The Text - Section 78
78. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Greetings, my dearest friends. Blessings for all of you. Blessed is this hour. The time has
come again when it is good to have a question and answer period, so I am ready for your questions.
QUESTION: Can you explain the Biblical passage: "The word of God was given to Moses:
Thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for
burning."
ANSWER: The meaning of these words has been grossly misunderstood by humankind. It
has been interpreted to mean that God is a punishing, cruel God of retribution. Of course, it is not
so and the words were never meant to imply this. The real meaning simply affirms the utter justice
of cosmic law, or of your inner psychological law. The more you work on the path of self-finding,
the more you are bound to find this to be so very true. You will find how you cause all your
difficulties. You have already stopped regarding these words as mere theory, but the better you
progress, the more will you truly understand just how and why you cause your hardships, and by so
doing you gain the key to a change in your life.
Most of you have begun this self-search in good faith, yet at this early stage you can barely see
how you are responsible for your misfortunes and, therefore, how just this universe is. Only when
you reach certain inner depths, perhaps after a long time of hard and sincere endeavor, do you begin
to see clearly what in you has so precisely brought about the hardship that you feel as injustice. The
more connections of this sort you make, the better you can realize the true meaning of self-
responsibility and of divine justice, without any thought of punishment and retribution. You begin
to understand that whatever you give forth, no matter how hidden or subtle, is returned to you.
And you deeply feel and know that this is not due to a stiff, rigid, merciless law, but it is your own
inner law. And in that you realize the glory of God's love and wisdom. The better you understand
your own causes and effects, the more convinced must you become of the marvel of this benign
Creation. That is the meaning of these words. The various items cited in this saying are, of course,
symbolic. If you want me to, I shall explain the meaning of these symbols. [Please.]
"Eye": The eye symbolizes seeing, the capacity to see, not only outwardly, but also the inner
view and vista. In other words, understanding. The more you understand yourself, the better you
understand others. You know this. But also, the more you understand, the better you will be
understood. This truth may have dawned on some of you as you made real progress and the haze
and fog of your confusion lifted. As the fog lifts, your real self reveals itself automatically and others
perceive you in truth as well. There is no better, no other way of finding this to be true than
through the path of self-searching, self-understanding and self-analysis. Any one of you who has
reached some victory within will understand exactly what I mean -- not only theoretically, but
through having experienced this truth. Your real seeing and understanding begin only when you see
and understand yourself. And in that measure will you be understood. With such understanding,
you will see that the meaning of these words has a positive, rather than a negative implication. It
does not mean: "If you do wrong, you will be punished by retribution." It means: "As you see and
understand yourself and others, so you make it possible, by lifting the veil, to be seen and
understood."
"Life": If you heal yourself of your conflicts, if you integrate and become one within yourself,
you become alive, vibrantly alive. To a small extent those of my friends who really work on this
path have experienced this to be true. Perhaps you experienced it only temporarily, nevertheless you
know what I am talking about. You understand these words in a deeper sense than just as theory.
There were those moments of finding the truth within yourself when, all of a sudden, your
weariness, your deadness was lifted from you. You vibrate life. You are life. And therefore you
give life to others. The life force penetrates through you and finds you an instrument through which
to manifest only when you are alive, when you are the life force. You have a life-giving effect on
others. Life can only coexist with truth. Where the truth is blurred by your fear, cowardice and the
erroneous belief that life can be dealt with by evasion, deadness results. No matter how unpleasant
the temporary truth in you may be, facing it results in a vibrant feeling of being alive. Most of you
know this from your own experience in this work.
"Tooth": What is a tooth? You need your teeth to bite, to chew, to prepare the physical food
so that your body can assimilate it. The intrinsic meaning of a tooth is that of an instrument of
assimilation. As you assimilate life, the incidents which could truly become an experience by proper
assimilation, you are bound to exert a similar effect on others. On the other hand, your lack of
assimilation causes blindness. Your blindness in turn must create blindness toward you. I have said
that before in connection with the eye -- seeing, understanding. But the tooth refers specifically to
the process that makes it possible to see while the eye symbolizes the end result. Some time ago, I
mentioned the contagiousness of inner attitudes and reactions. All this is an explanation of that
factor.
If you train yourself to follow this through in your observations, you will gain an entire
understanding of this meaning. You are so often puzzled by certain situations in your life. You
cannot assimilate this situation because you have as yet not found how you caused it. Only in
understanding the causes that you have set in motion will you be able properly to assimilate your life.
Whenever you are puzzled, it means that you have not properly understood and assimilated the
experience. This creates negative emotions which are bound to affect your environment.
People who live with this attitude will tackle any event coming their way in an entirely
different spirit than people who still ascribe certain happenings to a fate outside their control.
People understanding and living according to this truth will take any event and examine it
profoundly as to their real reactions and hidden trends. If done sincerely, astonishing insights must
follow -- perhaps not immediately, but insights must come if you persevere. You will then see that
the negative result is the only medicine, the only remedy you need to change the underlying incorrect
attitude. This, and this alone, is proper assimilation of life and its experiences. You often suffer
because others do not understand you. I assure you that this only happens because in some way you
have not assimilated life as it could be possible for you. Some of you, my friends, have experienced
that people in your environment suddenly began to react differently toward you, even though they
themselves did not pursue such a path. The mere fact of your own inner growth and change has
made it possible for others around you to react more positively toward you.
To the measure that you assimilate, to that measure do you affect others, and subtly enable
them, to a degree, also to assimilate a little better.
If there are any questions at this point, please ask them, and we can go on with the next
symbol after that.
QUESTION: You mentioned an "inner psychological law." Would you explain that, please?
ANSWER: Whether you call it psychological or cosmic law makes no difference. It is one
and the same. However, when I refer to "cosmic law," you automatically think of something that is
way outside yourself. When I say "psychological law," you automatically associate it with yourself, as
you should. The latter directs your thinking and feeling and perceiving into a more correct channel;
you assume self-responsibility when you know it is you, your own law. But "cosmic law" seems to
you as if it were something that has nothing to do with you. It seems instituted from the outside,
and you have no influence over it. This is an error, even if it is only in a vague feeling. In reality, the
two are the same. Now let us go to the next symbol.
"Hand": What does a hand stand for? Has anyone of you an idea? [Giving. Friendship.
Action. Taking.]
ANSWER: Taking and giving. Yes. All that. Action includes all that -- and more. The hand
is the instrument with which you do, manufacture, execute an idea; with which you give, take,
receive; which can be extended in friendship. Hence, the symbol of the hand represents a certain
type of action, and therefore also "re-action." As you act and react, so will be given onto you. I
hardly need elaborate on this. You all know it to be true, not only as a known religious concept, but
also from your personal work experience as you work on yourself. This is very different from the
concept of retribution. Thoughts and emotions are actions and reactions too. They inevitably have
an effect on others and this effect comes back to you.
COMMENT: As you have already stated, this whole text is taken out of its setting and given
a distorted meaning. It suggests a negative fear as though this is the rule by which one is to be
governed and to retaliate by the justification of Scripture.
ANSWER: Of course. It is a typical human misunderstanding to think of this in terms of
retaliation, rather than in terms of cause and effect due to a wonderfully just law that is mercy, grace,
wisdom and love.
COMMENT: May I add something too? In Matthew 5:38, Jesus says: "Ye have heard that it
hath been said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, that you resist not
evil."
ANSWER: Yes. Understanding the real meaning of the quotation we are discussing here will
show you that Jesus' statement is not a contradiction at all. It may seem so, it may seem like a
paradox on the one hand, or a correction on the other. It is neither. It is merely an amplification,
an extension. With the understanding that you gain on this path, you are bound to see that all evil is
self-created, and thus it is your lesson and medicine. It is the only way in which you can learn to
liberate yourself from the responsible inner factors. Resisting evil, translated into terms of your
personal life and reactions, means your cringing from the consequences you are directly or indirectly
responsible for, therefore not learning from life. It is the attitude in which you blame others, God,
fate, life, rather than finding your own causes. It is withdrawal from life, or antagonism against it,
due to failure to understand life's real meaning. "Resisting evil" means all that. As long as you
resent certain happenings in your life, as long as you disclaim responsibility for such happenings, you
cannot even begin to set out finding this responsibility. Thus you are not in reality, in its true sense.
By facing yourself squarely and courageously, you must eventually find your causes and be liberated
by this insight. You do not have to look to past incarnations, for if you really want to, you can
always find in yourself, in the present, the root that has caused an "evil." So this saying of Jesus is
no contradiction, but serves only to extend and amplify the meaning.
COMMENT: It only sounds that way, because He said: "But I say unto you that you resist
not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." So it sounds
like a paradox.
ANSWER: Yes, if not taken in its superficial meaning, it is just the opposite of a
contradiction. All sayings in the Scriptures have a much deeper meaning than their surface suggests.
If you grasp this deeper meaning you will gain an entirely different understanding of Scripture.
QUESTION: Another saying of Jesus has been misunderstood, I believe. It has been
distorted as meaning injustice. The words in Mark 4:25 read: "For he that hath, to him shall be
given; and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath." This seems to refer
to the principle of the vicious circle.
ANSWER: Exactly. You see, my friends, I believe it almost impossible for anyone to truly
understand Scripture, unless one does this kind of work on the path. With this work of self-finding,
the sayings will have a very clear meaning for you. You now know quite well that wherever a
deviation, misconception or conflict exists in you, vicious circles result. They snowball. They
become bigger and bigger so that you continually worsen the situation. That which you originally
wanted to run away from gets much worse. Out of this evasion, you create conflicts and wrong
attitudes which result in bringing more misery than you would have without such evasion and
cowardice. The bargain you wanted to make by assuming a defensive, wrong inner attitude has
much stronger repercussions that you realized. That is exactly what Jesus meant.
On the other hand, when you are in health, in harmony, whether in minimum or in optimum
state, no hardship would have to come to you and I venture to say that anyone who has progressed
somewhat in this work has personally experienced this to be true, at least to some degree. Only then
will the spiritual teachings of all times be understood in their true meaning. Only then will you see
that God does not sit on a throne above you, arbitrarily handing out reward and punishment,
fortune and misfortune. But in your health, in accord with reality on all levels of your being, you
produce more and more happiness. In your fullness, you progressively attract more positive
experience. In your soul-sickness and error, productive of fear, pride, arrogance, ignorance,
darkness, confusion, you are not only unhappy, but, with these trends causing unhappiness, you
compound the unhappiness. Thus, from the poor will be taken away. The poor meaning the sick,
the ignorant, the ones in error and darkness. The rich meaning the ones who understand. Now let
us continue.
"Foot": "What is a foot?" [Moving. Standing on. Progress.] Again, activity, but of a different
kind. Let us examine the difference in activity between hand and foot. The hand's activity is of a
nature that may take place without causing a change of position of the person himself. People can
produce, manufacture and do things with their hands while they remain in place. This symbolizes a
certain kind of inner action. Such actions may be significant and important, but only cumulatively
so. If a whole series of such actions is added up, they point to an inherent pattern; they show an
underlying principle and concept of life. In different words, the actions of the hand symbolize your
everyday activities and reactions -- the outer and the inner -- the many little, in themselves seemingly
unimportant events, and your attitude to them.
The activity of the feet, however, symbolizes movement of the entire person -- or lack of it if
you stand still. This can be positive in the sense of taking a firm stand, of not running away. Or it
can be negative in the sense of a standstill, or stagnation. The feet involve the entire body -- or
person. In psychological terms, applied to your life, the movement of your feet symbolizes major
changes, decisions, attitudes. All life is differentiated between these two kinds of actions: the actions
that are of minor importance if they are not a repeated pattern -- passing, fleeting ones, those that
do not necessarily involve your innermost being, unless, of course, they are, as said before, a
repeated pattern. It is the action that does not necessarily affect the inner being. The outer being,
perhaps. But this is not to be taken to mean that such actions do not produce effects that come
back to you. The major actions -- feet -- symbolize decisive change, great decisions, self-propelling
movement -- or the lack of it. These actions determine your spiritual "stand," your basic attitude
toward all major issues of life. I need hardly emphasize again that one's conscious attitude is not
necessarily the real inner and unconscious one. It determines whether or not you choose the way
upward with all that this calls for in order to pursue it, willing to pay the price by overcoming a
special resistance. Such overcoming necessitates more movement or action than just the minor ones
of your hands that allow you to "remain in place," so to speak.
Needless to say that such major activity has an even greater effect on yourself and others
around you than the minor actions and reactions. The major activity establishes your place in life,
your major events. With it you build your fate, and with it you determine the minor actions and
reactions.
"Burning": Do you have any idea what it could symbolize? [Sacrifice. Purification. Inner
desire for development.]
ANSWER: The fire of love. The burning of being alive, of action, of doing in the right,
organic way. It contains all of what you said. Love, sacrifice, purification, everything -- that spark,
that burning spark contained in all living organisms. If you let this spark free to become a burning
flame, instead of burying it in ashes, you will incite the spark in others.
QUESTION: Is that the Divine Spark?
ANSWER: Yes.
QUESTION: May I ask something that I think has been asked before, but I still don't quite
know the answer. Why is it that all these things were not explained with enough clarity so that they
could not have been misunderstood?
ANSWER: My dearest friends, as long as one's inner growth is not sufficiently developed,
there is absolutely no way of understanding a spiritual meaning, whether clearly and directly,
expressed, so that misunderstanding can be ruled out, or conveyed allegorically and indirectly. In
fact, the more direct the explanation, the more dangerous it is for those whose understanding has
not reached a higher level through development.
Even today, when humankind is in many ways more developed, if my teachings were
presented to people who are far away from such thinking, such concepts, such ideas, my words
could not possibly be understood. The little that might make some sense to them would have a
worse effect than what they do not understand at all. They would be bound to misunderstand --
which is not at all the same as not understanding -- and therefore abuse would be inevitable.
QUESTION: I didn't mean my question in such psychological terms, but in simple terms,
like some sayings in the Bible which are clear even today. For instance, "Do not do unto others
what you do not want to be done unto you." This is similar in meaning, but is much clearer.
ANSWER: I can only repeat that great truth cannot be revealed to one who is not yet capable
of understanding. That person is just as apt to misunderstand the "simple" explanation as the
concealed one. But for those who can understand, the concealed one, hidden in symbols, has an
additional meaning and revelation that cannot be found in simple statements.
Today, when the masses understand much more than they did thousands of years ago, truth
can be given more directly, less veiled. But still, misunderstanding cannot be avoided, and therefore
the dosage or proportion, as to how much chance can be taken, how much can be revealed, has to
be well weighed. Sometimes more truth can have a worse effect and lead to greater harm than less
truth. For misunderstood truth leads to half-truth which is the most dangerous of all. Much of this
has happened and is bound to happen in the future. It cannot be avoided, because the benefit for
those few who derive real understanding from revealed truth will balance it out. This is why there
must be a constant weighing between the benefit and the harm that truth can bring. Hiding the
inner sense behind symbols is one way in which both considerations can be achieved. The
symbolism protects the truth from those who would misunderstand and abuse it. And it reveals it to
those who are ready for it.
But since no one is developed and fully open in all areas of their being, those who passed on
the truth, who translated it, have misquoted, misunderstood and distorted the original meaning.
Everyone who ever did so did it in a different respect. But this did not happen because the truth
was presented in symbols and parables, but because the person's understanding was not sufficient.
It would have been worse if the truth had been presented directly. Truth can be a very dangerous
weapon, my friends. Even the truth that I present to you can have such a result. If people are
unwilling to apply it personally, in the deepest possible sense, they will assume judgment over others
that may be all the more dangerous in that it would be partly true. Without recognizing their own
negative tendencies people would gain an acute perception of other people's negative tendencies, on
which they then can focus out of all proportion, ignoring other factors that change the overall view.
With this outlook, they become arrogant. They judge wrongly, although what they see may be
correct. And such teaching of truth may just enhance the negative outlook toward others, if they
themselves do not sincerely search within themselves for what is most painful, and from what they
cringe most! Truth has to be handled with care and responsibility. If people are inwardly ignorant,
it is better not to feed them truth, but leave them rather in outer ignorance.
COMMENT: Jesus himself said, "For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."
ANSWER: Yes, that is it. You will all see more and more that this holds true. Now, what is
your next question?
QUESTION: What is the true definition of ability in a human being?
ANSWER: Above all, it is the knowledge of one's own potentials and limitations. Where the
clear understanding of one's own limitations is lacking, ability must be lacking. So we always come
back to the same. Self-knowledge, a true and realistic self-evaluation, is the only thing that can bring
forth the maximum ability, creativity and healthy strength. The limitation does not only have to be
recognized concerning a possible lack of talent that one wants but cannot have due to certain
factors. The limitation has to be recognized also concerning a potential one does not wish to go to
the trouble of building up into ability, into accomplishment. In other words, a dormant talent may
indeed exist, but the person may wish its perfected state without the labor and effort of cultivating it.
Insight into one's hidden desires and their reasons will bring the talent forth if it actually exists. If so,
if it is supposed to be accomplished, frustration accrues because the person does not realize that he
or she is not really doing the work required to build it up. With such honest self-appraisal, proper
decisions must finally result, and lead to ability, creativity and healthy strength.
QUESTION: You suggested last time that I bring this question up again. The question was:
"If there is to be a hurt anyway, I'd rather have a self-inflicted hurt than be hurt by someone else."
ANSWER: In part, I have gone into the subject of self-punishment and self-destructiveness
before, but I will extend it a little in the light of the new knowledge you have gained. Of course, this
is also a question of pride, of the feeling of being exposed to others, while one is a helpless victim.
All this contributes greatly to the unconscious desire to hurt oneself before anyone else has the
chance.
But there is a deeper and more important underlying reason which has evolved out of the
recent lectures. I will show you how it applies to this question. As you now know, there are two
predominant inner attitudes, currents or forces in the human being. On the one hand, there is the
desire for love -- to be loved and to love -- both realistic and unrealistic, mature and immature. On
the other hand, there is the aggressive tendency of desire for rulership, for mastery over others, for
dominion. One must inevitably interfere with the other. One must exclude the other. Yet,
unconsciously you think they can be combined. You try to make one serve for the other, and this
attempt is bound to fail. It creates a tremendous conflict within. As long as you are not acutely and
specifically aware of these two currents, you cannot come to terms with life. As long as you try to
struggle out of this conflict by blind and unconscious attempts to make two mutually exclusive
forces serve the same end, you must inwardly be torn apart. Only conscious awareness of this
conflict will show you the way to make peace within yourself, or how to integrate the two currents.
How these two currents are distributed varies with each human being. With one person one
may by far be the predominant one. With another, it fluctuates and changes, at one time one current
is stronger, at another time the other. Still with another person it is sort of evenly split. Your outer
life, what you have and what you lack, and how you have what it is you aim for, is a clear indication
of the strength and distribution of these two forces battling within.
Integration of these two forces does not mean the complete elimination of one or both. It
simply means that both forces be used in a healthy way, when there is a real reason or need for
either, without compulsion, without frenzy, without imagined need that does not actually exist.
Only upon clear insight of the existence of these two forces and how they damage you in your blind
struggle can you realize how much superfluous energy you put into the pseudo-solution that you
unconsciously thought would work for you. And only then will you use either of these two forces in
the healthy and constructive way for which they originally are destined. Such knowledge can never
come to you by theorizing about it. The only way is by finding at first the existence of their negative
functioning within yourself. For instance, the desire for love is quite legitimate. But if this desire is
used in your adult years to overcome a childhood hurt, if you use all your unconscious energies in
this direction, the urgency of this blown-up desire becomes destructive. It no longer fulfills its
original purpose. But you have to clearly understand and see how this applies to you. On the other
hand, you unconsciously use the aggressive force to overcome your insecurity, your feelings of
inadequacy. You use it to gain respect, power, admiration, unconsciously believing that thereby you
also gain love. In reality the aggressive force, in its healthy way, is supposed to serve you in actual
danger for actual defense, to assert yourself when your integrity is at stake, or to prohibit others
from taking advantage of you. But most human beings are submissive in the wrong place and yield
where they should assert this healthy current. Yet where they should not, they often use aggression
most violently. The healthy way will never cause interference and mutual exclusiveness. The desire
for love and healthy aggression are meant to live peacefully side by side.
Due to this conflict tearing you apart -- and the time has come when all of you should become
acutely aware of this -- the tendency to inflict hurt upon yourself rather than taking the chance of
being hurt by others can be much better explained. Unconsciously, you know perfectly well how
futile this struggle is. One part of your subconscious tries to take the easy way out. Another, deeper
part of your being, watches and knows this is futile and damaging. This deeply hidden knowledge is
not correctly interpreted by your consciousness. This voice merely means to convey: "You are on
the wrong track the way you are going. Seek another way out." Your conscious feeling only knows
"futility" and this gives you a sense of hopelessness, impatience and disgust with life, the feeling of
"What is the use?" Yes, this mood can sometimes be applied to outer things happening to you that
seem to be a "reason" for your discouragement. But deep down, this is the real reason. In this
disgust with life, this feeling of pointlessness, you must hurt yourself. You must even want to hurt
yourself, for then, at least, you have a visible explanation for your deep discouragement. This is
easier to bear than the absence of all outer "reasons."
QUESTION: Is there a corresponding organ of the inner eye, located between the two outer
eyes?
ANSWER: Yes, my friends. All your outer organs are duplicates of inner organs. In fact,
you have more inner than outer organs. Not all of your real organs manifest in the physical body.
QUESTION: I am very confused about all the selves. The lower self, higher self, inner self,
mask self, psyche and all. Could you straighten me out?
ANSWER: Well, my dearest friends, you see, the higher self and the inner self, are of course
the same. If I now tend to use the latter more often than the former, I have a good reason for that.
When I first discussed the higher, lower and mask selves, it was a considerable time ago. It was long
before we went into the depths of your being, in this phase of self-search. Then I tried to show you
a general, overall division of the human being in an abbreviated form, so to speak. But as you gain
deeper insight into yourself, you begin to see that this threefold division is not always strictly
separated. The borderline is a thin one. And often, one interacts with the other. Each of these
three divisions contains a number of layers. For instance, an original tendency, coming from the
higher self, can be distorted by your inner deviations and conflicts and therefore be abused by
negative motivations. Hence, it would lead to oversimplification to stick to the terms higher self,
lower self and mask self. The term inner self will now make you more aware of this innermost core
of your being, without hindering you by ever so slight an implication of moral judgement.
There is also another reason why I sometimes consider it useful to change an expression or
terminology. When it is too often repeated, you cease to feel the real meaning. It becomes a label
and that is bad. It is always necessary to approach this work with a freshness in feeling and outlook.
This may be helped along by a new term or word. It helps you to avoid stagnation in your concepts.
It avoids clinging to ready-made words which have by repetition lost their inner meaning for you.
That is the trouble with all truth teachings.
The lower self has, of course, nothing to do with the inner self, although it is not always on
the surface. But you no longer need these terms now that you have progressed from there. And
now you can also see that it is not as simple as all that. At the time we discussed this topic, this
threefold division served as a plan, an outline, so to speak. Now that you analyze and learn to
understand your inner reactions and attitudes, you no longer need to think in terms of such limiting
divisions. What served once as a mere sketch is now being filled in with details. Do not forget,
these lectures are something alive. They are adapted to your progress, to the need of the present in
your individual work.
The psyche indicates your inner world of feeling and reacting, generally speaking. Is that
clear? [Yes, thank you very much.]
QUESTION: The word "image" brings to mind an essay I just read, "Imago Dei," the
"Image of God." I wondered often why you chose the word "image" to suggest a negative attribute
within us, when in Scripture we read that we were created in the image of God." Is it meant that
humans are not supposed to create an image of God since human-made images are only projections,
but that only God can create the image of himself in man?
ANSWER: I chose the word "image" because, as again the symbol will clarify, an image is
something like a picture. I could have used this expression as well. Both are rather static, dead, and
an imitation of life, depicting pseudo-reality. It may be very artful, but nevertheless it is not nature,
it is not real. If you now ponder the significance of the images within yourself, you will clearly see
how aptly this expression has been chosen. Your images are pseudo-defenses. They are based on
unreal assumptions. They are supposed to bring you happiness -- beauty. But it cannot really be so.
Since human language is limited, it is always easy to misunderstand and find a different meaning for
the same word. We have to keep this in consideration, and adopt the attitude that words are merely
an expediency. This will prevent you from making them a stumbling block or a rigid factor that
stands in your way. When we speak of images in our sense, we know what we mean. But we can
always keep in mind that other people or schools of thought think of something different. This will
retain flexibility of outlook and prevent misunderstanding.
COMMENT: Even in Scripture this word is used in the negative sense. We read in the Ten
Commandments, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." So the way we use the word
"image" corresponds to the meaning of the Bible: something negative, imagined, frozen, petrified.
And we do worship it in our way of catering to it.
ANSWER: Yes, exactly.
COMMENT: It would seem that people are not capable of creating an image of God,
because it would be a distortion.
ANSWER: They cannot create an image of God. It is an absolute impossibility. It is
inconceivable for the human concept, the human brain. It is utterly impossible. The truth of the
commandment lies in the proof that, in spite of this commandment, people have made an image of
God and it turned out to be so tragically damaging. This led to the anthropomorphic concept of
God who is supposed to be like a person, arbitrarily meting out punishment and reward. That is the
result of making an image of God.
I have given you food for thought that can become very fruitful for you if you choose to make
it so. I go from you with all our blessings, with our strength. May they penetrate and envelop you,
may they enrich you, and may you find through them renewed strength to continue on this path of
self-finding. How fortunate you are! For, the liberation, the true joy and happiness resulting from it
is in your hands -- in pursuing this path of finding that within you which blocks your happiness and
joy. Keep up the work, each one of you, for your own sake, for the sake of those around you, for
the sake of all humanity, and for the sake of the entire universe. Be blessed, be in peace, be in God!