Secrets of Life
Disclosures about important questions of life
- Chapter 28 -
GROWING
Trieste, 13 September 1875
ALREADY quite some time ago you wanted to explain the meaning of this word as well as the actual concept of growth to your friends and sisters. However, you soon lacked the clarity of thought to treat this topic for the full benefit of your brothers.
Well, I will now explain this word to you as well as the growing process in its spiritual and material aspect, adding with this explanation another building block towards the great edifice of spiritual cognition. Thereby you may again realize how much is still unknown to you and how much, if one would contemplate only a few occurrences in nature, would still have to be elucidated concerning things which fail to claim your attention in the least because you see them every day.
We begin again with the meaning of the word as such, asking quite simply: "What does it actually mean, to grow?"
To grow means to increase, and to increase means: to add something to the existing, whereby in the material world the object gains in size (and weight) and is enhanced in its spiritual quality.
Well, you see everything around you in the process of growing. While you are young, you can observe even the growing bigger or heavier of your body from your clothes. However, you still fail to understand the actual "growing" around and within you. You take no interest in it because you see this process in nature going on around you every day. And yet, if you knew the whole process going on during the growth of just a single blade of grass, you would soon realize that growing implies far more than what your ordinary worldly intellect is able to grasp.
Even your scientists cannot tell you too much about the process of growth. They too, despite all technical means, cannot understand the spiritual apparatus at the bottom of the growth of every object or being, particularly since they could also notice during the growing or "gaining weight" a simultaneous "decrease in weight" (as processes of the socalled "metabolism"). This decrease gradually becomes more prevalent with advancing age, and causes the death "of the physical life", or the transformation into something else.
So as to give you a vague idea of what goes on during the growing process of an object, whether alive or inert, I must first answer a question for you, namely: "what exactly prompts every object that it will, and must, grow?"
Look, here the scholars or natural scientists will be instantly ready with an answer, which will be as follows: "It is the law of nature, which wants to perfect everything created to the point of its highest development!"
Well, anyone may be satisfied with the "law of nature" if it pleases him. However, he who wants to develop spiritually, trying to listen to and investigate the spiritual secrets of matter as, mysteriously in tiny for you invisible cells, vessels and beings it weaves together into parcels, at first spiritually and then physically, the First Cause of all existence, My own self, is not satisfied with "natural law" for an answer. For his knowledge demands more reliable proofs, namely, that in the smallest as well as the greatest, I, the Creator and Father of everything created, am always the Same, and that everywhere I let work only My main attribute, Love. And it is for such people with a thirst for knowledge, who strive to look everywhere only for Me, to recognize in everything only Me, that this word in particular shall again serve as a stimulus not to relax their efforts to again look for Me, the Creator, also in the smallest, so as to learn to understand and love Me even better.
You see, such scientists as I have just described them are also on the way to becoming "My children". For they have only one thought motivating their search, namely to come to know Me, their Father, as well as possible. For them the veil of an everyday life-process shall be lifted more thoroughly, so that their longing may be stilled and a spiritual certainty grow out of the foreknowledge, feeling and investigating.
You see, in every grain of seed an urge for development is hidden which, as soon as it has entered the right conditions favorable for its development, urges the same to develop what has been laid into it. In this way it effects its transformation into other vessels and organs, accelerating and continuing it until everything that was hidden in the grain of seed has gone forth from it and nothing is left of its primitive constituents as such.
Where the first beginnings are, in the microscopically small cell structure of the seed, the great life-principle of the universe is at work, forming the cell structures in conformity with its substances. These, again combined with other substances, solidify, adhere to one another, thus forming one cell after another in which, after their development, the formation of other organs in turn is prepared.
Thus, in the first beginnings magnetism and electricity as generators of warmth are active. These, through the warmth, break up and decompose other substances, giving rise, through the decomposition of what is alien, to the development of its own substance.
First there is the spiritual urge, which permeates the entire creation and constitutes My own self. This urge, eternal and infinite like I Myself, only seeks to perfect and complement from level to level and embodies the spiritually most subtle "fluid" in fluids. These fluids as such are again only minutest globules surrounded by a fine membrane. They contain the first initial principles of an eternal life as body parts which, the further this transformation progresses, from level to level reach more density. Thus they become visible to you people with your instruments only after many transformations.
And so the process goes on and on in everything. Everywhere the cell structures expand, casting off something of their substance no longer needed for the preservation of their own life and continually absorbing new substances. The latter are fed to them in every infinitesimally short time period partly for their own, partly for another life.
Thus, what to you is invisible, imperceptible and imponderable, solidifies into a dense mass and, stimulated to activity by warmth, becomes apparently liquid. Then, gradually, it condenses again in conformity with the need for cohesion for a shorter or longer period, until another level has been reached where these initial cells have to make way for other, more complicated ones.
Thus this process, which irresistibly and constantly is going on in the entire spiritual and worldly realm, is the first stimulus of all that is created to lead it towards its goal. And this urge is that which you call "growing", but I call "spiritual life", which, in the midst of the apparently inert, holds fast to the spiritual, eternal idea of a blessing Creator and Father. Thus it forms the chain, gone forth from the first thought or the idea, as a constituent part of Myself, earning within it eternity, indestructibility, infinity. In this war it most readily proves that even in the hardest rock, just as in the last spiritual angel, the same power, the same principle prevails. In the material realm this power attracts like to like and, following the same principle, it also strives in the spirit-realm to equalize everything, so that from all the materially created, something spiritually related mar go forth. Then, further and further progressing, purer, more subtle, more sublime and beautiful, it draws near its Originator, perfected. And so it can again reach the goal from where, millions of years previously, it has been sent forth as a single ray of light into the vast spaces of creation.
Look, you dull created beings, in whom the germ of an infinity rests, every day the sun rises above your heads as a carrier of life, bringing you life, light and warmth. But you walk about under it indifferently. No one thinks even for a moment what a ray of light falling onto your soil may accomplish there. No one understands how much of divine vital force, of spiritual material in this single ray of light, sent from a distance of millions of miles away onto the atmospheric cover of another globe, comes to you from there reflected. Awakening new chemical combinations and spreading life, it stimulates everything to activity, so that it may fulfill its purpose and the thriving, the growing, the increases can take place, as I, in My infinite love, have been thinking and long ago pre-ordaining.
And such a ray of light, lent to the sun by another, is also not the property of the latter. For it was also given to it by other, still greater worlds, with the mutual effect continuing to the limits of the material world. This is why the main factor of all life had to undergo as many transformations in the spiritual realm as are ahead of it at its entry into the material life.
From Me the ray of spirit-light goes out, permeates the entire spirit-world, saturating, enlivening, perfecting it. Then it goes into the material world, from sun to sun, from planet to planet, from comet to comet, bringing forth again new life everywhere through decomposition, transformation. Finally, in the interior of the worlds, for the perfecting of their own mass, materialized as seemingly dead rock, it gradually rises again, refined through decomposition, throughout the whole gamut of vegetation, an animal world, a human race. At last, in old age, the period of transformation, its matter dissolves and what could not be dissolved in it will be spiritually perfected.
Thus the blade of grass absorbs from the earth what the sun through its light and its warmth prepares for it in the same. And it develops, grows and fulfills its destiny namely, to contain the elements and foodstuffs that are useful for other organisms.
And so in its roots, sprouted from the first seed, the first process takes place, which manifests in a twofold endeavor, a sucking up from below and an absorbing from above.
Hence a blade of grass, an insignificant thing for millions of people, stands between two worlds, the world of its soil on which it grows and a world full of spiritual influences. These, coming from afar, have to complete in it what from below alone was not possible. Thus grows the blade of grass, thus grows every created thing, every animal and every human being.
And what you see here in the material, is in every individual life the same spiritually. The spiritual life of every animal is destined, firstly, for its own development and, secondly, for that of other lives. On and on, from level to level, the spiritual development, the spiritual aptitudes follow progressively until, in man, the other spiritual destiny comes even more to the fore. For man was also endowed with the means given only scantily to all other created beings, namely, the means of communication. Thereby one can tell another with wellarticulated words what impression the surrounding nature makes on one and what the impressions and feelings are which stir one's heart.
Language, communication, is still limited though. For there are still other communications that can far better and more easily express what a soul can feel in the most sublime moments than your earthly language can with words. However, it is not so easy to make all this comprehensible to you, because you human beings can actually only think in human terms.
Due to the fact that the intrusion of a spirit-world, or his intrusion into the same, manifests more frequently and more strongly in man than in all the animals, he was charged with the duty of utilizing these impressions and making himself worthy of his spiritual homeland.
It is precisely because a spirit-light, a spiritual sun shines on him, that man must and shall grow and develop spiritually so as to make himself worthy of his Creator, who placed him in the midst of wonders as man himself the greatest wonder. Here he shall become conscious of his position and the influence of the material sunlight and also of the spiritual, more intensive one, so that he can grow and perfect himself. Here he can make himself worthy until the great transformation approaches him, the spiritual transformation and the shedding of the physical body so that he can put on a light spiritual one which, woven from the material, earthly body already during his lifetime, shall serve him as a covering. And the finer it is, the more easily the great rays of a spirit-sun can penetrate and also in him just as in the blade of grass on earth, waken what is dormant in him. He will thus, sucking in the ocean of light above him, become a true denizen of a spirit-realm where, just as the flower in the field happily turns towards the sun, he too can only turn towards the great sun in the spirit-realm, to Me, to imbibe in great gulps, which was impossible for him to do while in the earthly body.
Thus man shall then spiritually grow, spiritually develop and become a denizen of a spirit-realm and a child of a Creator in whose house no sun sets, but the light of truth will keep shining forever.
So contemplate the world surrounding you somewhat more attentively. Waken your spiritual cognition. There lies still much Spiritual hidden in the material creation; however, it can only be noticed by one with clear eyesight, not by a spiritually blind person.
I am all-seeing. If you want to become My children, you too must have a keener eyesight and, far beyond matter and its duration, see clearly before your eyes the actual original germ of all Being, the actual ultimate goal of the entire universe. Only then is there attainable, apart from your physical growth, apart from your physical perfection and your earthly mission, a spiritual growth, a spiritual prosperity and a spiritual heaven full of bliss. This heaven, at first in your own innermost, then expanding around you, shall reach to Me, where you will recognize in everything the eternally loving Father. However, this Father has reserved the greatest spiritual enjoyment only for those who have prepared themselves in their heart to bear and to grasp it.
Thus, My children, do grow in cognition, in insight into My material creation. Do not lose yourselves in vain earthly things that are only of brief duration, but seek the Indestructible, the Eternal, seek Me. With this exchange between the material and the Spiritual you will lose nothing, but will only gain or wow as I want growing, materially as well as spiritually to be understood. Amen.
24 September 1875
In the last word I explained to you what growing means and how it occurs in both the material and the spiritual world. I showed you pictorially in the growth of a blade of grass, as well as in the spiritual progress of both man and the entire spirit-world, how growth is achieved and how one progresses forever while keeping perfecting oneself, so as to fulfill one's mission.
In this word I again want to explain to you by way of the material world the spiritual one, how in the plant, for instance in the blade of grass, growth visibly pushes towards another product, towards the blossom or the flower. Then how, seen from an earthly viewpoint, the same process develops even in man, while also in the Spiritual this process takes place in the same way and the product in the great spiritworld is invariably the same, in conformity with the blossom or flower. However, this can only be indicated through correspondences.
You see, when a plant developing from a grain of seed begins to grow, to develop, to evolve, the immediate question to be put to its Creator is surely this: "For what purpose does it grow?"
Well, since I, as the spiritually thinking Creator of the entire universe, had to have a purpose with everything I created, as have you whenever you want to achieve something, the answer to this question is of course as follows:
That I did not create the plant to pass the time nor decree its whole arrangement at random, you can easily discover on closer scrutiny. For you will soon realize that all urging, forming and driving in the organism of a plant pursues a certain aim, which as the subsequent stage, apart from the development of the trunk and the leaves, is the blossom or flower. Here, in another form, another organism has come into being, which does not in the least resemble the earlier one and which, in turn, prepares in its womb the way for another phase of development. It is the final goal of the plant, namely, the fruit, or the seed for a new plant of its own kind.
As in the plant kingdom, so it is in the animal kingdom and even in the human race, as far as the development of the body is concerned, which is meant to serve as an instrument for the perfection of a soul indwelling it.
Now let us first spiritually consider with great attention the whole process of further development in the plant kingdom and from there pass to the analogous in the other kingdoms.
Look, last time you heard how in the blade of grass, one cell adds itself to another, one fiber to another and how they develop, how (metaphorically speaking) the blood globules drive their juices into all the parts of the plant, there to transform, break up and develop them. You have seen that a spiritual power guides this movement, stimulating it to something that in its primitive formation is still imperceptible. Now that you all know that the blossom or flower is the second center of gravity, which can be called a new formation, you also know this: Apart from all the means for the preservation of the existing plant, other elements are also sucked up from Mother Earth. These, exposed through trunk and leaves to the process of light, in many plants produce aromatic blossoms, which with their iridescence please your eyes and with their scents please your senses.
Well, the blossom or flower is nothing else but the product of coarse material, more subtle soul-substance and divine Spiritual. It is the state where a spiritual, blissful time prevails; where, after much laboring, beginning with the grain of seed, through trunk and leaves, the most beautiful part that is most closely related to light was processed to a whole complex. Metaphorically speaking, you can regard it as the bridal time of the plant as, delighting in its achievements, in its bridal finery it revels in the sunlight and in the spiritual-creational light, after having wrested all the ingredients needed with effort and struggle from the coarse material.
Reveling in the awareness of what it has achieved, it gently sways its little head in the light breeze. Always turned towards the sun, it imparts its scent and aroma, as a corresponding part of its nature, to the air, the plants, the animals and the human beings surrounding it.
The plant is in its bridal finery. What is most subtle and most closely related to the light is clothed in tender leaves, which with a mass of tiny sucking veins absorb as much of the light as their newly begun work requires. For the plant, having achieved its bridal status does not stop there. It is urged onward, ever higher and higher towards other spiritual purposes. Always the finer had to be separated from the coarser. Thus came into being out of the grain of seed through the decaying of the outer covering the first elements, the roots, by means of which the inner part of the grain of seed made contact with the soil surrounding it. Thus the roots suck in the first elements needed for the formation of the trunk and the saps of the trunk, thus driving upwards, were refined so as to form the leaves. And after only that which belongs to the trunk could be absorbed in the trunk and in the leaf only what belongs to the leaf, the organism of the primitive grain of seed drove upwards still other substances, other elements, towards the light of the sun, the light of the entire stellar world and of the entire spiritual universe. This finest substance, spiritually developed from matter, enclosed in the flower or blossom as the result of the bridal state, effects the fructification and procreation. And this is why everything created by Me, called into existence only once by an infinite God and Lord, likewise had to carry the germ of eternal duration within it. For only such creations are worthy of and adequate for a God, for Me.
Just as the bridal state should be the time of rejoicing at having reached a goal, also the blossom-time in the plant kingdom is the period of the most intensive life. There all the faculties are developed and all the nerves and fibers anticipate with curiosity and impatience the moment where the highest bliss, the highest goal is reached and the divine, Eternal celebrates the greatest victory. This act, celebrated in even the smallest product with all its available means by nature, is of this great significance because it is the preparation for a creational act which is not material, not only spiritual, but kindred to the divine.
Thus the plant has arrived at the moment where it, the created, turns creator.
Do you now understand the value of a blossom, of a flower, you who so greatly abuse these highest spiritual creations, without ever considering when plucking a flower or blossom how much you hurt a plant spiritually as you thrust the dagger into its heart. For this heart is trying to flow over with happiness, with bliss, with gratitude for its existence, because it has reached its highest spiritual level and is moving towards the formation of the fruit.
You human beings are all dull, failing to know what goes on in the least significant process of living nature. You know only your own feelings, consider little or nothing of those of the entire animal kingdom and have no notion of the spiritual life of a plant or mineral kingdom. Yet I tell you that everything I created has a spiritual life, a life of infinity, an indestructible Eternal which, though denied by you, still exists. This, however, being a tender, spiritual life, can only be understood by a tender, very subtly formed soul, but not by created beings who, though highly placed within the plan of creation, are still up to their ears in the mire of the lowest passions.
That is why the many elucidations of various natural products, of natural laws and arrangements in the entire created world. They were given you by Me so that you should open wide your spiritual eyes to recognize the great spirit-world which, reaching far beyond matter, intervenes in everything, works and weaves everywhere. And everywhere, even in the seemingly most material, it has demonstrated to you the spiritual creational thought of eternal Love in millions of different forms.
What was said about the plant kingdom, the blade of grass, about its blossom, its fruit, holds equally true of the animal kingdom and the human race.
In the animal, these blossom periods are often marked by violent conflicts and great excitations in the whole nervous system. The animal is still led by My hand, and only when the time comes for mating does it feel My might in the highest degree, driving it to something which it does not know for certain, although it often has a presentiment of it.
No creational act can be carried out undisturbed (that means without a mighty excitation). The same is a permitted interference with My might and, naturally, the process must affect all the vital organs in such a manner that, though only a mixture of material, some spiritual substance can be freed again. This, again bound in matter, will still possess sufficient strength to gradually develop spontaneously and strive for a spiritually higher level. As in the animal, where the forehead is mostly turned upward, so also in man, the brain with its gelatinous substance, with its convolutions, is the seat of all the spiritual qualities needed by the soul. It serves him, firstly, to remain in constant contact with the outer world, and, secondly, there through the development, the spiritualization of the material, to prepare the spiritual-psychic man as the denizen of an eternal beyond. There he will perfect himself and emulate Me as far as his organism and his spiritual capabilities allow this already on earth.
What in the animal is "instinct", in the plant "law", is freely given to man for his own use so that he, though capable of the highest excitation, may learn to master his own emotions. Thus he will become a being equal to Me who freely, without coercion, should not ever transgress the boundaries of the moral law. Unfortunately, this does now happen with most people, and the consequences must also be borne by them personally.
Look, in man it is the brain where everything exalted is thought and felt. The brain is the seat of the spiritual attributes, but it could not exist by itself if it were not, like all the other organs, constantly activated by another nerve complex. You know this nerve complex by the term "solar plexus", or nerve center governing the involuntary movements. It is really the seat of the soul. From there it forms and weaves the body, sustains and mends where there is damage and accelerates the heartbeat when man is moved emotionally in sorrow and joy.
From there it informs through speech and glance the outer world of what is going on inside, and what via the ear and the eye has reached the innermost and is spiritually digested there.
The plant, through the light, its effect and its rays, is in connection with the entire spiritual world, enjoying its time of bliss, its bridal state. Likewise man, approaching his time of blossom, enjoys this influence of the higher spirit-world surrounding him, which lives within and outside of him, weaving and sustaining everything. Thus grow the feelings of first love, the awakening of a state that tries to completely suppress the material life. And this state one of your Greek sages described as the highest state in man, still known to you as "platonic love".
Indeed, this is how this first love ought to be understood. For it is the blossom-time of human nature, which presses forward to the creational act of begetting a new being which, however, should also not become a material but a spiritual product.
It is only natural that through the intimate contact of the bodies the most beautiful illusions must vanish, for I did not create you incorporeal spirits, but earthly human beings. The same should implant what they had tasted as spiritual beings as a germ into a new nascent being while in the mortal state.
This love, this blissful feeling, this happiness, which leads both sexes together, should be the sole impulse for the creation of a being which is also meant to one day resemble Me.
To create such beings, the highest spiritual dignity is required, for the result to be worthy of its Creator!
Your social conditions, your low passions have for the most part prevented this first love from being the last one also on earth. Your sensuality, through the misuse of your urges, has long ago created a world whose denizens, scarcely born, are already rushing towards death. Most people of both sexes, having battled with want, misery and disappointment, out of boredom have begotten children, who are like their parents and emulate them in everything. They too at deaths door will know as little as their parents why they were born and why they must die.
Be assured, My dear children, I created the world quite differently from the way you see it now. I gave man the finest form. I placed him with his flower or blossom the brain in comparison with the whole universe, instilled him with the capability of penetrating with his thoughts to Me, traversing the entire cosmic space. I endowed him with organs which allow him, despite matter, to feel the presence of a spiritual, great, sublime world, which, though far beyond him, is nevertheless only in his own innermost. I gave him senses, the eves with which to contemplate My wonders, the ears with which to listen to My harmonies and the language to bare his whole great spiritual innermost to his fellowmen. For, of what use would be all that is seen, all that is heard, without communication?
Thus placed man here on your small earth as lord of this earth globe lest he complain that I had treated him shabbily. Through My former descent I gave and left him a teaching, which alone is sufficient for it to be remembered for all times by the whole of mankind.
I endowed him with spiritual gifts to utilize everything on this earth for his material life, lest the material life be an obstacle in the development of the spiritual one.
I set him free; he can act and judge independently and can choose as he wishes.
I established him for this earth globe, as it were, as the sole lord, and how he has abused everything: his body, his environment and the plant and animal kingdoms subordinate to him! And now I have even opened the spiritual realm for him, have shown him while he is still in the flesh what he was meant to learn only after his demise, and still everything is in vain!
He keeps raving like a madman. Giving in only to his lowest passion, indulging only his worldly interest, he repudiates Me, My laws, trampling even on human dignity. And in this way he will have to bear the consequences necessarily arising from it.
I created this small earth, as well as the great solar and cosmic globes, for other purposes than those surmised by men.
I created My entire universe to be a great harmony of the spheres, where everything was meant to breathe love; not where one should persecute the other with hate and envy or where one enslaves and kills thousands of his fellow citizens for selfish purposes.
No, these beautiful sentiments, which I developed for you in the plant, in the growing, the blossoming and in procreation, proving them even in human beings and animals, were not laid into your hearts in vain. My world must, and will, again revert to this state. For what offends against My laws brings about its own punishment. And when I Myself am now even dealing directly with you few, it happens only because there is a great difference between My word and the word of human beings. Another reason is that mankind must have invited many calamities through their own wrong behavior before they become pliable and able to absorb better things. Then the material will be ready by means of which the old, long forgotten, ruined edifice of the spiritual human life can be rebuilt, not temporarily, but permanently. Then another generation will beget other children, will again feel the love I Myself had planted in their hearts. But, remembering their own dignity, they will not misuse any attribute I had endowed them with, but will only use it wisely.
This world will again become what it once was: a paradise where only this attribute will prevail which alone constitutes My whole self. There love will be given, love will be received. This will give the right measure to the earth and its inhabitants, according to which they have always been holding such a spiritually significant place in the vast chain of all My creation.
Therefore, do grow, My children! Open your eyes, not only physically, but also spiritually! Realize that all around you even the plant or the blade of grass, which you often thoughtlessly trample under foot, has a spiritual life. Realize that behind this seeming envelopment of even the tiniest thing there is an unknown something. A something which is incessantly busy contributing to the great plan of perfecting and returning to Me all My smallest particles which I once sent out for their probation eons of times ago. Every second, millions of beings and things pass into the Spiritual and, every second, millions of beings in turn are materially embodied. Everything forms a chain and, just as in a well where one bucket goes up, the other down, so in the space of creation where passing away and coming into existence always shake hands.
There is on your earth no place where it is constantly night or constantly day. Sunset in one region is dawn in another. Here, the people are going to their rest tired from work, there, the same sun-ray hitting your tired eyes is waking the one drowsy from sleep to new work. So it is in My creation. Amid growing, flowering and newly creating the clock of time always goes its course. But only the spiritual man can understand this eternal striving for the highest goal. And only the spiritual investigator and keen observer of My visible nature can be given the key with which he can discover also behind this material transformation the great spiritual process which will be the actual main point, the primordial principle and the ultimate goal of everything created!
Again and again I tell you and call out to you: do rise above your earthly-worldly and intellectual knowledge! Do not be content with being inspired for mere moments by My words, but keep them in your hearts always. Wherever you go, wherever you are, the thought shall accompany you that not everything is what it seems to be and that there are laws which one cannot transgress with impunity.
Do understand the grace lying in My direct communication! It is to be taken far more seriously than is your usual way of taking it, for every neglect, every lukewarmness will bring its own punishment for you.
Already more than a thousand years ago I called out to My disciples: "Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation!" Today I tell you again: "Rise and pray," lest your own passions take you in tow and make you slaves, whereas you were born to be lords!
With you, slavery is so hated, everyone wants to be free. Everywhere there is grumbling about servitude, about tyranny, and yet, who is the greatest tyrant of present humankind, if not their very own passions!
Mankind has long since abandoned the throne on which I had placed them all. Only single individuals still understand what I intended with man. However, they are still too weak and there are too few of them to exert a decisive influence on the fate of the whole of mankind, but patience! Also here a growing and a blossoming will show and the bud of spiritual cognition will unfold. And just as a flower gives its honey as nourishing juice to a whole mass of another world, also this bud, shining in the most glorious light and in the most beautiful colors, will impart the juices of its contents to thousands, once enough of the bitter substance has been imbibed.
So, My children, take also this word as a continuation of the last one and absorb it. I did not give it to you just for the sake of reading it through, but for the sale of acting accordingly.
Consider that time is flying, and much faster than you imagine. The hours, the days, the years are flying, and many a one will have reached the end of his life's course much sooner than he believed.
Make sure that it is not too late and you do not have to obtain with difficulty in the other world what here fell into your lap in abundance.
This as a word of admonition and for acting accordingly. Amen.