"The Book on Happiness" by Bô Yin Râ--Part 2 of 8
Richard C. Cook, Editor, Three Sages: For the past year, Three Sages has included in its publishing agenda articles about German spiritual master Bô Yin Râ (Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken 1876-1943), along with excerpts from his works. This included a series of articles on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ that we recently published during Holy Week, leading up to Easter Sunday. We have had a strong and positive reception among English-speaking readers from the US, Europe, and elsewhere in the world, so have been encouraged to continue. Most recently we published the complete text of one of Bô Yin Râ’s major books; namely, “The Book on the Beyond,” the subject of which is the human afterlife.
We are now moving ahead with publishing another complete text of one of Bô Yin Râ’s books, this one entitled “The Book on Happiness.” Reader may justifiably ask what relevance such a book may have at this time of world crisis? How can one possibly seek happiness, and succeed in that search, with so much discord, exploitation, and violence going on around us? Our answer is simply that the troubles the world is facing make it more important than ever before that humans stay in touch with their spiritual core which we all know to some degree is the source of genuine, lasting happiness while we inhabit this mortal form. How to do this is the question.
We are also pleased to announce our partnership with Books to Light, a new publishing platform headquartered in the US and dedicated to bringing the texts and teachings of Bô Yin Râ to greater accessibility and awareness among English-speaking audiences.
So let us proceed.
Note: Another excellent translation entitled The Book on Happiness is published by The Kober Press. But while reading any translation, readers should also be advised of Bô Yin Râ’s advice to study his works in the original German. Accordingly, any translation must be viewed as transitional, with a second edition of the translation contained herein now being planned by Books to Light.
Finally, when reading and studying Bô Yin Râ, it is well to bear in mind this liberating thought:
“If it were not a millennia-old superstition which believed that spiritual reality had to be discovered through the mechanism of proper logical thought, the reality to which I give witness here would have been discovered a long time ago and removed from all doubt!”
The Book on Happiness—Part 2 of 8
From the series 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.
Contents:
Prelude
The Duty to be Happy
‘I’ and ‘You’
Love
Wealth and Poverty
Money
Optimism
Conclusion
THE DUTY TO BE HAPPY (continued)
“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you!”
How badly misinterpreted have been these words of the Master of Nazareth!
Certainly he also said, according to the books which describe his teaching, these words: “The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, lo here! Or lo there, for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you!”, and through this he demonstrated that there is a power in man whose ‘righteousness’, whose conditions must be fulfilled, if ‘all these things shall be added’, – – only, who had ever the courage to interpret these words tradition has passed on, here in the way the Master once uttered them in plain wisdom!?!
Men of little faith have turned the ‘Kingdom of God’ of which he spoke into a realm of unctuous sermons and mild consolations. Or else they sought this ‘Kingdom’, totally contrary to his words, in a distant beyond, ignoring his teaching that ‘the Kingdom of Heaven is near at hand’. – – –
Alas! Attachment to an earthly and sensual form of perception of things has prevented men from seeing that the ‘Kingdom of God’ can become effectual in them, and that the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ is all around them, even though they might delude themselves into thinking they are in some form of ‘hell’! . . .
They needed only to enter their ‘inner selves’ to retrieve an inexhaustible treasure, – – they needed only to cast forth the waves of that power residing within them, and the countenance of the earth would be renewed.
It was shown to the men who know throughout the ages that in this world cycle still only few want to allow this will to freedom to be effective within them. A new world cycle and a new earth must arise before the “earnest expectation of the creature for redemption through the children of God” of which Paul speaks can become a cosmic fact. – – – – –
In most people the will is still bound so tightly by themselves into the hypnosis of the earthly-sensory form of perception that they lack the confidence to direct earthly-sensory things through powers of the spirit.
Doubtingly they are waiting for something to bring help mechanically from the outside – or they have buried all hope and expectation long ago; – only the fewest of the few are prepared to risk the attempt to become spiritual rulers of their own destinies. –
Yet even in this world cycle those ‘few’ can become many and some already feel a dark suspicion of a power enclosed within them without knowing how to get hold over it.
The teaching proclaimed in this book can show them the right way. The communicator of this teaching is merely giving form to ancient wisdom formerly kept secret and only rarely imparted by the elect amongst specially chosen men.
It is knowledge founded upon experience tested over thousands of years; no man who has tried it out has ever been deceived.
Those who now pass it on agreed to reveal it to all mankind – and to bear the responsibility for this.
The teaching of earthly happiness is like an unbroken ring.
Within yourself alone is the power to create your happiness and all happiness is founded only in the power of the creator, for the satisfaction granted by this power alone is true happiness. – – –
You have the obligation to activate the power residing within you, – you have the obligation to create your greatest happiness for yourself on this earth. This book will now make you aware of how you can fulfill your obligation. –
‘I’ AND ‘YOU’
You experience yourself only as ‘I’ and can find no room for any other apart from yourself in this ‘I’.
You are for yourself the center of the world as ‘I’.
You are for yourself, as ‘I’, the ‘I’ of whole humanity. – –
Yet this ‘humanity’ is a homogeneous whole, formed from billions of individual ‘I’s, and though not a single one of these is completely the same as you, each one is, according to the form it takes, absolutely identical with what you feel to be the ‘I’ within you. – – –
It is difficult to put into human words what I want to say to you here, and I have to ask you to grope intuitively for the ultimate meaning of my words. For I know well enough that ultimate clarity cannot be imparted through words, and that I can only use my own language which you must learn to ‘translate’ into your own.
I would like to make you realize that you are the unique center point of a totality formed only of unique ‘center points’ and, since this is infinite though not unlimited, it has its ‘center point’ everywhere……………..
However, every center point is here in itself ‘I’; for it every other ‘center point’ is ‘you’. –
If you would create your happiness at your center point, you must keep this fact in view and try to find the secret relationships which prevail between ‘I’ and ‘you’.
These relationships are in a state of constant flux and must be judged differently at every moment.
Only the continually regulated balance of all actions and reactions within human totality remains immutable.
You can only as an ‘I’ exert influence on a ‘you’ either unintentionally, without wishing to exert influence, – or with conscious will.
If you would, however, have influence on a ‘you’, the means at your disposal are through requests, persuasion, or force.
But know that you have to pay a certain, immutable price for every outcome resulting from your action – indeed, even for the intention itself! – – –
Therefore do not make requests or seek to persuade if you are yourself not willing to receive similar requests and persuasion from another ‘you’, – even more should you avoid using force if you find all use of force to be an intolerable constraint! –
You will not be ‘let off’ anything, however secure you feel you are, and however well you think you have concealed your true intentions.
You may be able to hide yourself from an individual ‘you’, but everything going on within you is always revealed to the total organism of humanity. At a predetermined moment in time you will, sooner or later, have to bear the consequences of your behavior with guaranteed certainty. – – – – – – –
If you do not take kindly to being asked, and yet ask; if you are not amenable to persuasion, and yet seek to persuade; if you do not like force being used against you, and yet use force yourself – in each of these cases you will accomplish something whilst believing you do not have to pay the price. Yet you are wrong! –
Spiritual laws can not be bypassed, nor interpreted to your own advantage, like earthly laws. You will not find any advocate prepared to protect you from the consequences of your behavior. –
You will have to pay without remission all you owe to mankind through your behavior towards another human being; you will not escape the law until the ‘last penny’ has been paid. – –
The longer the period of grace you are given to pay, the more you have cause to be concerned, – for you will not be discharged from the interest and interest upon the interest for all eternity…
But there is still more!
You may become a creditor unto yourself, because you are responsible to mankind for your own person and may require nothing of yourself for which there is no prospect of receiving an equivalent from mankind…
Otherwise you must pay the price for your actions sooner or later – with interest and interest upon the interest – as you would for any other person. – – –
Is this the first time you have heard of this law, or perhaps you have only just realized for the first time its relentless consistency and steadfastness? –
Perhaps concerns grow within you because of your previous actions, even though you are now resolved to weigh your future behavior according to this law? –
If you would create for yourself your happiness, know then that you will find the ways and means to pay off your debt to mankind in a way appropriate to you, as soon as you will know what you still owe in reality!
Do not wait until the law asserts its claim with cruel indifference to your weal and woe. –
Work out your own ‘balance sheet’ and be not alarmed if the ‘debit column’ far exceeds the ‘credit column’!
As relentless as the total organism of humanity is in collecting from every one of its members those dues which they had intentionally ‘forgotten’ to pay, it also automatically pursues another law with indifference. This law makes impossible every use of force in collecting whatever debts you have as soon as you have seriously established the will and restless duty in yourself to pay your debts – even though circumstances may not immediately allow you to pay off the complete debt without once more causing harm to yourself or others.
If you wish to create your own happiness, – you will have to know as much about the law of compensation within the totality of the human organism as I have described to you here.
It is up to you whether you wish to pursue further the manifold nuances of this law within everyday life. – It will certainly do you no harm.