Weaknesses induced by laziness "[11] Just look at the mind of man, which often sinks down into a complete worriless rest, by which man feels very happy and comfortable. But when man feels for a short time more and more calm, worriless, happy and comfortable, the stormier it will later become in his mind, when it was at first a little disturbed in its sweet rest by something uncomfortable. [12] But a person’s mind that must constantly fight against all kinds of storms will not worry so easily for the storms that repeatedly come up, and he will more easily keep his calmness and the necessary rest at all events.[…] [14] And look, friend, this is also a good lesson for all those who gladly would like to give in to that sweet, worriless laziness. The one who is always busy has largely enough with a short rest to strengthen his whole being. And once he is strengthened, he immediately longs to go to work again and he finds only therein his pleasure. [15] However, the one who avoids to be active and who only feels happy and comfortable in an ever increasing inactive laziness – like the fattened Pharisees and other rich loafers – will fall into a complete fury if the laziness, which is so comfortable to him, will be threatened in the least. [16] That is why the Lord took care of all kinds of beings, things and phenomena on this Earth, that will repeatedly shake up people from their work-shy rest. And so they will have to recognize that they are not the lords of the world and of all beings and things which are on it and in it – as the lazy rich persons greatly imagine – but that it is a certain Someone Else. Someone whom these kinds of people do certainly not know and about whom they do not want to hear anything truthful, as you can very well see among the many Pharisees and other Jews."
(64. The Storm and its corresponding meaning – GGJ, Book 22) The lazy and lustful flesh "[5] And look, as it is now, so it was and so it also will be in the future, because every person possesses his love, his will and his reason in freedom. Even if he understands the full truth with his reason, then he still sees, with his lustful eyes, also the world with its many enticements, and he does not want and cannot turn away his heart from that because his flesh prefers that instead of the spiritual things which his sensorial eye cannot see and his flesh cannot feel. [6] Besides, laziness is very typical to man. He often has one good intention after another, but once he should completely act upon all this, then his lazy and lustful flesh resists against it, and draws also the soul downwards to what is most important for his laziness and lustfulness. Then to what advantage is it for the soul to have clarity in the things of the spirit when he does not want to deny himself and does not want to go in full earnest upon the ways on which he could attain the full unity with My Spirit in him? [7] Now you think in your heart and say to yourself: ‘Lord, but why did You then cover the soul of men with this flesh if that is only unsuitable for his spiritual completion?’ [8] But I say to you that I only can certainly see best and the most clear how a soul has to be put in a right balance between the world of matter and that of the pure spirits for the sake of his short earthly test-life, because these are the conditions to acquire the full freedom of his love and his will. [9] It has been determined in this way that for every soul, matter must have a certain overweight, so that the soul will by that be forced to become active against the small overweight of matter in order to make the right use of the freedom of his will. To achieve that, the teaching from the Heavens was given to him at all times and in all clearness, which places the soul in a completely free floating condition between spirit and matter. [10] If the soul will then make a little effort to actively rise to the spiritual, the spiritual will then also immediately receive a great overweight, and the soul will rise with great ease above the weight of the laziness of the matter of his flesh, and will penetrate to the life of the spirit in him. [11] Once he will have achieved that with some difficulty, the heaviness of the matter of his flesh can no more hinder him on the progress to an as high as possible life’s completion. And even if, on that easy road of progress, he still will now and then bump against a little stumbling stone, then it only will cost him very little effort to remove it.” (49. The greatest obstacle for spiritual growth - GGJ, Book 22 ) Postponing is not compatible with neighborly love "[2] I said: “My friend, I know this, and I still know many other things which you do not know. And one of the many other things that I know is also that I know which way I have to take, which place I have to visit and at what time I have to arrive in that place that I have to visit. Because I am not like some people when they have to do a work and say: ‘Well, I do not absolutely have to start this work today. I will still have the time for that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.’ [3] But I say: what you can do today, you should not postpone till another day. For if some hungry and thirsty person would come to you, asking you for some food and drink, and you would say: ‘Just come tomorrow, for today we do not have the time to give you’, do you think that the poor man will be helped by that? And does such postponing of a point in time for doing a good work also belong to the subject on neighborly love that I proclaimed to you? [4] But if this does not belong to neighborly love, then a work that has been postponed till the next day and which could very well have been done a day earlier does not belong to neighborly love, but such postponing of work belongs to the category of the laziness of people. And laziness is always the beginning of all kinds of sins and vices, because someone who is always busy with right and good things will have little time to commit one or the other sin. But a lazy person will in his laziness think more and more about how to chase away his boredom which is the result of his passivity. And since every person is constantly surrounded by good as well as evil spirits, it is obvious that the evil spirits will have an easier access to a lazy person than to an active person. And once those evil spirits receive access to a person, they soon entangle his mind in all kinds of useless fantasies and will pull him more and more down into their dirty and dark spheres." (6. THE LORD WARNS AGAINST LAZINESS, GGJ Book 25 ) Laziness - cause of neglecting the spiritual education coming from God. Necessity to bring men to activity "[1] I SAID: “My dear friend, you asked a very good and right question here, but one thing you forgot by this: that God on this Earth did not want nor could He have created the Earth itself and everything that it contains for an eternal existence. [2] On this Earth, everything is changeable and perishable, and it is only a point of transition from the first judgment and death to the true, eternal unchangeable life. [3] The deity with His almightiness can make it happen that man, just like the plants and the animals, must live in a certain order, but then man would not be man anymore, for then he will have no insight, no reason and also no free will of himself. But since the deity did not want that, based on highly wise grounds, He gave man insight, reason and a free will, and with that also the ability to become similar to God by developing and completing himself spiritually. [4] That humanity is neglected for what their education is concerned, while the deity excellently provided for that education since the very first beginning, is only because of the laziness of the people. If nowadays there are still honorable and just men among the people like you and your neighbors, then why are they not all like you? Because they are lazy. That is why the deity let those big cities to be destroyed because laziness and the resulting immorality were dominating there. [5] If those cities and their inhabitants would have stayed just like you, the deity would not have send enemies against them but would have preserved them. The reason why they were destroyed is that their plague of laziness would finally not have spoiled and ruined the whole population of the Earth. [6] At no time did the deity let these nations be without wise teachers, and many better people who lived in those cities were still saved by them, but those who were too lazy had finally to be removed together with their habitations. [7] A wise government that attaches importance to a good order by means of its laws will surely also call a willful transgressor to account and chastise him. Should then the deity, no matter how good and indulgent He is, also not chastise a too degenerated people and with a just rod wake them up from the big laziness and bring them to activity? [8] You will realize that this is necessary. Take especially the completely free will of man at heart which the deity cannot hinder, then you will understand and realize everything concerning your rather long question. Because look, on a globe where man would not be able to sink into all of the greatest vices by his free will, his intellect and his reason, he then would also not be able to raise himself to the highest and divine virtue. [9] If you think about this, all the points of your question will become clearer. Because look, to create and raise animals, trees and plants is easy for the deity, but to educate people is not so easy. The deity can educate them but cannot enforce an internal coercion on them. Do you understand that?” (20. THE PLAGUE OF LAZINESS, GGJ Book 25) "[1] However, if the soul, who received the pure teaching, who also understands the truth and thinks within himself: ‘Aha, now I know what I rightly should do for my salvation. But before I will completely work on it, I still want to enjoy for a while the charms and sweet things of this world, for they are offered to me, because now that I precisely know the ways to spiritual completion, it really will not matter as to when I earnestly will walk on it. And when I will go that way, I surely will also make progress.’ Look, friend, then the soul begins to taste of the charms and sweet things of the world, and also to fully enjoy it. By that, he will give a great overweight to the matter of his flesh that can hardly or not at all be completely conquered anymore with his clear understanding in the things of the spirit. [2] Since such a soul acted in the beginning against his better judgment, he slowly sinks ever deeper into matter. And also the original pure spiritual enlightenment becomes ever more opaque. The soul comes into all kinds of doubts, and in his material laziness it is for him really not that worthy anymore to stand up and to – at least for the short time of a few days or weeks – make a serious attempt, by denying himself, to convince himself whether there is still something true of the teaching that was revealed from the Heavens in order to receive the inner, true life. [3] Yes friend, once such a soul became lazy against his very own judgment, and sees people around him who have attained to the inner life’s completion because they did their best since the beginning, then this will still have no strong influence on him, and it will not bring about any activity in him. If he is in a good mood, he will let the wonders of the spiritual in man be told to him by the awakened fellowmen. And now and then, also the wish will be awakened in him to be like those completed men. But immediately after that, the enticements of this world, which he enjoyed and still wants to enjoy, act so mightily upon him that he cannot resist them, and he will think by that: ‘Well yes, I do not do anything wrong if I do not fully repent immediately. First I still want to see and try out this and that in the world, and then I still will have largely the time to walk in the footsteps of the completed ones.’ [4] And look, in this manner will the descendants of those people, who have become lukewarm and lazy, think, decide, simulate and calculate even more in themselves. And they become completely dark and evil in their spirit if they only are being remembered what they should do as men to attain to the inner life’s completion. [5] And so will grow and become rampant the weeds of the night of the souls as a result of their ever awakened worldly lust for pleasure and increasing laziness of one generation of people after another. So much so that I have no choice than to let such people personally experience the futility and evilness of their worldly strivings by visiting them with all kinds of plagues and judgments. [6] Only after all kinds of bitter experiences – when they will come to the point that they themselves will abhor the world and its futile enticements – it will again be the time, like now, to show them the ways to the light of life through new revelations from the Heavens, which will then be followed by many with great dedication. But still a lot more people, who sank down too deeply in the night of the judgment and the death of the world, will nevertheless remain where they are. And they will persecute all those who want to awake them to the life of the spirit, just as long as they will be wiped away from the Earth by the judgments that are allowed to come over them, like the storms that blow away the chaff. [7] Yes friend, on My part, the proportion between spirit, soul and body is perfectly and accurately weighed with each human being. It is only the illusionary wisdom of men, that old inherited sin, which has changed the good proportion into a bad proportion. [8] Take for instance the old myth about your Prometheus and his self-created daughter Pandora. Who is that Pandora actually? [9] Look, this is an image which stands for the illusionary wisdom and the nosiness and worldly lust for pleasure of men by which he is chained to the hard matter. Even if from time to time an eagle comes to him from the heavens, and strongly warns him that he should release himself from matter, then this is of little use. For as soon as the eagle went away for a while, the liver in the soul of man – which is the symbol of his worldly lusts – is again completely enlarged, and the eagle from the heavens must eat it again. Do you understand this image? [10] Moreover, look to what Moses himself said in a clear image about the first human pair, and you will find therein exactly the same thing. [11] And if this is so, then it is not because of Me that the people became worse, because I laid in the soul a little advantage for the world, but gave him on the other hand at the same time a complete light from the Heavens, with which he can overcome that small preference for the world with little effort." (50. How to safe materialistic souls - GGJ – IX 133 – X18) Consequences of laziness: using people for self-interest, lack of trust in God "[1] But since we traveled through the village, many saw us and noticed that it was I, because a few of them still knew Me since last year, and others recognized Me because they had seen Me in Jerusalem. Now they came to Me and asked Me if I at least would not like to stay 1 night with them in the village and also help many sick people, because the vision, which they had seen a few days before during the night, and the real fire storm of last night had such a bad influence on some people who were internally weak and fearful that they were now very ill and confined to bed, and the doctor of the village could not help them because he did not know the disease and thus also not the medicine for that. [2] I slowed down My pace and said to those who stopped Me: "Have you then not heard that God is almighty and merciful? Why do you not pray to God and ask Him for help if you are in distress?" [3] One of them said: "Dear Master, it is easy for You to say, because God gives You everything for which You ask Him in Your secret manner. But we men can offer, pray and beg as much as we want and will, all this does not help us, for God does not pay attention to us, although we are still observing the laws of Moses as much as possible. But at the time of the prophets it was also more or less the same thing: God has always only answered the prayers of the elect prophets, but the laymen could pray and beg their whole life for this or that and they still did not receive anything. O, it would be a 1.000 times more dear to us if God in case of need would always answer our prayers than that we, because God does not listen to us, have to seek for help with weak men who can only help us rarely. But what else can and must we do if we can see all too clearly that our praying and begging does not give us any help for our great distress?" [4] I said: "O, with these meaningless excuses of yours you will achieve nothing with Me. You are lacking nearly completely faith and a real living trust in God, and therefore God does not answer your prayers and does not pay attention to your sacrifices. Why actually do you not pray yourself with full faith and trust? Because this seems too uneasy for you. That is why you have in the congregation certain people who pray and beg for you, who are authorized by the temple and whom you pay, so that they would beseech for you this or that from God. If you can give your faith and trust to these hypocrites, who are always letting themselves be well paid for their pretended effort and whose praying and begging have never given you any help, then why do you not prefer to put your faith and trust in God the Lord and Father Himself? [5] I say to you: this is because of your own laziness. You are earthly wealthy possessors of goods, and already since your youth you are used to let your helpers and maids work for you for a meager salary, and with that you like to play as severe lords, and you also believe that those prayers and beggars must also work for you with God successfully because you pay them well for that. But then God turns His face away from you and will never listen to the disgusting, senseless and spiritless bawling of the lips of your hypocritical servants of God. And that is then also the reason why God cannot, will and may not help you. For if God would do that, then He as the highest, eternal wisdom, love and power, would let you sink down even deeper into full ruin, which is only caused by your laziness. [6] Therefore, awaken your faith in God and the real, inner love for Him and firm trust in Him. Pray and beg yourself in spirit and in truth to Him, then He certainly will hear you. Thus, pray yourself without ceasing, do real penance and endure also the suffering, which has come over you for good reasons, with patience and true dedication to the godly will, as you can learn from the patience of Job, then God will help you out of every distress, as far as this will be good for the salvation of your souls. [7] Although you have begged Me now yourselves to deliver you from your distress, because you think that I am a prophet to whom God has given a great power, and look, I can and will hear and help you as less as God Himself, for I and God - whom you do not know, for which reason you also do not believe in Him - are one in spirit, one in will and one in mind. What you can never achieve with your manner of praying and begging to God, that you will also not achieve with Me. Therefore, do first what I have advised you, then I will help you also, even if I will not stay overnight with you. But some of you have followed Me completely to Capernaum in Galilee, why did they actually leave Me there again?" (8. About religion and useful prayer GGJ Book 20) "[1] But when we had left the village already quite far behind us, the disciples asked Me: "Lord and Master, why actually did You not help these Jews at all, while they still asked You very explicitly and have sent no one to pray and beg You?" [2] I said: "Did I have to strengthen them even more in their old laziness and in their unbelief and superstition than they are in already now since a long time? I only have shown them the way they have to go. If they will do it, they also will be helped at the right time, but if they will not do it, then they also may remain as they are and build their houses on sand. It will not really confuse us, for if a person, against the advice of wisdom, wants to harm himself, no injustice is done to him. [3] With these people, whose request I did not grant, an affliction with all kinds of distress and suffering is necessary, for through this they will waken up from their old laziness and be trained in patience, and their hearts will become softer and more merciful than it has been the case until now. For I am not always a helper, but wherever this is necessary, also a righteous judge." (9. The parable of the judge and the widow GGJ Book 20)
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