B395 <=> B397 [BTG XXVIII Destruction of Ashiata’s labors, p. 396]

“This subsequently Universal Hasnamuss inscribed further as follows:

“’Undeniably, life under the present state-organization is now far better for us than it used to be before; but where then is that real freedom of ours upon which our happiness must depend?

“’Don’t we work and labor as much now as during all other former state-organizations?

“’Haven’t we to labor and sweat to get the barley indispensable to us to live and not to starve to death like chained dogs?

“’Our chiefs, guides, and counselors are always telling us about some other sort of world, supposedly so much better than here among us on the Earth, and where life is in every respect beatific for the souls of those men who have lived worthily here on the Earth.

“’Don’t we live here now “worthily?”

“’Don’t we always labor and sweat for our daily bread?

“’If all that our chiefs and counselors tell us is true and their own way of living here on the Earth really corresponds to what is required of their souls for the other world, then of course God ought, and even must, in this world also, give more possibilities to them than to us ordinary mortals.

“’If all that our chiefs and counselors tell and try to make us believe is really true, let them prove it to us, ordinary mortals, by facts.

“’Let them prove it to us, for instance, that they can at least change a pinch of the common sand, in which, thanks to our sweat, our daily bread arises, into bread.

“’If our present chiefs and counselors do this, then I myself will be the first to run and kneel and kiss their feet.