today, spiritually puffed up, he is sitting in a tree at the foot of the mountain, instead of standing with both feet firmly and securely on the ground. Thus unless he first comes down or falls from the tree he will obviously never be able to climb the mountain.
‘Meanwhile, however, all those who went their way calmly and sensibly on the ground beneath his tree, and upon whom he looked down so haughtily, have probably arrived at the summit.
‘But events will come to his aid; for in the very near future the tree will fall. When he is so roughly shaken down from his precarious perch, perhaps man will then once more come to his senses. But for him it will then be high time, he has not a single hour left to waste.
‘Many now think that life can continue in the old way, as it has done for thousands of years. Stretched out comfortably in their armchairs, they are awaiting a strong helper.
‘But how do they depict this helper! It is really pathetic!
‘In the first place they expect or, just to be quite correct, demand that he should prepare the way upward to the Light for each individual! He must exert himself to build bridges to the path of the Truth for the adherents of every religious faith! He must make it so easy and intelligible that everyone can understand it without effort. His words must be so chosen that their rightness will immediately convince one and all.
‘As soon as man must exert himself and think for himself, then the helper is not a proper helper. For if he is called to lead and to show the right way through his word, he must then naturally also exert himself for men. It is his duty to convince men, to awaken them! After all, Christ also gave His life.
‘Those who think in this way today - and there are many who do so - need not begin to trouble themselves, for they are like the foolish virgins, they face the ''too late”!
‘The helper will surely not awaken them, but will let them sleep quietly on until the gate is closed and they can find no entrance into the Light, because they cannot free themselves in time from the sphere of matter, for which the word of the helper showed them the way.
‘For man is not as valuable as he imagined. God does not need him, but he does need his God!
‘Since in their so-called progress mankind today no longer know what they really want, they will at last have to experience what they must!
‘As they both seek and criticise in a supercilious way, this type of people will pass by, just as even at that time so many also passed by Him for Whose coming everything had already been prepared through the revelations.
‘How can one possibly envisage a spiritual helper thus!
‘He will not budge an inch to make concessions to mankind, and wherever he is expected to give he will demand!
‘That man who is capable of serious reflection, however, will immediately recognise that just this strict and uncompromising demand for attentive thinking contains what is best, and what mankind, already so deeply entangled in spiritual indolence, need for their salvation! It is just by demanding spiritual alertness right from the beginning, together with an earnest volition and self-exertion for the understanding of his words, that a helper easily separates the grain from the chaff already at the outset. An automatic working lies in this, as it is in the Divine Laws. Here, too, men receive exactly according to their actual volition.’
It is just this last sentence that poses the greatest challenge to us human beings, endowed, as we are, with the ability to make free decisions! Because here too, we must in all honesty accept reality, which tells us very clearly that if we are to receive genuine help, we must open ourselves to this help, accept the logic contained therein and finally adjust our whole lives to it. This means that we have to change in many respects – and thoroughly question our own conceptions or expectations. The lecture ‘The Call for the Helper’ therefore continues:
‘But there is yet another class of people who fancy themselves particularly alert!
‘Naturally these have formed an entirely different picture of a helper, as can be read from reports. It is no less grotesque, however, for they expect him to be ... a spiritual acrobat!
‘In any case, thousands already suppose that clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, etc., indicate great progress, which is really not so. These arts, whether acquired, cultivated, or even a natural gift, can never rise above the constraint of this earth, thus they only operate within low limits, can never claim to any height, and are therefore almost worthless.
‘Is that the way to help the ascent of mankind - showing them, or teaching them to see and hear, ethereal things which are on the same level as they are?
‘This has nothing to do with the actual ascent of the spirit, and is to equally little purpose for earthly happenings! They are minor spiritual tricks, nothing more, interesting to the individual, but utterly useless to mankind as a whole!’
From the very beginning there are warnings in the Grail Message regarding ‘spiritual acrobatics’ and occult training. This is because genuine spiritual ascent does not lie in the attainment of certain ‘paranormal’ skills or in a demonstration of ‘mind’ control over the physical body:
‘Let such people keep their spiritual clowns! They will soon enough experience where this leads! They have really no idea what they are actually pursuing thereby. They imagine that only he is great whose spirit so controls his body that it no longer suffers illness!
‘All such development is one-sided, and one-sidedness brings only what is unhealthy and diseased! These things do not strengthen the spirit, but only weaken the body! The balance necessary for healthy harmony between body and spirit is disturbed, and as a result such a spirit finally severs itself much sooner from the maltreated body, which can no longer provide the strong healthy resonance needed for earthly experience. But then the spirit lacks this experience, and enters the beyond while still immature. It will have to live its earth-life once again. [...]
‘If a man wishes to suppress an illness he must spiritually bring about the pressure of an ecstasy on the body, just as in a minor degree fear of the dentist may suppress toothache.
‘The body may be able to stand such intense stimulation once, perhaps even several times, unharmed, but not continually without suffering serious damage.
‘And if that is the practice or advice of a helper, he is not worthy to be a helper; for he is thereby transgressing the Natural Laws in Creation. [...]
‘He who is accounted master on such grounds is less than a pupil who knows nothing whatever of the tasks of the human spirit, nor of what is required for its development! He is even detrimental to the spirit.
‘They will come soon enough to the painful recognition of their folly.
'Every false helper, however, will have to undergo bitter experiences! His ascent in the beyond can only begin when the very last of all those whom he has held up or even led astray by spiritual trifling has come to recognition. As long as his books and writings continue to influence men on earth, he will be held fast in the next world, even if in the meantime he has come to a better understanding there.
‘He who recommends occult training gives men stones instead of bread, thereby proving that he has not even the faintest idea of what actually takes place in the beyond, still less of the complete mechanism of the Universe!’
continue with the introduction: 3rd lecture 'The Antichrist' (will follow soon)
