2298 Idleness.... regulated activity....

April 11, 1942: Book 32

Regulated activity is a blessing in that it protects people from the vices of idleness. This is by no means meaningless, for idleness is the greatest danger to the soul's higher development. It is, as it were, a return to the state of inactivity that the beingness had to endure in the bound will in the initial stage of its development.... thus an abuse of free will, which permits busy activity. Activity is life, inactivity death.... Thus the beingness, the soul, favours the state of death and at the same time puts itself in danger of falling into the most diverse vices. For as soon as a person is inactive, the desires of the body come to the fore; it wants to extract from life whatever earthly pleasures and joys are possible. And this is of the greatest harm to the soul. The state of activity, on the other hand, is only a danger to the soul if the human being is so materialistically minded that he wants to increase his earthly goods through his activity. Nevertheless, being active is serving.... And thus the human being unconsciously fulfils the task assigned to him for his time on earth. For although he carries out this serving activity without love, matter itself is nevertheless changed again, i.e. the spiritual in it is helped to serve through the constant transformation which every activity entails.... be it directly or indirectly through teaching activity. And that is why idleness should be fought most diligently and people should be encouraged to be industrious, because every activity is a blessing as long as it is not carried out to the detriment of fellow human beings. For this is true love for man, to protect him from spiritual decline. The hardships of earthly life are not even remotely comparable to the disadvantage that arises for the soul from an earthly life in which, out of apparent consideration, the demands that exist in regulated activity are kept from the human being. Man can only mature through the latter because he can never be spared serving. But he who wants to serve must be active.... But idleness excludes service; rather, man claims serving activity for himself, which is always a blessing only for the one who serves....

Amen

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