Becoming Aware of Genuine Being-Duty

CHAPTER VII

Becoming Aware of Genuine Being-Duty

AFTER the captain had gone, Beelzebub glanced at his grandson and, noticing his unusual state, asked him solicitously and with some anxiety:

“What is the matter, my dear boy? What are you thinking so deeply about?”

Looking up at his Grandfather with eyes full of sorrow, Hassein said thoughtfully:

“I don’t know what is the matter with me, my dear Grandfather, but your talk with the captain of the ship has brought me to some exceedingly melancholy
thoughts.

“Things of which I have never before thought are now a-thinking in me.

“Thanks to your talk, it has gradually become very clear to my consciousness that in the Universe of our ENDLESSNESS everything has not always been such as I now see and understand.

“Formerly, for instance, I should never have allowed such thoughts associatively to proceed in me, as that this ship on which we are now flying has not always been as it is at this moment.

“Only now have I come very clearly to understand that everything we have at the present time and everything we use—in a word, all the contemporary amenities and everything necessary for our comfort and welfare—have not always existed and did not make their appearance so easily.

“It seems that certain beings in the past have during very long periods labored and suffered very much for this, and endured a great deal which perhaps they even need not have endured.