Mysteries, Symbols and Magical Forces by Franz Hartmann, M.D.

[Mysterien, Symbole und magisch wirkende Kräfte]

Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl^[1]

Foreword
I ……….The Inner Life
II ……….Self-consciousness
III ……….The Way
IV ……….Symbols
V ……….God and Nature
VI ……….The Macrocosmos und Microcosmos
VII ……….Spirit, Soul and Form
VIII ……….“I”
IX ……….The Word
X ………. The ABCs of the Inner Life or the Letters of the Soul
XI ……….Mantrams. — The Power of Pray
XII ………. Theosophy

Foreword.

There is no shortage of theosophical and metaphysical literature today. The tidal wave of spiritual light which swept over our planet towards the end of the last century, and of which H. P. Blavatsky was the most prominent bearer, has already penetrated many strata of the population; It has brought a freer flow of air into the churches, put the stamp of humanity on the spirit of the age, and even in the lecture halls of the Academy has stimulated the desire for a higher world view. Everywhere where this light penetrates, it robs blind faith in authority and superstition of its support, undermines errors that seem venerable as a result of their age and reputation and awakens that free spirit of inquiry that cannot be reassured by unprovable assertions or misunderstood articles of faith, but wants to feel, grasp and see for yourself.

Es giebt keine andere “exakte” Wissenschaft, als diejenige, welche aus der Erkenntnis der Wahrheit entspringt; alles Andere stammt aus dem Reiche der Phantasie. Die Wahrheit ist die Wirklichkeit; die Wahrheit ist Gott, und ihre Erkenntnis das Licht, von dem ein Funke in jedem Menschenherzen enthalten ist und durch die Liebe zum Wahren zu einer Flamme werden kann, deren Licht alle Geheimnisse in der Natur offenbart. Um dieses Licht in sich selbst zu finden und die Geheimnisse des Geistes Gottes in der Natur zu erforschen, dazu genügt nicht jene äusserliche Beobachtungsfähigkeit und Klugheit, welche für die Erforschung der äusserlichen Naturerscheinungen hinreichend ist, sondern es gehört hierzu auch noch das Erwachen des innerlichen geistigen Lebens und Bewusstseins, durch welches ‘ der Mensch sich in seinem Innern als ein lebendiges, geistiges Wesen erkennt Der Grad des “exakten” Wissens des Einzelnen richtet sich somit nach dem Grade seiner eigenen Erkenntnis und ist bei verschiedenen Menschen quantitativ verschieden, während es in der Qualität der Wahrheit keine Verschiedenheit geben kann, da es nur eine einzige ewige Wahrheit giebt.

There is no other “exact” science than that which springs from the knowledge of truth; everything else comes from the realm of the imagination. Truth is reality; truth is God, and knowledge of it is light, of which there is a spark in every human heart, and through love of truth it can become a flame, the light of which reveals all mysteries in nature. In order to find this light within oneself and to explore the mysteries of the spirit of God in nature, it is not enough to have the external ability to observe and prudence, which is sufficient for the investigation of external natural phenomena, but also the awakening of the inner spiritual life and consciousness, through which the human being recognizes himself as a living, spiritual being in his inner being. There can be no difference in the quality of truth, since there is only one eternal truth.

It is therefore of much greater importance for everyone to ennoble oneself and to come to the inner life and spiritual knowledge than to be content with mere theories. The wise men and true saints of all nations have shown us the way to this self-knowledge. Their teachings came out of their higher self-knowledge. The purpose of them is neither the blind acceptance of them without further concern; nor is there any use in criticizing them before they are understood. Their purpose is to be understood, and this is done by following them yourself. They are the seed that is sown, and its fertility depends on the soil upon which it falls.

These doctrines form the basis of every great religion of the world, Christian as well as others, though they may differ in form from each other. They contain the highest mysteries, which are “mysteries” because one only understands them when one experiences them inwardly. The spiritual needs an “external form” for its external representation; but the form of representation is not the essence; the letter is not the spirit. All religious allegories have a deeper meaning. What seems incomprehensible to the superficially thinking person is clear to the deeper-seeing. One sees only the shell, another the core.

The religious wars and religious persecutions to which world history bears witness, as well as religious aberrations of various kinds which we can observe every day, indicate that the misunderstanding of proclaimed truths can entail great dangers. Not only to protect from profanation the most sacred mysteries in nature, but also to prevent the misuse of certain knowledge, and to save the foolish from the consequences of their own foolishness, these have always been carefully guarded by those initiated into them, and only by those called and trusted ones who had given evidence of their strength of character. The Indians and Egyptians, Greeks and Romans had their mysteries, and such mysteries are contained in the sacraments of Christianity. The initiation consisted not only in oral instruction but in the transmission of spiritual powers; which of course can only be transferred by someone who possesses it.

The writings of H. P. Blavatsky testify by their intrinsic value that she was privy to such mysteries. Admittedly, she was not the light herself either, but a lamp of it and a student of the masters of wisdom from whom she received her teachings. The seed she has sown brings forth a thousand fruits. The teachings given to us through them form valuable building blocks for the completion of the temple of knowledge; provided we can get into the spirit of them. A superficial understanding of them is not enough to recognize their height and depth. It is a law of nature that the human mind can only grasp the sublime when it rises to it. True wisdom is in God, comes from God, and returns to God; human ingenuity does not comprehend them. Man can only dissect and classify what belongs to him; but he cannot grasp the eternal as long as he does not rise to it.

There is no higher spiritual knowledge without spiritual consciousness; no spiritual consciousness without inner awakening, no awakening without life; no inner life without inner elevation, edification and growth of the soul; without which all theoretical knowledge is but a passing dream. The following pages were written not to preach morality, but to help the wanderer on the path to self-knowledge and spiritual rebirth.

Florence, July 1902. The Author.

I The Inner Life.

“The realm of God is within us.” (Luke XVII. 21.)

It is a remarkable phenomenon that there are so few people who pay attention to their inner life, and that all their desires, thoughts, and aspirations are directed only to the outer life; since only the inner life of the soul is permanent, and life in the outer sense world is only a temporary phenomenon. The reason for this error is that only a few know the inner life because they are not yet awakened within. Millions of people are exceedingly alive in the outside world as well as in the realm of the imagination; but they do not know the immortal life of the soul that springs from the true self-consciousness in the heart, and so they exchange their paternal inheritance, the kingdom of God, for a dish of lentils.

The world today only wants to appear externally, to possess and know; one does not think about what one really is and neglects the opportunity that life on earth offers to become something in truth; to attain an individuality that can exist after the death of the body. One thinks that one is spiritually developing if one only deals with intellectual things, ponders and studies a lot and supplies one’s memory chamber with all kinds of knowledge; but an expansion of the horizon for the intellect, no matter how expedient this may be, is by no means an inner growth, because the spirit needs the soul, the substance, for its attachment and embodiment, and without this it is like the wind, which on the one hand blows in and out of the window, and nobody knows where it comes from or where it goes.^[2]

We live in a soulless and soul-destroying time, in an external world of illusion. The uppermost is at the bottom and the lowest is directed upwards, as indicated in the figure preceding this chapter. It designates the outer and inner man with his five senses, and the outer and inner world. The outer one, with the tip (head) down, is the wrong one; the inner man, just beginning to emerge, stands with his head up; i.e., his aspiration is upward; while the outer world strives only for what is below, what is material. It is itself ephemeral and loves the ephemeral; it is itself an illusion and its god is appearance. Everyone runs after treasures that will eventually crumble to dust and ashes, and in the pursuit loses the most glorious, enduring goods. The highest is placed at the service of the lowest; prostituting the divine for the benefit of individual greed or in the interest of sectarianism; the senses are intoxicated and reason is stupefied; Prudence in the service of egoism reigns supreme in the world in place of wisdom; the mind is overfed, induction suppressed, the ideal pushed aside, and the soul shrivels and starves in the process. As a result of ever-increasing needs and the increasingly difficult struggle for outward existence, egoism has become an iron necessity for both the individual and every class, and greed, ambition, and envy breed a multitude of devils and suffocate every better feeling.

Where there is no feeling there is no life; but the feeling arises from touch. No man can grasp an object with his hands if he is not able to feel it, and just as little can we understand with the mind that which is divine and immortal in us if we cannot feel it within ourselves, and we can only feel it by coming into contact with it. It is of little use to us that we form any idea of God, of heaven, or of spiritual life; we can only get to know external life in reality by living in it ourselves, come into contact with it, experience it in ourselves, and the same is the case with the inner, divine life. In our time, however, there is little sign of a contact of the soul with the divine spirit. To be sure, the church hustle and bustle is still in full swing everywhere; but lacking in religious feeling; religion has often become mental work; the heart remains empty; the religious writings find few readers and still fewer understanding, though the subject which they deal with is ultimately the most important thing above all things and to everyone.

To be clear about this we must consider what life is, its origin and purpose. External natural science has labored in vain for the solution of this enigma for millennia, and will never find it as long as it does not know, or deliberately ignores the only source from which all life and existence springs, because it does not consider itself “scientific,” i .e., can be demonstrated objectively or tangibly. It has to do only with the activity of life by its phenomena, only with the effects and manifestations of life in matter, but not with the life principle, which is just as general as the ether of cosmic space, and its presence can be identified only through its effects. But where “positive science” can no longer go any further, religion helps us take the right track. The Bible teaches that everything was created from the Word. The Word (Logos) is God and His spirit is the origin of all life. Of course, we cannot find this spirit on the path of objective research, but we can find it in our inner consciousness. Anyone who has the spirit of God and recognizes it in himself has “exact” knowledge of it; he is the real “positivist.”

The mind needs no form for itself; it is uncreated and eternal. All forms in the universe could not by themselves produce spirit without spirit, but spirit is the producer and the life of forms; the single word creates the organisms in nature through its uninterrupted activity and it needs these organisms for its revelation, but not for its own being; for though all the worlds, heaven and earth, passed away, “the word of the Lord endureth,” which it is from eternity; just as the work does not create the artist, but the artist creates the work and through this creation reveals his art, only with the difference that in the eternal creation in nature, spirit and nature are not separated from each other like the painter and the canvas, but the spirit works in nature and brings everything out of it through its viability.

If we look at ourselves within, we find within us different lives, or more correctly, different workings of the life-principle on different planes of existence, namely:

1. 1. The vegetative vital activity in the cells of our visible body, which is also evident in the plant kingdom.
  2. The physiological activity of our bodily organs.
  3. A psychic dream life, sympathies and antipathies and representations arising from them.
  4. A life of instincts, desires and passions.
  5. A field of intellectual mental activity.
  6. A higher soul life in which our ideals dwell, the field of the higher soul powers, of induction, of faith, of love and other spiritual powers.

The vegetative activity of the life principle in our visible body, the growth of cells, nails, hair, etc. takes place without our consciousness. The vital activity of our organs, digestion, heart activity, etc., also takes place in a healthy state without us being aware of it. Even during the dream life one can hardly speak of a clear consciousness under ordinary circumstances; only in the life of instincts and desires does the feeling of the “I” and its relationships awaken, which in intellectual life comes to the forefront. In the higher psychic life the concept of individuality expands until it finally includes not only our personality but all of humanity and everything, and the illusion of individuality and separateness from the whole disappears.

“It is only one God, but there are many powers. It’s just One Life, but it manifests itself in many ways; it is only One Existence, but it presents itself differently in different beings; it is only One Light, but in different bodies it shines differently and produces different colors in them; it is only One Sound, but its vibrations are different and express themselves as various tones.”

It is the same with spiritual things. There is only one consciousness, but it appears differently in different creatures according to their nature. There is only one love; but it works differently according to the object to which it is directed. God is the indivisible unity and life in all things, but the nature of his revelation is conditioned by the qualities of the forms in which he works. In gross matter it presents itself as the effect of the well-known physical and chemical forces, in the organism as a physiological working of the will in nature that is unconscious to us. In dream life as a half-conscious sensation, magnetic attraction (sympathy and antipathy), instincts and spontaneous play of the imagination. In psychic life it is felt in varying degrees, from the secret yearning and unacknowledged desire to the raging passion that stirs the blood and numbs reason. At the intellectual level, the effect of life is expressed in thinking and remembering, in the gathering, connection and dissection of ideas; but in the higher region of the soul through direct sensation and knowledge of the true, enlightenment and intuition.

Since everything has its origin in the spirit, which is the life of everything, there is also life and consciousness in everything, and if material things appear to be spiritless, it is only because in them, by virtue of the material concentration, the conditions necessary for the revelation of the spirit were not present. Even gravitation, cohesion and the like are witnesses to the presence of life in matter, without which e.g., a stone could find neither gravity nor the connection of its atoms. In the same way, a spiritual state of the same is also hidden behind every mechanically acting force. Behind gravitation and cohesion is divine love, which in its highest state is self-existent and objectless, but manifests itself in the higher psychic life as love of good, truth and beauty, in animal life as desire and passion, in the vegetable kingdom as sensibility, in the mineral kingdom it is expressed as chemical elective affinity. What is light in the external sense is knowledge for the life of the soul and understanding for the intellect. What we call the “will” when ruled by matter is a powerless thing, when in the spirit state it is a magical, world-creating force. Basically it is just a law, but it produces different effects at different stages of existence. There is also a connection everywhere in nature. From intellectual and moral causes arise, as one can observe daily, outwardly visible consequences among men, revolutions and the like. And it is known to the initiates that corresponding natural phenomena, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc., also arise from the states of the soul of the world. Every power has its external and internal quality; even if not each one is obvious to us. External sound is perceptible to the external ear, the internal to the inner man. The voice of conscience speaks to the inner sense as clearly as the sound of bells to the outer ear. What is known to us in physics as “electricity” is in the mental state “Fohat” or “life-electricity”; the “magnetism,” which directs the magnetic needle to the north pole, brings like-minded souls together in the spiritual realm. There is nothing dead in this living world; everything has life, spirit and consciousness; it is only a question of awakening it, and for this a suitable physical or mental organization is required.

From the activity of the vital elements in the organism of the form arises the consciousness of the form, together with its faculty of sentience and perception, etc., which is contained in varying degrees in all the kingdoms of nature; for where there is sensation there must also be consciousness, and without life and consciousness of some kind not even a chemical reaction among mineral substances is conceivable. Wherever there is a stimulus, there must be some kind of sensation.

But here it is important to distinguish between consciousness and self-awareness. The lower forms in nature are phenomena in which forces of Great Nature are at work, and in which the natural consciousness (anima mundi) appears individualized during their existence. As long as such a form holds together, the “earth spirit” (the will in nature) drives it to action; their consciousness consists in the sum of the forms of consciousness of the elements from which they are built, but there is no self-consciousness in them, i.e., no consciousness of the “I’s.” The I is the soul. Animals also have a soul (anima), as their name already indicates in the Latin languages (animalia); they are, like the animal human being, incarnations of natural forces, which are more spiritual Nature and forms of nature consciousness are; they can be intelligent and also loving; but their soul has not yet awakened to the consciousness of “I am that I am.”

Each of these elements of nature-consciousness, or “seeds of life,” from which a creature is formed, has inherent, albeit unconsciously in itself, its memory, which is the result of its experiences in previous forms of existence; they form its nature, and instinctively impel it to actions that are in accordance with its nature. Thus it is that the bird is a master of flight, and the fish a master of swimming, without having learned it after birth; that the spider weaves its web and the bee builds its house without being instructed by anyone.^[3] These spiritual-psychic elements are called “skandhas” in Sanskrit, “the flesh” in the Bible. At every birth of a creature there is such a re-accumulation of those skandhas that existed before, a new “resurrection of the flesh” and its embodiment, and in every atom of the “flesh” are hidden the inherent instincts peculiar to it.

Wherever there is irritability, sensation, or perception, there is also a soul; i.e., an I that can be stimulated, sensed and perceived; but this ego is not conscious of itself in every being. His self-delusion is only an intellectual concept which has arisen from external perceptions; true self-awareness comes only with the awakening of soul life. A man can be very intellectual, learned, and outwardly pious; he may have a great deal of conceit and think he is godlike, yet have no true self-confidence. In this case it is similar to a soap bubble in which the play of nature’s light produces different colours. He believes he has freedom of will, but does not act himself, but does what the instinctive or intellectual natural forces at work in him impel him to do; he is like “Faust” on the Blocksberge.

“You think you’re driving and you’re being driven.”

A man, on the other hand, in whom the inner life of the soul and true self-awareness have awakened, stands above his transitory nature and controls his nature through the spirit; he is not guided in his actions by his natural instincts, nor does he act from calculation of his advantage, but from a clear cognition of the higher principles. True self-confidence consists in the fact that man is not in his imagination, but in truth above his personality with its desires, willing and thinking, recognizes it as a thing that is only temporarily connected with him and belogs to him, guides it and can make obey higher spiritual will. Only those who have attained clear and true self-awareness can be completely in control of themselves; only he who knows the inner life awakened in him can completely rule his outer life; he is no longer driven by personal sensual desires and is not subject to his animal instincts, but their master. The inner awakened divine man is the light, the outer sensual man with his worldly tendencies the shadow. As long as the shadow controls the light, the light cannot be revealed; but when the light is revealed, the darkness disappears. The inner man awakened to true self-awareness is the master who lives in freedom; the external personal man is bound by the chains of ignorance and error, and remains bound so long as he loves those chains. If he lets them fall, then the Lord is his Redeemer; then the outer human being will also be illuminated and freed by the light of self-knowledge. The Redeemer does not dwell outside of us; He has His throne within us.^[4]

ll this is taught in the various religious systems; but because it has hitherto received little scientific support, it has received little attention; most content themselves with a dream life of their imagination and do not think of waking up to real life. But the scientific justification lies in the correct understanding of the teachings on the nature of the human spirit and its re-embodiment in its successive personal appearances on our earth. However, the truth of this teaching is not based on assumptions, conclusions and probabilities, but is recognized by every initiate in whom true self-confidence has awakened, from their own inner experience. This truth needs no proof, but we do need the ability to comprehend it. The sleeping and mindless cannot grasp them. “I am God; not a God of the dead, but a God of the living,” says the Lord; i.e., those who have come to the inner spiritual life know it as their own divine Self. Seen spiritually, the human individuality appears to us as a divine ray of light from the spiritual sun of the world and breathed into the human soul. It is the source of life in man and evokes in the soul two kinds of forces, the lower and the higher. The earthly desires and inclinations, which bind man to earthly existence, spring from the lower effects of life; from the higher comes the feeling for the higher, which draws the soul up to the higher and guides it. Thus, two natures are contained in every human being, and there is in him a constant struggle between good and evil, i.e., between what elevates him and what degrades him, as every aspiring man knows from personal experience.

After death there is a separation of the higher from the lower. The immortal part returns to its divine source, taking with it those elements and memories which it has acquired during its existence on earth and which are adapted to its heavenly nature; the other elements remain and dissolve. After a certain period of rest, when the heavenly sensations have subsided and the urge for earthly existence stirs in the soul again, the same ray of light leads it back to this existence, it creates a new personal appearance again, equips it with the talents, inclinations, etc. you have acquired, and the same game begins again. Thus the soul is like a butterfly, and every existence like a flower; the butterfly flies from one flower to another, gathering from each what suits its nature and leaving behind what is useless. Also, every human life equals one day in the year of life in immortality. So it is that in every normal human being there is a glimpse of the divine light of his “Father in heaven” hidden, so that he can feel and think not only the sensual, but deep in his heart also the eternal. Each is himself the “Hercules at the Crossroads,” given the choice between immortality and death; because he is free to surrender either to the inner, divine, or to the outer, sensual and ephemeral. The soul that departs from the world enters into that which a person loves from the heart and towards which his mind is directed; for its nature is equal to the nature of that being. God returns to the gods, the beast to the beasts.

We must learn to distinguish within ourselves between our “inner, spiritual-divine” and our outer, “sensual” consciousness and intellectual life. The Christian mystic Angelus Silesius speaks a great truth when he says:

“A man who looks at God, the beast at the clod of earth,

From this what he is, everyone can see.”^[5]

Animal or external life is not to be understood as something criminal or despicable, for animals too have virtues that many people lack, and external life is not just about eating and drinking and the like, but also intelligence and ingenuity, which some animals possess to a high degree. Every kind of life has its relative value. Without the animal nourishment of the body, spiritual development would also be at an end, and mind and knowledge are the supreme powers of mortal man; but from the intellectual development of mortal man to the enlightenment of his immortal part is as great a step as from the life of his animal instincts to intellectual activity. Anyone who is just a “scholar” and nothing more knows only the course of phenomena and their superficial causes; he knows nothing of the spirit; but the wise know the Spirit of God in the universe and the law, and see its manifestations in all appearances. He who sees nothing but what he has been externally taught sees only the form; he who recognizes God in himself sees him and his work in everything, he knows the origin of creation and its laws, even if he has never read a book about it and has not been taught about it by anyone. He knows the truth, not by hearsay, nor by inference, nor by inspiration from without, but through the inner life in which the light of self-knowledge has dawned. So, for instance, Jakob Böhme was only a cobbler and unread and unlearned; yet his philosophy agrees exactly with that of the Indian sages. Gautama Buddha also says of himself: “The teaching which I preach came to me not by tradition or inference, not by inspiration or comparison, but in myself the opened eye, in myself the light appeared; in myself the truth (spiritual life) was revealed.”

For the cow, fragrant grass is supreme, and it would be foolish of her to despise it. She clings to her calf with love, and to deny it would be against her nature. Every creature is attracted to that which it needs, the plant to light, the bee to honey, the fish to water, man to man, the soul to God. The merchant collects gold, the scholar accumulates scientific treasures in his memory chamber. For the intellectual human being who does not yet know any soul life, knowledge is the highest, and if he were to reject it, he would have nothing; but the wise in whose heart the spark of divine love has kindled the light of true knowledge stands higher; he is no longer bound to anything earthly; he does not despise or overestimate it, but judges his own person and everything that has to do with it according to its real worth.

But in order to reach this high point, the higher soul powers need to be developed, and these in turn need a soul organism suitable for this, of which external science can certainly know nothing, but the spiritual human being who has been reborn in spirit and in truth can. Faith, love, hope, patience and justice are not figments of the imagination or figments of the imagination, but principles that are destined to develop into divine powers in man, and for this they need an organism just as much as the nerve power of the nerves or the blood of the veins for its circulation, or the mechanical strength of the musculature. Without firmness of the psychic organism, firmness of character is unthinkable. This psychic organism is commonly referred to as the “astral body.”

The purpose of all evolution is the attainment and consolidation of individual self-awareness through the realization of truth. Only those who are aware of their true Self are independent and master of themselves. However, this true Self-consciousness is only inherent in people who have been born again in the spirit. As long as the human astral body has not been developed and organized and the inner human being has not come to life, there can be no question of true self-awareness in the outer human being. The astral body of an inwardly uneducated man is like a cloud which takes on that form which the direction of the wind gives it.^[6] The development of the astral body is thus a step towards attaining a human self-awareness that is independent of the life of the material body, without which a self-aware existence after the death of the body is unthinkable. This individual and therefore limited self-awareness forms a step towards attaining God-consciousness, i.e., of the All-Self-Consciousness in God, which encompasses all creation, and which awaits the perfected man at the end of his career. In this state man is no longer “man” but God. This state is beyond human conception, and is called “Nirvana” by Buddhists, and “unification with Christ,” the spiritual sun of creation, by Christians.

Man’s consciousness is like a light that fills a space; the self-awareness to a focal point of that light within. External life with its sensory impressions also produces an apparent focal point in human consciousness, and from this springs the concept of the I of the personality. Man sees that he is something individual in his appearance, in his feeling and thinking. In this peculiarity produced by his imagination, he collects this and that and makes it his own; but this personal self-consciousness is an artificially created thing, which not only changes constantly during life as the impressions received change, but it will also disappear after death, when new sensations and new impressions take the place of those which left.

The phenomena of dream life, the “dream” and “somnambulism” indicate that there is an inner life and a consciousness different from the ordinary. What the philosophers call “the unconscious” is only respectively unconscious. For us it is the unconscious as long as it has not come to our consciousness. If it enters our consciousness, it ceases to be the “unconscious” for us. In fact, this unconscious is a supernatural form of consciousness. There is a “superconscious” (above the normal) as there is a “subconscious” (below the normal). The somnambulist speaks of herself in the third person, treating her person as if it were someone else, subordinate to her; while similarly the population of our “underworld,” i.e., of our subconscious, consists of repressed impulses, desires, passions and ideas; in other words false “I-s” that can also emerge from there and appear in the masks of personalities, tempter and devil. In a person who has come to inner life, on the other hand, there is a union of high self-confidence with consciousness of personality. Herein lies the key to attaining personal survival after the death of the body, which is not a work of caprice, whim, persuasion, change of opinion, creed, or imagination, but of slow growth and ceaseless struggle for spiritual existence. Anyone who does not believe in a spiritual existence independent of the life of the material body will hardly achieve it.

The consciousness of the personal man is like a mirror in which everything that appears before him is reflected. It absorbs not only visible but also spiritual impressions. The images of the outside world are reflected in it, which are objectively perceived through the external senses, and the moods of the soul that are produced thereby evoke subjective dream images in it. The soul’s feeling power extends far and wide and collects ideas, and they are born in the field of consciousness, or it opens its gate and sensations and thoughts penetrate it, from which it does not know where they come from; she senses dangers the body cannot see and anticipates things the mind cannot anticipate. The rays of the astral light send their good and evil from the memory chamber of the soul to the world. From the heavenly regions she receives sensations that can elevate her, from the devilish influences that can degrade her. Anyone in whom the spiritual spark of divine love has not yet been wholly extinguished can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, and receives from him the best thing he can possess, the power of prayer; while, on the other hand, the fumes of hell awaken in him ideas of the most varied sorts of lust and cruelty, which excite him to crime and induce the weakling to do so. The most foolish actions and crimes are committed when people without willpower and self-control imitate the images that come into their consciousness from the astral light and carry them out in a monkey fashion. Neither the flashes of genius nor the images of our imagination are our own creations; every thing has its source from which it comes. One yields to influences or rejects them; but they are not made; one only processes what one receives.

Innumerable things enter our consciousness and our ego receives them without knowing itself and without being aware of its real existence. The animals also have their “I” which receives and perceives impressions, and yet there can be no talk of real self-consiciousness with them. This only occurs when the spiritual-divine life awakens in the human being and he recognizes the divine nature within himself. Consciousness is the circle in which the ego moves and in which, without knowing itself, it makes objective perceptions and receives dreamlike impressions from outside. Self-consciousness is the triangle in which there is no separation of object and subject; but recognition is connected with what is recognized through the power of recognition to develop an indivisible unity. The more man abandons the delusion of his individuality and connects with other beings through the power of love (which is to be distinguished from the desire for possessions) and recognizes the unity of his being with everyone, the more his self-confidence grows and spreads; the more he becomes free from the bonds of delusion, while the egoist suffocates in his self-conceit.

In the knowledge of the true self alone man finds his immortality; for if he has not attained self-awareness during his existence in the material body, he will not awaken to self-awareness after separating from it either, but then, as now, lead a dream life, in which the impressions that he has absorbed during life become ideas and form his environment; only with the difference that, since his spirit and free will have left him with his life, he is no longer master of these ideas. These ideas are reality for him; they are his world and the duration of it depends on the strength of the impressions he has received, be they good or bad. So it is scientifically explainable that the soul filled with holy love may experience all the bliss of heaven, while the soul filled with selfishness and hatred, tormented by remorse, may well find itself in states such as Dante described in his “Hell.” Even now, if we are not caught up in sensory delirium, every bad memory is like an insect sting or like a snake bite, and the loveless egoist does not need to settle on an iceberg to feel cold and abandonment in the desolate wasteland.

We know nothing and can feel nothing but what enters the sphere of our consciousness. Even in this life we know nothing of the outside world except the impressions we receive of it in our consciousness. The states that produce in us heaven, hell, or purgatory are within ourselves; the images born of them are ephemeral, even if they last millennia; but within us is also the kingdom of God, the kingdom of truth and reality, which is elevated above all images and ideas, and in order to awaken to true self-awareness, the Holy Spirit of self-knowledge gives us the necessary power. Only when we have achieved this are we masters of our actions; for the dreamer and fool must do as he pleases; only the man who has come to Self-knowledge is completely free.

The life of the body is fleeting; the intellectual activity of the brain ceases with its death; only the consciousness, life and mind of the soul belong to immortality. That is why it is also the purpose of all true religions to awaken this inner life, which cannot be achieved through a miracle working from outside, but only through awakening within.^[7] In support of what has been said, we will cite some Bible verses which are not true because they are in the Bible, but because they are true because they are there.

“Man has life and death before him. Whatever he wants, that will be given to him.”^[8]

“The striving of the flesh is death; but the striving of the spirit is life and peace.”^[9]

“All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of grass. The grass withers and its flower falls off, but the word (life) of the Lord endures forever.”^[10]

“I live, not I, but Christ [the Buddhi principle of the higher Trinity within man] (the God-man) lives in me.”^[11]

“Whoever has the Son of God has (inner) life, and whoever does not have him does not have life.”^[13]

“I am the way, the truth and the life.”^[12]

“The inner life is the mustard seed spoken of in the Bible. The smallest is the seed within us; but when it grows up it is like a tree, so that the birds of the air (knowledge) come and rest in its branches.”^[14]

“The inner life is the precious treasure that lies hidden in the field (in the spirit-body) Whoever knows it, sells everything that he has and buys this field.”^[15]

“Whoever has the inner life, more is added to it; but whoever does not have the inner life, the outer life will also be taken from him.”^[16]

A great many others from the Bible and other writings of the sages could be added to these quotations; but the above suffices to testify that this inner life is not a fantastic dream life, but the true immortal life, while our outer life is only a passing reflection of it. But it is a great error to think that if we do not attain spiritual soul life in this life, it will be obtained for us in a supernatural way after death; rather, our existence on earth has the purpose of leading us to this life; because “after the day comes the night, when no one can work.”

II Self-Consciousness

“If I am to find my final goal and my beginning,
I have to fathom myself in God and God in me.”^[17]

Inner spiritual Self-knowledge emerges from the awakening of the inner life of the soul; indeed it is consciousness, spiritual perception and cognition in Oneself.

The word “self-knowledge” has an external and an internal meaning. Taken in the external sense, it means that one knows an object not only from hearsay, but from one’s own intuition and experience. Much of what is now called exact knowledge does not refer to the subject itself, but to what has been said or written about it. You can e.g., have an exact knowledge of everything that is written in a book about the history of the Popes, and yet do not know how much of it is true, because one has not experienced these things oneself. Such knowledge does not come from self-knowledge. How many preach ex-cathedra on God and the world, knowing nothing of it except what they have read or thought out about it; which is why a large part of such knowledge consists of chimeras. Only what I have experienced, learned and “seen” myself can be an object of my own knowledge.

In an inner context, the word self-knowledge means the knowledge of one’s own self, and this self-knowledge is only true when it relates to one’s true being and not just to one’s chameleon-like, ever-changing personality that is not the true self. But now the true essence of a thing is that from which it came forth and was made, apart from anything extraneous that is afterward, and since all things came forth from the Word of God, and that Word is God, so also is God a true self of all things, and true self-knowledge and God-knowledge are one and the same.

This doctrine has nothing to do with vulgar pantheism; for even though God is the inmost being of all things, and apart from him nothing exists by itself, yet not all things are God, but only appearances, and considered as such, in themselves an insubstantial nothing; even if these appearances are, after all, three-dimensional and physically clumsy; for the essence of things is spirit, and appearances nothing but the outward expression of it; just as a painted picture is nothing but a representation, and where nothing is represented, there is no picture either. Matter is the canvas, the representation is the picture, the spirit is the painter whose character is represented in the picture. The form is the vessel which the spirit creates itself and in which it reveals itself, but the form is not the essence, but only its expression and image. God is the sole reality; there is nothing real apart from it; but the phenomena that proceed from his power are no more God than the thoughts that spring from a man’s brain are man himself; but in the thought that a person expresses, his essence can be revealed, and likewise the essence of God reveals itself in a perfect form, which is permeated by his spirit and possesses divine qualities.

The human forms, are, in themselves nothing, are there only to serve as vessels and instruments of the manifestation of the divine spirit, and that spirit is the holy spirit of God’s self-knowledge, creating and working in us. Therefore, this knowledge of God is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the goal, the outpouring and the fulfillment, as the form of the letters A and O already indicate. The knowledge of the omnipresence of the divine spirit is the beginning of the way to higher existence, and there is no higher goal than to attain in this spirit that self-knowledge which embraces the whole universe which has proceeded from it. Anyone who has found the holy spirit of knowledge of God within himself is on the right path and no longer needs external instruction. All instructions, all explanations, all religious precepts and scientific achievements are but signposts on the various paths by which one can arrive at the way of wisdom. Once you have found the same, you no longer need them.

It is clear that no being can attain self-knowledge of anything but itself. It cannot recognize itself as something it is not. The earthly human mind is not of divine nature, but only a product of the working of the spirit in matter. Consequently, unless the Spirit of God within him has come to his consciousness, even the wisest philosopher cannot know God, the essence and self of all things, and all philosophical speculation and inference leads no further than theory. Only that in man which is God can recognize itself as God through his own spirit; wherefore it is taught that whoever would find God must worship him in spirit and in truth; because he is himself Spirit and Truth (Reality). So long as man’s spirit regards God as separate or concrete from himself, his true self-knowledge cannot be perfect; this only takes place when the human consciousness becomes completely one with the consciousness of God. Of course, all human ideas and concepts stop there; for something imagined or conceived is still something concrete, even if it is a subjective conception. In true and perfect self-knowledge lies the perfect union, the oneness of object and subject. There is no longer any representation, nor is any more necessary; for there the truth is self-evident. Truths which are self-evident no longer require arguments and proofs; yes, one finds it ridiculous and boring when someone makes long arguments to prove something that everyone already knows; which is why moral sermons are generally not very popular.

But precisely because self-evident facts no longer require proof or representation, they are least thought about, paid little attention to, and easily forgotten. Everyone believes in the existence of eternal principles, wisdom, love, justice, virtue, etc.; but few think about it and act and live by it; and yet these principles cannot enter our life and consciousness until we practice them. Only then do they become living forces in us; only then can we really recognize them ourselves, because then they are embodied in us, so to speak, and are a part of our own being. On the other hand, as long as a principle has not become a force in us, it is a principle, but not our force.

Also, in trying to prove things that are self-evident, and in trying to dissect unified truths, often more harm than good is done. A boy who is told daily that he shouldn’t steal apples from his neighbor’s garden, which he understands as a matter of course, may be tempted to try it precisely by the reasons and suggestions given. Many a man whose belief in immortality needed no proof, because the sense of his soul’s immortality was a self-evident truth within him, lost that feeling and that belief, and with it the power to sustain him, by the evidence, which one tried to teach him for it; for then he learned for the first time that one could doubt it, and this aroused doubts, which grew until the fantasies of lies suffocated the consciousness of the truth.

What is god? — The mind cannot answer this question because it cannot understand God. It sounds like asking “what is space?” — We all live in it and can imagine it neither limited nor unlimited; yet he is there; yes, we ourselves are embodiments of space and would be physically nothing without it.

The situation is different when we regard God as the creator of the world, as the “Word” of God, which is God and from which everything came into being. There, God reveals himself to us as the Lord of the universe, as the innermost being of all appearances, as the one indivisible self of all things and his spirit as the I in the triangle, i.e., than the I in our self-consciousness which we have come to know ourselves. This knowledge is laid in us as a principle and can become life and power in us through action. Therefore it is taught that we should seek God within ourselves and not in external things, and this does not mean that God is confined in us, but that he is everywhere; but our consciousness of his presence cannot awaken outside of us, but only within ourselves.

All the revelations of God that we find in the Holy Scriptures did not come about through the dictates of an external God or through mediumistic insinuations, but through the revealing of the truth in the consciousness of enlightened people. Let’s hear e.g., what the Spirit of God speaks in the Bhagavad Gita, and he not only speaks it in the Bhagavad Gita, but he speaks it to everyone who has come to the inner life and hears his voice:

“I am the source of everything; the whole universe springs from me. The wise, who are made in my image and recognize me, worship me.^[18]

“This whole universe is unfolded through me. All things dwell in me; but I am not included in them. My spirit is the bearer of everything.”^[19]

“As the storm wind moves everywhere, and yet remains constant in space, so are all things within me. At the end of a kalpa all beings return to my nature, and at the beginning of a kalpa I bring them forth again.”^[20]

“Whoever sees me in everything and everything in me, I am not lost for him, and he is not lost for me.”^[21]

“Whoever sees that the supreme Brahm dwells in all his creatures, whether they are perishable or imperishable, is the true seer.”^[22]

The same is taught in other writings of the sages, e.g.:

“The glory of all things is God and the Divine. The divine being is the source of everything.”^[23]

“Different are the effects; but there is only one God who fulfills all in all.”^[24]

“There is one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in us all.”^[25]

But we need not look for proofs of the existence of God; rather, it is about feeling its omnipresence and being living proofs of its existence. F. Rückert expresses this thought in the following words:

“You already are because I am; because that’s how I feel,

That through me I am nothing and through you I am everything.

You who created me as living proof,

Proving yourself is what you call me to do.

To prove you through myself, to me and to the world,

Which does not know the proof of you that it contains.”^[26]

For the egoist who, after the eternal bliss of his earthly personality, i.e., the peculiarity he has assumed, speculative philosophy, as the author of “The Unconscious” rightly remarks,^[27] is not a subject in which he can find comfort and hope; for as he is conscious only of his mortal self, if he loses it, it leads him to naught; but for the man who has awakened to inner life, philosophy, i.e., the love of wisdom, a star of hope shining through his life. For him, giving up his delusion is not a sacrifice, because behind the little “I” that he gives up is the great “I,” and should he eventually enter Nirvana, it is not a sinking into nothingness, but a state in which he loses nothing, but wins everything, because then the all-consciousness of the deity takes the place of his personality consciousness, which will never return.

Modern philosophy fails because of this problem, because it wants to jump from the everyday consciousness of the personality to the absolute and does not know or pay sufficient attention to the steps in between. On the other hand, theosophical teachings, and especially those for which we are indebted to Sankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya], have shed more light on this mystery, in which we recognize that man’s ascent to the Divine is not only a matter of humanity as a whole, but also of the individual spiritual evolution with different stages and that even of man’s personal qualities and memories nothing is lost that is worth keeping in the realm of the Divine. The individual ray of divine “will” which calls into existence a human phenomenon does not necessarily return empty, but brings with it that which corresponded in that person to its own divine nature. He forms the enduring individuality of man, appearing again and again on earth in new reincarnations as successive personalities, and he brings with him his memory of every role he has played, provided that the role was not worth forgetting.

A philosophy without the knowledge of the Logos, which is the origin of all existence and the great I of the universe, however admirable in its logical conclusions, will nevertheless remain bottomless. He who does not know the word (Iswara) [īśvara] does not know the source of life. Without this there would be no true individual self-awareness, but at most an appearance of personal existence caused by the illusion of the individual appearance. A philosophy without knowledge of the constitution of the supersensible man, without knowledge of the law of karma and of reincarnation, is like a sealed building built on sand, without a foundation stone and without a roof, or like a theory of colors without the knowledge of light.

The Word made flesh is the stone which the building rejected; but which has become the cornerstone of the building. The whole of nature is an “incarnation” of the divine word, without which no wisdom would be revealed in the formation of forms. Without wisdom, i.e., All-Self-realization of Iswara [īśvara], there would be no permanent self-awareness of individuality; for the Self-consciousness of the inner man is only a reflection of the divine Self-consciousness of the Creator, and the consciousness of the outer, personal man is only a reflection of that, as everyone who has come to higher consciousness knows from personal experience.

If you want to come to an understanding about something, you should first of all determine the meaning of the designations you want to use; because otherwise there will always be misunderstandings. One should, for instance, not call the lust for possessions “love,” because lust is but a perverse effect of love; one should not describe the belief in a story as “belief,” because true belief is a divine power that has nothing to do with opinions, thoughts and delusions, etc. The same applies to the word “individuality.”

The individuality of a person who has only his personal consciousness and has not yet reached inner self-awareness, consists only in his individual appearance, which distinguishes him from other similar appearances. Only the firmness of character and the self-consciousness rooted in the knowledge of higher principles form the spiritual individuality, which is to be clearly distinguished from the personality; for the latter is only the mask behind which the character (the individual) hides himself. Self-conceit and megalomania are often at home in this mask, but not that self-consciousness which belongs to the inner human being.

There are humanoid creatures, idiots, fools, possessed, hypnotized, “mediums” and the like who do not even have a consciousness of their own personality; Such a person is like an open house without its master, in which this guest and tomorrow that guest enters today and reigns therein as he pleases. Such personalities are like dreamers who, like monkeys, do whatever comes their way and are therefore little or not at all responsible for the actions or crimes they are inspired to commit. They do not act themselves, but are playthings of the circumstances and influences affecting them. Even the thoughts of distant people can move you to action without you knowing where these thoughts are coming from and without the person from whom they emanate knowing anything about it. They do not act on their own, even if they think they are acting themselves, but are moved to do so and do not have the strength to resist. They are like beasts restrained only by fear of punishment or hope of reward (hell and heaven), and the number of such creatures is far greater than is led to believe.

Individual self-consciousness can only be found where there is firmness of character. It is lost or prevented from developing through sensuality, distractions, infatuation, drunkenness, debauchery, passions, reverie, hypnosis, mediumship, mysticism, etc. The degree of firmness of character and self-control and the true individuality of man depend on the degree of individual self-consciousness, but not on personal vanity; for through this man cools himself and is convinced that he is not a toy of his personality but a spiritual being raised above it, which can continue even after the death of the personality to which he is bound during his life. Therein lies the germ of self-knowledge of his being which survives physical death.

Ascending from the human, earthly self-awareness to the higher Self-awareness in the spirit is still a long step; for here man not only feels the conviction that he is a higher spiritual being, but also recognizes himself as such and enters this higher spiritual existence. This state belongs to those in which the inner spiritual life has awakened, and with this life those spiritual perceptions which belong to the relevant sphere also appear. Such a self-conscious man has nothing to do with mystical daydreams; He is a clear-sighted inhabitant of the spiritual world and needs no further proof of his immortality. This state is to be distinguished from those mediumistic states in which impressions from the astral world reach personal consciousness, but the human being cannot act self-consciously and act independently. In this too there are different degrees, from the state of a clairvoyant like Swedenborg, to the utter clarity of an adept who can place his soul (his Self-consciousness) where he wishes to be.

Above this stands the consciousness of God, which we could call the All-Self-consciousness of the Logos; for here, too, “individuality” and the consciousness of the “Son” are to a certain extent different from that of the “Father,” even though they are both God and one in their essence, and behind this the universal consciousness of the Father, the absolute consciousness, which is everything includes, the deity, Parabrahman.

“No one can come to the Father but through the Son.” — One must have attained personal consciousness in order to attain firmness of character in individual self-awareness. One must possess this in order to exercise that self-control which is necessary to keep the lower influences at bay and to absorb the higher, so that the inner life of the soul and the spiritual consciousness can awaken. Only then can we hope that the consciousness of God will be revealed in us, and we will only experience what absolute consciousness is when we reach the Father through that, i.e., have come to Nirvana. Even then, as we are taught, individuality is not lost, but the memory of what we were lives on; even if we have thousands of existences behind us; just as now every significant experience, every great thought that we once had in life can reappear in memory or be evoked. Every life on earth that we have experienced in our reincarnations then appears to us like a day in the life of our great past; but only that which was sublime, noble and memorable belongs to this memory; the unworthy returns to the storehouse of the material to be processed anew in the path of evolution. Omne donum perfectum a Deo, imperfectum a diavolo [Every perfect gift from God, is imperfect from the devil].^[28] Everything perfect comes from God and returns to God, the imperfect belongs to the devil (of peculiarity).

It is therefore no child’s play to reach true Self-awareness and the knowledge of God. This state is reached neither through brooding nor study, neither through pious enthusiasm nor through any kind of external things, but it requires experience, independent willing, thinking and acting, fearless fulfillment of duty, pure feeling and perseverance, which, if they are in us as living forces, contribute to the ennobling of the mind.

Whoever is attached to an external thing, even if it were an external god distant from him, as many church-minded people imagine him to be, does not belong to his true Self, but to the idea of that thing, and even if such ideas are useful for this purpose, to awaken the feeling for something higher, all searching in the external is an obstacle to coming to oneself and to Self-knowledge.

The “I” is the foundation of our being, the center of all the forces we need to progress. That is why F. Rückert also expresses a great truth when he says:

“You may doubt things, whether and what they are;

You certainly have no doubts about who you are.

This is the starting point, be sure of it;

You will then come to all knowledge without obstacles.”

III. The Way

In a thousand people there is hardly one who strives for true knowledge, and among these there are only a few who really know me. — Bhagavad Gītā. VII. 3.

The highest and final purpose of all religion and science, of all education, of all instruction, indeed of all evolution, is to bring man to self-knowledge of the truth. The more man ennobles himself mentally, emotionally and physically and strips away imperfections, the more the light of truth can enlighten him and be revealed in him, and through the awakening of a higher self-awareness and knowledge he himself enters into a higher existence. This advancement can go so far as to become godlike and luminous himself, and through that godlikeness able to become one with the Deity; for there is no longer any difference between two beings who are alike in everything.

The figure above represents the path of this union. The Pentagon standing upright, pointing upwards, symbolizes the spiritually upright human being. Within him, the union of the two triangles, the divine with his earthly being, takes place, from which arises true Self-knowledge, which has nothing to do with things outside the self.

This path to divine Self-knowledge, or what is the same, to the knowledge of God in our Self-consciousness, is taught by all sages and saints, whether we read the Bible, or the Bhagavad Gita, or the Tao of the Chinese, the letters of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, whether you pick up “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas von Kempen, “The Way to Christ” by Jacob Böhme, or any other truly mystical book, we find the same precepts everywhere, which can be summed up in the words: “Love God, your Lord (i.e., the true Self in you and in everything) above everything and your neighbor as yourself.” — True knowledge springs from true, completely unselfish love, just as fire and light spring from a high degree of warmth in combustible substances.

More than two thousand years ago, one of the greatest sages of the world, the Indian Sankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya], described certain abilities which must be possessed and practiced in order to attain true knowledge; because without practice, a mere disposition does not become a driving force.

These qualities or skills are as follows:

1. 1. Viveka. Distinction between the enduring and the ephemeral.
  2. Viraga. [vairāgya] Altruism.
  3. Sadhana sampatti. [sādhana saṃpatti] The sixfold endowment of calm, self-restraint, etc.
  4. Mumuksha. [mumukṣa] The will to be free.

Since these teachings, which were authoritative in ancient times, will be authoritative to the end of the world, let us briefly consider them.

I. Viveka. (Discrimination.)

If we are to distinguish between the permanent and the transitory, it is necessary first of all to get to know these two, or at least to feel their existence. By the “Enduring” Sankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya] means our immortal, if not infinite, Higher Self, our Father in Heaven, who is the Creator not only of our present personality, but is the begetter of all the personal manifestations in which we formerly arose when having appeared on the stage of life, or will appear in the future, as explained by the doctrine of reincarnation.

This “permanent” is the personal God of every human being, dwelling in and without him, and the agent through which man receives the light of the still higher Logos. It is both in us and without us; but it has its seat in the heart of man, and only there can man find him, just as we cannot find our life outside of ourselves, but only within ourselves, even if the same life is in everything. Christianity also agrees with this, which teaches that only those who carry God in their hearts will find the way to him. But when we have come to this knowledge, it will be easy for us to distinguish the eternal in us from our ephemeral personality through our own introspection, and we will then also free the words of the Master who says: “Live in this world, but don’t be of this world.” — The personality of man is a perishable product of this world; his true spiritual Self belongs to the heavenly world and that which is above it. Only because of this can the deity be revealed in the soul of man, and the soul recognizes divinity because the soul itself is of divine origin. The brain-mind is not directly of God, but a birth of this world and can’t understand God. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

II. Viraga. [vairāgya] (Unselfishness)

Sankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya] explains the meaning of this word as the absence of desire to gain personal advantage for oneself in this life or in a future existence. The church also teaches selflessness; but since most people lack the distinction between the true, divine and the personal, ephemeral self, this teaching is often misunderstood and then aims just the opposite. Instead of strengthening their true self-awareness, many feel they have to give it up, give up their individuality and trust some god they don’t know, or leave their promotion to heaven to the “chaplains.” Such people, obsessed with religious delusions, become infatuated and perish for want of true Self-consciousness. They deny the true Self and retain their self-conceit with the consequent greed and intolerance.

It is a matter, then, of overcoming, by the power of discernment, the self-delusion which is the greatest obstacle to the revelation of the true self in man’s consciousness. Man at his core is God, and God-consciousness is his true consciousness. Master Eckhardt says: “Put away everything that is not God, and only God remains.” — As long as we still desire something for our transitory selves, this desire clouds clear knowledge.

But how could man give up his self-delusion while he himself is in it and imprisoned by it? He might as well be expected to pull himself out of a swamp by his hair. Self-conceit cannot give itself up. A man who has no higher consciousness than that of the personal self could at most fall into foolish asceticism and self-torment. Like the fleeing ostrich, he could bury his head in the sand; but he gains nothing from it. He could ignore the world in supposed flight from the world; he could not leave and ignore himself; in the deepest solitude he would find nothing but his imaginary self. But when the higher Self-awareness has awakened in him, then he can look down on his personal self with its desires and desires and control it and cast it off, like a snake that sheds its skin, or like a butterfly that crawls out of its chrysalis. Then he sees, that his personality is only a shadow of the light, and the light is himself. All human and animal passions belong to the shadow, greed, thirst for knowledge, lust for glory, fear of punishment, expectation of reward, vanity, self-righteousness, lust for power, delusions of grandeur, shadow of the shadow and born of it. Also, all morality that springs from self-conceit has no value in the face of the higher Self, and even good deeds that spring from self-delusion are powerless because they are born of man’s self-conceit and not of the will of God (unselfish love).

The Bhagavad Gita says:

“Brahma is the sacrifice; he is the sacrificial fire and also its food. He sacrifices himself Whoever lives in Brahma during his deeds enters into him.”^[29]

“Not even this world is meant for those who cannot sacrifice themselves; how could the other be theirs.”^[30]

Jesus of Nazareth also says in the Bible:

“I can do nothing of myself. — I do not seek my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me.”^[31]

And Thomas von Kempen says:

“Ascribe no good to yourself in what you do, and blame no one for the virtues it displays; relate everything to God, without whom man has nothing good in himself.”^[32]

This lack of desire certainly has nothing in common with that foolhardy quietism, which is a distortion of the teaching of Michael de Molinos and is almost opposed to it. This quietism believes it can devote itself to lazy doing nothing and seeks to leave the fulfillment of its own duty to a God whom it does not know. This is not surrender to God, but surrender to nothing. God does not attend to people’s earthly affairs and is not their ministering spirit. Nor can anyone surrender to a God who is far from him and whom he does not know. But the wise man surrenders to the divine will known to him, which reigns and acts in the temple of his own inner being, guided by it in his power, and before the majesty of his God, self-delusion vanishes into its nothingness, and all personal desires with it.

Whoever acts for selfishness does not act by God’s power, and God does not work through him, and whoever refrains from doing a good thing that he ought to do, for fear of doing selfishness and thereby harming himself, acts thereby also selfish, because the arbitrary omission is itself an expression of will and an act.

And now some will ask: “If man should not desire anything, then what is prayer for?” — The word “prayer” is related to “give,” and when man surrenders fully to the power of God, he is one with God and His divine will, and grants his request to himself. Proper prayer is the highest good of which bestowed on man and a supreme power elevating him to God; but an unworthy entreaty of any personal advantage is not self-sacrifice or prayer, but greedy begging, and the thought of making God subservient to man’s will by entreaty and persuasion is a presumption springing from self-conceit. Such a request is useless, however, unless it is addressed to some person, or to some inferior being, e.g., a deva or an elemental being, which can sometimes happen, as the history of an answered prayer and the phenomena brought about by the Indian fakirs testifies.

Without the distinction of the eternal from the transitory, all religious teachings are easily misconstrued and misunderstood. The power of this distinction is the holy spirit of Self-knowledge. He is the keeper of those mysteries that cannot be explained and understood without him; but for those who have it, all these things are self-explanatory without long-philosophizing on it.

III. Sādhana Sampatti (The Six Virtues)^[33]

The word “virtue” comes from “good.” The six virtues mentioned here are powers which make people fit for the inner, spiritual life:

1. Shamah. [śamaḥ] (Peace of mind)

God at his center is eternal rest. If you want to find him, you have to go into the depths of your heart where God’s rest reigns. Then the wisdom of God can reveal itself in him. This rest is not the rest of sleep or death, but the confident rest that springs from self-control. “Like a flame that does not flicker when sheltered from the wind.” — This is the picture of a sage who keeps his mind still and takes refuge in God-Consciousness.

If we stand on the bank of a calm pond on a clear night, we see the images of the stars on the surface of the water just as clearly as in the firmament above. But when the water is in motion, these reflections are distorted. Likewise, a pure mind, which is at rest, becomes susceptible to the influence of divine ideas that shine in the spiritual sky, and when the soul is not troubled by fear, moved by no passions, and veiled by no fantasies, it can in the clear mirrors of perception, the sun of wisdom appear and reveal its secrets.

The Bhagavad Gita says:

“When tamed by spiritual immersion, thinking has come to rest, and the self-contemplating man has found the peace of God within; when he is filled with that immeasurable bliss that dwells beyond the sensuous, and when, steadfastly therein, he ‘never lets go of eternal truth,’ he will realize that union with the Highest is detachment from all contact with Him, which can bring suffering. The supreme bliss descends on one whose heart is at rest, in whom no passions stir, who is one with Brahma and free from sin.”^[34]

It is understandable that this kind of calm is not to be understood as a dull introspection, a creeping into selfhood, a blind surrender to fate “because one cannot change the matter,” but rather that sublimity of consciousness, that height of mind from which one can look down on one’s own personality and all that pertains to it as a spectacle. For this it is necessary to have the ability to feel the eternal and to distinguish it from the ephemeral. The ungodly, because he has not God, cannot know this divine rest; with the saint it enters of itself.

A poet says:

“Have you won a world possession,

Don’t be happy about it, it’s nothing

And if a world possession has melted away for you,

Don’t be sorry about it, it’s nothing.

Joys and delights pass;

Go past the world, it’s nothing.”

But in order to be able to bypass the world in this way, man must also be above his own “self” and recognize it as nothing; for otherwise he is a part of the world and as such cannot ignore himself. Anyone who does not know this spiritual self-consciousness cannot rest in it either; he cannot understand all these teachings at all, because knowledge of God is both the beginning and the end of all true knowledge.

Everyone is looking for rest; everyone tries to keep away from himself what troubles him; but while the one seeks this peace on the outside and does not find it, the other seeks it on the inside where he can have it at any time. The soul floats back and forth between the outer personality consciousness and the inner knowledge of God. Soon she soars like the eagle above the storm of life and finds rest in the realm of truth; soon she crawls like a worm on the earth under spikes and thorns and forgets her homeland in the blue ether, because she is caught by the concept of her uniqueness. However, lasting rest is only found in that state of consciousness in which the illusion of separation from God in the universe disappears, where all earthly concepts and ideas cease and the God-man takes the place of the natural man.

“Requiescat in pace,” he rest in peace, is written on the tombstones of the dead. Every principle finds its rest in the source from which it arose. The body formed of the earth finds its rest in the earth; the spirit that is of God finds rest in God; but the soul (the ego), which is restless when it leaves the body, brings with it its restlessness even after it has left the body, and keeps it until all that it has produced has departed from it, and since such departed, earthbound souls can no longer rise by their own strength, they often seek help through the prayer of the living. They can also be helped to settle down through the spiritual influence of spiritually awakened individuals.^[35]

A simply external calm is, like everything external, only appearance. Anyone who goes into solitude or into a monastery to find peace there will only find what he brings with him. Bringing his desires, passions, and ideas with him, he finds them there too, and the lack of external withdrawal only allows them to germinate and grow there. For many who cannot control themselves, monasteries and prisons are but nurseries of vice. Idleness brings no true bliss, doing nothing does not bring enlightenment. True peace comes only after struggle and victory. In immature minds, seclusion breeds only lovelessness, selfishness, self-conceit and megalomania. The real “hermit” is the one who, in the midst of life’s urgency, carries God-consciousness in his heart and dwells in it constantly. It is not he who runs away, but he who overcomes, who attains the crown of victory and is a hero.

He who does not have what he desires can find rest by abandoning the desires that trouble him, and being content with what he has. Everyone knows the story of the shirt of a content man. A sick king should be healed by wearing the shirt of a man who is perfectly content. After a long search, a beggar was found on the street who said he was completely content; but the beggar had no shirt, and so the king had to die. We should think unselfishly in spiritual things. The more we are satisfied with what we receive from God and gratefully accept it, the more qualified we are to receive and will receive more.

Inner peace is the basic condition of all “yoga exercises” and mystical endeavors. Master Eckhardt says:

“The birth of the God-man (in us) takes place in the innermost being of the soul. It happens over time, in eternity; there, where there is neither here nor now, neither nature nor thought. All the powers of the soul become aware in divine perception. The body is then also in a still rest, so that no limb moves; for the Eternal Word is born, at the same time in spirit and in body. The overflowing fullness of light that comes from birth in the depths of the soul also pours into the body, and it is thereby transfigured.”

In order to find inner peace, the sun can be a role model for us. It stands high in the sky and goes its own way, unconcerned about what crawls and creeps down here. Earthly things do not disturb its rest; yet it participates in all, giving to all, without exception, as much life as it can receive. Its rays penetrate the noblest forms; it clothes the trees in lush green and the flowers in glorious colours; they give fragrance to the rose and flavor to the strawberry, and they shine into the depths of the most impure puddles without being soiled thereby. So too should the inner man rest confidently in unshakable trust in his indwelling divinity; while outwardly participating in life and fulfilling his duties. This is the right “trust in God”; a trust in an external God whom one does not know is a trust in nothing.

He who thus rests in the God whose presence he feels within him has the right to say from his own experience: “Our God is a strong citadel.” His “head is heaven” and his footstool is “earth,” i.e., the material which he left. His soul is erect like the Blessed Virgin represented in the images of the Church, the head surrounded by stars, the moon (the imagination) under the feet and the head of the serpent of the crushing self-will. In this way he rises to the highest in the power that fills him, and on this ascension leaves behind his assumed individuality and with it all his earthly wishes.

2. Damas. [dama] (Self-restraint.)

It is clear from such considerations that in order to achieve inner peace, complete mastery of the senses, of thinking and willing, and finally also of bodily functions, is necessary, which the Indian calls samadhi and the Bible “rapture”; arguably distinguished by a fantasy-induced “ecstasy” or “exteriorization of consciousness,” where no real self-awareness is present. The Adept does not come out of himself, but is spiritualized with his whole being; a sick person can also have astral perceptions, but he is not master of himself.

In Sanskrit, the great art of self-restraint is “Rajah-Yoga,” [rāja-yoga] that is, denotes the royal art; for everyone who has become a master in rāja-yoga is thereby a king in his kingdom. He is One with his God-Consciousness and Divine Will, and rules himself by God’s power. He is united with the Self, the “Lord,” and consequently a ruler in God, while the priest, who has not yet attained such rule, is only a servant or servant of God.

Mastery of oneself is hard to attain, and is attained only by constant practice. There is no victory without struggle. In the Bhagavad Gita, this struggle with the “self,” which is composed of many elements, is allegorically described; in the churches he is represented in the image of Saint George fighting the dragon, or of the angel Michael fighting the powers of the underworld. It is not an external dragon that the knight vanquishes; the dragon with its brood is delusion with its products, the knight is the higher Self, the horse is the symbol of obedience, the spear is determination, the sword is will, the shield is the power of faith and conviction.

Without the power of God no one can conquer; it wins in us when we let it win. The animal cannot control itself voluntarily, no matter how much it is trained and ennobled, it always remains an animal, even if it is ennobled. In the beast-man one passion fights another. He is restrained by fear of punishment or hope of reward; wrath overcomes cowardice, vanity overcomes avarice, covetousness overcomes sloth; but he always remains an animal and attains no higher consciousness. The redeeming power is within us, but it does not redeem the animal from itself; God in us redeems himself from the animal and takes our humanity with him when they are evolved enough to connect with him.

The beast-man is driven by his desires; the thinking man lives in his ideas and makes his decisions. His mind can make him egoistic or altruistic; the wise act from the knowledge of the law. He is neither egoist nor altruist, but sees his own divine self in everything. God in him has no personal likes or dislikes; he makes no distinction of person; he is one with all, embracing all with his love and sacrificing himself in it.

When victory is won, the fight stops. Those who have become true Christians no longer have any trouble overcoming themselves. Christ in him has triumphed. This Christ is not a stranger to him, but the light of his soul, his incarnate divine self. If Christ is formed in us, we ourselves have his divine power.^[36]

But how would it be if man, at his present stage of development, came into the world without the capacity to have passions? In that case there would be no development and no progress for him. If, as it is said, God had already wanted to create man perfect, since only the sole indivisible deity is perfect, he could not have created anything either. There would then be no human ego, no individuality. Every passion and every temptation is a stage that must be passed in order to reach the higher. A man incapable of passion would be faced with a mountain he could never climb. Through resistance we overcome, we gain our strength.

3. Uparana [uparati] (Obedience: desisting from sensual enjoyment or any worldly action)

It is evident from the above that we need not exert our own will to control our desires and passions; we need only let the will of God work in us, and this is done by the power of obedience.

But what is the will of God? How can we recognize it? —

God in us does not have multiple wills; his will is only one. He wants to reveal his divinity in us so that we become godlike. His will is that law, and if we obey it, we do his will. Our passions don’t hold on to us, we hold on to them. If we let them go, they’re gone.

Very few of our ideas are our own. Images from the astral light are reflected in our minds and may bring to our mind scenes of lust and cruelty that have taken place somewhere in the world; but these conceptions are not our thoughts unless we enliven them by our will and identify with them by assenting to them. Only weaklings and people without firmness of self-confidence are seduced by them. If we let the light of knowledge shine in us, they disappear like fog in sunlight.

God himself is the will and the law and not different from them; obedience consists in fulfilling the duties that the law of God imposes on us. But this fulfillment of duty is through knowledge of the law, i.e., conditioned by the knowledge of God, and the more we grow in this knowledge, the more the responsibility before the judgment seat of God impinges on us.

The quality of every action is determined by its motive; an action may spring either from ignorance, or from lust, or from the knowledge of good, or two or all three causes may work together, and as every thing bears within itself the essence of that from which it was born, actions that are the same on the outside are often very different on the inside.

In Indian philosophy these three motives or natural qualities are called “gunas” [guṇa-s], which are denoted as follows:

1. 1. Tamo-guna [tamo guṇa], the principle of indolence, ignorance, darkness, the contracting, the material principle in all of nature, which presents itself to us externally as what is called “matter.”
  2. Rajah-guna [rajo guṇa], desire and passion, the aspiring, the fire, the energy or power.
  3. “Sattva-guna [sattvo guṇa], the good, the still, the luminous, joyous, enjoying.

The Bhagavad Gītā says:

“Sattva, Rajas and Tamas are the three Gunas which arise from Prakriti (nature) and through which Purusha [puruṣa] (spirit, mind) is bound to the body. Of these, sattva binds through pleasure, rajas through lust, and tamas through folly, which veils the knowledge of truth.”^[37]

This teaching is of great importance, for according to it everyone can judge for himself what motive his actions spring from and what their value is. The stupid acts out of stupidity, the covetous out of desire, the pleasure-loving out of love of pleasure. One obeys out of fear of punishment (tamas), another out of desire for reward (rajas); the third because it gives him pleasure (sattwa); but the sage is above these three qualities; he fears no punishment, hopes for no reward, does not wish to be amused, but does his duty because it must be done; he never considers himself. Whoever acts completely unselfish is not at fault because his “Self” has no part in the action.

But when sattwa is predominant in our actions, it is more perfect than when it springs from tamas or rajas. The sense of duty accomplished brings joy and tranquility, and then real realization is but one step. From stupidity comes error, from greed comes suffering, from pleasure comes experience. He who enjoys the high is exalted by it; lust imprisons man, persistence in ignorance draws him down. The sage who has come to realize his true Self sees that these three qualities do not belong to him, but only to his nature (personality); he stands above it and is free from it.

He who goes to church without knowing why is acting out of tamas; whoever wants to gain an advantage by doing so acts from rajas; he who performs his religious duties joyfully is acting out of sattwa. When ignorance disappears, covetousness remains, and when that too is gone, there remains the joyful consciousness of duty accomplished; but the wise renounce this also; he does not pride himself on having done his duty; he does not see the motive in the peculiarity of his person; not “he” fulfills the law, but the law is fulfilled by means of his knowledge through him; he himself is one with the law.

The same is true of renunciation. The fool throws away his wealth because he doesn’t know its value. The covetous seeks to attain something better by giving up what he considers inferior; the wise man rejoices in the pleasure that the right use of his treasures brings him; but the wise no longer need renunciation, because they are no longer bound by anything. They judge things by their real worth. They are like a grown man who leaves to the children the hobby-horse he used to ride as a child. It’s no longer attractive to him.

The Bible says: “It is not by running that the kingdom of God is won; but by submission.” — The naked soul, free from all individuality, need only remain still, and then the divine swan will approach Leda; then the Blessed Virgin is imbued with the Divine Spirit; then takes place the immaculate conception and incarnation, free from all animal impulses, and the birth of the Redeemer within us.

4. Titikscha [titikṣa] (Endurance)

Not what we dream of in this life or in the “beyond,” but only what is absorbed into our being and passes into our “flesh and blood,” is permanently in us, belongs to us and gives strength to the character. The common man sways back and forth in the path of life like a drunk. Intoxicated by the intoxication of the senses, he sinks into the swamp of the sensual; then again his imagination swarms like shimmering soap bubbles up to the stars. The bubbles burst and he finds himself back where he was before. Only what has gained firm ground stands firm and can grow. Imagination gives us no lasting support. A tree does not get bigger by carrying it higher up in the attic; but if it has gained ground where it is, in the course of time it can outgrow the roof. The development of strength requires the concentration of strength; Enthusiasm and distraction waste energy. One can preach well, write poetry or fantasize, and is therefore far from being a saint or adept; yes, one often finds the greatest depravity in good speakers.

The mind is like the wind, “one does not know where it comes from, nor where it is going”; it moves in and out of man. It is not difficult to think and feel something lofty for a moment; but to hold the mind, to abide in it, and to fix it in oneself is a great art. It is easy to move at one’s will; but keeping still, as the law wants, is difficult and can only happen through devotion to the divine, for which the power of discernment is again necessary; for one cannot surrender or immerse oneself in that which one does not feel and know nothing about.

In very few people, however, has this power of differentiation become a firm conviction; they do not know that assumed selfhood is but a burden, “a cross” that man must carry through life in order to arrive at the Mount of Transfiguration; they rejoice in the cross to which they are nailed, because they know nothing better. Still, they only feel happy when they forget that selfhood. That is why people seek all kinds of distractions; they forget themselves in the contemplation of an object, enjoy the beauties of nature and the theatre, live in the heroes of the novels they read, and thus step outside of themselves for a time. Happy is the worker who has no time to think of himself, unhappy is the brooding mind who has nothing to concern himself with but his transitory “I.”

But all pleasures and all pastimes and all distractions are not permanent. Only the divine life and the spirit of God are permanent in us. Everyone enters into the thing to which his heart is attached. If his soul is filled with the divine spirit, he enters into it and lives in it; if he only clings to the realm of phenomena, he disappears with them from the spectacle of nature. The Bhagavad Gita teaches:

“Whoever departs from the world thinking only of me, after the death of his body enters my being.”^[38]

But in order to be able to think of Brahma in this way at the hour of death, we must have learned this “thinking” beforehand; for it is not in the imagination but in God’s spirit.

Many consider all that is invisible to them unreal and unsubstantial; but God is the most substantial of all and the only real thing, and “stuff” without God, there is nothing. The ancient sages preached it thousands of years ago, and the more recent philosophers have recently discovered that everything we call “matter” is nothing but an appearance of forces and even the “forces” are nothing without the spirit. There can be worlds in our world whose forms are much denser and heavier and more “material” than ours, and which are nevertheless invisible and intangible to us, and there are such too. All existence is only relative; when we have gathered strength, we have firmness.

How different things would be in the world if everyone realized that the Church’s doctrine of the omnipresence and omniscience of God is not a fable, but a scientific fact; that all is God, Life and Consciousness, and belief in a powerless, mindless, self-existing “stuff” belongs in the junk room of an outmoded scientific superstition.

Where there is strength there is substantiality; the greater the accumulated force, the greater the strength; be it external or internal, material or spiritual. “Whoever does not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood has no life in him.” He who does not receive the essence of virtue within himself and does not let the Spirit of God come alive in him has no inner life and no firmness; he is like a cloud that the wind has blown together and which the wind blows away again.

That in which a thing has attained solidity forms its essence, and this is expressed in its appearance and in its actions. A principle that has become a force in man gives him the qualities from which his ability springs. The word “art” comes from “can.” If you can’t do anything, you have no art, but the artist’s art gives him the ability. The bird flies, the nightingale sings, the dog barks, the fish swims, not because they “copied” someone else, but because this skill is in their nature and that is why they are made that way. The thief steals because he has become a thief through repeated stealing. For the saint it takes no effort to be holy; it is in his nature, because he is settled in the knowledge of holiness. Good, works itself out through the good, evil through the bad. What man stands firm in is himself and he is firm in that.

5. Shraddha [śraddha] (Faith. Belief.)

The more a nation sinks into “materialism,” the more it loses its sense of the spiritual. The more common sense is drawn to the external, the more discernment and intuition disappear. With the power to feel spiritual principles, the comprehension of words denoting them is lost. So it is that nowadays “love” means covetousness, “hope” means covetousness, and “faith” means holding a theory true; although the apostle Paul already recognized and expressed it clearly enough that faith is not an intellectual idea but a spiritual power. It is the spiritual-divine life in us and has nothing to do with theories, beliefs, opinions, opinions and delusions, ideas, fantasies and fantasies. When it is said that one should “make no image” of God, what is meant is that one should not form any ideas about what is beyond all human imagination. A man can be full of divine faith without believing in any historical event, tale, or the like. Faith as a spiritual, self-existent force and the object to which it is directed are two different things; but sham belief, like sham love, is created by the object and goes away with it. False belief is a matter of the head, true belief is the consciousness awakened in the heart; therefore also the religion of the head is different from that of the heart. One may fancy believing in the literal truth of all religious fables, and yet have no true faith.

Sankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya] explains “Shradda” [śraddha] as trust in the words of the guide: Everyone can find the best guide within himself. There, the teacher and master speaks the divine word. Jakob Böhme says: “If you want to swing into the kingdom for a moment, since no creature dwells, you will hear what God is saying.” — When we have learned to leave our self-will and to hear the word of the Master clearly and distinctly within ourselves, then we no longer need any external instruction. Until we get there, the choice of teacher is ours. But the law also prevails here: “One does not fit all. Like attracts like. Where the carcass lies, there the vultures gather.”

“The doubter perishes” — says the Bhagavad Gita. — Doubt makes useless and powerless; in faith we stand firm. Doubt makes all things impossible. A man cannot move unless he believes he can. Doubt holds him back. Faith healings are everyday occurrences; they happen both unconsciously and consciously. The most skillful doctor will have little success without faith in his art. It is nowhere written that Christ said to those healed by him, “I have healed you.” But he said: “Your faith helped you.”

But doubts are also justified; otherwise he would not be in the world. It serves to separate falsity from truth, and whoever uses it correctly is led to knowledge by it. But to those who constantly create doubts that they cannot ignore, the truth remains hidden from them. There are enough credulous people who take appearances for truth; but there are also those who are not satisfied unless they can find something to complain about; and there are likewise many who suffer from doubt. Holding on to her illness is punished in the end with the loss of intuition. Anyone who is true himself will soon find the truth that needs no proof. She teaches him through her Holy Spirit. — “Blessed is he,” — says Thomas von Kempen, — “whom the truth teaches through itself; not through ephemeral words and images, but as it is in its essence”

6. Samadhanam. [samādhāna] (Sense of Purpose)

If a man wishes to travel to a place to which a straight path leads, it is best for him to proceed along that straight path and not to take any byways leading to other ends. Our thoughts wander here and there, looking for an ideal in external things that we cannot find there, because the highest ideal lies hidden within us and we can only realize it within ourselves.

It is difficult to master the thoughts and to keep them in check. Whoever wants to hold on to a thought of a thing that he does not love ardently, even for a short time, without allowing another thought to enter, will find many an obstacle. But what the head alone cannot do, the heart can do; what the will cannot accomplish, love accomplishes. When love has chosen an object, the thought automatically sticks to it. When the fiery love of the divine is awakened in our hearts, the flame of knowledge rises and consumes all that does not belong in the kingdom of God.

True love and true knowledge are inseparable; the one is conditioned and promoted by the other. One cannot truly love a thing unless one knows it, and one never comes to know it unless one loves it. But if knowledge is completely penetrated by love and love is completely filled with knowledge, then the two are only one.

Modern science believes it has discovered that all phenomena of life can be traced back to mechanical and chemical activity; but behind these activities is spirit, whose purpose is manifest in every thing by the law of its growth. On the physical plane, this law is expressed without the self-consciousness of forms. The whole of nature strives towards incarnation, albeit without knowing it; but the man who has come to the self-awareness of his higher existence has his development in his hands. His goal is becoming God and the realization of this ideal in himself is the purpose of his existence on earth. Anyone who strives for this goal with perseverance and without wavering will attain it through the power of love, even if not in his present incarnation, at least in the end.

This love of the highest is the only true path. It is difficult to arrive at the divine existence through a scientific study of the nature of God. He who regards a thing as an object keeps aloof from it; only in the union of consciousness with God can we find God Consciousness. When we love the highest, we think it with the heart, if not with the head. The thought of itself clings to what we love. Love is the highest force in the universe, which attracts and connects everything. Whoever loves the divine being in all creatures sees God in everything. Love is the highest of all virtues; as the Apostle Paul also recognized, for he says: “If I could prophesy and knew all mysteries and all knowledge, and had all faith, and had not love, I would be nothing.”^[39]

In God (in the consciousness of God) willing and thinking, speaking and acting are one; in humans they are usually different. Therefore his will is powerless and his thought fleeting. This brings us to consider the fourth ability spoken of by Sankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya]:

IV. Mumukshu [mumukṣu] (The will to be free.)

There are not just moments in human life, but hours and days when, when one thinks about oneself, one would like to be redeemed from oneself, and these are precisely what are necessary in or der to arrive at a distinction between the permanent and the transient.

Man is like a bird in a cage with the doors open. He thinks he can’t get out, so he can’t get out. Even suicide would do him no good; for it is not the body that keeps him captive, but his own will, and he would take his prison with him to the other world. Nothing keeps us in our prisons but ignorance of our higher nature and lack of willpower to step free. We are attached to our own self, and therefore it is attached to us. Edwin Arnold in his “Light of Asia” has the Buddha say:

“You suffer by yourselves. No other forces,

No other keeps you from striving and living;

that you embrace and kiss the spoke of the wheel,

To which you cling, whirling.”

Every creature loves what corresponds to its own nature. Night owls and bats love the dark, the eagle and the lark love the light. When the divine awakens within us, we will love it; as long as the sensual in us has the upper hand, we love it and are ruled by it.

Philosophers have debated for millennia whether man has free will, and will never solve this conundrum unless they can distinguish between the free, inner God-man and the mortal man imprisoned in his assumed peculiarities. The man who has become “natural” or rather “unnatural” not only has no free will, but no will at all; his will can only be his own insofar as the will of great nature works in him and drives him. The instinctive and intelligent forces in nature awaken his desires and determine his actions. The will of God is the only free will in man. A man trapped in self-delusion cannot have free will because he himself is not free. Only when the recognition of the unity and immutability of the divine will and its union with what is called the human will can we speak of freedom of the will.

This freedom of will cannot be attained in any other way than through this knowledge. Through it, man becomes master of God and of nature. This dominion is attained through obedience. If you want to dispose of the laws of nature, you have to know them and follow them, then nature will obey you. The chemist who wants to experiment, the gardener who plants a tree, the teacher who wants to educate a child, all must obey the laws laid down by nature; then they work according to the law and are masters of their work. Likewise, one who wants to awaken to the self-awareness of immortal existence and attain freedom must know and follow the necessary laws. He cannot become an angel of light and at the same time remain in darkness.

Accordingly, the human being who has come to self-knowledge would also have no free will; for either he obeys the will of nature and remains in nature, i.e., in what is born, or he must obey the divine will. This objection would be correct if God and man were two distinct, self-existent beings; but man is nothing without God. God is everything, and also man’s own innermost being. God’s will is the law in the whole universe and in all nature. When man recognizes and obeys the unity of his being with God and God as the law, then he also recognizes himself in God as the law; and in obeying the law he obeys no one else but only himself. Then his will is free.

Freedom of will, then, is not attained by an unknowing relinquishment of will and thought; because that would make man an idiot, but in the union of human will with the divine will on the way of knowledge, and this is attained through love free from all covetousness. The more man sacrifices his self-delusion in this love, the more he becomes free from his assumed self with all its sins; wherefore it is written, that the soul which has loved much is forgiven much; she forgives herself all when she frees herself from the self-delusion that binds her. True love is the redeeming power within us, it pulls us up to the highest and makes us gods. Thus, the key to unraveling all mysteries is found in the precept known to everyone, which says: “You shall love the Lord your God (the true Self) with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself.

A selfish, heartless, unloving “theosophist,” “occultist,” etc., driven by greed, seeking the gratification of his thirst for knowledge, and greedy for the possession of occult powers in order thereby to gain some personal advantage for himself, is like a fool, who wants to cook without fire; he traps the divine spark within himself; until it finally suffocates or disappears in egoism, leaving him as a mindless larva or devil; but the wise find their refuge in love; he partakes in the whole, and the divine power which is hidden in the whole, without his seeking, becomes part of him by the law of grace. This is the way!

IV Symbols.

“Then he revealed to them the understanding,

that they may understand the Scriptures.” — Luke XXIV, 45.

Everything we see in nature is truth; but we do not see the truth itself, only its representations or symbols. We do not see the essence of things, or what they really are, but only their appearance. The spirit of things is by nature invisible to our bodily eyes, and that is why nature is there with its appearances so that we may learn to find in these symbols what they represent and what they themselves really are, the truth, and thereby to to attain one’s own knowledge of the truth. Every thing in nature signifies a divine thought, it is the expression of it and its symbol; it leads us to God when we find God in it. Theoretical explanations, of which nobody knows whether they are true, are of little use and often harm; for only the fruits that grow in our garden are our own; Our self-knowledge is only that truth which we ourselves discover in the symbols, because it has also come to life in us and has come to our consciousness. Not that, as is often the case, everyone is allowed to give the religious symbols an arbitrary interpretation that springs only from his imagination; just as it would be foolish to give any meaning to the letters of a language which one does not know; but anyone who knows the object represented by the symbol will also grasp the meaning of the symbol.

What would you, for instance, think if a person goes into a picture gallery and, in the case of pictures that depict everyday things, you first have to explain to him what they are supposed to depict. “This is a house; — this a tree; — this one is a cat.” If he had never seen such things, this explanation would not have been of any use to him either; but if he knows houses, trees and cats, he needs no explanation. Unless the pictures were so badly painted that their meaning could not be made out; but then they would no longer be proper symbols.

In nature every thing is the perfect expression of the ideal it is meant to represent; the exception is at most man, who, as a result of his own intervention, is often only a caricature of the being he is meant to represent. If we were what we should be according to our divine nature, we would also be godlike, luminous ethereal beings in our outward appearance, subject to no disease, no quarrels or quarrels, and all suffering would have an end; while now, in the dark mask we wear, it is often difficult to recognize the real man.

Man is a symbol of humanity, albeit often misrepresented, and in order to recognize the true man in it one must be a real man oneself. The animal-man only sees the animal in him; but in every being there is also a beginning of the divine, however weak it may be. Whoever is conscious of his own high nature sees the divine becoming striving for revelation; therefore the sage sees in all men not only his brothers and sisters, but in all creatures his own inmost essence, God. All things are to him but different appearances and symbols of the one, indivisible Self, which is also his Self. Many know this as one theory, few are actually aware of it.

The religious symbols are not there to satisfy our scientific curiosity, but to educate us; i.e., to lead us through the outside to the inside. We should think about their meaning ourselves and experience it in ourselves; only then do we recognize its importance. A theoretical explanation of the same is of little use; indeed it often spoils even the purpose of the symbol; it can satisfy the intellect, but where religious feeling and intuition are wanting it scarcely contributes to the edification and nourishment of the spirit. Who, at the soaring sound of the great church bell, or when the muezzin [mu’azzin] calls his “Allah il Allah” from the battlement of the mosque, does not feel his heart in tune with devotion and feels carried up to the Eternal; Anyone who does not see his own inner striving and growth symbolized in the sky-striving towers of the Gothic church building, in the vaulting of the cathedral and in the pillars on which it rests, or sees only a comedy in solemn ceremonies, it will be of little use if the meaning of these things is explained to him theoretically. Those who are incapable of any spiritual perception will not improve thereby. But when the deeper meaning of the symbols threatens to be completely lost, and when faith in the letter takes the place of true knowledge and drives out intuition; when even the custodians of religion lose the key to understanding its mysteries and church life consists only of outward appearances and practiced customs; then it may be necessary to try to lift the veil a little and point to the spirit of the letter; so everyone can think for themselves.

The external religion with its symbols is the shell, the internal the core; the shell is for the outer man, the core for the inner man. If you want to enjoy the kernel, you should learn to crack the nuts yourself; for what is dished up to us by others is not our own achievement, but belongs to the other and thereby loses its value. Just as in material things a person does not gain new strength of his own through a work that he does not accomplish himself, so it is in the spiritual. But the spirit of things is not known by racking one’s head, but by the spirit itself and its light, by the enlightenment which springs from intuition, and intuition is a force that needs to be practiced. If the same is ignored, it will be lost again; just as a man who suppresses the voice of his conscience eventually becomes unscrupulous. All too often one comes across the most ridiculous interpretations of the Bible, because the Christianity of many people does not consist in knowledge of the soul, but in fantasies; their interpretations are of their imagination and not recognized by the Holy Spirit.

Every religious symbol has a threefold meaning, which is not arbitrarily attached to it, but is inherent in it; namely, an external, exoteric, which, like everything external in the world, is but an appearance or a symbol, and is often so irrational that no sensible man can believe it to be literally true; indeed this irrationality should be a safeguard against a literal conception. The second is the inner, esoteric meaning, which can be explained theoretically; The third, however, is the practical knowledge of this meaning, which is only gained by experiencing the meaning of the symbol in oneself. Nevertheless, the external symbols are not lies either; for the form is not the truth itself, but only the vessel; the bottle is not the wine. In a fable, which is quite unbelievable in its outward form, there is often much more truth than in a scientific treatise in the encyclopedia.

Let’s take, for instance, a symbol from Indian mythology. It says that the goddess Māyā tempted Brahma to create the world. Taken literally, and if you think of two people, it’s nonsense and makes God a fool to be deceived. Esoterically, Brahma is the creative principle in the universe, the divine word, and Māyā is love. As love of creation stirs in Brahma, the process of evolution begins. In practice, this meaning is recognized when a person begins to work out of the love for work that stirs in him; because then Māyā seduced him to create himself. The outside is unimportant, the inside is important. The world and mankind are not redeemed by a redeemer separated from the world and mankind, but by the redeeming power that is active in them.

Nor is it really necessary to know the hidden meaning of religious allegories and fables in order to edify and strengthen oneself. The child who devoutly listens to the tale of “The Sleeping Beauty” will suffer no harm from it, even if he does not intellectually understand the meaning of this tale; but good feelings can be awakened and the heart ennobled by such stories; while the scientific doubter feeds only on fantasies, theories and doubts. The passion of Jesus in the New Testament, even if it is not historically proven that everything happened literally as it is described therein, can still serve to awaken Christian feelings from which Christian virtues spring, and when this happens, in the end, the Christian realizes that the practical meaning of this story relates to his own inner life. He then knows the truth contained therein in himself and no longer needs historical proof; while the brooding doubter who seeks Christ only in history, even though he thinks he can find him there, does not thereby arrive at the inner life, without which there can be no salvation. An unread old woman can have more inner knowledge of the holy mysteries in her heart than an unbelieving, learned esotericist who carries all his esotericism in the brain case. What the mind of the wise cannot comprehend, as Schiller says, often “the pious mind apprehends in simplicity.”—All explanations and arguments about the meaning of religious symbols are of no use unless they serve to calm the mind so that it does not resist intuition, and thus bring head and heart into harmony.

Whoever sees a straight line knows without proof that it is a straight line, because it gives the impression of being straight; unless he were incapable of thinking anything but something crooked, and then the proof would be of no use to him either. A circle gives the impression of being limited and closed, and gives us the impression of something whole and perfect. If we imagine the periphery extended to infinity, then it is the symbol of infinity; not because it has been made so by mutual agreement, but because that meaning is inherent in itself. Of course, the meaning of the beginning lies in the point, because everything springs from it, and the triangle not only represents a union of three lines into a unified whole, but is this itself; in it, as a religious symbol, the three aspects of the deity are united into one. In the square lies the meaning of rest, truth, firmness and justice for everyone who recognizes this sign within himself, and he recognizes it when these principles have become powerful in him. So it is with all religious symbols, with Jesus and Mary and the Holy Spirit; we know what they mean when the ideals they represent are realized in ourselves.

The first sign of spiritual growth is knowing how to distinguish between the outside and the inside, between the shell and the core. Every man is himself a symbol, and if he does not feel the meaning of the symbol which he represents, then so his life has no meaning for him either. But once he has awakened within himself and gained self-awareness, then it will also be easy for him to distinguish appearances and probabilities from the real essence in everything.

We need not go back to the history of religious wars, persecutions of heretics, and the like, to see the mischief that a wrong interpretation of religious symbols and a lack of distinction between appearance and reality has caused in the world. The same calamity still persists, not only in ecclesiastical matters, but in everything. In all our social ills, there is constant quacking around on the outside instead of getting to the root of the problem. The root of all evil is the ignorance of the higher human nature from which all sins and follies spring. If people knew their own higher nature, they would also act according to it. Whoever knows it in reality and not only by hearsay, acts accordingly, and by acting in accordance with it, it emerges more and more clearly in him.

From ignorance of the oneness of God in all, and from the resulting self-conceit and self-delusion, spring greed, with its attendants of crime, narrow-mindedness, sectarianism, intolerance, and cruelty. But for millions of people not only is there no knowledge of their higher nature, but they do not even know it in theory, because the Church teaches them to seek help and salvation from an external God and in external things. Many seem to think that God has abdicated and left government to the clergy and no longer has any say in the matter.

If we consider churchdom in general, there is little true religion to be found in it; a kernel of truth hidden beneath a mountain of externals; an edifice of misunderstood dogmas and misunderstood allegories, the wrong conception of which is taken for true faith and genuine piety. On the other hand, others who have begun to think for themselves, but are not insightful enough to see that religious symbols have a deep meaning, find the literal faith too silly and reject religion along with the church. But fantasies, superstitions, theories, and church service are far from being religions; true religion is rooted in love of the highest and is seldom at home in sectarianism, which too often regards God as property and monopoly, and sees other sects as business competitors.

The external church is as different from the true religion as the external, material man is from the internal, spiritual being; yes, in its excesses of lust for power and clericalism it is exactly the opposite of true religion, because it speculates on people’s egoism and is based on their fear of punishment and hope for reward. If the devil were abolished, it would also be the end of the
Clergy, for he is the most powerful pillar of churchhood and fills the church’s purse with gold. He promises the credulous a perpetuity of personality amid heavenly delights; presents the sinner with a scapegoat upon whose shoulders he can transfer his burden; relieves him of worrying about his soul and makes the path to salvation through official action and intercession easy for him.

But all this is only external illusion and illusion. The rites of the Church are symbols which are of great value when they are outward signs of what is actually happening inwardly. The spirit that the believer puts into them, he receives back again. He who is holy is in every place in the sanctuary; an animal that goes to church comes out an animal.

The form is the symbol, the letter is the shell, and the spirit is the core. As the shell is different from the core, so is the external church different from the internal. Love reigns in the core, self-conceit and greed in the shell. Love elevates man above material things and sets him free; greed keeps him captive, degrades him to the level of an animal, and makes him a beggar and a hypocrite. The inner, spiritual church is the home of knowledge, the outer, without the spirit, the dwelling place of superstition. The core is destined to grow; the shell breaks and perishes.

True religion is the tree of eternal life, the outer form is the bark. The purpose of the bark is to protect the trunk of the tree, but the bark is not the tree and the shell is not the egg. Beneath the hard bark the sap rises up to the branches and brings forth blossoms and fruits; Beneath the protective shell the yolk of the egg becomes a living bird, a marvel which no one can imitate in nature; only the spirit in nature can accomplish it.

As long as we haven’t become spiritual enough to recognize the spiritual through direct observation, we need the symbol. As long as the core is not ready to be born, it needs the shell; as long as the deity in humanity is not yet strong enough to keep the devil in check in it, it needs the compulsion of form. Anarchism is only for the saints and perfect ones who have the great art of self-restraint, not for the weak and ignorant, ruled by their passions and errors. There is no need to rail against form and destroy it; when the necessity of its existence disappears, it disintegrates of its own accord.

It is something else when one denies the spirit that gives life to forms; if one only clings to the shell and suffocates the spiritual life in the nature of forms; when one raves about the outside and looks there for what can only be found inside oneself and loses oneself in the process; when one is content to contemplate signposts instead of walking the path they point, and clinging to symbols rather than letting the power they represent be revealed within oneself.

Even if the whole universe and everything that surrounds us is full of life, only the life that works in us is our life and our strength. No one can find their life, their self-confidence, their immortality in anything but within themselves. It would be an easy and convenient thing to attain immortality, forgiveness of sins, and eternal salvation, if it could be accomplished by membership of a church party, by upholding dogmas and theories, or by the performance of outward ceremonies; but all these things are at most a means to an end, and for those who take the means to be an end themselves, they are an obstacle; because he gets stuck in it.

We cannot know of the Holy Spirit, nor can it enlighten us or redeem us unless it works in us, and it does not work in us unless we resist it and allow it to manifest itself in us. He is the spirit of holiness, without which no one can become holy; he is the spirit of truth, of which we can know nothing until we have come to the knowledge of truth in him and through him. Nothing else can free us from our ignorance and the errors and suffering that result from it, than true knowledge, which can only be obtained through the spirit, i.e., the self-awareness of what is true within us. Within ourselves and not outside of us is born the God-man, of which we are the external symbols.

This is what “occult science” teaches us and our own inner experience; but in order not to be suspected of “heresy”, we enclose some corroborating verses of the pious Angelus Silesius, which are also approved by the Church authorities.^[40]

“You don’t want to be a saint and still go to heaven!

O fool! Only the saints are admitted.

You mustn’t cry out to God; the fountain is in you;

If you don’t plug the exit, it will flow again and again.

I must be Mary and give birth to God in me,

Should he grant me eternal bliss.

If Christ is born a thousand times in Bethlehem,

And not in you, so you are lost,

Calvary’s cross cannot save you from evil,

If it is not raised up in you too, redeem,

Become God, if you want to be God. God is not mean;

With what is not in Him, God wills to be what He is” etc.

The surest sign of spiritual degeneration is when one has no taste for such spiritual truths because one does not understand them. This blindness is especially found among the learned; because the brain-mind, constantly digging in the material, dissecting everything, ultimately digs itself into the matter. He only sees the complicated, but he does not recognize the simple truths. But the great crowd is looking for distraction and news; she does not think of seeking herself. Therefore the teachings of wisdom are only for those who seek wisdom. The wise man holds fast to the knowledge of truth, which does not prevent him from also using his mind fully; but the unknowing remains trapped in his fantasies, like the spider in its web. The fool loses his mind; the wise make him his servant; he masters it through the power of knowledge.

When the sacred symbols fall into unholy hands, the spirit vanishes from them, and their true meaning is no longer recognized. One is accustomed to seeing only external things in the symbols of Christianity, one relates religious designations from general principles to persons, one turns oneself “God the Father” as an old man with a long beard, the Son as a young man, the Holy Spirit as a dove flying about somewhere, the heavenly Virgin as a daughter of Israel, etc.; one is used to taking the external symbol for its content and holding the small one so close to one’s eyes that one cannot see the large one behind it. It is therefore difficult to speak of the mysteries of religion, using the old Christian expressions, without the risk of being misunderstood, and it is of great use to know the names of the Indians which refer to the same things, since these are not yet spoiled in the hands of the Europeans, because they do not know them.

Everything in the world has a beginning, middle and end. The birth of each form is followed by development, stagnation, and decay. When the spiritual forces in nature, represented under the symbols of deities in Greek and Roman mythology, began to be made into persons and to populate a ridiculous Olympus, they were caricatured and disappeared. The symbols disappeared, but the principles will remain forever. Minerva (wisdom), Venus (love), Mars (power), Mercury (intelligence) and all the rest are still there today; their essence is the same, only the mask has changed.

One cannot recognize the power represented in a symbol if one does not know the power within oneself. Who can know what love is if he has never felt love; who knows wisdom but he who has become wise; how to explain to someone what self-knowledge is; what if he doesn’t have one? A dead person cannot understand consciousness, a dreamer cannot understand waking; every condition is understood only by those who experience it themselves. Whoever wants to recognize the spirit of the symbols must have this spirit himself. The light shines eternally in the darkness; but it cannot comprehend the light, since it is not light but darkness.

He who does not carry in his own heart the ideal which he seeks to research scientifically will not find it; for him it always remains unapproachable and “ideal” because he cannot realize it in himself. One speaks of the tangible as if this were the only real thing and relegates the ideal to the realm of fantasy. The material is already realized ideal, we don’t have to realize it first, but when the ideal is realized, it is just as real. The ideal of man is sublimity above the material, is likeness to God.

What is the position of the one who has no sense of beauty and truth, who sees nothing in everything but the outward appearance and the advantage that it can bring him, who sees nothing in the rushing waterfall but water power suitable for making money, in the fragrant pine forest only unsawn boards, in the grazing herd of cattle only the meat, in men only objects for exploitation, in women only tools for the production of children or for the satisfaction of the sex drive and which relegates poetry and religion to the realm of the imagination? — He is a beast among people whose language he does not understand. A poet is spiritually far above him. The word “dense” means something like “make denser,” condense. A true poet is the one who “condenses” the ideal, the spiritual and the ethereal into suitable forms and thus brings it closer to perception. Religious symbols serve the same purpose, but they are more than that. Where poetry ends, religion begins. Poetry shows us the ideal; religion not only shows us the way to its realization, it actualizes it in ourselves. It is not only letters and words, but also deeds; they are vessels containing just as much spirit as is put into them. Poetry is for feeling and imagination, religion for will; only through it does the spirit receive substance. A prayer is a symbol of will and should be the expression of it. A prayer in which the will is absent or directed to secondary purposes has no magical power.

The imagination is a very different thing from mere imagination; it is, as the word indicates, not the objective shadow-image of fancy, but the “formation” of a being within us, the shaping of an idea into form within ourselves by the power of will, which is the substance of all things; which the philosophers have long recognized. The efficacy of the sacraments consists in the fact that they bring into existence in the recipient, through the will of both the recipient and the giver, that to which the external action relates; and that here we are not talking about a will that has just sprung from the imagination, but about a spiritual will, is attested to by the scientifically proven processes of “suggestion.” Earlier, before the corruption of speech occurred, this spiritual, inner, self-conscious will became the “Faith.” Many semi-scientific experiments have done more harm than good because they lack knowledge of the spiritual human nature, the will of the patient is paralyzed and the experimenters are not saints. One can be both an angel and a devil form into oneself and one is then this being itself. That is why it is also written: “Whoever eats and drinks (the food from which the spiritual body and the spiritual life is formed) unworthily eats and drinks the judgment for himself, because he does not discern the body of the Lord.”^[41] This is logically correct and scientifically accurate; because whoever awakens the inner spiritual life in himself and forms the spiritual body (astral body) without first becoming master of his evil desires and having purified them, creates a devil within himself who torments Eternity. A knowledge of the mysteries is only for those who are ripe for it and do not abuse it. As long as the morals of our knowledge-seekers are not at a higher level, their ignorance is their best protection against themselves. But without the spiritual life there is no immortality; because “only what is born of the spirit can enter the kingdom of God.”

A symbol without the spirit is an empty shell, a dead nut. How could the ceremony of a sacrament work anything spiritual without the Spirit? — How could an action be sacred if there is no sanctity in it and nothing holy happens in it. Without the Spirit at work, an empty ceremony is child’s play, a pious deceit, or self-deception; but if the receiver puts spirit into it, then he gets it back again. But the priest should act not only in the name of the Church, but in the name of God, who is truth; but this includes God’s power, the divine-spiritual life, which can only rarely be found nowadays. Where it works, God’s blessing works, because his blessing is this power.

If baptism is not only through earthly water, but through the thought of God, then it has the right power; when man has gained firmness in his higher Self-awareness, then he is confirmed; if he recognizes his sins, goes out of his selfhood and rises to God, then as long as he remains in this state his sins are forgiven along with his selfhood, and when the soul truly unites with God, then the symbol of communion is correct and outwardly expresses an inwardly taking place sanctification. The sacrament of matrimony is a sacrament, and not a commercial agreement, only when two souls are united by the spiritual power of divine love^[42]; the priestly ordination is genuine only when it is consummated by the Holy Spirit and the ordained is thereby enlightened and called to the Magisterium, and as for the Last Unction, it should be the outward symbol of the inward “anointing” by which the soul is free from all restlessness and attains the knowledge of their higher existence.

The outer church is a symbol of the spiritual church. If it were completely permeated by the spirit of God, it would not only be a form, but the essence of it. The stone building is the symbol of man; the light-filled dome the symbol of enlightenment, the altar the sanctuary, the half-dark nave the symbol of those who have not yet attained enlightenment; the seven lights represent the seven principles, the tombs the dead passions, etc. Thus each should himself be a temple of God, as the symbol teaches. If all priests were “spiritual,” people who have come to the inner spiritual life, they would have divine powers, and each sacrament would be an initiation.

As with the sacraments of the Church, so it is with all initiations in the mysteries. A real initiation is no empty ceremony and no mere instruction, but a spiritual awakening; a rebirth into a higher existence. Because man is born on this earth, he awakens to the consciousness of earthly existence, he is thereby initiated into it and himself a living symbol of mankind, to which he now belongs. There is no escape for him now, and his rebirths are repeated until he is able to become a still higher symbol of the great evolution; when the spiritual being takes shape in him and the inner life awakens then other and higher initiations follow, until finally all symbols disappear through perfect Self-knowledge and he himself attains divinity.

V. God and Nature.

“I am the soul of everything. The worlds are all strung to me like pearls on a string.” — Bhagavad Gita. VII. 7.

“All that is perishable is but a simile.” — Goethe. “Faust.”

According to the linguists, it has not yet been possible to find the origin of the word “God,” although it is quite generally sought in the word “good” or “the good,” because God is the ground of all existence, and that existence is good for all creatures, giving them opportunities for improvement, however much it may involve temporary inconveniences. The word is said to have originally been neuter, and only after the introduction of Christianity was changed from “God (neuter)” to “God (masculine).” In Indian philosophy, the eternal basis of all things is referred to as “Parabrahman” or “Brahma,” the Absolute, or the “Super-divinity” of the Christian mystics; but as creation begins, the Brahma presents himself to us as the Brahmā (male); namely as the fertilizing and generating principle in the universe, which is, so to speak, “the father” of all created things.

A person only becomes a “father” through the birth of a son. The All-Godhead, the Absolute, which is related to nothing but itself, cannot create anything without awakening in itself a center of energy from which to work. This centre, which has been in God from eternity and is identical with God in its essence,^[43] is the “Word” (Logos or Verbum), “the Son,” through which the divine power, namely the “holy spirit” can now work and create. Thus it is that “Father, Son and Spirit” are one and as inseparable as matter, energy and consciousness; in fact these three words are only designations for the three aspects in which the eternal unity reveals itself to us in the universe. Father and Son and Spirit are one in essence; but in the “Father” God presents himself to us as the eternal ground and source of everything; in the “Son” we see him as the Word, or the organizing principle in the universe, and in the “holy spirit” we see him as the spirit which fills and pervades the whole universe, and all things, each after its kind, life and confers awareness.

The word “nature” is apparently related to the Latin “natus” and refers to that which is not self-existing but has been born. Since from the beginning of creation there was nothing other than God, in his aspect as the eternal Word in its three aspects, namely as the eternal cause (primal substance) in which, as Plato also taught, are contained the ideas of all things to be created; as a primal force that gives form to everything and as a primal spirit that enlivens everything, nature with all its phenomena could not have been born of anything other than God, the Word. Consequently, the Word of God is also the basic cause of its existence in everything, and every thing is essentially God. But this does not mean that all things or beings are gods; they can only become this when the divinity within them awakens and becomes manifest. God is the essence of things, things in themselves nothing but appearances. God is the light in all things, the forms are the shadows of the light. The spirit of God is life in the universe, the bodies are the vessels in which life ferments.^[44] The mind is the unmanifest, the things we see are its manifestation. The Word of God is the truth, the appearances themselves are illusions. Things pass away, but “the Word is everlasting”; because it is the law itself, which is also carried out by itself.

God is the eternal, indivisible unit from which all numbers emerge, without itself losing anything or becoming less. The numbers that spring from it are the creatures, none of which can exist apart from the unity underlying its existence. God lives in us and “we live in him.” In every human being is the Holy Trinity; everyone carries within them the root cause of their existence, the power for their development, and the spirit. “Spirit” is consciousness; the Spirit of God is in man the cause of human life and consciousness. Everyone carries the living Word within himself, though he knows nothing of it, and is himself an expression, though not direct, of that Word; and as the Spirit of God is the ground of man’s consciousness, so he is also the reason for his innermost true self-awareness, his self-knowledge, and the word his true, innermost, divine self. Whoever recognizes the divine word within, God speaks to him through his holy spirit, and whoever recognizes this spirit, recognizes one’s own true, Divine Self, whoever does not have it cannot truly know either God or himself.^[45]

Since everything has come forth from God, everything is essentially God, and apart from him there is nothing. He is the real, true, and essential of all; everything else is empty appearance. It is the All-Self and therefore nameless, for there is nothing to distinguish it from. By naming it, or speaking of it at all, we err; for he is not an object and not a “he” but everything in everything and in everything the highest. A thing or object can be nothing but a state in which the nature of the only God is revealed. God is the least as well as the highest. — Since everything comes from him and is contained in him, he is not only the life in everything, but also the highest existence, the highest wisdom, the highest perfection. If a thing is beautiful and perfect, it is still nothing but a symbol in which a part of God’s beauty, perfection and wisdom is revealed. In a king God presents himself to us under the masque of a king, in a beggar under that of a beggar. Basically everything is God; Persons and things are masks or coverings and veils behind which the deity is hidden. He is therefore the “Lord” in all things.^[46]

When Gautama Buddha was asked what God is, he remained silent. When Jesus was asked by Pilate, “What is truth?” he didn’t answer. Who should be able to describe the nameless and indescribable? A “property” is something by which one thing differs from another, but since God is no “thing” and is nothing outside of it, he is indeed the origin of all the properties of things, but in itself without difference. We can only say what God is not; but not what he is, and if we ascribe qualities to him, these refer only to his relations to us, i.e., to the aspects from which we look at it. We can say that it is infinite, immortal, incomprehensible and omnipresent (nowhere absent), and depending on how we look at it, it appears to us as eternal rest, as the basis of all existence, as the one life in the universe, the supreme wisdom , the absolute, all-encompassing love, the eternal primal force, the infinity of space, the cause of all movement, goodness, truth, perfection, while all evil and imperfection does not come directly from God, but rather is the reflection of His workings in matter, and from the imperfection of forms in nature, that is, stems from their own will. If all beings were perfect and conscious of the divinity indwelling in them, there would be no opposition of divine will: then all nature would be God in himself; but then it would also be the end of all individual existence and the end of all evolution.

God is the All-Self, “Spirit” is Consciousness; whoever wants to get to know God must strive to achieve true self-consciousness. Sankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya] says:

“In the All-Self (Ātma), the all-pervading, enduring Self that fills everything, all things are contained. As the ether, the radiant, formed into many forms, seems to be divided, but recognized as one when these sheaths vanish, so also, owing to the variety of forms and names under which the Self manifests itself, this becomes this self sourced; while it is only One Veiled by the fivefold veil of nature, it seems as if the Self partakes of the nature of these veils, even as a crystal on a blue ground appears to be blue. Through the mind the Self should be distinguished from the coverings with which it is wrapped.

“Passions and desires, lust and sorrow move in forms; they belong to appearances, but not to the Self. In the Self is stillness; there is no change in (true) self-awareness; in him is no knowledge through reason. Through the appearance of life as an individual phenomenon, the idea of the ego arises, which perceives and acts; in the knowledge of Self all fear vanishes. Discard name, color and shape; the knower of the Supreme resides in the essence of the most perfect consciousness, the perfect bliss. The whole moving world is Ātma, the Self; everything that is not Ātma is nothing. As night breaks at daybreak, so the darkness of ignorance is destroyed by self-knowledge The eternally alone, pure One, the undivided bliss, the incomparable, the truth, wisdom, eternity, the Most High, that is the Self, that is Ātma, the I.”^[47]

God is not a person, but he is the creator of every personality. In every person God is the essence, and through everything that a man does good in the name of God, i.e., unselfishly, for the love of good, he glorifies God within himself; but because people who have not yet come to this knowledge of God are blinded by the delusion of their own nature, and act not out of this self-knowledge but out of self-conceit and obstinacy, even though it is their own nature, it is still the greatest for everyone Mystery in which all divine mysteries are hidden and without this knowledge cannot be known. There is no other key to the knowledge of these mysteries than the knowledge of the Spirit of God within one’s self. He who recognizes God in himself and in everything knows everything; but whoever wants to penetrate into the mysteries of God without God-consciousness, they remain hidden from him, because he cannot rise to them without God; wherefore also the apostle Paul says in reference to them that they are not intended for “the great of this world,” i.e., for the self-important, whose knowledge springs from probabilities, and who, however keenly shrewd, end up becoming nothing, but that he reveals them to those who love him, because he himself is love.

The Spirit of God in the universe is the only means of our salvation; For when he has come to the consciousness of man in man and man recognizes himself in this Holy Spirit, then the concept of individuality ceases with it, and with it all sins and errors which belong to individuality, together with all the conditions brought about by them . A human spirit that has merged into God’s universal consciousness is no longer a human being, but God in God. This spirit of God in the universe is the Tao of the Chinese, about which it is said: “Tao is limitless; its depth is the origin of all that is, it is older than God. It is “Je” clarity and because it is perfectly clear it cannot be seen. — It is “He,” i.e., “Silence,” which is why you can’t hear it. — It is “Ve,” i.e., “Emptiness,” because you can’t grasp it. Yet he who lives by the wisdom of Tao^[48] has found the path. It is the Jehovah of the Jews, the Light (Ātma-Bodh) of the Buddhists, which enlightens the world; its bearer is Lucifer, the Logos (the word), the spiritual sun of the universe. Just as the visible sun illuminates space and gives warmth and life to all bodies, the light of this spiritual sun of grace streams through the hearts of people and fills everyone who is able to receive it with spiritual life, consciousness, love and intelligence.

But as the visible sun of the universe does not shine to the blind, so the spiritual sun does not exist for those who are unable to receive its light, or who are closed to it. The morning star of wisdom must shine within ourselves if day is to set in within us and night is to give way to our ignorance. Life is everywhere, but our life is not outside of us, but within us. When the sun of wisdom rises in our soul (in our ego), then the day of resurrection, the day of self-knowledge has come. The Prasha Upanishad [Praśna Upaniṣad] says:

“As all the rays of the setting sun are united in its golden sphere and emerge again from it when it reappears, so are the spiritual forces gathered in the clear interior, in the mind of man. And when the mind is clothed in this radiance, then man enters the state of bliss, and as the birds come to rest in the branches of the tree, so all these come and find rest in the Self.

“Whoever knows the Eternal in whom rests the knowing Self with all the clear powers and life and essence, he who knows all has attained all.”^[49]

In this self-knowledge, which is the knowledge of God, old people come together. There, the idea of personality and individuality ceases. There, man becomes a god without losing his former identity. Such spiritual growth is not a fading into nothingness. A tree or a stone is not capable of consciousness of its personality, in a person consciousness of personality emerges; a god is above it. The material man, living in his ownness, is limited by it, he lives in his limitations, his mind clings only to what is supplied to him by sense impressions, his feeling is limited to the perception of the immediate; but the Spirit of God in man can rise above time and space, above the realms of appearance and realm of conception, and live in the eternal, because it is itself eternal; omnipresence, omniconsciousness, omniscience belong to it, and the man who has come to the consciousness of this state partakes in this grandeur and glory.

The more a person gives up the position he has taken towards the higher, the more this opposition ceases; he is grasped by the higher and raised above himself and united with the higher without therefore losing his identity. Anyone who looks at everything suspiciously and with a critical eye, who wants to dissect, classify and exploit everything for their own benefit, be it on earth or in heaven, remains stuck in their individuality, limitations and short-sightedness; he is like the polyp that sits at the bottom of the sea and cannot reach further than where its suction arms extend; but whoever devotes himself to a glorious thing in love becomes one with it and partakes in its glory. The artist, inspired by the sight of a great work of art, is inspired by its beauty and is absorbed in it, without thereby ceasing to be a man; the poet lives in the regions of the ideal and therefore remains individual. The dung beetle finds happiness in dung and is absorbed in it; the eagle soars above the clouds, and the higher it rises, the more its horizon expands. The lover of nature who watches the sunrise from a high mountain peak is struck by the splendor of nature. He is already surrounded by light in front, while down in the valley everything is still in semi-darkness. How small everything seems to him that crawls down there and what seemed big to him when he was still in the middle! Houses, trains look like children’s toys, and when he thinks of himself he is almost startled at the realization of the pettiness of his personality. But he no longer thinks of himself; enraptured by nature, he lives in her; nature feels, thinks, sees and recognizes itself in him as if in a mirror.

It is similar for those who have gained the strength to rise to the eternal and to enter into that from which nature is born with all its glory, not through imagination, like the sleeper in the valley who dreams of mountain heights without himself to take the trouble of mounting them, not by means of the enthusiasm which produces its own images, but by means of the love of the highest which leads to spiritual awakening and the knowledge of truth. The saint enters into this state, like Paul, who was raised to the third heaven, and is coming back again; but the supreme state in which a man has utterly shed the delusion of selfhood forever and attained complete freedom is called by Buddhists “Nirvana.” It is the annihilation of self-delusion and the attainment of true being in its supreme perfection. A surrender of self-conceit, but not, as many believe, a annihilation of individuality.

This state is much higher than what is called “Heaven,” “Paradise,” Devachan,^[50] or Svarga, for even in Heaven the spirit does not live fully in itself, but still in objective conceptions, during the state of total union with God includes a knowledge and bliss that goes beyond all concepts and ideas; which is why the pure world of gods is described as the kingdom of the “sun” and the world of gods as that of the “moon”; for the sun dwells in its own light, but the moon in its reflection. The sun is the symbol of truth, the moon the symbol of illusion (maya) [māyā], from which only the knowledge of truth raises us.

This does not mean that things do not exist in nature, or that they are there to deceive us, or that they are not what they represent. Everything in nature appears as it really is. Every thing is a symbol of truth and true, but we deceive ourselves by not seeing the truth in it, and taking appearances for the essence of things. We then see in the whole of nature a motley mass of individual entities existing in their own right, instead of seeing in it only a mass of different states and appearances of the one being from which they all spring. Thus the one light of the sun breaks into thousands of drops in the morning dew and produces different colors in the different flowers. The drops and flowers are different from each other as vessels of light, but the light is only one. Men as temples of the Spirit of God are different from one another; but the Spirit of God (Ātma, the Self) is the same in all, though not equally manifest in all.

We believe that we know the world lying outside of us and therefore know nothing but what is going on within us. We know nothing of objects outside of us; nothing from our friends and acquaintances; everyone stands alone and knows nothing but the impressions he has received from outside; he knows nothing of the world except what has come to his consciousness from it; he instinctively collects these impressions and forms a picture of the subject in question, which often corresponds more to his imagination than to the truth.

Love and hate make us blind. One sees in a loved object not what it actually is, but what one imagines it to be; one hates in another the qualities with which one adorns him and then often later discovers the self-deception. Through the impressions that we receive from the objective world from outside and their interpretation, a subjective world is formed in us and we live without knowing it in a subjective world that is the product of our ideas and “imaginations.”

On the other hand, if we enter a state, whether in life or after death, in which no external impressions can affect us, we find ourselves in a dream world. Here, the opposite takes place. Here, we bring with us our subjective world, consisting of the sensations and thoughts we have absorbed during life, and from these, then, forms the objective world which surrounds us and which, according to its properties, describes us as a heaven or as a heaven hell which may appear; for there, every form is created by thought and corresponds to the character of its creator; there, good thoughts present themselves in beautiful and evil in ugly forms, and the sleeper, lacking free will during this state, has no power, as does the waking, to choose good and keep evil at bay; there, the soul is at the mercy of the things it has created itself.

We think and want what we are and are what we seriously want and think. A pure mind produces pure, noble, and sublime thoughts; from an impure mind, ideas and evil forms of will are born. The world of our thinking and willing is our own world in which we live; we ourselves are this world.

But if the soul has come to true self-knowledge, i.e., awakened to the consciousness of God, through the spirit of God and his power she is master of her dreams and ideas, master of herself; she no longer sleeps when the body is asleep; she dwells in the eternal light, which is why the Bhagavad Gita also says:

“What is night to other beings is day to him who lives in the light of the knowledge of God, and what other people think to be awake is to him powerlessness and sleep.”^[51]

It is the spirit (self-awareness) of truth that sets man free from both the sufferings and joys of earthly life and from heaven and hell.

But in order to recognize this spirit one must have it; whoever it has fled from never to return has it no more. It cannot be created by any scientific observation, by any philosophical speculation, by any theological study; self-knowledge is not a matter of theory, nor of proof, but of inward awakening, which cannot be attained by reverie. Thus the ultimate purpose of life on earth presents itself to us as an awakening to true self-awareness and to the knowledge of God. When we see this, we know why we are on earth; until we see it, we don’t know.

Whenever a form is born in nature, the eternal spirit within it envelops itself in a veil, as it were. The god-man sacrifices himself in it, for the knowledge of his heavenly nature is veiled from him by this veil. “Christ dies for us”; for through this entry of the spirit into matter the divine assumes the human and its divinity is thereby obscured. Where a form is formed there is a center of power by the action of the spirit; there forms an individuality, an “I,” which can only grow, develop, and unfold through the spirit within it; until finally, by overcoming the delusion of peculiarity and separateness from God, it attains freedom, the true self-awareness of divinity, and now united with divinity, it attains an individual existence as god in divinity. This can only happen through the inner, spiritual life awakening in man. This is the only way to salvation, which cannot be attained by merely external means.

This way of salvation is also the way of the evolution of the world. Natural science describes how the forms in nature develop, how worlds arise from cosmic mists, how the plant world develops from the mineral kingdom and gradually merges into the animal kingdom, until finally the human body stands before us in its perfection natural history, which only refers to the formation of visible forms, but not to the form-forming spirit in the universe.

But where material natural science cannot go any further, spiritual knowledge comes to its aid; then spiritual perception and the occult science arising from it come into their own. The “Secret Doctrine” tells us how, after the human forms were sufficiently perfect to serve as habitations and instruments of the divine Spirit, the “gods” combined with them to make gods out of men, as indeed it was is asserted in the Bible, where it is said: “When the sons of God saw that the daughters of the earth were beautiful, they took them to be their wife.”^[52]

For everyday science this is an unprovable theory because the inner senses of our scholars are not yet opened. They know nothing of the countless intelligent beings that still populate the ether of space apart from us humans and, although invisible to us, are nevertheless visible and tangible to those of their own kind. They do not know the hosts of angels, gods, (devas) and innumerable elementals, and many deny their existence because they cannot see them with bodily eyes, and they believe that what they cannot grasp does not exist. Nevertheless, the scriptures of all nations speak of angels as well as demons, and spiritualism, for all the harm done by its misunderstandings, has nevertheless had the benefit of convincing thinking people that there are spiritual beings and a spiritual world outside of us, which is by no means “supernatural,” but is also born of nature, but is beyond our sensual perception.

Above nature, however, stands that which moves nature to produce forms, namely the spirit, and it creates these forms on the path of evolution in order to reveal itself in them. As long as nature was not able to give birth to forms in which self-confidence and intelligence could express themselves, they were not ripe to serve as a dwelling place for higher beings, they kept aloof; but when they had matured, the gods united with them. Without connection there would be no union of man with God.

From this moment of the incarnation of the gods in man begins the history of the higher spiritual evolution of the human race, which of course eludes external scientific observation, but can be recognized intellectually and by its effects. In the lower realms of nature evolution is slow, and it takes many millions of years, even a whole day of creation (manvantara),^[53] before the Monad can work its way up to a higher level; but in thinking man the Spirit of God obtains a co-worker who can assist him in the great work of salvation, and the more man attains self-knowledge and, accordingly, free will, the more the great work of salvation lies in his own hands. Therefore, it is of paramount importance for everyone to gain positive knowledge of their Higher Self.

There is much talk these days of so-called “positive science,” meaning what one can prove to another; but one forgets that the positive knowledge of each one depends on the point of view on which he stands. What is positive knowledge for one person, because he can grasp it, is only theory for another who does not understand it. What a person truly recognizes, he knows positively, be it material or spiritual. Anyone who definitely recognizes the Word of God in his heart has the right knowledge, he is the right “positivist”; for this word is the life and essence of things, and everything else are only appearances.

VI Macrocosm and Microcosm.

“You will no longer call the world in you the small one,

When you will recognize the divine in man.” —F. Rückert

There are two paths to knowledge: that of investigating from the outside in and that of the inside out. One method seeks to infer the inner nature of things from external appearances; the other requires inward knowledge of the essence of things and the observation of its effects on the outside. Both induction and deduction have their merits; but the latter is more difficult, because it requires a deep going into causes, while induction, now in common use, rests on the observation of superficial phenomena and effects. Whoever wants to get a correct picture of the tree with its twigs and branches by looking at a leaf of an unfamiliar tree can easily make a mistake; but if you know the tree yourself, you can easily follow its development.

All real knowledge is based on the self-knowledge of truth, and comes from one’s own experience, be it external or internal. Self-knowledge is the starting point and the end, the alpha and the omega, the root and also the summit of it, and what does not rest on it, even if it is true, is only theory. Everything that is known by hearsay is not real knowledge. The assurances of the best authorities can only serve as a guide. Unless one has personal experience of the nature of a thing, one cannot know whether a theory about it is correct.

Whoever wants to draw conclusions about the spiritual forces at work in nature from the observation of external nature, as long as he does not know the laws of the spirit and the spirit itself, will easily go astray; but anyone who has come to this spirit will find it easy to follow its laws and their effects in the realm of phenomena. One attains this spirit in no other way than through union with it. If you only move on the level of speculation, you won’t get any further. Anyone who grasps the divine in himself has found the right master who will reveal the mysteries to him.

There is no doubt that there have been some people, adepts and saints, who have come to this union with the Higher Self, and whose knowledge is not based on inference but on self-knowledge, even if we are far from that lofty point of view and cannot know from their own experience what the wise men are teaching us, their teachings can still serve as a basis for us. Yes even more! — Every human being is capable of a certain degree of inner contemplation and can develop it through practice. And the deeper he penetrates into his higher nature, the more he comes to his own perception and through it finds these teachings confirmed. The higher we grow towards the divine in the spirit of inner self-knowledge (not to be confused with the flights of imagination), the broader our horizon becomes; a new, spiritual world opens up for us.

The sages teach that our true, divine Self is the deity that encompasses the whole macrocosm; our naturally born selves are the microcosm, or the little world in which everything contained in our solar system (our macrocosm) is found. If we were to recognize in ourselves the earthly and the spiritual, the “earth” and the “heaven” with all the forces working in them, then all the secrets of our solar system with its planets would become clear to us through their agreement with the big picture, and we could although we are bound to a material body, we enjoy a higher spiritual existence, for the same law which governs our universe also governs every atom; evolution takes place in all forms in a certain way. The more consciousness expands, the more it can grasp; the higher we climb, the higher we rise; the deeper we penetrate into the depths, the more their mysteries open up to us.

This correspondence between the macrocosm and microcosm is self-explanatory in that everything is basically one, everything is essentially Brahm (God) and this Brahm is himself the law and works according to this law in all his manifestations in nature, i.e., in agreement with himself. He who knows this one Brahm will also recognize it in all its forms, in a mosquito as in the elephant, in the atom as well as in our solar system, and also in himself.

Now let us make an attempt to look at ourselves and get to know our own composition to see if it agrees with what “occult science” teaches about it. Within ourselves is the power to rise and sink and to get to know the different levels of existence or their elements. We live outwardly in the outer world, inwardly in our inner world. We don’t need to wait until we die to know what it’s like in the “astral world”; as soon as we get to know our soul life, we know it. As soon as we dream we are in the dream world and in connection with its inhabitants; if we create a heaven within ourselves, then we are in heaven and open the gate to the inhabitants of heaven, and if we create a hell within ourselves, we are in it and we will not lack demons to bother us.

Occult philosophy speaks of the “seven principles” or states of being of the Eternal One that constitute the essence of the microcosm and macrocosm. The ancient philosophers also knew this composition, and Lucretius says:

“There are two things in man: spirits, flesh, spirit, shadow;

These four places receive twice two

The earth covers the flesh, the shadow flies around the heap of earth,

The orc [hell] breathes ghosts, the spirit asks for the stars”^[54]

Caro, the flesh, refers to the physical body — sthula sharira [sthūla śarīra] — and the organic vital activity at work in it — prana [prāṇa].

Umbra, the shadow, is the “superphysical,” etheric body — linga sharira [liṅga śarīra].

Manas is the mind with its desires and thoughts — kama [kāma] and manas.

Spirtus, the higher part of manas, the soul and spirit — Buddhi and Atma [ātma].

We must not think of these components of the microcosm and macrocosm as wooden figures, or as enclosed in cast-iron moulds, nor believe that “watertight” compartments exist between them; rather, it surrounds and penetrates one thing into the other. The physical visible body has its “vapor circle” and is surrounded by an invisible magnetic sphere or “aura”; the astral body [etheric body] penetrates and surrounds the physical like a cloud visible to the eye of the seer; our thought world exists not only within our skull but in our spiritual sphere; the soul of every thing is not enclosed in the body, nor is the light in the flame; one can say that the body is the nucleus of the soul as well as that the soul resides in the body. The Spirit of God is in us and everywhere; but our self-awareness has its center in ourselves. Entering our inner being does not mean creeping into selfhood, but a sinking, which is at the same time an elevation and expansion; no torpor, but spiritualization.

“Sink then! — I could also say: climb!”
(“Faust,” Part II.)

As in the small world, so it is in the big one. Each sphere penetrates, fills and lives in the other; although each has its own center We cannot measure earthly things by the spiritual, the depth of thought by a probe, the distance between love and hate or heaven and hell by yardsticks; our concepts of space and time belong to our imagination.

The following scheme is a symbol of the various spheres of existence into which anyone can enter when he gains the necessary strength.

When a man succeeds in placing himself in his consciousness in his own innermost being, in the center of his being from which all his vital forces emanate, in the sanctuary of his heart where the Spirit of God (Ātma) dwells, he finds there constant rest. Quiet eternity reigns in this realm, there is nothing objective to be recognized there, and the concept of “I-being” also ends there; because there the knower, the known and the knowledge itself are no longer separate, but one and all, just as a triangle is an inseparable unit with three sides or aspects. Jakob Böhme says with reference to this:

“The eternal divine mind is free will; not made of or by anything.

It is its own seat and dwells solely within itself, untouched by anything, for outside and before it there is nothing.”^[55]

The absolute is called “the unconscious,” the “nothing”; for it is nothing to us who are respectively beings. It is the unconditional and we are conditioned and therefore we are also nothing to the Absolute. Absolute consciousness is unconsciousness for us. In him, object and subject in consciousness, or, in other words, the knower, the known, and the mind of knowledge are but one. When we become completely absorbed in contemplating something, so that we are, as it were, identical with it and forget ourselves, then our ego-concept ceases, but we are still there. Such a state is similar to that of Buddhist nirvana [nirvāṇa]. The knower is not destroyed. What is known merges into the knower, and the knower into him; then both are the one self. This self-knowledge encompasses nothing but itself and is not related to anything else; their sphere extends as far as the sphere of the self-knowing self. We will recognize ourselves as the whole when we ourselves have become the whole.

When the body lies in dreamless sleep, the spirit withdraws into itself; he forgets himself and the outside world; he enters the stillness in his core and is himself that stillness. As long as man has not achieved spiritual self-awareness, his ego also participates in this rest, but he knows nothing about it; but if he is spiritually awakened, he can consciously enjoy this blissful rest; it doesn’t matter whether his body is awake or asleep; the consciousness of an enlightened one is not dependent on external sense impressions; he lives in himself.^[56]

Now, while not everyone has yet attained the power to enter that dreamless state of spiritual awareness which Indian philosophy calls “Sushupti” [suṣupti], yet everyone is able to introspect himself, and then he finds, emanating from its center, it is surrounded by a series of spheres of consciousness corresponding to those shown in the scheme above, each of which is intimately connected with its equal region of the macrocosm.

I. The Region of Light, or Direct Knowledge. (Buddhi.) It is the region of wisdom, though still obscure to most people, but it is also the realm of true love, which is dear to everyone’s heart first, and which makes no distinction between “I and you” or “yours and mine.” Those who offer themselves to her can attain to the light of truth through her.

The next region is the realm of mind (manas). This is where individual wanting and thinking begins, and in fact there are two regions, one higher and one lower, namely:

III. The region of intuition or knowing human mind (buddhi manas) in which the mind (manas) feels and recognizes the influence of the light of truth (buddhi). It is the realm of great and sublime ideas.

IV. The region of speculation or earthly human mind (Kama [kāma] Manas) in which the mind is obscured by the desires (Kama) [kāma] generated by egoism and true knowledge is clouded. It is the realm of the materially burrowing intellect, of learning based on thirst for knowledge, hearsay, external observation, comparison, inference, etc. Many scientific achievements, but also many mistakes emerge from it.

V. The region of desires and passions. (Kama.) [kāma] Here, reason and thought stop the more the deeper one sinks into them. It is the birthplace of the animal instincts, and in connection with the intellect (manas) the dwelling place of hell in man. But it is also the seat of his life force (prana) [prāṇa], the source of which is in the mind (Ātma). Without the energy emanating from Kama, man would be powerless in soul and body, and the spirit would be unable to achieve victory over matter.

VI. The next and outermost shell, which we now perceive, provided that we have not already made acquaintance with our astral body, is our visible body with its sense organs and the outer sense world. It is the house in which we have taken our dwelling during this life on earth, and the workshop which encloses the forces that originate in and are active in the macrocosm. In itself it is a mindless, soulless thing from which neither life nor consciousness nor intelligence can spring; a corpse that decomposes when the Spirit is no longer at work in it.

But between the realm of desires and the world of the senses we still find a mysterious region within ourselves and also on the outside, namely:

VII. The Realm of the “Super-physical” or “Supernatural,” also called the Realm of the “Astral” or “Dream World,” which corresponds to our ethereal, supernatural, or astral body science, psychology, hypnotism and the like, but above all spiritualism, and in which the right light will probably only come if the researcher, instead of just chasing after external evidence, is primarily convinced that he himself has an astral body and can work in it.

Many things could be said about this “astral body” and the “astral world” that do not belong within the scope of this work. The word “astral” not only refers to our etheric body (also called “double”) and to the supernatural world that lies closest to us, in which the shadows of deceased people and animals, larvae, ghosts, elemental beings and devils are at home, but it is applied nowadays to everything that is corporeal but invisible to our bodily eyes, and therefore also refers to all appearances in the heavenly world, the underworld and the middle region, to the forms of angels and demons, to the thought-forms which our wanting and thinking arise up to the transfigured spiritual body of the resurrection, the product of spiritual rebirth, which is also mentioned in the Bible^[57] and which shines like a sun. It is also called “the luminous body” by Sankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya]. Without the etheric body, which forms the basis of all form formation and from which the actual “astral organism” then develops, no visible organism could emerge from the coarser elements; for the spirit descends by intermediate stages from the highest to the lowest. First comes the idea, then the thought, then the imagination, then the ethereal and finally the gross visible form, and in the same way development rises again through a series of stages from the lowest to the highest. From the physical body, the astral body develops through spiritual power, in this soul and spirit, as is represented in the symbol of the interpenetrating and uniting triangles. What comes down from above rises up again.

When the two triangles are spiritually united, then we have the square, then spirit and nature are one again, then the building block has been found. Then we are conscious again in the sign of truth, in the realm of reality, from which we emerged without self-confidence and fell into the realm of delusion of self-delusion. Awakening to this self-awareness is the purpose of incarnation, the purpose of evolution from the Celestial and involution into the Divine; the descent of the spirit into nature and the ascent of all that is born to divinity.

Through this kind of opinion and introspection, a person can learn whether the teachings of the sages, which deal with the composition of man and the macrocosm, are correct; he can judge whether they have emerged from their self-knowledge or, as short-sighted people imagine, consist of mere “traditions” and fantasies. The human being, contemplating himself from his innermost being, sees himself as if surrounded by a series of concentric circles or shells, of which the denser shell always surrounds the finer one, just as the albumen surrounds the yolk and the shell surrounds the albumen. But he also sees that the more powerfully the power of the spirit works in his innermost self-consciousness, the more it penetrates the denser coverings; yes, even the gross physical body can be penetrated and illuminated by the light of the spirit. Every principle in man is like a sound, the vibrations of which spread eccentrically, like a stone thrown into water forming annular waves in it, or like a light surrounded by colored glasses, each taking on the color of the glass through which it shines. The stronger the light and the purer the form, the more it will shine. A word that is spoken rings out into eternity, even if we no longer hear it; a truth that is known persists even when we do not think of it; it lives on as a shining star in the astral, in the realm of ideas. Nothing is lost in space.

Where many good people are together, they create a common heaven; many spiteful devils one common hell. In the spiritual spheres, the law of magnetic attraction rules even more than in the physical world, where people like to associate with people of their own kind. What is free choice here is necessity there. Like attracts like.

Good and evil are mixed within us during our earthly life; we have different “magnets” within us, so to speak. After death, when good separates from evil (buddhi-manas from kāma-manas), there is only a single attraction in each. Then everyone gravitates to the world to which he belongs. This is the “chasm” that separates the state of “heaven” from what is called “hell.”

Indian philosophy speaks of seven such heavens (Lokas), which are opposed to just as many hells (Talas). It doesn’t matter whether one thinks of specific places or individual states; for the soul’s heaven or hell does not depend on external surroundings, it carries its condition within itself, and where it is, is where it experiences its joy or its sorrow. These lokas and talas are denoted as follows:^[58]

Heavens.	Hells.
1. Bhur-loka. [bhū-loka] The natural, mental state of good and thinking people on earth. Innocence.	Patala. [pātāla] The abode of the animal body of personality on earth. Instinctive selfishness.
2. Bhuvar-loka. Man is more concerned with his inner state than with his personality. After death, his astral body enters this sphere.	Mahā-tala. The abode of the astral shadow of the physical body, which takes on the characteristics of that sphere, such that e.g., a transformed human being assumes an animal form there after death. Here is the dwelling place of elemental beings, astral larvae, etc.
3. Svar-loka. The beginning of the state of holiness in which all personal desires disappear.	Rasā-tala. The desire for any pleasure.
4. Mahar-loka. State of Sanctity. Sensual desires no longer stir.	Talā-tala. supreme selfishness. The soul clings to objective existence. (“Earthbound Spirits.”)
5. Jana-loka. The soul (manas) is completely free from desires (kāma) and becomes one with the Ego.	Su-tala. The soul (manas) is wholly governed by passions and is one with the animal being.
6. Tapar-loka. The Christ state. Even when the soul reincarnates, it is invulnerable.	Vi-tala. The soul loses its connection with the divine spirit.
7. Satya-loka. The highest state of samādhi. Admission to Nirvāṇa is free.	A-tala. Spiritual death. Annihilation of individuality. (The Monad begins its evolution again at the lowest level.)

As can be seen from this, we do not need to wait for death to enter heaven or hell. The entrance is open to everyone. A clear conscience is the entrance to heaven; Greed, lust and anger are the gates of hell. Nor do we need any recommendation or intercession to enter heaven, which is within ourselves. No one but ourselves rewards or condemns us; we ourselves are the judges, our own conscience judges us. So long as we dwell in our bodies we are free to dwell in heaven and hell; but later the stay we have chosen will not be voluntary; for with the activity of our vitality, the possession of the power to change our decision and our will also ceases. The will that has taken a certain direction continues in a straight line; similar to a snake that crawls for its hole and which, even if you cut off its head, still finds the hole.

If a devil could change his will in hell, there would be nothing to prevent him from going to heaven. Heaven then opened up in him.

This sketch would not be complete if we did not also look at “purgatory.” The Indians call it “Kamaloka” [kāmaloka]; the condition of the souls of deceased people who are still bound to earth by their earthly desires.

Every occultist knows that for a short or long time after bodily death there is a separation of the lower soul forces from the higher ones. The higher, heavenly part of the mind detaches itself from the lower, earthly part, rises to that higher state which is called “paradise,” or “heaven” or the “god world,” leaving the lower part as a mindless (or rather godless), though intelligent larva, such as is often found in the séances of the spiritualists who associate with them as the alleged “ghosts” of deceased people.

As long as this separation, which the Church calls the “second death”, has not taken place, and the soul, as it were floating between heaven and hell, awaits its release from the bonds of the earthly, in order to be born into a higher existence, it can, however, be supported in its direction of will by loving and uplifting thoughts of the living, just as the souls of living people can also be mutually beneficial through their sympathy and thoughts. On the other hand, it is cruel to have a selfish desire for their presence to hinder them in their upward striving, or to draw them into spiritistic circles for amusement or curiosity, thereby further strengthening the ties that bind them to this earthly life.

Communications from the spirit world are desired; but proper spiritual communications are spiritual in nature. Exalted, heavenly spirits do not descend to knock tables, frighten children, and tend to worldly affairs, family affairs, and the like. All these things belong to the transitory, and the army of lying spirits is legion.

Interaction with the higher spiritual regions, on the other hand, is desirable and is open to us at any time. Goethe says:

“The spirit world is not closed,

Your mind is closed; your heart is dead.”

This interaction is not through the brain but through the heart. We already live in the spirit world; we ourselves are embodied spirits, and basically everything is spirit. Spirits are embodied thoughts. Everything has spirit, but not everything has soul, and soul is the mediator between spirit and spirit. When we raise the soul to the dwelling place of the heavenly spirits through the power of love, then we come close to them and feel their nearness. Neither they nor we have anything to do with their left astral corpses and remnants. When we rise up to them in this way through spiritual power, we enter into their spirit, participate in their spiritual beings, and the impressions that we receive from them in our souls are expressed through our feeling and thinking, so that we can then probably write and speak in their spirit as if they had written or spoken themselves.

The soul is the binding link between spirit and matter and then again between matter and spirit. Dead or sleeping are those people who have no soul or have not yet awakened to the inner life of the soul. There is much talk of “education of the spirit”; but the spirit does not need them; he is and always will be the same. What is meant by this is the development of spiritual activity in the intellect (Kama Manas) [kāma manas], the earthly intellectual activity; all striving is aimed at that, the life of the soul remains suppressed, and how could the higher spiritual influences find their way into the soul where there is no soul consciousness?

But as far as the alleged spirit messages are concerned, which want to teach us how things look in the “beyond” and in the macrocosm, how many fans the sky has, what the inhabitants of the planets are like, etc., they serve at most to to satisfy curiosity. What is true in them is nothing new, and what is new in them is usually not true. At best one can say that whoever does not know these things himself does not know whether these reports are true, and if he does know them, then he does not need to be taught. But such pseudo-scientific treatises serve to destroy the ideal and to make a mindless template out of the living spiritual world.

Man’s purpose on earth is to come to true Self-awareness; Only then can one speak of true, personal knowledge. Those who have found their own spirit in their soul hold the key to the spirit world. Anyone who has come to know the Son of God also comes to know the Father and the Father’s dwellings through him.

This is not to say that the study of natural phenomena is useless, but one only learns from them about the phenomena. The realm of external knowledge can only extend to external, sensible things. Science, like everything in the realm of the ephemeral, goes in circles forever. What it has gained over the centuries on the one hand is lost on the other. Whether it has progressed since the time of the ancient Atlanteans is doubtful. In some respects they probably surpassed us, and in other respects we surpass them. Science certainly has the right to be proud of its achievements and to conceal its errors; but all we know is in the end just a grain of sand on the shore of the unknown sea of eternity The gate of the spirit world will remain closed to her as long as she does not know how to knock properly and does not know the password.

An Indian poet says: “The universe is a dream dreamed by Brahma. Glorious are his dreams.” Seen through the spirit’s eye, all creation appears filled with the spirit and glory of God. Only where egoism and its entourage come into being do discords enter the harmony of nature. Similarly, man is also the creator of his world and it depends on him whether he wants to make it beautiful or ugly, populate it with angels or devils. His thoughts spring from his spirit, from these ideas and forms which his will animates. Noble thoughts take beautiful, ignoble ugly forms. The good ones belong to the heavenly regions of the soul, the bad ones to the underworld, and both work according to their properties where they enter. What man sends out, he receives back; his thought may elevate him to the gods, or drag him down among the animal beings. The choice is free for him. When he brings his little world into harmony with the law of God in the great nature, then the macrocosm is one with its microcosm, then heaven and earth flow together in one, wherein man recognizes himself in God as the Lord of creation.

VII. Spirit, Soul and Form.

“World wisdom is a word

has no meaning or power

The true treasure of wisdom

is divine science.”— Rückert.

Since basically everything is essentially one, only that science is perfect which recognizes this unity in the infinite multiplicity of phenomena, in all things, and if we designate this unity from which everything originates as “God,” then so knowledge of God is of course the true basis not only of every religion but also of every natural science, and without it all knowledge is only superficial and imperfect because it lacks the sole true basis of all knowledge. Knowledge of natural phenomena, no matter how precise, is only like taking cognizance of the phenomena that appear in a mirror without knowing what causes them. It is a knowledge of a shadow play on the wall, without knowledge of the light in the magic lantern and without knowledge of the glasses on which the pictures are painted. The spirit is the light, the soul the image, the shadow the form that the spirit creates through the soul; nature is the wall or mirror in which the shadows appear; But God is the essence of everything, he is spirit and soul and form, the light and thought and also the substance of nature. The mind is the circle of consciousness, the star in it is the soul, the square is the shape, but the whole is just a figure. God and nature, spirit, soul and form are not separate; One reveals itself in the other, one emerges from the other.

The human mind does not need to create a world of ideas; he is not their product and lives in himself even without it, in his own self-consciousness; but in order to reveal himself he generates thoughts and forms; the mind reveals itself through the form which is the expression of its thought. Likewise, the all-godhead does not need to create a world for itself, it is eternal in itself and does not change; in all its manifestations and manifestations it is the same; but the forms are nothing without them.

How would the world view in general and the conditions arising from it change if all people, instead of seeing only individual forms in the beings around them, saw in all the pure, indivisible divine being underlying their existence and the divine powers slumbering in it would recognize who only need revival!

Not only would all of natural science attain a much higher, spiritual standpoint, but our entire civilization with all its social evils would change, poverty, vice and suffering, the products of ignorance of the higher human nature would disappear; men would become more godlike and all nature would be ennobled; heaven would descend to earth and earth would rise to heaven. Then, instead of egoism, knowledgeable love would rule. Envy, jealousy, quarrels and wars would disappear, and there would be no more crimes, because everyone would see that the injustice he inflicts on another falls back on himself, and he himself has to bear the consequences much more than the other. However, it will be a long time before these ideal conditions are realized; but there is no reason why the beginning should not be made immediately, and this is best done by everyone on their own. The ennoblement of the whole emerges from the spiritualization of each individual.

Proof of immortality is much sought after these days; seeks them in books and in the phenomena of spiritism, forgetting to attain the consciousness of immortality, without which belief in immortality is an empty delusion and self-deception. Nothing is ultimately immortal but God, who is the essence of everything, and consequently the essence of all things is also immortal; nothing is lost in space. Also immortal is the substance of which a piece of wood or stone is made, but the wood or stone is unaware of this immortality. A pot formed of clay can be smashed; the clay remains what it is, but the pot knows nothing about it. The elements that make up a form are not annihilated; even if the form is destroyed by fire; but there lives in them no self-awareness of their immortality.

In vain will theorists rack their brains over the problem of the immortality of the human spirit as long as this spirit has not become conscious of its immortal existence within them. Those who make their belief in immortality dependent on the reliability of spiritistic communications from departed spirits can thereby gain a theoretical conviction of its possibility, but not the certainty that can only be found in one’s own self-awareness and belief in authenticity The phenomenon often collapses with the house of cards built on top of their theory. An opinion based on probabilities is not a belief in reality, but an acceptance of a probability. Even if a dead person came back to convince me of the immortality of human beings, it could at most convince me that under certain circumstances a person retains something even after death, which may last for a while, but it would be for me no proof of my own immortality. Our mind tells us that there is no annihilation of the Eternal; the eternal spirit within us is immortal; but this science is of no use to us as long as we are not conscious of the existence of this spirit and do not know the eternal within us. It is of no more use to us than if a relative left us a large estate in a distant country without our ever knowing anything about it.

It is not about the theory of immortality, but about the attainment of self-awareness in immortal existence. “Mind” is consciousness. When the self-awareness of our immortal existence awakens in us, then we have our own knowledge of our immortal spirit. Then we are immortal in it and need not worry about heaven or hell; we are exalted in God above all transitory states.

The attainment of immortality, or more properly the consciousness of immortality, is thus conditional; something that man must acquire and that no other can procure for him. Man must be born into this existence on earth before he can experience it himself, and so it is with all higher levels of existence. Only the person who has been born again in the spirit attains the self-awareness of his immortality through this spiritual birth. But for this he needs the forces of life. Death can arguably rid us of some of the things we have; but it gives us nothing new. If you want to enjoy the self-consciousness of immortal existence after death, you must have it before you die.

The spirit needs thought for its manifestation, and thought for its development needs form. It is clear to every thinking person that this form does not have to be one that is visible to our eyes and tangible to our hands. Thought is not nothing, but like every thing has its substance, and the purer and clearer the thought, the nobler will be the form in which it is expressed by the indwelling mental power. For the talented poet the form of expression of his thoughts is found of itself; only the verse maker tinkers with it for a long time; the orator, in control of the subject he is dealing with, needs no long preparation for what he is about to say. The intellect composes; but the spirit creates out of itself; nature gives birth to its forms without studying them.

Thoughts are organisms that, like all other organisms in nature, germinate and grow and mature through nourishment. Every new idea, no matter how useful and good, finds no entrance in a mind whose soil is not yet prepared for its reception; and when prepared, the seed must be sown; then it starts to grow. One may regard the new plant with suspicion as something alien and not understand it; but when it has taken root, and as it approaches maturity, one comes to know and love it, admires its blossoms, and finally enjoys its fruit.

The thought that a form represents is the soul of the form; the seat of the soul is consequently in all parts of the body, in the largest as well as in the smallest; but the seat of the soul’s life is in man’s self-consciousness; Only then does his soul come alive and his thoughts become power. Only then, through the power of his thought of God, can the birth of the living, incorruptible form take place in his soul that has come to life, which is spoken of in the Holy Scriptures, and Christ can be formed in man, as the apostle teaches. It is only through this that man puts on the robe of immortality.

Each soil most easily produces the plants suited to it. In an impure mind impure thoughts thrive, noble ones suffocate; in a pure mind, noble thoughts grow rapidly, the impure ones neither grow nor wither because they lack the invigorating power of the will flowing from the spirit. A thought that has grown big can take over the whole person and drive away all other thoughts. A fixed idea causes a kind of obsession, be it good or bad; but a man who has come to true self-awareness cannot be possessed by any idea. He is above all ideas; he owns and controls himself and his ideas.

All thoughts that arise in our brain are representations of various kinds; but the heart thinks and knows without having to have the idea of a thing. All our ideas are physical mental and ethereal forms, which can even be photographed and visibly embodied under certain conditions, such as is sometimes the case with spiritistic “materializations”; but not all of these forms have life, they only get this through our spiritual will, i.e., through the divine, magical power that springs from our inner self-consciousness. Mindless thoughts disappear as they came, thoughts filled with the spirit are independent, living beings whose existence can last for centuries. A blessing as well as a curse that comes from the heart by spirit reaches out into eternity; but what only springs from the imagination has no soul, no spiritual life, no magical power. Also, a spiritual thought, so long as it exists, remains connected with its progenitor even after his death, and reacts upon him again, according to the infallible law of God’s justice and the necessity of nature.

What prevents the modern naturalist from entering the realm of the supersensible are the wrong concepts of what is called “matter, force and spirit”. It is well said that there is no matter without force, and imagines that these are two different but connected things. In fact there is neither matter nor force in itself; everything is spirit and the effect of the spirit, which reveals itself as “matter and power”. All is the Eternal Word, Will and Thought in One, from which the manifestations of “Power and Matter” spring. The cause of all these phenomena is the source of all life and existence, the being, the spirit.

Accordingly, everything is spirit, every force is substantial, otherwise it could do nothing. Every substance is embodied power, otherwise no powers could develop from it; Force and matter are bound spirit, for spirit is the essence and origin of all things; every thing has spirit, i.e., consciousness of its kind, without which there would be neither attraction nor repulsion, neither life nor growth. Were the spirit not “substance” (“sub-sto” — that which is beneath), one could not feel its presence; if it were not “energy,” it would be ineffective. — Everything is Substance, Energy and Consciousness in One; everything is “Brahm”; the form in itself is “Maja,” [māyā] that is, imagination, illusion.

Consequently, each of our thoughts is spirit, soul and form. It springs from us and we provide it with the material necessary for its formation. The plastic substance of the mental sphere that surrounds us, our “mind substance” (chitta) [citta] takes on those forms which we give to it through our imagination (whether consciously or unconsciously), and so it is that we, especially in the half asleep or in a dream, being able to objectively see our own mental images in front of us; yes, they can even become physically visible to others in the vicinity of mediumistic persons from whom they attract astral parts, which can then explain the cause of various ghost stories and alleged ghost appearances, even if not all of them can be traced back to this one reason; for there are many effects of the forces in nature, and even such phenomena are not all made according to a template.

That “ideas are in the air” is a well-known fact. They determine the fashion and bring about the events of the day. This “air” is the astral light, the great memory chamber of the world. In the realm of the “ether” (Ākāśa) all thoughts are collected and stored, just as man keeps his memories in the memory chamber, the astral light of his little world, and takes them with him every day supplied with fresh goods. Every action resulting from his will forms a being living there, which instinctively stimulates and drives him to the same actions.

The circle in the figure above, the periphery of which we think of as being extended to infinity, represents the spirit, the square represents matter (maya) [māyā] as a form or appearance. When the spirit penetrates the form and self-consciousness awakens in its centre, then this is like a light (indicated by the triangle), which can increase in power and brightness and illuminate the whole body. True self-awareness has not yet awakened in everyday people, or is only there as a faint glimmer; in a perfect one it is manifest, and when a man is wholly penetrated and illumined by the light of truth, then he himself is that light^[59]; then the squaring of the circle by the two united triangles is successful. Then the ideal is realized in form and man is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and this spirit is himself.^[60] But the fruit and revelation of this spirit is the “Son of God, Christ in man, our divine Self.

We must make a clear distinction between mind, consciousness and self-awareness. “Spirit” or consciousness taken as absolute is in itself everything, but for us it is nothing unless it is our consciousness and we do not know it. If the spirit is revealed in us, consciousness appears in us, but not yet the self-consciousness of the “I’s.” An animal, an idiot, a drunkard or a dreamer also has consciousness, but he is not aware of his “I’s” consciousness. There is no form without spirit, for all form is a phenomenon of life and life itself is a function of spirit In a stone life manifests itself as cohesion of atoms, as gravitation, etc., in chemicals as elective affinity, in plants as sensitivity, in animals, as desire, instinct and consciousness; but only where thinking begins does differentiation appear, and consequently one can only speak of real self-consciousness in the human mind.

The higher man develops spiritually, the more his true self-consciousness grows, and he thus enters a higher existence. However, “spiritual development” does not mean a mere activity of the intellect. An expansion of the intellect on the level that belongs to it is not yet an ascent to a higher level, any more than an increase in physical size means a development of the intellect. True spiritual growth is an ascent on the way to knowledge of God; a strengthening and expansion of Self-awareness through the power of love and intelligence, leading to that height at which man’s ego finally recognizes itself as identical with the Self that encompasses the whole world and all creatures.

Any revelation of the spirit and the development of consciousness require a suitable substantial organization; It doesn’t matter whether it’s gross material forms or so-called “mental” or thought formations. Everything is “material” in a sense. The word “materia,” from “mater” (Latin) means “mother” and “matter” or “substance” is the mother (matrix) from which the spirit working in it gives birth to forms.

The true self of mankind is the God-man, and man’s true self-consciousness is his God-consciousness. But before the human being immersed in the material reaches this, he has to climb other steps and needs a higher spiritual organization on each of them; for his personality-consciousness is but a faint reflection, an inverted reflection, or shadow of his “Heavenly Father,” his divine Self. As the Latin name “animalia” indicates, animals are also embodied souls (anima), and intellectually they are often superior to many people; but what distinguishes man from them is self-consciousness, i.e., the Spirit that has become self-aware in the soul. The soul is the birthplace of the self-consciousness of the divine man; what springs from the brain has no real I.

Mind (manas) is man. It is like a mirror set between heaven and earth, in which both the upper and the lower appear in images. By means of the thought principle, the mind collects ideas and forms thoughts and conceptions from them, and each thought has a form according to its character. There, the human spirit is the creator in its small world, similar to the spirit of God in the big one; the ideas which he draws from within himself, the thoughts which he forms and animates with his will are his creatures; each of them has its individuality, even if only temporary; each constitutes an apparent “I,” a distinct state of consciousness; a personality, as it were, which may well sink into the subconscious and be forgotten, but which can nevertheless continue to exist and come back again, whether through willed memory or through unconscious activity of the psychic powers, as is the case with some manifestations of somnambulism, etc.

Scholars may dispute whether thoughts are substantial things and movements of the will-forces; but every man endowed with inward self-knowledge knows the creatures which he himself created as a part of himself, belonging to him, and which even when he sends them to the furthest distance do not separate from him, but return to him again; just as a ray of light is a part of the light from which it springs, and how every thing remains connected to the source from which it was born and returns to it as a part of its being.

The realization that what we call “matter” is not intrinsically essential, but only an appearance, and that every appearance corresponds to a character which it represents, explains much that still seems incomprehensible to science. Everyone has their own “underworld.” Secret desires and thoughts, even those we dare not let arise, long-gone memories, and the like, slumber in the depths of the soul and, when opportune, resurface and take possession of us .

But true self-confidence is the Lord; it does not change once awakened; but our sense of personality is constantly changing. Our whole life is a series of successive masks that we adopt according to the feelings and thoughts that dominate us. No one is quite the same personality today as they were yesterday and will be a different one tomorrow, only the divine Self within us is constantly the same, even if we don’t know it.

Man (Mens) is the center of his world; All influences from the upper and lower regions come together in it, and since all principles are contained in it, all these influences can reach its consciousness in it. As he rises higher, he becomes the center of a higher region; as he sinks lower, he approaches the influences of the underworld. The following diagram represents the different regions of his consciousness.

Ātma (Spirit).

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Buddhi (Knowledge).

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Buddhi — Manas

(Understanding).

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Kāma (passion).

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Astral plane (attraction).

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Elemental Kingdom (Vegetative Life).

Man receives his sensory impressions from the elementary kingdom, the sensory world; from the astral plane or “dream world” reach to him instincts, magnetic attractions and repulsions, sympathies and antipathies, dreams and visions, hunches, etc. The plane of Kama [kāma] or the realm of passions sends him desires and temptations of all kinds; but Buddhi, the realm of knowledge and holiness, shines on him from above, and the divine spirit rules over everything and everything comprehensively and penetratingly. Man is thus crucified between heaven and earth, between spirit and matter, and is accessible to the influences from above and below. It depends on his will and knowledge to rise or fall, to live or to die. In his true self-confidence he finds the strength necessary to conquer material things. A person without true self-confidence is at the mercy of the influences affecting him; he has mind, but not soul; it is like a hollow vessel that is illuminated by a light coming from outside, but in which there is neither fire nor flame. Spirit is the spark, love is the fire, self-consciousness is the flame, and knowledge is the light. —

The self-conscious man creates his thought-forms of his own free will; in people who have not yet awakened to this self-awareness, they arise without their will through influences that come from outside. Just as an idea that is still indefinite is condensed into a thought and an idea is formed from this, so every thought that has come to maturity gives birth to a form that corresponds to its character. In this way every human populates his world with beings of all kinds, be they angels or devils, good or bad; they are his false “Is,” somewhat independent of him, yet inseparable from him as a part of himself.

Just as the visible body of man is composed of innumerable living beings, microorganisms, etc., each of which is a unit in the unity of the whole, so the inner personal man is composed of such forms of consciousness, each of which is a unit; be it that the same lie dormant in his “subconscious” or are hidden in his “superconscious”; Each of these is like a tone or chord or a light that has its own peculiar color, and the sum of these forms the personality consciousness of the human being, which constantly changes according to the mood that changes through the impressions that come to consciousness in him. You are the “skandhas” of the Buddhists, which slumber in the astral light while the soul is disembodied, and are gathered by it again upon its reincarnation, and constitute the tendencies, talents, and instincts which man brings back into the world with him. They are “the flesh” which on this occasion “rises again” whereupon the struggle of the spirit against the flesh begins anew. Composed of the lower elements of this “flesh” is the desire body (Kama rupa) [kāma-rūpa], of the higher elements is composed its paradisiacal body (in devachan), and like the essence of all our experiences in this life is ours present character, our immortal being, (Karana sharira) [kāraṇa-śarīra], our “Father in Heaven” possesses the essence of all those higher elements, all noble thoughts, blissful memories and states of consciousness, which arise out of our different incarnations as it were like a sacrificial scent ascended to him and was absorbed by him into his being. All these elements are vibrations of substance, and the more spiritual these vibrations are, the more permanent they are; just as, for instance, a bodily sensation is short-lived and soon forgotten, a high, noble thought belongs to and is immortal in the immortal part of man.

In order to explain this somewhat more fully, let us cast a cursory glance at the process of reincarnation of the human soul: the same in its paradisiacal state may be likened to a moon which is nearest to and from the spiritual sun of the universe, the Logos receives its light. A ray of this light, reflected by the “moon” (Karana sharira) [karaṇa sárīra], descends into the material realm and collects on its way the skandhas which it left behind on its last ascent in the astral light. From this the nucleus is formed for the development of a new personality. This core, according to the law of its karma, is attracted to a family suitable for its development, takes possession of the organism of the woman who is destined to become its mother, after fertilization builds a human organism, is born and develops into a new personality,^[61] which now has new experiences and generates new skandhas during its earthly existence. After the death of that person, the soul returns to its “Father in Heaven” and leaves behind everything that is unholy in the lower regions. She enters the world of the gods and brings with her that which is heavenly and divine in her, be it much or little. But after these spiritual vibrations have also been exhausted and the instinctive urge for sensual existence stirs again, this ray of light begins the journey into the material again. This process is repeated until the soul has become free from all attraction of the earthly and finds its refuge solely in union with the divine. With each reincarnation it gives birth to a new personality; the spirit is the same, but the person it dresses in is a different appearance each time. The Spirit of God in us is immortal and unchanging; but what surrounds it is subject to change. Therefore Krishna, the God-man, speaks to Arjuna, the human soul, in the Bhagavad Gita:

“There was never a time when I (the true Self) was not. The Eternal is never born and never dies. Like a person who sheds his old clothes in the evening and puts on a new one in the morning, the Spirit, after the useless coverings have been discarded, reveals itself in other newly formed bodies.^[62]

This is also taught in the Christian religion if properly understood. With every descent into matter, a “fall” takes place. Christ, the true Self, “dies for us” that we may come to spiritual life; similar to how a seed is planted in the ground so that a tree can grow from it.

The Spirit of God creates a new person with each birth so that the divine Spark can unfold within him and man can attain God consciousness through the power of divine love. Without this sacrifice of the divine Spirit, man would be but an animal and, in spite of all intellectual development, incapable of sanctification, without which there is no immortality in the divine; only what is in us that has become godlike can enter into the divine being; every element returns to the source from which it came.

In the “Crucifixion” this teaching is represented symbolically. The divine ray of light, the soul, is as it were held between two “thieves”; between the upward striving soul forces (Buddhi-Manas) and the downward gravitating (Kama-Manas) [kāma-manas]. After death there is a separation and shedding of the lower from the higher; the higher consciousness unites with the celestial; the lower part of manas remains in the underworld. In the accompanying figure, the triangle pointing up represents the divine, enlightened part of consciousness, that pointing down represents the earthly, dark part of it. In the perfect man, the shadow disappears into the light.

The spirit is life, love and freedom; the material is selfishness and limitation, egoism, contraction and condensation, heaviness, darkness, unconsciousness and death. The world we live in is far from being the most “material” of all. The more spiritless and lifeless a form, the more condensed and material it is. There are elementals that are more lifeless and heavier than our stones and rocks, even if they are invisible to us. All properties are relative. Glass, for instance, is penetrable by light and impenetrable by electricity. If we want to penetrate the mysteries of nature, we must not judge them by our relationships with our sense world. On every level of existence, not only are the conditions in which man finds himself different, but he himself is someone else, the consciousness of a dreaming person is different from that of a waking person; the perceptions of the internally awakened man do not exist for the external sensory man; Our world does not exist for the soul resting in the heavenly world, and the earthly world mind has no concept of the condition of such souls. What “time” and “space” mean to us are concepts that arise from a series of changing states of consciousness; in eternity there is just as little a concept of time as we can conceive of eternity in our earthly time.

The ego is the same at all levels of existence, but the form of its existence is different at each level. At every level man needs a covering suitable for the same; a “mother” (matrix) for its development and birth into the next higher existence. “Flesh and blood do not enter the kingdom of God.” On the physical plane, man’s body is made up of a composite of the five elements (ether, air, water, fire and earth), in the astral world he has an astral body, and in the spiritual plane world needs a spiritual body.

Sankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya] describes five such sheaths in which Ātma works and which man needs for his supreme accomplishment, and designates them as “Koshas,” i.e., as vessels in which the spirit works and lives:

1. Annamaya Kosha [annamaya-kośa], our visible physical organism, which grows out of our material nourishment and eventually decays.

1. Pranamaya Kosha [prāṇamaya-kośa], our invisible etheric organism, which is the seat of vital activity and animates the physical bodies. It is also the “vessel” of instincts, desires, and passions, and from it arises after death the “desire body,” called “Kama-rupa” [kāma-rūpa].

1. Manomaya Kosha [manomaya-kośa], the body of thought, the mind, with its fivefold powers of perception, ordering and gathering of ideas.^[63]

1. Vijnānamaya Kosha [vijñānamaya-kośa], the transfigured, spiritual body of the enlightened man with his quintuple of perceptual powers belonging to buddhi.

1. Anandamaya Kosha [ānandamaya-kośa] or form of blissful existence, a conception of Karana Sharira in which man is closest to Deity, and the delusion of difference from Ātma appears only as a thin veil.^[64]

The Bible also speaks of heavenly bodies. “There is an animal body and a spiritual body,” etc. But it is a great error to think that a heavenly body is somehow miraculously provided for us after death, unless it has been formed in us during life. It is just as erroneous to imagine that this body is already available in each one of us and only the coarser things need to be stripped off in order to find a self-confident existence in the finer, transfigured body. Every organism is born and grows through metabolism and nutrition. The physical body gathers its nourishment from the five kingdoms of nature, processes it, absorbs the fit and discards the unfit, and it is similar with the finer bodies. Fire is kindled by fire, and passion nourished by passion. The mind overcome by anger or lust repels the influences of reason; greed hardens the heart of the egoist, and it is shriveled by envy. The scholarly mind, brooding in the dark, feeds on the accumulation of memory stuff, thereby losing the faculty of intuitive perception, and finally giving birth to a soulless bookworm. The divine spark in man is nourished by the fire of love for the highest; from her the “incorruptible body of the resurrection” is born. This rebirth and resurrection takes place in the living man and not in a decaying corpse. The Lord is a God of the living and not of the (spiritually) dead. Therefore man is in this world, that he may gather forces in his physical body and use them for the attainment of the highest purpose of his existence; the physical body is the gathering point from which all its powers spring. After death there is no new absorption of energy, but only a use of the energy gained during life. The period of disembodiment is, as it were, the time of rest and digestion of the food eaten; there the soul is like a cut off bud that opens and unfolds its beauty while it is still in the glass of water; but the roots are wanting, through which the stalk received nourishment.

Spirit provides consciousness, material provides power. The task of every human being is to be an “alchemist” in the true sense of the word, and to use the powers borrowed from nature on a higher, spiritual level, whereby they themselves be transformed into spiritual powers. Thus, the imperishable “gold” of wisdom is made from these “base metals.”

It is of no use to speculate about the nature of the transfigured bodies of the inhabitants of the world of the gods; the person who has been born again in the spirit, has awakened to inner life and knows himself, he does not need such descriptions; the unregenerate has no concepts for it. All that is amenable to objective investigation is the physical body of man, with which external science is concerned, and partly the lower grades of the “astral bodies” known to spiritualists.

This is not the place to discuss the characteristics of these two at length; however, some remarks may be made about it:

The physical body (Sthula sharira) [sthūla-śarīra] is like the house in which man dwells during his existence on this earth. Sankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya] says: “Karma is born to us, and serves to experience your pleasure and pain.” The physical body can be viewed as a covering of the etheric body within it. It is the workshop of the external vital activity (prana) [prāṇa] which directs its physiological functions and which is mediated to it through the etheric body. It is made up of a fivefold composition of the five tattvas known by the name of the “five elements,” which will be discussed below. He is, so to speak, the least of his brothers, and on the other hand of the greatest importance, since he is the gathering point of all forces.^[65] Leaving it untimely through suicide or killing also entails the greatest disadvantages; chiefly because every man is bound by his karma to a certain length of life, and by killing his body he is not freed from this bondage, but is deprived of a necessary tool for this existence.

The etheric body (linga sharira) [liṅga-śarīra], also often referred to as the “astral body” and known as the “double,” is the etheric replica of the physical body, or rather the “model” on which the latter is built. It too is “material,” but made of finer stuff than the physical body, and invisible under ordinary circumstances. Since it is ethereal, walls and the like are no obstacle to its penetration, which can often be observed in the so-called “materializations” at spiritistic séances. Here, it is usually the etheric body of the medium that appears tangible and visible as “embodied spirit.” After death, the etheric body remains close to the physical corpse and decomposes with it. Clairvoyants can see the etheric body hovering over the graves, in alignment in which the corpse lies.

The psychic body (Sukshma sharira) [sūkṣma-śarīra]. This designation encompasses all the various states of the “astral body” or “soul,” from the etheric body to the spirit body of the heavenly dwellers. The “soul” is the inner life in us from which our spiritual feelings arise, and this requires an appropriate organization for its activity. The best evidence that we possess an astral body comes when we ourselves acquire the ability to transfer our consciousness into it and live in it independently of the physical body; a faculty which some people today have, whether it is innate to them or artificially developed.

The occult, metaphysical and spiritistic literature contains innumerable testimonies to the existence of the astral bodies of men and animals, so that it seems superfluous to multiply them.

It is a different matter with the thought-images (Mayavi-rupas) [māyāvi-rūpa], which arise when a person thinks vividly of another, feels attracted to him or, as it were, identifies himself with him. This creates his image in the mental mind sphere (aura) of the other and can be perceived by this action, if it is of a positive nature, like a dream image or a vision. The dying often announce the manner of their deaths to distant friends in this way; but such an apparition is as a rule unconscious, or resembles a sleepwalker acting only instinctively and without reason; unless a man (an Adept) had attained the ability to place his consciousness wherever he willed.

It is similar with the desire forms (Kama-rupas) [kāma-rūpa] of the dead. When a man dies with a strong unfulfilled desire, the thought-form thereby produced may make efforts to fulfill that desire, and sometimes appear to the living, provided the necessary conditions are present. Such an appearance does not contain the intelligence of the deceased; her soul is the one thought that holds her together. When the wish is fulfilled, the thought disappears and with it the form.^[66]

But there are also other desire bodies of the deceased (earthbound souls), which are composed of a multitude of animal or devilish apparent egos (elementals) that a passionate person has acquired during life, and such a body naturally becomes the animal one or can take on monstrous forms befitting of his character. When the time of salvation comes, these spooks dissolve into the elements of which they are composed.^[67]

Just as man’s elementary body is composed of elementary parts, so is his animal part the dwelling place of animal formations, and in his kama-rupa [kāma-rūpa] such forms may as well be contained as worms in the intestinal tract; while the purified astral body of the heavenly dweller is the seat of the noblest thoughts and feelings. We ourselves are now preparing the clothes which we will wear after leaving our earthly body, and whoever does not wear festive clothes “on the day of judgment” will of course not wear them and be able to attend the “Festmale celebrating the union of the human soul with its bridegroom, the divine Spirit [Monad].^[68]

There can be all sorts of astral bodies, just as there are all sorts of men and animals, from the unconscious state of the dream body of a sleeper to the transfigured body of a saint or adept; the astral matter differs from the gross matter, for example, in that it is finer and more plastic, and consequently easily assumes that form which suits the character of its occupant. Here in this earthly shell we can play hide-and-seek as at a masquerade ball; but when this covering falls off, everyone shows himself in his true form. Whoever, therefore, wishes to possess a pure form in the super-mundane life must strive to develop a noble character even now in this life, to rid himself of everything morally impure and to let the truth within himself emerge, so that the spirit may shine in its own light; yea, each one should strive to establish within himself those conditions which are necessary for the God-man to take birth and form within himself as described in the Bible.^[69]

The plant derives its nourishment from the coarse soil, and an organism grows from it, which is also made of “earth” but bears no resemblance to it. Similarly, the spirit body develops in the physical body; “the perishable attracts the imperishable”; The finer body takes its strength from the coarse body and develops itself in it, and just as the germ of the plant in the earth needs rest for its development, so it is with the growth of the inner human being; every violent excitement of a passion not only hinders this growth, but can in a short period of time again destroy the work of years. finds, if, for example, an outburst of anger takes place, the ethereal or spiritualized atoms that have already become free shrink again and withdraw into their material shells (matrix).

Each of our thoughts is the origin of forming a form. Every movement of the will has its source in the spirit, which is the life of everything. Every thought that receives our assent is thereby animated by our will and can grow and mature and, as it were, become independent. Such a birth forms a being in our being, a light, a word, an “I,” and of out of such I’s our being is composed; much as the character of a family or nation arises from the characters of its members. They form our individuality, and according to their properties is the form we have after we leave the body for good, be it light or dark, good or bad. The denser elements gravitate outward and must be shed; but in the innermost dwells the eternal light. Whoever finds this light in himself and follows it does not walk in darkness. In this light of truth there is freedom and salvation from all evil. It’s the Holy Spirit; and his knowledge is the refuge of all thinking beings and the assurance of their immortality.

VIII. “I”

“I think what I am and

am what I think.”

Rückert.

If some powerful one were to pose a poll to the people these days as to what or who each one is, where they came from, where they are going, and why they are in the world, most would probably be at a loss to answer it. We can see that people differ from each other in their character and also in their appearance; but if we examine the matter carefully, we find that this difference does not exist in its innermost nature, but only in its outward qualities. Each represents a sum of qualities, under which a being unknown to us, according to the circumstances, as man, woman or child, stupid or clever, rich or poor and the like. One is a king, another a beggar, one beautiful, the other ugly, one of noble birth, another of humble origin, etc.; but all these designations refer only to the qualities which we ascribe to a “something” which we neither see nor comprehend, and which we call the “I” or individuality.

We cannot understand this I intellectually and therefore cannot separate it from its properties. Since we are ourselves, we cannot imagine or think it objectively; but we feel that it is not a sum of qualities thrown together; because otherwise our inner self-consciousness would be completely different every time these qualities change, and when these qualities disappear, there would be nothing left. This is also conceivable with soulless beings; a bundle of straw or a heap of sand has no soul, i.e., no individuality; it only appears as such until it falls apart. The individuality of a society, a church or a nation, and of every organism in general, only exists as long as the spirit holds it together. What holds such a sum of properties together is consciousness, the spirit. Mind without consciousness is nothing. The spirit that has become conscious in man forms his ego, his self-consciousness, his individuality.

There are many people who have never found their true self and only live some kind of dream life; but everyone in whose heart the right self-consciousness has awakened feels that his “I” is something different from his qualities, although if we want to think of it stripped of all its qualities it is no longer conceivable at all.

We cannot describe it as it has no positive qualities; we can only say what it is not, but not what it is. We recognize in it the cause of all things, and it is therefore in each thing its very own incomprehensible self; the same in all things and therefore only one. This All-Containing One is called “Ātma” (Self) in Indian, “the Spirit” or “the Deity” in English.

The teachings of all major religious systems agree that the Spirit of God is the true Self of all things. In the Bhagavad Gita it says: “The whole universe has been unfolded through me, through my mysterious nature.”^[70] — “I dwell in the hearts of all. I am the light in all things that shine” etc.^[71] — The Bible teaches: “All things were made by the Word, and apart from it nothing we see is created.”^[72] — Thus the Spirit or Word (Logos) is our very own self, and if we wish to know it we can find it nowhere nearer than within ourselves, as the ground of our being. This is why the Apostle Paul teaches that we are “temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in us.” Also he says that this spirit is our self and that we know this; provided we are not unfit (for real life).

Not in the dead forms, but in the spirit that enlivens them, there is truth, beauty, strength, and all the glories that come into existence for us only when they come into our consciousness; for even if the whole world were full of light and glory, it would not exist for us if we could neither feel nor otherwise perceive it. So too we can know nothing of the Spirit of God, which is ourselves, until we become conscious of its presence; but when this spiritual consciousness awakens in us, we recognize its omnipresence everywhere. This is the first condition for true self-knowledge. Michaelis de Molinos says:

“Thou shalt know that thy Soul (thy Ego) is the center, dwelling place, and kingdom of God; that therefore, in order that the supreme ruler may rest upon that throne of your soul, you should strive to keep it clean from guilt and blemish, free from fear, free from passion, personal desire, and imagination, and peaceful in temptation and affliction. You should therefore always keep peace in your heart so that this temple of God remains pure, and you should work, pray, obey and suffer in the right and pure spirit, without letting yourself be disturbed in the least by what God sends you. Enter this temple so that you may conquer it; for there is the mighty, divine castle that protects you.”^[73]

Now since God is the true self of all things, the self-knowledge of God in man is synonymous with the knowledge of God, and whoever knows himself in truth knows God; but as long as we have not come to true Self-awareness, this Self, which we call “God,” also appears to us as something alien and distant, and since at our present stage of evolution there are only a few people in whom this God-consciousness has awakened, there are many who do not believe at all in the possibility of a higher, divine existence, while others seek God in external things, create some image of God in their imaginations and thereby close their hearts to the true Spirit of God. Many in this way create a god in their imagination, endow him with human weaknesses, present to him their selfish desires, and think they can persuade him to do their bidding either by their own arguments, arguments, and promises, or through the mediation by the clergy. They forget that the Bible also teaches: “You shall not make an image (i.e., an idea) of God” and that one cannot pray to him in any other way than “in spirit and in truth.”^[74]

No one can attain Self-knowledge of anything without being one with the object of his knowing, and then the known is no longer an “object” but one’s Self. Only God can know Himself as God; a man without God would have to be equal to or greater than God in order to know God. A God that a man could intellectually comprehend would be less than a man and not worth comprehending. God is the source of existence, life, power and strength; but an existence of which we know nothing and feel nothing is nothing to us; only the life within us is our life, our strength. Everything is contained in God, but it does not exist for us until it is revealed to us. “Science” knows nothing of God, nothing of beauty, justice, sublimity, virtue; because these states do not belong to the forms but to the spirit, and it does not know the Spirit. Mental powers are not the products of the forms; but they are revealed in these. The spirit is reflected in the form and thereby imparts its properties to it; just as the spirit of an artist is imprinted in his work. The less a man shares in the spirit of God, the less he has a sense of truth, good, and beauty; a godless man, or a human larva in the underworld, has no sense of justice, unselfish love; intellectual virtues do not exist for him any more than intelligence does for an idiot, or consciousness for a piece of wood. He only feels his animal egoism and everything which arises from it; he is driven by his instincts and therefore does not act on his own. He has no true self-awareness and only an apparent individuality. It represents a sum of instincts, desires, passions, fantasies and ideas that do not belong to the true self, but to the “spirits” (forms of consciousness) of nature, and are only a perverted reflection of divine-spiritual forces. Even our personal self-consciousness is only a reflection, like a smoldering of the wick after the flame has been extinguished.

The nature of our consciousness depends on the impressions we receive, true self-awareness rests in itself. A person obsessed with anger feels and thinks differently than when filled with joy; a person in a dream, in drunkenness, in ecstasy, in delirium or in other extraordinary states is, as it were, a completely different person; but God in him remains always the same; the Ego does not change; it only emerges stronger or weaker in man; it may elude man during sleep, but it reappears upon waking. I know when I wake up in the morning that I am the same person today that I was yesterday when I went to sleep, and this knowledge does not depend on observing my appearance or on my memory, but it is in my “conscience,” which differs from outward knowledge in that that I know with certainty and certainty what it teaches me, without needing any proof. The impressions and their memories change, but the consciousness of being is the same in all people. Nobody doubts that he is real. If he weren’t, he couldn’t doubt either.

In the universal being, the universal deity, there can be no difference. Ātma, “the Self,” is the same in all its creatures. When we go deep enough into our inmost being, or, what is the same thing, rise to the highest, all notions of “I” and “thou,” “mine” and “thy” vanish; there, we inwardly leave father and mother, child and friend and all possessions; then we only feel humanity in us without any difference, and in this the greatness of the divinity that fills everything. The more this consciousness of God reveals itself in man, the more it awakens and strengthens in him, the more new realms of perception and knowledge open up to him; until finally, albeit after many more reincarnations, he stands on the threshold of the temple of omniscience, where the idea of the ego disappears forever, and he recognizes himself in the greatness of God as the creator of all things.

How does the idea of ego arise? — About this, introspection teaches us the following:

In unity all is one. — In the quiet, clear eternity, where there is no separation of recognizer, recognized and knowledge and consequently no self-introspection, there can be no contradiction and consequently also no “I” which requires a “you”; there is nothing other than God, eternity, absolute consciousness. When the mind withdraws completely into itself, all objective perception and introspection also ceases and only reappears on awakening. Indian philosophy teaches that Brahma has periods of waking and sleeping, and that with his awakening the creation of the worlds begins; just as man also begins to draw thoughts from within himself when he wakes up from sleep and these become the small world of his ideas. We cannot imagine the state of Brahma during his “sleep”; but since the spirit never sleeps, but only the body sinks into rest, the above is to be understood to mean that the spirit of God is withdrawn into itself in the universe in a state of the highest and indescribable perfection, while all nature lies asleep (Pralaya), and that the awakening of Brahma is more like a dream, from whose images the worlds arise.

Everything is contained in the deity, and consequently also the ability to introspect oneself,^[75] and when this introspection occurs in it, a separation, as it were, of the seer and the seen takes place. Brahma looks at his divine nature, which is himself, as in a mirror and recognizes himself therein as his own living image, or as it is said, as his “son.” Through this birth of his son, he himself becomes the “Father,” and the power by which the Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father is God’s self-knowledge, the wisdom, “the Holy Spirit.” Thus we now behold the unrevealed unity in its manifestation as the Trinity, and this is the first and highest “I,” which encompasses the whole of creation, which in itself appears as a being distinct from the universal deity, but is nevertheless essentially only one with it. It is referred to as “Iswara,” [īśvara] “the Word” (Logos), or personified as “Krishna,” “Jesus Christ,” Imanuel, or by other names, depending on the point of view from which we look at it; it is the sole Lord and Redeemer of the world. No one can come to the Father in any other way than through the Son, i.e., through the awakening of the God-consciousness to reach the realization of the highest existence.

Needless to say, this awareness does not consist in a fool imagining himself to be “superman” or God himself. This consciousness is attained only through spiritual rebirth. Every person in whom this birth of the Son of God has taken place is in his inner being an image of the Son of God and, if he is completely permeated and enlightened by the Spirit of God, can even be recognized on the outside as a higher being. Worldly-minded people will hardly understand this; they confuse the animal with the divine self. Therefore, as a rule, all who proclaimed this doctrine of the deity in mankind were mocked, crucified, or burned. When Jesus said that he was the son of God, the clergy meant he related that to his personal, human self. They accused him, “He made himself the son of God,” and killed him.^[76] On the other hand, many other passages in the Bible show that this teaching did not apply to his mortal personality but to his inner life.^[77]

It can be assumed that in Jesus of Nazareth the consciousness of personality was permeated by the consciousness of the Logos and merged into it^[78]; but in everyday man there is still a wide gulf between these two forms of consciousness. Jesus is therefore called “Christos” (the anointed or crowned one) because in him the “Word” (Logos) had taken form and “incarnated,” i.e., was embodied. Christos, considered the Logos in the macrocosmos, is the spiritual sun of the universe; Christ as the revelation of the Word in us is “the mystery of redemption, the hope of glory.”^[79] The Father is the Unmanifest; the Son is revealed truth. No one can come to the truth in any other way than by making it manifest in his consciousness. Christ is the light of the world; but this light must rise within ourselves if the day of knowledge is to dawn for us. This light was in Jesus of Nazareth and is in all of us, but it is not a light for us until we grasp it.^[80] It is only when the fire of love for truth is kindled within us that the hidden spark becomes a flame that spreads the light of self-knowledge that illuminates us. Everything is God, and we too are God in our essence; but how can there be any talk of godlikeness in relation to our person unless we recognize the divinity within us? The hidden light within us is no light to us while we are blind; the brightest sunshine avails us nothing as long as we walk in the dark.

In the Kabala this rising of the light of Self-knowledge is represented symbolically. “Jehovah” means the universe, the darkness, and the value of the Hebrew letters of this word, calculated cabalistically, gives the ratio of the diameter to the circle. Jehovah (Jupiter) is the father of the gods, the origin, the dark god of justice. But if we put the Hebrew letter Sh (ש), which means fire, in the middle of the word, Jehovah becomes “Yehoshua”; (Jesus), the light of the soul, whose lamp was Jesus of Nazareth. —

Such a lamp is every person in whom this light of knowledge of God shines. We are all one in Christ when true Self-knowledge awakens in our hearts. It is “the way”; but this way is not our way until we walk it. Christ is our spiritual life; but he is only when he has entered our “Jerusalem.” It is written, “My Father is your Father also.”^[81] We all become one with the Savior when the Son of God is born in us by the power of the Word. Just as the one sun gives life and form and color to innumerable plants and Himself reflected in millions of dewdrops without the sun dividing itself, the merciful sun of wisdom shines in the spiritual sky and creates its sacred image in the hearts of men.

Buddhists call this central sun of spiritual existence “Ātma,” and its light (the holy spirit) “Ātma-Bodh,” the light of wisdom. Therefore, a truly enlightened one who is imbued with the self-knowledge of truth is called a “Buddha” and a “Buddhist” is one who aspires to that enlightenment, while followers of Gautama Buddha’s teachings are called “Buddha-ists.” Likewise, true gnosis consists in the self-knowledge of truth, and the true “gnostics” are those who possess it. But since the world does not know the knowledge of God, all these designations are often misused and misunderstood.

Christ in us is our real, immortal Self. It is His light, the light of the Logos within us, that illuminates the soul. There can be no other redeemer, because only a higher consciousness raises man to higher levels. In the knowledge of the divine self, all our sufferings and joys of earthly life become the same disappear in a foggy image in the light of the sun.

But before the light of the Logos reaches the clear consciousness of the personality, various obstacles oppose it; for man is surrounded by a threefold covering as with veils, of which the closest to him is the densest, so that the divine light reaches man on earth only like a faint twilight. These three veils correspond to the three levels in the macrocosm, namely:

1. 1. The spirit plane or “heavenly world.”
  2. The psychic level; also called the “astral world.”
  3. The physical plane; the visible nature.

Corresponding to these three planes are the physical body, the psychic body and the mental body of man. Each of these forms of consciousness is, as it were, a light formed by the reflection of the light belonging to the next higher level, and the Logos stands above everything, from which the three kingdoms receive their light. Indian philosophy illustrates this through the following example:

If we represent the Logos as a sun whose light falls on a clear mirror, then a clear image of the sun is formed on it. This represents the spiritual consciousness of the human being. From this, the light shines onto a metal plate and forms a circle of light there, albeit a weaker one, which symbolizes the inner, psychological consciousness of the human being. From there, the reflected light falls back onto a gray wall, as it were, and is seen there only as a faint glimmer. This represents the consciousness of the personal man.^[82]

Thus, we have four forms of consciousness, one of which is contained in the other, but only the highest is the true and eternal Ego. If it is not easy to reach the inner life of the soul, it is probably even more difficult to get in touch with the Father to unite in heaven, and then there is yet another step to union with the Logos. The Logos (Ātma) is the spiritual sun of the world; our heavenly Father is the moon, and we are like the earth. Since it is still night around us and we cannot see the sun, we receive the reflection of its light through this planet of ours and its satellites, the intuition, which is our spiritual guide and accompanies us through life. Through his mediation we receive this higher light, just as the earth at night acquires the light of the sun through the agency of the moon.

Such things cannot be spoken of in any other way than in symbols, but all the symbols that we can use are insufficient and defective. What they represent as separate is essentially one. Everything is contained within ourselves, and the higher we rise in consciousness, the closer we come to the truth. The spiritual sun is within us and everywhere. Not in a distant country, but within ourselves, through the power of the Holy Spirit of self-knowledge, the Redeemer is born. But this birth can only take place in a pure substance, i.e., in the higher region of the soul, which is free from all lower attractions and free from all conceptions. This region is symbolized by the Christians under the name of the Virgin Mary, by the Buddhists as “Maya,” the mother of Buddha (the mother of wisdom). She is the power of wisdom and the queen of the heavenly region of our soul, crushing the head of the serpent of evil desire. She is also Venus, the goddess of love, the thought of God that rises in naked purity from the sea of thought.

In all religious systems, spiritual rebirth through the incarnation of the Holy Spirit in man is symbolized. The fable of Narcissus, for instance, who, at beholding his reflection in the water was so enraptured by its glory that he fainted, also refers to the self-sacrifice of the divine man and his incarnation. Out of love for humanity and in order to redeem it, the Deity, forgetting itself, descends to the pure soul and creates its image in man.

The idea of God builds its form within us. “Christ dies for us”; i.e., the divine spark of love is buried in the hearts of men so that it can develop in them, take shape and love can celebrate its resurrection in man.

Our solar system, like every other thing, is a whole, an individuality, an indivisible entity, and as the visible sun is the center and source of the life of the whole, so the Word is the center and source of the spiritual life of the soul, our world, from which all forces flow. It is the “I” and Lord of our solar system, and it is also the Lord and God within us when it becomes power and manifests within us. Then the word “Christ” becomes in us and “Jesus” the light of our soul; then the little becomes the big me; “the” [neuter] God becomes “the” [masculine] God-man; a goddess god and one with Ātma, the Self.

What is this Self? — Sankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya] replies: “It is Sat-chit [cit]-ananda [ānanda] Swa-rupa [sva-rūpa]”; the form of existence-knowledge-bliss; the state in which the spirit recognizes itself as the creator and glory of all existence. It is the eternal, uncreated, existing by itself and in itself; the eternal spectator of all that exists in time, past, present and future — Discard name and color and form! The knower of the highest dwells in the essence of perfect consciousness, of unsurpassed bliss, there is no longer any difference between the knower and the known; for by its own being, wisdom and bliss this radiant Self shines forth from itself. — Fix the torch of thought in the pedestal of self, and let the kindled flame of ascending wisdom destroy that which nourishes ignorance. As night breaks at daybreak, so through the knowledge of the Self the darkness is destroyed, and the Self is revealed, shining like a radiant sun.”

In the sign of the cross, “in which thou shalt conquer,” the initiated will readily recognize the i, namely, the I. Spirit permeates matter to form the cross to which earthly, mortal man is attached with his five senses (represented by the pentagram). He is the little I, who is connected with his five senses to the physical world; but his head rises above the material realm into the light of spirit, enabling him to recognize the great I. But the big I gets its meaning from the “dot” above the I, of which Göthe [Goethe] tells us that one should not forget it, because it shows the divine (the “unconscious” of the philosophers), which for us is darkness, but in truth is the source of all light when it is manifest in man.

How can we find this big me? — F. Rückert shows us the way:

“Say: I am I! and as you say, feel it too

Breathe in your little self of the great Self.”

But the breath of the great I is the ethers of God, the Holy Spirit, of which the Bible says: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? You are.” — What fills man’s consciousness is himself.

IX The Word.

“You stand at the sanctuary of half-revealed truth.” — F. Rückert.

The word is the expression of a thought, and the spirit of the thought is its meaning. The sense is the source, the thought is the form, and the word is the revelation. Mind expresses itself through thought in Word, and these three are as inseparable from one another in this revelation as “Father, Son, and Spirit.” The sense is the spirit, the thought the soul, the expression the body, the word or deed. Every deed is the expression of a thought, and consequently an outward symbol of its underlying word, in the microcosm as well as in the macrocosm. Man embodies his thoughts by means of the work of his hands, in nature their “word” embodies itself through the spiritual, creative power inherent in him. It is the organizing principle in nature, everything that arises and grows in nature is formed by its ever-creating power. Every thing is a word; this word, its name, its name is its power, and its visible form is an embodiment thereof. The Word is God and nothing is made without it.^[83]

Had all things flowed directly from the divine Word, they would all be divine in appearance; but through the sinking of the spirit into material existence, human beings have become caricatures of the divine being instead of being its likeness. Nevertheless, everyone carries the lost word inside and when he finds it again, his inner life will be divine again through its power.

The word is sound; the word is light. When the divine word of power sounded: “Let there be light!” then there was light, because this word was the light itself, which permeated the thought of creation; as even today it is the light of knowledge that produces thoughts, just as the light of the sun gives nature its glory. Also, wherever the law of nature rules in its original purity, the most perfect harmony reigns; the discords we perceive are due to the reflection of spirit in matter, i.e., created by self-delusion. It is said that Pythagoras wrote about the gate of his academy: “Whoever wants to enter here must be experienced in mathematics and music.” This means that whoever wants to enter the temple of wisdom and learn the mysteries of nature, must have intellect enough to discern the law of the spirit and its workings in nature, and have a soul capable of sensing the harmony of those workings. The Word of God is this law, and the harmony of the spheres consists in that they are all according to this Word, i.e., are themselves the pure revelation of this Law, for the Word of God is God, and God and His Law are one and not separate.

Just as the word of a sentient, truthful man comes from his soul and his actions correspond to his word, so the divine Word is the soul of the world and nature is the expression of the creative thoughts contained therein. The word is the essence of things. In creatures that do not think for themselves, do not reflect, this word expresses itself; they act according to their nature. The flowers unfold their beauty regardless of whether they are admired or whether anyone sees them; the nightingale sings her song as her feelings prompt her, without calculation. It is only where there is self-interest deliberation that the lie begins, and man has the dubious privilege of arranging things in such a way that his thinking and willing are different and his actions do not correspond to his words.

The Word is the revelation of the soul. Not only does every thing have its soul, but it is soul itself, and the sweeter appearance is its expression and symbol. Our whole visible world is a symbol and expression of the soul of the world, a revelation of the divine Word in nature, which without our hearing speaks itself everywhere, embodying thoughts in all places and without sound or noise, silently active, forms built, in the inner life as well as in the outer.

The Bible says, “In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, all things were created by Him.” — A learned and enlightened brahmin, T. S. Subba Row, explains this as follows:

“The Logos is described by the ancient Indian philosophers Iswara [īśvara]^[84] or Pratyagatma [pratyāgātma] (over-soul) or also Sabda [śabda] Brahman. It is the verb or “the word” among Christians, the divine Christos, who is unique in his Father; i.e., it does not manifest itself as a center of spiritual energy in the bosom of Parabrahm during pralaya, and manifests itself as a center of conscious power during cosmic activity. He is the one I (Ego) in the cosmos, and every other self or “I” is but a reflection of it. It is the one great world mystery, and its knowledge is the end of all human knowledge, of all religion and philosophy.

“What appears in the Logos at the beginning of a creation is at first only an image (an idea) of what is destined to be in the cosmos. The light or energy of the Logos captures this image and imprints it on matter already revealed.”

This idea which appears in the Logos cannot be arbitrary, but is the result of the previous period of creation; just as a man, when he wakes up in the morning, possesses that knowledge which he had before he went to sleep. It can therefore be assumed that progress is also taking place in the universe and that each new creation develops from the experiences of the previous ones. The Bhagavad Gita says:

“At the beginning of each day (Manvantara) all visible things emerge from the Unmanifest, and at nightfall (Pralaya) they disappear again into what is called the Unmanifest.”^[85]

Our whole solar system can thus be compared to a universal man whose celestial body (karana sharira) [kāraṇa-śarīra] is Iswara [īśvara] (the Logos); the Light of the Logos is the psychic basis of all visible nature and corresponds to the astral soul (Sukshma sharira) [sūkṣma-śarīra] of man; i.e., his personality, while the visible body of the world corresponds to the visible body of man (sthula sharira) [sthūla śarīra]. Our mental body is to Ātma (mind) as Iswara [īśvara] is to Parabrahm.^[86]

The following scheme indicates these relationships

Macrocosmos.	Microcosmos.
I. The Universal Deity (Ātma)	I. The divine-spiritual sphere of man. (Aura).
II. The Spirit-Sun of the World, (Iswara [īśvara] or Buddhi)	II. The permanent individuality; our father in heaven. (Karana sharira) [kāraṇa-śarīra]
III. The Light of the Logos, the Soul of the World (Manas).	III. The astral soul of man; his personality. (Sukshma sharira) [sūkṣma-śarīra]
III. The visible nature with all its formations.	III. The visible body of man (Sthula sharira) [sthūla-śarīra]

Since every thing has its origin in the Deity, revealed on three planes, it is not only poetic but also strictly scientific (provided one has the prior knowledge necessary to understand it) to say that each word or prayer, when it spoken in the right spirit (coming from Deity) ascends to Deity. The spirit itself leads it back to the source from which it flowed. As the rain that has come to earth from the clouds evaporates again and returns to the cloud region, so everything that comes from the sky flows back to its heavenly origin. The feeling of beauty and harmony surging in the innermost part of the soul awakens the thought, fills the inner man, seizes and enraptures the outer man. The bliss, the ecstasy expresses itself without reflection; feeling moves the poet to bring the language of his mind into poetic forms. The word spoken or heard, if it comes from the heart, reverberates within us and is received by the spirit, from whose realm we can recall it by the power of memory. Thus sound as well as light penetrates all worlds. Its vibrations come from and return to the unmanifest; nothing in the universe is lost if it vanishes from our field of vision.

Accordingly, Indian philosophy speaks of four types of the creative word (Vach). “The whole universe in its objective form is the Word in its external manifestation (Vaichari Vach) [vaikharī-vāk]; the Light of the Logos (Holy Spirit) is its inner, spiritual form (Madhyama Vach) [madhyama vāk]; the Logos itself is the spiritual-divine Word (Pasyanti Vach) [paśyantī-vāk], and resting in the infinite (Para Vach) [parā-vāk] it is Parabrahm.”^[87]

Everything is made of the Word of God; it is the essence of all things. We ourselves are that word, but we do not recognize it. The Word is our original divine essence; but our nature has assumed wrong forms in us as a result of our ignorance and the erroneous ideas arising from it. From our animal instincts, disordered desires and fantasies, a multitude of caricatures of our divine nature have arisen, and we have lost the knowledge of our true selves in the multitude of these false “Is.” The true Self is the sole, indivisible unity in which there are no differences and from which all numbers spring; but our material nature is composed of many elements, each of which is unique. number, a unit, forming a word; so that instead of the one little word of God, a Babylonian confusion of tongues reigns in us; the word of God cannot be heard in the “temple of Jerusalem” until “the voices of the beasts” are heard there and “the money-changers and traffickers” are not driven out of the sanctuary. Christ in us is the Word; he is called “the Lord”; but he can only reign in us as lord and king if we recognize him as such and obey his voice.^[88]

Just as the image of a man can appear in many mirrors, appearing in each of them as an individual whole, while all these images are but the reflections of one man, so thousands of men can bear the image of God within themselves; it can grow in them by the power of the Word, take physical form and become perfect, and yet there is only one Lord, one I, from whom these images spring. Nor are they without him, but he is in us and we in him. “He is everywhere; he is the head and we are the members.” He lives in us and we have our spiritual life in him.^[89]

Everything that happens in the world happens by the One Will that has its origin in God; but this will is perverted by the delusion of individuality. God does not have multiple wills, but only one,^[90] and that will is to reveal His deity. A man in whom this revelation is perfect does not will, think, or act on his own; the divine will that has become conscious in him wills, thinks and acts in him and through him. This does not mean that a man should fancy himself acting as an instrument of the divine will, while acting only in his own person; nor that one should do nothing like the so-called “Quetists” and expect that some god whom one does not know will take care of man’s work, but only he who acts in the name and in the power of the divine will who does is the law working in accordance with the divine law, and God can only accomplish His will in man when the will of man has again become one with the will of God.^[91]

Schiller gives us the instructions for this when he says:

“Receive the deity in your hearts,

and it descends from the throne of heaven.”

But in order to receive the Deity in our heart, the heart must be free from base desires and purified from selfishness. The soul must itself become the “immaculate heavenly virgin” in order that the eternal Word may ring out in it and the God-man be born through the power of the Holy Spirit of self-knowledge. A god who is only a product of our imagination and of which the soul knows nothing is only an inanimate and unfeeling figment of the imagination.

The eternal word not only created the world once and in the beginning; it constantly creates in the center of nature as well as in the heart of man. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna (representing the Logos) speaks to Arjuna:

“If I am not tireless in my works,

these worlds would perish.”^[92]

Everything is contained in the word. — “There are many powers, but there is only one God.”^[93] It is only one divine word, but innumerable letters; one light, but many colors; one harmony but many tones; one truth, but many revelations. Just as the visible sun of our world contains everything that is necessary to call the most diverse forms into existence on earth, so all spiritual forces are contained in the power of the spiritual sun to awaken inner life. But what we call “material” and “spiritual” are but two different manifestations of one and the same cause; the visible sun is a visible symbol of the spiritual sun, and its outward working powers are the outward manifestations of inward working spiritual powers. There is nothing dead in nature, for everything in it is born of the Word of Life; behind every blind force of nature is a spiritual entity, a state of will in nature. All natural forces have their origin in the one will that creates in nature, and are thus effects of the original will of eternal wisdom. The spiritual foundations of these forces were rightly represented by the ancients as “deities”; but with the loss of knowledge of the nature of these forces, a perverted conception of these designations occurred. Where the witty philosophers of old recognized the working of spiritual will-powers, the end result of which is mechanical activity, the unintelligent school-teachers and rationalists soon saw only mechanical effects; belief in the gods was lost, and superstition and scholarly conceit with its ignorance took its place. The symbol was taken for the essence, and as it thereby lost its meaning, it also lost its value. Thus the gods of Greece had to disappear when what they represented was no longer recognized and they were regarded as persons who dwell apart from the earth in Olympus. So also everywhere true religion declines more and more, the more the belief in the omnipresent Spirit of God in the universe disappears, brain speculation takes its place and one imagines by “God” some human-like being, a person, or an idol, who rules nature outside of nature as its tyrant from the outside.

The idols of the Greeks were not depictions of otherworldly people, but personified representations of the forces at work in nature with the spiritual principles on which they were based. And likewise, the symbols contained in Indian mythology are not “idols” but symbolic representations of universally prevailing natural principles, knowledge of which would also be of incalculable use for the progress of modern natural science. Their origin, like the origin of all existence, is Iswara [īśvara], the Divine Word, and we shall consider them more closely below:

The Trinity (Trimūrti.)

This symbol, just as little as the Christian symbol of the Holy Trinity, represents three gods or separate persons, but rather three aspects of the spiritual primal principle at work in nature; namely the principle that creates as well as that which preserves and transforms form.

Brahmā is the creative, form-producing spirit in the universe.

Vishnu [viṣṇu] is the penetrating, sustaining, tranquil principle.

Shiva [śiva] is the principle of inaction and eventual decomposition.

These three states are perceived in nature by everyone, even if one does not believe in these Indian deities, and they form the three gunas [guṇa-s] or fundamental qualities of nature, known in Sanskrit as Rajoguna, Sattwaguna and Tamoguna.

Rajoguna [rājo guṇa] means the principle of energy, action, movement, desire and passion; symbolized as “fire.”

Sattwaguna [sattva guṇa] is joyful, still, consciousness, “light.”

Tamoguna [tamo guṇa] the material, inertia, unconscious, darkness, “earth.”

These three qualities underlie all existence. Shankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya] says:

“The dwelling place of Brahma, his self-created ego, is the trinity of Sattwa-, Rajo- and Tamo-guna; From these the Tattwas (states of being) are born, first Akasa [ākāśa] (Substantiality; from this Vayu [vāyu] (fire air, energy); from this Tejas (light-ether), from the light-ether Apas (water spirit), and from this Parthivi [pṛthivī] (the material [earth]).”

Just as our chemists have chemical symbols to designate the chemical elements and their compounds (O = oxygen, H = hydrogen, etc.), so too the alchemists had symbols to designate the spiritual, psychic elements contained in the word and in nature and sensual powers. For example, in the figure above we see the word with its three Gunas (Rajas, Sattva and Tamas) represented under the signs of the “three substances” of the alchemists: 🜍 Sulphur, ☿ Mercury and θ Salt, and the Tattvas present themselves under the signs of the “seven planets” or principles, but of which only five are “born in nature” and manifest at the present point of our evolution, while the two supreme, ♃ Jupiter (power) and ☿ Mercury (wisdom) still are “occult” or hidden, i.e., not yet attained the mastery of matter and embodied in the material forms. If ♃ (Jupiter) were alive in our self-consciousness, we would be in full possession of magical powers; if ☿ (Mercury) had risen in us, we would all be illuminated by divine intelligence. The third “planet” ♀ (Venus), as a symbol of love, forms the transition from “God” to “human” (mens). The spirit of love descends to the material ♄ (Saturn), and reveals itself in forms. From the spirit of love the creative word resounds through the power of the All-Father (♃) from his wisdom (☿) and gives life to the forms which the spirit of the earth gives birth. Through the contact of the lower with the higher, feeling arises; touched by the spirit of love, the soul feels the nearness of the spirit, and the longing for something higher is generated in it.

From the power of love ♂︎ (Mars) arises the light of knowledge, individual life and self-consciousness ☉ (the sun of life) and from this ☽ (the moon), the appearance (Maya or astral body), whose external expression “the eighth planet” ♁ (Earth), which is the perishable earthly body.

All this is presented in different ways in different mythologies and religious systems. Psyche feels that Cupid is near, but cannot see him. Leda (the soul) connects with the swan (the holy spirit). The coming of the spirit is announced to the Virgin Mary (Maya) [māyā] by the angel; she receives him, and from him the Redeemer (light, knowledge, freedom) is born.

In the above we have considered only one aspect of the action of these forces; but the same spectacle takes place on all three planes and in all the realms of nature. Everything in nature has sprung from the three basic elements (Gunas) [guṇa-s] and is formed from the five Tattvas.

Thus, the seven planets present themselves to us as the seven principles in man, of which the upper three belong to the immortal God-man, the lower three to the perishable personality, but the fourth (manas) makes the connection between the divine spirit [above] and the earth spirit (matter) [below].

If all seven principles were harmoniously united in a human being, he too would form a glorious, harmonious whole. In the plant world we find such unions. So, for example, the lotus flower is a symbol of the perfect human being.^[94]

It is just a Word from which all powers are born. This Word is the general law of nature, and it works with all its powers in everything; his is the power, the power and the glory. This power is the cause of all life and all beauty, all movement and formation.

“Your finger stirs the roses so that they bloom,

The lotus leaves form her hand;

She weaves in dark earth in silent seed

The splendor of spring.

“She paints the glow of the evening clouds, of the peacock

Emerald Wheel is her possession;

She dwells on stars, her servants are

The rain, wind and lightning.”^[95]

There is more exact science in this poetic description than one is inclined to believe, if one does not know that each tattwa has its peculiar set of vibrations and color and tone, which are expressed in the forms of nature. From the spiritual point of view these colors and tones are as follows:

Principles	Planets	Colors	Sounds
Aura (Ātma)	♃	Blue	sol
Buddhi	☿	Yellow	mi
Buddhi-Manas	♀	Indigo	la
Kama-Manas	♄	Green	fa
Kama	♂︎	Red	do
Prana	☉	Orange	re
(Astral) Linga	☽	Violet	si

Now, however, as Theophrastus Paracelsus also describes in his “Coelum Philosophorum,” each of the seven planets also contains the other six, and from the combinations of these arises a large series of hues and hues, the splendor and harmony in nature.^[96] Every change of mood, chemical change, movement, etc. brings about new phenomena; the world can be likened to a kaleidoscope whose characters are alive, each character having its own character and aura.

“Omnia ab Uno” [“All from One”] — Everything comes from One, and since this unity is indivisible, everything is contained in each of its forms of manifestation. Thus, not only are the remaining tattvas hidden in every tattva, but every form of existence is under the dominion of the three basic qualities of nature, and the character of a thing changes according as one or the other is predominant in every thing sattva, rajas and tamas evidently or not evidently (latently) contained; in each spirit, force and matter are but one and inseparably present; the more the spirit is active in a thing, the more it shines, the more it works as a force in it, the stronger is its inherent impulse; the more “materiality” prevails in it, the more it appears dark and inert and material. A word or sound in which sattva guna [sattva guṇa] and vayu tattwa [vāyu tattva] predominate excites the feeling; the voice of wisdom uplifts the soul, a word of love warms it, the gossip of ignorance leaves it cold.

In a tone born of anger, Rajoguna [rājo guṇa] is predominant, and as like affects like, it excites anger. A thing emanating from Sattwa Guna [sattva guṇa] and in which Tejas Tattwa [tejas tattva] reigns and manifests itself as light and beauty, excites exclamations of admiration (sound), contemplation of the starry sky stimulates cognition (light) of the Eternal, the sound of the sea (Sound) tunes the soul, to attune to the song of the waves (movement). Examples of the actions and counteractions of the Tattvas could be given endlessly.

Sankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya] teaches how from the gunas and tattvas arise their manifestations in nature. The following may serve as a brief overview of this teaching:

I. Sattva.

From Sattva, parts of the five Tattvas, the five cognitive faculties (hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell) are born.

From this arise the five elements:

II. Rajas.

In the midst of the five tattvas, from the rajas parts of them, the five agencies (speech, comprehension, locomotion, procreation and excretion) are born.

From the interlocking of these arise the five life-ethers, namely

III. Tamas.

From the Tamas part of the five Tattvas arise twenty-five quintuple composite compounds, each of the five major elements splitting into two parts in its Tamas part, one part of which remains and the other separates into four parts, always a part of one with one which connects four parts of the other, as shown in the following scheme:

	Ākāśa		Vāyu		Tejas		Āpas		Pṛthivī
Ākāśa	4	+	1	+	1	+	1	+	1
Vāyu	1	+	4	+	1	+	1	+	1
Tejas	1	+	1	+	4	+	1	+	1
Āpas	1	+	1	+	1	+	4	+	1
Pṛthivī	1	+	1	+	1	+	1	+	4

The visible material body of the world consists of these tamas combinations of the tattwas. From sattva arise the states of consciousness, from rajas the movements of will, from tamas the bodies.

Of course, in this scheme the three Gunas should not be imagined as being spatially separated from one another; for even in the coarsest body spirit and power are contained, even if not evidently. The creative word is at work in all things, and the fact that the others are contained in each of the Tattwas explains the possibility of the transformation of forces, the transformation of sound vibrations into light vibrations, of heat into electricity, movement (friction), into heat, etc., the phenomena of chemical affinities, the alchemical transformations of substances, etc. The well-known sound figures which are created by sound vibrations on a glass plate sprinkled with sand or in a layer of dust-filled air, indicate the organizing and also the destructive power of sound. In all things there is life, consciousness, intelligence, God. If no signs of intellectual activity are observable in the blind forces of nature, this is no proof that there is no soul in them, but it only indicates that they lack the organization necessary for the development of the spiritual principles contained in them into self-consciousness.

On the higher planes of existence, mind and thought produce in an instant forms which need but slow growth for their embodiment in outer nature. On the astral plane it is enough to want something earnestly for the thought to become action and the desired object to be imagined. On the spiritual plane the law of correlation of forces and elective affinity reigns just as well as in the physical world. There faith is conditioned by the presence of love, knowledge by faith, beauty by goodness, liberty by purity, power by knowledge, power through knowledge, strength through righteousness, knowledge through rest, rest through patience, patience through hope, hope through wisdom, etc.

All of this shows that a magical (spiritual) power is also hidden in the spoken word of man. It will reveal itself when man himself becomes spiritual. The spiritual power does not lie in the dead letter, but in the spirit that animates it. The self-conscious spirit can do everything because it controls matter.

If we attempt to examine the letters of our language according to the doctrine of the tattvas, we find mysterious relationships here too. Each letter has its particular sound (akasa) [ākāśa], color (tejas), feeling (vayu) [vāyu] and even taste and smell for sensitive people. There are only five tattwas evident in nature and we have only five vowels. Each vowel has its own special properties and is thus connected to corresponding forces in the macrocosm. A word does not work by being accorded by common convention a sense which the object to which it refers does not have; such as when one, instead does not name a plant after the name of its discoverer, but rather by the meaning that naturally belongs to it. The meaning of a word is its innate spirit; in it lies the name and in this the power. Whoever knows the right name of a thing and grasps its spirit gains power over it.

Every letter, every word has its occult meaning in the language of nature. Languages are not arbitrary mixtures of sounds but products of natural evolution. Each language has its particular character, which corresponds to and reflects the character of the people to which it belongs. As a nation’s character changes, so does its language and tone. No man imbued with the Spirit of God, in whom the inner life is developed, will ever have a nasal or screeching voice. In a people that sinks into a coarse materialism, the finer feeling is lost. Then the finer differences in pronunciation disappear, the stretching sounds are abolished by the “speech improvers” and the ideal is replaced by the brutal.

If we take a look at the mystical character of our vowels, we find that here too each one has a threefold character, depending on whether the spirit of sattwa, rajas or tamas predominates in its pronunciation, and also its quality and effect depends on the height or depth of its tone, on its vibrations, because the number of these vibrations determines the governing Tattva. Since the scale has seven tones, seven distinctions are again possible in this respect.

A

In A lies the spirit of allness, of beginning, of sublimity, clarity; it is the natural expression of astonishment and admiration. It is the basis of the whole alphabet, just as all numbers spring from one. Jacob Böhme says:

“A is the first letter and emanates from the heart and has no nature, but we clearly understand in it the addiction of the eternal will from nature, in which nature loses itself, which has been from eternity. When the A is then born from the heart, as the eternal will, and emits from it, then the whole alphabet with 24 numbers then comes from it. These are the wonders and works of God which appear in the spirit over nature as in the splendor of majesty.”^[97]

Both the Bhagavad Gita and the Bible say, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” the spirit and the holder. God is the alpha and the heavenly forces are the letters of his alphabet, from which all nature with all its forms emanate.^[98]

E

While the A is the idea of stillness and expansion from the center to the periphery, the E, thought spiritually, brings us the feeling of distance, movement, elevation and the surrender of the soul. Its character emerges particularly clearly in the word “seeing.” The A has an open form for inner feeling; it expands and vibrates to infinity; it is like the space without borders, but the sound of the E brings us the feeling of plane, of the existence of a spiritual plane, as it is also expressed in the shape of the letter.

I

The A embraces the whole, the E expands, the I descends into the depths; its spirit is like a ray of lightning that penetrates into the innermost being. “The I is the center of supreme love and the O the center of the comprehensible word, which is understood in the deity apart from all nature.”^[99] In the spirit of A is the power of truth, in E is paradise and the purity and beauty of angels, in I is the power of the ego, the strength of self-consciousness in the heart of man, in him lies the will and the light, the center from which knowledge and understanding arise. By thinking and speaking “I” man asserts his individuality.^[100]

O

In the spirit of the O, as its outer form also indicates, lies the fullness, the encompassing, the form, the perfection, the high and great, the revelation, the word, the sacrifice and the conquest. It is the expression of content, of pain as well as joy.

U

In the spirit of the U lies receptivity, which is why we also find it in such words as e.g., reason, enjoyment, goodness, cause, origin, nature, etc. Boehme says:

“The A is the beginning, the father; the O the middle, the Son, and the U the emanation of the Holy Spirit.”^[101]

All this is, of course, incomprehensible to the rationalist and meaningless to anyone who is used to thinking only with his head but not with his heart, and who has a keen sense but is not accessible to intuition.

“If you don’t feel it, you won’t get it.”^[102]

This teaching is the key to exploring the deepest mysteries of nature. The “spirits of the letters” are the forces contained in the divine word; the five vowels the five emanations of the Holy Spirit, the consonants their forms in nature. That is why the name of the deity of the universe consists of the sum of the five vowels: IEOUA or Jehovah, about which Jakob Böhme teaches the following:

“The five vowels are the holy name of God according to his holiness; the other letters indicate and speak out of nature what the name of God is in the formed word in nature, in love and anger, in darkness and light at the same time. But that the ancient sages put an H in the name Jeoua and called it Jehovah was done with great understanding, for the H reveals the holy name with the five vowels in nature.^[103] It shows how the holy name of God breathes and manifests itself in the creature. The five vowels include with the composition in three, as such a word △/, that is AOU, father, son and holy spirit. The triangle indicates the trinity of the qualities (Gunas) [guṇa-s] of the persons, and the V in the triangle the spirit as in the exhalation, since the whole God reveals himself in a spirit way with his emanating from himself.”^[104]

God Himself is the Word. The Word is not different from the Deity. Everything came from him. The unity, the A, in its composition becomes duality, A and O, infinity and temporality, or Father and Son, and as the Son is the vessel of the Father and is filled with the Spirit of the Father, it presents itself as a Trinity A O U or Father, Son and Spirit. From this holy word the macrocosm (M) is born. The word as a trinity (AOU), in the unity of its revelation (M), forms with this the holy quaternity, the number of truth.

God Himself is the Word The Word is not different from the Godhead. Everything came from him. The unity, the A, in its composition becomes duality, A and O, infinity and temporality, or Father and Son, and as the Son is the vessel of the Father and is filled with the Spirit of the Father, it presents itself as a Trinity A O U or Father, Son and Spirit From this holy word the macrocosm (M) is born. The word as a trinity (AOU), in the unity of its revelation (M), forms with this the holy quaternity, the number of truth.

The three (the triangle) is thus the symbol of the Word, and the four (the square) the symbol of its revelation, and the three with the four form the sacred number seven, whose presence we perceive in all the kingdoms of nature. Six lights are revealed, the seventh is the whole, the unity from which the six spring. In man, at the stage of development he now occupies, five senses are manifest, the sixth (intuition) is developing, but the seventh is still hidden. Everything is summed up in the O; in him is the A and the U (in the son dwells the being of the father and his holy spirit). In the M lies the revelation. When the living, magical word resounds in the mouth of God, the whole macrocosm with all its manifestations comes into being through the mysterious magic of its vibrations (tattvas). But the “mouth” of God is (mundus) the world or the universe.

Thus in the spirit of the Sanskrit syllable ऒं (OM) lies the name, power and glory of the Deity in its revelation, and in Jehovah the sum of the spiritual powers of the Word at work in nature. This is the holy name of the eternal triune God, which none can utter but himself; for its utterance is the creation of the world. His spiritual breath (Ātma) gives birth to all beings and gives life to all creatures.

But even if the divine word is the divine sun of the world and all in all, it is still eternal silence for us as long as we do not hear it, and all rays of its light are darkness for us as long as we do not see them. The Word is within ourselves, but we do not recognize it. Only when a ray of divine light penetrates our soul and ignites the fire of divine love in our heart is the name Jehovah transformed into Jehoshua through the power of the letter S used, which means fire; then the light of knowledge also rises within us; then we have found true self-consciousness (“I”), which rises in the spirit of E (Jesus) to the angelic world and to the eternal source of light.

It is taught that whoever wishes to know God must not worship in empty, spiritless words, but “in spirit and in truth.” — Only in God do we find God, only in the Word revealed in ourselves the Word. But the revelation of the word is the deed. If we do the good in the right spirit, in the spirit of love, in the spirit of truth, then God speaks in us and creates a new, better world for us.

The word is the uttered thought; speaking is the deed. The spirit gives life to the thought, the will gives it strength; thought gives form to the word, and form forms the essence of appearance. Thus, by the word, speaking and uttering beings are formed and sent forth, embodied thoughts which, though invisible to our bodily eyes, are nevertheless corporeal, be it as an angel or as a devil, to be able to carry the thoughts of the one who created them into the furthest distance; be it to the throne of God or into the depths of hell, or into the hearts of people who are receptive to it, and creates feelings there from which corresponding thoughts, words and images arise again.

X. The ABCs of the Inner Life or The Letters of the Soul.

Taken from a work on the inner life by an unnamed author from the last century [1800s].

I. The theory of life.

There is a first cause of all things, and this primal thing we call “God”; it is qualitatively indivisible because no divisible property can be the cause of all things, and quantitatively immeasurable because if there were a cause limiting it, it would not be the (first) cause of all. God is absolutely perfect because, as the cause of all things, he has no purpose other than himself and achieves that purpose in every direction.

Man’s spirit is a part of God; the ego of man is neither identical with this spirit nor with the human form, but consists in the connection of spirit and form (body). Since the spirit (essence) of God in man is perfect, there is nothing to improve in him either. He knows everything from himself, because the idea of everything is contained in him from eternity. He needs no teaching and no instruction; he cannot become wiser and foolish; he is what he is, what he always was, and what he will be forever.

Man carries the Supreme Being within himself; but (as a human) he is not this Supreme Being himself. If his (human) ego were identical with the spirit, he would have to recognize himself as this spirit. But since he does not know this spirit, this unknown is not himself, but an object that he wants to get to know. (In our everyday consciousness of personality, subject and object, i.e. the ego and the spirit, are not yet one.)

The personality (the I) of man consists in his individual consciousness established in individual form, and his material form is not permanent. This personal self-consciousness (his ego) must therefore be extinguished with the death of that form, provided that during the time of its existence a new form has not been produced in which the spirit is connected with the essence of man in order to continue to exist in it. Therefore, if we are to speak of the immortality of the human ego, we must examine whether the possibility of such a new connection exists, so that man can die as it were as a caterpillar and continue a new existence as a butterfly.^[105]

The possibility of such a connection is attested by dream life; because here, too, there is an inner life with inner senses, which perceives the dream images objectively, but that the dream images are mostly confused and the consciousness is not clear, can be explained by the fact that the ordinary man is in the dream sphere or in the inner life at a similar stage as the newborn child is in the outer life, that his “dream body” is not yet developed. If the human being wants to acquire the ability to continue to exist personally after the death of his body, then for him it is a question of generating and developing the inner life in himself.

Many think that this inner life, this new (astral) organism, forms itself; but nothing in nature grows by itself unless nourishment is supplied to it. The spirit is the Director in the new organism; but if man does not surrender to the influence of this spirit or withdraw from it, the inner life cannot awaken, and the inner birth cannot take place. Without this spiritual rebirth there can be no question of immortal life. A new, unbreakable body made of spiritual substances must take the place of the fragile earthly body. Likewise, all sinful and earthly desires and urges must also die off, which would no longer find any nourishment “in the hereafter.” Also, the bodily rebirth usually entails the moral rebirth; because a person in whom free spiritual powers have awakened will hardly cling to transience with pleasure. The born-again will regard the wealth, power, prestige and vanity of this world as children’s toys that cannot distract him from his true destiny. The inner life in its perfection is represented by the life of Jesus.^[106]

It is written [(John XIV. 12]: “In the inner life all will be taught of God. Whoever hears the word of the Father (within himself) and learns it, comes to eternal life; and whoever believes in me (i.e. whoever carries my spirit within him as power) will also do the works that I do and will do even greater ones than these.”

Fulfilling professional duties, going to church, giving alms, making endowments and the like can also be done by an ordinary person; but healing the sick through the Word of the Spirit, seeing clearly into the future, working magically in the distance and the like, all of this requires the power of the inner life of a person who has been born again in the spirit of Christ. “By their fruits you will know them.”

External life is subject to many accidents and changes; in it there is affliction, doubt, sickness, weakness, ignorance, deprivation and death, but in the inner life there is peace, knowledge, love and bliss.

II. The means to the inner life.

True happiness is only that which lasts; therefore the transitory earthly life does not bring true happiness either. The fulfillment of our duties alone is not enough to awaken the inner life in which happiness alone endures.^[107] Morality is only one necessary prerequisite for this. Self-righteousness and expectation of reward robs us of God’s blessing. Love of spouses, love of children, obedience and many other virtues are also found in animals; they are necessary, but they are not sufficient for attaining the inner life. Erudition is not enough for this either. An inner life has never sprung from a person’s scholarly stuff.^[108i] No terrestrial science can rise above the realm of the five senses, and therefore all our knowledge is ephemeral. The mind does not need our learning; because all our knowledge comes from him. If learning were the key to inner life, only doctors and professors would ultimately achieve eternal bliss. In fact, every human being carries the highest wisdom within himself; he need not concern himself with the opinions of others to find the truth. If he looks properly within himself, he will find there the source from which cognition and bliss flow unceasingly; for the spirit, as a part of God, is in connection with God, and whoever grasps it opens up the kingdom of God and the wonders of God in nature.^[109] The inner life gives us not learned knowledge, but the power of self-knowledge.^[110]

The origin of every effect is according to the force by which it arises. The forces of the universe are rooted in the elements of thought, in the letters of language, or as the Bible calls it the “Word” as the sum total of these forces. Every force is a form of movement, every movement occurs in space and time and thereby determines matter and form. Completely simple forces are those in which matter and form are identical; the letters possess this simplicity as elements of thought and essence of forces.

However, “letters” as essences of power are not to be understood as meaning the external, arbitrary signs of the same in the various written languages, but only the character and spirit that lies in the letter ideas is meant; the archetype that corresponds or is identical to the character of these absolutely simple ideas.

(Every sound, every tone, every letter expresses and in turn evokes a corresponding feeling and underlying thought. Therein lies the power of mind-born language and music).

Of all the letters, the letters of IAO differ most sharply from one another, so that even the faintest sense can recognize their omnipotence^[111]; when man looks at the outside world in this way, he finds that he is surrounded by letters everywhere. God’s Word is everywhere; God speaks everywhere, in high and low, in solitude and in noise, in heat and cold, in large and small, near and far; The language of God is everywhere where the senses of man penetrate, and man only needs to learn to hear, feel and understand the letters of the same, these spiritual characters, this living scale, the archetypes of the Word, the powers of God’s language, in order to unfailingly reach the ultimate goal of his life.

The invigorating, beneficial, strengthening nature of nature is felt by everyone whose feelings have not yet been dulled. The city dweller goes out into the country to relax; the linguistic powers of nature penetrate his mind; he feels the language of God in nature, but he does not understand it. He cannot explain the powerful impression made on him by the spirit of nature; through this he feels that this spirit speaks powerfully to him and that he is related to him; for his speech awakens an echo in his breast; a longing for the infinite takes possession of him; he would like to be free from all chains and cry out loud to God. But then his sensual nature awakens again and draws him back again. He does not understand that all of nature is a mouth of God, and that the spirit of nature are God’s powers of speech that awaken the inner life of man. That is why nature is so great, because the inner life should become a true image of God. Nature is given to man, not to pass the time, but to nourish his inner life. The linguistic forces of nature are to the inner life what the musical scale is to the musician; the letters are the school for the inner life. Man must allow the spirit of the various characters to affect him until his feeling for life is practiced in a manner similar to that of musical hearing; until God ceases to be something distant and alien to him and he can speak to him as to himself.

Every tree, every bush, every flower, every leaf, mountain, rock, spring, waterfall, lake, sea, sky and stars, day and night, every form, every movement, every color, every sound, everything has its own character and these characters are God’s powers of speech, which in the end can be traced back to the spirit of the letters. Man must learn to feel and perceive this spirit as letters, then he forms his inner life, then he awakens the Christ in himself, then he becomes a son and image of God and partaker of all spiritual powers that lie in the nature of divinity.^[112]

God is the Word, and the Word are letters; i.e., mental powers. Every expression of force is movement, every movement a form; every movement has its own character. The simplest characters or shapes, hence the simplest movements, are letters. As soon as God is active, he speaks; its activity is its language, and language is the essence or name of God.

When it is written: “God said let there be light, and there was light!” — so this is not to be understood as if God had been a sorcerer who had given this command and then in some inexplicable way it had become light; but the forces of the universe, the language elements moved through the divine will and gave birth to the light.

There is power in language, and that is its true value; but a spiritless language also has no power and inspires no conviction. Speech as power is the name of God, which is to be kept holy and when in Revelation, John I, verse 8 and XXII, verse 13 Jesus speaks of himself, that is speaks of the inner being: “I am the A and the O,” he is saying: I am everything, from the first to the last, the whole alphabet. The power of the word is the Spirit of the Father and is expressed in letters (movements), through the interlocking of which all the richness of creation arises. The Spirit is the specific character of these movements, and these characters man must feel in all parts of his body and learn to feel, perceive and understand; then he is penetrated and enlightened by the Spirit of God and elevated to the highest virtue, to the love and knowledge of God. All appearances in the world are composed of properties; but the simple letters, the five vowels, and sixteen consonants cannot be thought of as broken down into still simpler parts; they don’t change. They are the elements of thought and feeling; through them man possesses the key to inner life, to knowledge of all things and the forces of all nature.

III. The application of these forces.

God gave himself to man; for the spirit of man is a part of God. But even more! Through the language of letters, he gave man the ability to get to know this spirit in its power and strength and to identify the ego with this strength.

After a person is born, he first learns to stand upright, walk and speak. Consciousness is enlivened by external speech; develops intellect, reason and will. It is the same with the spiritual, inner human being. He must learn to want, to think and to feel in his inner being through the imaginary language; And just as the child has to learn to stand and walk independently, so he must become independent in spirit, and first learn to think and feel the letters on the foundation, in the “feet.” Without this art of spelling, which is the primal religion and law of life, there is no knowledge of God or self-knowledge, no knowledge of truth, inner life or spiritual rebirth, nor lasting happiness. One should devote one hour a day to this art, assuming an upright position, speak the letters in his mind and put his ego in his feet using the imagination. Exercising is easy; but it requires perseverance, stamina and all the energy of which a human being is capable of using. Every human being can also practice this art if his powers of thought are not otherwise occupied. Man must awaken his spiritual life through wanting, thinking and feeling, and this is only possible through this art of exercising these spiritual powers.

The linguistic powers of the Word of God in nature work incessantly and penetrate the mind of man in a creative manner. Those who spend a lot of time in solitude, such as hunters, shepherds, seafarers, are more powerfully affected by the powers of language in nature around them, because they can devote themselves to them more than in the hustle and bustle of city dwellers, and inner life often awakens in such people with ease; but man should not leave this supreme good to chance. He can certainly use external nature to develop his inner life; but since he has the power to think and can thereby make the linguistic powers of the living Word of God his own, development lies in his power as the basic law of his life.

He should not isolate himself, since this makes him one-sided and robs him of purely human virtues, love, forbearance, patience, mercy, etc., without which inner life is only an empty appearance. Separating yourself completely from your fellow human beings and devoting yourself completely to outer life are both wrong directions and lead one astray. One should spend an hour a day nourishing and awakening one’s inner life by being alone and learning to feel the spirit of the letters in one’s feet. What breathing is for the earthly body, this spelling is for the spiritual body. We must become able to breathe letters (spirits) in and out of all parts of our body; this gives us heavenly sustenance, for the essence of the letters is their power.

Willing, thinking and feeling are one, like father, son and spirit; through these three powers man can reach the highest good, freedom. The will of God is free, and true happiness is conceivable only in complete freedom. Letter thinking is open to everyone; no requirement can prevent it. Our inner life is not dependent on external things such that a person could be forced to do or be prevented from doing (going to church, school lessons, baptism, etc.). Its possibility is not closed to anyone and it cannot be denied to anyone. Thinking, wanting and feeling are free powers of the spirit.

Thinking consists in the activity of the mind; his activity is revealed in his movements; each movement has a specific character, and the simplest characters are the letters. Thus the letters are the elements of thought, and the archetypes of the movements of the mind are identical with these elements. If, for instance, the I represent the inner, lovely, the A the sublime, Æ the pathetic, O the full, U the profound, R the shocking, P T K the throbbing, W L C H the wafting, M N Ng the seriousness; so for the human being “learning to think” means nothing other than getting to know the different characteristics of these spiritual movements. This happens because he thinks them into himself until they become his other nature, become (spiritual) flesh and blood in him; i.e., until he clearly feels the spirit of the letters in all parts of his body.

Since “thinking” means feeling the movements of the mind, it consists not only in imagining an object but also in feeling this imagining internally, i.e., that we become aware of the impression that this idea makes on the mind. Whoever feels the spirit of the letters within himself knows what God is, and there is no other way of doing this than by thinking the letters into oneself until one becomes aware of the impression they make on the spirit. To every conception of an object corresponds a certain sensation or movement of the mind, and this constitutes a word expressing the clear thought corresponding to that sensation. There is therefore a great difference between a natural or primordial language, and an artificially composed or corrupt language which is not an expression of the true essence of things. Since, of all educated nations, the German is the only one who still possesses a developed original language, the Germans could become the masters of the world if they recognized the power that lies in their language. With nations that have become powerless, the language also becomes powerless.

Everything is in the spirit. Our personal knowledge is only a reflection of the mind’s knowledge. If we know how to ask the mind (the unconscious) correctly, it gives us the answer: “Whoever knocks (correctly) it will be opened.”^[113] Ideas, idea-power (word) and thoughts are not nothing (otherwise we could not feel them and understand them with the mind). The Spirit attains essence and substance through its revelation in us; Spirit without essence would be without power. For example, if the human I thinks, this thought is not an insubstantial nothing, but a substantial something that forms a form, and even if the thoughts I A O have only a corporeality that is finer than sunlight, they are nevertheless material and have a penetrating, expanding and embracing life force. The body is a gross spirit and the spirit is a subtle body.^[114] External things can be perceived with the external senses, spiritual things with the spiritual senses. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

The more a person deals with an idea, takes it in and nourishes it, the more substantial it becomes in him. A kind of rebirth develops in him, a new spiritual being, which is this idea that has become flesh, and this can pass over into the human ego in such a way that he can finally think and feel nothing else other than this ingrained idea. The rebirth of the idea of God in people often requires a lot of effort, diligence and perseverance. The new being is not immediately ready and it is not he who creates this being, but the power of speech that has come to life and consciousness in him (the spirit of the word of God in him.)^[115] But what a man sows, that he will reap. He who sows in the spirit reaps life from the spirit; whoever sows to the flesh, the flesh will bring destruction to him. All ideas that man absorbs are procreative forces and like is born of like. One hunts for honor, another for money, etc. These ideas bring about a kind of rebirth. As soon as the earthly body breaks, the inner life is there as an outgrowth (abnormal birth) and desires satisfaction.^[116] But how will the proud, miserly, ambitious, etc., find this satisfaction? So, they have to perish and slowly starve until the connection dissolves again and all (astral) substances return to their elements.^[117]

What should man do now? — He should not let this or that idea come to life in himself, but rather the root of all ideas, the powers of God’s language, the threefold holy name of God, the powers of the letter. The spirit of the letters is neither good nor evil, just as the absolute Will knows neither “good” nor “evil.”

All movements can be viewed as variations on a threefold basic theme or type of movement, viz. the line, the angle, the circle; Therefore

Ι Λ Ο

the root of God’s name from which spring the five vowels or life streams^[118] represented in the word “Jehovah.”

The purpose of all religious exercises is to awaken the inner life in man, to bring about the development of the divine powers dormant in him. Through literal thinking man learns to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, and when he hears and obeys the words of that Spirit he becomes happy. No power in heaven or on earth can bestow strength and bliss on man if he does not actively endeavor to receive it; No man can impart knowledge of the truth to another; it is a living force that takes root in people as a feeling for life and finally grows into a large, mighty tree of faith, certainty and vision; A creed learned by heart is like a painted fire that gives neither light nor warmth.

Rebirth is both physical and moral. Most thinkers find nothing in the parables of the Bible but morality; but morality alone does not directly entail inner life, but rather is consequent upon its awakening. God is neither moral nor immoral, neither learned nor stupid. The essence of God in man is power; this consists in the movements of his mind. Man’s reflection consists in bringing these movements of the spirit to his consciousness. God creates; i.e., it moves, and when it moves, that movement is a form, and that form has a character, a spirit, sense, mind. The simplest characters, the simplest mind are the letters, and that’s why God calls the “Word.” The power of word creates, and what it creates is good, wise, and beautiful; for wisdom and beauty reside in the essence of an absolutely perfect power.

God does not need thought to create; he is the unity and essence underlying all existence; he creates by giving himself His strength resides in the word, and the word is the letters, and the spirit of the letters is the strength revealed in wisdom and beauty. Anyone who does not feel this is not yet human; he knows neither himself, nor God, nor the spirit of nature; and there is no other advice for him than to think the spirit of the letters into himself until he feels their power and strength in himself. Then he rose from death to life. When he has brought this spirit to his consciousness and identified it with his ego, he attains freedom. All things are made of the Word, and there is no other way of attaining spiritual life and salvation than in the name of the Lord. But the name of the Lord is the power of speech of God made flesh and blood; for the name of God is his power and movement, which is expressed in the word, i.e., revealed as letters.^[119]

Life lies in the word, in the forces of language, and these forces of language are the light of men. They penetrate the darkness of the earthly sense-man, but although the senses hear, feel, see, taste and smell these forces of speech, the spirit of the same, the true light, remains incomprehensible to them. This is the true light that shines on all people who come into the world; for the linguistic powers of nature are common property and everyone is free to do so. Anyone who absorbs them through his will, thoughts and feelings breaks out of the bonds of darkness and gains strength in the light. This light is the will of God, the love that wants nothing else than to enlighten people and awaken them to true life. Who in the name of the Lord, i.e., believes in the inner life; in other words, whoever is convinced that he can beget the linguistic powers of the universe and that a new body can be formed out of them, gives Christ (the Word) the power to become a child of God.

The words of the earthly man die away in the air, like smoke that disperses; but the Word of the Spirit which the born-again utters (the inner life) is an irresistable power. If someone wants to accept this word and nourish himself through it, he must surrender to these forces of language and absorb these elements of thought, the letters. But this is a harsh imposition on the scholars, that they should leave the throne of their accumulated knowledge and simply think letters into themselves; but in this very simplicity (needing no complicated cerebral activity) lies true receptivity.^[120] Christ says: “He who has been washed, needs nothing more than to wash his feet, for the rest he is clean”^[121]; i.e., that is to say, if a person is of a pure heart, he does not need to rack his brains, but only has to learn to think and feel the spirit of the letters in his feet, and that once the feet are spiritually animated, the rest of the body will follow of its own accord, while without this awakening and feeling of the ego in the feet the body remains spiritless. This is the “baptism of fire,” which does not descend like water baptism, but ascends, penetrating flesh, bone, and marrow.^[122] The spirit of the letters, once alive within man, is like a living fire that consumes everything impure, earthly, and sinful in the body.^[123 Everyone who awakens the inner life has to suffer this pain. The “water baptism,” i.e., the baptism of thoughts evokes certain sensations. When someone is moved and feels a cold trickle down his back, his hair stands on end, and he feels a strange spiritual rush, he may think that John baptized him; but after John comes Christ, the inner life, which baptizes with fire, that begins in the feet, and is not cold, but burns and consumes all that is unclean. Then the organs become spiritually enlivened and new “tongues” develop in all parts of the body; i.e., that is, the whole body, which was previously spiritually faint, begins to speak, as it is written: “He who speaks with a tongue speaks not to men, but to God; because nobody listens to him; but in spirit he speaks the mysteries.^[124]

These new tongues are the spiritual activity of all organs that we have become aware of; for the spirit of man is in all limbs, organs, flesh and blood, entrails and bones. Just as an organ sounds different through each register, the activity of the spirit is also different in each organ. The spiritual power, once awakened in a human being, can also have an inductive effect on others, and initiation is based on this law.

The inner life is the way, because without it no one can come to know God; it is the truth because only the inner life can perceive the voice of the spirit unbroken, it is the real life; because earthly life is only an illusion. The inner life in its maturity is above sickness and death; it rests, as the living Word of God, on nothing but itself. The inner life is Christ in us, the renewed image of God, the mystery of our redemption.^[125]

It is strange that after all that is said in the Bible of “Christ in us” one gives value and importance only to the historical, external Christ, and gives almost no attention to the God-man within. Since one prays, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” and heaven is within us, so too is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit within us. Whenever the divine powers in man reach his consciousness, the kingdom of God is alive in him.

Without the inner life there is no true rest or contentment. Without this life man’s longing and desires find no rest. No matter how great the charm of nature may be, the power that produces everything is more beautiful and glorious than all its appearances. Nature passes away, but the spirit that creates it exists in itself (in its Ego) and cannot perish.^[126] Man should cling to this power with all his heart and with all his desires; he should constantly seek it in the Word and not give up until the spirit of all powers, the letters of the Word, have become his property (become his essence). Then he will find more satisfaction in this power himself than a man can desire, grasp, want and understand.

The real idolatry consists in man’s worship not of the Creator but of the created, not of force but of effect, not of essence but of form. He who clings to an external thing, to a one-sided idea or desire, until it has become flesh and blood in him, cannot attain true wisdom; for wisdom does not tolerate rivals! She wants to be the sole ruler of man. That is why modern Christianity has become a mere formality, because it has lost the spirit, the word and the essence, and it is still looking for many other things besides the knowledge of God.

The bodily rebirth in man is the son of man, and therefore Jesus of Nazareth is not only called a son of God, but a son of man. Whatever man creates within himself through his qualities (words) made into power, whether good or bad, when it has taken form in him, it is his son and his natural judge who will come to judge him. Whoever finds his life in sensual pleasures or earthly pursuits will not attain the inner life; but whoever conquers his earthly desires through the power of the inner life has found the inner life. External life consists of many needs, aspirations, frustrated hopes and disappointments, sorrows and worries, which man tries to get rid of through distractions and finally only ends in death. The inner life is rebirth, the kingdom of God in us, which creates heaven. The great secret of the kingdom of God is the art of attaining it by man absorbing the power of language of the eternal word and letting his inner life form from it. For wise reasons, this mystery has been taught to the common people from earliest times only in parables. The secret name of the Lord is neither “God,” nor “Jehovah,” nor “Jupiter”; he is the moving activity of God in letters, his power of speech; he is the inner life, the word.

God works and creates incessantly through his movements, and this activity is his language, his name, his almighty word. These movements of the power of God have a character, a spirit, and that spirit pours into man’s mind procreatively as a place where he can individualize himself, forming the Son of man. Anyone who closes off the influence of this spirit in his heart, the powers of God’s language, from accessing his inner being, no inner life can develop in him, neither on this side nor on the other side; he commits the “sin against the Holy Spirit,” which can no more be “forgiven” than can he be saved who refuses all nourishment. He who does not receive the Spirit of God does not attain the inner life. He cannot be happy on this side and is approaching dissolution and annihilation in the hereafter.

What man sows, he will reap. The good beget a heavenly rebirth, the wicked a hellish rebirth, but of the lukewarm, the spiritless and powerless, it is said: “They are neither cold nor warm; I will spit them out of my mouth.”^[127]

The power of the Word is the Holy Spirit, which brings the blessing of God and wholesomeness of body and soul to those who receive it (He is the Spirit of truth, through which man comes to self-knowledge and inner life). Only those who possess the spirit know what it means to worship God in spirit and in truth. He who only speaks to God in his thoughts is not speaking to him in his spirit. Without inner life and without inner vision man cannot know what it means to be “in the spirit.”^[128]

Der Mensch soll mit Gott sprechen lernen; aber nicht mit der Universalgottheit, mit der er in keiner organischen Verbindung steht, sondern mit demjenigen Teile Gottes, der sein eigener Geist ist Mit seinem Geiste sprechen heisst aber, die Bewegungen des Geistes fühlen, und dieses Fühlen kann nicht anders geschehen, als durch innerlich wahrnehmbare Gestalten und Worte.

Man should learn to speak with God; but not with the universal deity, with whom he has no organic connection, but with that part of God which is his own spirit. But to speak with one’s spirit means to feel the movements of the spirit, and this feeling can only happen inwardly perceptible shapes and words.

Don’t think that “thinking letters in your feet” is mindless work. On the contrary! There is no longer any pure spiritual activity; for the human being puts the large brain into activity by virtue of his free will, and this activity the brain must propagate down to the feet. If someone has practiced this exercise for just one hour a day with iron perseverance for thirty years, he will no longer need any explanation, but will perhaps feel impelled to speak the great secret of the inner life and to announce it to others.

XI. Mantrams. The Power of Prayer.

“If you want to worship God,

you must worship in spirit and in truth.”

(John IV. 24.)

“These people honor me with their lips;

but their heart is still far from me.”

(Matt. XV. 3.)

A correspondent who for many years has studied all sorts of arcane sciences, tried different systems of religion, and traveled the whole world without finding herself, but who finally seems to have come to terms, writes: — “I have found that if one has learned to pray to the source of all life without selfish intent, one has no need of occultism, mysticism, spiritualism, etc. for one’s spiritual progress.”

We fully agree to this. All these “isms” are for those who do not know their own minds and in truth have not yet learned to feel themselves, are not only useless but harmful, since they lead to fantasies and fantasies which are ultimately inextricable. The right prayer alone can do everything; but rightly, to be able to pray in spirit and in truth is a great art which can only be attained by “grace,” through the power of the Spirit, and there is a great difference in practicing an art with discernment and understanding, or whether one works blindly throughout the day without really knowing what one is doing.

The word “prayer” is akin to “giving” and does not mean a greedy asking, begging, or taking, but a dedication, a surrender, an entry into the divine being, and the more the soul enters into it, the more it takes part. It is, so to speak, the absorption of spiritual-etheric atoms, which serve as nourishment for the soul and through which the spiritual body of the reborn grows and is strengthened. Also, the source of life is certainly everywhere, but the “magnet” which attracts these spiritual soul forces for us is not outside of us, but within us; just as the core of a tree does not develop from outside by means of additives, but from inner strength from within outwards, and thus the source of all life and the workshop of its activity lies within each organism. Thus, the source of our immortal life is also within ourselves; the spark of divine love in the human heart attracts and absorbs the divine. Thus, takes place the soul’s growth and union with the Divine; as the Christian mystic Angelus Silesius says:

“You don’t need to cry out to God;

the fountain is in you.

Don’t stop the exit

so it flows for and for.”

It goes without saying that this truth does not please devout enthusiasts, who find it easier to beg than to work themselves, and the learned who only concern themselves with external things will not understand it; but the time is not far off; when this truth is recognized as exactly scientific, as everyone already recognizes as such when he experiences it in himself.

If, as has been testified above, there is great power even in the spirit of the letters, and each of them has its peculiar essence, its own vibrations, and its peculiar form, then it is to be supposed that the power and meaning of words and spoken sentences will not be less great; as experience teaches. Such phrases are called “mantrams” in Sanskrit; a word translated by ignorant scholars as “incantations,” “magic formulas,” and the like; but really means an invocation, and might actually be called a prayer, if the meaning of that word were rightly understood. What is important here is not only the meaning of these words and the spirit that is put into them, but also especially the tone in which they are pronounced; because every sound has its specific vibrations, which produce similar sound waves in the ether and combine with the spiritual waves that are similar to them. A mantra such as the Gayatri [gāyatrī], when properly pronounced in Sanskrit, has quite a different mental effect than using translations, and the “Lord’s Prayer,” which is a collection of mantrams, has a different inner effect, when using the original Greek text than when translating it.

A well-known proverb says: “As it is above, so it is below, and to every thing below there is an above thing; so that when what is below moves, what is above moves towards it.” For this reason knowledge of the mantrams and their pronunciation is a dangerous thing for the uninitiated. If he knows how to put spirit into it, spiritual powers that have a magical effect are thereby awakened, and since the difference between white and black magic consists only in the way in which magical powers are used, the result will be that the unclean person will use his “prayer” not to unite with God, but draw upon himself and others an army of hellish influences to his detriment. In order to avoid this, “occultism” does not render its service to us, but rather a knowledge of occult science.

And like this higher science from superficial occultism, so also true mysticism differs from insane “mysticism” and correct “spiritualism” as opposed to “materialism” from a spiritless “spiritism”; the one is based on the knowledge of the spirit as the cause of all existence; the other is based on appearances, Maya [māyā], — nothingness. One is based on truth, the other on sham.

Underlying most religious ceremonies and symbols is a scientific fact, but little is known today of it, which is why these customs are ineffective. The one recites his prayers because it is his trade, his habit, or his prescribed rule; the other wastes time with it. One person thinks of all sorts of things; another uses it to hypnotize himself into a religious intoxication; a third presents his wishes to the deity of the universe and seeks to induce it to do his will; but true prayer is that which comes from the heart; because the word speaks for itself. There the blessing is as effective as the curse; For, as the sun shines on a field, unconcerned about the seeds it contains, and as through the power it bestows both poisonous plants and nutritious herbs sprout from the earth, depending on the nature of these seeds, so does the spirit-sun bring in the heart of man, when their magical power is awakened, produce both evil and good. If vanity is in man, it comes to the fore; if there is any good in him, it comes out. There are no human devils that are not fallen human angels. Only he who has risen can fall; he who never rises stays where he is. Some who rise on high become dizzy and fall into the abyss. The same law applies in the spiritual. Therefore, rulers become tyrants and many who were destined to be leaders succumb to domination and vanity.

The mysticism commonly found among religious enthusiasts is a morbid spawn of egoism, selfishly seeking gratification of personal desires in the hereafter; true mysticism is entering into a higher existence, stripping away one’s personality through the power and spread of all-encompassing love, which transcends all barriers. This love leads to white magic, whereas egoism leads to hate and the art of the devil.

No one can become godlike unless he has first become natural. We must bring ourselves into harmony with nature in her purity; then we will get to know the source from which nature arose, and then nature obeys us. It is known that Saint Francis could call to himself, the birds in the air and the fish in the water and they would come and stay with him until he sent them away. People can still be found today who have this power of the word, and this power comes from unselfish love. Not only does their power extend over people and animals, but over everything. In the fields and gardens of pure and loving people rest the “blessing of God”; tyranny, hatred, greed, envy, etc., produce wars, disease, plague, earthquakes, and the like; because the soul of the world is in everything and it is moved by the spirit. So the outer is with the inner, the material with the spiritual in the most intimate connection, and the spirit has an effect on the matter. Just as an emotion in man, anger, etc., can cause an epileptic fit, so the soul of the world suffers shocks from the awakened passions of peoples, which can result in a volcanic eruption that destroys entire countries. That modern science has not penetrated deep enough into the mysteries of nature to know such causes proves nothing against the truth of this doctrine, which every real mystic knows.

True science is not the enemy of true religion, but rather its companion. If you don’t know nature, you don’t know God either; but natural science should be able to recognize the origin of nature in all natural phenomena.

In order to bring ourselves into harmony with nature and her creatures, it is not only useless to suppress our desires and passions, but we must gain the strength to rise above them. Desires suppressed, passions restrained, continue to thrive within; how every force gathers and wanes through the resistance it finds; they produce those monstrosities of imagination and will, those monstrosities, which Theophrastus Paracelsus describes, and which are frequently the causes of vampirism, insanity, and obsession; indeed, which can even take visible form under certain circumstances; for every thought moved by the will is a word and a being, and to this its form corresponds. The “spirits” of the spiritists are often nothing other than their self-created false “egos,” which descend from the abyss of their subconscious, to or from the height of their superconscious and are enabled by the transmission of the nervous power of hysterical persons (mediums) to adequately express themselves and condense to appear phenomenally on the physical plane.

But in order to gather the strength to rise from the swamp of selfish desires and passions to the pure regions of love and knowledge, prayer is used, which is not to some external being created by our imagination, but to the throne of God addressed in the sanctuary of our innermost being. Such prayer is not outward fanaticism, but rather the supreme establishment of self-awareness in our “Father in Heaven,” in our immortal Self. It goes without saying that a person cannot pray if he does not believe in himself. Prayer is the expression of the will and this correct expression is not the rhetoric but the deed.

It is not our intention here to explain the meaning of Indian mantrams or to teach magic spells; on the other hand, the Christian “Lord’s Prayer,” which is recited daily by thousands both unfeeling and uncomprehending, deserves closer consideration, all the more so as the meaning of the “requests” in it is misunderstood by many people. The same is a collection of mantrams, each of which is of great value, and each, if properly used, brings about the fulfillment of what it requires, but it is to be remembered that each of these mantrams has three meanings, one superficial sense, a sure one, and a spiritual one that can only be found through experience.

In “Matthew, chap. VI” [verse 6] is written:

“When you pray in public, go into your closet, shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.”^[129]

The very word “public,” which is intentionally omitted from the Bible translations, proves that this is not a man-made “closet.” Moreover, those who do not have their own room would then hardly be able to follow this advice. Rather, the “closet” of which the apostle speaks is the sanctuary of the interior that each bears within himself. Nor does it say in the original Greek, as can be read in the translations: “Pray to your Father in “secret”; for then concealment would refer to the praying person; but “who is in secret”; namely the Father, whom no human eye sees, and whom one can only approach in spirit and in truth. Inwardly we should shut the door against all other thoughts.

The following is the Greek script,^[130] English translation (standard translation from the Greek, not necessarily by Dr. Hartmann). Then follows, Dr. Hartmann’s commentary.

πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς

[Hartmann:] “Our Father, who art in the heavens.”

The word ὁό in Greek is neuter and thus does not mean “the” but “that.” The Father of Humanity is not a person and is not confined to any particular place. Nor is He dependent on heaven; for “heaven and earth shall pass away; but his word (which is himself) endures forever.” Our Father is the Spirit of God within us, and the heavens in which He is found are the higher grades of our spiritual consciousness, in other words, the higher regions of the soul. There we can find that I, which is first of all the Father of our present personality and of all our previous and subsequent incarnations, and about which the doctrine of reincarnation gives us information. Thus we come to the Father through the Son; i.e., through the knowledge of our immortal Self to Christ, and through Christ to absolute perfection, to the “Father,” the source from which all gods are born and all existence springs.

1. 1. ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου,

[hallowed be thy name]

ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου·

[thy kingdom come.]

γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου,

[let your will be done,]

ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς

[as in heaven, and on earth.]

[Hartmann:] Let your name resound (in us);

thy rulership draws near,

thy will be (everything) in heaven as well as on earth.

Unless we oppose the word of God, his name resounds in us, for his word is his name and his name is his essence, and the resounding of his name in us is his revelation, whereby his essence is formed in us. The fulfillment of this request lies in our obedience. Thereby we sanctify the name of God, and are sanctified by him. If we desire the kingdom of God, the kingdom of love and wisdom and peace, to return to earth, the proper pronunciation of this prayer is to let the kingdom of God be revealed within us and not close our souls to it; but to acknowledge God (Truth) as the sole ruler in it. The kingdom of God is always ready to come to us and needs no invitation to do so; but man needs the determination to absorb it and the willingness to receive it.

The will is that. Essence and substance of all things. The divine will is the will of eternal wisdom. If all things were permeated with divine wisdom, the will of God would not only be in heaven, i.e., in the inner higher regions of the soul, but also in the earth; i.e., happens in the external, in the material; then we would also have the functions of the body in our power and would no longer be subject to sins, errors, diseases, etc. But as long as another kind of will, self-will, reigns in us in addition to the will of wisdom, the will of God cannot become our essence in us, and the correct pronunciation of this mantram consists in combining our will united with the divine will; so that the two forms of will are now one. But this will consists in nothing other than the revelation of itself in us, whereby the rebirth of immortal man arises.

1. τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον·

[give us today] our daily bread,

Give us today the bread of the coming day.

The coming day is the day of enlightenment; the “bread” of the coming day is the light, the teaching,^[131] the word, the divine being,^[132] the spiritual life, which serves as nourishment for the immortal body of the inner resurrection. The correct pronunciation of this request and its fulfillment lies in the fact that we already today, ready to receive this bread in this reincarnation, i.e., to purify ourselves so that we may take on the essence of the God-man; for without this there is no immortality.

1. καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφήκαμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν·

[And forgive us our sins, as we also forgive our enemies.]

And deliver us from our debts, just as we deliver those who owe us.

The doctrine of karma gives us the explanation of this much misunderstood request. As long as man is connected with the selfhood he has assumed, there can be no escape from the consequences of his actions. “Karma” means action. Every action creates a cause which produces a certain effect from which there is no escape or indulgence, but everything has to be paid for down to the last penny. “What man sows, he will reap.”^[133]

There is only one way to free oneself from the net of karma that a person has woven for himself, and that is self-sacrifice; i.e., the relinquishment of that assumed peculiarity on which these debts are burdened, and this is done by the power of divine love, which knows no selfishness The more we abandon our selfishness and are filled with an equal love for all things, the more the “Blood of Christ” washes us cleansed from our sins, and love sets us free; because this “blood” is nothing other than this love, knowledge and the spiritual-divine life itself.

1. καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν

“And lead us not into temptation.”

Properly translated, it should read: “Bring us not to the test,” i.e., let the day of Judgment, the final decision as to whether good or evil prevail in us, not come before we are strong enough to triumph in good. We can compare man to a comet sweeping through the heavens, attracted by two heavenly bodies, one light and one dark. As long as he doesn’t get too close to one or the other, his path is free. But if he steps into the sphere of the predominant attraction of the one, the attraction of the other diminishes, and then there is no return for him.

1. ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ,

[but [you] deliver us from evil,]

“Deliver us from evil.”

If someone would free us from all evils, there would be no more progress; for sin, error and suffering are the steps by which we arrive at the temple of wisdom. All evils have their origin in ignorance of our true, heavenly nature, and from this springs our unfitness from which we wish to be redeemed. The only remedy for ignorance is knowledge of the truth, and the right way for us to apply this request is to allow the Spirit of truth and allow it to be manifest in us, and through it to obtain true knowledge.

1. ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία καὶ ἡ δύναμις καὶ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας

[For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.]

“For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory through all the aeons.”

Through this confirmation man testifies to himself a truth which he has spiritually recognized and thereby strengthens his faith. God, regarded as the soul of the world, is the cause, primal force, and primal substance of all things; consequently also all power, all power, all light, life, and glory is his; and when man has come to union with God, all things also belong to him; for then there is no longer any essential difference between him and God; the imagined duality has then become unity through the knowledge of the trinity. Thus, union with God (yoga) is the highest art and the highest science, surpassing all other sciences, because all these relate only to perishable things, but the former teaches the way to immortal existence.

ἀμήν.

[Amen.]

Amen.

“Amen” takes the place of the Indian “OM” and denotes the truth, the fulfillment, what happened, the deed. Nothing is served by saying “Amen” if the work is not done.

If these holy mantras are recited every day by innumerable people thoughtlessly and without understanding, then this is no reason to underestimate them; but their true value is only properly appreciated when one knows their meaning and knows how to apply them.

The same is the case with the mantrams of the Indians, the best known of which is the Gayatri [Gāyatrī], which we hereby enclose in the original text for those who know Sanskrit:

ओं भूर् भुवः स्वः तत् सवितुर्वरेण्यं

भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात् ॥^[134]

There are different translations of this; one of the best is:

Om! — Reveal yourself, O glorious Sun of Wisdom that we worship, illuminating and enlivening everything; from whom everything comes and to whom everything returns, and to whom we invoke that your light may guide us in our progress towards it.

The Indians claim that uttering this formula drives away the evil spirits, but the modern “scholar” smiles at this, not understanding it. Nevertheless, the Indian is right. The “evil spirits” are our evil thoughts and desires; the correct utterance of the formula consists in the immersion of the soul in this spiritual sun, which Christians call “Christ” and which can reveal itself in us, and who in this way goes into the sanctuary of his heart and finds his refuge there, he will certainly get rid of the “evil spirits” that haunt him.

The Buddhist formula has the same purpose:

Buddham saranam gachāmi

Dhammam saranam gachāmi

Sangham saranam gachāmi

[R.H.—Corrected Hartmann’s original Sanskrit by adding the diacritics:]

buddhaṃ śaranaṃ gacchāmī

dharmaṃ śaranaṃ gacchāmī

saṃghaṃ śaranaṃ gacchāmī

I seek refuge in Buddha; i.e., in the light of Self-awareness.

I take refuge in the law; namely in the law of love and justice.

I seek refuge in the Brethren; namely, in the communion of Saints.

The proper pronunciation of this formula is to do what it says, and the same is true of all prayer. The word is the expression of thought, and the best expression of thought and will is deed.

In the Bhagavad Gītā it is said:

“Om, Tat, Sat

[“oṃ tat sat] is the triple name of Brahma. Whoever does a good work in wisdom pronounces the holy name by doing it.” He accomplishes it in that name and in whose power Om [oṃ] signifies perfection, deed signifies essence, and Sat wisdom, whatever is done without faith, i.e., happens without inner knowledge, is called Asat, is powerless and insubstantial and has no real value, neither in this life nor after death.^[135] Truth, reality and essence are one and the same. Anything that is not true is not real, is insubstantial; all lies are only appearances. Vain requests for the fulfillment of selfish wishes, mindless recitation of formulas, etc. are idle chatter and serve to distract, but not to strengthen higher self-consciousness and spiritual growth; such distraction makes man himself “mediumistic” and unsubstantial.

H. P. Blavatsky says: “The greatest crime ever committed happened when the first priest invented the first prayer with selfish intent.” Not only does begging degrade man and stifle his self-confidence, but it is the greatest presumption imaginable when a man imagines he is moving the will of the Lord of the world and making it serve his own desires or those of his party, to the detriment of others.

It is something else when a person tries to benefit other people by speaking in the name of God, i.e., acts in the power of wisdom, provided that he possesses it. Whoever sends a thought of good will to another person sends him a helping angel, and whoever raises his soul to the highest in holy love, also draws up with him those with whom he is connected through love.

Yet, another kind of “prayer,” or rather asking, is when one seeks help from other creatures, and such help can be obtained not only from living people, but also from invisible beings, and indeed this help is all the closer, the more selfless the intention of the beggar is, as everyone knows from personal experience that he would rather give alms to a modest beggar who is really in need than to an impudent one whose begging operates as a sport. Thoughts are beings who are related in the thought world, and the less the thought is limited by self-delusion, the purer it has become through love, the more it is of a spiritual nature and the easier it can find the same among men, or penetrate into those regions where gods (devas) dwell, ready to do his bidding. Thus, there are various charitable institutions in the world which sustain themselves through this secret spiritual begging. To what extent this also leads to suppression of true self-confidence and personal vanity, we cannot decide here, because in the end it is less important what is operated than how it is operated. The motive is the soul of the work.

Similarly, Indian fakirs, Mohammedan dervishes, certain spiritistic mediums and the like attain so-called occult powers by invoking, praying to, attracting and connecting with the beings who can perform the phenomena. These, too, have their mantrams or magic spells, which often contain the greatest nonsense and are therefore most effective in preferring beings from that world of fools that make up the lower regions of the spirit realm, where confusion of meaning and lies reign; for here, too, like attracts like, and here, too, they produce discordant tones that spread discordant vibrations and combine with like.

Here opens the field of “black magic,” which leads to loss of immortality, anguish and perdition, as could not be otherwise, and is explained by the Bhagavad Gita, which says:

“Whoever departs from this world thinking only of Me, having left his body, enters Me. But if at the end of his life he is connected with another being through his thinking, then he enters into that state, whatever he may be; for its nature is equal to the nature of that being.”^[136]

The dress that we put on, we will wear; be it in angelic, animal, or devil form. Thus, there is a great science underlying the teaching of the Bible, which says, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and serve him, and him only.”

If the world were to learn to understand the deep (occult) meaning of these words, great progress would be made for religion and science and for all mankind; for then science would learn to penetrate into the bottom and essence of things and to grasp experiments from it, and religion would not be based on self-conceit but on the knowledge of the truth.

This is the perversity of popular churchdom, that it regards the well-being of the personal man as the chief thing, and God only as a means to that end. Were men to acknowledge God as the sole Self and Lord, they would not always only ask: “What can God do for me? but rather, what can I do for God?” — You would see that no one can serve God better than he who stands for the good of all mankind, only he who lives for the whole really lives for his true immortal Self.

XII. Theosophy

“Gray, dear friend, is all theory

And green the golden tree of life.” (“Faust”)

Everything that has been said so far has served no purpose if it does not serve to control the mischief that is being driven in many places with what is called “theosophy,” “occultism,” “psychic research” and the like and to suggest to those who seriously strive for truth the insight that true wisdom does not consist in fantasies, personality cult, authority mania, etc., but in the inner spiritual knowledge of the only God who dwells in the heart of all his creatures.

“God is,” as Jakob Böhme says, “the will of eternal wisdom” — Wisdom is the self-knowledge of truth, and its will is that it be revealed everywhere. Therefore, the will of God is love, and also the substance by which God reveals himself and is manifested in man as a personal being, and a man’s true Theosophy consists in his own, in his person, such revelation and personification of divine love and wisdom.

But the love of God for His manifestation is not confined to a single thing or number of things, but is all-encompassing, all-pervasive, and ubiquitous in its omnipresence. God loves Himself in all His creatures, in an insect as well as in an elephant, in man as well as in the dwellers of heaven, in a criminal as well as in a saint; yes, even a plant or a stone is not an indifferent, lifeless thing for him; for everything has sprung from his word; everything has spirit and life; all things are vessels destined for its revelation; all proceed towards their development and completion on the path of evolution. Therefore, whoever wants to attain the love of God must love God in all his creatures; even if he is not yet manifest in them, and through this love he becomes a co-worker with God in the work of evolution; for this love is a spiritual, magically effective force from which all life springs. We are not talking here about a mere human feeling or infatuation from person to person or about person worship, but about the love of God in man, which is in all creatures recognizes own divine nature; even if it is only in the germ or hidden. So the gardener sees the future blossom and fruit in the bud, even in the seed, and does not hate the tree because the bark is inedible. So the wise recognize and love the good in everything; even if it has not yet been expressed externally.

Since God is the one true Self of all things, and Christ in us is Deity incarnate, belief in Him is a scientifically established necessity. Those who cannot believe in their own true Self also lack the divine power that is necessary for the true self to find itself within them. unfold, take shape and become apparent. But in order to exercise this belief, and not to confuse it with the self-conceit of the person, the power of discernment between permanent and transitory self is an indispensable necessity, and this cannot be taught to anyone unless it is already in or is contained in his essence, but where it is present and strengthened by practice, there springs hope; i.e., the conviction of the immortal higher existence which the mind, which does not depend on time and space, is spiritually realized; also, patience, which bears everything easily, and all the other virtues that give value to the person.

Whoever worships any creature as if that were all, merely loves an idol and has not true love; but whoever recognizes the omnipotence of the Creator in every creature, loves him in every creature and with him every creature. Such a man will do justice to every being, and will not infringe on any of their rights, or willfully harm them. The love of God is unlimited; it excludes no one. Anyone who imagines that he can become a theosophist, or, what is the same thing, that he can love God and partake of his wisdom by disregarding other creatures in his own conceit, or excluding them from his love, is mistaken; for the true Self is indivisible and everywhere. God is love and justice itself, which draws no boundaries but, like the light of the sun, enlightens and warms all who approach him.^[137]

Love and reason are the elements of wisdom. They are man’s two guides through existence, leading him to the Temple of Truth. Love without understanding is blind and easily strays; but the mind without love is the way to selfishness and ruin. From true love, true knowledge is born, which enlightens the mind. This love is all-encompassing; it seizes the heart of God in infinity and brings us back from multiplicity to unity; but knowledge is patchwork; it can only dissect the individual and put the pieces together. The loveless mind builds houses of cards, which the next breath of fresh air destroys again; but love brings it all together.

Knowledge is bound to objects; love is free. No man’s happiness depends on his theoretical knowledge or his opinions, but it does depend on the possession of love.

Our treasures of knowledge are ornaments that cling to our clothes and fall apart with them; but the love we possess is part of our immortal nature. Anyone who changes his mind only changes what is attached to him; but he who changes his love changes himself. The errors of knowledge are not hard to forgive; but sins against love take their toll on us. It suffices for those who understand it, a single law which says:

Love, and then do what you will^[138];

for a man who has true, divine love in his heart cannot will evil, and his actions result from his will. Man judges by actions; God in us sees the motive in the heart. But in order to achieve perfect love and not to make mistakes despite the “best will,” the mind of love must open its eyes. So one helps the other, the loveless mind wanders in the dark; but the sublime love carries him up to the regions of light; love is blind; but it sees through the mind enlightened by the knowledge of truth.

The world no longer needs new theological articles of faith, philosophical quibbles, and hair-splitting, but love does. Dogmatism and know-it-all lead to theocracy and tyranny; from it arise the personality cult and authority mania, self-importance, lust for power and intolerance, sectarianism and Jesuitism, lies, deceit, persecution and megalomania, as is also taught by world history, which is constantly repeated. As long as man does not take the trouble to think for himself, others will not only lead him by a leash, but also by the nose. The Christian church only expelled the pagan clergy in order to let it reappear in a different form. The bestial spirit that animated a herd of fanatical monks and drove them to hack Hypatia to pieces and gave birth to the monstrosity of the “Holy Inquisition” still lives on the spoils, albeit under a different guise. The progress of civilization may have taken the instruments of torture and the firebrand out of its hands, but the poison of slander, suspicion and intrigue still remains. Also, a law of nature prudently places certain limits on the spread of the power of sectarianism; for when the spirit that gave life has escaped from any form, corruption begins; a fragmentation and decomposition occurs, the old disappears and the new arises.

This has hitherto also been the fate of all theosophical organizations, under whatever name they appeared, from antiquity to the Reformation, from the esoteric schools of the Indians, Egyptians and Greeks to the Rosicrucians and Knights Templar of the Middle Ages and the “theosophical societies of our time” H. P. Blavatsky says about this in her “Key to Theosophy”:

“Every attempt hitherto made to keep such organizations permanent ended in failure, for sooner or later they atrophied; hard-boiled dogmas were introduced and sects grew out of them. In this way they gradually lost that vitality which only the living truth can bestow.”

After her death, the history of the association she founded confirmed the accuracy of her prophecy. This society fell to pieces, not because of differences in theories, but because of lack of love. First came the introduction of an exclusive “inner circle,”^[139] and a domineering theocracy, then dogma, lies, hatred, slander, persecution, and finally fragmentation.

Fortunately, in order to love God and come to Self-knowledge, a man does not need a club. It is in everyone’s power to do good within his assigned sphere, and a single act of self-sacrifice works more by example than lengthy sermons and much gossip.

The natural purpose of any real Theosophical Society is to participate in the great work of evolution, and to facilitate the acquisition of the necessary powers for anyone who wishes to participate. The means for this are love and intelligence, refinement and enlightenment; the awakening of inner life and spiritual rebirth.

The evolution of Earth, like any other planet, depends on the advancement and refinement of its inhabitants. Mind and matter are not different in essence; the material outside is only the expression of the spiritual states prevailing within. If humanity were perfect, the earth would also be a paradise. The conditions prevailing on any planet may be judged by the nature of the principle governing it. The lower this principle, the more grossly material is the nature of the planet, and its inhabitants clumsy and undeveloped; the higher it stands, the more ethereal and spiritual everything on it is. The brightest stars in the firmament are those worlds in which intelligence has overcome matter. It is the soul of a planet that gives it its splendor and its properties.

If we look at the progress of the evolution of our earth, we find that it constantly moves in circles in the material; but there is not much to be noted of any climbing or ennoblement; because selfishness still reigns everywhere, which has a contracting and condensing effect. Behind the “piety” one usually finds the selfish desire for the possession of heavenly pleasures, the driving force of science is largely the craving for money or fame, and to those who look at the brutalization of the student youth the future seems dark.

Under these circumstances, what could be more desirable than an association of all noble-minded and enlightened persons, in order to spread true philanthropy and a higher world view through word and writing and deed, but above all through their own example, and to teach people the divine art of self-control and lead them to freedom. Such “theosophical societies” could do an incalculable amount of good and have already done so; but that all outward societies cannot last long lies in the imperfection of human nature; for where the crowd invades, egoism and its entourage intrude with it.

The true Theosophical Society will therefore always be a limited, secret or only spiritual community. It is the spiritual community of those who have awakened to inner life. It doesn’t need any outward appearances, but quietly has an infinitely greater effect than can be achieved through noise and shouting, because the kingdom of God does not move in with drums and trumpets, but in peace and quiet in the heart of man. This realm is the temple of wisdom in the heart of man and in the center of the world; in it everyone is admitted without further ceremony when he is ready for it. In the end, everyone comes together in it.

The Author, Franz Hartmann, M.D.

Notes:

^[1] Mysteries, Symbols and Magical Forces [Mysterien, Symbole und magisch wirkende Kräfte. Franz Hartmann. Leipzig, Lotus Verlag, 1902] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos and adding the correct Sanskrit diacritics and Greek text for the Lord’s Prayer.. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025. Most all of the images were remade.}

^[2] John III, 8.

^[3] Compare, E. von Hartmann. “Die Philosophie des Unbewussten.” [The Philosophy of the Unconscious.] Chapter III.

^[4] Compare, Paul, I Corinth. III. 16.

^[5] “Der cherubinische Wandersmann.” [“The Cherubic Wanderer.”]

^[6] This is why the medium’s astral body also assumes various forms during so-called spirit materializations when it leaves the medium’s body, and after death it takes on that form (Kama rupa [kāma rūpa]) which corresponds to the character of the deceased person.

^[7] {R.H.—This is the purpose of preparation for the symptoms preparatory to death before entering the (Tibetan) state of the Bar-do (བར་དོའི་) or intermediate state after death, by reading, repeating and understanding the noted text, the par to’i tho dol (བར་དོའི་ཋོ༌དོོལ །)}

^[8] Sirach. XV. 17. {R.H.—The title “Sirach” (The Wisdom of Ben Sira derives its title from its author, “Yeshua [Jesus], son of Eleazar, son of Sira”) and comes from the Greek form of the author’s name.}

^[9] Romans, VIII, 6.

^[10] I. Peter, I, 24.

^[11] Galatians II, 20.

^[12] I John, V, 12.

^[13] John. XIV, 16.

^[14] Matthew, VIII, 32.

^[15] Matthew, VIII, 32.

^[16] Matthew, XIII, 12

^[17] Angelus Silesius: “Der cherubinische Wandersmann.”

^[18] Ch. X, 8.

^[19] Ch. IX, 4 and 5.

^[20] Ch. IX, 6 and 7.

^[21] Ch. VI, 30.

^[22] Ch. XIII, 30.

^[23] Hermes III, 1.

^[24] I. Corinthians XII, 6.

^[25] Ephesians IV. 6.

^[26] “Die Weisheit des Brahamen.” [The Wisdom of the Brahmins.]

^[27] E. von Hartmann. “Philosophie,” 626.

^[28] Proverb of Theophrastus Paracelsus.

^[29] Chap. IV, 24.

^[30] Chap. IV, 31.

^[31] John V, 30.

^[32] The Imitation of Christ III. Chap. IX. 2.

^[33] {R.H.—The six-fold set of virtues known as shat-sampat]

^[34] Bhagavad Gita. Chap. VI, verse 19 and following.

^[35] Compare, Jakob Böhme. “Drei Prinzipien.” [Three Principles.] XIX. 41 and following — XVI. 47. — XIX. 24. “Mysterium magnum” XXIV. 13. — XXV 24. — “Tilken” I. 267. — “Vierzig Fragen” [Forty Questions.] XIII. 10. — XII. 17. — XXVI. 18.

^[36] Compare, Galatians IV. 19.

^[37] Chap. 15, vss. 5, etc.

^[38] Chap. 8, vs. 5.

^[39] I. Corinthians. XII. 2.

^[40] John Scheffler. 1624–1677. Der cherubimische Wandersmann [The Cherubic Wanderer.]

^[41] I. Corinthians XI. 29.

^[42] If marriage were what it ought to be, namely a heavenly union of two souls, which finds its expression in outward union, and if the church were what it represents, namely a gathering point of divine-spiritual power, it would also be through the church the ideal of marriage and there would hardly be any more divorces; but the church itself lacks the blessing which it will bestow, and for the beast-men a legal agreement by which each part secures its rights is enough.

^[43] John I. i. and ii.

^[44] Bhagavad Gita XIII. 1.

^[45] I. John, verse 12.

^[46] Bhagavad Gita XV, 16 and 17.

^[47] Sankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya]. “Ātma Bodha.”

^[48] F. Hartmann. “Theosophie in China.” [“Theosophy in China,” Lotusblüten 8, no. 46 (July 1896); no. 48 (September 1896); no. 49 (October 1896; no. 50 (November 1896); no. 51 (December 1896); no. 52 (January 1897); no. 53 (February 1897)]

^[49] “Lotusblüthen.” II. (1894), page 623.

^[50] {R.H.—The reader should consult The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett regarding the limitations of devachan, which validates what Dr. Hartmann is referring to.}

^[51] Chap. II, vs. 69.

^[52] I. Moses VI. 4.

^[53] A Manvantara = 308,448,000 years.

^[54] The flesh is buried in earth, the shadow hovers over the grave;

Spirit ascends to the stars, desire descends to Orcus [hell].

^[55] [Jakob Böhme] “Mysterium magnum.” 29. 1.

^[56] Prove that the will is also active during sleep! The fact that, for example, wake yourself up at a certain hour that you have set yourself, and the like.

^[57] I. Corinthians XV. 53. — Matthew XVII. 2.

^[58] Compare, H. P. Blavatsky. “The Secret Doctrine.” Vol. III.

^[59] John I. 8.

^[60] I. Corinthians, III. 16.

^[61] A common reason for a woman’s sterility, which is not known to material science, is that in such a case there is no reincarnating soul present.

^[62] Chapter II, verses 12 and following.

^[63] This is the actual “astral body” of man, although the term “astral body” usually includes all the subtler sheaths of the soul (Sukshma Sharira) [sūkṣma-śarīra] and is applied to all supernatural phenomena.

^[64] Compare Shankaracharya [Śaṅkarācarya] “Tattwabodha.”

^[65] See Paracelsus “Coelum Philosophorum.”

^[66] Compare, F. Hartmann. “Denkwürdige Erinnerungen.” [Memorable Recollections from the life of the author of the “Lotusblüten.” Translated in 19 parts by Robert Hutwohl.]

^[67] Compare Dr. Justin Kerner [Justinus Andreas Christian Kerner]. “An apparition from the night region of nature.” [“Eine Erscheinung aus dem Nachtgebiete der Natur.”] “Übersinnliche Welt.” Dec. 15, 1901.

^[68] Matthew XXII. 13.

^[69] Galatians IV. 19. — I. Corinthians XV. 35 and following.

^[70] Chapter IX, verse 4.

^[71] Chapter XIII, verses 15 and 17.

^[72] John I. 1.

^[73] [Michaelis de] Molinos. “Der geistliche Führer.” [“The Spiritual Guide.”] Chapter I.

^[74] Hebrews XII. 14.

^[75] John I. 1.

^[76] John XIX. 7.

^[77] Compare, John XX. 17. — verse 31. — XII. verse 44. — X. verse 19.

^[78] See, F. Hartmann. “Jehoshua, der Prophet von Nazareth.”

^[79] Colossus. I. 27.

^[80] John I.

^[81] {R.H.—“Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father and to My God and your God’” (John 20:17)}

^[82] See, Subba Row. “Vorträge über die Bhagavad Gita.” Lotus-Verlag, Leipzig 1902.

^[83] John I. Verses 1 and following.

^[84] “The Lord.”

^[85] Chapter 8, verse 18.

^[86] Compare, Subba Row, “Vorträge über den Bhagavad Gita,” Lotus-Verlag, Leipzig 1902.

^[87] Ibid.

^[88] H. P. Blavatsky. “Die Stimme der Stille.” (Lotus-Verlag, Leipzig.)

^[89] Weisheit. I. 7.

^[90] I. Corinthians XII. 6.

^[91] Galatians II. 20.

^[92] Chapter 3, verse 23.

^[93] Mark XIII. Verses 17 and 18.

^[94] The effects of the six “planets” or principles are visible; the seventh ♃ [Jupiter] is the origin and sum of all.

^[95] Edwin Arnold, “Die Leuchte Asiens” [The Light of Asia]; translated by K. Wernicke.

^[96] Sensitive people recognize the tone in a color and the color in the tone.

^[97] Vom dreifachen Leben. [Of triple life] Chapter XV. 44.

^[98] “None of our scholars understands his mother tongue. They no longer understand anything about the spirit and only need the composed form of roughly composed words. One wants to teach what God is and understands the least of God” (“Mysterium magnum.”) Chapter XXXV. 6.

^[99] J. Böhme. “Mysterium magnum” Chapter 52. Verse 41.

^[100] Anyone who internally speaks the German word “I” and compares it with the English J (pronounced Ei) or with the French Je (see) will easily notice the difference in the strength of the vibrations caused and their effects.

^[101] “Vierzig Fragen [Forty Questions].” Fr. I. 102.

^[102] “Faust.”

^[103] Even the figure of the H indicates a spread, a divergence or exhalation.

^[104] “Mysterium magnum” Chapter XXXV. 49–50 etc..

^[105] If our ego-consciousness is only the result of a temporary action of the spirit on form, it must also disappear with the cessation of form, whether on the physical or astral plane. Only a permanent connection can be permanent.

^[106] All divine powers in man belong to the God-man (Jesus); and whoever learns to recognize this in himself, also learns to know all of these his powers; but without this knowledge all striving for the possession of such miraculous powers is wrong. (John XIV. 12.) {The verse is given, because of its importance, directly from the King James version of the Bible: “Verily, verily I say unto you, he that believeth in Me, the works that I do he shall do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto My Father.”}

^[107] Luke XVII, 10.

^[108] I. Corinthians XIII, 1-3.

^[109] John XIV, 10; XVII, 17.

^[110] John XVII, 3.

^[111] Examples: A fine, twitching, stabbing pain evokes the expression I, sleep with a clenched fist an O, sudden astonishment an A, shock an U, etc.

^[112] When the soul hears the voice of nature, the feeling for the sublimity of nature arises from it, from this feeling inner vision etc. can arise. From Akasa [ākāśa] arises Vayu [vāyu], from this Tejas, etc.; which is why each tone corresponds to a specific color.

^[113] The new German language and spelling improvements bear sad testimony to the fact that in authoritative places the fine feeling for the spirit of words is on the wane.

^[114] Matthew VII, 7. — I. John, verse 15.

^[115] I. Corinthians XV. 40.

^[116] These are the Kama-rupa [kāma-rūpa]; i.e., the “lust bodies” of the earthbound souls of deceased people in Kamaloca [kāma loka], the place of purification (“purgatory”). Also, the effect of this law of nature is the cause of “vampyrism,” spooks, etc.

^[117] The “second death.” The soul must be freed from this astral form before it can enter the gods’ race (heaven).

^[118] The five tattvas.

^[119] Jacob Böhme says about the power that lies in the name of Jesus: “The syllable Jh e is his humiliation from the Father into humanity, and the syllable S u s is the souls’ introduction through heaven into the Trinity; how then this syllable (this power) pervades everything” (“Three Principles” XXII, 87.) — Man should remember that at this moment he is standing before the face of the Holy Trinity, and that God is truly in him and is present besides him; by virtue of the Holy Scriptures, which say: “Am I not the one who fulfills all things? — The word is near to you, namely as in your mouth and heart — the kingdom of God is within you.”

^[120] The mind in us is not a product of the thoughts, but the Thinker himself who creates the thoughts.

^[121] John XIII. 8-10.

^[122] Hebrew IV. 12.

^[123] Bhagavad Gita V, 38. This rebirth is therefore not only a psychic but also a physical process. Luke VII. 50.

^[124] John III. 5.

^[125] I. Corinthians XIV. 2.

^[126] Bhagavad Gita. II. 12, 17, 28.

^[127] {R.H.—Bible, Revelation 3:16}

^[128] We cannot come into the Spirit of God in any other way than by entering into that Spirit and allowing it to awaken in us. It is filled with that spirit to which the soul (the ego) devotes itself, and this spirit becomes its essence. Just thinking of that spirit, or trying to visualize it objectively, serves little; hence the Bhagavad Gita, from beginning to end, teaches that knowledge and practice must go together, and one is imperfect without the other.

^[129] The commonly used translations of the Bible are very erroneous, and the omission and distortion of various words of the original Greek, evidence that the translators misunderstood their meaning. {R.H.—The King James Red Letter Edition has: “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into they closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”}

^[130] [R.H.—Dr. Hartmann made some obvious errors with the Greek script text as well as breathing diacritics; I have corrected them here.]

^[131] Matthew XVI. 11.

^[132] John VI. 35.

^[133] Galatians VI. 7.

^[134] {R.H.—

oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ tat saviturvareṇyaṃ

bhargo devasya dhīmahi dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt. }

^[135] Bhagavad Gītā. XVII. 26.

^[136] Bhagavad Gita VIII, 5.

^[137] Anyone who knows this love will not ask why one should not hate anyone, kill animals and even wantonly destroy plant life, etc. All such questions are answered by divine love and inner knowledge by oneself.

^[138] [R.H.—This expression is the more spiritual one if we compare Aleister Crowley’s selfish: “Do What Thou Wilt.”]

^[139] Of course, every human being must be free to form his own exclusive circle or family circle; this is a private matter. But when such a circle occupies a dominant position, the natural result is sectarianism.

Mysteries, Symbols and Magical Forces by Franz Hartmann, M.D.

Mysteries, Symbols and Magical Forces by Franz Hartmann, M.D.

Contents

Foreword.

I The Inner Life.

II Self-Consciousness

III. The Way

I. Viveka. (Discrimination.)

II. Viraga. [vairāgya] (Unselfishness)

III. Sādhana Sampatti (The Six Virtues)^[33]

2. Damas. [dama] (Self-restraint.)

3. Uparana [uparati] (Obedience: desisting from sensual enjoyment or any worldly action)

4. Titikscha [titikṣa] (Endurance)

5. Shraddha [śraddha] (Faith. Belief.)

6. Samadhanam. [samādhāna] (Sense of Purpose)

IV. Mumukshu [mumukṣu] (The will to be free.)

IV Symbols.

V. God and Nature.

VI Macrocosm and Microcosm.

VII. Spirit, Soul and Form.

VIII. “I”

IX The Word.

The Trinity (Trimūrti.)

I. Sattva.

II. Rajas.

III. Tamas.

A

E

I

O

U

X. The ABCs of the Inner Life or The Letters of the Soul.

I. The theory of life.

II. The means to the inner life.

III. The application of these forces.

Ι Λ Ο

XI. Mantrams. The Power of Prayer.

XII. Theosophy

@ 2024 Franz Hartmann Project.

Mysteries, Symbols and Magical Forces by Franz Hartmann, M.D.

Mysteries, Symbols and Magical Forces by Franz Hartmann, M.D.

Contents

Foreword.

I The Inner Life.

II Self-Consciousness

III. The Way

I. Viveka. (Discrimination.)

II. Viraga. [vairāgya] (Unselfishness)

III. Sādhana Sampatti (The Six Virtues)[33]

2. Damas. [dama] (Self-restraint.)

3. Uparana [uparati] (Obedience: desisting from sensual enjoyment or any worldly action)

4. Titikscha [titikṣa] (Endurance)

5. Shraddha [śraddha] (Faith. Belief.)

6. Samadhanam. [samādhāna] (Sense of Purpose)

IV. Mumukshu [mumukṣu] (The will to be free.)

IV Symbols.

V. God and Nature.

VI Macrocosm and Microcosm.

VII. Spirit, Soul and Form.

VIII. “I”

IX The Word.

The Trinity (Trimūrti.)

I. Sattva.

II. Rajas.

III. Tamas.

A

E

I

O

U

X. The ABCs of the Inner Life or The Letters of the Soul.

I. The theory of life.

II. The means to the inner life.

III. The application of these forces.

Ι Λ Ο

XI. Mantrams. The Power of Prayer.

XII. Theosophy

@ 2024 Franz Hartmann Project.

III. Sādhana Sampatti (The Six Virtues)^[33]