Source texts from the books by Jozef Rulof for the article ‘regret remorse repentance’.
These sources presume the prior reading of the article ‘regret remorse repentance’.
Thanks to reincarnation
Master Alcar tells André (Jozef Rulof) about a man whom Alcar was friendly with during his last life on earth.
When this friend had arrived in the hereafter, Alcar went to him.
His friend was really pleased that Alcar wanted to come to him, because he realized that Alcar was far ahead of him in feeling.
He asked Alcar what he could do in order to evolve spiritually:
‘Ah, you are so far away from me, and yet you have returned to me.’
He clasped both my hands and pressed them warmly.
‘Tell me, what should I do.
I want to go on; I can’t stay here.
I want higher and to go where you already are.
What do you advise me to do?’
‘Try to learn your own self; your own self before anything else.
Only then will it be possible on this side to do something for others.
Retrace deeply within you how your life on earth has been and how you are now.
Time and again retrace everything; in doing so you will come to know your own self.
Then you lay aside your own self; you lay aside what you must forget in order to acquiesce in the life in which you are presently.
Feel clearly what has been wrong, and banish that from your life.
Lay aside everything standing in the way of your advance.
Put yourself under control and call yourself to a halt.
No spirit, however, can help you in this process.
However much you pray, however much you ask why and wherefore, nobody can make that clear to you.
This must awaken inside of you; you must wake up and learn this life entirely.
If you wish me to stay with you, we will make a journey together and I will show you what I possess and tell you what I know.
Whenever we encounter higher conditions and depths, which I do not know myself, we will ask those who know and who are higher than we are to help us.
They are only too glad to be of help.
I have lived to see that already.
It did not take me long to learn that, and you will see why at a later stage.’
Then we took leave of each other and I would return to him when he would call me.
The Origin of the Universe, 1939
The man reflected deeply on his earthly life:
Several years, according to time on earth, went by.
Then I felt he was calling me and I returned to him.
The Origin of the Universe, 1939
Just one question burned in him:
Oh, my friend, my brother, do you know what I have been thinking about during all those years?’
The Origin of the Universe, 1939
‘About a new birth; reincarnation on earth.
Do you know if this is possible?’
The Origin of the Universe, 1939
It was only after his earthly life that he fully felt that on earth he had sullied a love:
‘All this is magnificent’, he said, ‘but once one has entered here, one can see what life on earth means.
Man on earth doesn’t understand himself.
They don’t know there that we are alive; and yet, look around you!
How much I have thought about myself.
Oh, if only I could return there, if only I would be allowed that possibility, how I would do my utmost.
Night and day I would work and give myself entirely.
I did not love, and I spoilt the love given me.
Others I have not understood; I even consciously did not want to.
The Origin of the Universe, 1939
It was only now that he understood how he could reach a sphere of light:
‘I would like to serve’, he said ‘serve, always serve.
I know now that it is the only possibility for advancement.’
The Origin of the Universe, 1939
The man could only think of one thing.
On earth he had destroyed the life of a woman by making her pregnant and then abandoning her.
Later in his life he wanted to make amends for this and he gave away all his money to the poor.
However, he felt that the remorse in him was not dissolved by this.
He could not repay with earthly possessions what he did to this woman as a soul.
He had to make amends for the misery of the woman in a different way:
‘Where would she be?
Still on earth, or already on this side?
This keeps my mind occupied; I have to think all the time.
I destroyed her life and her youth and I would like to make up for it.
I feel it is possible on this side, but I can’t find her.
How I did look for her!
Where could she be; can you help me?
I have already made good on earth, and yet I feel it has not been enough.
Here, everything is so different.
You can’t dissolve spiritual laws with earthly possessions.
What the soul experiences and has gone through and suffers, cannot be made good with earthly possessions.
One has to experience it.
The Origin of the Universe, 1939
But where was the woman now?
Was she still on earth, or also in the hereafter?
How could he find her?
What should I do?
It becomes increasingly intense.
Is she, to whom I did wrong, on earth?
I feel remorse and I want to make it up.
I feel I have to wait; but waiting for her could take ages, and I can’t wait that long.
I could not possibly; I can’t think of anything else.
I always see her before me and she asks and calls and begs for help because I stole her happiness on earth.
The Origin of the Universe, 1939
Where is she?
I feel a tie between her life and mine; I can go no further and no higher; this is calling me to a halt.
The Origin of the Universe, 1939
Alcar explains to André that the transition to the hereafter has not changed his friend in feeling in anything:
He did wrong things in his life on earth.
He caused a young life, about which he spoke, to suffer the greatest misery.
By his actions, she perished.
He knew this happened through his actions and that is how she entered this life.
I knew where she was, but I could not tell him because that was only possible at a later stage.
So I let him talk and remained silent.
Others had done what he did, he said, but it was he who left her by herself.
He did not know, however, that the child was his.
While still on earth I discussed these things with him, but he turned a deaf ear; it could not be possible, he said.
And yet, I knew quite definitely that the child born was his.
This was the sorrow he caused her.
By his doing she landed in this awful condition and her life on earth became a hell.
Then I heard about her death.
Later, much later, he began to feel remorse and tried to make it up.
He gave away the money he possessed.
In that condition he awoke and gave himself entirely.
Then he, too, passed away.
All this belongs to his life.
I told you already, we met again at this side and he had not changed in anything.
That feeling of remorse was consciously present in him.
Also, in this life he could not free himself of it.
How could he possibly have freed himself of it?
Do you understand what I mean, André?
That this was blocking his spiritual progress and that what happened on earth must dissolve and be made up?
The Origin of the Universe, 1939
One cause brought him in this condition.
No, others cannot make it up for him.
He himself will have to alleviate that sorrow.
There should be nothing of this kind in us or it will call us to a halt at this side.
It stops us, because it has to be made up first.
The Origin of the Universe, 1939
The dissolving of remorse
Jozef Rulof illuminates the power of making amends in order to dissolve remorse:
We do something wrong and we go round worrying about it and we make it okay, is it then not suddenly gone?
But then we are much easier from inside.
That is the remorse for the human being.
Questions and Answers Part 3, 1952
When making amends is not successful, remorse can break the sleep, peace and harmony:
We just pile up remorse, remorse, remorse, remorse until it goes over our life of feeling and the personality, and then we no longer have any hold anywhere, sleep gone, peace gone, there is no longer harmony, lights have gone, no more contacts: we feel broken, sir.
Have you never talked to a real thief, sir, a human being with remorse, have you never met that?
You should hear, madam, then you will get a confession as if God is confessing.
Have you never been able to weep for a man who had remorse, he says: ‘Oh, if I only I could make amends for it, if only I could make amends for it’?
Questions and Answers Part 3, 1952
In the book ‘Those who came back from the Dead’, Gerhard is very pleased that he may tell to Jozef about his life after death:
“I already knew for some time that I was allowed to come back to you.
It gave me the strength to endure everything.
Only that knowledge has made me endure everything.
How difficult it is for you to know so much about our life and yet to have to live on earth, however, you are conscious, you can see and feel; otherwise, it would not be possible.
On earth, it was a mystery to me, now I know that mystery: it is I myself.
You will sense what this is to me.
Now I know that eternity already reigns on earth.
Keeping that in mind you can bear and deal with everything and I admire you for it, Jozef!
I already find it a wonder alone that you can hear and see me and that I can see that my words are already on paper.
That will be wonderful, because I have much to tell, but I will start with our conversation at the churchyard.
Those who came back from the Dead, 1937
During that conversation, Jozef asked him something, but he did not reply to that, because he tried to hurt Jozef:
He did not answer, but said: “If I am there”, and he started to mock again, “then I will come and tell you.”
“What do you want to tell me?”
“That I am alive, and then I will knock, like that”, and he thumped a few times with his whip on the vehicle and called: “Knock, knock, knock” and burst out laughing.
Those who came back from the Dead, 1937
It was not until later that he felt the horror of it:
I know that I was sorry about it and you granted me forgiveness.
I knew then that I had hurt you, and I do not know how that was, but I did it wilfully.
I liked touching you in your soul and yet I did not know why, which I found very strange.
Now I know all of this; they were influences, to be able to hurt you by working on me.
An instrument of this side has to suffer under it and I will be attacked constantly.
You did not go into my mockery deeply and everything you said passed me by, as so many things that can enrich life on earth inwardly.
I did not know any better, Jozef.
People often hurt each other, consciously and unconsciously, but mostly intentionally and that is terrible.
Only later, you feel the horror of it, when everything dissolves for you and you start to understand the problem.
But then you feel rightly for the first time how far away you are from that other person.
Those who came back from the Dead, 1937
It was only after his death that the regret came:
If you see and feel that you have sullied the most sacred thing, it is only then that something deep inside you begins to awaken.
This is how it happened to me on this side.
Such an awakening hurts very much, you feel remorse so that it eats away at you inside, and you feel it like whiplashes on your naked body.
You long to make up for everything again, but then the great suffering comes that you cannot do that.
You denied yourself that possibility and only then do you feel how far you are removed from them.
You would want to crawl on your knees to them, but they are invisible to you.
They live on this side in other and higher places and are happy, and they, the mockers, live in darkness and will remain there if they are not capable of making up for everything.
And all that time you feel it; it is eating your soul away, so that you can come to grief.
I felt like this when I understood; the people must have felt like that when they nailed God’s perfect child to the cross.
It is the eternal truth that the human being will learn and will bow his head, when the truth is shown to him, until his personality has been snapped and broken to the core.
I felt respect for this great unknown Greatness, for God.
I therefore took back my words and I buried my old self.
Now I know what spiritualism is and means, now that I am a spirit myself and am alive.
Those who came back from the Dead, 1937
