Salvation

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings in the Name of the Lord. I bring you blessings, my friends. Blessed is this lecture. Angels of God always have had the opportunity to speak and to manifest to human beings. There are many who do not deny the possibility of such manifestations by undeveloped spirits, but illogically they deny that a communication with higher developed beings -- whatever you may call them -- should be possible. This is shortsighted, for the laws of nature and of the universe must work alike, for good or for evil, or for the many stages in between. It is only a question of what conditions are prepared and fulfilled. If a person denies any communication with any excarnated entity, then this belief may be a wrong one, but at least there is something of consequence in it. But to admit the possibility of one and to exclude the possibility of the other is unreasonable. There are many ways to test what spirits you are communicating with. Anyone who wants to judge must take the trouble to study this vast subject of how to test spirits Only then will he be in a position to determine where they come from. I have spoken about this subject and I will do so again in the future. However, for the time being I only wish to say this. If you still lack the necessary knowledge to determine what spirits you are communicating with, what laws are involved, then you can tell if you ask your heart right now. Here you will get the answer to some extent, provided you do not let your doubts shade your feelings. If your feelings are receptive and open, then you will be able to first find and then to feel not only harmony or disharmony, but also love, patience, wisdom, and humility -- or the opposite of all this. But your heart will be able to speak to you and confirm what you wish to know only if you are receptive, if you are open, and if you put all prejudice aside for the moment.

Now I will continue the series of lectures I started some time ago. The last time I spoke about the creation of this earth; how it came into existence; and how mankind gradually evolved. I told you that this earth is a product or a picture, so to say, of the longing of the spirits who have fallen off and who have lived in darkness for a long time. I also said that this earth is equally a product of the longing of the spirits who remained in the world of God for the fallen brothers and sisters to come back into the divine light. Thus here on earth you can find beauty, love, and harmony; you can also find the opposite, again with all the shades in between. This is proof of the fact that this earth sphere is the product both of God's world and of the longing of the fallen spirits to reunite with God. On this earth sphere man has the possibility, with his free will, to develop and to decide what side to follow. In his own nature there are both currents: the good current that once came from God in its own perfection, and the evil current that was accumulated during and after the Fall. Between these two currents stands the conscious self. The conscious personality has the possibility to decide either to take the line of least resistance -- which is always man's lower nature -- or to follow his higher self, which is the more difficult and narrow path. I have also mentioned that communication with the world of the Spirit has always existed from the beginning of time, when this earth sphere was relatively new. Then it was impossible for man to communicate with God's world because there were still too many impure and unpurified currents and attitudes in the soul, too many evil desires, and too much blindness to fulfill the necessary conditions. That is why God has always sent beings on this earth who were not fallen spirits. Some of the great prophets and some of the so-called saints belonged to this category. They not only brought the wisdom, the love, and the purity with them in order to leave their mark upon the earth sphere, but, due to these conditions, they had the possibility to communicate with angels of God. This is briefly what I said in my last lecture. It is the essence of that which will prepare you for what I have to say to you now.

Now I should like to tell you about the salvation of Jesus Christ and what it really means. There are very few people who realize the full significance of this salvation, least of all the organized churches who have almost completely misunderstood what this salvation is. There are many people who believe that Christ died on the cross for the sins of everyone else and, as a result, no one is responsible or accountable for his sins -- in other words, for his own faults or weaknesses -- for Christ has atoned for him through His death. This cannot be so. It would be utterly senseless. After the explanation of the real story of the salvation, then you will not only see that this is a comfortable misunderstanding, but you will also clearly perceive how this misunderstanding could have come about.

I have also mentioned that the salvation was not only done on this earth sphere but in every sphere in existence. Long before this earth sphere and after the so-called Fall of the Angels, which I described some time ago in greater detail, God's plan was that ultimately every single one of those fallen beings should have the means to come back to Him: back to light and to harmony. But this could be done only if God's laws would never have been broken, not even for the purpose of bringing back the fallen creatures. This was a very difficult task to follow through. I also explained that each being put into creation by God was created perfectly in one way. Each being represents one divine aspect. And the purpose was that with the power these spirits were endowed with, they were themselves to extend this perfection in other realms. Let us say, for instance, that a being was perfect in love, another in wisdom, and so on and so forth. With this divine power that we all once had the aim was to make ourselves perfect in every other aspect and thus become God-like at one time. By doing so, then additional worlds of beauty would come into existence -- spiritual worlds -- for, as you know, every thought, every feeling, every ambition, and every fact is formed in spirit and thus creates a world. You also know that a number of spirits have used this divine power for this purpose and a number of other spirits have used the divine power in the opposite way. Thus the Fall came into existence. After this Fall, Christ, Who existed in the spirit world long before He was born as a man, organized all the spirits in God's world so as to use their strength and their perfection in their particular field for the help of this plan of salvation. In other words, instead of continuing to extend their own perfection, the pure spirits postponed this ultimate goal for the purpose of using their powers to first arrange and then to work for this plan of salvation. And this is in existence on every plane. Of course, I am still talking of the divine spheres.

In the spheres of darkness some time had to go by before anything could be done. Enough spirits had to have this longing for the light before lighter worlds, still in the realm of Lucifer, came into existence. Without this longing, unconscious and blind as it was at the beginning, nothing could change, regardless of what would have been arranged by the world of God. In your language, millions and millions of years went by before, due to this longing, this earth sphere came gradually into existence. Many souls came to live on earth because they were ready to do so, low as their development still was; more general and individual development proceeded. For merely by living on this earth sphere, they came, for the first time after the Fall, into contact with something divine, subdued as this manifestation may have been for the most part. In the meantime, Christ was busy preparing and working in the spirit world of God to organize the teachings that should be brought to mankind through these pure spirits now incarnated, either through inspiration and guidance, or through communication with God's world. It is impossible for you to imagine how minutely everything had to be worked through, how painstaking this work was, so that everything would be in accordance with the divine law of justice.

At that time, no matter how far a human being developed spiritually, when returning to the Beyond he was still under the domination of Lucifer. For, as I explained thoroughly the last time, every divine aspect was turned into its opposite quality. Therefore, free will, which is divine, was turned into domination. And, of course, Lucifer would not give up this domination he held over his followers. If, for instance, a human being, due to his changing attitude and to his growing harmony with God, would begin to produce light and beautiful spheres in the spirit world, then these spheres still belonged to the kingdom of Lucifer because he did not relinquish his power over this person. Furthermore, at that time no one was so far developed that he would only produce spheres of light. He would produce and own several spheres, so to say, both harmonious and disharmonious ones. And this happens, incidentally, with each one of you and with every human being. Where there are faults, weaknesses, and blindness, then corresponding spheres come into existence. Where you are pure and purified, then beautiful spheres are being created by you. And you will not only have the best, but also the worst of that which you have built. Therefore, any relatively highly developed human being might have made a number of light spheres, but even these spheres were still under the domination of Lucifer as long as the salvation work in this respect was not finished. By the way, the so-called hells are not merely constituted by one sphere of only dire darkness and misery, but as there are as many gradations in the divine spheres, the same holds true for the luciferic ones.

When enough beings were ready and really cognizant of the God Consciousness and desired to have complete union with God, then the time was ripe for the greatest part of the plan of salvation to take place, which Christ took upon Himself. The reason was not only His infinite love and compassion for all His fallen brothers and sisters, but also the following. During the process of the Fall, this first spirit who has fallen called Lucifer developed an intense jealousy towards Christ. Thus it was logical that Christ Himself should prove His love by His great sacrifice and work, not only to all the other fallen creatures, but also to Lucifer himself, who through this deed alone would one day in the far away future find it possible to return to God and thus find ultimate happiness. Christ was made the King of the Universe by God, and as such He was ready to possess not only the highest privileges but also the strongest responsibilities. By carrying the heaviest burden alongside His exalted position, He gave another example for the world to follow.

Thus, when the time was ripe, He faced Lucifer. My friends, I must ask you not to think that all this could not have been that way because it sounds all too human. All that you have and that you know as human beings -- not only regarding subjects and objects in abstract and concrete ideas and in language, but also in any sort of forms you know -- is only a limited imitation of what existed in spirit before this material world, only in a much greater variety. When we mention these things -- that spirits talk or that they have certain objects and so on -- human beings often think that this is too human and too concrete. Yet in spirit everything is concrete. In other words, everything is form. In your world only material objects have form and the so-called abstract things do not have form, for they are invisible to you. This is not so in spirit. Love is a form. When you have a beautiful thought, then it will create one form. When you have a wicked thought, then it will create another form -- a concrete form to us. Therefore, I beg you to keep this in mind and not to think that this is childish just because Lucifer and Christ would not talk together like two human beings. It may not be in exactly the same way as when two human beings talk; the procedure may be different. It is a spiritual procedure. This is impossible to translate into human language. Therefore, the language I have to use must be limited to your understanding. So, to continue. Christ would face Lucifer and would tell him: "There are so and so many spirits who do not wish to remain faithful to you. They desire to go back to God. Therefore, you should let them free." Lucifer would not agree to that. He maintained that he does not recognize divine law and he would use his power as he saw fit. So Christ said: "In this case there must be a war between us, between your forces and the forces of the divine world." But the chances should be evenly distributed and that means that the divine forces must be numerically in the minority for the simple reason that the forces of good are infinitely stronger than the forces of evil, perhaps 20 to 1. If you have one absolutely purified being against 20 very impure beings, the strength of this one pure being would outweigh the strength of those 20 impure ones. However, Lucifer said: "Even if such a war should take place and even if the divine forces should win and take my power away, I will not recognize the law of God as being just." This constituted an essential part or role in the plan of salvation, since no one should be eternally damned, not even Lucifer himself. Christ asked him: "In what way would you consider the divine powers to be just?" And Lucifer answered: "If such a war took place after one being from the world of God lived on earth like a man without any protection and without any guidance from the world of God at certain crucial times, and if as a man -- where a great part of the knowledge is dimmed out and where matter stands in the way -- he would remain faithful to God in spite of my own temptations and in spite of the greatest hardship and misery. There must be the most difficult conditions possible. If he forsakes God, then I will offer this person every possible worldly power and release of all hardships befalling him."

Lucifer went on: "If anyone remained faithful to God under such conditions -- which I doubt very much; in fact, I say that it is impossible -- then I will have my battle with you and if I lose, then I will recognize God's laws as being utterly just." You must know, my friends, that each living human being has guardian spirits of the world of God at all times. With some people they may not be able to come too close due to their own attitude; but nevertheless they are there, even if they are in the background and are watching out that nothing befalls their protege that is not according to God's laws of justice, or that which the person may be too weak to endure. To be left alone -- without the support of God's spirit world on this earth sphere -- and, in addition to that, having to resist all the attacks, all the challenges, all the hardships, and all the temptations that the powers of darkness could think of, seemed an impossible task to fulfill. No human being has ever had to go through anything like it, in the remotest degree. Therefore, Christ cannot be compared with any other person who ever lived, no matter how pure or how wonderful the teachings may have been. Christ has shown in deed and in fact what others have taught, and this was done under infinitely more difficult circumstances than anyone else ever had to bear.

So these were the conditions Lucifer put up in order to recognize God's laws as being just. If this seemingly imposible task should really be fulfilled, then this battle could take place; and if Lucifer should lose this battle, then Christ could make His terms and Lucifer would not doubt God's justice in every respect.

This was the plan. And Christ took it upon Himself, though Lucifer did not specify that it had to be Him. If you now re-read all the Scriptures from this point of view, then you will get an entirely different understanding of them. I am sure that the reason for the life and death of Christ will then make sense to you because otherwise there would not be any sense that He should die on the cross for the sins that others have committed. If you have committed a sin, then you yourself have to straighten it out and no one else can or should do it for you. If someone else were to do it for you, then there would be no purification gained by you. You would not have the strength received through the process of self-purification, a strength which alone will protect you from committing sins again. For as long as the evil root is not torn out, then it must produce impure fruits again. The tearing out of the evil root can only be accomplished by you. Therefore, that was not the reason Christ suffered and died. You will also understand why He was left completely alone for a long time. As a man, He did not have the same knowledge that He had as a spirit. If He would have had that same knowledge, then the task would not have been so difficult. He did possess some knowledge, since He is the greatest Being in creation. In addition, He had a great deal of spiritual strength and divine wisdom. However, there would be no purpose to life on earth at all -- and this applies to everyone -- if the same spiritual knowledge were available as when not being in the flesh. So Christ did not know exactly what was involved while He lived on earth. In the course of the years, He received some knowledge, and He had a vague idea -- just as any one of you might have a vague idea -- of the task He had to fulfill. But you do not know what may come of it, how it will end, and what the exact meaning is. And He did not know either. He was not supposed to know it while being incarnated. After a certain time, all the angels of God had to leave Him. They were with Him for some of His life, but they were not present when the really difficult task began. And, as I have explained to you, the teachings He brought were important and wonderful, but this was an additional facet of His life, it was a sideline, so to say. When anything happens in strict accordance with the will of God, then not just one good reason and one purpose exists; many factors play a role and many good purposes are fulfilled with one divine deed. This applies to everyone. However, only to bring the teachings did not fully constitute His reason for living as a man. Beautiful as the teachings are, they are not new. Other people had essentially brought the same teachings before. He adjusted them according to the present times and He took into consideration the ever-evolving development of mankind. But that was all. The task was that when He was left alone and cut off completely from the world of God, then He had to resist the temptations of Lucifer who put the greatest effort imaginable into his goal of causing Christ to fall. He used every device possible, and in so doing he organized all his helpers. Believe me, Lucifer is not stupid, even though he lacks wisdom and insight; he is not stupid, nor in his dark powers is he without great resources.

On one side Christ saw nothing but suffering -- both physical suffering and psychological suffering -- as well as humiliation of which you cannot imagine. And this humiliation and this psychological suffering was a great deal worse than the physical suffering, as bad as this was. At the same time, He had all the temptations of the world of darkness to contend with. Of course, Christ was what you would call psychic, and this He was to the maximum degree. His mediumistic qualities were strongly developed, and not just in one department but in every department. They were greater than anyone else's before or after. But this was an advantage as long as God's world was close to Him. When He was cut off from it, then this was merely an additional hardship, for all the manifestations coming to Him originated from the world of darkness. Clairvoyantly, He came in contact with high emissaries from the luciferic world and later with Lucifer himself, who showed himself as a beautiful being offering Christ all the worldly advantages He might desire and instant release from all His sufferings if only He would accept Lucifer and give up His idea of God. Lucifer haunted Him in the worst moments of His suffering: "Where is your God of love and justice? If He existed, then would He allow His beloved son to go through all this? If your God cannot offer you more, then are you not better off with me? Look at what I have to offer you. Your God can only offer you intense suffering and hardship in every possible respect." Can you imagine what this meant? If Jesus had known the exact significance of His task, then it would not have been half as difficult to resist as it was. And this should not be the case. On the other hand, it was human to have many doubts at these crucial times, doubts about everything. He had doubt about His true identity and He had doubt about there being some wise and good purpose in all His hardships which He could not understand at this time. In short, doubt about everything that He had learned in the previous years was inevitable. Often He wondered whether He was under some illusion and whether all His previous knowledge was not the product of His imagination. During these times of doubt, Lucifer would be instantly at His side and would try to strengthen such thoughts. Being a man -- in other words, having matter between Him and Absolute Truth -- it is easy to perceive how extremely hard it was for Him to remain faithful to God and not to give in to these temptations and to His hardships. If the conditions of His task were not so hard that even Christ must have doubted at times, then His task would not have been so infinitely magnificent. Therefore, Christ had to have the same obstacles of matter as those of every other human being. Only His were intensified to a maximum degree. Material substance is a curtain and man has to grope to open that curtain. Jesus Christ had to do the same, only in conditions that, even with these explanations, you cannot even vaguely appreciate how extremely difficult they were. To remain on the right path under these circumstances, without fully understanding that, my friends, you cannot really know what it means. And having the humility to put God above everything, in spite of all these passing thoughts of doubt, even above His suffering and above His not understanding why, was the task. It seemed almost impossible that anyone could do it. But Jesus Christ did!

By this Christ not only had fulfilled the conditions by which the world of darkness could never claim God's laws to be unjust, but at the same time He also set an example for everyone born after Him. So when you are in pain and suffering and you do not understand why, then think of Jesus Christ in connection with the true story of His salvation and then bring yourself to imagine His suffering as something real, not as some imaginary legend -- just as real as your own suffering, only much worse. Then it will be much easier for you to follow in His footsteps, to follow in His path, to remain humble, and to let God take over where your life is concerned.

After Christ had successfully completed His task on this earth sphere, immediately following His death a number of things took place on earth, a number of so-called miracles. These showed mankind that a major phase in the history of creation was over and that an important new phase had begun. I could talk for hours about His life on earth, my friends, about His suffering and about His death. But if you read the Bible now, then your own imagination can give you a better idea of the deep significance and the reality of all this. After Christ's physical death, He returned to the world of spirit and, since He had fulfilled the conditions, He had a spiritual battle in the world of darkness with a relatively small number of specialized spirits. Again, this may sound too human for you -- that spirits should have wars. Where do you think that wars come from? They are only an outpicturing of spiritual war. Although a spiritual war does not take place in exactly the same manner as that of a material war on earth, the spiritual essence is there nevertheless. How it happens is impossible to describe because you lack the perception and the understanding, just as I lack the opportunity to express myself in human language. So I can only describe it in a sort of condensed way that may sound symbolical, and that may even be symbolical to a certain extent. Nevertheless a war between Christ and Lucifer did take place. You have to use your inner vision and your imagination as though a war with guns or with spears, as you have on earth, had taken place in exactly that form. Of course, this was not the way it was. However, there was a spiritual war. Lucifer had to admit the justice of the ways of God's world, for, as I mentioned before, Christ came to fight under equal conditions. It would have been in His power not to take any risks by using greater strength and more helpers, so to say. However, He did not. And this was for the same reason that He undertook His life on earth in order that God's justice might be preserved, even in the eyes of Lucifer. The chances were even, and this was so apparent that not even Lucifer could deny it. That was important, for the plan was -- and still is -- that Lucifer himself must ultimately come to the point when he, too, will return to God as the very last one of all the fallen creatures, since he was the first to turn away from the laws of God.

Thus, Jesus Christ has fulfilled the plan of salvation in every sphere. In each sphere the task was a different one. It varied in the numerous spheres of the world of God, where the manifold preparations were made; it varied on this earth sphere; and it varied in the world of darkness. After this battle was over, then new conditions were set up which reign since that time. In other words, after Christ's life and death on earth and after His subsequent battle with Lucifer afterwards. In your history you will read that after the third day Christ went up to heaven after His descent into hell. These various details that were preserved are, in a way, a confirmation for you, although the time element is not quite exact. The time is always translated, so to speak, for in spirit time -- if there is such a thing -- is individual, psychological, and therefore very different. But this does not matter, for mankind has made a symbol of these three days. These new conditions were that every human being had the opportunity to turn to God during his development on earth, as he goes from one life to the other. Lucifer had the right to tempt man to succumb to him by succumbing to his own lower nature. Should man resist, then he would no be a subject of the luciferic world any longer, for the doors were now open so that he could unite with his Creator and inhabit the divine world once more. From that time on, even the traps and the temptations that Lucifer could use were limited to remain in accordance with divine law. God's spirit world now has the right to interfere so that these divine laws may be observed in exactitude and so that the activities of the powers of darkness be limited and stand ultimately under the jurisdiction of God. That Lucifer still possesses a certain amount of freedom is necesssary, not only for the reason that he must always recognize divine justice, but also as a necessary means for development. Evil has to be tasted to the brim in most cases before it can be overcome by free will and by the being's own initiative.

This desire to overcome evil must grow through ever-mounting enlightenment in each individual's soul. Often this is possible only after one has gone through his darkness. That such enlightenment cannot come in one lifetime goes without saying. To accomplish the perfection that is needed in order to enter into the kingdom of God -- this perfection that was lost during the Fall -- and to shed all the darkness that has come upon a soul can never be done in one lifetime. Many lives or incarnations are necessary. Life on this earth is like a school, where you develop from one class to the other. Sometimes you may stay for a while in one class and then you may have one or several incarnations in succession where you accomplish a great deal. Human beings -- who are incarnated from the world of darkness -- first come with very low and coarse instincts in them. Only after many incarnations, worked off karmas, and often after some suffering and a number of divine influences will the attitude begin to change -- slowly but surely. When the senses have begun to refine themselves a little bit, then the real work of self-finding and self-purification begins. For this phase many incarnations -- accompanied by changing circumstances -- are necessary. Even in this secondary phase, many beings do not yet have the strength to find God in reality. There is still too much of the lower self present not to succumb to the influences of the luciferic world, whether this comes in the form of direct inspiration or through unwitting human instruments. Thus it will take a considerable amount of lives to awaken sufficiently to strengthen one's will power for the all-important purpose of self-purification. Only then will a further phase come in which the gradual process of purification begins. In each life conditions are prepared so that a certain side of the lower self has the opportunity to best perfect itself. It cannot be any other way, for it would be impossible to reach in one lifetime the perfection needed in order to enter the kingdom of God forever. With each life -- even in the worst cases -- something is gained, even if it can be fully explored only at a later period. That period comes when a being finally declares: "My path leads to God. I will no longer listen to my lower self." The lower self is that self that is magnetically in touch with the world of darkness at all times, as compared with the higher self, which is much further in the background and therefore much more difficult to attain or to reach through all the layers of imperfection. The higher self is in constant contact with the divine world. The outer personality -- with all its power and with its capacity to decide one way or another -- has the means to one day make the decisive step and say: "I declare myself for God, for my Higher Self, with everything that this entails. I will disregard my laziness, I will disregard my comfort, I will disregard the way of least resistance that tempts me to give in to my faults." Whether these faults are your selfishness, your jealousy, your envy, your resentment, or your laziness makes no difference in principle. Anyone who really decides for, then makes the declaration, and remains with the decision to follow this path to God -- hence the salvation of Christ -- cannot remain a subject of the luciferic world. In other words, Lucifer will have no power over such a being, whether on earth or whether in the spirit world. This is the way in which Christ has opened the door. And by this you may also understand why it was said that Christ saved you from your sins. This is right only if you can understand that your great "sin" of falling -- of not remaining faithful to God and therefore of becoming part of the world of darkness at one time -- has not, as a consequence, your eternal exclusion from the divine worlds. In other words, eternal damnation. From this Christ has indeed saved you, and for this you certainly should be grateful to Him. Through Him you now have the possibility -- by your efforts and through your development -- to cross the treshold. In that sense, then it is correct. However, if it is interpreted to mean that Christ died for the sins and the faults of all of you, then this is wrong.

This very briefly is the story, the history of the creation of the universe, the Fall, the creation of this earth sphere, and the salvation through Jesus Christ. At the beginning of this series I asked you to give me all questions you have in mind pertaining to this subject and those that have not been answered by the content of these lectures. I would like to suggest that you then think about it. Re-read my words. This is so important since you miss so much when you read them for the first time. Then, for the next time, prepare your questions and I will answer them, as well as all the other questions that we do not have the opportunity to deal with now.