In the Light of Truth – The Grail Message, Volume 3 (Clothbound)

CHRISTMAS

HOLY NIGHT! Exultant singing in jubilant gratitude once streamed through all the spheres of Creation when the Son of God Jesus was born in the stable in Bethlehem! And shepherds in the fields, from whose spiritual eyes the bandage was removed during this joyous upheaval of the Universe, so that they could bear witness to this immense happening and thus call people’s attention to it, fell upon their knees apprehensively because they were overwhelmed by what was so new and incomprehensible to them.

It was fear on the part of the shepherds, who for this purpose were temporarily made clairvoyant and also clairaudient. Fear of the greatness of the happening, of the Omnipotence of God thus made manifest! For this reason the herald from the Luminous Heights first spoke to them reassuringly: “Be not afraid!”

Whenever a herald from the Luminous Heights speaks to human beings you will ever again find these words, for it is fear that earthmen always perceive first when seeing and hearing heralds from on high. This is called forth by the pressure of the power, to which they are also opened a little in such moments. But only to the smallest part, for anything more would surely smother and burn them.

And yet it should be joy, not fear, as soon as the spirit of man strives for the Luminous Heights!

This did not become manifest to all mankind during the Holy Night! The Star became physically visible, but nobody on earth saw this luminous herald and the luminous hosts surrounding him. None saw and heard this but the few shepherds chosen for the purpose, who through their simplicity and close connection with Nature could be most easily opened to receive it.

And such great revelations on earth can never take place other than through a few chosen for the purpose! Remember this always! For the lawfulness in Creation cannot be annulled on your account! Therefore do not build up any fanciful pictures about various happenings, which can never be as you imagine them to be! These are unspoken demands, which never emanate from genuine conviction, but they are a sign of hidden unbelief and spiritual indolence, which has not absorbed my Word of the Message in such a manner as it demands to enable it to come to life in the human spirit.

In those days people believed the shepherds, at least for a short period! Today such people are only derided, considered eccentric, or even as impostors wishing to obtain earthly benefits thereby! For mankind has sunk far too deeply to be still able to accept calls from the Luminous Heights as genuine, especially when they themselves cannot hear or see anything.

Do you really believe, men, that on account of your great downfall God will now set aside the perfect Laws in Creation just to serve you, to bridge over your faults Himself, and to balance your spiritual indolence? The Perfection of His Laws in Creation is and will always remain inviolable, immutable; for they bear the Holy Will of God!

Thus the great revelations which you expect cannot possibly take place on earth except in that form which you have already known for a long time, and which you alsoacknowledge as long as they lie in the distant past.

Without any hesitation a so-called good Christian would designate as a blasphemer and see as a great sinner that person who would dare to assert that the announcement to the shepherds of the birth of the Son of God Jesus is a fairy tale.

Yet the same good Christian rejects with zealous indignation the announcements of the present time, although these are given in the same way through persons mercifully blessed to do so; and without further ado he calls the bearers blasphemers too, or in the most favourable cases perhaps he calls them simply fantasts or sickly persons, often misguided ones!

But reflect for yourselves – where is any healthy thinking to be found, where exact deduction, and where justice? These opinions of the strict believers – as they like to call themselves – are one-sided and abnormally limited. In most cases, however, it is indolence of their spirit and the human conceit always resulting from such indolence on the part of the spiritually weak, who find it difficult to remain clinging convulsively – at least for the sake of appearances – to what they once learned about some former happening, but never really experienced inwardly. But they are quite incapable of making spiritual progress, and therefore reject all the new revelations.

Who of all the believers has yet obtained any idea of the Sublimity of God contained in the happening which took place quietly during that Holy Night through the birth of the Son of God! Who can begin to conceive the Grace which was thus granted as a gift to the earth!

There was jubilation in the spheres at that time, today sorrow! Only on earth many a person seeks to give pleasure to himself or to others! But all this is not done as it ought to be done if the recognition or, for that matter, the true conception of God were astir within the human spirit.

Could they but vaguely sense the reality all men would experience the same as did the shepherds! Indeed the very Greatness of the happening would not possibly permit it to be otherwise – they would immediately fall upon their knees… out of fear! For in beginning to perceive this, fear would first of all be bound to arise powerfully and force man down, because with this sensing of God the great guilt with which man has burdened himself on earth also becomes evident, merely through the indifferent manner in which he accepts God’s blessings without really doing anything in return in the service of God!

How strange it is that every man who once in a while really and truly wishes to experience the Christmas Festival tries to recall his childhood!

This clearly enough indicates the fact that he is absolutely incapable of experiencing the Christmas Festival as a grown-up with his intuitive perception! It proves that he has lostsomething he possessed as a child! Why does this not make men think?

Again it is spiritual indolence which prevents them from earnestly considering these matters. “That is for children” they think, and grown-ups have no time for it whatever! They have more serious matters to think about!

More serious matters! By this they only mean the pursuit of earthly things, which is the work of the intellect! The intellect quickly subdues memories in order not to lose pre-eminence when the intuitive perception is given the chance to express itself for once!

In all these apparently small facts the greatest things could be recognised if the intellect would only allow time for it. But it has the upper hand and fights to retain it with every form of cunning and malice. Actually it is not the intellect which fights but that which uses it as a tool and hides behind it – the Darkness!

Darkness does not want the Light to be found through memories. And how the spirit longs to find the Light, to draw new strength from it, can be recognised from the fact that with memories of the Holy Nights of their childhood an undefined, almost painful longing also awakens, which is able to move many persons to pathos for a brief while.

If such a tender mood is used at once and with all one’s powers it could become the best soil for an awakening. But unfortunately this only sends adults into reveries whereby the rising power is wasted and lost. And through such reveries the opportunity passes by without being able to bring any benefit or having been used.

Even if many a person sheds a few tears thereby he feels ashamed and tries to hide them, pulling himself together with a physical jerk which often betrays unconscious defiance.

How much could people learn from all this! It is not coincidence that a feeling of tender sadness weaves itself into the memories of childhood days. It is a subconscious sensing that they have lost something, leaving an emptiness, the inability still to perceive intuitively like a child!

Surely you have often noticed how wonderful and refreshing is the mere quiet presence of every person from whose eyes there emanates now and then a childlike glow!

The adult must not forget that childlike is not the same as childish. But you do not know why to be childlike has such an effect, what it really is, and why Jesus said: “Become as little children!”

In order to fathom what it is you must first realise that to be childlike is by no means confined to the child itself. No doubt you know children who lack the trait of beautiful childlikeness. Thus there are children who are not childlike. A malicious child can never have a childlike effect, and just as little one who is ill-mannered, who is really not brought up properly.

This clearly proves that childlikeness and the child are two things independent of each other.

That which is called childlike on earth is part of the manifestation of purity! Purity in its higher sense, not merely in its earthly human sense! The human being who lives in the ray of Divine Purity, who makes room for the ray of purity within himself, has thereby also become childlike, be it while still a child or later as an adult.

Childlikeness is the result of inner purity, or the sign that such a human being has submitted to purity and serves it. All these are merely different ways of expressing it, but in reality they always amount to the same thing.

Thus only a child which is pure within itself, and an adult who cultivates purity within himself, can be childlike. That is why he has such a refreshing and vitalising effect, and also inspires confidence!

And wherever there is true purity, genuine love can also enter, because Divine Love works in the Ray of Purity. The Ray of Purity is the path It treads. It could not possibly walk upon any other!

The Ray of Divine Love can never find Its way to him who has not absorbed the Ray of Purity.

Always remember this, and as a Christmas gift for yourselves make the firm resolution to open yourselves to Purity, so that at the Festival of the Radiant Star, which is the Festival of the Rose in the Divine Love, the Ray of Love can penetrate to you on the Path of Purity!

Then you will really have celebrated this Festival of Christmas as it should be celebrated according to the Will of God! Therewith you bring up true gratitude for God’s incomprehensible Grace, which He gives ever again to the earth with the Holy Night!

Many Divine Services are held today to commemorate the birth of the Son of God. Hurry through the churches of all kinds in spirit or also in memory! Let your intuitive perceptions speak when doing so, and you will turn away resolutely from the gatherings called Divine Services!

In the first moment man is astonished that I talk in this way, for he does not know what I wish to indicate thereby. But this is only because in the past he has never exerted himself to think about the expression “Divine service”, and then compared it with the proceedings called Divine Service. You simply accepted it like so many things which have existed for centuries as customary.

And yet the expression “Divine service” has only one meaning and simply cannot be applied in the wrong sense, unless man ever again indifferently and unhesitatingly accepts and perpetuates the custom of centuries. What is at present called Divine Service is at best a prayer connected with human attempts at interpretation of those words which, taken as having been uttered by the Son of God, were only written down by human hands later.

This fact cannot be altered, and no man can contradict such remarks if he wishes to remain honest with himself and honest about the actual happening! Above all, if he does not stay too indolent to ponder this thoroughly, and does not use empty catchwords obtained from others to excuse himself!

And yet it is just the expression “Divine service” which in its essence is so vital, and which through itself speaks so clearly to men, that with only a little intuitive perception it could hardly be used for the purpose for which it is still used today, although man on earth deems himself far advanced.

Divine service must now become living if the Word is to rise to reality, with all that it contains! It must manifest itself in life. When I ask what you men understand by service, thus what it means to serve, not a single person will answer otherwise than with the words: “To work!” This is already clearly implied in the word “service”, and one cannot think of it as meaning anything else.

Divine service on earth is also naturally nothing other than to work in the sense of the Laws of God here on earth, to swing actively in them terrestrially! To transform the Will of God into deeds on earth!

And this is lacking everywhere!

Who seeks to serve God in his earthly activity? Everyone only thinks of himself, and partly of those who are near to him on earth. But he believes he is serving God when he prays to Him!

Just think it over yourselves – where is there any real service to God in this? It is indeed anything but serving! Such is the one part of today’s so-called Divine Service, which comprises the prayer. The other part, the interpretation of the Word written by human hands, can again only be looked upon as learning on the part of those who really exert themselves to obtain an understanding of it. The indifferent and superficial ones are of no importance anyway!

It is quite justified when people speak of “going to” or “attending” a Divine Service. These are the proper expressions, which speak for themselves!

However, man shall perform Divine service himself and not stand apart from it! “Petitioning” is not serving, for when he petitions man usually wants something from God, that God shall do something for him, which after all is far removed from the conception of “serving”! Thus petitioning and prayer have nothing to do with Divine service!

This will probably be easily understood by every person! Everything a person does on earth must have some meaning; he cannot misuse the language given to him as he pleases without causing himself harm. That he acquired no knowledge about the power also inherent in the human word will not protect him from it.

It is his fault if he neglects this! He is then subject to the effects of a wrong application of words, which becomes a hindrance rather than a help to him. The independent weaving of all the Primordial Laws of Creation neither halts nor hesitates on account of men’s neglect, but everything which has been established in Creation proceeds on its course with the most unswerving precision.

This is what men never think about and therefore, to their detriment, never observe. Even in the smallest and most insignificant things it always has a corresponding effect.

The inherently wrong designation of the gatherings under the name of “Divine Service” has also contributed a great deal to the fact that genuine Divine service was not accomplished by men, because everyone believed that he had already done enough by attending such a Divine Service, which has never been the genuine Divine service.

Call these meetings an hour of joint worship of God, which would at least come closer to its meaning, and to a certain degree also justify the institution of special hours for this purpose, although worship of God can also be expressed in every look, in all thinking and acting.

Many a person will now probably think that this is not at all possible without appearing too artificial and too obvious. But this is not so! The more the true worship of God breaks through the more natural will man become in all he does, even in his most simple movements. He then swings in honest gratitude to his Creator and enjoys the blessings in the purestform.

Today, for the Festival of Holy Night, go back to any one of the earthly Divine Services!

Jubilant thanks, supreme bliss, should vibrate in every word for the Grace which God once bestowed upon mankind. In so far as this Grace can at all be valued among men; for the human spirit is incapable of grasping the real greatness of it in its entirety!

But for that you seek in vain everywhere. The joyful swinging upward to the Luminous Heights is lacking! There is no trace of jubilant gratitude! Even some pressure is frequently perceptible, originating in disappointment for which man has no explanation.

Only one thing can be found everywhere, something which renders or characterises the nature of Divine Services in all confessions as if engraved with the sharpest chisel, or something which forces the nature of the Divine Services audibly to embody everything swinging therein – a woeful sound vibrating monotonously through all the voices of the preachers, which in its constant repetition produces a wearying effect and rests like a grey veil over souls falling asleep.

Yet it sometimes also sounds like a hidden lamenting over something which is lost! Or over something which has never been found! Go there yourselves and listen! You will find this peculiar and striking characteristic everywhere!

Men are not conscious of it but, to use the customary phrase, it just happens to be so!

And herein lies truth! It happens without any intention on the part of the speaker, and plainly shows the nature in which the whole vibrates. There can be no question of a joyful upward swinging, nor of blazing fires bursting forth, but it is like a dull, subdued smouldering which cannot bring up the strength to penetrate freely upwards.

Wherever the speaker does not allow himself to be “upheld” by the dull, weak vibration of these Divine Services, when he remains untouched by it (which would be equivalent to a certain lukewarmness or to deliberately standing aloof), there all words will seem unctuous and can be regarded in the same way as sounding brass – cold, without warmth, without conviction!

In both cases the ardour of conviction is lacking, as well as the power of victorious knowledge, which wants to preach about it to all his fellow-men in jubilant exultation!

When, as with the expression “Divine Service”, a misleading designation is employed for something the contents of which are different from what the expression indicates, then this mistake takes effect. The power it could have is broken from the very outset by the employment of a false designation and no real and uniform swinging can arise, because through this designation another conception arose which is consequently not fulfilled. The holding of the Divine Service stands in contrast to that which arises as a picture in the inmost intuitive perception of every human spirit with the word “Divine Service”.

Go out and learn and you will soon recognise where you are offered the true bread of life! Above all make use of the joint gatherings as hours for the solemn worship of God. But do express Divine service in the entire activity of your being, in life itself; for it is with this that you shall serve your Creator, thankful and jubilant for the grace of being allowed toexist!

Make everything you think and do into a service to God! Then it will bring you that peace which you long for. And even if people harass you severely, be it through envy, malice or base habits, you bear peace within yourselves forever, and this will finally help you to overcome all difficulties!

* * *