[Theosophie. Die Wahlverwandtschaften geistiger Kräfte.]
Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl[1]
As two parts:
Part 1[2]
Before we attempt to engage in a rational manner to exploring the interactions and elective affinities of any force, be it physical, psychic, or spiritual, the foremost question arises: What is “force”?
Observation and external as well as internal experience teaches that “force” is a property or function of something called “stuff” or “matter”; namely, a movement which, by its nature, can only be the expression of an energy, since inanimate matter cannot move by itself. In fact, the existence of any matter is entirely unproven and contradicts every sane philosophy, unless by “matter” we mean “substance” (from sub = under, and sto = to stand), i.e., is understood to be that principle which is the basis of all existence. However, this principle cannot be anything other than an energy, because without an effective cause nothing at all could exist. The “substance” cannot be its own cause; it must have a cause why it is there, and that cause could produce nothing unless it were an agent. According to this view, everything we call “substance” or “matter” is nothing other than the appearance that has come into existence, produced by the action of an energy which has come into force, which in itself must be of a substantial nature; for a movement of nothing, without a basis for its existence, is an absurdity and unthinkable.
This universal force, which the ancients called “prima materia” and which Schopenhauer describes as the “will,” corresponds to what is called in Sanskrit “Akāśa” and is perhaps best described as “space” or the “world force,” whereby we must not imagine “space” as an “empty nothingness” or as a bubble filled with world ether, but as the extension of the infinite world-force that is being discussed, and its cause in itself as something lies unknown to us, which we cannot grasp precisely because it is infinitely greater than ourselves, and which we call “God” or “God’s will” without having moved closer to an intellectual understanding. Seen from the spiritual standpoint, the universe appears to us as a revelation of the power and glory of the Nameless Eternal One; the “stuff” as accumulated and manifested energy; the “Force,” in whatever form it may manifest itself, as an expression of that energy, which may be called the Universal Will, governed by a law of nature, acting in its own “substance” or essence, of itself, on all planes of existence, on the physical, mental and spiritual level, can produce bodily forms, be they visible or invisible to us. But this also agrees with the religious teachings of different peoples; because the Bible, for example, teaches that everything is made of the Word (Logos). The “Word” signifies life working from within outward, and the doctrine of the Indians therefore agrees with that of the Christians in affirming that all that exists is but a revelation of the working of the One Life-principle in the universe, whose source is Ātmā, the mind, that is, “consciousness.” “Matter” is an appearance and as such a property of this world principle. What we call a “form” has no absolute existence per se, but is only a sum of properties; but the power which produces these appearances is eternal and unchanging, though it manifests itself in innumerable different forms and appearances.
Is this “exact science”? — It depends on what you mean by that. Many understand “exact science” to mean that pseudo-knowledge that one acquires by shutting oneself off from all higher impulses and perceptions, rejecting all spiritual perception as a game of the imagination, wanting to know nothing about anything other than what one can grasp with one’s hands and take with oneself, perception through the physical senses; that supposed knowledge which arises from considering the appearance of a thing to be essential and the essence itself to be accidental.
The time of this “exact science,” which is called “blind materialism,” seems to be concluded, and it is not worth bothering to say more about it. Stupidity gets in its own way everywhere, so it can’t see anything and nothing can be proven to it because it can’t understand the evidence.
On the other hand, there is another really exact science, which consists in recognizing not just appearances but the truth, and indeed this knowledge springs not merely from the impressions received through the bodily senses, but from the ability to feel the higher and nobler in nature, from the possession of a clear intellectual vision and clear judgment; but especially from observing the forces at work in one’s own soul after they have awakened to life and become conscious in us. External and superficial observations only reveal superficial things. If you want to find the pearl of truth hidden at the bottom of the sea, you have to dive down where the water is deepest. He must draw his knowledge from the source of truth and not from human fantasies and theories.
One of the most famous astronomers of our time, Camille Flammarion, says:
“Infinity! Eternity!—The study of astronomy bathes and drowns us in it. With what standard should we measure that?—If we could travel with the swiftness of lightning, it would take us millions of years to reach the regions where the more distant worlds gleam; but having arrived there, we would find that we have indeed not come a step closer to the limits of space, for space is limitless, the infinite without limit, and everywhere, in all directions, are so many worlds so many successive suns that if a photographic plate were exposed long enough, it would eventually be covered with so many luminous points that the whole would present but one luminous sky; for everywhere we look there are numberless suns, one behind the other.
“And we live on one of those worlds, and one of the least, at some point of boundless infinity, illuminated by one of those numberless suns, within a finite horizon, like silkworms in their chrysalis. We know nothing of all the causes of these phenomena; we ourselves are creatures of the moment who disappear again; whose knowledge goes no farther than mere appearances, and whose range of vision is comparatively as good as nothing, yet large enough for us to fancy we know something; nay, we even flatter ourselves and are filled with a feeling of conceit, believing that we rule nature; we pride ourselves not a little on what we take to be reality and which is nothing but an empty appearance.”
But just as it is on the outside, so it is on the inside. There, too, appearances are to be found on the surface and reality in the depths. No human being has, as yet, fathomed his own nature with earthly common sense. There, too, he finds infinity, if he penetrates deeply enough, there too are immeasurable worlds, an infinite space. There, too, is no end—no end! There, in the little world we call ours, as in the great world which surrounds us, we find the same forces and qualities, conscious and unconscious states of our own selves, and at last reach that depth where all concept of personality and limitation ceases and the all-consciousness of God begins.
Space, force, matter, energy, property are words that basically mean one and the same thing, albeit related to different ways of looking at or imagining that we hold of that One. “Space” is the extension of the world energy, “Force” is its expression, “Matter” is its appearance; Qualities are the manifestations of forces, bound energies that become force when acted upon. So, for example, consciousness is a state, a quality, but also a force and space. It can be limited to a mere point, or extend into infinity. Purity of heart is a quality, but at the same time a condition, which gives the soul the power to keep at bay all that is impure and contrary to its nature. Knowledge is a power that enables man to accomplish works, which may be all the greater than this knowledge. Stupidity is a power that rules the world and closes the entrance to knowledge; Self-conceit is a force that prevents man from seeing the truth; Selfishness, superstition, bigotry, malice, envy, anger, etc. are qualities, but also powers, because they give man the power to harm himself and others. Heat and light are properties, but they are also forces; for heat warms the body and light makes it glow, and if bodies did not possess these powers, these qualities would not exist in them either. The more the quality of a general principle is manifested in a body, the more power that body acquires to exercise that quality; be it consciously or unconsciously. After all, all forces are nothing other than forms of the activity of the universal spirit in nature, which reveals itself under different conditions and gives the individual beings their properties and thus also their individual powers. An acorn reveals the power by which an oak tree can grow without the acorn knowing it; but the man who has awakened to self-awareness can intelligently use the powers that nature has bestowed on him in order to create the conditions under which higher and higher spiritual powers can reveal themselves in him and thereby give him higher and nobler qualities.
The greatest of all spiritual powers, which raises man above his own animal nature and above all illusions, is the knowledge of truth. However, this does not mean the understanding of any theory, but the realization of the truth in man himself, quite apart from all his opinions, theories, his thoughts and delusions. We know what we ourselves are as soon as we really see it and no “explanation” is needed. All explanations and theories can only serve to free us from errors that stand in the way of our knowledge of the truth; true knowledge is not determined by mere knowing, but by becoming. No one can reveal the truth in another human being; only truth itself does this. As in the animal kingdom one animal feeds on another, likewise on the intellectual plane a man feeds on the fruits which another has grown in the garden of his thoughts; but the Spirit of God is free, and the man in whom this spirit of Self-knowledge has come to consciousness lives in the knowledge of truth, exalted above all fleeting opinions and theories, in his own infinite and immortal self; a state not to be brought about by imagination, but attained only by the manifestation of that spiritual power within. Darkness cannot create light from itself. When the light reveals itself, the darkness disappears. Likewise, no wisdom can spring from man’s self-conceit; when wisdom is revealed, self-conceit and foolish opinions come to an end. Therefore, wisdom is a power that conquers stupidity.
An imaginary confidence that this or that is true, even if based on the best reasons, is not self-knowledge of the truth. The truth is only really recognized by a person when it is realized in himself, i.e., when it reveals itself as a living force in his self-consciousness, and he has entered into full agreement with it, so that he can say in truth—not only: “I recognize what is true,” but: “I am the truth itself!” This does not mean, however, that one should not listen to a theory and blindly reject the opinion of another. Right theory is the means to right practice; but it is not knowledge itself.
The first condition for knowing the nature of any power or quality is its possession. We recognize the effects of external forces that we do not possess ourselves, but not their essence. In order to know the essence of a thing itself, it must be a part of our own essence that we feel; for only the same can really recognize the same; no one can have self-knowledge of anything but himself and what is implied within it. No one can know what hunger is if he has never felt it; no one knows love but only the one who owns it; the unconscious cannot know consciousness, death cannot know life. To argue about the possibility of the existence of a higher form of consciousness than the ordinary one with those who do not know it, is pointless; for as long as they do not possess and feel something higher, it has no existence for them either.
Part 2
Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl[3]
Anything beyond our experience is mysterious and “occult” to us. Man, regarded as an intellectual animal, knows nothing of spiritual powers. But when a spiritual force is born in man’s consciousness, it becomes effective in him; he recognizes it and it ceases to be an unknown thing to him; he then needs no further scientific proof of its existence; it is part of his own self and recognized as such. There is no personal God [the reincarnating Ego or soul] for us as long as we do not feel him; but when the sense of divinity penetrates our consciousness, nothing prevents us from recognizing the manifestation of that spiritual power as a part of our own being. On the other hand, if we deny the possibility of realizing the divine ideal in the personal human being, we thereby prevent ourselves from coming into a godlike state. The ignorant cry out for proofs of the existence of God; but the manner in which the fire of divine love burns to ashes the illusion of selfhood, and the light of wisdom which comes from above has manifested itself, needs no proof. He is himself a god as soon as God has overcome and destroyed the animal elements in him.
The first step to attaining this objective is to attain purity. Man’s mind gathers and combines ideas, enacting a “built on sand” man-made edifice of pseudo-science, a patchwork composed of many chunks, in which perhaps a glimmer of truth may be found here and there; but real knowledge comes about when the light of eternal truth is reflected in the soul of man and penetrates it like the light of the sun through a spotless crystal. This knowledge is not, like external knowledge, a knowledge of appearances, a product of one’s own imagination: it does not belong at all to the external man, but to the God-man who has been reborn in him, and whose light can be reflected in the consciousness of the personal man. Even to “feel” the divine in oneself is to possess the germ of it, for only the sense of God in man himself can feel the presence of God in the universe; while, on the other hand, possessing the highest mental faculties is useless to us until we know them, and we do not know them until they have developed their powers and come to our consciousness. But once these qualities have become living forces in us, we can observe their nature and effect in ourselves just as well and even better than the physicist can observe the external phenomena of heat or electricity. Perhaps then, we will find that the mental powers too are nothing other than modifications of a single mental power, and that they are therefore all related, interacting and mutually dependent.
Purity is freedom. If we were pure from all selfhood and self-conceit, we would be free and would recognize that we are not limited creatures, but in our true nature are omnipresent, all-pervading, omniscient. Ātma is one and indivisible, it is everywhere. I am Ātma, but I am unable to realize it because I am attached to the [lower] ‘self’ and the ‘material.’ Once I realize Ātma, the mind, I realize myself in my real Self. Nothing hinders this spiritual knowledge other than that which does not belong to the spirit. In the superficial layers of the mirror of the soul, the phenomena of the sense world are reflected and evoke inverted images, like the trees on the shore of the lake; but in the depths rests the spark of knowledge of truth, which, becoming a flame, enlightens the whole realm of thought. The more the mind is filled with sensuous ideas, the more the sensuous sensations invade it, the less the truth will reveal itself. The Bhagavad Gita says: “When the outer eye of the soul opens, the inner one closes.” But when the soul turns away from the realm of delusion and is carried on the wings of will to the seat of truth, it opens the gate of the sanctuary where truth reveals itself. Heaven is essentially pure; it is only the clouds which hide the sun from us; the soul in its own being is pure and free as space; only the errors, “the evil sisters,” keep the “enchanted princess” captive in the fairy tale; the will illuminated by the light of understanding is the “king’s son” who sets them free.
Purity resides in the love of truth and not in the attraction of one’s “self.” But the love of truth is the love of that power which dwells in all things and holds and moves all worlds together, and this power is divine love itself. Whoever loves truth loves nothing else other than his divine Self, which is the Self of the universe. True love is therefore the anticipation of Self-knowledge. Whoever sacrifices himself to her sacrifices nothing, but gains everything; he gives up his captivity and enters purity and liberty through this “sacrifice,” which costs him nothing of real value.
Man is in his true nature “spirit,” an indweller of heaven; his material, limited form is the result of his material desires; he dreams of a material existence, and it appears to him as reality until he awakens to the self-awareness of his true nature. When he awakens, his will is free, but in the dream life of this world it is bound. The will of the human being who has awakened to true self-awareness is God’s will; if man recognizes himself in truth, he knows what the will of the highest is. Man is a spiritual, ethereal being inhabiting an animal-like material shell which he mistakes for his “self”; when he realizes his true nature, he is free of this shell, his “personality” (persona = mask).
This liberation from the illusion of self is the sacrifice, which is not a “sacrifice,” but a liberation, but which cannot be made from the love of “self”; for self cannot overcome self, illusion cannot overcome illusion. This liberation is by the power of the realization of the Divine Self within us, which is our non-Self from the material point of view, but the true sole Self of all humanity from the spiritual point of view. There is no talk of “absorption in nothing” but of a merging into the deity. A block of ice forms in the ocean; it differs from water only in form, but not in essence; it melts and is what it was before. In the general consciousness, the illusion of selfhood is formed as a result of the desire for personal existence. If the form disappears, nothing is gained, for then the selfhood with its entourage is always present. But if it is overcome, then man is again one with the God-man, just as the spark rises in the flame and thereby becomes one with the light. The distinction between the eternal and the ephemeral is the key to the great mystery. Seek to capture it and open the gate of immortality! That which is true is pure, for it is free from lies; pure is the real, for it is free from falsehood; pure is the innocent, for it is free from sin; love is pure when it is free from egoism, renunciation is pure when it is without expectation of reward. Knowledge is pure when it is free from error; from it springs rest, and in rest there is contentment, but in contentment there is happiness, for it consists in the absence of all desires and unfulfilled expectations. Rest is the condition for the revelation of wisdom; for only in the mind which is not moved by passions can truth be reflected in its clearness and the image of God is attained in man.
Purity is freedom; for he who is clean of all desires is free from the delusion of selfhood and thus becomes master over his own self. Where selfhood ceases, there is nothing left to subordinate and nothing to govern. He who is free of self is one with the law that is above all. Freedom is the law by which all mankind, and through mankind, all nature, strives. freedom is real life; for it is that “highest state in which there is no death. The form dies; the activity of life therein ceases; but life itself does not die. True freedom consists in obedience to the law of God, the law of God is God’s will; the will of God is love and love is the power of knowledge. God wills nothing other than to reveal himself for himself, and he that strives to obey the law, and thereby make possible the revelation of God in his own person, loves God alone; but not the one who presents him with howling and shouting his personal wishes, or tries to persuade him with drums and whistles to do his bidding. The will becomes free through the knowledge of the truth; the freedom of the will reaches as far as knowledge itself. The will of God is free. When the will of man has attained true freedom, it is one with the will of God and the divine will itself. There is no difference between two forces which are identical with one another. Freedom is the consummation of love, the union of man’s love for his true divine self with God’s love for his manifestation in man. This love is the Knowledge itself. Whoever increases in the power of spiritual knowledge grows in love. Merely intellectual knowledge does not produce true love, and sensual affection does not produce true knowledge; but true love springs from the knowledge of the unity of the whole, and through that love the divine essence in all things is known.
It is with spiritual powers as with the chicken and the egg. If the hen were not there, the egg would not be there, and without the egg the hen would not be there. One causes the other and one springs from the other; in the eternal there is no “first” and “last.” If I recognize my own true self as God, then I also offer everything I offer only to myself. By letting go of the empty illusion, I come to the knowledge of the real being; but just this knowledge must be present to a certain degree to enable me to renounce appearances. Whoever gives everything is free and no longer bound to anything; but whoever gives this in order to attain freedom gains nothing; for he is still driven by the desire to achieve something for himself; only the feeling of the bliss of freedom enables man to renounce everything, and this freedom is a power, for otherwise one could not feel it. The quality becomes a force that can be felt as it becomes conscious within us. A king who feels nothing of his kingship is incapable of ruling; a man who does not know his human dignity is an animal. Awareness of the state one is in, gives the power to unfold the quality.
Freedom is not bound to any place; the free spirit is everywhere and can work in any place where it puts its consciousness. The body cannot participate in this freedom, it is bound to place and time; but the mind that has attained freedom is free. From the consciousness of freedom, justice becomes evident. So long as the soul is captivated by personal inclinations, it cannot grasp the justice which ascribes justice to all creatures; but he who is exalted above everything is not bound to anything individual; he recognizes the reality in a gnat just as well as in an elephant. The nourishment of freedom is love, because it strengthens knowledge. The symbol of freedom is represented by the cross, which signifies self-sacrifice, the death of matter, and the liberation of spirit through union with divinity. Shackled with the bonds of sensuality, caught by self-delusion, the soul sleeps and dreams, having forgotten its divine lineage, its heavenly home; she is subjected to a constant alternation of life and death until, by overcoming the illusion, she awakens again to the consciousness of reality and sheds the veil that hid freedom from her.
In the sense of anticipation of this freedom, which comes when the power of knowledge begins to stir, there is belief, it is like the definite perception of a ray of light penetrating through the mist, and whose source is the central sun of the universe. It is not yet full knowledge, but only the beginning of it. As the soul rises in the power of this faith, the fog recedes and the sun appears in its glory. Thinking and imagining have nothing to do with belief; they are powerless and are not beliefs, even when the opinions adopted are derived from the most reliable authorities. No man has come to true knowledge by basing his “belief” on the conviction of any person’s respectability and love of truth. “Theosophistry” rests on such a basis, but not the knowledge of God (Theosophy). The assumption of theories, true or false, does not contain knowledge. True faith does not consist in dogmas and opinions, but is the path of light that leads to knowledge, and one can have true faith even without being scientifically educated or versed in theology. The beginning of this path is light, its center is the Word, which springs from the feeling in the heart of man; its end is the perfect revelation of the divine existence—not of the existence of another, but of the one who is the essence of all, and therefore also our own essence. Truth leads to clarity and clarity leads to truth. Darkness leads to light, and light needs darkness to reveal itself. Purity is the way to freedom, and the dawn of the day of freedom is the moment when man believes, i.e., learns to distinguish between the eternal and the ephemeral. Anyone who has come to know the eternal has already attained immortality, for only the immortal in man can know immortality. The house in which freedom dwells is the omnipotence of the law, for free will is itself the law, all of nature obeys it.
Freedom means salvation. Man’s freedom consists not in letting the animal elements in him do their will, but rather in dominating the animal elements and forcing them to obey him. The salvation of man does not take place through a stranger, but only through the fact that he himself comes to knowledge. The personal material self is not redeemed, but at death its god redeems itself from it, and with that he also redeems everything from his person that has entered his divine nature. Therefore, wisdom is the gateway to freedom, and self-knowledge is the throne on which freedom dwells.
The light of truth shines on the path of life from above; but wisdom is born within man when he sees the light of truth. Love is the seat of faith and the seat of wisdom is the inner word that speaks the truth in the heart. Experience is the mother of knowledge; all knowledge that is not based on experience is only an illusion. The test of wisdom is righteousness, and the measure by which righteousness is measured is its deed. Wisdom is not a product of nature, but wisdom rules nature wherever nature obeys the law of wisdom. Therefore wisdom is a supernatural thing; but its revelation takes place in nature and not outside of it. The knowledge of God is a power higher than all mechanical powers, higher than all animal instincts, higher than all intellectual activities. What the ancient Indian sages taught us, and what our modern philosophers imitate, arose not from the keenness and cleverness of combining ideas in the minds of the sages, but from their knowledge of God. Wisdom does not exist in, nor is it created by, speculation or logic; it is self-knowledge based on nothing other than itself. Nature is a revelation of truth whose mother is wisdom. If all nature perished and heaven and earth disappeared, the wisdom of God would still exist, albeit in the unmanifested, and its will would bring a new universe into existence.
However clever and learned a man may be, there is no wisdom in him until true self-knowledge is manifested in him. Possessing this self-knowledge distinguishes the real sage from the dealer in scholarly stuff. True wisdom cannot be learned from books. Books can only point us to the path where we can find wisdom. Wisdom is communicated by no one but itself. All we see are symbols and representations of reality, not reality itself. If we misinterpret these symbols, there is no truth in them, nor are the symbols, but our own error to blame. The truth is always self-evident and needs no proof. It is a light, and whoever sees it understands it; but if you don’t understand it, you will never recognize it, despite all the “evidence.”
The purpose of wisdom is to reveal itself, to teach, to educate, to elevate man and to bring him to the consciousness of immortality; she frees him from error and ignorance, and teaches him to know his own higher nature as an intelligent force in the universe. Wisdom is the realization of the divine will, and that realization is becoming. “Thy will be done” which means, in other words: “Let us come to knowledge”; and no one hinders us from this but ourselves. To know exactly the relationships of things in external nature is science; but no wisdom yet. External science relates to transitory appearances; wisdom is the knowledge of truth, which is eternal and unchanging. Science is patchwork without this knowledge; it only becomes true because the basis of its knowledge is knowledge of the one eternal reality.
Through the revelation of truth within us, wisdom is born. She is the power by which the world is what it really is. If the world were not real, it would not exist at all. Some philosophers claim that the world exists only in their imagination; but my imagination changes nothing in the existence of the world. To be sure, I know nothing of the world other than what comes to my mind; but the reality is there, whether I imagine it or not. What we physically perceive is, of course, only an appearance, but behind the appearance there is reality; otherwise the appearance would not be there. The truth is the light and the forms are the shadows. Truth is life and forms are the means of revealing it. Through the knowledge of the truth, which is wisdom, an immortal god-man is born out of mortal animal-man. But this does not happen through theory, but only because the light of knowledge is revealed in us through deeds. The world is the “representation” of the divine spirit, and I am that spirit. However, as long as I do not recognize myself as this divine spirit, but merely imagine that I am it; my own existence, my “I,” is also nothing but a temporary illusion.
From wisdom comes beauty; for what is wise is good, and what is good is beautiful. The possession of wisdom glorifies the soul and, through the soul, beautifies the body, because the body is the outward expression of the soul. The love of wisdom is realized through obedience to what wisdom commands. This obedience is based on faith in the power of wisdom, and faith is conditioned by love; for “faith” without love is like a dead tree which bears no fruit. The highest human ingenuity can no more produce wisdom than a piece of iron can glow by itself; but as the iron becomes glowing through the heat, so is a clear understanding suited to be enlightened by the light of truth and to come to knowledge when the soul is aflame in the fire of divine love.
Theories change, but wisdom is eternal. Truth is immutable, but its manifestations vary according to the circumstances in which it is revealed. So also, the light of the sun is always present in space; but whether it is day or night with us depends on whether we are in the light or in the shadow. Wisdom is only one; but it may be manifest in a greater or in a lesser degree; just as sunlight is one, but shines with different intensities under different circumstances.
No man creates his own powers. No one is wise, good, beautiful, etc., except because wisdom, goodness, beauty, etc., are revealed in him. The principle is the essence, the form is only the appearance. All self-made wisdom, morality, purity, virtue, etc. are only delusions and deceit. Where self-delusion and self-conceit exist, nothing good can thrive. The self is an illusion and cannot produce anything other than illusions. He who believes that he is better than another will laugh at himself when he comes to the realization; for he then sees that he is nothing, but God is everything, and that it is only by becoming nothing in his selfhood, or rather by comprehending it, that the divinity in him can manifest divine qualities. The wise man seeks not to acquire spiritual powers for his personal use, but to be an instrument for their revelation; for just as the hammer is worth nothing without the smith, so too is man also worth nothing in the spiritual sense if his actions spring only from his own lower volition and not from the spirit of knowledge of the truth. For the real Theosophist, i.e., for the man who has attained true self-knowledge, there is no ‘I’ and ‘thou’, no ‘mine’ and ‘yours’; but only the sole Eternal with the multiplicity of its appearances. But this teaching will be incomprehensible to all who love themselves above all else; for only the truth in man can recognize the truth.
Truth means reality. Only what is true also exists in reality; everything else is just an appearance. The true appears to us as unessential as long as we do not recognize it and take appearances for reality. The truth is eternal and it doesn’t matter whether people recognize it or not; but man’s real self-conscious existence depends on his knowledge of the truth. Without this knowledge he himself is only a dream. The fools who do not love the truth close their eyes to it, and long for proofs that it exists; the wise see them and need no proof. The blind man seeks knowledge of the truth through argument and deduction; the wise leave error and enter truth. The life of truth is the death of error, and therefore those who love themselves and their errors will know nothing of the truth. They usually yell for her; but push her away when she approaches. The revelation of truth is the annihilation of self, which appears in the beginning as a bogeyman and in the end as a shining angel; for when the delusion of selfhood is overcome, we see that what was annihilated was but a shadow in the realm of light.
The source of wisdom is inexhaustible; it nourishes the soul and the soul grows up in it. The lotus flower of true self-confidence unfolds not through belief in authority, but through the light of wisdom, just as the calyx of the rose opens up in sunlight. The fruits of self-knowledge ripen in the light of truth, but the light does not diminish as a result. The whole universe is a mirror of truth; we see in it the images that the light creates, but the truth itself can only be perceived in the light of the truth that is within ourselves. This perception strengthens and reinforces faith, the soul of which is hope and permeated by love.
Hope in the spiritual sense is not an expectation of personal gain, but, just as the lark cheers for the coming sun without thinking of itself, so the soul rejoices in the confidence that the sun of wisdom will rise when the dawn appears.
The life of faith is the will. It is the basis of all existence; the will of all creatures to exist, whether conscious or unconscious, is the cause that creatures exist. Intellectual “negation” won’t help. As long as man’s will is stronger than his knowledge, he cannot get beyond the cycle of life. A will moved by imagination is an imaginary will; as long as man does not control his will through the power of knowledge, this will obeys the blind forces of nature in him, even if he imagines himself to be master of his will and actions. The will is not a product of man, but man is a product of his will. Man is the result of his actions in previous forms of existence, and those actions were determined by his will.
The will of the earthbound man is a delusion, a nothingness. His body follows the laws of material nature and his actions are governed by his desires. Man’s will only becomes his own when man has become one with the law through the power of knowledge. Then the spirit of the law rules in him, and this law is no other, but he himself.
Mind (consciousness) is the generator; the will is that which gives birth, the “substance.” The will is the soil in which the germs of feelings and desires rest; through the influence of the mind they develop into ideas; From these the thought grows and from the thoughts the deed arises. The will of the earthbound man is therefore nothing, because the knowledge-less man himself is nothing; he thinks he thinks, wants, acts, and it is only nature that feels, wills, acts, and thinks in him. “He thinks he’s driving, and he’s being driven.”
As the wind plays among the dry leaves and drives them here and there, so too is the will and thinking of the person who has no true knowledge is guided by influences that he does not know and cannot control. But the wise man has his will in his power and the spirit that penetrates his free will is faith, which can “move mountains” once it has become a “mountain” itself. As long as man has a wrong nature, to which he is bound because he does not know his own true nature, the will working in him is also wrong; but if he awakens to his true self-consciousness and if he enters into harmony with the divine will, his will is also God’s will and free. The reason why this does not happen is the ignorance of the material in which man is imprisoned. But ignorance has no basis, as Sankaracharya [Śaṅkara-ācārya] proved many centuries before Kant, and which, moreover, is self-evident; for ignorance is the absence of knowledge, and that which is not there has no cause of existence.
Since existence in itself is only one, there can only be one single reason for all existence; but the forms of existence are innumerable and therefore also have innumerable causes, which can all be traced back to a single basic cause, of which they are modifications. This root cause is Reality, but what it is is beyond intellectual conception and cannot be described; even though so much has been written about it; because it is infinitely greater than the limited comprehension of human beings.
Whether it can be mentally recognized there is no evidence that would satisfy the skeptic. Only those who have attained spiritual self-knowledge can really know this. Science can know nothing higher than the operation of the law, but not the law itself. God alone can know the law, he himself is the law. The law of God is perfect; but its effect is not everywhere perfect; for where the conditions under which it acts are not harmonious, there can be no harmony. What is called “matter” is opposed to spirit; the revelation of the spirit is hindered and perverted by the opposite will of the “material.” The will of God is his law, but that will is not subject to whims and caprices, desires and passions; it is divine precisely because it is one with the law, immutable, and itself is the law. But the effect of the law varies according to the circumstances in which it prevails. What is fitting and right for the animal is not always so for man; for among the animals egoism rules, which man should overcome. If all creatures had been arranged from the beginning in such a way that they had no egoism to overcome, they would have nothing to learn and there would be no individual power, no individual knowledge.
The law of God is harmony. The law of man is that he himself should overcome everything discordant in his nature and thereby enter into self-confident agreement with the harmony of the universe. Harmony is the breath of God in the universe and the life of the soul of man. The “science of the breath” cannot be practiced by anyone who does not know the harmony of the mind; for it is not a matter of the animal breath, but of the spiritual breath; no one has ever come to the knowledge of God by closing the nostrils.
There is no definition of “God”; we can only ascribe to it negative qualities, such as infinity, incomprehensibility. A god that I could understand intellectually would be smaller than my mind and therefore not a god for me. The limited cannot grasp the unlimited, the self, the selflessness. On the other hand, we can form certain ideas of the divine being, depending on the way in which its power is revealed to us. Therefore, when we call God, the nameless, by different names, we are only designating the forms of intuition under which the deity appears to us. All other scientific, philosophical, and theological speculations about the nature of Deity are foolish attempts to fathom the unfathomable, and proofs of the conceit of man who thinks himself greater than God.
We can imagine God as the all-self-consciousness in that state where disharmony no longer reigns, as the absolute existence which has no other cause than itself; as the source of all being and the essence of all things; as the only reality outside which nothing real exists; but all these designations are insufficient and do not suffice to give us a true conception of the divine nature. God is everything, and yet nothing that can be understood. To say, “God is space,” is folly; for “space” is not self-conscious, and an unconscious god is much less than a creature possessing consciousness, even if it were only a worm. True, since God is everything, He is also “Space,” but He is much more. He is neither this nor that. He is all things and yet not a thing. We can imagine his breath as the life in all, his will as infinite love, his justice as the fulfillment of the law, his word as all creation, his spirit as truth. When we see in him the source of all good, he appears to us as a loving father, as the source of all happiness, as bliss itself, which is of no use to us as long as we do not possess it ourselves. When he speaks to us through all nature, he appears as a divine teacher and in our hearts as the Redeemer. His rule in the universe is his will, his activity within man is the revelation of his wisdom, his dwelling is everything he has created, his seat in man is self-knowledge; he is also eternal rest, and the way to him is patience. His kingdom is wisdom, his word is truth, his life is light.
Since God is everything, he is also the Absolute, but the Absolute is not yet God. No positive qualities can be ascribed to God in His view as the Absolute; for all qualities, like existence itself, are relative, and the Absolute is unrelated. If nothing is real but God, then there is nothing to which he can be good or evil. God is therefore neither an angel nor a devil, neither good nor evil, neither moral nor immoral, neither virtuous nor bad. All such qualities arise from the relationships between creatures; But God is not a creature. “Good” is evil when out of place, and “evil” is good when necessary.
So God has no divine qualities for us. His divine qualities do not come into existence for us until we come to know them, and we do not really come to know them until they are revealed within ourselves. By doing so, however, we come into possession of these qualities ourselves and come to know the qualities of God as our own, having overcome the delusion of selfhood, and the question, “What is God?” can therefore only be answered when we know what we ourselves are in our true nature. But he who has found God in himself cannot describe him to any other, and would be understood by those who do not know God any more than God, whose whole activity is in nothing other than his Revelation, the revelation of which is the whole universe, and which is not understood despite everything, precisely because divine self-knowledge is not a matter for mortal man, and only the “Son of God incarnate” in man knows himself as the divinity.
Notes
[1] {Two Parts which I have combined into one document: Theosophy. The Elective Affinities of Mental Forces. [Theosophie. Die Wahlverwandtschaften geistiger Kräfte. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 7, no. 40 (January 1896), 24-37; Lotusblüten 7, no. 41 (February 1896), 89-121] This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}
[2] Theosophy. The Elective Affinities of Mental Forces. [Theosophie. Die Wahlverwandtschaften geistiger Kräfte. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 7, no. 40 (January 1896), 24-37] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}
[3] Theosophy. The Elective Affinities of Mental Forces. [Theosophie. Die Wahlverwandtschaften geistiger Kräfte. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 7, no. 41 (February 1896), 89-121]