THE BOOK ON MAN by Bô Yin Râ -- Part Six: "The Child"

Im Riesengebirge (mountain range in Poland) by Bô Yin Râ

Editor’s Introduction by Richard C. Cook

The Three Sages Substack continues its presentation of works by the Luminary Bô Yin Râ in cooperation with Books to Light, publisher and copyright holder of the complete English translation of the Luminary’s masterwork: the 32-volume German-language compendium of his spiritual guidance under the general title of Hortus Conclusus (“The Enclosed Garden”).

Bô Yin Râ was the spiritual name of Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, who was born in Aschaffenburg, Germany, in 1876 and who passed away in Lugano, Switzerland, in 1943. In his explanations of spiritual realities and the inner path thereto, Bô Yin Râ openly identified himself as part of the same society of Luminaries of the First Light (Leuchtenden des Urlichts) to which Jesus Christ himself belonged.

The Luminaries consist of those human individuals with ultimate responsibility for the spiritual destiny of all humanity on planet earth. Their terrestrial headquarters are located in the heart of Asia, and they have been providing their guidance for millennia. The existence of the Luminaries is hinted at in the Bible by references to the Order of Melchizedek of which Jesus was a priest (Hebrews 7:1-28).

It is extremely rare for a Luminary to work openly and in public as Jesus and Bô Yin Râ have done. Bô Yin Râ wrote that the work of the Luminaries is still at an early stage. This idea is supported by the realization that in both cultural and ethical terms humanity is not far removed from a primitive state of savage barbarism. Events in the world today show this clearly.

At the same time, humanity’s spiritual hunger is shown by the proliferation of sects and cults claiming to show the way, along with the course of the historic religions. But it is not necessary that vast numbers of people embrace the teachings of the Luminaries for the world to change.

At present the number of people with spiritual hunger is substantial. During Bô Yin Râ’s lifetime over a million people in the German-speaking world purchased and read his books until they were banned by the Third Reich. More and more people are reading the books in Germany today, and they are also being widely translated and read in other languages, including English. Bô Yin Râ predicted that a time would come when everyone on earth who was seeking the spiritual life would read and study his works. We at Three Sages are trying to do our own small part in making them better known and more available in the U.S. and among other English-speaking people.

One of the key facts about Bô Yin Râ’s teachings is that he clearly expressed the necessity of answering the fundamental question: What is a human being? If we are honest, we must face the fact that we really don’t know the answer to that question. Not that there is a shortage of those attempting to provide an answer, many of these being quite fantastic. Rather the problem often is that the answers are incomplete, mutually contradictory, or self-serving. In the absence of a satisfactory answer, we lack the inner assurance and self-confidence needed to resist the negative forces that would enslave and exploit us during our sojourn on earth. On the other hand, true self-knowledge as defined by Bô Yin Râ, and previously by Jesus, has the potential to assist us in becoming truly happy, joyful, and free, both in this world and in the world we all must enter at death. How to accomplish this? Bô Yin Râ’s teachings constitute what is always most rare: authentic guidance.

Bô Yin Râ’s Hortus Conclusus is a comprehensive work but is broken down into 32 separate books, each of which approaches spirituality from a different though complementary angle. But the core is the trilogy consisting of 1) The Book on the Living God; 2) The Book on the Beyond; and 3) The Book on Man.

The first of these three volumes, The Book on the Living God, may be read in translation in an on-line version published by the Kober Press of Berkeley, CA, which is available HERE.

The second volume, The Book on the Beyond, is available in the Books to Light translation published by Books to Light and available in the series presented by Three Sages HERE.

What you are now about to read is the Books to Light translation of the third book of the trilogy, The Book on Man. We can promise that if you read these books attentively you will not view your life and purpose in the same light as you did before you began. We wish you well on this most important and personal of all journeys.

On Part Six of The Book on Man—”The Child”

Every one of us has had, or is now having, the experience of being a child. Thus no topic could better illustrate the universal nature of Bô Yin Râ’s subject matter and guidance. At first glance, the message is simple: a wise parent should allow the child to be himself or herself and to grow and develop according to its own inner needs and qualities. Yet even in today’s world of “liberal” values, many parents are unable to resist affixing on the child their own rigid stamp of paths to follow and personalities to adopt. Here Bô Yin Yâ brings an explanation that many of us have not heard before; namely that the child may bring with it into life characteristics that belonged to humans in the near or faraway past which the original bearers failed to develop, thus leaving unfinished business in humanity’s overall progression. The appearance of these characteristics has given rise to the erroneous concept of “reincarnation,” yet may instill in the child affinities with people who really did live before. Finally, Bô Yin Râ points out that while parents may owe their children “nourishment and protection,” perhaps the most important gift we can bequeath is to conquer our own primitive animal nature.

Copyright Information

The standard-translation© of Hortus Conclusus (“The Enclosed Garden”) encompasses Bô Yin Râ’s spiritual teachings in 32 books. Bô Yin Râ is the spiritual name of Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken. Published by Posthumus Projects Amsterdam, Inc. in The Netherlands under number 33079516, www.bo-yin-ra.org. All rights, copyrights included, reserved by Posthumus Projects Amsterdam, 2014. Copyright now held by Books to Light—USA. Posthumus Projects Amsterdam and Books to Light—USA are responsible for this standard-translation©. Posted by Three Sages with permission of Books to Light.

Ordering Information

For the Books to Light website with ordering information for Bô Yin Râ’s books, click HERE. For the Books to Light YouTube channel, click HERE.

Special Offer

For the first 100 purchases, Books to Light is offering the ONLY single-volume English translation of Bô Yin Râ’s Hortus Conclusus—his complete spiritual teachings—at a special discount to Three Sages subscribers at 40 percent off the usual retail purchase price. Order HERE.

From Books to Light

For the Three Sages Subscribers’ offer of 40% off on Hortus Conclusus (32 Books in one large volume—1193 pages plus selected spiritual paintings by Bô Yin Râ) please utilize the code to enter at checkout: THREE SAGES 40% OFF.

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THE BOOK ON MAN by Bô Yin Râ -- Part Six: “The Child”

CONTENTS

Introduction (Click HERE)

The Mystery: ‘Man and Woman’ (Click HERE)

The Path of the Woman (Click HERE)

The Path of the Man (CLICK HERE)

Marriage (CLICK HERE)

The child

New mankind

Epilogue

Final teaching!

THE CHILD

Every hour people are born on this earth, and yet sensitive man stands now, as in days before time, before a mystery…

The new human being enters existence no differently from the animal; he releases himself from his mother’s body which has prepared for him the earthly body.

But even the dullest feelings of man are momentarily roused on witnessing this eternally new miracle, observing a living being of his own kind seeing the light of day for the first time and hearing its first scream. – – –

Very soon that new life will reveal its own consciousness; in astonishment man looks here upon a new will, which, seemingly issued simply from himself, only wills itself, however foolish the means may seem which it uses in asserting itself within its surroundings. – –

Eventually one must recognize that these means are in fact the only right ones, since they always fully match the powers the new child has mastered. –

With every passing year of life come new manifestations of this will, new ways of achieving recognition; finally a human being like ourselves stands before us. Often we are forced to admit that he can command spiritual powers which we would vainly seek to master…

The miracle knows no end if with clarity of vision one considers more closely a single link in this chain.

Every new cycle of birth brings about new miracles before which man often stands perplexed, for he cannot make out what has happened here for the best or for the worst. – – –

You will also not solve the mystery staring at you from the eyes of a child unless you clearly recognize that you are facing something that is totally novel. – – –

You seek too much of yourself in your child; you allow yourself to be misled by physical similarities your eyes detect; you see yourself and your nature in the talents or failings of your child; and you tend to transfer all this to the spiritual being which has entrusted itself to you in your child. – – –

Indeed, the earthly form your child bears when given to you is constructed from your blood and your cells; you pass on to him a physical inheritance going back centuries. –

With it your child receives many earthly powers you call ‘spiritual’ because you are not yet aware of the abundance of deeply mysterious powers this earthly body contains. These powers are alone bearers of those characteristics which continually mislead you into recognizing too readily yourself in your child. – – –

Within this earthly body, and learning to play upon its incomprehensible powers as on a harp, dwells something which is not of this earth…

This ‘something’ looks at you from the eyes of your child and seeks in you the same ‘something’ which may have become master in your body, but in most cases has been overpowered and enslaved by the powers of the body. – –

This ‘something’ is the man of the pure spirit uniting himself here with the human animal of this earth in one of the lowest forms of his manifestation; he can only find ‘redemption’ on earth when he overcomes this ‘animal’. – –

He is not something you have bequeathed to your child, however much it may owe the inherited formation of its brain to you!

He comes from the same exalted regions as the spiritual man in yourself whom you perhaps have never recognized as yourself. Or perhaps you have violated him through your body’s inherent powers so that you can no longer even detect a trace of his existence, imagining yourself to be equal to those subtle physical powers which in the majority of men on earth have taken the place of their spiritual consciousness. –

In your child’s eyes he is looking penetratingly into your gaze even if his eyes have not yet become instruments he has mastered, searching for his own kind, unfettered here on this earth…

You have every reason to feel awe before your own child if spiritual man in you is not completely lord and master of your more subtle physical powers, for he is looking at you in original purity out of your child’s eyes. –

His fate has now been passed into your hands. – – –

It is now almost completely your responsibility if this spiritual man who, – ignoring the rare exceptions already mentioned elsewhere, – has never lived on earth before, who will never come again, and who enters each new person in a unique form, will be able to learn to master freely within your child the things you have bequeathed to him physically. –

If you are so infatuated with yourself and your kind that you only want to recognize yourself and your kin in your child, it is most unlikely that your behavior will allow the new spiritual man, which has put its trust in you, becoming master of everything he should learn to overcome…

Before cosmic law, however, you never have the right to make of your child the mirror image of yourself. For the most holy and highest things manifested in this being are vastly more sublime than the inheritance you physically bequeathed to him…

Yet this is not all as both are only bound by powers of the soul from a remote era; powers which did not reach their full development and now seek expression in your child! – – –

Neither did you bequeath these powers to your child!

You will only be able to glimpse the human beings who are your child’s ‘ancestors’ in this respect when the spiritual man exercises such a complete dominion in you that he has become in consciousness identical with you and has taught you to ‘see’ things no earthly eye can see. – –

You have no right to include the powers of the soul of the child, which may contain exalted gifts, as part of your physical bequest! – You have no right to limit or even subjugate the powers of the soul of the child if they do not correspond to your own wishes! – –

The rights given to you according to cosmic laws with respect to your child are closely defined.

Your only rights are those of a host under whose protection a noble guest pays the honor of placing himself when he is not in a position to protect himself. – – –

The whole ‘upbringing’ of your child must proceed from this insight; otherwise you will act badly, though in good faith, where you hoped to bring about the best! – –

Spiritual man has entrusted himself to you; you were able only to give him the body as the dwelling which would serve him on earth. –

He brought his own treasures with him and does not take them from you. – –

The only thing he expects from you is that you give him protection and nourishment, and help him to provide himself within the home you have given him, with the servants he needs in order to exercise his rule here on this earth. – – –

I know all too well that these words will be hardly acceptable to many who think they have ‘rights over the life and death’ of their child. –

Many too who dedicate themselves to ‘education’ will hurl this book aside, full of ‘righteous indignation’. –

They may consider that I know well enough that every child they are supposed to ‘educate’ and bring up through teaching has been thoroughly ruined by ‘parental discipline’. – – –

I am speaking first and foremost here to those who gave life and blood to their child, and I am speaking of the child who has not yet been cheated of his originally given right by a misconception of ‘parental rights’. I speak of the child who has not yet taken that vengeance which every child must practice in self-defense as soon as spiritual man in him is stifled by his parents’ guilt, and the powers of his soul are bound to the drudgery of his physical inheritance. – – –

Your child can be a wise teacher to you if you know how to heed the way in which pure spiritual man in him seeks to force his way through all the physical covers you have given him. – –

Your child can be far older than you on account of those powers of the soul from remote era which unite anew within him, seeking through a human spirit to arrive at a permanent state of oneness. –

You cannot expect your child to honor you if he stands far above you…

Do not think that you can without punishment force your child into the spiritual shackles which are convenient for you because as a human being he does not yet know himself and his dignity! –

There is something within your child from which nothing can remain concealed! – –

Every look and every word is far more accurately recorded for all time than you would like to think; if your child is forced externally to bow to your will, you will nevertheless end up as the inferior one as soon as your compulsion cannot be valued as protection only.

The greater strength of your arm does not give you the right to forcibly deflect from his own path a living being to whom you have given physical life in a form determined by you, and to force him to follow the path of your will. – – –

The law of the spirit will in the end enforce itself with remorseless justice. – –

If you have sinned you cannot be surprised if your guilt will one day manifest itself bitterly. –

The more carefully you consider the divine spark who entrusts itself to you in your child, the more you will suspect that divine spark within yourself again and perhaps even learn to really find it through your child. – – –

You will then feel what the Divine One once meant with the oft repeated words that any man who seeks to attain the ‘kingdom of heaven’ in himself must become a ‘child’.

One day your child will not thank you for what you have given him by way of ‘education’, money and knowledge – he will only be grateful that you allowed him to become the man who sought to manifest himself in him according to his spiritual nature. –

In one and the same parental home there are often many children who are thoughtlessly classified like plants from the same species because in terms of physical inheritance they are ‘siblings’. And yet for those who ‘see’ with the eyes of the spirit there are often here greater differences than are found between people from completely different races. – –

Not only is the manifestation of spiritual man unique in every child, and different from every other child on earth, – even the powers of the soul which gather like crystals around that spiritual core in each case take completely new forms. At times these have been fashioned beforehand through many human generations. – – –

In a particular child powers of the soul may be at work which once formed the impulse of will belonging to someone from a distant zone…In another child there are perhaps powers of the soul active which owe the starting point of their formation to someone living the life of this earth before the foundations of the pyramids were laid…

The soul’s powers in yet another child were perhaps fashioned by someone who once had to depart this life unwillingly, or died as a martyr to his cause…

A child may be born in a pauper’s home, yet his soul’s powers found their formation on a throne; within the child of a rich man powers of the soul which were once formed by the impulse of a tramp may strive for development…

And even the children of the same parents can carry within them, in every conceivable nuance, all these different complexes of forms fashioned from the soul’s powers by the impulses of long forgotten generations…

It will be your task not to stand in the way of these forms of the soul’s powers which you feel to be derived from bad impulses, by using ‘harsh discipline’ and external force. For what you might achieve in this way would always only be deception, even if your child, having later in life reached a respectable position in society, were to give you cause to forget what he continues to carry within himself.

It will be your task rather to steer these powers of the soul so that they can find the expression for which they strive from early childhood, and yet are guided towards goals which bring no harm either to your child or to others. – – –

Many a ‘disgrace’ to the family could be avoided if one made the effort, as soon as the first stirrings of unfruitful tendencies are detected, – to ‘divert’ patiently and wisely the less pleasing elements of the soul’s powers onto paths which accord with their striving but are not injurious. – – –

It depends on the individual case; one must carefully decide, after sober consideration, what is the most advisable form of ‘diversion’ here.

But be not deceived!An instinct is not destroyed if it dares not express itself for fear of punishment! – –

The aim should also not be to destroy undesirable powers of the soul, for every power of the soul is good in itself and can, if steered upon the right tracks, lead to the highest blessing and human perfection. – – –

I have spoken here only of those forms of the soul’s powers which once entered the world of effect through low impulses.

However, perhaps forms of the soul’s powers will appear as ‘undesirable’ to you which owe their expression to an impulse which used to live in a sublime soul, far from all that is bad, – – only because they are alien to your own soul’s powers and hostile to the impulses which find expression in yourself. – –

You would like to see those expressions of the soul’s powers you create yourself become effective in your child; yet you find that something completely different lives and works in this child. –A sublime and wise renunciation is required of you here, even though it may demand what is most hard from you, lest you commit a crime against the soul of your child. –

Perhaps for many long years you have been dreaming colorful dreams and you have predetermined what is to ‘become’ of your child? –Now you see everything you erected with the best of intentions shattered and destroyed by your child’s nature, which you cannot deny your respect. – –

Here it must become clear whether the love you feel for your child is actually meant for the child, this new, unique person who is to learn only to live his life on this earth, or whether, unwittingly blinded, you have never seen your child but only yourself in your love…

The decision may well be difficult for you; but if you want to act wisely and according to eternal cosmic laws, you must forget and bury your own wishes for the good of your child. – – –

Nature has determined that you should be the mediator of physical life here on this earth so that the truth of spiritual man can be revealed in an endlessly varied manifestation and liberate itself again from its striving towards the depths.

Be a helper of nature – a helper of the whole of spiritual mankind which is to acquire the earthly body from your blood! – –

In this way you will also best help the spiritual man within yourself in finding his ‘redemption’. –In this way your own children will: lead you to yourself, – to your ‘living God’, – – to eternal ‘life’!

If it is hard for you to believe me when I say that you can only give your child his physical body, then I must remind you that many things are in earthly convention ascribed to the spirit which have their causes in physical earthly powers alone…

For the development of these inherited subtle physical powers commonly taken to be powers of the spirit, it is indeed most significant whether spiritual man has already gained dominion within you or whether you are a slave to your animal nature! – –

Nonetheless, the powers through which you alone can pass on all those things he receives from you by way of his ‘disposition’ or ‘talents’ are purely physical. –

Make sure your child is able to bless this inheritan