Bô Yin Râ: "The Specter of Freedom"--Part 9 of 12: "Self-Realization"

A Three Sages Special

One of the most universally recognized formulations in modern human history is the phrase “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” stated as a principle by the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Indeed, we all have at least a vague awareness that these three elements are good, if not essential, for fulfillment of our life on this planet. Also, most of us, especially those in authority, adhere to our own perceived privilege, under a variety of circumstances, to deny these elements to one or more of our fellow human beings. Of course such denial also has limits, as expressed, for instance, in the U.S. Bill of Rights.

Which brings us to the question: What, really, is freedom?

While we wrestle with that question, we may recall the saying of Jesus, “The truth shall make you free.” (John 8:23)

What then, is truth? And how does that truth function in life to work its wonders and produce the stated freedom?

Bô Yin Râ

As readers of Three Sages are aware, for the past year we have been publishing selections of Bô Yin Râ’s spiritual writings, along with background and commentary. See additional selections of recent articles HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Bô Yin Râ was the spiritual name of Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken (1876-1943), born in Aschaffenburg, Germany, educated as a landscape painter, by spiritual pedigree a Luminary of Primordial Light, and, through his writings, the creator of perhaps the most important compendium of original spiritual writings in modern Western history. His master work is the 32-volume Hortus Conclusus (“The Enclosed Garden”), which he completed in 1936, having relocated from Germany to Lugano, Switzerland in the early 1920s.

“The Specter of Freedom”

While most of the material carried by Three Sages by and about Bô Yin Râ has pertained to the spiritual destiny of the human individual, his book “The Specter of Freedom” focuses on the life of society as a whole. It’s a relatively long work, one that is being carried here in twelve installments. Within this book, Bô Yin Râ, explains two different perspectives on “freedom.” One path is that of freedom as a “specter”—a “ghost” or “illusion” that people follow, believing it will lead them to happiness while instead it deceives them into falling into a pit of despair and, ultimately, destruction. The other path is real freedom that comes only when the price for it has been paid.

But what is that price? What are the practices and conditions that must be followed to create something truly worth having? One of the conditions clearly is to study the teachings of spiritual masters who know what they are talking about. In our experience, Bô Yin Râ stands in the forefront of those individuals. Another is certainly Jesus, whose advice includes, for instance, the time-honored practices spelled out in the Beatitudes, advice that is as relevant today as when they were uttered: “Blessed are the peacemakers,” etc.

The group of people involved in presenting material by Bô Yin Râ here on Three Sages have provided these definitions of “The Specter of Freedom”:

1. The idea that we should be “allowed” to do just about anything we desire (as long as we don’t get caught?).

2. That enticing notion we conjure up thinking how being free from various earthly restrictions will allow us to fulfill our dreams but which ultimately disappoints because we did not take into account spiritual law and our spiritual inheritance.

3. In Polish, “Specter of Freedom” is “Upior Wolnosci,” which is a great translation as it would mean a “negative, lingering ghostly presence/entity.”

4. What can “freedom” possibly mean for a person who has not achieved complete control of thoughts, speech, and actions?

“The Specter of Freedom”—Part 9 of 12

Contents:

1. Mirage

2. Necessity

3. Communality

4. Authority

5. The Urge to Associate

6. The Failed Economy

7. Competition

8. The Craze for Catchwords

9. Self-Realization

10. Religion

11. Science

12. Consciousness of Reality

Part 9: Self-Realization

They are not the worst of people who would like to be ‘more’ both in their own eyes and the eyes of others.

Nonetheless a mirage shimmers ahead of most of those who are dissatisfied with themselves; – many are tempted by the specter of freedom to where they will not find true freedom, so that they end their days on earth embittered because their fellow men have not – in their opinion – given credit where credit is due…

Some hate the jobs they perform to secure their livelihood, believing their knowledge and ability is greater than the demands their position makes of them, – others go wearily to work because they do not feel remunerated to the extent they think they should be.

Some quarrel with their fate on a daily basis because it refused them the educational background they needed to conquer that only field of activity they feel is suited to them, – others curse mankind as a whole because they have not shared from their birth in the possessions of this Earth they would have awarded to themselves had it been in their power to do so.

Everyone believes they have missed a particular goal for themselves, – what unites them is the strong conviction they all have, that they could be ‘more’ than they are, – and this conviction certainly has its grounds, though in a different way than those convinced think!

You want to be ‘more’ than you are?!

In that case you ‘are’ too little! –

Too little about you ‘is’! – –

You feel you can be ‘more’ but possibly also ‘less’ than the prestige you’ve known you would gain from both yourself and others.

You sense that a plurality is making itself felt within you, – that this plurality can become ‘greater’ or even ‘lesser’. –

If you want to be ‘more’ than you are, become more!

Do not just remain as ‘little’ as you are today!

Do not be satisfied with wishes but become ‘more’ because you want to be ‘more’!

There is a lot more in you than you dared even suppose!

There is much from the beginning of time within you that you certainly have no longer any desire to be, and you will have to make every effort to withdraw your being from these things if you do not want to ruin yourself by ruining others…

Innumerable things exist in you at the same time which you have not yet been able to reach and there are many amongst them you do not yet know, not even in your wildest dreams! – –

Between that which you should no longer be and this other that you are not yet lies that little which you now rightly regard as ‘far too little’ to determine your realization of yourself…

It is the spiritual spark of God, which experiences itself within your own ‘I’ and truly knows your potential to be much ‘more’ than you have been until now!

You only take on in your earthly consciousness what is felt in the innermost part of your being.

There, however, your being is thirsting for fulfilment with everything which it is not yet!

Thus you try to be ‘more’ in the transient forms, – thus you strive to become ‘more’ in your everyday life where necessity alone determines what you can attain! –

But here you can only become ‘more’ than you are today if you know how to take ‘more’ into your own being!

You must demand more of yourself, if you want to receive more!

With a clear, self-assured will you must lay claim within yourself to what you would ‘be’, – with the will familiar to every sportsperson when one knows of oneself that one’s training gives one a certain right to claim one’s ‘class’!

Like the sportsperson you will have to give everything to stay ‘in form’, – which is only possible for you, as for the sportsperson, by renouncing so much that may be permissible for others, but not for those who strive to become ‘more’, – even if they are already many things! – –

The impulse to be more than you are yourself is concealed behind the wish to be ‘more’ than others; for still you are, like others, – just a fraction of what you are capable of being! –

This means using the powers which without exemption everyone on Earth can always attain in freedom.

No one can ‘use’ these ‘powers of the soul’ who has not yet learned how: to unite them with one’s own being.

You must yourself become the power of the soul you wish to use and through which you want to determine your self-realization!

Likewise, you can only command the lower powers within you if they fill your being and have thereby become identical with you.

Only what you ‘are’ yourself is hearing you: – it is heard by you and hearkens to your will!

As little as you are able to reach God unless God has united itself with your own being, – so little can you also act through a power of the soul which you have not united within your own being! – –

Yet you must not seek to proceed schematically here, by beginning to call forth the powers of the soul individually, as it were, which henceforth are to fill your being!

You must not underestimate the triggering power which always awakens within you when you are faced with what is only intuited! – –

Heed those things within you which are not yet revealed to you! –

Nothing else is necessary, should you one day seek to unite the exalted powers of the soul which are not yet alive within your being – which you consequently ‘are’ not yet – than that you know how to maintain your general direction!

Even among criminals there are those who are ‘more’ than others, – yet their goals take them towards the deep abyss of animal being which preceded mankind of this Earth, whereas your exalted goal is the eternal spiritual being in which you will one day, after this earthly life of constant struggle with yourself, reunite with all those born in the Spirit! –

If you keep your goal always in your sight, you can walk safely towards it without worry and without anxiety!

During your life on Earth you will unite more and more of the powers of the soul which one day you will need for your ultimate ascent!

The more you know yourself to be filled with exalted soul powers, the more easily will you recognize that you can bring yourself freely to self-realization at all levels of validity in this life on Earth!

No human occupation is so lowly that it would fail to bear the far-reaching effectual self-realization of one who understands much about oneself!

In every occupation, – in every position which necessity offers you at any time, – you can be far ‘more’ than you may seem!

Yet you must not be surprised if you soon notice that others also recognize the richness of your being and value you according to the radiant power of its abundance alone, disregarding the importance given to the position you hold here on Earth! – –

Then you have become truly ‘more’ than others, and you can act as a spur to others to become ‘more’ than they currently are, – like a man who set out to dig for gold and came back rich will stir the will in others to set off on something similar.

Erring, because you believed your dissatisfaction was rooted purely in the external world, you have hitherto only tried in vain to satisfy your urge to be ‘more’ than what you are.

Yet it will not be denied to you, if you now turn your aspirations inward!

Here, where you are yourself a plurality which can increase or decrease, – here no external power will diminish your freedom, – and if you have really become ‘more’ than you were able to become till this day, your self-realization in the external world will simply fill you with feelings of happiness and inner contentment!

Only when you know how to express everything you carry hidden within you so that it is fulfilled in you, – only then have you reached yourself and truly come to yourself! –

Within your self-realization you create for yourself an eternally enduring form of consciousness which you yearn for in the most secret and innermost pleas you make to your destiny…

You alone fashion your destiny, – and as you have to savor here on Earth the things you predetermined for yourself before falling into earthly consciousness, so too after your last breath will you one day find yourself only in that form of self-consciousness you have created for yourself: – your self-realization. – –

This ends Part 9 of 12 — “Self-Realization”

Comments

Part 9 — After spending the first eight chapters of “The Specter of Freedom” exploring the characteristics of the outer world, Bô Yin Râ now moves to an exploration of the inner dimensions of being. He starts by pointing out that we all wish to be “more” of a person, but that it’s “the specter of freedom” which moves us to grasp for greater success and more recognition in our outer lives. However, the Law of Necessity enforces strict limitations on what we can attain. Once we look within, however, we find a limitless field for individual self-development starting with the “soul powers” deriving from our basic God-given identity. The search for “Self-Realization” is, of course, a familiar concept to spiritual seekers throughout modern times. Many self-described mystics and spiritual teachers have presumed to show the way. But what does it really mean? Is there a better description than what Bô Yin Râ offers here?

Previous Installments

Part 1 of 12: “Mirage”

Part 2 of 12: “Necessity”

Part 3 of 12: “Communality”

Part 4 of 12: “Authority”

Part 5 of 12: “The Urge to Associate”

Part 6 of 12: “The Failed Economy”

Part 7 of 12: “Competition”

Part 8 of 13: "The Craze for Catchwords"

Copyright Information

“The Specter of Freedom” is Book 13 of the Hortus Conclusus: the standard-translation© of the Hortus Conclusus (The Enclosed Garden), encompassing the spiritual teachings in thirty-two books by Bô Yin Râ. (Bô Yin Râ is the spiritual name of Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken 1876-1943.)

All rights, copyrights included, reserved by Posthumus Projects Amsterdam, 2014. Posthumus Projects Amsterdam is responsible for this standard-translation©. Posthumus Projects Amsterdam has provided general permission for reprinting and transmission of its publications with attribution. Edited for Three Sages.