The Morals of the Struggle-for-Life - Part 6 - Book Review - Triumph of the Immortal Will by Mathilde Ludendorff
Summary of Mathilde Ludendorff’s Chapter: "The Morals of the Struggle-for-Life"
- Conflict Overview
- The struggle-for-life, driven by utility-based vital desires, clashes with the purposeless divine wishes, creating a profound gulf. Misconceptions of God, fueled by reason’s half-knowledge, deepen this divide, thwarting the Immortal-Will’s redemption through consciousness.
- Animal Existence as Baseline
- Higher animals live for survival, alternating between torment (hunger, fear) and rare peace, lacking memory of past or future. Their stateless dignity contrasts with humans’ restless complexity, though state-bound animals (e.g., ants) sacrifice peace for collective protection, mirroring some human lives.
- Human Degeneration
- Unlike animals, humans inherit reason, amplifying vital desires (e.g., greed) and memory of suffering, yet often stagnate in hatred and indifference. This degeneration, not just struggle, opposes divine potential, though God-living individuals overcome it with spiritual vitality.
- Divine Transformation of Hate
- Animals exhibit hate only in immediate danger, reverting to indifference, while humans’ persistent hate, rooted in the Immortal-Will, paralyzes divine wishes like goodness and truth. God-living transforms hate into a directed force harmonious with divine aims, not its eradication as in Buddhist/Krishnaite creeds.
- Sublimation of Vital Instincts
- God-living neither denies nor mortifies instincts like hunger or sexuality (contra asceticism) but interpenetrates or suspends them. During divine states (e.g., artistic creation), these fade, reasserting post-experience without shame, aligning with life’s sanctity as a prerequisite for God-living.
- Beauty Amid Ugliness
- Urban life’s ugliness stifles the Wish-to-Beauty, but God-living counters this via imagination, rendering men-of-genius oblivious to it, akin to animals ignoring the irrelevant. Beauty, less targeted by hate, thrives under divine influence, bridging struggle and the beyond.
- Reason’s Dual Role
- Reason’s laws and mastery of nature ease survival, unintentionally aiding divine wishes (e.g., through charity, justice), yet population growth and degeneration harden the struggle, undermining these bridges. Its errors (e.g., timing life mechanically) further alienate God-living.
- Historical Bridges
- Early communal laws (e.g., goods for blood) and charity bridged struggle and divinity, valuing life and fostering peace. Degenerate creeds (e.g., Krishna, Christian) distorted this by universalizing charity, neglecting folk purity and mixing divine wishes with legal duties.
- Spiritualization Process
- God-living resolves the gulf through: (1) associating instincts with divine wishes (e.g., spiritualized minne), (2) suspending disruptive desires during divine states, and (3) empowering divine wishes to dominate. Errors and degeneration historically obstructed this natural unification.
- Moral Implications
- True morals reject ascetic denial or utility-driven distortions, embracing vitality’s sanctity. God-living integrates struggle and divinity, offering redemption within life, not through post-death myths or materialist reductionism.
- Vital vs. Divine Conflict: Struggle-for-life opposes God-living, deepened by reason’s errors.
- Animal Contrast: Simplicity vs. human complexity highlights degeneration’s role.
- Divine Sublimation: Instincts transform, not vanish, under God’s influence.
- Reason’s Ambiguity: Aids survival but often hinders divinity.
- Redemption in Life: God-living bridges the gulf, fulfilling the Immortal-Will pre-death.
The Morals of the Struggle-for-Life
The struggle-for-life, the vital desires, thirst, hunger, sexual-
ity, together with the misconception and misinterpretation of
God, (caused by reason's half-knowledge mingled with error)
have worked such havoc in the soul of man, as to make the keen
observer lose all hope of perfection ever being achieved on earth.
For alas! The divine potencies in man he sees everywhere
stunted.
Now we might be led to think that the fallacies, caused by
reason's half-knowledge, the evil done through the vital-desires,
greed especially for money, (still unborn in the animal-kingdom)
were the only causes which induced the struggle-for-existence
to feel hostile to God. Deeper thought shows how erroneous this
assumption is, for a yawning gulf must exist between a struggle-
for-existence which is ruled by principles-of-utility and wishes
of a divine kind which are distinguished by exactly the absence
of such like principles. Thus, then, the gulf can appear to be
almost unsurmountable. There is a tragic air about the fact, that
the redemption of the Immortal- Will which finally came to
pass in the awakening of the divine-wishes to consciousness
should have created another gulf, graver than the one already
existing between the Immortal-Will and natural-death. The
significance, it bears, seems all the more obvious, in as much as,
contrary to the adherents of religions which teach of a heaven,
we are fully aware how necessarily important our existence,
that ends with our death, is, in respect to the realisation of our
Immortal-life.
In order to realise properly what this apparently unsur-
mountable gulf means we should, do well to make an observ-
ation of a certain existence first which is totally free from the
direct workings of either God or degeneration. For this purpose,
the life of the higher animals are best to choose, as these are
next to us.
When the young animal leaves the care of its mother to enter
independently into the general struggle-for-life, many things in
its surroundings crowd in upon it. Already it has learned to
know the ones which are its bitter enemies; these fill the young
animal with fear. Others, it has found out, are of no importance
in its life and therefore it takes no notice of them. The rest it
mistrusts, being still unaware of the nature they are made of.
Warding-off danger and the search for food are the two occup-
ations which fill up its life. It is roused out of its mood of
peace through torments of hunger which were sent by the self-
preservation-Will within it. The tortures it generally has to
suffer are so out of proportion to the fleeting moments of
pleasure which it is allowed to enjoy, that it might seem as if
something like a curse hovers over its existence. It is well to
know first that the beast is priviledged to sink into the state
of blessed oblivion, or else the 'patience* with which it suffers
its joyless and burdensome fate might appear to be almost
incredible. It lives merely in the present. The past it cannot
remember consciously, and the future, with its looming pains
and fears, is beyond its power to anticipate. Much peace has
been granted to the beast, which lends to its behaviour a charac-
ter of stateliness, especially when it is compared to the hastiness
and restlessness of man. It will never be induced to struggle
for anything more than for the bare necessities of its existence
and consequently, as soon as these are secured, it sinks back
again into the lethargical state it is accustomed to, where no
emotions of joy or pain can touch it, so that we think of the
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beast then as being in the same condition as human beings are
when these feel 'comfortable*. The very young animal will
manifest more feelings than those of comfort. It shows how
glad it is to be alive when times are peaceful. It is up and doing
things without the necessity to earn its living forcing its actions.
It springs and jumps about in play, 'free from any care*. Just
like the human child, it loves teasing its companions; it is
enjoying life!
There are cases when the adult-animal is also capable of
enjoying life. The domesticated-animals give clear witness to
this fact. The dog, especially in that it has been spared the
struggles for its own existence through the care of its master,
will show signs of undiluted joy. The rest of the animals, how-
ever, which have to fight for themselves, are quickly sobered
and at a very early period lose all desire for play. In old age
the lethargical state, characteristic of the beasts, is uninterrupted,
save for outbreaks of bad temper or the excitement of combat.
This gradual descent from an overflowing joy to sobriety and
from this to morbidity and bad temper are signs well known
to us. It is the scale of emotions generally prevailing as the
ages change, not only in the animal kingdom but among human-
kind too. It strikes all those individuals, who, in having been
too taken up with superficial cares, have remained ignorant of
God's life. This does not imply however that the struggle-for-
existence is alone responsible for the descent of the emotional-
life, for, curiously enough, it is found to exist in individuals
who are not obliged to fight for their own living. In fact, it is
very clearly exhibited in actually lazy people who let others
work for them. Old age is the chief cause of it. In other words
the gradual loss of life's power or 'vitality' of the soma-cells
which have been doomed to age and die. Therefore it comes
natural to all beasts and men, save those men who have cultivated
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God within themselves. The decrease of vitality, in the somatical
sense, is overcome by an increase of the powers of genius.
Thus then, the life of the individual animal passes in alter-
nate change; from states of frequent work and torments to the
rarer times of peace and rest. Yet this is a fate which indeed
can be called a 'happy* one, when compared to the existence of
some other kind of animals which, to avoid danger, have united
together in a kind of state-community, as for instance the ants
dave done. Their lives are utterly bare of any peace or rest at
all, they are like the organs of the multicelled-beings. For
instance, the heart keeps on pumping without the slightest
interruption from the first until the last minute of life. In like
manner animals, such as the ants, start working in service for
the community and then never stop until they die. The greatest
struggle-for-life which might happen to a single animal,
accustomed to danger, is nothing compared to the hardship and
monotony of those animals ruled by a state. In having con-
gregated, they have found better protection. Unity has made
them strong, so much so, that they have become the feared enemy
of animals, they could never risk to encounter alone. But for
the protection which this community affords them they were
obliged to sacrifice the sole delights which could ever be theirs;
peace and independence! If they could but know that inevitable
death one day, of a certainty, will destroy the grand edifice,
they have taken such trouble to build, as well as themselves;
what would happen, we wonder? Would they still continue as
before to labour at such a restless pace? Incredible though it
be; there are numbers of individuals among mankind who live
no worthier than the hasty ants. In fact they persist in this way
of living, although they know quite well about death and what
all their troubles are really worth. Notwithstanding, they have
not the slightest ambition to change their mode of life for the
better. Not even that mode of life attracts them which at least
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the animal, living singly, enjoys: The existence which falls into
a state of peace as soon as ever the bare necessities for a living
have been acquired!
Although life in the animal-kingdom has not had to suffer
from the effects of degeneration, it is crystal clear that it runs,
nevertheless, in the opposite direction to the divine-wishes ot
God, (for these are spaceless, timeless and without purpose.)
A deep gulf yawns between the nature of the vital-desires and
the divine-wishes of the soul. But might there not be the
possibility of spanning bridges over the deep gulf by means of
feeling which might have a divine nature?
Wherever we look in the emotional-world of the animal we
see hate underlying all the feelings they exhibit towards their
surroundings. On the occasion of a superficial observation this
fact is hidden, because of the incapability of the animal-mind
to remember things. It is not on the level of a man's state of
consciousness. The animal, in being incapable of retaining
experiences in its memory, will express the feeling of hate only,
when it is actually capable of sensing it and that is, practically,
at the time of danger and only while this actually lasts. Hence,
as soon as danger has passed, it falls back again into its habitual
state of indifference. But the voice of the Immortal-Will, within
the animal, continually admonishes it to hate everything, dead
or alive, which threatens its life and never will the Immortal-Will
cease in this demand! This is a fact, the vital importance, of
which every living thing tells us of and which we must indelibly
imprint on our minds, because the nonknowledge of evolution
and its laws has done already such infinite harm to man. It goes
without saying, of-course, that in those men, whose Immortal-
Will sublimated in longing for God-Life, hate shows trans-
formation similar to the spiritualisation of the Immortal-Will.
(We shall come back again to this theme.)
The sadly monotonous state of emotions which the animal
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exhibits to the world around it is made up of hate and indiffer-
ence. Occasionally, however, this is interrupted by the waves
of sexual-heat which make themselves felt and which induce the
animal to approach, accordingly, the other of its own kind. But
as soon as its sexual-sensation has been gratified, it falls back
again into its old monotony. The sensations, experienced in
connection with its young, are of a deeper and more lasting
kind. The higher the class is to which the animal belongs, the
more helpless it is after birth, the stronger grows the mother-
instinct together with the desire to tender and make sacrifices
for the young. This is the fount of all the deep mother love. But
even this instinct fades away into indifference as soon as the
young have gained the state of independence. Finally, we can
observe how the animals congregate together in herds or flocks,
or live in matrimony, like birds do, thus manifesting an emotion
the kind of which can be described as having 'grown used to
each other' which strongly puts us in mind of the family relat-
ionship of man. In gloomy world of brute emotions, there
is not yet the faintest shimmer of the divinity but it is there,
nevertheless, only slumbering. The behaviour of the higher kind
of animals, when they come in contact with man whose soul
exists in the most awakened state of all, give ample witness to
this fact. Already we have heard of the awakened state of
conscience which the dog will exhibit and also the sentiments of
tender attachment it develops, when longer in the company of
man. Sentiments, which, in respect to strength and permanency,
it is utterly incapable of exhibiting for its own kind. If this
means, that the influence which the mind of man exercises over
the dog and the care he takes for its welfare is the cause of the
divinity awakening which manifests itself then in sentiments
and actions, it also means, that the divinity before that was in
a state of slumber.
Observe then, how this daily intercourse with man has
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produced a creature which is neither man nor animal. Here we
seem to have to do with an 'anachronistical' (if we may so call
it) awakening of the divinity in respect to the sentiments and
actions of the animal towards its master; the one who has proved
to be its friend in the struggle-for-life. And yet, every time
the domesticated animal is obliged to play the part of a struggler-
for-existence which sometimes happens in spite of its priviledged
position; the pitiful alternative between hatred and indifference,
manifest in the state of its emotions, steps again into its rights.
It is interesting to watch the divine glance spring into the eyes
of an animal when it is acting from feelings of attachment,
forgetting sometimes, when it does so, its own instinct of self-
preservation; and then compare the virtuous nature of this
glance to the glance which is habitual in the eyes of all such
men in whom the divinity is dead. In having given themselves
up to the sole endeavours of earning a living, while enlisting as
well in the petty service of mere utility, such individuals have
become animalised in an anachronistical manner.
Already we have been fully satisfied that the divine feature,
called truth, exists everywhere, albeit unconsciously, in the
animal-kingdom. All the animals 'ring true* in that their out-
ward behaviour accords with the motives for the deed. How-
ever, there is a grave fact we may not overlook here and that
is; the higher the animal-mind (understanding) has become
developed, the more easily do those characteristics, called
cunning and slyness, make their appearance in the heat of the
combat which aim at deceiving the enemy as to the motives
which underlies the deed. The evils of cunning and slyness, how-
ever, are redeemed in the animal from the fact that they are
applied only in cases of emergency, i. e. when the life-interests
of the animal are in danger, in the strict sense of the word.
Therefore the animal's habit of cunning and slyness are in no
ways identical with the hypocricy and lies which distort the
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life of human-kind. Nevertheless it makes us feel grave to think
that the impulse to use trickery in the struggle-for-life was
inherent in the breast of man almost before the divinity in man
began to awaken; it was the characteristic, he was already in
possession of as representing a piece of property which had
been bequeathed to him from the animal-kingdom. Observe
now the make up of the inheritence received from the animal.
Instead of the Wish-to-Goodness and Beauty there is the sole
interest in utility. In place of charity, hatred towards every-
thing which threatens its life, and in place of the Wish-to-Truth
the use of strategem, when danger of death is near.
The majority of mankind indeed live similar lives. Nothing
varies the state of their emotions which change alternately from
hatred to indifference. When they have to work, they are
animated with the thought of the profit it brings, otherwise they
prefer being indolent. Passing sexual-intercourse makes up the
rest. Yet they are without the benefits which the animal enjoys,
in that it is oblivious of the past and suspects nothing of the
future, for the awakening of reason has changed the whole
course of man's life. Reason has built a bridge of errors in order
to span the gulf between natural death and the Immortal- Will.
In similar manner it has tried to span the gulf between the
demands of the struggle-for-life and the divine-wishes existing
in the soul of man, but that bridge likewise was built of errors.
Just as the course of development found its way to spiritu-
alisation, in spite of all the deviations reason seemed obliged to
make, and the yawning gap disappeared, the divinity in man
subjected vital-desires to divine-wishes, so that unity came to
pass.
In very early times, already, men were fully conscious of the
fact that the vital-desires strongly clashed with the divine-ones.
The contrariness and antagonism which had sprung up between
the two began to appear almost insurmountable. To prevent this
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state continuing men thought out means to overcome the diffi-
culty, but these have proved since to have been of a very
erroneous and uncouth kind. One of these primitive methods
still exists to-day and might be called the worst of its kind.
It is the habit men have of wrapping up the divine-trends into
space, time and purpose. Having thus been stripped of their
divine nature, it was an easy matter to bring about a union. (We
have already treated these attempts and the results which
followed). The second method which cropped up with the same
regularity as the first in all the religious teachings of the past is
just as erroneous, because of the awful ignorance which is
revealed concerning the meaning of life, the law of life, as well
as the true nature of God, although a greater spirit of respect
is manifested towards the divine-wishes. It teaches that, as vital
desires are contrary to God's Will, the only escape from them
is through the practice of asceticism and the denial of the world.
Consequently the monk's cell was resorted to, where, in hours
of prayer, sin could be overcome. Undoubtedly this was a life
which was dedicated to God, but undertaken in such a onesided
way and in utter ignorance of the fact that the vital-desires
are capable of being sublimated and united to the divine-wishes.
While the asceticism of the monk considered sexuality to be
the worst sin against God but surrendered itself willingly to
the temptations which the enjoyment of eating and drinking
offered; another kind of religious-ideal considered fasting to be
higher than chastity in the eyes of God so that in this case the
food taken was not only limited to the smallest quantities but
also to certain particular kinds. It was thought that such rules
would help to lead a man to God: In Theosophical and Antro-
posophical-circles a kind of divine cookery book has made its
appearance according to the recipes of which a state of perfect-
ion can be concocted. The origin of these fallacies are to be
found in the doctrines of Buddha and Krishna which cropped up
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at the time of the decline of the Indian race. Christianity
adopted very many of those creeds, but the errors, we have just
mentioned, are not preached in the gospels in this way exactly,
although the surrendering of one's possessions is claimed to be
a good way to gain salvation. The Indian exhibits a greater
independence of fate than the Christian does. The Indians
sought to overcome the conflict, existing between existence and
God, in that they strove for an attitude of greater indifference
to fate. Their myth of rebirth aided them in their efforts. It
admonished them to disdain struggling for life also for life's
joys and sorrows should they wish to gain that state of inward
peace essential for the sinking into contemplation which is the
participation in divine life. Notwithstanding the fact, that the
Indians were a folk of deep philosophical-trend, their religion,
like all other religions which teach of a life in another world,
lacked the drive and potency to genuine divine contemplation.
The art of Yoga which they were in the habit of teaching gives
ample witness to this fact. This contains religious-practices
which are supposed to help man to participate in the life of
God, inspite of all the impediments which lie in the way.
According to the truth which has been revealed to us, we know
that the possibility to partake in the life of God is given to us
in this life only. It is the very gravity of this thought which
animates us, and as we know by experience what the real nature
of God is there is something comic about laying down fast rules
wherewith to obtain the life in the beyond, especially when the
rules practised are those of auto-suggestion and the results which
follow mistaken for God-living (Gotterleben). Moreover we are
amazed at the doctrines which laud poverty, chastity and self-
denial, as being the adequate means in overcoming the conflict
which separates the struggle-for-life from God-living.
Verily, God-living (Gotterleben) strikes out on quite a differ-
ent path. In its endeavours to solve the problem it does not
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allow itself to be roughly dragged into the daily routine nor
does it flee the world. On the contrary, in its own sublime way
it interpenetrates all vital-desires in subjecting them to the
divine-Will.
At the time, when mankind began to live in communities, he
sought for revenge for murder the keener his memory grow.
The impressions, however, which the results of the continual
chain of revenge for homicide left on his brain were so fatal in
the end, as to make him seek new ways to make up for the
taking of life. Goods and chattels were demanded instead of
life. Here for the first time the conception was born that guilt
should be atoned for. Later this idea, in the sacrifices of those
races who distinguished themselves by their fear of demons,
gained in significance. But not only that, goods and chattels
became suddenly of great value, in as much as they could be
exchanged for the very life of a man. As a consequence the
individual life of man also gained in value, in as much as by
such means it could more often be saved than heretofore. As
a result of this reasoning the beginnings of a foundation to
laws-of-the-land were laid (I repeat laws which were born of
reason) and simultaneously, although unintentionally, a bridge
leading to God was built. For through the surrender of goods
and chattels, instead of strife, peace and goodwill appeared on
earth which were the essentialities to progress.
The suffering, memory kept alive which had been caused to
some in the community through the selfishness of others, made
reason think it good to extend the hand of the law over all the
other ranges belonging to the protection of life and good with
the motto on her shield: Do to others as you would be done
by. At the same time, as if to balance this, there existed an
inherent selfpreservation instinct subconscious in the breats of
man (who at that time still lived in the purity of race) which
was identical with the instinct to keep the kind going inherent
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20*
in the animal. This instinct is clearly manifested when the
animal cares for its young or puts up a tenacious fight for its
own life, or as in the case of the ants and bees (the state-builders)
the intense service each one makes for the good of the whole.
The dire knowledge what foolish behaviour man is capable of,
resulting in such infinite harm to himself, his family and his
folk, in that freedom instead of compulsory force accompanies
his selfpreservation instinct, made the wisest and best think it
proper to lay down fast rules to make up for the absence of
force in this instinct. Though these laws are born of reason and
serve practical purposes, yet the divine in man was now actually
given the first royal chance of exfoliating; in other words, the
conflict, existing between the divine and vital-trend in man, was
overcome for the first time, although unintentionally on the
part of man himself, for he could not have been aware of the
effects which would follow from all this.
Incomparably more essential in bringing about the friendly
relationship between the two worlds (here and beyond) was the
power of the divine, as it grew conscious-in-feeling together
with the support it received from the doctrine of charity which
for its part had been prompted through the natural desire man
felt to help his fellowmen. Such deeds were called the 'social
virtues' and became, eventually, the means of building an expan-
sive bridge connecting the struggle-for-life with God. The fatal
results which issued later to the general detereoration of so
many folks of the earth came about when charity was being
practised without any discrimination and the duties to family
and folk were neglected as a consequence. This evil had its
origin when the Buddha and Krishna creeds of a coming
'redeemer* found acceptance in the Indian folk after it had
become degenerated, and when later the Jewish Apostles added
their creed of hate towards others who did not profess the same
creed; this evil, in that it was a race destroying element, grew
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even worse. Thus then, the bridge, leading from the struggle-
for-life to the realms of God which had promised such success,
had become now also the means of the folks' destruction. In the
one great virtue, called charity, (humanity) all the other
opportunities which the wish-to-goodness offered were over-
looked, so that it came to pass that genius came but second to
the demands which the practice of this virtue made on him.
More even, as the consequence of this ignorance the divine
wishes got all mixed up with the duties owed to the common-
law (laws of the land). And this error happens to be the worst
which still exists in the morals of today. Yet, despite this grave
error, the bridge, leading from struggle-for-life to God, still
holds, for indeed the common-laws and charity have bestowed
a great blessing on mankind.
Another great aid was the progress in the development of reason
itself. Although reason is capable of erring and in having often
done so caused the struggle-for-life to become so degenerated
and full of unnecessary hardships; through reason, nevertheless,
the struggle for the bare necessities of life, that is, the life we
think of as being contrary to the life led in the light of the
divine-wishes, has been greatly improved. To understand what
this means, we have but to bear in mind the immeasurable
benefits to mankind which the cognising potencies and insight
of man's reason have brought; for instance every time he was
able to perceive the prime-cause amidst the cosmical happen-
ings. By virtue of his reason's potencies man has become the
master of the forces of nature instead of their slave: What once
was of danger man has turned into his service, something
which the animal mind was incapable of doing. Hence, the
struggle-for-existence has been made comparatively easy for a
great number of individuals provided of course, that the
vississitudes of war and catastrophes of nature have been spared
them. From this might be expected, that less stood in the way
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of the fulfilment of the divine-wishes, than in those far-off
centuries when the forces of nature had not been mastered yet.
But it is not so, for the steady increase of population and the
evil effects which the state of degeneration leaves behind it has
rendered the struggle-for-existence even more difficult than it
ever was, so that it goes almost without saying, that the
marvellous bridge, crossing from here to the beyond, has been
laid almost barren through reason's evil concoctions.
Yet the influence of the trends of God's Will, inherent in the
breast of man, have caused the trend of his animal emotions
and instincts to be so closely interpenetrated with these, that one
might well speak of a 'divine' transformation. They have
formed another bridge, more beneficial and of more importance
which man could use if he desired to enter the realms beyond.
As we have already observed, the fundamental sensation of
all vitality was hatred. It was the sole sentiment which was
capable of arousing the living-being out of its habitual lethargy
and was directed against everything, without exception, which
might threaten in any way its own life. Now, as man, unlike the
animal, cannot forget the past, the feeling of hate, in particular,
has proved to be the worst of all God's enemies. It is apt to
paralyse terribly the feelings of charity; in so many cases it has
suffocated altogether the wish-to-goodness, and it has rather seen
lies than the wish-to-truth triumphant. Alone the wish-to-beauty
it leaves unattacked. For this reason the sense of beauty has had
a better chance to develop in the cultural folks than the other
divine- wishes have. We are not surprised, therefore, that Buddha
and Krishna, in face of this awful danger to God-living, felt
obliged to create those world-religions of humanity which
chiefly contained doctrines preaching the resignation of hate.
In those creeds man was admonished to quench the feeling
of hate within him altogether. He was told that if he practised
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the virtue of charity, he could even turn his hate into love. What
a fatally absurd idea this was! If a man should ever succeed in
rooting out his sentiments of hate, he would have first to
extirpate his own innate Immortal- Will, for, as we have clearly
perceived hate has its origin in the Immortal-Will of man,
which, by the very law of its being, must flare up into hate in
order to give the signal that life is in danger. Thus then, the
results of the exhortation to resign hatred in reality looked like
this: In many ways it appeared as if hatred had been successfully
overcome, in reality however it still worked disaster in the soul
of man. It is a pity we must refrain here from discussing the
sublime way of redemption, where, under the divine influence,
hate can be successfully transformed so as to be fit even for the
service of God. We should be going too far into the range of
our morals. But one thing we should like to mention here, and
that is, if the sentiments of hate are put under the guidance of
the divine- Will, the deep gap which it usually makes will be
easily bridged over, for harmony instead of discord will reign
with God then.
The vital-instincts, inherited from the animal, work also in
a contrary direction to God. But here also, the divine-wishes
are able to overcome the conflict in their own sublime way, they
can either interpenetrate the vital-wishes or loosen them from
their bondage. Both ways are far superior in its kind to the
petty endeavours springing from the reason which the Indians
and Christians put forth when they preach of the resignation of
the sexual and food-instincts. God demands neither chastity nor
fasting from mankind. On the contrary, potential life in the
individual as well as in the race is holy and significant to God,
for the simple reason that the life in the realms beyond can be
assured to man only as long as he lives. Therefore God respects
all sane vitality in allowing all the conditions essential to it.
And when the vital-instincts threaten to become stumbling-
blocks which hinder man's partaking in the divine-life, it is
again the divine influence which steps in and liberates man from
his vital-instincts altogether. For instance, a creative artist can
go on for days without almost any food when he is particularly
taken up with his artistic production. Being then in the realms
beyond, hunger and thirst are practically not felt. Days and
nights will be passed in utter disregards of the wants of the
body. But as soon as the state of genial production has passed
over, the body demands its rights again. Then the artist, not
like those hypocrites who believe a good appetite to be some-
thing unholy, will satisfy the wants of his body with right good
will. In this way, then, God-living is enabled to escape with
case from the bondage of the strict rythmical beat of the body's
want of food and its satisfaction, when its subjection to these
would mean a hindrance to the realisation of the divine Will,
namely that time a man spends in the life-beyond. A sane person
will always refrain from exaggeration, even in this respect, in
the sure knowlegde that the satisfaction of the natural demands
of the body is essential in order to lead a healthy life, for earthly
existence is the prime essential to the living of the Life-Immortal.
In this endeavour, therefore, the impulse for food should neither
be mortified nor unnecessarily restrained. What really matters is,
that it should get rid of that trait which is so awfully hostile
to God and which makes it so difficult for a man to live his
life in God, in those realms where time is not. We are thinking
of the antigodlike habit man has of strictly timing all his
experiences with the slavelike regularity of the machine! Un-
fortunately man succumbs to this fault only too readily, thus
making it so difficult for himself to bring the daily struggle-for-
existence to harmonise with God. Moreover all the numerous
inventions of his own reason's making appear to fetter rather
than free him from the enslavery which the living of his life
means when he divides it strictly according to time. We shall
treat this again.
There is another feeling of pain and discomfort, from which
a like divine escape is undertaken when it tends to act as an
impediment to man in his participation of God, and that is
the feeling of pain caused from illness. These arc practically
not felt at all, when the patient lives God. In fact, it is amazing
to what extent the insensitiveness to pain will grow, provided
the divinity in a man was been keenly developed. (Of course
it must be clearly understood that by this we do not mean
anything which is connected with the painless zones of hysterical
individuals.) Nor must we think that merely distraction is
required, should this state of utter insensitiveness to pain be
gained. Incidently, Christian-Science has occupied itself with
this problem with the result, that the truth has suffered complete
misinterpretation. This singular behaviour towards pain which
a patient will manifest during illness has led to the belief in the
fallacy, that pain is one of the 'corrective means of the deithy',
sent to man for his salvation. The different conditions of the
patients rest chiefly on the nature of his liberation from pain.
Is it of a divine nature, this will be reflected in the patient's
whole behaviour; while the mind of the one concentrates itself
wholly on the diseased part, the other, it will be observed, will
give hardly the sufficient attention which even the doctor might
think was due to his illness. On the contrary, if the endeavours
to gain a living left him little leisure while he was able to get
about, the sick-room will be dear to him in that the chance is
given him to partake of God in peace. And it is this divine peace
only which is able to obliviate pain. In the keen occupations of
the practicalities of life or in the passion of the chase after
avarice or ambition men will be made to forget their pains too,
but never are these distractions appropriate like the workings
of the divinity are in making men so divinely insensitive to
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pain. But, of course, whereever the intensity of the pain is
greater than the attained state of insensitiveness, these will
prevail, calling man's attention to them imperatively.
Now that we have finished demonstrating the independence
of physical defects which Godliving manifests, ve must turn
to denounce as error the statement that bodilj health and
power are a hindrance to the development of the di/inity innate
in man; this is most certainly not the case. On the contrary,
complete health of, all the soma-cells is of vital importance in
order to achieve that state of keener consciousness which facil-
itates the endeavours of a man to live according to the divine-
wishes of God's Will. If, however, the subjection of the vital-
instincts to the divine-wishes has been neglected and by reason
of this fact have remained still at the animal-stage and as such
are contrary to God, they will be more capable of hindering the
development of the divine- wishes, than the weakened instincts
in the case of the bodily infirmed. As the religious moral-creeds
exercise such an extraordinary influence over the majority of
mankind, few have been really able to subject their bodily-
desires to the Will of God, and as a consequence it has become
almost essential for a man to have weakly developed passions,
should he be able to do justice to the Will of God.
This fact brings us round to face sexuality as being opposed
to God. How can this be put right? During God-Living, the
influence of God is so strong that sexual-passion disappears of
itself, so that its opposing effect is hardly obvious. However,
the best way to overcome the opposition is to associate the
sexual-will to the divine-wishes. The more this takes place, the
greater will it be dependent on the fact in how far the divine-
wishes are satisfied or dissatisfied. When finally sexual-will and
divine-wishes have become inseparable, the conflict between the
two Will have disappeared altogether, if but from the fact that
the desire for any sexual-communion would disappear, as soon
as it threatened to stand in the way towards God, without a
man feeling anything extraordinary about the matter. In effect,
sexual-passion, provided it is held completely under the sway of
its association with the divine, can be raised to that rank which
we shall henceforth call spiritualised minne. Once in this rank,
it becomes the most powerful aid in the fulfilment of the divine-
wishes which before might have slumbered. Then, not only the
experience of joy becomes divine, but the experience of suffering
also.
When we come to demonstrate our morals of minne, we shall
be obliged to concern ourselves, first with the fact, that man
has done very little towards supporting this relationship, in
that he has allowed the errors, caused by his reason's inefficiency
to perceive more than the half of truth to gain the upperhand
and in doing so has widened the gulf, already existing between
divine-wishes and sexuality.
We have already noted that among the divine-wishes, the
Wish-to-Beauty was less exposed to injurious hatred. It might
have had therefore a greater chance to exfoliate, had man, like
the animal, been permitted to live in closer connection with
nature, practising just the vital-demands (like the animal does)
which existence lays on him. As it is, the struggle-for-life has
been made so difficult in the noisy towns through the density
of which the rays of light and air can hardly ever pervade, that
the sense of beauty is under continual insult. Men, famished for
the want of beauty, are doomed to live all their lives in the most
ugly surroundings, making the divinity-in-perception more
opposed than it natural was towards that struggle in the general
chase for the practical. But here again God comes to man's aid!
Just as the influence of the divine was capable of releasing the
ties of time which threatened to make him the slave to his
bodily-instincts, in like manner the divine influence releases him
from the ties of space which bind him to ugliness. Sometimes
this happens through the power of imagination (phantasy) which
God makes use of. It becomes the magic wand which throws
the fairylike veil over the matter-of-fact, every day things,
making them appear to be things of actual beauty. Men, who
are full of God, will grow immune to an sting of ugliness until
at last they become simply oblivious of its existence. It puts
us in mind of the animal way of ignoring the objects around
it which happen to be neither of any use nor any harm to its
person. Therefore we conclude from this observation that men-
of-genius exhibit the same behaviour towards the ugliness which
they cannot escape from as the Greeks exhibited when they
nominated such inevitable ugliness, the 'non-existing' without
however their divine blindness being the cause for them to
neglect the necessary every day duties. In such men, on the other
hand, the divine-wish-to-beauty makes itself strongly felt.
When and whereever anything really beautiful strikes their eye,
their attention is keenly attracted, making them follow attent-
ively the thing of beauty with the same intense feeling as the
animals exhibit when anything useful or hostile makes its
appearance before them. Thus the men-of -genius, living in the
dirty ugliness of big cities, are saved from those moods of
melancholia which would inevitably befall them if their want
of beauty were not in some way or other redeemed.
Thus then, we are justified in summing up as follows. Man's
saviour is his God-living and not his reason, in as much as the
gulf which the awakening of reason created between the
struggle-for-life and the desires of man to live in realms beyond
was made to disappear again through the gradual process of
spiritualisation. The ways, this took, were, as we shall see, very
diverse. In the first place it transformed the inheritance which
the animal bequeathed to us, in that this was made to associate
itself closely to the divine-wishes (sexuality). Secondly any
disturbing feelings, such as hunger, thirst and those aroused at
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the sight of ugliness, are periodically banned, so that the
participation of man in the life of God can happen undisturbed.
The third way, finally, which the process of spiritualisation
goes, is in the strengthening of the divine-wishes to power. This
way bears the most importance. Mankind might have been
spared much of the suffering which the conflicting desires of this
life and the life beyond still cause even today, had the process
of spiritualisation been allowed to go its own dear way. As
it is, succeeding generations were compelled to accept all the
errors and fruits of degeneration which belonged to their
ancestors, as well as the misconceptions of God which degraded
religions suggested. The process of civilisation (the knowledge
of the laws of nature and technical inventions) might have
become means of making the divine-wishes the superiors in
man's life; whereas the fact is, that the majority have to slave
and are abused for the sake of the enjoyment and lust of the
few (s. Each folk's own song to God).
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