Chapter 4: The Inner JourneyALL GREAT GOALS in life need faith and courage.
Before you suffered on the “cross” you cannot celebrate your “resurrection.”
Before you learned to summon faith, the “fiery pillar” cannot guide your foot “on dry land through the midst of the sea.”
THERE STILL is much in you today that you will have to overcome, and even more you must in future learn to master if you are truly to move forward on your way.
The sea will threaten to devour you and in the desert you shall search for food in vain. Yet you must never let timidity and doubt detain you even for a moment if you have once resolved to enter on this inner path, which is to take you to yourself and, in yourself, to your eternal Living God.
How difficult this is you will discover only on the way itself.
But do not be afraid!
For on this inner journey you are not alone.
All those are by your side who went that way before you.
They, too, had once to face and overcome all dangers.
Not one of them had found the journey any easier than it will be for you.
But now they have ascended to the “promised land.”
They now have reached the end of all their labors and, from sacred mountains, are sending you support and inner strength.
FROM THE DOMAIN of those who, in their God’s most radiant light, are unified as One, a single, everlasting sun of suns—beings that, in godlike splendor, illuminate all suns and worlds within creation—down to those abiding here on earth unseen, in spiritual form and, finally, the Mediators, who still experience life as mortals: through this eternal hierarchy descending, the Spirit’s radiant current flows through all infinity; uniting, in sublime identity of will, all those that manifest its power.
But on the lowest rung of this eternal “Jacobs ladder,” the level nearest you in life on earth, there you will find the inner helpers who can offer you their hand, provided that you want their guidance.
They shall abandon none of those who strive to make their way through all the horrors of the night, searching for the peaceful, radiant sanctuary in which their Living God is to be born—from light to light—within their timeless soul.
Do not expect, however, that their help will reach you from without; for they shall be connected with you in yourself, as soon as you courageously begin your inner way. Your way shall be the same which any soul that ever found its Living God has had to journey. The inner guides, who now are helping you, have also gone that way in their own day, even though their spiritual self and essence had long before been carefully prepared, for thousands of years, in order to endow them with the power to perceive and clearly comprehend all spiritual reality.
Unless your guide be one of them, he cannot ever lead you to your goal, no matter what astounding feats or miracles he elsewhere might perform.
You WILL encounter many teachers who are false; teachers who themselves need sorely to be taught, and numberless conceited braggarts will flaunt their “knowledge” to impress you.
Also, you may come upon self-righteous “holy ones” who are consumed with vanity and count it as a worthy deed to see that others are seduced to honor their pretended “holiness” and “dignity.”
Again, you may be startled by outlandish pseudo-priests, seeking to bewilder anyone they can attract with the mysterious glitter of the magic symbols which, in their delusion, they stitched in imitation gold on their magician’s costume.
And if you should be careless even once, you also may quite easily get caught in sundry hidden snares, which few are able to escape again unharmed who once had been entangled.
Only being constantly alert can keep you safe from danger.
BEWARE OF all whose so-called wisdom touching God is taught and learned like any other subject studied by the human mind.
Beware of all who would seduce you by displaying occult powers.
There truly still are many things which even in this self-assured, supposedly “enlightened” age might strike you as a “miracle.” Nor is there any doubt that wondrous faculties lie hidden deep in human nature. But never could the Spirit of Eternity so utterly mistrust its own reality that it would stoop to “proving” its existence by performing public “miracles.” If some mysterious faculties reveal themselves in a particular person, it proves no more than that such faculties exist. It is no proof whatever that their owner has awakened in the Spirit as a conscious being and, therefore, can bear witness to eternal Truth, whose source is spiritual Reality.
Authentic witness of the truth is only proved by virtue of the miracle of spiritual awakening, which final truth is able to effect within the human soul. Therefore, you should not regard as truth whatever is not borne out by your innermost experience; provided you fulfill the spiritual conditions on which all such experience depends.
Forget as well the foolish notion that by consuming only certain foods, or by engaging in some foolish exercise, you might just eat or breathe yourself onto a “higher plane of spiritual life.”
The Mediators of the light that shines through all creation shall never tell you to employ such means.
Nor shall they ever ask you to withdraw from life among your fellow humans, so that you might indulge in secret, mind-deluding practices or esoteric rites.
They never shall invest you with arcane “degrees,” strange-sounding titles, or especial “honors,” which merely would abet your vanity and kindle foolish pride.
Only what is manifest in you as spiritual reality— because your own endeavor made it so—has any value in their eyes and it alone will tell them where you stand.
To be sure, you will not find these Mediators holding forth from rostrums, imitating actors of the stage, nor in the market place surrounded by large crowds.
Rather, they shall offer you their help in words that you may weigh within your soul, in quiet, when you are by yourself, not swayed by cunning rhetoric.
Their help will reach you in your soul, and they shall never seek to show themselves in person.
You NEED not recognize the Spirit’s Mediators, if in this life you ever were to meet one.
Nor is it necessary that you find them in their mortal form.
It is they who shall be finding you, and they know how to help you, even if you cannot fathom who that helper is.
Truly, they have other means of reaching you than do the vain impostors who seek to lure their flock with hints of hidden mysteries and ringing, hollow phrases.
Nor shall they ever ask for, or expect, that you pay money for their guidance; indeed, they all would rather give you their last penny than take from you so much as half a penny for their help.
What they have to bestow are treasures of the Spirit, and none who has the power to bestow such gifts would ever trade them for material things.
Only work that needs the tool of a material body may justly ask for payment in material coin.
LET All readers who have eyes to see and ears to hear protect themselves against pied pipers and deceivers.
They will not find it difficult to see through their disguises.
The Spirit’s Luminaries, who mediate eternal Light, are not, by contrast, quite so easy to identify.
You scarcely will detect them among your fellow mortals in this life, and nothing strange or special will betray them to your eyes; for they prefer to live in undisturbed obscurity.
Compelled to live amidst the turmoil of this world, they will be indistinguishable from all other honorable persons who go about their daily tasks.
Wise are those who put their trust in them!
But NOW, my friend, who would discover truth, let us withdraw to find a quiet place, and I will show you the beginning of your way.
Collect your thoughts and listen to my words; for surely, you are now sufficiently instructed to bring an open mind to what I further have to tell you.
BEFORE ALL else, my friend, who would find truth, you will have to forget and clear your mind of many things that you were taught.
Your teachers filled your head with false ideas of “God,” and thus destroyed in you, with baseless doctrines, the living seed from which should have arisen, out of your soul’s most hallowed waters, the “lotus flower” in whose blossom shall be born the Light that is to shine in you forever.
The Spirit that “hovered over the face of the waters” pervades all reaches of infinity, but you can only find that Spirit—in yourself.
Only if it will create and form itself in you—as light from light—and thus become your God, can you bear witness to its silent wonders.
Those who seek to “comprehend” the Spirit’s measureless infinity are very much deceived.
They haughtily assume their thoughts define the One whom all dimensions of creation do not grasp, and fail to see that they construed a mental phantom by whose power they are now possessed.
BUT WE WOULD once more sow today the seed of that eternal lotus flower in your heart.
Perhaps your soul will now provide the soil it needs to grow and flourish.
The day on which its blossom shall have fully opened, the self-begetting, self-sustaining Spirit of Eternity shall finally descend upon your soul and thus be born in you: to be your Living God—the God who lives within you.
Before you have experienced this, you do not know of God.
Distrust all those who tell you of a God they see in visions, a God one finds in ecstasy and trance.
Whatever can be found that way is but a phantom image of the inner world. You still have no idea what treasures you possess within your soul’s immense horizon.
One here encounters energies and forces which you would worship on your knees—like the prophet when he faced the burning bush—if I could make you see them with your eyes.Your soul is like an ocean, vast beyond all measure, and none has ever probed its depth, nor witnessed all the wonders of the energies that form this timeless sea.
You THINK your soul to be a kind of insubstantial “body’’ in which you will find nothing but yourself.
Yet in reality, your soul is like an ocean, composed of countless individual drops, each possessed of latent power: or like a cloud, alive with myriads of dynamic elements—and you are to assert yourself as lord and master of this host of forces.
Unless they clearly recognize you as their master, they will benumb you with their awesome powers and you will find yourself their slave.
Once you have subdued them to your will, they must be at your service, but if misplaced humility should make you kneel before them, their mystifying energies shall never cease deluding you.
They need a will of strong resolve, a will that shall unite them all within itself.Before you have united them within a single will, you cannot in your soul attain that state of inner quiet which alone will cause the lotus flower to develop and to blossom.
NOR SHALL your soul’s inherent faculties allow you any sooner to perceive within yourself that silent realm of spirits, which you may sense and feel, and sometimes even see and hear— once your soul is unified within a single will —because that realm abides in you, as it does everywhere, by virtue of the selfsame energies.
Nor can the one who guides you from the realm of Spirit any sooner offer you a lucid sign, nor shall you any earlier perceive within yourself the Spirit’s timeless rulers, the Luminaries, who mediate eternal Light.
If, therefore, you would find what you are seeking, you must above all else develop in yourself a clearly formed and steadfast will, determined to assert your self.You must be able to accept yourself if, in the Spirit’s world, you seek acceptance by the Spirit.
You cannot find yourself, nor your eternal Living God, except within your inmost self.
ENDEAVOR calmly to assert your inmost self within you, with quiet joy and with serene detachment, and turn away from all the images your still not self-collected, easily excited mind would force on your attention.
You need first to become profoundly conscious of your inmost self, secure in confidence and inner joy.
Before you have collected all your inner energies, securing your own confines on all sides —like an ocean self-defining its own shores, or like a cloud that wills its proper shape— you shall in vain endeavor to possess your soul, because its elements will only bow to someone truly worthy of their homage.Do not assume, however, that you might ever reach this goal by shunning all activity in outer life.
As a mortal born into this world of matter, you here must strive to be productive day by day; even as nature herself, of which you now are part, never ceases to create new life and forms.
Thus only shall you see your will grow strong as steel, so that your soul’s dynamic forces can obey it.
There is no single thing so small or unimportant in this outer life that you could not regard it as a lesson.
There is something to be learned in every moment you experience, and no activity or work is so ignoble in itself that it might not still teach you something new.
ABOVE ALL else, however, you must learn to gather and control your passing thoughts, and have them concentrate themselves on one thing at a time.Perhaps the most widely used and effective way to control cult members' thoughts is thought-stopping rituals. Members are taught to use thought-stopping on themselves. They are told it will help them grow or be more effective. Whenever a cult member begins to experience a "bad" thought, he uses thought-stopping to drown out the "negativity" and center himself, thus learning how to shut out anything that threatens his reality....
For more than twenty years, I used to purposely bring up a specific image when negative thoughts came into my mind -- especially negative thoughts about AMORC, which was the main source of my doubts....Every time a thought like this came into my head, I would, as instructed by AMORC, visualize a chosen master, someone from the Rosicrucian pantheon whom I truly respected. This would theoretically bring a spiritual influx into my immediate experience and deflect the negative energy. Of course, the natural person to choose was H. Spencer Lewis. Lewis was the founder of our order, the powerhouse who had found a true connection with the ancient order and resurrected it in the United States, the writer of the sacred monographs. Perfect choice. Given my circumstances, as you can imagine, I visualized him a lot. Unfortunately, owing to these continuous efforts, when I began to separate myself from AMORC, Lewis's face became a trigger point for me....When I reached the point where I began to intentionally mentally distance myself from the organization, his pictures persisted and began to flood my imagination. As my efforts increased, I was bombarded with the picture of his face day and night. Since I did not have any money to hire a therapist to help me deal with the problem, I started on my own, using what I called then the "brute force method." I started by deliberately visualizing the unsavory behavior of H. Spencer Lewis. By that time, I was convinced that he had used the name of God to enslave many of his children, and this was unsavory and wrong. I also started to mentally associate his image with the other brainwashers of the world, such as Jim Jones and Marshall Applewhite of Heaven's Gate and the like.
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The Prisoner of San Jose: How I Escaped From Rosicrucian Mind Control, by Pierre S. Freeman
Neither a hermit’s life in the desert, nor living among the wild beasts of the jungle could prove more beneficial to your goal than will the commerce in a busy city in which you are pursuing your own work.
When you have learned to not become distracted even in the loudest turmoil of this outer life; when you have gained complete control of all your thinking and your will; when your wishes only come and go as you would have them come and leave you—then only should you make the first attempt to unify within yourself the elements that form your timeless soul.Even then you may expect to face much opposition in yourself.
Although your will is now already formed and strengthened, you still may be asserting it in vain—for quite some time—in order to subdue the many elements within your soul that are reluctant to obey it.
Each element within your soul shall struggle to possess your will alone and by itself, and none shall readily become your will’s possession.
You shall more clearly understand this once you recognize that every element found in your soul —although you think of them as innate qualities of your own nature, inseparable from yourself—is, in reality, an independent, conscious being in the ocean of the soul; a being that is driven by the will to manifest itself alone, even if it were at the expense of all the other elements within you.But you must never feel discouraged in this continuing and often still unequal struggle to impose your will upon the many other wills that only want to manifest themselves within your soul.
You never must lose faith in your own powers.
And never must you lose your inner joy, nor your dispassionate serenity.
All your struggles now are but a constant test, both of your patience and of the strength you have already gained in practicing your will.
Be assured, however, that in this way you shall prevail and triumph in the end.
The DAY will come when you shall truly feel the joy of victory in every fiber of your being.
Then shall the “lotus flower’s” seed have opened, and on the Temple’s sacred pond, forever hidden from the sight of mortals, the inner eye of your invisible protector—in former days one knew him as the human being’s guardian angel—shall see a bud upon the motionless, mysterious waters.Full of joy he then shall call his Brothers, and from that day will chosen guardians protect the hallowed waters of your soul.
A “miracle” has here become reality.
A miracle, accomplished by a mortal. For, truly, it is easier to “hold a raging elephant by no more than a string of hemp, and guide him through a market’s busy crowd” than fully to unite, within a single human will, the countless wills that form a human soul.BUT NOW the light of day must softly bathe the flower’s bud, that it may one day bloom in all its splendor.
Trees of ageless majesty surround the mystery-enshrouded pond, protecting the still tender plant against the searing arrows of the sun, which at this time would only wither and destroy the barely sprouted seed.
The Temple’s mighty walls fend off the burning sandstorms from the desert.
Now, my friend who seeks the Truth, you will have to pursue a new activity.
But this new task indeed requires also outer calm and time for meditation.
You will be able to devote yourself to this, however, after you have finished with your daily chores, or in the peace and quiet of the early morning.
You now must learn how to give voice to inner questions, quietly and calmly, and then to listen for an answer in yourself.
You cannot be too silent as you pursue this task.
What still abides concealed within your depth, but soon shall be revealed, cannot be heard while noisy thoughts are rushing through your mind.
It speaks within your heart of hearts, but you can still not hear its word, because its voice is fainter than the call of a bird far in the distance.
Be very careful, lest it shy away.
Pay close attention even to its faintest sound.
Its voice in you can easily be missed if you will not keep perfect silence.
At first your inner questions will be answered in a voice so faint that even a breath in your soul would scatter its sound to the winds.One day, however, you shall truly learn to hear that inner voice, and will be able to distinguish it from any other voice that you might hear within you.
You will not hear the Spirit’s voice the way your ear perceives external sounds.
Nor will you hear it speaking in your native tongue, nor in any other language spoken on this earth.
Yet what that voice shall have to tell you will be far more intelligible to your understanding than anything you ever heard from childhood on in words of any human tongue.
FROM HERE on you will have to follow the counsels of that inner voice.All future progress on your inner way will henceforth be determined only by your loyalty.
Step by step you will begin to recognize how your own will no longer serves you merely as your mortal insight wishes, but that, instead, you can already redirect it, almost imperceptibly, according to the Spirit’s will, whose guidance you are given through that voice.
More and more deeply shall you penetrate into your soul’s profoundest mysteries.The more you may already comprehend, the greater mysteries you still shall fathom, hidden in dimensions unrevealed.
With gratitude receive and carefully preserve even the smallest insight that your soul will grant you; for if you gratefully accept what may seem little, you will the soonest know the full abundance of experience.
In the end you shall behold a realm of inner wonders of which no human words today could give you the faintest conception.
Events shall happen in your life which you today would call impossible, and such they truly are—today.
But the most astounding of all wonders, it will then appear to you, is that so much power should be granted you; for now you need no longer wait in anxious doubt to see your deepest longing answered, because it henceforth shall fulfill itself: by virtue of its own inherent power.
IF YOU HAVE thus far always loyally fulfilled the expectations of your inner guidance, the lotus flower on the sacred pond within the Spirit’s temple shall slowly have unfolded more and more.
It now shall not be long before you see the day on which the fully opened blossom will shine upon the waters in a light whose radiance is not of this material earth.
Know, then, my friend, who would find truth, that you have come to see the day on which the Will of God reveals itself—as your own Living God—in your eternal self.
As God is born in you, so are you born in God.
What here is done remains a mystery which even those who have awakened in the Spirit do not see.
To BE SURE, you cannot yet forgo your inner guide; but you will henceforth be united with him in a different way.
Already when the lotus bud has surfaced on the waters, it may be that you will behold your inner guide before you in a nonmaterial image, provided you possess the faculty one needs for such perception.
What you shall thus behold, however, is not your inner guide himself.
It rather is a likeness of his person, molded by his will from certain “plastic” energies within your soul.
Be grateful if your inner guide is able to be near you in this way; if he can teach you through his likeness, so that you feel as if you heard his voice.
Yet do not be concerned if in this life you never see your teacher’s likeness face to face.
Only in exceptional cases can he thus appear to you in visual form, and he never shall approach you in this way if it might cause you any harm, or tempt you to misuse your soul’s potential for the sake of seeing other things.
It is better for you never to behold your teacher’s likeness than risking that his influence upon the elements that form your soul might also render them susceptible to forces that deceive.
If, thus, you do not see your inner guide, you will the more securely feel his presence in your heart; and what your eyes may not perceive without, shall manifest itself the more concretely to your inmost comprehension.Now, HOWEVER, that your God is born in you, as you are born in God, your inner guide shall manifest himself within you only in his spirit’s highest life: united with your inmost self and with the voice of your eternal Living God.
Whenever he is with you, it will appear to you as though your consciousness and his were only one.
He shall no longer guide you by his teachings, but rather open up to you his very self; and from the treasures of his inner life you will select and make your own whatever you still need.
Above all this, however, the joy of God will shine in sun-like splendor, and what you once had suffered in your quest for light and knowledge, before you found your inner way, shall now seem like the torments of the damned that you had lived through long ago.
Before your eyes expanding you behold eternity, whose farthest depth will make you fathom ever deeper realms, feeling certain in the knowledge that, united with your Living God, you will proceed from mystery to mystery forever without end.
If you observe yourself amidst the joys and sorrows of this earthly life, you still shall only see a mortal—and yet, your spirit, radiant in your Living God, shall be exalted far above all physical mortality; for now your soul is made a kingdom in the spheres of the eternal, a heaven in the realm of heavens.
THIS, THEN, is the inner way, my friend, that you will have to choose and follow to the end, if you would truly find your Living God.
The way to God is in you—within your very self!
No other way shall ever lead you to your highest goal: to your awakening within the kingdom of the Spirit.
If you do not awaken in that realm while you still live your life on earth, you will continue sleeping, for a long time, also in your life beyond, when you have left this mortal world. Eternities may pass before one in that other life can finally awaken you: from dreams which you yourself brought into being and which may then enslave your consciousness for eons.
Now LET ME also offer you the following advice:
Once you have decided to pursue your inner way, you shall be needing a resilient “staff" that will support you on your journey.
You shall not lack the proper “wood” to fashion such a staff if in yourself you can detect and feel the latent energy contained in words, such as it manifests itself in every human language.
Find some words that touch your heart; words by which you feel inspired, stirred, and inwardly uplifted.
Set aside a little time each day and, if you can, at always the same hour; a time when you may seek to penetrate the spirit of such words in contemplation and will not be disturbed by duties of your daily life.
Continue using such a word that moved you, in your daily contemplation, and let it be an exercise to school your thinking for some time to come; much as a player on the flute repeats the same phrase many times, until it gains its purest sound.You will find many words throughout this book that lend themselves to such an exercise in thinking.
More I gave you in my other books.
To be sure, you are not obligated to confine yourself to words included in my texts.
The sacred writings of humanity are rich in words that may inspire and uplift your soul.
Sages and poets have given the world such words in abundance.
The only danger you incur by using words from other sources is that you also will absorb the error-laden doctrines which lack of insight and conventional interpretation will lead you to read into those words.
Thus, I would advise you, at least in the beginning, rather to select your words from books I wrote; given that you are resolved to trust me with your guidance.
Begin, then, as I already told you, by searching with your mind for the profoundest meaning of the words you chose.
Next, however, try to find a way of thinking without “words.”
Do not give up until you feel assured that— through this wordless comprehension—you have completely grasped the deepest meaning of those words.
At the same time, write the words in your own hand, clearly, and apart from others, by themselves. and let your eyes create an image of them that you can retain.
Now try to feel the words you chose as if they were your own.
Seek thereafter to create within yourself the spiritual consciousness that moved their author to express those words.
Try to awaken your sense of inner hearing by listening for the sound those words produce within you.
When you are certain that you have achieved results in all these forms of comprehending, you will be ready to proceed—but only then, even if you do not reach this point for quite some time.
I must expressly warn you: do not take this admonition lightly and proceed too soon!To be sure, you well may think that all this can be easily accomplished in the space of a few hours.
Perhaps, indeed, you feel already certain, even as you are receiving these instructions, that you no longer really need to practice such a way of comprehending.
Many who had once intended to pursue their inner goal fell by the wayside—at the very start—because they held that view.
There is far more demanded here than you at first are likely to suspect.But often one must speak of things that are profoundly different by using terms that, on the surface, seem to be quite similar.
Thus, you here need not possess what one might call an “ear for language,” although a person who intuitively senses the rhythm, sound, and inner weight of words is not too far from understanding what the present task demands.
But if you truly have accomplished everything that is required, you shall have gained a new and much expanded sense of your existence, a far more conscious way of living your external life; and this will give you the assurance that you are safe from any form of self-deception.
Then, my friend, who seeks the highest of all human goals, you may continue on your way.
You now must try to feel those words within yourself, with your entire being.
Those words must now begin to come alive in you.
Not just your soul should now be penetrated by the spirit of those words, but all your body must begin to feel them: in its every fiber.
With yourself, your soul, and your whole body must those words now be completely fused into a single consciousness.
Your mortal body must become the very body of those words, as if no other life were active in its form.
The elements that shape your soul, already integrated fully with your will, must now be also integrated with the words you chose; and you must feel yourself as if you were the very consciousness alive within those words.
With the attainment of this goal you have accomplished something great.
For the first time you shall here encounter Life itself: the energy that is alive in you and in all living things.
It will appear to you as if you had awakened on a new and different earth, within a world you never dreamed existed.You shall perceive and comprehend that the condition mortals call their “waking state” is in effect a deep, lethargic sleep and muddled dream.
ALREADY HERE you may begin to see the Spirit’s world with clarity, provided that your innate faculties allow for such perception and, owing to your nature, your strength lies more in visual than in conceptual experience.
But if your faculties are such that you can only apprehend what you would know if you are able conceptually to grasp it, then you will not so much behold as rather comprehend the insights you receive.
In either case, however, you now shall have become a new and very different being; for you have gained a consciousness of your own self to which your present sense of being can hardly be compared.
For even as a little oil lamp’s flicker will vanish in the radiant sun at noon, so too shall be absorbed and vanish, in a new and different consciousness, what you today still call your “self-awareness.”
You then will understand the reason why an ancient sage once spoke of life as of the “light of men”; and you will comprehend the depth of the majestic words that have inspired so much commentary:
“In the beginning is the Word, and the Word is with God, and God is the Word.
“In it all things have life, and its life is the light of men.
“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot put it out.THE AUTHOR of those words knew very well what he was saying, and so shall you, when you have reached that threshold on your way.
But remember, “the kingdom of heaven submits to force, and only the forceful shall seize it.”Without controlling your impatience, without untiring practice of your inner faculties, you cannot rightfully expect success.
Yet do not think that stubborn, blind exertion or convulsive strain might ever bring you closer to your goal.
For that is not the meaning of this admonition.
You must at all times feel surrounded by an atmosphere of quiet joy and of dispassionate serenity, and all your care must be directed toward attaining, with utmost sensitivity, the keen perceptiveness within yourself of which I spoke above.
You need more “force” to curb your passions in this way than you should want for some heroic deed, conspicuous for all the world to see.
If, however, you have carefully considered what I told you, and will in future undertake what is required, then I can offer you assurance that also you shall one day find yourself among those granted to perceive, within themselves, the mystery of “the kingdom of heaven.”
BEGIN, THEN, your demanding inner journey!May never-failing patience accompany your efforts to the end!
Help and guidance from above shall always be beside you.
Do not look back upon the life that is behind you: the past with all its joys and sorrows, its good deeds and its wrongs.
Also bear in mind that for your task it is of no importance whether you have mastered all the learning of this world, or whether you rank last among the uninstructed.
Do not attempt to live in separation from your fellow human beings, nor ever think that you might benefit by choosing an eccentric way of life, cultivating habits that ignore the customs of your time and place.
Even less important for your inner journey shall be what you eat and drink; for nothing here can either help or harm you, as long as it will keep your body in good health.If you prefer avoiding the meat of slaughtered animals, by all means, do avoid it; and if you would abstain from wine, then simply do not drink it; but you ought never to imagine that such a choice will make of you a “purer,” let alone a “morally superior,” human being.
The same is to be said concerning physical passion between man and woman.
Let not your drives reduce you to the level of a brute, but always keep them firmly tamed, that they may never vanquish you against your will and render you their slave. Yet do not blasphemously scorn a mystery that you can only comprehend in all its purity when you yourself shall have awakened in the Spirit.
Not without having probed the very depth of Being did priests of ancient cults declare the symbols representing procreation to be sacred. And, truly, what they venerated here was more than just an image of nature’s inexhaustible fertility.
Abstention is demanded only where the untamed passion of your drives might lead to harm, both to yourself and others.
Abstention is demanded from all vices, because they soon would stifle and, in the end, extinguish your lofty striving toward the Spirit.
Avoid all things that might bring harm to others, or yourself.
You even should avoid all heartless thoughts!
Feel love for your own self! For if you cannot love your very self, you will show little kindness for another if you but “love your neighbor like yourself.”
Pursue the path that you have chosen, but also let all others follow theirs; even should their goals lie far behind your own.
You do not know when others’ time has come, and thus you have no right to interrupt their sleep.
Do not imagine that you could awaken them; for none of them escape their sleep before their time has come.
But if their hour is approaching, then they themselves shall ask you to instruct them.
Only then are you allowed to speak of what you know.
And only then shall your assistance also be effectively supported by the Luminaries, who mediate eternal Light.
You are not called upon to guide another to the Spirit, from within the Spirit’s realm, and those entrusted with that calling shall never pressure anyone to follow and accept their guidance.
Set out, then, on your inner path to your own self, in quiet joy and confidence.
The way to your own self shall take you to your inner guide, in the domain of your eternal soul, and he shall lead you, in yourself, to your sublimest goal.
Your way to your own self is, in the end, your way to God.
For never shall you know of God unless you find your Living God’s true Being—within your inmost self.
BUT NOW I want to tell you also more of other things, which will enable you to understand the workings of the Spirit’s world on earth, as well as other hidden laws—if, indeed, it is your honest will to know the Spirit’s ways.
I shall adorn your house with festive garlands.
Garlands braided out of flowers I collected on my highest paths, and at my final journey’s end, within my blossoming garden.
Do not despoil those garlands, but leave each flower where you find it.
For otherwise you will not grasp, in undistorted clarity, the one great Truth which every sentence of this book would make you see.
And then you might not comprehend the mystery that here reveals itself in silent words: the mystery of Life divine in mortals—the mystery that is the Living God.