Secrets of Life
Disclosures about important questions of life
- Chapter 13 -
LANGUAGE, ART, MUSIC
14 January 1871
THESE three words denote three things that occur in all worlds and suns, for they represent the fundamental activity and the main lever for spiritual progress. You can find them everywhere, adapted to the relative dimensions of the world globes and to the spiritual development of mankind.
Since these three most important vital factors occur everywhere and without them no life, not even mutual recognition or a cognition of the spiritual world and, finally, no recognition of the structure of My creation and of My own self would be possible, naturally the question arises above all:
What actually is language? What art? And what music?
Furthermore: why are three of them necessary? And what spiritual substance is hidden in these expressions manifesting in material life? Be it in the spoken word, or in articulated sounds, in the form, or in ideas expressed through limited areas, or conveyed by sound that cannot be understood, but only felt!
So let us deal with the first question: "What is language?"
As I have already indicated to you in an earlier word, language is a communication from the innermost of one being through the outer world to another.
This language is of a diverse nature: It can be through articulated sounds, through gestures and signs and through unarticulated sounds.
All languages consist in articulated sounds, whereby every human spirit informs his fellow beings of that which he wants to make comprehensible to them.
This language is different in all worlds and solar bodies, in keeping with the level of the spiritual development of the people. The nobler the soul, the nobler the language; the more neglected the former, the poorer the latter.
Since, however, a language by means of sounds is not sufficient for the human soul, it seeks to enhance the impact of its mode of expression through analogous gestures, and this results in a sign language, which, finally, is understood by many people even without words. The outcome was the so-called mimicry, which was artificially developed in your shows as sign language, where one qualified can express by way of gestures all that he is forbidden to say audibly during the performance.
Finally, there comes also the sign language. To this belongs for instance the one used by your deaf mutes. Also to the blind the spiritual realm is opened up as far as possible by means of the tactile sense whereby the ear can help and supplement the inner man.
The sign language of expression and portraying words, and through these feelings, belongs to the realm of the form language and will only be discussed in greater detail under the term "art", when it will be proved why all human beings need signs for communication, and how they came into existence.
Finally, there are the inarticulate sounds, which, however, do not express a concept, but emotional states, such as joy or pain. These are given not only to man, as a being endowed with reason, but more or less to all created beings, so that they can express their ease or discomfort. Also this incomplete manner of expression belongs to the realm of sounds, under which heading it will be given to you with greater clarity and intelligibility.
Well, why is language universal? Why is it a need of a living being? These are the questions to which I want to give you an answer first of all.
You see, a soul, no matter whether human or animal, is a living being which continually absorbs the impressions coming from the outer world, spiritually digesting and processing them for its own Self, and then because of its innate love for its own kind wants to convey to them the result, namely, what it feels, what it experiences, and how it has utilized the same.
Just as I, as the Creator of My great wondrous works, cannot admire them alone, but look for hearts to share My joys with Me, again enjoying this happiness Myself in the joy that other beings take in My works, in the same way no living being can retain within it the impressions of the outer world, which continually act on it. It must impart its thereby aroused feelings and thoughts to others, stimulating like-minded beings to empathy, to taking part in the enjoyment. In order to satisfy this urge, the soul invented its articulate or inarticulate language, so as to convey to its fellow-travelers on the earthly path that which it found too much to bear alone, for only in the conveying of the same to others can it feel the actual enjoyment of what was received twice.
This need to communicate you find expressed in weak, inarticulate sounds with animals, in articulate ones with man, and in plastic (clearly outlined) spiritual forms and unspoken but perceivable words and expressions with the spirits and highest angels. There, everything, which on the material plane is conveyed through sound or tone, is felt and understood only through spiritual correspondence in a language of which you can have no concept because, trying to give you a definition, the only gauge applicable would be the velocity of thought.
Thus, generally speaking, language is a "materialized Spiritual".
There the inner world manifests through the outer world. All spiritual progress is thereby defined; without it, creation would only be half, indeed less than half, of a botched piece of work.
All animals possess a language, a certain way of communication, either through sounds or through gestures; every one has to be able to convey to another what it wants, otherwise creation has no impetus.
Love and its opposite, hate, express themselves in gestures or in sounds appropriate for the beings concerned.
Spiritual life would be impossible without language, without communication. For life, universal life, universal progress, are only possible through them.
I, who created the world with so many millions of spirits and beings, am asking you - what would the world be like without language? What about all My wondrous arrangements, what about the actual spiritual factors of the entire creation, namely, love, joy, the ecstasy of bliss, if the beings were denied the expression of the same?
All beings would have to perish under the impression of the outer world, unless they could give vent to that which makes their hearts expand with joy or contract with pain.
Where absorption is possible there must also be a discharge, otherwise no life, no spiritual exchange and no spiritual progress are possible. Communication is a vital need, it is the only bond uniting all into one; it is the bond linking animals with human beings, human beings with spirits, human beings and animals to Me.
This universal bond, so imperfect and limited with the minutest infusorian, up to the inspired speech of one of the greatest angels, is the product of love. Without love, no language, and without language, no love!
Thus you behold this need as a necessary constituent of the entire creation, even as its foundation-pillar. For without language, every being would remain as it was created; without language no progress, without progress no life, no sense in creating anything!
This spiritual bond entwining us all, uniting us all into one family, enlivening us all and bringing us near one another, which led you to Me and Me to you, this bond is the great life principle which, wherever there are light, life and love, links all towards a common purpose. It elevates you, My created beings, and lets Me feel for the second time the worth and beauty of My creation, the first time as the Creator, and the second time in a far more beautiful light, in the love-light emanating from a Father towards His children!
This language which, expressing lovely, joyful sentiments, shows the animal in a more beautiful light and makes man's eyes sparkle more beautifully, enhances his voice and makes his whole organism tremble with bliss. It is the expression of the innermost part of a being, indicating the extent to which he has grasped the impressions from without and how far spiritually and correctly he has interpreted them.
Therefore, there is, apart from the instruction through the language, also the fruit of the spiritual digestion of all the impressions from the outer world, the proper and well-formulated speech or the beautifully formed rendition, which, spoken with enthusiasm by the soul, must again evoke enthusiasm. And so it must be understood when it says in John's Gospel:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God!" Yes, the beginning was the Word, and the Word was I!
Without My Word there is no creation, without creation no being, no love, without love no life, and without life no communication!
From the beginning I was "the Word", the expression and archetype of an eternal concept, and precisely because I was the Word, as the first requirement with all spiritual products, the word, or the communication through the word, had to lead back to Me all My created beings which I had set out into eternity through the Word, so that through conflict and battle they should return to Me through words, gestures and sounds, what I had laid into them with the first Word.
In the beginning the word "Word" was the quintessence of an idea and at the end of all creational periods everything alive will have reunited in a word, and this Word shall again be I!
The Word, which out of love created beings and worlds, will again as love reach its culmination point in its created beings and in the end in the spiritual celestial man, in Me, as the center, be glorified by all the created beings.
Thus the concept of infinity is like a circle. From Me issued the Word: "Let there be!" It sounded forth into all the infinite spaces, and so it happened!
Everything came into being, everything lived, loved and communicated, pursuing its progress through eons of time, and it will ultimately return to Me spiritualized, beautified and transfigured, exclaiming:
"Father! You called out once: 'Let there be!' Now see, Your children have done according to this call and are now standing before You, rejoicing and blessing their great and mighty Creator and Father; for here we stand as living proof for the 'let there be!' And thus, having originated from, and returned to, the Word, the cycle of the creational period is completed and a new and eternal one is beginning, in You and with You!" Amen.