‘I speak to you, dis­tant suc­cessor, who are read­ing this mes­sage… I greet you! If these thoughts fall into your hands, it means the time for tak­ing stock has come. Wheth­er in your per­son­al life or in the sac­red com­munity in whose ser­vice you stand, con­sider well what you read.

Per­haps you feel that this train of thought is a mes­sage from anoth­er age. If you begin to read, you may yet find that, even across the dis­tance of long years, it seems timely… could it be that it speaks of your own tasks today? Are we forever med­it­at­ing on the same tasks? Has noth­ing changed? Do not worry, this is not a flaw but sta­bil­ity, and I rejoice that togeth­er with you we are advan­cing stead­ily and per­sever­ing in examin­ing an import­ant task. I ask you to read it in this light and, if you think it right, to study it and to apply what you learn. Per­haps it is a good sum­mary of the long years behind us and the long years ahead of you. Go for­ward towards put­ting the good coun­sel into prac­tice – with the bless­ing of the heav­enly ones…

In your spir­itu­al endeav­ours let three fun­da­ment­al prin­ciples guide you: I) study philo­sophy, II) wor­ship God and III) serve people. Learn in order to know, to become fear­less and to make your know­ledge unshake­able, to know what you do and why. Do not be con­tent with the power of habit, but strive for ever deep­er under­stand­ing. Recog­nise the neces­sity of your losses and fail­ures, and in these losses tem­per your con­vic­tion until it is unbreak­able. What is lost was never real any­way, and you can lose only the glass beads of illu­sion, never the true treas­ures. What mat­ters is always what remains.

Refrain from unprin­cipled respect for author­ity, but never call true author­ity into ques­tion, and more than that, serve its prop­er func­tion­ing with all your strength. The basis of author­ity is a recog­nised dif­fer­ence in com­pet­ence, so let the respect paid to author­ity rest on spir­itu­al qual­it­ies, on a more self­less read­i­ness to serve, on deep­er devo­tion, on a great­er degree of know­ledge or renun­ci­ation.

Learn, so that no one can mis­lead you with false prin­ciples, learn, so that you can find your way among the mul­ti­tude of the­or­ies and never be swayed from the truth. Armour your­self with the­or­et­ic­al pre­pared­ness so thor­oughly that no chink is left open to attack. And if one does remain, ward it off by prac­tising the second prin­ciple: wor­ship. Where human pre­pared­ness ends, there divine power and grace begin. What is impossible for you is not impossible for God.

Let your wor­ship always be very per­son­al; take on less rather than more, only as much as you are sure you can always ful­fil, but never give up your com­mit­ments.

Let not com­pul­sion but love guide your wor­ship. Wor­ship is our reli­gion, and it is a mat­ter of inner, per­son­al con­vic­tion. Wor­ship is the divine lan­guage, which the soul and the Almighty alike speak and under­stand.

And make your know­ledge and your faith real in the ser­vice of people. Ser­vice is our wor­ship. For what you give to the least reaches the greatest, as long as you do not lose sight of how the two belong togeth­er.

Spir­itu­al devel­op­ment is the res­ult of a subtle and lengthy pro­cess; thor­ough­ness and mod­esty can hasten it, but everything must be given its time. It is not enough merely to take cer­tain steps as a form­al­ity; the prob­lem of exist­ence demands a total solu­tion, and com­pre­hens­ive spir­itu­al devel­op­ment soon­er or later cleanses man of all his faults.

You must also be able to define the dis­tinct­ive and def­in­ite forms of the essence: of pure love of God, of true mys­ti­cism, of real­isa­tion joined to know­ledge. Here uni­ver­sal aims are needed and, at the same time, con­crete dir­ec­tions and goals which, in the long term too, will guar­an­tee your per­son­al devel­op­ment and the pur­ity and effect­ive­ness with which the sac­red com­munity works. Make your life a suc­cess!…’