LIFE ON EARTH AND ITS PURPOSE

LIFE ON EARTH AND ITS PURPOSE

(Household of God, Volume I, Chapter 118)

When the five had heard these words from the mouth of Asmahael, Seth rose and said to them: "Children, this is the root of life and the sole sure sign of it within us that we truly possess it and are no longer dead in our spirit that according to the holy word of Asmahael we clearly perceive the Living within us, teaching and comforting us.

2. "Truly, a stone or some other inanimate block is forever incapable of this. Or can the dead reveal himself to the dead?

3. "Could the one teach with comprehensible words and the other dead perceive them, understand and follow them?

4. "And if the Living wasted words on a dead one, what use would they be if the latter could not possibly perceive them?

5. "We do have a physical life, but it is given to us merely as an awaken­er in order to awaken in our hearts the forever living love for God. Although all of us have been given such a love, it was given only like a sleeping bride first to be awakened within us through the invaluable grace of external life to let it then, as the real, true life within us, learn from the Life of all life to live in full freedom, might and power, to absorb our external life so that we then become one and the same eternal life with and with­in it, as it is in God.

6. "In our external life we are able to think according to the existing forms, namely, from idea to idea and from one thing and action to the next. But all this thinking is not our work, for this is how the Lord has arranged our dwelling place that we may find variety in it. And what there is, we clearly perceive through our thoughts. But is this given us only for the house or for the life of the spirit?

7. "Look that is quite a different question. I compare the thoughts to the seekers who are constantly seeking and usually do not find anything if they stray too far from the place where life lies hidden.

8. "Proper thoughts must not soar like a hawk but must like a small bird look for the tiny glow-worm under the green leaves of plants. And where the green shade of the grass becomes densest, or the trust firmest, the lit­tle worm will surely be found.

9. "O Asmahael, behold, this is how I understand it If I thus believe, am I going to find life and the children with me? Would You tell me this, if it be Your will? Amen."

10. Thereupon Asmahael promptly asked Seth: "Listen, Seth! If you have spoken correctly, tell Me whence you have received these words. If you think you may have been wrong, why did you torment your lungs and tongue all this time in vain?"

11. But Seth replied: "O Asmahael, who could bring out a single word without You?

12. "Out of stones and ravenous beasts You are able to proclaim words of life. Why should that not be possible through my mouth, which You cre­ated for this purpose?

13. "However, I think it is not one and the same to speak and also completely understand what one has spoken. On the road from the midday region towards evening You lovingly made it clear to all of us how little we understood of that which we have preached to each other already for a long time.

14. Therefore, I also believe to have spoken the fullest truth out of You.

But whether I understand it completely, O Asmahael, You will surely know best. So be gracious and speak to me in Your love and mercy. Amen."

15. And Asmahael spoke to Seth, saying: "Listen, Seth! Your word is a true word for it is out of Me. Everyone who has a humble heart and speaks for the sake of My name and not for any temporal reason or out of any self­ish interest, but only out of love for Me and for the brother, -- truly, not a sound will come from his lips that is not from Me. But he, who speaks in My name also, but raises himself above his brother and greedily plunges his heart into the earth's furrows, - truly he is like a poisonous plant because like that he changes the divine love-light and all enlivening warmth within him into something destructive and deadly instead of some­thing beneficial and life-giving.

16. "But if you have already awakened your sleeping bride as you were able to say these things, there is nothing lacking in you, except the respec­tive action. So act accordingly and you will be in harmony with yourself and thus also with Me and all the others who will be doing the same. Amen. Do understand this! Amen."