Europe: regulations on morality

if you do away with spirituality, if you do away with religion, if you do away with God, if you do away with all the differences between people, then you come to the point where you don't really know what morality is any more. You don't find morality in nature, in fact you only find it in the human being, but you could say that the human being is only a moral being out of fear of penance or punishment or something in that sense that you find annoying. And that therefore, if you were free, you would live it up and punch ruthlessly around you, with everyone who gets in your way having to make way and then it would be the law of the jungle in the end. Of course, there is no morality there. But we do see a tendency in the organisation of human relationships, that thoughts are being brought in that direction. That as a human being you do not carry your own individual morality within you, but that you have to be educated and that you also have to be kept in check. And who should do that?Watch video on YouTube

If you do away with spirituality, if you do away with religion, if you do away with God, if you do away with all the differences between people, then you come to the point where you don't really know what morality is any more. You don't find morality in nature, in fact you only find it in the human being, but you could say that the human being is only a moral being out of fear of penance or punishment or something in that sense that you find annoying. And that therefore, if you were free, you would live it up and punch ruthlessly around you, with everyone who gets in your way having to make way. Last time I spoke about the throne of Europe, the throne on which we sit as kings and queens, and I think it would be good if Europeans were to realise very intensely once more what an incredible wealth of history we have, on which we actually rest and which the whole world may also envy in a certain sense, I don't know, but I can imagine that. When you think of the great composers, the place where they were born is usually Europe, a little to the east, but mainly in Europe. And it is not only the case with music. You only have to think of the great painters, the philosophers, that is of course an enormous background that you really have as a European. And only if you have no spiritual feelings at all - and I don't think there are people who don't have that, they think they don't have that, but I think everybody has that - if you don't have that, spiritual feelings, then you might think that it doesn't matter whether you have that in your background or not. But if you look at Europe, you have the large world map and you see Europe as a rather small area in the heart, at least the way the world map expands, if you have it in the width in front of you, and you consider that Europe is wedged between East and West, then the question very clearly arises: what is it that we Europeans should be doing at this moment? Yes, and I can't help but say something that might give some people the impression of being a sermon. I don't want to do that, but it does have a kind of character, because it has to do very strongly with morality. Look, if you do away with spirituality, if you do away with religion, if you do away with God, if you do away with all the differences between people, then you come to the point where you don't really know what morality is any more. You don't find morality in nature, in fact you only find it in the human being, but you could say that the human being is only a moral being out of fear of penance or punishment or something in that sense that you find annoying. And that therefore, if you were free, you would live it up and punch ruthlessly around you, with everyone who gets in your way having to make way and then it would be the law of the jungle in the end. Of course, there is no morality there. But we do see a tendency in the organisation of human relationships, that thoughts are being brought in that direction. That as a human being you do not carry your own individual morality within you, but that you have to be educated and that you also have to be kept in check. And who should do that? In the past it might have been the Pope, the Church and the other Churches, now it is increasingly the government. And the government ultimately determines morality. It says: this is good, that is bad. And if you do well, you are our friend and if you do badly, you are our enemy and you will notice that. That is a tendency that you see. And of course it is not yet as bad as I am portraying it now, but it is going in that direction. There are more and more regulations in the field of morality. Totally forgetting that the human being may have a source within himself that also speaks when you have a question of conscience. That is the best proof of the fact that you are a moral being, that you have a conscience. That when you do or fail to do certain things, you know very well in depth that it was good or not so good or completely wrong and that you also hear a voice within you that points this out to you. The human being is a moral being in himself and is the only one in nature. What we know of nature, there is no morality there. When you look at the animal kingdom, animals are not conscientious, they live out their instincts and nobody will say that a lion is bad if he attacks a weak animal. That is just the way it is. But from a human being you expect something else, you don't expect a human being to attack a weaker one. And you expect him to know within himself that he should not do that. But to my way of thinking, this is gradually fading into the background, and the result is that you have to look at morality in such a way that it is, as it were, introduced by education, by external circumstances, and that you therefore have to adapt to what others say is right. I think that a healthy person, healthy in body and soul, really rebels. He feels a rebellion within himself. That you don't want to be told from outside what you should think is right and what not. With children, this is a normal situation. Children have to empathise with the world and they need certain external standards against which they can measure themselves, you could say. They already have that conscience as a seed in them, but it has to grow. This happens in interaction with the world. So in a child, okay. But with adults, adults can't bear it if they are healthy. And then the question arises: what is actually the task of Europe between East and West? And the answer to that is actually quite clear. Namely, that what is this great culture in Europe, which actually the whole world enjoys, but which is more or less stagnant in its development, that this great culture is going to be spiritualised. That what is there will not remain as it is, but that it will be brought to a higher level, namely a spiritual level. Now I hear some people burst out laughing, because of course the spiritual is precisely what is very much denied in our time, and also very strongly in Europe. It is not believed, it is not recognised. Well, I don't believe that, I think that people who don't believe are deluding themselves. And one of the beautiful examples of this is that once, in a conversation with someone, with a man, we were talking about life after death, and he felt enlightened, and so he was actually a person who had long left behind this kind of nonsense like life after death, and so this man actually mocked our words about life after death. And finally the conversation ended like this: well, you know what, when we're dead, then you'll see that there's nothing. And I thought that was the most humorous way to show that a seasoned atheist believes in an afterlife. He can't help wanting to be right after death and thus, for example, overlooking the fact that he himself is still here. I don't believe that people don't believe. They don't believe, but that they don't know in depth that there is a spiritual existence from which nature arises. That spiritual awareness, that should be a step in the whole intellectual development of Europe. It should be so that what is intellect, and what in principle has little to do with morality, with ethics, should be spiritualised in such a way that the whole of human intelligence comes into an ethical perspective. Now that is a mere feint. Of course there are medical ethics, there are all kinds of ethical subjects, but as a human being you don't really need that at all because you know that for yourself. And that thorough penetration of the ethics of mankind, that should join intelligence. Or rather, the intellect that is morality-free. That sounds wonderful of course, but it isn't at all, there has to be a next step, that what we can achieve with science, that it becomes spiritualised. Now I have written about this in all kinds of forms and also given seminars and lectures about it and it is generally considered to be something quite complicated, while in fact it is something very simple, but because it is something spiritual, it is very difficult to put it into simple words. But of course there is an area where we as Europeans could become an example for the rest of the world, where we could do that, namely the spiritualisation of culture, without it becoming so complicated and that would be the way that first of all we would try to become aware in ourselves that we are a conscientious person, that we are a spiritual being, not just a nature being. But secondly, try to look at your fellow man in this way. If you were to look at your fellow human being and not only see his shoes and the colour of his shirt or the fabric of her dress or the colour of her hair or the eyes, you name it, whatever you like to see, but you would focus more on what someone reveals from the inner self and you would make an effort to attach a great deal of value to that, then a very strong spiritualisation of culture would already come about. You would not just look at your fellow man as a natural phenomenon. But you would be inflamed with an interest in who the other really is. And I can say that from my youth, I think it must have been puberty, I have always had a very strong desire to understand: what is really going on in my fellow man? Not in general, not as a social movement or philosophical interest or anything like that. No, that one human being, individually, what is he actually doing? Where does he find his happiness, her happiness? Where does she find her satisfaction, where do her interests lie? What is the suffering, what could you do together to seek more happiness? Well, that's what I meant with my sermon, that I would like to call on the European to forget all that nonsense about being taught from outside how to behave. And that you should transform that, not gradually, but right away into an interest in the inner compassion of your fellow man. Because every human being has an inner movement. And this is individual. And it is usually very moral. You may not always see it, you may be annoyed, you may think that people are stupid and say stupid things, and that they could do a lot better, like you do, but the moral character of your fellow man is generally very high. And you can learn a lot from that, when you see what principles someone else uses. Not so much what he expresses, because that's not it, but what does someone live? How does someone live. You can also get to know someone who says: Well I don't believe in anything. But then it turns out that she is extremely conscientious, very conscientious in her work. Everything is aimed at what you as a customer like. Then you know that the statement 'I don't believe in anything' is not really thought through at all, but that someone like that is actually a very deeply moral person. And a deeply moral person does not need to believe, a moral person is rooted with the soul in the Divine, as it were. Because where else would you get your moral conscience from? So I had the impulse, after having spoken twice about the East, to speak today about the centre, and about that complex task of the spiritualisation of intelligence in a form close to us, namely in becoming aware of the fullness of conscience of your fellow human being and allowing yourself to be permeated with the feeling: every human being is a being permeated with morality, with ethics, who may and even must make use of that from free insight.