June 2nd, 1916
Yes, it's me, your Sigwart.
Today I want to tell you about how the decisive developmental phases went for me this year. It is a difficult description, to be sure; but I believe you will get the proper feeling for it, and that is better than brooding in a state of uncertainty.
At first, in June, everything was an enigma to me. I lived a kind of dream life, interrupted by waking moments. I felt myself constantly surrounded by all of you, as if nothing had changed. Sometimes I couldn't comprehend what had happened with you; I was often so cheerful, but you remained mute. Then came the burial service at home, and only then did it become clear to me that it was all about me, but it was still difficult for me exactly to know what had happened with me.
When the moment occurred at which I knew everything, I felt for the first time all your love and mourning, combined with uplifting sensations of heaven. Then I began to dream again, and yet I was participating in everything, but without being separated from you for a moment. I sometimes was afraid that you could abandon me, if even for brief moments. I only wanted to see you cheerful, and went to great lengths to convince you that I was happy and that you should be, as well.
One time, for example, you were lying on the lawn and I was right in your midst. You were talking so somberly about all kinds of things that seemed improbable to me. But then suddenly one of you made a joke. Overjoyed, I jumped up and called out to you: “Stay like that, keep laughing, you have no idea how happy that makes me.”
You seemed to hear it, because you went on laughing, and so we remained cheerful for a while, until once more something came between us and you gradually became somber and depressed again, and the unrest was able to get hold of me once more.
Thus the initial time was divided between brief waking moments and a dream-world, which naturally seemed to me like a state of waking, since I went on living in it like on earth.
This dream state was now gradually transformed into a waking consciousness, but that happened so gradually that I didn't notice any of the transitions. Those were the first days of July (four or five weeks after Sigwart's death). Slowly I perceived how something took place inside you that caused me moments of infinite happiness. I felt how something streamed forth from you, the origin of which was your love for me, and how it grew and grew.
Then one day the knowledge awoke in me that this force could become the foundation for something very big. From this moment on, everything was very clear inside me. I knew everything, understood everything, and had become completely tranquil.
It was in you that I found the enormous help. This force carried me on wings over all the longings and the depths that one normally has to go through. They were spared me through you, our work together, and the growth of the harmonious oscillation of the loftiest feelings of love.
That was the immense help about which I've spoken so often already. In this way, you gave me everything you bore within you in the way of pure, exalted feelings. That made me so rich.
Now there came the time when I so infinitely wished I could communicate with you. I found in you, sister, the first fertile ground. What an indescribable elation to have been understood by you! And yet from then on my struggle for your faith in me began, for your belief in my identity. Yes, that was often very, very hard, because I often completely lost heart in saying the same thing to you over and over again: “Just believe in me! It's me talking, your Sigwart!” How happy I am that I didn't give up trying to convince you, to talk you into it, because then I was rewarded: in the end, you believed!
I now had everything I could ask for. Since nothing pulled me back into the old earthly sphere, I could now become creative again myself. And that was the most wonderful surprise, on top of all the happiness. To create again! And using what material! Oh how easy and at the same time hard that was for me at the beginning. It was all so new! If you hadn't given me the strength for it through your love as you did, I would never have accomplished it so fast.
Everything developed according to the laws then, but I always felt this enormous strength that stood by my side and made everything easier the more it grew, so that I always passed through the spheres as if enveloped in a cloud of light. You took much pain and suffering from me, only you could help me to this extent. Nor could baleful things reach me; I was armored by your thoughts of love.
It is in just this regard that the physically deceased are in such a wretched state, because with very few exceptions they must suffer infinitely at the hands of the uncomprehending pain of those who survive them. This pain grows to gigantic proportion and torments a poor spirit constantly. He is utterly swamped by it; everything gets to him; every thought engulfs him like a dense black cloud in which he ultimately threatens to suffocate.
Do you understand now just what deeds of love you did for me! Do you understand how much easier I've been able to develop here!
Now my path continued. Since with your help I easily overcame so much where others must travail for a long time, I took in more than I actually needed, helped wherever I could, and oftentimes even renounced my own creative activity. In this way I wanted to give of myself, having constantly received so much from you. I was thereby able to shed all my denser garments more quickly than others.
Now came the great day when my masters decided I may continue passing on communications to you from my present world. And now something took place you can know nothing about: a new mode of our interaction. From then on it was an “exceptional case” – which up to then it had not been!
How our connection evolves in the future depends on you alone. If you continue to develop as you have to date, you can rest assured that great things are in store for you. More and more you will find peace inside you, until you are completely surrounded by the purest atmosphere. Then the hour will be at hand for you, too, when dying means nothing more than conscious transformation to new life.
That will be our goal: to perceive the true course of events. You still need to develop on earth far enough that dying becomes easier for you than living. For living is dying, whereas dying is life.
Then came the time of “immersion”. This was full and rich for me, because even then I knew its intended purpose; I felt it and was fully aware that something new would develop out of this phase. This new thing was my entry into the first space of the heavenly world. There I remained for a lengthy period and was surrounded by the most wondrous and ever-changing pictures. I penetrated this space ever deeper until it became clear to me: there is something else, something higher you need to strive for. I directed my whole striving toward exploring and attaining this. How grateful I was to my master, who had once said to me: “Never tarry, for there is always something higher for you to strive after.” I am deeply indebted to him for these words, which occasioned me never to dwell in the blissful turmoil of ever-new splendor. Enjoy, appreciate I might and did; but only briefly, because I always knew: now you've had enough, now onward to new goals.
Thus I sojourned through the many spaces, always feeling more strongly what was yet to come, until today I stand before the last door, full of elation, full of hope, surrounded by the heavenly aura which, emanating from it, even now bathes everything in bliss.
This is the level at which I stand today, on the day of remembrance!
Today, one year later, I celebrate my entry into the highest sphere one can attain between death and rebirth. What a joy to be able to proclaim this happy news to you on just this day, this good fortune, which I owe in large part to you all. You should rejoice, because it is a festival of elation. You must celebrate my entry along with me, because you have always shared joy and pain with me. I would have to mourn if you did not rejoice with me this day. You have struggled courageously through it all for the sake of making life here easier for me. For just these few more hours stand by me without pain. All of us holding each others’ loving hands, we stand together in front of the holy door. If it is I who step through it, it is in unity with all of you, because I can be with you at any and all times. You need to know that my heart's slightest desire is enough for me to be with you.
If the space between us should become ever so huge, we are not separated. That would only have been the case if you hadn't gone with me.
Hence I enclose myself once more fervently within your circle, bless each single one of you, and promise you eternal faithfulness.
May gods gaze down on us this day – if they do, they will spread their hands in blessing over so much love.
Hail the day my soul was permitted slowly to spread its wings once again in the glow of dawn!
Hail the life that blossomed forth only through dying!
June 7th – 11th, 1916
It is I, Sigwart, talking, and I want to report great things to you about the new world I have entered.
Light, everything pure light!
I am passing through the world of the stars, I have the solar systems in full view. I understand becoming and passing away, the cosmos with its millions of levels of development. I keep silence when all this takes place before me.
I am completely I!
No longer tainted by disruptive levels of thought, already separated from me and only faintly to be felt, still closely surround me nevertheless. Within the light, free, with uplifted head I stand here! The last veils have withdrawn from before my eyes. Seeing! This seeing is at the same time the sublimest feeling, and in my feeling I can hear. This hearing shows me a world in whose silence heavenly enjoyment lies.
From now on, everything I see, hear, feel is perceived by one single organ whose origin was love and which now in this heavenly world I once again sense as one.
What I have felt in the way of bliss in these short days cannot be put into words, because I live it in full consciousness!
Every star that was once a riddle to me now lies open before me, and I can interpret its origin, the course of its life and its being – everything! Nothing is foreign to me any longer!
It is not yet possible for me to gaze on the exalted gods. Their world lies enshrouded before me in clouds of light whose shine is all that speaks to me of their nearness!
Is this not fulfillment of the highest life, spread out at my feet in a thousand colors, true and pure? And you too have received your part, since in the days of recollection you held me in your thoughts magnanimously and without indulging in pain. The entry here is free, free for your longing for the highest, free for all your thoughts hastening to me in love.
This is happiness. Through it a bond is stretching slowly from you to me. You pass through walls you otherwise could only walk around – and with much effort – to the entry gates.
The connecting chain is forged, unrendable.
This is what you have accomplished, all of you who followed me so faithfully. This is your reward.
What has been woven cannot be rent asunder anymore. Oh, how easy your dying will be, now that you have paved the way here for this heaven. Rejoice, because you have put off from you everything that chains you to the earth below.
Hail to the life whose path you trod, hail to the blessing whose origin was dying – the death of my earthly garment. And so I close today full of bliss in my heart, full of happiness and gratitude.
You must feel that I now am fully the very Sigwart whom you created in your thoughts, free in this heavenly world, next to you, in you, and connected with you
always and forever.
June 11th, 1916
I, Sigwart, am with you again. Come with me into the heights of my heaven and follow me in thought while I continue with my account of this place.
The nature of so-called Devachan or the higher sphere of heaven, as we will refer to it, consists chiefly of the harmonious rest arising from tranquil, regular feelings and sensations. That is the first so wonderfully beneficial feeling one has here. There is no longer anything flowing counter to anything else, no streams that are only half, no longer any thoughts seeking to incarnate for any number of purposes, as one has often experienced and sensed as great unrest. Infinitely beneficial is the sudden silence in the midst of the millions of currents, the plays of color, the sounds, thoughts, all of which flow each into the others in utter harmony.
This is a state of sublimest bliss. Never a disturbing thought, never anything disharmonious – simply indescribable!
I also no longer feel any pain of any kind. Once one has reached this heaven, all that has been overcome. Thus, from now on you damage only yourselves if you devote yourselves to painful thoughts concerning past events which no longer ought to play any kind of role in your lives. Consider that.
Now I have continued my research and passed through cosmic space the way a bird hovers through the forests, ever seeing and experiencing new things. After periods of a certain length, I was always drawn back to the place of entry from where my wanderings had begun.
Everything runs its course in a remarkably regulated way. Never the slightest shift in the immense thought fluids that are the main perceptions in Devachan. These are gigantic streams with the intensity of a brightly burning fire, which however flows past one in soft, apportioned curves. “Thoughts of God” are what these streams are. One can immerse oneself in them, but one’s own personality goes lost too much in the process, the intoxication is too great and the force too powerful to be able to comprehend everything with one’s consciousness while thus immersed.
I have not yet given myself over to them to that extent. I first wanted to investigate and behold everything else in a fully awake state of consciousness. I want to find myself again fully, piece by piece, as I always was and really am, stripped of everything physical and astral, spirit only! Then I will be so consolidated that even the most powerful current could no longer hinder me from consciously perceiving. I want to and will attain this state.
Please understand me correctly: to find myself again, I do not first have to have reached a higher level; rather, I only need to look back through the whole long series of earthly incarnations, in which I always lost small pieces of myself, leaving them behind in the universe. They are particles of my primeval I, which I do not have to regain, but which will make me larger when I fuse them together with my primal I.
I am and always remain your Sigwart
June 12th, 1916
Today I would like to tell you about the heavenly beings whose living place this is. Let’s call them half-gods. These are very highly developed entities who have never been incarnated on earth, but rather have already undergone their physical development on another planet. “Devas” is the Indian expression used for them, which might be the most current to you.
Now it is becoming more and more difficult for me to explain everything to you exactly because, as I have said before, there are certain things that cannot be clothed in words, being as there are neither words nor designations of any kind for them. Here, one feels, sees and understands everything. But I want to try my best for you to get as precise a picture of this place as you can.
Today I will speak only of the nature of these Devas. They have precise jobs to perform and must always have accomplished their task within a certain amount of time. They monitor this Devachanic heavenly world, as it were. It is up to them whether one is granted admission here or not. They have an overview of the spirits and know immediately to what degree they are mature in a Devachanic sense. Here they are placed above everything; even the masters who are our teachers are placed beneath them, because they still wore a physical garment not too long ago. You must mind all of this exactly, if you want to understand the rest of what I have to say.
You are tired now, but you can call me to continue dictating to you when you have perfect tranquility.
With my full love, Sigwart
June 13th, 1916
It is I, Sigwart, speaking!
What I said yesterday was only the beginning of the description of the Devas, who hold sway here. There are seven of them, and these “seven” in turn all have different groups beneath them. The latter we call – how shall I put it? – the “serving Devas”, whereas the higher ones are the guiding ones. These “servers” are indescribably benevolent and want only to help those in need of help or of some kind of guidance in doing the Good. In addition, they also serve the seven Exalted Ones. The latter are much stricter, because they are deities on whom the full burden rests, and because they inaugurate all the laws and are not permitted to make any exceptions. They are the leaders of earth evolution. They in turn are subject to something higher still, but I am unable to talk about this.
I have not seen these seven Exalted Ones either, only the many serving Devas, of whom there are indeed a great many. It gives me joy to encounter their loving, holy, self-sacrificing being. They are also the ones who sweeten the sleep of the unconscious, that is, yet sleeping people here by means of wonderful pageants, which these slumberers only perceive as beautiful dreams. When I first heard about these exalted beings, I thought they were the lofty archangels about whom so much is said, but that is not what they are. The archangels are different entities still, but I can give you no account of them.
I have now also begun to enjoy silence. Everything I sought I have now found already, and now I am armed against even the mightiest river of bliss! I now feel absolutely tranquil, without the slightest urge to work on or even to accomplish anything. No, the sublimest blissful being has now begun for me. I am letting everything reach me as it wants to, and if the great river should rush by me again, I will call to it: “River of love, take me with you, today I am coming with you, today I want to immerse myself into your holy waves, because today I am utterly restored in my strength, I, Sigwart! Today I am allowed to devote myself to you entirely, you stream of God’s, you mighty, splendid river!”
So now I am standing here and waiting, prepared to receive everything. I will submerge myself completely and give myself over to the highest, most magnificent sensation.
My dear ones! How much I can be to you now, and how much easier it is for me to make you feel me, because now I no longer need any help. I now dispose over myself. Please understand me rightly: I still have my masters, as formerly; but my power and my freedom are now greater.
And to conclude I must now transmit a message to you, which you will probably hardly understand, but it will be of much use to you all the same.
So listen:
It came and it stayed, lastingly, eternally. In springtime it withered, but in the autumn it blossomed forth. Colorful in a thousand blossoms, it laid its love in your lap. Splendidly powerful existence, You are a thousand times greater, and the wings of transience broke asunder in the face of the light. You enkindler of everything, You life in everything, You Who Yourself are love, becoming, lasting. Yes, thus You call God to me and through your word bestow on me the grandeur of time – it is eternity.
How I do love all of you, how near I am to you, despite the distance. How beautiful and splendid everything has become, around you and in you. May God continue to be gracious to you.
Your Sigwart, as he was and is.
June 15th, 1916
Now I want to go on with what I was telling you. Yesterday we spoke about the serving Devas. Today we want to talk about the other inhabitants of this world.
There are many of them, yes, so many that I would be hard put to name an actual number. But they are chiefly the human beings spending their time here between death and rebirth. The Devachan period is the longest, on the average, and it is beautifully set up in such a way that precisely this heavenly world is the place where we human beings are permitted to stay the longest. It is the “rest”, as it were. Is there anything more beautiful after a long sojourn full of doing without and with disappointments?! Resting after life on earth is this heaven! Only here does one first see just how arduous the earthly path is. This resting is particularly enjoyable because one still bears the sorrows and worries of the past within oneself, not as a burden but as a mere image. You need to know that, so that you can look forward to this resting together with me, who can now be much more united with you, because for me no barriers exist between us any longer. In the beginning it was similar, and yet it was different, because I was still a very weak spirit. But now I am strong and full of the knowledge I have attained. Isn’t that a difference between now and then? In the interim lay the many trials and the times when I wasn’t allowed to say anything and was often quite withdrawn from you. Since my entry here, though, our connection is closer, stabler, more fervent than ever before. You can’t assess that, but I see it, and what I say you must believe. Maybe sometime during your time on earth the veils concealing me from you will also fall from your eyes. But I’m not allowed to say anything about this; everything must come from inside you yourselves.
I am yours inalterably,
Sigwart
June 23rd, 1916
Now you are enveloped in quiet, my dear ones, so I want to go on telling you:
There is no day here, no night, only blissful enjoying, but in this enjoying there is an eternal activity. Not the activity of people who plague themselves, and not the activity of beings under exertion (including people after physical death). It is much rather an activity that is filled with nothing but joy, since it is linked with any kind of difficulty or complicatedness. Oh, that is so wonderful! One is lord over one’s own deeds and the realm of one’s own thoughts; one derives from one’s own highest inwardness what one can only now take in, in its full abundance.
One is God oneself! Do you feel what I mean? All that is sublime, all that is beautiful streams toward one, and everything one carries within oneself in the way of the most exalted sensations rays out into the surrounding world. Thus one hovers in one’s world, in one’s heaven, in which one feels oneself to be “in God”.
Also, the small thread necessary for the descent into a new earth existence stirs ever so softly from time to time.
I am united with you at all times, almost each hour even, whereas earlier I first had to break through many layers. That is likely the most beautiful thing about this heavenly world, that one is always immediately united with one’s loved ones if even the very slightest wish stirs; whether they are on earth or anywhere else makes no difference.
Here everything is fulfillment! This is the heaven where we once will enjoy the most sublime happiness together. This is the realm of bliss, which ought always to hover before your eyes, should the darkness of the earth ever threaten to crush you. Think of this heaven then. Then worry will withdraw, and your eyes will look thorough the grey into the light that is also your homeland.
June 28th, 1916
I, Sigwart, am speaking.
Today I want to talk about the different levels of development in this heavenly world. There are far fewer here than in the astral world, because what is above the Devas does not belong here. Here the Devas are what we feel to be the highest beings.
Beneath the Devas there are different states or levels of development. The lowest level of development is that of the human beings who are asleep here. These are the ones who on earth always lived their passions.
On the next level are those who on earth may have been great, but were small in spirit. These beings also spend most of their Devachan time asleep.
Then come the semi-awake ones. These are much further developed, but still not mature enough to experience everything in a conscious state.
Probably the largest amount of people here are on this semi-level.
Then come the more mature ones, who strove on earth to find the spiritual, but are not yet liberated from its many false concepts.
Then come the ones who are further along because of their previous earthly lives. These beings are conscious, and are the ones who also form my environment here. As I’ve told you before, I live fully and in full consciousness in this heavenly world.
Following these are the very highly developed human beings endowed with all sorts of powers, who command everything, who if they want to can descend back to earth – even visible to human eyes. These are the teachers and masters. For these beings there is no longer any law – no law of change. They are what they will themselves to be, they are in the sphere they will to be in, everything is possible for them, effortlessly. These are our helpers, our beneficent masters.
Finally, there are other entities, who have never been on the physical earth, starting with the serving Devas and ending in a world unknown to me.
Now I hope I have given you a clear picture of the inhabitants of this place. Tomorrow I will tell you how the different life paths are distributed.
All yours, Sigwart
June 29th, 1916
I want to go right on telling you; I, Sigwart, am speaking:
What paths in life one treads here, what work one performs here, depends entirely on what a person wished for, thought and did in his previous earthly life.
The idealist will always find the heaven here that he so ardently wished for.
For the earnest researcher or brooder there is such a rich world full of new things that the investigation of them will make him very happy.
The skeptic, however, provided he is ready to enter here, will not let himself be deceived by anything here in Devachan, either; but he sees and therefore he must also believe. Through this seeing he now finds fulfillment, because on earth he was only looking for the one thing, which he couldn’t find. No matter how high his moral standing on earth was, only this world will convince him of immortality. Oftentimes a skeptic can pass through the entire astral world and still not believe. But if he has a truly good kernel, he will find his way into this heaven after a certain time; and here, then, everything will become clear to him. How great is his bliss then, for he feels immediately: this alone is happiness, this alone is truth and life. How dark my path was up to this moment! But these souls do not have it easy. They need a lot more time. A swift development depends on faith, after all.
Now about my creative activity, which is pure bliss. I carry on creating, just like everyone does who lives consciously here, because every thought is at the same time also creation. If I imagine something that I want to compose, for instance, all the tones are already there, whether united or alone, exactly the way I anticipate them in my hearing. The most beautiful melodies that I want to create and first only hear in my thoughts already have been created through this wish and this hearing in thought. They have now become a piece of me. Thus I live in my art and in the realm which is my tones.
Do you comprehend now how I live here in the world of tones, which I create without the effort of creating; how I constantly fill myself with bliss over the wonderful effect of merely-thought sounds? The chords resonate with hundreds of tones, so that I am utterly dissolved in the bliss of my activity. I am eternally creating something new, and what I have once created this way will never disappear. Everything I have created here remains in all eternity – hence for you, as well! How happy it will make you once you open the gates and the flood of sounds pours trembling into your hearts!
Yes, it's me, your Sigwart.
Today I want to tell you about how the decisive developmental phases went for me this year. It is a difficult description, to be sure; but I believe you will get the proper feeling for it, and that is better than brooding in a state of uncertainty.
At first, in June, everything was an enigma to me. I lived a kind of dream life, interrupted by waking moments. I felt myself constantly surrounded by all of you, as if nothing had changed. Sometimes I couldn't comprehend what had happened with you; I was often so cheerful, but you remained mute. Then came the burial service at home, and only then did it become clear to me that it was all about me, but it was still difficult for me exactly to know what had happened with me.
When the moment occurred at which I knew everything, I felt for the first time all your love and mourning, combined with uplifting sensations of heaven. Then I began to dream again, and yet I was participating in everything, but without being separated from you for a moment. I sometimes was afraid that you could abandon me, if even for brief moments. I only wanted to see you cheerful, and went to great lengths to convince you that I was happy and that you should be, as well.
One time, for example, you were lying on the lawn and I was right in your midst. You were talking so somberly about all kinds of things that seemed improbable to me. But then suddenly one of you made a joke. Overjoyed, I jumped up and called out to you: “Stay like that, keep laughing, you have no idea how happy that makes me.”
You seemed to hear it, because you went on laughing, and so we remained cheerful for a while, until once more something came between us and you gradually became somber and depressed again, and the unrest was able to get hold of me once more.
Thus the initial time was divided between brief waking moments and a dream-world, which naturally seemed to me like a state of waking, since I went on living in it like on earth.
This dream state was now gradually transformed into a waking consciousness, but that happened so gradually that I didn't notice any of the transitions. Those were the first days of July (four or five weeks after Sigwart's death). Slowly I perceived how something took place inside you that caused me moments of infinite happiness. I felt how something streamed forth from you, the origin of which was your love for me, and how it grew and grew.
Then one day the knowledge awoke in me that this force could become the foundation for something very big. From this moment on, everything was very clear inside me. I knew everything, understood everything, and had become completely tranquil.
It was in you that I found the enormous help. This force carried me on wings over all the longings and the depths that one normally has to go through. They were spared me through you, our work together, and the growth of the harmonious oscillation of the loftiest feelings of love.
That was the immense help about which I've spoken so often already. In this way, you gave me everything you bore within you in the way of pure, exalted feelings. That made me so rich.
Now there came the time when I so infinitely wished I could communicate with you. I found in you, sister, the first fertile ground. What an indescribable elation to have been understood by you! And yet from then on my struggle for your faith in me began, for your belief in my identity. Yes, that was often very, very hard, because I often completely lost heart in saying the same thing to you over and over again: “Just believe in me! It's me talking, your Sigwart!” How happy I am that I didn't give up trying to convince you, to talk you into it, because then I was rewarded: in the end, you believed!
I now had everything I could ask for. Since nothing pulled me back into the old earthly sphere, I could now become creative again myself. And that was the most wonderful surprise, on top of all the happiness. To create again! And using what material! Oh how easy and at the same time hard that was for me at the beginning. It was all so new! If you hadn't given me the strength for it through your love as you did, I would never have accomplished it so fast.
Everything developed according to the laws then, but I always felt this enormous strength that stood by my side and made everything easier the more it grew, so that I always passed through the spheres as if enveloped in a cloud of light. You took much pain and suffering from me, only you could help me to this extent. Nor could baleful things reach me; I was armored by your thoughts of love.
It is in just this regard that the physically deceased are in such a wretched state, because with very few exceptions they must suffer infinitely at the hands of the uncomprehending pain of those who survive them. This pain grows to gigantic proportion and torments a poor spirit constantly. He is utterly swamped by it; everything gets to him; every thought engulfs him like a dense black cloud in which he ultimately threatens to suffocate.
Do you understand now just what deeds of love you did for me! Do you understand how much easier I've been able to develop here!
Now my path continued. Since with your help I easily overcame so much where others must travail for a long time, I took in more than I actually needed, helped wherever I could, and oftentimes even renounced my own creative activity. In this way I wanted to give of myself, having constantly received so much from you. I was thereby able to shed all my denser garments more quickly than others.
Now came the great day when my masters decided I may continue passing on communications to you from my present world. And now something took place you can know nothing about: a new mode of our interaction. From then on it was an “exceptional case” – which up to then it had not been!
How our connection evolves in the future depends on you alone. If you continue to develop as you have to date, you can rest assured that great things are in store for you. More and more you will find peace inside you, until you are completely surrounded by the purest atmosphere. Then the hour will be at hand for you, too, when dying means nothing more than conscious transformation to new life.
That will be our goal: to perceive the true course of events. You still need to develop on earth far enough that dying becomes easier for you than living. For living is dying, whereas dying is life.
Then came the time of “immersion”. This was full and rich for me, because even then I knew its intended purpose; I felt it and was fully aware that something new would develop out of this phase. This new thing was my entry into the first space of the heavenly world. There I remained for a lengthy period and was surrounded by the most wondrous and ever-changing pictures. I penetrated this space ever deeper until it became clear to me: there is something else, something higher you need to strive for. I directed my whole striving toward exploring and attaining this. How grateful I was to my master, who had once said to me: “Never tarry, for there is always something higher for you to strive after.” I am deeply indebted to him for these words, which occasioned me never to dwell in the blissful turmoil of ever-new splendor. Enjoy, appreciate I might and did; but only briefly, because I always knew: now you've had enough, now onward to new goals.
Thus I sojourned through the many spaces, always feeling more strongly what was yet to come, until today I stand before the last door, full of elation, full of hope, surrounded by the heavenly aura which, emanating from it, even now bathes everything in bliss.
This is the level at which I stand today, on the day of remembrance!
Today, one year later, I celebrate my entry into the highest sphere one can attain between death and rebirth. What a joy to be able to proclaim this happy news to you on just this day, this good fortune, which I owe in large part to you all. You should rejoice, because it is a festival of elation. You must celebrate my entry along with me, because you have always shared joy and pain with me. I would have to mourn if you did not rejoice with me this day. You have struggled courageously through it all for the sake of making life here easier for me. For just these few more hours stand by me without pain. All of us holding each others’ loving hands, we stand together in front of the holy door. If it is I who step through it, it is in unity with all of you, because I can be with you at any and all times. You need to know that my heart's slightest desire is enough for me to be with you.
If the space between us should become ever so huge, we are not separated. That would only have been the case if you hadn't gone with me.
Hence I enclose myself once more fervently within your circle, bless each single one of you, and promise you eternal faithfulness.
May gods gaze down on us this day – if they do, they will spread their hands in blessing over so much love.
Hail the day my soul was permitted slowly to spread its wings once again in the glow of dawn!
Hail the life that blossomed forth only through dying!
June 7th – 11th, 1916
It is I, Sigwart, talking, and I want to report great things to you about the new world I have entered.
Light, everything pure light!
I am passing through the world of the stars, I have the solar systems in full view. I understand becoming and passing away, the cosmos with its millions of levels of development. I keep silence when all this takes place before me.
I am completely I!
No longer tainted by disruptive levels of thought, already separated from me and only faintly to be felt, still closely surround me nevertheless. Within the light, free, with uplifted head I stand here! The last veils have withdrawn from before my eyes. Seeing! This seeing is at the same time the sublimest feeling, and in my feeling I can hear. This hearing shows me a world in whose silence heavenly enjoyment lies.
From now on, everything I see, hear, feel is perceived by one single organ whose origin was love and which now in this heavenly world I once again sense as one.
What I have felt in the way of bliss in these short days cannot be put into words, because I live it in full consciousness!
Every star that was once a riddle to me now lies open before me, and I can interpret its origin, the course of its life and its being – everything! Nothing is foreign to me any longer!
It is not yet possible for me to gaze on the exalted gods. Their world lies enshrouded before me in clouds of light whose shine is all that speaks to me of their nearness!
Is this not fulfillment of the highest life, spread out at my feet in a thousand colors, true and pure? And you too have received your part, since in the days of recollection you held me in your thoughts magnanimously and without indulging in pain. The entry here is free, free for your longing for the highest, free for all your thoughts hastening to me in love.
This is happiness. Through it a bond is stretching slowly from you to me. You pass through walls you otherwise could only walk around – and with much effort – to the entry gates.
The connecting chain is forged, unrendable.
This is what you have accomplished, all of you who followed me so faithfully. This is your reward.
What has been woven cannot be rent asunder anymore. Oh, how easy your dying will be, now that you have paved the way here for this heaven. Rejoice, because you have put off from you everything that chains you to the earth below.
Hail to the life whose path you trod, hail to the blessing whose origin was dying – the death of my earthly garment. And so I close today full of bliss in my heart, full of happiness and gratitude.
You must feel that I now am fully the very Sigwart whom you created in your thoughts, free in this heavenly world, next to you, in you, and connected with you
always and forever.
June 11th, 1916
I, Sigwart, am with you again. Come with me into the heights of my heaven and follow me in thought while I continue with my account of this place.
The nature of so-called Devachan or the higher sphere of heaven, as we will refer to it, consists chiefly of the harmonious rest arising from tranquil, regular feelings and sensations. That is the first so wonderfully beneficial feeling one has here. There is no longer anything flowing counter to anything else, no streams that are only half, no longer any thoughts seeking to incarnate for any number of purposes, as one has often experienced and sensed as great unrest. Infinitely beneficial is the sudden silence in the midst of the millions of currents, the plays of color, the sounds, thoughts, all of which flow each into the others in utter harmony.
This is a state of sublimest bliss. Never a disturbing thought, never anything disharmonious – simply indescribable!
I also no longer feel any pain of any kind. Once one has reached this heaven, all that has been overcome. Thus, from now on you damage only yourselves if you devote yourselves to painful thoughts concerning past events which no longer ought to play any kind of role in your lives. Consider that.
Now I have continued my research and passed through cosmic space the way a bird hovers through the forests, ever seeing and experiencing new things. After periods of a certain length, I was always drawn back to the place of entry from where my wanderings had begun.
Everything runs its course in a remarkably regulated way. Never the slightest shift in the immense thought fluids that are the main perceptions in Devachan. These are gigantic streams with the intensity of a brightly burning fire, which however flows past one in soft, apportioned curves. “Thoughts of God” are what these streams are. One can immerse oneself in them, but one’s own personality goes lost too much in the process, the intoxication is too great and the force too powerful to be able to comprehend everything with one’s consciousness while thus immersed.
I have not yet given myself over to them to that extent. I first wanted to investigate and behold everything else in a fully awake state of consciousness. I want to find myself again fully, piece by piece, as I always was and really am, stripped of everything physical and astral, spirit only! Then I will be so consolidated that even the most powerful current could no longer hinder me from consciously perceiving. I want to and will attain this state.
Please understand me correctly: to find myself again, I do not first have to have reached a higher level; rather, I only need to look back through the whole long series of earthly incarnations, in which I always lost small pieces of myself, leaving them behind in the universe. They are particles of my primeval I, which I do not have to regain, but which will make me larger when I fuse them together with my primal I.
I am and always remain your Sigwart
June 12th, 1916
Today I would like to tell you about the heavenly beings whose living place this is. Let’s call them half-gods. These are very highly developed entities who have never been incarnated on earth, but rather have already undergone their physical development on another planet. “Devas” is the Indian expression used for them, which might be the most current to you.
Now it is becoming more and more difficult for me to explain everything to you exactly because, as I have said before, there are certain things that cannot be clothed in words, being as there are neither words nor designations of any kind for them. Here, one feels, sees and understands everything. But I want to try my best for you to get as precise a picture of this place as you can.
Today I will speak only of the nature of these Devas. They have precise jobs to perform and must always have accomplished their task within a certain amount of time. They monitor this Devachanic heavenly world, as it were. It is up to them whether one is granted admission here or not. They have an overview of the spirits and know immediately to what degree they are mature in a Devachanic sense. Here they are placed above everything; even the masters who are our teachers are placed beneath them, because they still wore a physical garment not too long ago. You must mind all of this exactly, if you want to understand the rest of what I have to say.
You are tired now, but you can call me to continue dictating to you when you have perfect tranquility.
With my full love, Sigwart
June 13th, 1916
It is I, Sigwart, speaking!
What I said yesterday was only the beginning of the description of the Devas, who hold sway here. There are seven of them, and these “seven” in turn all have different groups beneath them. The latter we call – how shall I put it? – the “serving Devas”, whereas the higher ones are the guiding ones. These “servers” are indescribably benevolent and want only to help those in need of help or of some kind of guidance in doing the Good. In addition, they also serve the seven Exalted Ones. The latter are much stricter, because they are deities on whom the full burden rests, and because they inaugurate all the laws and are not permitted to make any exceptions. They are the leaders of earth evolution. They in turn are subject to something higher still, but I am unable to talk about this.
I have not seen these seven Exalted Ones either, only the many serving Devas, of whom there are indeed a great many. It gives me joy to encounter their loving, holy, self-sacrificing being. They are also the ones who sweeten the sleep of the unconscious, that is, yet sleeping people here by means of wonderful pageants, which these slumberers only perceive as beautiful dreams. When I first heard about these exalted beings, I thought they were the lofty archangels about whom so much is said, but that is not what they are. The archangels are different entities still, but I can give you no account of them.
I have now also begun to enjoy silence. Everything I sought I have now found already, and now I am armed against even the mightiest river of bliss! I now feel absolutely tranquil, without the slightest urge to work on or even to accomplish anything. No, the sublimest blissful being has now begun for me. I am letting everything reach me as it wants to, and if the great river should rush by me again, I will call to it: “River of love, take me with you, today I am coming with you, today I want to immerse myself into your holy waves, because today I am utterly restored in my strength, I, Sigwart! Today I am allowed to devote myself to you entirely, you stream of God’s, you mighty, splendid river!”
So now I am standing here and waiting, prepared to receive everything. I will submerge myself completely and give myself over to the highest, most magnificent sensation.
My dear ones! How much I can be to you now, and how much easier it is for me to make you feel me, because now I no longer need any help. I now dispose over myself. Please understand me rightly: I still have my masters, as formerly; but my power and my freedom are now greater.
And to conclude I must now transmit a message to you, which you will probably hardly understand, but it will be of much use to you all the same.
So listen:
It came and it stayed, lastingly, eternally. In springtime it withered, but in the autumn it blossomed forth. Colorful in a thousand blossoms, it laid its love in your lap. Splendidly powerful existence, You are a thousand times greater, and the wings of transience broke asunder in the face of the light. You enkindler of everything, You life in everything, You Who Yourself are love, becoming, lasting. Yes, thus You call God to me and through your word bestow on me the grandeur of time – it is eternity.
How I do love all of you, how near I am to you, despite the distance. How beautiful and splendid everything has become, around you and in you. May God continue to be gracious to you.
Your Sigwart, as he was and is.
June 15th, 1916
Now I want to go on with what I was telling you. Yesterday we spoke about the serving Devas. Today we want to talk about the other inhabitants of this world.
There are many of them, yes, so many that I would be hard put to name an actual number. But they are chiefly the human beings spending their time here between death and rebirth. The Devachan period is the longest, on the average, and it is beautifully set up in such a way that precisely this heavenly world is the place where we human beings are permitted to stay the longest. It is the “rest”, as it were. Is there anything more beautiful after a long sojourn full of doing without and with disappointments?! Resting after life on earth is this heaven! Only here does one first see just how arduous the earthly path is. This resting is particularly enjoyable because one still bears the sorrows and worries of the past within oneself, not as a burden but as a mere image. You need to know that, so that you can look forward to this resting together with me, who can now be much more united with you, because for me no barriers exist between us any longer. In the beginning it was similar, and yet it was different, because I was still a very weak spirit. But now I am strong and full of the knowledge I have attained. Isn’t that a difference between now and then? In the interim lay the many trials and the times when I wasn’t allowed to say anything and was often quite withdrawn from you. Since my entry here, though, our connection is closer, stabler, more fervent than ever before. You can’t assess that, but I see it, and what I say you must believe. Maybe sometime during your time on earth the veils concealing me from you will also fall from your eyes. But I’m not allowed to say anything about this; everything must come from inside you yourselves.
I am yours inalterably,
Sigwart
June 23rd, 1916
Now you are enveloped in quiet, my dear ones, so I want to go on telling you:
There is no day here, no night, only blissful enjoying, but in this enjoying there is an eternal activity. Not the activity of people who plague themselves, and not the activity of beings under exertion (including people after physical death). It is much rather an activity that is filled with nothing but joy, since it is linked with any kind of difficulty or complicatedness. Oh, that is so wonderful! One is lord over one’s own deeds and the realm of one’s own thoughts; one derives from one’s own highest inwardness what one can only now take in, in its full abundance.
One is God oneself! Do you feel what I mean? All that is sublime, all that is beautiful streams toward one, and everything one carries within oneself in the way of the most exalted sensations rays out into the surrounding world. Thus one hovers in one’s world, in one’s heaven, in which one feels oneself to be “in God”.
Also, the small thread necessary for the descent into a new earth existence stirs ever so softly from time to time.
I am united with you at all times, almost each hour even, whereas earlier I first had to break through many layers. That is likely the most beautiful thing about this heavenly world, that one is always immediately united with one’s loved ones if even the very slightest wish stirs; whether they are on earth or anywhere else makes no difference.
Here everything is fulfillment! This is the heaven where we once will enjoy the most sublime happiness together. This is the realm of bliss, which ought always to hover before your eyes, should the darkness of the earth ever threaten to crush you. Think of this heaven then. Then worry will withdraw, and your eyes will look thorough the grey into the light that is also your homeland.
June 28th, 1916
I, Sigwart, am speaking.
Today I want to talk about the different levels of development in this heavenly world. There are far fewer here than in the astral world, because what is above the Devas does not belong here. Here the Devas are what we feel to be the highest beings.
Beneath the Devas there are different states or levels of development. The lowest level of development is that of the human beings who are asleep here. These are the ones who on earth always lived their passions.
On the next level are those who on earth may have been great, but were small in spirit. These beings also spend most of their Devachan time asleep.
Then come the semi-awake ones. These are much further developed, but still not mature enough to experience everything in a conscious state.
Probably the largest amount of people here are on this semi-level.
Then come the more mature ones, who strove on earth to find the spiritual, but are not yet liberated from its many false concepts.
Then come the ones who are further along because of their previous earthly lives. These beings are conscious, and are the ones who also form my environment here. As I’ve told you before, I live fully and in full consciousness in this heavenly world.
Following these are the very highly developed human beings endowed with all sorts of powers, who command everything, who if they want to can descend back to earth – even visible to human eyes. These are the teachers and masters. For these beings there is no longer any law – no law of change. They are what they will themselves to be, they are in the sphere they will to be in, everything is possible for them, effortlessly. These are our helpers, our beneficent masters.
Finally, there are other entities, who have never been on the physical earth, starting with the serving Devas and ending in a world unknown to me.
Now I hope I have given you a clear picture of the inhabitants of this place. Tomorrow I will tell you how the different life paths are distributed.
All yours, Sigwart
June 29th, 1916
I want to go right on telling you; I, Sigwart, am speaking:
What paths in life one treads here, what work one performs here, depends entirely on what a person wished for, thought and did in his previous earthly life.
The idealist will always find the heaven here that he so ardently wished for.
For the earnest researcher or brooder there is such a rich world full of new things that the investigation of them will make him very happy.
The skeptic, however, provided he is ready to enter here, will not let himself be deceived by anything here in Devachan, either; but he sees and therefore he must also believe. Through this seeing he now finds fulfillment, because on earth he was only looking for the one thing, which he couldn’t find. No matter how high his moral standing on earth was, only this world will convince him of immortality. Oftentimes a skeptic can pass through the entire astral world and still not believe. But if he has a truly good kernel, he will find his way into this heaven after a certain time; and here, then, everything will become clear to him. How great is his bliss then, for he feels immediately: this alone is happiness, this alone is truth and life. How dark my path was up to this moment! But these souls do not have it easy. They need a lot more time. A swift development depends on faith, after all.
Now about my creative activity, which is pure bliss. I carry on creating, just like everyone does who lives consciously here, because every thought is at the same time also creation. If I imagine something that I want to compose, for instance, all the tones are already there, whether united or alone, exactly the way I anticipate them in my hearing. The most beautiful melodies that I want to create and first only hear in my thoughts already have been created through this wish and this hearing in thought. They have now become a piece of me. Thus I live in my art and in the realm which is my tones.
Do you comprehend now how I live here in the world of tones, which I create without the effort of creating; how I constantly fill myself with bliss over the wonderful effect of merely-thought sounds? The chords resonate with hundreds of tones, so that I am utterly dissolved in the bliss of my activity. I am eternally creating something new, and what I have once created this way will never disappear. Everything I have created here remains in all eternity – hence for you, as well! How happy it will make you once you open the gates and the flood of sounds pours trembling into your hearts!