Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl [1]
“If it seems to you that I have said a few things, you are not surprised, because my things were few and far between.”
Savonarola.
With this, the ninety-ninth and last number of the “Lotusblüthen”, a work comes to an end, the scope of which was not understood by everyone, and the main purpose of which was to stimulate the inner spiritual life of people in larger circles in Germany, religious views to save from the shallow superficiality that has become generally fashionable and to deepen it, to illuminate some of what is obscure in the religious systems of the West by the light that has come to us from the East, and thereby to bring religion and science closer together in order to finally to unite. The importance of such an undertaking becomes even more apparent when we consider that the outward life of every man and every nation is based on an inward life, and the more this inward religious life permeates man’s outward life and becomes self-conscious in him, the external conditions also become all the more favorable for everyone. The more people are permeated by the feeling of justice, by the power of love and by the knowledge of truth, the more the high ideals that all mankind is searching for will be realized in them.”
That an elevation of mankind to a higher stage of development is scarcely doubted by anyone, and it is just as certain that this will be achieved neither by an accumulation of philosophical theories, of which the world already has a heavy quantity, nor can it happen by high-sounding phrases and unctuous sayings. Anyone who considers the current and unsustainable conditions and the general confusion which will inevitably lead to a general revolution will easily see that these conditions have their sole root in egoism. Every organism, be it an individual, a sect, a state, a nation, seeks to elevate itself at any cost. Everyone fights not only for existence, but for the greatest pleasure that he can derive from this material existence, and in the process becomes less and less conscientious in the choice of his means. Each seeks his own advantage to the detriment of the other, and there can be no improvement until men learn, in appreciation of the baseness and superficiality of lofty principles, instead of acting out of self-conceit and self-interest, and this will not happen until a larger proportion of people recognize what is good and noble, beautiful and sublime, true and immortal and of a divine nature in each individual. This knowledge is called “religious knowledge” because the word “religion” in its true sense does not mean dogmatism and delusions of authority, but the inner knowledge of the soul and the practical realization of the relationship of the individual human being to the big whole, i.e., his relationships to nature which surrounds him, to all mankind and to that God who is not a minister and not the property of any sect, but omnipresent and life above all, and permeates and governs the whole universe as an eternal, unchangeable law.
The germ of this knowledge of God, the symbol of which is the lotus plant,[2] lies hidden in every human heart, and for thousands of years gods and men have endeavored to help it in its development. For this purpose the Word became flesh, and Christ came into the world; for this purpose sages have lived and taught and died as martyrs, and also the “lotusblüten” were designed to serve this purpose. It was not a question of driving the pole around in the fog, inventing new theories, and delighting the world with dubious philosophical speculations, but of showing those who were inclined to strive after truth the way to the light and that self-knowledge to awaken in them the one eternal and indivisible truth, without which all theology, know-it-all and scholarly stuff has no real value; for how could one speak of true knowledge in a philosophy or science as long as it does not know the reality and true nature of things from which everything springs.
Just as Gautama Buddha taught long before the Christian era and Jesus of Nazareth confirmed it, the cause of all evils in the world is ignorance, i.e. man’s ignorance of his heavenly origin, his divine destiny and his indwelling divine nature. If everyone were to recognize the divinity in mankind (Christ in us, who is “the mystery of our salvation”) in his own heart, everyone would feel, will, think and act accordingly, and it would be heaven instead of hell on earth. The cause of forgetting this divine nature underlying human existence is laziness in thinking and the resulting decline in religious consciousness, as well as the purely external and wrong conception of religious symbols. The demands which man today makes on external life and this personably on him, leave him little time to approach himself and to occupy himself with what is for him, even if he does not know it, the highest and the most important thing, and so he finds it more convenient, either not to concern himself with it at all and to be content with the empty appearance of life, or to leave his religious affairs for someone else to take care of, without realizing that the inner life of everyone is his own and not someone else’s, and one can only attain an individual existence through one’s own individual development.
The belly and brain are overfed, the heart shrivels and the soul starves. Such is the fate of “bon vivants” [“good living”] and soulless scientists, in whom the selfish thirst for knowledge suffocates humanity, develops ingenuity, but intuition and conscience are not there. But even with the so-called “pious” the personal self with its efforts to gain an advantage over others in “this world” or “the hereafter” comes far too much to the fore, and everyone would rather get into heaven through external means of promotion than to create a heaven within oneself, and all this comes from the fact that man does not know his own true nature and the divine powers dwelling within him. The whole world clings to externals, even those who are set up as keeper of the sanctuary have lost the key to it, and do not know the light which is hidden therein; the picture of truth is covered with a centuries-old crust of dust and moss, and appearances are taken for truth. The spirit of true religion has largely fled from the churches and thus also from public life; Unbelief and superstition, intolerance, fantasies, errors and empty formulas remained.
This was particularly so during the dark period of the Middle Ages, and we are now reaping the fruits of what was then sown. From the spirit of God’s self-knowledge in man’s heart springs his true self-esteem, self-confidence, independence, ennoblement, and true worth. The loss of it results in incapacity, cowardice, fear, and slavery. Only through this spirit can the spirit of true religion be known and comprehended, and with its loss was lost the ability to comprehend the deep meaning contained in the ancient teachings of wisdom, and which from time immemorial have been spoken and proclaimed through the mouths of the wise and saints of the world. These teachings either fell into complete oblivion or were given only an external and superficial meaning. The imaginary belief in the correctness of the accounts of historical events took the place of the living, seeing and feeling, and people trusted themselves with the idea that the knowledge of a theory saves, on the principle that it is easier to believe in the believing of the correctness of a theory than grasping the living truth itself.
But there is an eternal law, according to which whenever spiritlessness and heartlessness prevail among men, men appear who have the right spirit in them, even if they are not yet perfect in their personality, and these are born on earth, to remind men of the teachings of eternal truth and to encourage their practice. Almost every century entails such leaders of mankind as e.g., Archbishop Eckhart, Jakob Böhme, Paracelsus, Goethe, Shakespeare, Francis of Assisi, Jane Leade, Madame Guyon, Giordano Bruno, Savonarola, Dante, Michael de Molinos, H.P. Blavatsky and thousands of others who, though having personal defects in themselves and differing from one another in their tendencies, were all servants of God and taught the same truth, which Buddha and Śaṅkarāchārya, Pythagoras and Plato, Jesus of Nazareth and all high spirits of men to this day proclaimed: “Man! know yourself.” He who knows himself in truth knows the truth within himself; he knows God, who is the truth and reality. This self-knowledge is called “Theosophy” or divine wisdom.
In the centuries which have now elapsed, it was chiefly the one in her last incarnation as “H. P. Blavatsky,” who because of her extraordinary psychological and intellectual abilities, was chosen as a tool to proclaim the ancient and yet always new teaching again, to make people aware of the spirit of true religion and religious truths and to bring understanding closer to the intellectual. In our rationalistic age it was not enough to call out to people: “Convert!” People want to know what and why they should be converted. To make a horse obedient, it is useless to whip it until it knows what is being asked of it. If it knows this, it can obey. Likewise, it is not enough to ask the man, who knows nothing higher than his intellect, to tread a path from which he does not know where it leads. How could one walk in the true faith who does not have that faith and is dependent only on theories and opinions? It was therefore a question of bringing the sublime mysteries of religion nearer to common sense, and of giving the human mind a higher direction to comprehend them.
Through the so-called “Theosophical Movement,” which owes its origin chiefly to the intellectual work of H. P. Blavatsky, combined with the outward activity of H. S. Olcott, the religious teachings received a long-desired scientific support, and much that was incomprehensible in the writings of the sages and saints, became clear and found its natural justification. It was a matter of removing the apparent contradictions between religion and science, and of convincing the world that true religion and true knowledge are inseparable, emerge from one another, agree with one another and complement one another, as is also self-evident; for since truth is not different from itself, all true knowledge springs from its knowledge and all true religion from its practice.
To achieve this end it was necessary for the Initiates to give to the layman a deeper insight than hitherto before, into the laws which govern the universe, and some facts which used to be known before mankind was prepared for them, when sacred secrets were kept, to reveal them to the public. These include the doctrines of the sevenfold composition of the nature of man and the universe, the doctrine of karma or divine justice, the doctrine of the reincarnation of the soul in successive personal appearances, and many others. However, most of these teachings were already contained in the writings of the Indian sages and in those of the Christian mystics, but incomprehensible to the uninitiated, hidden under fables and allegories. Blavatsky did not invent anything entirely new, but she gave us the key to understanding what already had existed, and her enlightenments spanned the whole field of human knowledge, for the wisdom of God is not confined to a single thing, but encompasses all areas of the human mind, just as the sun illuminates all parts of the earth. As far as God reaches, so far does his wisdom reach.
Needless to say to our readers, it was not Blavatsky’s intention to supplant a blind old dogmatism with a new blind one. It was not a question of an empty acceptance of these teachings, but of understanding them. Theories, however true they may be, are not their own ends, but the means to reach an end whose end is the self-knowledge of truth. No one can inculcate wisdom in another; he can only show him the way which everyone has to go himself if he wants to reach her. The experienced give the lesson, but God alone gives the understanding.
It is not my intention here to write a history of the theosophical movement. Suffice it to say that it soon spread to all parts of the world, and was given rapid growth by the resistance which it was met with. In all countries journals were created that dealt with a discussion of the newly appeared light, only in Germany nothing else stirred than speculative philosophy, which blindfolded searches for reasons for the existence of truth, but cannot tolerate the light of truth itself. Therefore, on my departure from India for Europe, one of my Indian teachers expressed the wish to bring the teachings proclaimed by Blavatsky to bear in Germany, to compare them with the teachings of the Christian mystics, and to bring to light the mystical treasures in which Germany is so rich, but which lie dormant, covered in dust, in forgotten corners of our libraries.
To this end, after my return to Germany, I occupied myself with the study of the Christian mystics, in whom I found complete agreement with the teachings of the Indian sages, and advocated the founding of a monthly journal, which soon assumed a more metaphysical-speculative rather than theosophical character, and finally, after attempts at resuscitation were unsuccessful, disappeared from the scene. Around this time the “Lotusblüthen” came into the world without any financial help from outside.
Hitherto, the timid attempts made by others to shed light on theological obscurity consisted in dragging lofty spiritual things down into the misty realm of metaphysical speculation and reasoning, adapting them to the incompetence of a narrow and short-sighted materialism, to mouthing them to the skepticism of fossilized scholars and to gain their goodwill. The “Lotusblüthen,” on the other hand, should be intended to offer to the reader a support in order to raise himself to that spiritual height and to grow into that sphere where it is possible, with these high ideals which cannot be humiliated, to be penetrated by him and to realize them within oneself. However, this meant that the prospect of a large number of subscribers was lost from the outset, for those who want to soar up through their own inner, God-given strength are still rarely to be found, while the great majority are just passing the time or want to satisfy their curiosity. Rather than telling the reader things of which he cannot know whether they are true or false, I have been concerned to illuminate the path described by the wise men and saints of all nations, and on which each man himself can come to know the truth. It was not for me to let my own light shine before the world, or to concern myself with the opinions of those who had no inner enlightenment; but I have made it my task to fish the most precious pearls from the writings of the truly enlightened ones of all nations and times, to clean them of the mud clinging to them and to place them in the right light, so that everyone can see their beauty and grasp the beauty of the contained truth. The “Lotusblüten” were to be a collection of the deepest and most sublime teachings ever proclaimed by the sages, my only task being to collect the flowers of wisdom which I had plucked on my way and to point out their beauty and draw attention to them. They are not artificially made flowers and they do not belong to me alone but to the whole world; nothing belongs to me but the string with which they are bound as a bouquet.
In order to recognize the beauty of a thing, one must have a sense of beauty within oneself; to appreciate the value of the pearls hidden in the teachings of the sages one must have such a pearl in one’s heart, and I am pleased to say that, as the appeal which the “Lotusblüthen” have found proves, the number of possessors of such pearls in Germany is much larger than I had hoped or expected.
The “Lotusblüthen” has come to an end because the task set for them has been fulfilled. In what is collected in them there is sufficient spiritual nourishment for the coming generations of the new century. They contain only a few things, but those few things are great.
The “Lotusblüthen” come to an end, but not the spirit contained in them, and whoever absorbs this spirit has no need of further writings, for it contains the seed from which, with proper care, a new one springs up in the heart of each single flower of wisdom. But if that is not enough for you in the published volumes, you can just as well find the same truth in a lot of mystical literature, of which there is no shortage in Germany, and it is enough for me to have drawn attention to it and emphasized its value.
So, I say goodbye to all readers of the “Lotusblüthen”! and wish that the Holy Spirit of self-knowledge would fill and enlighten them all and come alive in them. But I myself lay down my pen as gladly as I took it up, with joy at first, like one who gives up a work which has been entrusted to him, and in which he has nothing to gain for himself, when it is finished. I take no credit for it myself, and I do not care about the success, but leave the same to God.
But I do not say goodbye to those who have understood me and have walked with me on the path of truth, and many of whom I have come to know and appreciate through personal correspondence, because they remain connected with me in the spirit of truth and love.
Florence, November 1900.
The author.
Notes:
[1] A Departure. [Ein Abschied. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 16, no. 99 (December 1900), 809-826] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}
[2] I wrote “lotus” and not the usual “lotos” because the lotus is an aquatic plant and the symbol of wisdom, and the lotos is just a species of clover growing in India.