107 GUIDE COMMENT: Greetings, my dearest, dearest friends. God bless you. Blessed is this hour. When I offer you blessings, what do these words mean to you? Do you hear them perhaps as mere words without meaning, without reality? Blessings have a very definite reality, my friends. If you were but free, really free of all your barriers, all the layers that prevent you from feeling, from living, and from experiencing life to the fullest, these blessings would be a reality for you.
You would feel the actual stream, the current of love that flows to each and every one of you from a world of light and freedom, from a world of harmony and truth, a world of love. But this stream of love is often unable to reach and penetrate you. You may not perceive and experience it because the senses that are destined for such perceptions are dulled by your fears, shame and urgent wishes, and by your defenses, all of them are based on error, confusion and misconception.
109 QUESTION: We had a discussion about blessings. We need your help to understand. What are blessings?
ANSWER: The easiest way to explain this in human terms would be to choose the word “wish” – a strong, sincere wish. This is much more than you can, at the moment, see. Imagine that you have a very strong wish that is absolutely unhampered by selfish motives, by ambiguous, confused, contradictory emotions, by uncertainty or fear, or the slightest gnawing feeling of real or false guilt. The wish is a clear stream without the slightest selfishness. Such a wish is a blessing.
Such a crystal-clear strength, undiluted, unconfused, unsplit – that is a blessing. If a human being were capable of expressing a wish for someone else in that way, the power and strength this wish would have for a person who is only remotely open to receive it, is something that defies your imagination. Human beings can have such wishes, and therefore give blessings, only by degrees. The receiver too may only be able to accept the blessing in parts of his or her being, while other areas are blocked off.
Obstructions and misconceptions create a wall. But wherever walls do not exist, such a wish affects the person and works in the psyche. Extending such wishes, as much as one can, is, as you know, one form of prayer. But with beings who are no longer involved with the heaviness of earth matter, the wishes are more likely to have pure strength and, if accepted, if they reach their destination, they can be utilized for further propagation of love.
QUESTION: Isn’t a wish self-will?
ANSWER: Not necessarily.
QUESTION: How does this combine with giving up your wish to the will of God?
ANSWER: If you wish something purely loving and unselfish, it is the will of God. To want to do the will of God must be your wish. Like with so much else, it depends on the how, why and what of the motives. This alone determines its value or lack of it. Nothing in itself is good or bad, as I have said so often. Why should a wish in itself be something bad? You must wish to be truthful with yourself. You must wish to love.
Or you might wish something destructive. People often stumble over terminology. There may be a certain group of people who take a word and claim it means just a certain thing. And then, of course, if this word is used in another way, misunderstanding occurs. We are not concerned with that. Think rather of the essence and meaning of the term. Think of wishing in its constructive manifestations, then you will see that it is not necessarily self-will.
QUESTION: Do you mean, if the wish is fulfilled, it is a blessing?
ANSWER: No. I said that if you have a crystal-clear wish for someone else, that is a blessing. Whether or not it is fulfilled is another matter.
QUESTION: And if there is fear behind the wish that it will not be fulfilled?
ANSWER: Then it is not a blessing. A blessing is a pure wish. It is an active current of energy. Fear denotes selfishness. Wishes are energy currents. The wish of a human being in a state of conflict is counteracted by a contrary feeling which makes the energy current weak. But if the energy current goes in one direction, or predominantly in one direction, then the wish is strong.
QUESTION: In our discussion, the question came up about the blessing given to Jacob and not Esau. Is it possible to convey a blessing to someone who is not ready to receive it?
ANSWER: It depends on the strength. There are different kinds of blessings. Occasionally the blessings of high beings with a corresponding spiritual development have such a tremendous vibration that they may be able to penetrate psychological walls. Such a penetration may then have the effect that the person will pull himself together and do that which is necessary to diminish these walls.
Blessings of lesser strength and lesser vibration may not be capable of penetrating a fort, but might be able to penetrate paper-thin walls. Then it is a question of what the individual does with this impact of strength, with the result of the blessings. It may happen quite often that a person indeed receives the blessings which he experiences as a wonderful feeling of peace, of hope, and of joy.
But after the impact is over and the effect has worn off, he goes right back into his rut. He does not use the blessings in the right way. The world is filled with the thoughts and wishes of others. Cross-currents go on constantly, not only among people, but also between them and beings of other worlds.
When you have a day in which you are in a wonderful mood, you may then have received, unbeknownst, such currents of love, such blessings or pure wishes. It is up to you whether you will use this influx or go back and again find yourself in bleakness, waiting for life or for blessings to carry you. Blessings can be given occasionally. All this goes according to certain rhythmic laws in the universe. But in the final analysis, it is you who have to pull yourself out of the darkness.