“When I lay on my knees before the brother, I was overcome with dizziness again, a sleepy feeling, from which I could not escape.

I lay down on the bed and slept for a long time.

When I awakened the brother was standing before me and said: ‘Now, you did not dream, did you sleep quietly?’

‘Yes, brother, I feel wonderful and am a bit better, it has done me good.’

My throat or other tortures did not bother me and I felt refreshed again.

Now I would soon get better.

Yet when I thought about it, he smiled, and I understood what it meant.

‘I have come to collect you’, said the brother, ‘we will go for a walk, so that you can immediately admire this land, as well as the surroundings in which you now live.’

Fortunately, I thought, because I longed to go outside.

‘Will I be able to walk then?’

‘Yes’, he said, ‘that is possible now.’

My dwelling was now open, I had unlocked it myself and it would remain open, since I would ensure that.

I still wore my black suit, which seemed to be inseparably connected to me, since I could not yet think of other clothes.

I could think, but I still did not have enough spiritual possession and concentration.

After all, I had not yet learnt anything; I had been in this land for too short a time for that.

My clothes fit and were a part of my whole personality.

I had arrived here as a coachman and I would have to remain that for the time being.

Yet I found it a hindrance, because what did I have to do with that earthly life?

Sooner or later, I thought, this will also change.

I followed my master outside.

How strange I found all of this!

I saw that it was a very large building in which I now was, also that it had been built in an earthly way.

Thousands of people could be accommodated here.

Everywhere I saw people and many were dressed in earthly clothes.

A few wore garments that were very different to all those others.

Were they masters, like the brother who taught me how to pass into this life?

They wore a garment similar to my brother’s, from which I thought I recognized him.

Then I saw people who had adorned themselves with earthly jewellery and wore beautiful clothes, but I also saw people who were shrouded in rags.

There were old and young people, the young people had reached the age of twenty, but I did not see any children.

The nature was approximately like autumn on earth.

Was it already becoming winter here?

What month of the year did I actually live in?

I had no idea and found it cold and dull here.

It was not a nature in which to have to continue to live in, and possibly would not to get any better.

In autumn on earth, people saw greens and yellows, but I did not even see that here.

This nature was so strange, so unnatural.

It looked as if everything had faded and the crops were not yet ripe.

I could not picture it any other way.”

I had to laugh while writing; I had never seen a nature that was faded before!

I also saw Alcar smiling.

“Do you have to laugh at that?” I heard Gerhard ask.

“But the nature was really like that and I am telling you what I thought about it.

The brother walked in front of me and I followed him.

Everything I met was strange.

Where was I?

I did not think of all these explanations or about what the brother had explained to me.

I would not be able to make any comparisons because everything I saw was new to me.

Now I know, I suddenly thought.

This atmosphere is as if it will soon start raining, it is misty.

We walked into a lane that meandered through the landscape.

Despite the mist, I could see quite far into the surroundings.

I felt cold and shivery; a bit of sun would do me good.

If only I would not have to stay here too long.

I saw, as I said, many women and men.

No one looked at me and I found that very remarkable; they could not even spare me a glance.

Did they not see that I had arrived here just a short time ago?

Or did they want nothing to do with me?

Were they higher in rank and were they from a higher origin?

I did not understand it and was very surprised about it.

Was I not worthwhile for them to spare me a glance?

Not a single one appeared surprised that I was here; all of them behaved as if it did not concern them.

It was as if they were mourning, they were so quiet and withdrawn.

What were all these people thinking about?

I could not work it out and the brother was meanwhile walking far ahead of me, I would ask him soon.

He was apparently also deep in thought and I therefore did not want to disturb him.

However, it occurred to me that all those people were ill; they looked so pale.

Now, I thought, then they will not get better quickly here, this is not a healthy climate.

However, there will be other places to be found than this?

What I saw was all so earthly.

The brother had told me that I had to concentrate, but on what?

I also had to think and I therefore kept on doing that; I even thought too much, and was already tired from it.

Now I must be busy discarding the earthly life of thoughts.

He would think it was wonderful that I was really doing my best.

I had never thought so much in my life as now.

I saw nothing but long faces and people who were sick.

Others, I felt it clearly, were mourning; nothing escaped me.

Everything had my full attention, but I did not think of the things, which really should have had my attention.

I lived in eternity and yet I thought in an earthly way.

I did not see any flowers; but in autumn the flowers die, that is the reason, I thought, I certainly cannot see them.

A ditch ran along the path and the water in it was grey, the greyness of the landscape lay over everything.

I was curious where the brother would take me.

He had already walked on ahead of me.

I also saw people who were different to those I had already noticed and I did not understand why they were like that.

These people were not so pale and I thought I saw more health and life in them because the colour of their faces was different.

Were they not like the others?

I did not see that greyness in them, which I saw in the nature.

I looked at them full of interest, but they also behaved as if I did not exit.

Was I not a human being like them?

Was I not a brother in the spirit?

Were they more than I was?

Here no distinction was made, but what did they do?

Were they the rich of the earth?

Did those people not want anything to do with me?

They are all wretches, I thought.

What were they imagining?

A few of them brushed past me and yet I was apparently nothing to them.

Finally, the brother waited for me and said that I had to sit down.

I found a lovely spot on the edge of a hill and sat down there.

Would the brother tell me about those people?

I had felt well for the brother said: ‘You are already busy taking over thoughts; these were really my thoughts.’

‘Your thoughts?’ I asked.

‘Yes, my thoughts.’

I thought it was amazing, yet I had not realized it, since those thoughts came to me like all the others.

‘Listen’, said the brother, ‘to what I will say.

I asked you to think about everything which we discuss; otherwise we will not get any further.’

I was already pleased; I had done my best?

However, he continued.

‘All these people whom you met have come here like you, they therefore also died on earth.

They wear their earthly clothes and know no others, because they do not know how to concentrate and do not possess the love necessary for this.

When they arrive in the first sphere, they will start to discard them, not before.

They therefore wear clothes just like you, because they do not know any other life.

Our life, I already made that clear to you several times, is a life of thoughts and according to the love the human being possesses and feels, he finds his attunement in this spiritual existence.

Their lives, just like yours, were not bad; we already talked about that.

I followed you in your train of thoughts.

The people with a different colour of face will soon leave here.

Those who live here have therefore mastered nothing on earth.

Your love for others saved you from a general destruction; otherwise, you would have entered another sphere.

Here everything is bare and grey, is it not, but we know other lands which are more beautiful and where the human being meets nothing but happiness.

There are also flowers and greenery and people wear spiritual garments there.

It surprises me what you think of the nature and how you make comparisons.

However, you described this nature nicely, but do not forget that you are describing your own image.

You are like the nature.’

‘What did you say, am I like the nature?’

If that is the case, I thought, then autumn lies in me and it is also misty inside me.

I had to laugh at myself.

But the brother remained serious and said: ‘Do not laugh, dear friend, just wait, I have other things to tell you.

Your thoughts about the life and nature on this side are priceless.

However, I advise you to start to think differently.

In this way, you will not make it.

I repeat, you have described your own image; just think about it.

The nature is the image of your inner attunement.

The nicer you think and the purer your thoughts are, your surroundings will also change and become more beautiful.

The nature is as you feel yourself.

There is life, yet there is no spiritual love and no consciousness.

Therefore, everything is grey and misty, and you are like them, sick inside.’

I trembled from the thought, however, the brother continued to speak: ‘It will not start to rain here, as you thought, but it will remain so for thousands of years, until this sphere dissolves into the Sphere of Light.

There is no light here and there is no light in you either.

‘To possess light on this side, dear friend, is to know.

To possess light is happiness, sheer happiness, and that is to love the life that is in everything.

That is the cross that God has given us to bear, to accept.

That is to feel love for others and to understand the seriousness of life.

Then people do not talk of wretches; then people respect life everywhere and always.’

I thought I would sink through the ground; he knew what I had been thinking.

‘Then those other thoughts lie far from you’, the brother continued calmly and looked deep into my soul.

‘Then we bow our heads and we pray from the depth of our soul and beg God for forgiveness.

Then we continue to think and another person does not need to repeat something ten or twenty times.

Then the human being is filled with respect.

Then people do not play with life, but people feel respect for that of another and pass into it in love.

I hope that you will become serious, because the terrible part of your own situation still does not get through to you.

You were thinking, but what were your thoughts like?’

I got a terrible fright.

‘The life in the nature’, the brother continued, ‘will therefore only be able to mature when another source of heat warms it.

There is no sun here, no light and everything therefore remains sad and pitiful.

It will also remain so for the time being in those whom you met and in yourself.

You will have to stay here for a while and that is up to yourself.

That is in your own hands, likewise for the people whom you met.

Do not look at me so anxiously; it was necessary in order to show you the seriousness of the life.

Do not be afraid of your situation, because there are already powers in you and not everything was lost of what I told you.

However, you will start to think deeper and deeper and follow the path step by step, which we have taken.

The people walking round here think about their life on earth and about the life in which they now are.

They think and reflect upon all their experiences that they have had in this life.

They start to compare both situations of life and they try to master the spiritual treasures of them.

They meditate, they therefore reflect upon everything and try to bring themselves to another but higher situation.

They sense deeply what the brothers and sisters explained and showed to them.

What they experience on this side becomes their possession.

They therefore gradually start to think spiritually and pass into this life.

They do nothing else but release themselves from their earthly lives and no one will interrupt them in that.

They felt and knew that you walked past them, but they are too buried in themselves to watch you.

They do not want to be disturbed and here people have respect for the human being who is searching for himself.

However, there are also thousands living here who do not yet want to search for themselves and they have already been here for years.

I will show you them later; you already saw a few of them.

The people who search for themselves ponder and separate the good qualities from the wrong ones, until they have discarded their material feelings and have turned them into those of the spirit.

Do you feel the meaning of this life?’

I felt sorry and was already sad that I had thought so indifferently about these people.

‘This is why’, the brother continued, ‘those who enter here find this life so difficult to understand.

Yet, it is simple, if only you have conquered your earthly feelings.

You will experience this in yourself and to experience that is development in this sphere.

When you start to sense the incomprehensible of this life, it will become comprehensible and that is knowledge, and that is the wisdom in the spirit.

When it starts to thaw inside you, you will feel warmth, the warmth of the spirit.

When you lose your earthly feelings, your spiritual eyes will open and you will see the beauty of our lives.

You have to try to reject all fantasy and unreality, because we know no fantasy in this life.

Everything is reality, and anyone who does not want to be real and natural, will have to learn this through struggle, will remain asleep for a long time, spiritually asleep, to then awaken again.

Only then does the earthly life pass into that of the spirit and the human being can use what he learned on earth on this side.

But only when he is sent to the earth in order to work for humanity.

Yet, powerful spirits are needed for that, who are able to hold out.

You therefore have to discard what you learned on earth.

Everything which you mastered on earth only has value on this side if you possess love.’

Difficult, I thought, but the brother had already taken over my thoughts and said: ‘Everything is difficult, but with some willpower you will make it.’

‘Will I then become like you and be able to take over thoughts?’

‘Yes, you will be able to, it is the spiritual language and we do not speak differently.

In order to be able to speak spiritually and to be able to connect, people have to possess much love.’

I felt myself becoming tired again and asked: ‘Where does this tiredness and that sleepiness come from, brother?

I am continually overcome by it and then completely unexpectedly.’

‘This comes because you still do not think spiritually.

You still live between both situations.

These phenomena will keep coming back because they are part of your own attunement.

But the nature will come to your aid.

It is your Divine attunement that gives you the life.

You will therefore have to awaken in order to remain awake one day for eternity.

You live in an unbalanced situation, the life where you now are attracts you, but you continue to think in an earthly way in your feelings and that is too powerful for you.

Those forces of nature influence you, but you cannot absorb all of that yet because you do not possess the necessary spiritual power.

Everything, which you will therefore experience, however strange it will be for you, is because you feel earthly.

You cannot escape that for the time being.

But by sleeping and resting, you will make it.

It takes away your confused, unnatural train of thoughts, and takes you back to your previous natural attunement so that you can start again, until you have used up your powers again.

You will only be able to realize all of this later; I cannot make it any clearer to you now; you have to experience it.

A power lies within you, the Divine core, which is present in everyone’s life and will elevate you, which makes you live, also against your will.

That is the great and mighty, yes, incomprehensible, that is God, God’s sacred power.’

‘Did my life on earth have no value then?

How many thousands live worse than I do; they murder in order to enrich themselves and for many other reasons.

I am conscious of evil and have committed evil, but I did my work, took care of my wife and child, did not steal or murder, and went to church and prayed, and yet I am a ‘nothing’ ’

The brother looked at me and said: ‘All of this counts in favour for your personality; if this was not the case, then you would have entered a different attunement, where it is not misty, but where deep darkness reigns.

All of this is therefore of value, but it is still not divine possession.

All those brothers and sisters, whom you are thinking about, have sunk deep.

They will also have to free themselves from that.

Do not compare their attunement with yours; they will live, but in the hell on this side.’

Hell, I thought, the hell?

‘Yes, hell.’

Was I not in hell then?

No, because fire burned in hell, I was taught that on earth, and I did not see any fire.

Was hell near to me?

I did not see anything and had not yet seen any of it.

I felt myself becoming dizzy.

I also heard the brother say: ‘You will get to know the hell.’

I knew nothing more and had fallen asleep.

To sleep, nothing else but being able to sleep, how wonderful it is to rest and to sleep, but the sleep I had meant weakness, weakness in the spirit.”