The two paths
It is more timely than ever in today’s age to point out again and again that not everything ‘mysterious’ around us leads to that last and most sacred mystery which alone can bring redemption to the soul.
Indeed, it is perhaps necessary to counsel even against an all too ‘cursory’ reading of this warning itself. For confusion in many minds has turned into the grotesque to such a degree that they can no longer, in their state of exalted blindness, recognise the sharpest rejection of their delusion and turn words of warning into words of approval.
For many years, – decades even, and long before the outbreak of the genocide* this book was first published in 1925whose curse-filled atmosphere still weighs heavily like a smoking cloud of blood guilt over all earthly events – mankind, proud of its knowledge and enlightenment, became prey to the most ruinous contamination of its spiritual knowledge with the result that today every hidden truth finds its devil’s advocate.
It is truly no wonder when those who seek come to follow paths leading them astray!
In all ages the phosphorescent flickering light of the mystery-shrouded borderlands of human knowledge has exerted its magical spell on receptive minds but only rarely has the earth seen such a lack of certainty of feeling. –
As the moth to the flame, so the inexperienced, hearing no warning, hurries towards this arousing flare from unknown regions, however, in so doing – he is threatened by the same danger and same downfall…
Temptation flutters upwards from all the mouldy corners of cellars and storerooms! Foolish half- knowledge, half-baked folly and deliberate deceit seek everywhere to attract new flocks and are able to trick many you would not think belonged to this following. – –
But at the root of all this lies a deep yearning which can not be quenched by all the knowledge of this age and so becomes way-ward as it fails to find the right path itself, which zeal, proud in its own knowledge, dismantled to the extent that pitch black walls are all that still stand yawning where once in early times freedom could be attained.
Deeply anchored within man is the intuition of a higher world where he hopes to find the solution to the puzzle of his existence. This intuition is nothing other than the faint memory of his spiritual state before his ‘fall’ into earthly fetters!
Now he seeks to retrieve what he once lost. In this search he too easily falls victim to dark powers he does not see, although they long ago compelled him to follow their call. He notices too late that what he took to be the earthly reflection of the true, life-giving light towards which he strove is a smouldering glow from the bottomless pits of annihilation…
Whoever experiences in himself this urge to solve all the mysteries of existence, let him therefore be mindful that there are – two paths before him. It is down to his level-headedness alone whether he takes the right path, leading him towards his true goal, or whether in a drunken lurch he entrusts himself to the slippery path of infatuation. – – – – – – – – – – –
One of the two paths before him will lead to light and illumination and finally into the realm of the pure spirit. The other, however, to which he is temptingly drawn by glowing ghosts promising him spiritual and
magical powers, leads unerringly to ruin, – unless salvation comes from exalted grace, and he recognises in time that he has entrusted himself to a deceptive light that has nothing in common with the pure, golden white light of the godhead, other than the attraction of being concealed from our earthly senses. Truly: not everything hidden is worth searching for! –
Stars may be reflected in pools, but you will not wade through the morass to get to the bottom of their mystery! –
Thus the one who strives seriously, having the exalted yearning for the essential light of pure spirit, will surely not wish to know his external earthly destiny beforehand, even though he can and may advantageously take into account what shows him, like other earthly calculations, the currents through which his activities are influenced as long as he lives and works within the bounds of earthly cosmic forces.
Let him learn here in wisdom to promote those things which move him forwards and oppose those things which stand in his way!
In so doing, he will hardly succumb to the delusion that a destiny has been mapped out for him which he cannot escape; rather he should only seek to understand his destiny’s rhythmical course in order to use it with the help of his knowledge, to avoid what should to be avoided and bring about what seems desirable. –
Does not Paracelcus, joyful in his strangely ornate wisdom, utter – as one who could really know – the meaningful word which testifies to great knowledge:
“The constellations have power over nothing at all; they are free in themselves, as we are free in ourselves. –”
And again:
“The child needs neither stars nor planets; his mother is his planet and his star!” –
This certainly does not mean that all the influence of earthly and cosmic powers attributed to the ‘stars’, based on their apparent orbit, does not exist at all. Rather it means that, despite everything, the freedom to use this influence consistently is anchored entirely within us, in the discipline of our own will. This means that figuring out possibilities may only then be of benefit if used for self-education and as a stimulus to exert all our powers to rid our life of the fear of changing tides of invisible currents which, though they flow through everything earthbound, are broken on the diamond dams constructed by the unconquerable might of the spirit around the man who trusts and asks through deed…
Such a man will never yield to the utterances of oracles seeking to show him the changing picture of the future as an unalterable fate. Indeed, he will surely have no requirement for such messages. Even less will he tolerate for the sake of discovery that people are made into tools of the powers of the abyss and gradually robbed of the power to command their own earthly bodies.
Never will he want to take away from others their control of their own will in order to force his own will upon them. –
In all his actions he will exclusively serve that freedom which is known only by the children of the spirit!
Any phenomenon of external nature, any event of this earthly life can be bent towards good or bad. For this ability to be used correctly serves: all the teaching of those called. –
“Not every one that says unto me: Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but whoever in his own will lets the will of Him work, who as my ‘Father’ begat me from Himself!”
So said many generations ago one who was permitted to teach because he knew from spiritual experience of what he spoke. Truly he could say of himself:
“I do not teach from myself, but as the ‘Father’ has commanded, so I teach you!”
The wisdom of this ‘great Man of Love’, however, was refashioned in an earthly, all too earthly way, before it reached today’s generation; now it is scarcely recognisable any longer in its purity.
His teaching had nothing other in mind than that earthly man should learn to use his life: attaining salvation through deeds. – –
All mere knowing of things of varying merit which lie beyond the earthly senses merely creates sterile illusory knowledge, – it frees no man from earthly ties! – Only deed-bearing sober conclusions, sprouting forth from true in-sight can bring about the miracle of redemption if they translate into deed and action those things revealed to the soul. Whatever is taught in words will only assume value when this teaching leads to experience. –
Blessed are those who attain experience of their inner being in this way and reach the goal of the right path in the innermost part of inner being within themselves!
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