1496 View of life dependent on belief in the survival of the soul....

June 28, 1940: Book 24

Individual people's views of life are very different, because they are always the product of the individual's spiritual direction. However, the human being will undoubtedly take an affirmative attitude towards life, i.e. regocnize it as somehow meaningful, if he regards himself as a creature which has a task on earth. The human being, however, to whom it seems unacceptable that all creation is a means to an end and that he, as a human being, is effectively the cause of every work of creation, will find the whole of life pointless, and the thought of being able to end his earthly life on his own authority is pleasant to him because he takes offence at all those events and sufferings which are imposed on people from above. He has no real evidence for the assumption that his soul's life ends with bodily death, and yet he accepts this with such certainty that he organizes his life on earth accordingly, that is, he lives without any sense of responsibility because he considers it impossible that he will ever have to answer for it. He has no real evidence and yet presupposes this assumption for his life on earth. His view of life is based on the assumption of non-existence after death. He has no motivation, no faith that teaches him to think differently. Only irrefutable evidence of life after death would change his previous view of life, but this cannot be given to him because such an awakened belief would have no value before God.... So he cannot receive positive knowledge about the soul's continued existence, he just has to 'believe' the teachings about it, he has to bring himself to this belief, for which he has sufficient means at his disposal. Only when he has gained this conviction does his view of life begin to waver. He will now make comparisons, he will no longer want to regocnize that which he had previously advocated, he will welcome a change in external living conditions which will help him to completely abandon his wrong opinions and to view earthly life completely differently. And thus the willing person struggles through it himself if only he pays attention to this problem, which stimulates him to solve and thus inspires him to spiritual research. Once the human being has overcome this obstacle the danger is over for him, for now his thoughts will always be directed towards eternal truth and he will now also accept earthly life devotedly and patiently, for he knows that earthly life is only granted to him for a short time and that he has to make use of this time and sever the connection which taught him wrong thinking. Now he realizes how erroneous the results of such distorted thinking are. Faith in God is the foundation on which every building should rest, yet without faith the truth cannot be conveyed to the human being and thus he cannot attain that view of life which affirms everything, i.e. which is the path to the right realization....

Amen

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