Secrets of Creation · Chapter 19 · A Waterfall (June 29, 1873)

Chapter 19:

A Waterfall (June 29, 1873)

01] Last night you read a description of the Niagara Falls, thinking of Me and the beauty of My nature.

02] But since in everything that is visible before your eyes there is an even deeper reason for the existence as well as for the effect of the individual on the whole, I will here again to prove to you with a few words that there is still something completely different in everything than people often think.

03] Well, the describer of the Niagara Falls has admired My nature, that is, a small piece of it; the magnificence of the spectacle, the noise, the roar of the water has aroused in him feelings which he could not avoid expressing in order to make others also aware of the eternally same impulse that reigns in all My nature and is called "life".

04] Here at this waterfall the water column thundered into his ear, which he could also have heard with a slight whisper of the wind or a ray of light from distant suns if he had ears for it. Only the huge waterfall overpowers or stuns the human earthly feeling, and under this mighty struggle of water, air and earth man seemed to him so tiny, so small that he could not deny My power, even if he did not want to acknowledge it as existing at first.

05] Well, such nature scenes always result in the humiliating feeling that forces man to see his own greatness sink into nothing.

06] It is a good thing if at least one ancestor of a spiritual kingdom is recognized, which shines out through this great spectacle of nature and forces man to confess what he does not want under other circumstances, namely: that there must be a God who has created all this for the benefit and spiritual language of man, so that he is sometimes reminded that all his inventions, his imaginary greatness, is nothing and in nature and elementary events he has to admit this nothingness to himself.

07] But all this is not the purpose of this word, but I want to use the Niagara Waterfall for something else, and that is the question:

08] Why is there actually a waterfall, big or small?

09] Could I not have shaped the earth so that it had no mountains and no depressions, everywhere lowland and the brooks, rivers and streams flowed calmly into the sea in their beds?

10] To give a sufficient, but spiritual answer to this question is the purpose of this word, and I want again to prove to you how much of the deep, spiritual, and also necessary material belongs to it creating a world body, that then sustains itself, perfects itself and thus fulfills its mission for higher purposes.

11] Now behold, My children, life, be it material, that is to say spiritually bound, or free, spiritual, can manifest itself everywhere only in such a way that an emergence, then a partial continuance and then a finite passing away denotes its phases of development.

12] Life in the material visible is friction, the development of warmth, of light, gradually progressively decomposing or transforming into other forms in order to become gradually suitable for higher purposes.

13] So you know life and say: "it moves, it lives."

14] What is at rest seems lifeless, seems dead.

15] This life, or the perpetual cycle of existence and decay continues on according to once established basic principles; you call it "life", and "fight" is what I call it.

16] Fight for survival, fight for progress, fight to reach a higher level.

17] Well, this principle, which is the same in the last infusion animal as in the greatest central sun - this principle is also in the elements, which in liquid state constitute both the atmosphere of the worlds and their interior.

18] Without this fight everything would rot, decompose and face material death.

19] In your atmosphere, for example, air is an easily moveable element that never stands still, just as water on the surface of the earth, which as compressed air has the same restlessness or the tendency to always follow the course of gravity, to flow to where it can reach a resting point!

20] Inside the earth are metals and minerals, compressed gases and light elements which, like the water on the surface, have to perform the same process to thrive. Nowhere is there rest!

21] In the air, if you could see them before your eyes, are "air falls", which often far exceed your waterfalls in magnificence. There, this very necessary movement is felt by you as wind, which through movement keeps the individual components of the air in constant activity, stimulates them to connect, motivates them, warms them up through movement and keeps them alive.

22] What happens in the air is also the case in water. Water decays without movement, decomposes, dissolves its components, otherwise so fruitful and useful, into harmful vapors as soon as the effect of movement is lacking.

23] Water, then, if it were to flow so calmly, would not have the appropriate life force to have a healing effect on plants, animals and people, it must be maintained through constant activity. And just as in the air storms and violent winds often have to increase this vitality even more, so the waterfall is the same thing, which is sometimes permitted or predestined on a large or small scale, in order to to bring new energy, new life to a river or stream on its long run to the sea, so that it can fulfil its purpose, have a fruitful effect on its surroundings.

24] Therefore waterfalls, seen with spiritual eyes, are the life-savers who guard the existing from decay and spread life and activity around themselves; for it is not only the fall of water, but also the fall of the air hovering above it, the friction of the individual parts of both elements, the decomposition, the reanimation, which actually prepare new life-force for water and thus greater activity for the earth.

25] Just as water, as a fluid element, pushes itself against the rigid rocks, rubs itself, develops life activity through friction, so the mountains, at great heights or individual mountains, are the rocks in the air stream; where it too must push, must rub itself, increase its activity, and so exert its influence on the surface of the earth and on the living plants and the animal world. (See "The Grossglockner")

26] In the air, where incidentally light stimulates the individual atoms to form compounds as a decomposing factor, the same law is fixed as in everything: "Life" means moving, means fighting, means creating and by cosmic processes dissolving again into other forms, so in water. The water destroys the solid matter subject to it by friction, and decomposes by its movement at waterfalls, especially the air of its environment and its own components; and it is therefore a stream of carriers of life which, wherever it flows, emits streams of blessing through the stream of air that accompanies it until it arrives in the sea, discharging its best and strongest, instead of resting inactive, stimulated by the bitter and salty components of the ocean again to other compounds, but "under the ground", must begin its cycle again in other forms and on other ways.

27] Thus the mountains as receptacles for the newly revitalized water from below are "fans of the air stream", the streams moving on the surface of the earth with their cataracts (waterfalls) - "fans of the water stream"; and what you often admire in visible nature, in the air with terror and in the waterfalls with astonishment, also permeates spiritual life according to the same principles, where, in order to progress spiritually, one must fight and quarrel, so that spiritual life may become fit for eternity, not acidic or even decaying!

28] Behold how the air in its flow encounters obstacles, which the mountain masses are as solid objects, or how the water encounters resistances during its course, which want to restrict its course and thus forces air and water to exertion, just as in spiritual life the obstacles first awaken the spiritual character, steel it, and stimulate it to greater activity.

29] Just as it roars in the air under thunder and lightning, and the spirit of the wind is threateningly drawn along, or the water suddenly has to fall under thundering noise into an unexpected depth, there swirling and roaring must crush and rub against solid rocks - so it is the obstacles in human life that cause the cases where man, thrown out of his idyllic rest, needs all the strength in the whirlpool of life to come out of the turmoil of the rocks of life.

30] You must fight by force, and if, as is often the case with water, an obstacle is overcome, perhaps after a short period of time a new obstacle threatens, just as unforeseen as the first. So it continues, the calmly longed-for flow between flowery shores is not granted to man here, and if he also comes at the end into a wider river area, then it goes towards his spiritual destiny, where, like the water in the sea, he encounters different laws in the spiritual realm of the whole universe, different conditions, which force him to omit everything superfluous and only to continue sailing with that which is adapting to his surroundings, as the great spirit realm.

31] Thus a storm in the air, a waterfall between high banks, is the spiritual symbol of human life, where everywhere one's own life and that of others is conditioned only by struggle.

32] Behold the great river, how slowly it flows; likewise a life without spiritual activity. The river carries ships, but mostly carries mud and undrinkable water; its greatest life force has departed from it, it hurries to its destination, serving others more than itself. So human life; here too, in old age, where life activity is limited to a few things little more than vegetative progress, the old man approaches his transformation like the great river.

33] Well, both of them, when they used to be very useful to their environment and donated life and activity to others!

34] With this consciousness may man then also be able to exclaim: "I have not lived in vain!" Then he can calmly wait when the great ocean of the spirit world takes him into its bosom, where only the reward of what has been done awaits him, and through the attainment he is suitable to begin a new task in higher levels.

35] Thus, My children, take My material nature as an example, how you are to observe in your spiritual nature all circumstances which you encounter.

36] Waterfalls! The water falls down from a height, atomizes, evaporates and revives itself. Even if you often fall down from a dreamed height, do it like the water, renew your strength, break through the rocks of old habits, fight and fight, because fight is life! And just as the rushing mountain stream contains fresh, invigorating water, just as it communicates fertile moisture to its surroundings, so you too, revived by your exertion of energy, should keep yourselves fresh, that is, viable, in order to fulfil your mission for yourselves and towards your surroundings or fellow human beings.

37] Just as everything blooms more beautifully near a mountain stream, everything shines in more beautiful green and nature is more bountiful, so let your surroundings also feel your presence; You should also spread the activity of life to them, so that when you walk through life freshly and boldly in the more beautiful glory of a moral consciousness, all those who go along with you may also understand and comprehend where the spiritual moisture comes from and how it is able to generate the richest splendor of light and color, where its effectiveness is able to penetrate.

38] So may the foaming roar of Niagara, or any other case, be to you and all others a spiritual example that "falling" is necessary in order to rise greater again spiritually; and that just as with waterfalls the arc of peace in the seven colors often delights the admiring spectator, it is the light that brings about this magic, just as with a moral pitfall the light of the divine word with the seven divine qualities is also what helps the fallen person again and will always be helpful to his further course during the short lifetime, as the air with the water, to transfer to others what has been experienced in his own life.

39] O if you could read more clearly in My Book of Nature how many instructive examples are written there, whose spiritual deciphering could grant you some blessed enjoyment, more than all worldly pleasure, and you would also see, as in the materially visible as in the spiritually invisible always the same law of love, of tolerance, and forgiveness prevails, and as also with apparent devastations only a loving purpose and reason is hidden, which indeed destroys many material things in order to save the spiritual! Thus this word is again to prove to you in fact how much spiritual light is already around you during the day, and when night falls, to remind you that above this short sunlight of a vanishing day a higher, eternal one shines towards you from the stars, but which you will only fully understand when the earthly is gone from you forever and your eye is fully capable of receiving only spiritual, namely constant light; while here in the life of tests you can only guess at some moments, inspired by natural phenomena, what a sun, a world is behind the coffin lid, and what a father stands there, who already wants to make you understand here in many great scenes of nature that you are not created for this short, but for an eternal, never-ending life!

40] So contemplate My Nature! Learn to read in it the Holy Scripture of My Love, which always calls out to you in the thunder of thunderclouds or a falling waterfall or in the soft murmur of a stream or in the gentle fan of a breeze: God is Love! Learn to understand Him, and I assure you, also you too must love Him!

41] Now you too, who wrote this word for others, should also learn in the nature that will soon be facing you (G. Mayerhofer was prompted by circumstances to go to the Alps for some time.) read how great and good your father and Lord is, who gives you such words for others and you the opportunity to enjoy spiritually on the spot what you have just had to describe to others; you also learn to understand how your father and Lord is, who sends you out into His wide nature, so that you do not forget your spiritual besides your material interest; where between the mountains, glaciers and roaring forests streams of every sound of them may whisper to you the same words that you have previously written here for others!

42] So much for you and the preceding for the others for the following consideration and knowledge! Amen.