Reconciliation

RECONCILIATION

If we learn the first important rule, that everything which exists is good because it exists, then we will gain an increasing measure of peace and tranquility. Only in such peace and tranquility will we learn to consider things deeply, so that they reveal their meaning to us. One can release oneself gradually from the fixed notion of always having to fight for or against something, without thereby becoming inactive. In fact the man who believes he can affect the world through his own activity usually does not realize that he is in reality a slave of the conditions that affect him.

True activity is born in quietness. It is a sign of maturity when a person can allow something to happen, without immediately wanting to interfere. It is at this point that most people begin to rebel again. People think that by following this rule they are in some way surrendering their “cleverness”, becoming the passive plaything of someone else and thus abandoning themselves to a hopeless doom. They would rather not give up the habit of struggling and arming themselves. They would prefer to exercise power and to show the opponent “who's who”. Even the disciple Peter, when Christ was taken prisoner in the Garden of Gethsemane, could not forbear to draw a sword, thereby proving that he had not yet fully grasped the teachings of his master. He who is not prepared to live in harmony with things as they are will find that the gateway to the esoteric path is closed to him.

Most people drag a great burden from the past around with them by remaining in a state of conflict with events and people that belong to years gone by. A good way to get rid of this ballast is by practicing the following exercise.

Choose a quiet hour and sit or lie down in a relaxed position. Close your eyes and allow to pass before your inner eye those situations from the past which you would rather had never happened. Look at these “negative” moments of fate, along with the people by whom you believe yourself to have been treated wrongly and wish you had never met. As you inwardly re-examine an event of this kind and the people that go with it be aware that this is only a step which has its rightful place along the road of your personal destiny and without which you would not be where you are. The point of trying to understand the sense of the things that have happened is so that one gradually becomes grateful that things were as they were.

Only when you succeed in smiling at a particular event and the people connected with it and thanking them because they were ready to help in the unfolding of your destiny – only then are you ready to go on to another event and repeat the process. You can let the individual events rise up of their own accord, without having to use the intellect. You must also accept all those happenings that come to mind under the heading “Events that I am at loggerheads with”, not suppressing any memories, even those that you think you have come to terms with long ago.

Although this exercise may seem very difficult at first, you only need to keep repeating it and you will experience for yourself that something eases within you, and an inner pressure disappears. If you push with all your might against a solid brick wall you feel how the wall resists you with equal intensity. If you increase your pressure, the wall seems to press back even more strongly. The solution consists in taking your hands away from the wall; then the pressure of the wall will disappear automatically. The comparison may sound banal, yet nearly all human beings are standing against such a wall, pushing with all their might and complaining at the same time about the pressure of the wall. To give up one's own resistance is theoretically so simple, but most people find it unbelievably hard to do so. They are deeply convinced that, in order to keep in the swim of things, they must keep pushing against the wall because the wall is pushing against them. This is where the illusion lies. Test the example of the wall for yourself and it will help you to understand the real problem. In fact one only has the impression that the wall is about to topple over and therefore increases one's own resistance. In order to see through the illusion one must have the courage to let go. A person who recognizes the wall's right to exist does not have to push against it and will not be troubled by it.