Knowledge of our own harmony with nature and our position in the above-mentioned cycle also falls under "the one thing needful". Establishing this position can come only through a thorough analysis of how one actually gives one's gift. There are various ways of transferring things of value from one person to another that officially go under the term "giving", but there is in fact, from a cosmic point of view, absolutely only one single way in which a transfer of things of value from one person to another is giving in the absolute sense. This way is manifested only when the giving of the gift constitutes an absolute one hundred per cent surrender of the thing of value by the giver to the receiver. If there is even the very slightest shadow of expectation of getting something in return in one way or another, then the transfer is in fact merely a disguised business transaction. Then the "gift" is merely a commodity for which the expected recompense is "payment". And is it not precisely the non-appearance of this expected "payment" that creates so much unfriendliness and bitterness between beings? Does one not often hear people indignantly say something like "I have gone and done so much for him (her); I have helped him with this or that; I have given him so many things, and he nevertheless thinks nothing of me; he can be very considerate towards others, but he never takes any notice of me"? But what are we seeing here? Are we not seeing that the gifts of the person in question were not released or set free one hundred per cent, but had secret provisos? Does this indignation not reveal expectation of "payment" in the form of something pleasant in return? And is this indignation not due precisely to the absence of this "payment"?
      If the giver had openly told the recipient of the gift that the gift was given only on the condition of the expected recompense, and the recipient had agreed to receive the gift in this particular way, then it would have been a simple business transaction. Then the giver's indignation at the lack of recompense could more reasonably be justified. But since the gift was given without any obvious provisos or conditions whatsoever, and therefore for the recipient of the gift had to be disguised as a "gift", this "giving of a gift" was a means of defrauding the recipient. And it is thus not the recipient who is the "sinner", but the giver of the gift. He has, in the case in question, not the least right to feel disappointed or indignant towards the recipient of the gift, who has not promised anything whatsoever and has not received the gift with any preconditions, and who might never have accepted it if he had known about the secret provisos.
      If a gift can result in even the slightest subsequent regret or indignation in the giver then this is an absolutely unmistakable sign or proof that the "gift" was absolutely not a "gift" but a secret "prepayment" for some expected advantage.
      A true, absolute "gift" is sacred and can never cause its giver anything other than joy, since, from a cosmic point of view, it can be nothing but a manifestation of culminating love, which means a feeling of one hundred per cent happiness from giving alone. Love has nothing whatsoever to do with demanding payment; "it seeks not its own". For this reason a perfect giver of a gift will never show bitterness, ill-feeling or animosity towards those he (she) has supported or to whom he has given gifts, for he has never expected as much as the slightest shadow of personal advantage or favouritism from doing so.
      When he has not expected this, he cannot feel disappointed, not even in the worst cases where the recipient does not show any gratitude or goodwill at all towards him but, on the contrary, as sometimes occurs, begins to make demands. The perfect giver is happy enough in the knowledge of having done something really good. His happiness lies not in the reward for the good thing he has done, but on the contrary in the complete feeling of the bliss that inevitably results from every unselfish act or manifestation that vibrates in complete contact with the impulse of life itself or the very highest leading forces in the universe, irregardless of how much material gain or loss the act concerned may have caused in other areas.
      For the real or true giver it is not the expectation of reward or recompense that is the principal or eliciting factor, but, on the contrary, it is the sense of the action in his consciousness as a supreme divine experience. And thus this being reaps abundant reward from the divine act itself.
      For the primitive or false giver it is, however, the secret gain or reward that is the eliciting factor. And one therefore well understands the disappointment and bitterness in this being when this completely fails to be forthcoming.
      But this bitterness establishes as fact that he is not a giver at all, but that for him the principle of giving is merely a conscious or unconscious method for attaining the satisfaction of egoistic or selfish desires. But since such a method is a misrepresentation or concealment of the actual circumstances, thereby becoming a kind of pitfall for the recipient of the gift, it is a fraud. And any gift that is more or less elicited or given in such a way can belong only to the underworld of civilisation. It thus prevents anyone who may be the source of the gift from being a truly civilised human being. Such a being is as yet a spiritual proletarian.
      The way in which a person gives his gift is thus the yardstick or indication showing how far he has come in true culture or spirit. If a being is able to give a gift without the very slightest expectation of recompense, but rather gives it and sets the recipient completely free, that is to say that he gives it with a secret, sacred commitment to never feel the slightest grain of bitterness or indignation towards the recipient of the gift because of his giving the gift, quite regardless of how the recipient may act towards him in the future, regardless of whether he completely ignores him and favours others in whose company he may find pleasure or on whom he may wish to bestow his affection or goodwill; then one's giving is a real gift, regardless of what the gift may have been, regardless of whether it was a gift of purely physical or mental working capacity, or whether it was material objects, goods or gold. For then one has really reached a step where love, and not selfishness, has been the highest dictating factor in one's consciousness. Then the giving of the gift has already paid the giver in the form of his divine sense of contact with life and thereby his feeling of being "one with the Father".
      To the extent that a gift deviates from being given under these conditions, to the same extent is it something false and cannot thereby be an expression of true culture, and will thus irrefutably be one of the many realities that still keep people back in primitivity, degradation, persecution and suffering.
      But, through the tears of opposition, selfishness will be crushed, and the Prodigal Son will be led back to the course of life, will learn to give in the right way, will come into contact with the universe, will fall into line as the Godhead's instrument for the greatest and most perfect gift: all-forgiving eternal love. And thereby the following words become a reality: "It is more blessed to give than to receive". For only in every perfect unselfish giving of a gift to one's neighbour does the halo of the eternal Father appear. Only there is his presence felt directly. And no one comes closer to Him than he who has such great love that he risks his life to save his fellow beings. It is life's greatest revelation of the principle of "giving". It is the model for all perfect behaviour. Only through the culmination of love can a real gift be brought forth. And only through beings' mutual giving of such a gift to one another can lasting peace and perfect harmony emanate light and reveal "the human being in God's image".