"The Path to God" by Bô Yin Râ: Part 4 of 7
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. 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 two of Bô Yin Râ’s major books; namely, “The Book on the Beyond,” and “The Book on Happiness.” We are now moving ahead with publishing another complete text of one of Bô Yin Râ’s books, this one entitled “The Path to God.” Readers familiar with spiritual literature may rightfully ask whether anything new can be said on this topic. Please follow along with us over the next few weeks. You may find yourself very pleasantly surprised; perhaps even grateful! Three Sages is the only US website currently publishing Bô Yin Râ’s works, though we welcome others to join us. We are bringing you his books courtesy of the new US publishing house, Books to Light. We now proceed starting with editorial information from Books to Light. Another excellent translation of “The Path to God” may also be found through the website of Kober Press.
Bô Yin Râ
The Path to God (Der Weg zu Gott)
Hortus Conclusus Book Six
October, 2024
' Der Weg zu Gott ' was first published in German language in 1924 by Rhein-Verlag, Basel, (Switzerland)
© Books to Light (the United States) The Standard-translation© into English, 2nd Edition (1st Edition was published by Posthumus Projects in 2015). The emphases used in original German are included in this new hardcopy edition (emphases edited by Books to Light to match the original writings).
Library of Congress Control Number: 2024946722
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. Published by Books to Light. Editors: Posthumus Projects (the Netherlands), Books to Light (the United States), Detlef Janssen (Germany). All rights, copyrights included, reserved by Books to Light. Posthumus Projects and Books to Light are responsible for this Standard-translation©. Primary place of publication: U.S.
Advice to readers from Bô Yin Râ:
Dearest Reader, please note, that I can not write anything that is not experienced most emphatically as spoken language. This explains everything which at first sight might appear as a deliberate eccentricity in my sentence structure and punctuation. (From: 'Letters to One and Many', middle of chapter About my Manner of Writing)
(...) no translation, no matter how excellent, can ever replace knowledge in the original language. One day we may learn German as we once learnt Latin and Greek because we wanted to understand the ancient authors in their own language. This is not a "prophecy", but an unalterable view of spiritually assured insight, which, however, refers only to my work and exclusively to its language – for its own sake ! –(From: Bô Yin Râ, 'Kodizill to My Spiritual Teachings', middle of first chapter)
Contents of The Path to God
Delusion and Belief . . . 5
Sure Knowledge . . . 39
The Dream of Souls . . . 67
Truth and Reality . . . 95
Yes and No . . . 123
The Great Struggle . . . 161
Completion . . . 175
Part 4 of 7: Truth and Reality
TRUTH AND REALITY
You describe as ‘true’ those things you find so deeply anchored within the realms of your imagination that no attempt made by your thinking could ever topple them. But you also regard as ‘truth’ many products of your imagination which you are only currently unable to overthrow with the powers you have, so that later, when others are able to bring about their downfall, they no longer hold any validity for you either. – –
So it is that each successive generation has protected its own truth like a precious gem, seeking to preserve it most carefully for the following generations, while this heritage seemed to possess for later generations scarcely the value of a child’s toy . . .
Nevertheless, up to our own days ‘truth’ has possessed great value, even if it is pursued by the obvious question: – what currently should be regarded as truth? ! –
If we shall speak of ‘truth’ here, we deliberately intend to leave aside all those things which in the course of time have been regarded as ‘truth’ !
In this sense let us only speak of the truth as the truth which was known by every generation, well beyond the limited opinions of the day, which could not be devalued by later generations.
But in this sense human knowledge attainable through thought can only be admitted as partial truth, and similarly, all human power over nature – despite all victories won over the forces of nature – must quickly recognize certain boundaries which it had not established in any way itself. –
From this truth human thought has concluded that those spheres of knowledge and power which are out of human’s reach are given over to the omnipotence of another will. However, this conclusion has already created a product of imagination which can all too easily be toppled again, since it lacks the foundations upon which the truth permitting this conclusion is based . . .
Thought and deduction may well create products of imagination which can be accepted as good imitations of the truth: – truth itself, in as far as we are discussing it here, can never be conceived by thought nor deduced ! –
Ultimate truth is here far removed from all thinking and remains eternally out of thinking’s reach, unless one encounters within oneself the reality and becomes aware through real experience, of what one seeks, so that one may then offer it as a gift to one’s thinking. – – –
On countless occasions humans have thought up ‘God’ and believed they had found the Godhead in thinking.
Yet even in their most sublime thoughts they only erected an idol after the likeness of a man: – a product of imagination which – grows only in the imagination of human brains – as a sensuous yet invisible illusion . . .
Indeed, it is easy to understand how, at any time there has never been a lack of those denying belief in such a ‘God’, – yet what remains beyond understanding is that such a thought up fantasy continued to find believers to bow down before it ! – –
In all ages there were only very few who neither denied nor believed. Instead they turned completely away from the thought-up idol in order to experience their living God in God’s reality within themselves.
This experience defies, of course, every imagination !
No imagination can be created which would resemble this experience !
No thoughts can describe it, no words communicate it ! –
Only those who experience themselves know of it; they know – only through what has been experienced – that they truly experience what does not just bear the name as of ‘God’, but which is Godhead in itself, from eternity to eternity . . .
Doubt, even gnawing at thought’s most awakened knowledge, has here forever lost all power ! It is a becoming aware of the innermost foundation of life in one’s own ‘I’. – – –
Just as a light, lit within a colorful lamp, shows the varied colors of the glass and yet does not take on any color within the lamp itself, so the Godhead enters the innermost part of a human, – manifesting itself within a person in its individual form, and yet remaining what it always was and is. –
Closely united with their primeval ground within this reality, people’s earthly consciousness recognizes for the first time the real truth and the reality of this eternal truth !
Here, for the first time, people become aware of what God is in truth and reality ! – All previous imaginations of God sink into grey twilight gloom ! Those who experience the Godhead in this way within themselves, and their own reality in it, have no further need of images and parables. Only if they would teach others must they create images and parables for them, so that their words can awaken their inner feelings. –
And yet their words must remain but a stammering and a clumsy attempt at interpretation, even if they seek to herald these experiences with all the images words can offer . . .
Only one who has thus experienced one’s living God within oneself knows with sure knowledge of God, just as one only now knows of oneself with sure know- ledge ! – – –
Yet this high stage is but the precondition for all further development in the spiritual world, even if only few throughout the ages have ever reached or surpassed this stage during their lives on Earth. – –
It is a crime to speak of God, even in the most wondrous terms, unless the speakers know with all certainty that they have reached this stage ! ! –
If they have attained it, they will also know whether they have truly been called to teach; only those who are called will not profane the name of God.
They will be ‘given’ things to say by those who have received more than them, since for thousands of years those have been on the track upon which they [themselves] set off only today. – –
It is impossible to experience one’s living God within oneself without being aware of the guidance given by elder brothers in the spirit . . .
They too once had to walk upon the path with this guidance, until they found within themselves union with their living God. –
Yet much more was required from those who were to become helpers of those human souls threatened by the night . . .
A far heavier burden was placed upon their shoulders . . .
Thus they were made capable, still during their days on Earth, of entering the spiritual world, wakeful and in full consciousness, – the world of the essential spirit they had known and in which they were at home long before they received their physical bodies as humans of this Earth. – – –
What many ancient fables, which you have hitherto mocked as ‘foolish’, nevertheless have to say to you – albeit in obscure words – may be left to your own investigations, since you now know such things. –
But I can only say to you that I speak with utmost certainty as one who can only speak of things he has himself experienced. –
If you ever want to gain experience of your living God within yourself, you must not shun the help of your brothers already living in the spirit. All those shun this help who search the peaks and depths to find God, yet remain tied to their own self-importance which constantly whispers to them: that they have no need of human spiritual help.
If you want to encounter reality within yourself, you will have to take heed of what reality has called forth into existence !
It is not for you to decide the way in which you are to become aware of God, but: – for God ! ! – – –
It is not a ‘human’s help’, when you receive help from the spirit of man of which I speak here, but it is God’s help; it makes use of some humans to help people who in their animal state could never otherwise attain God’s help ! –
To be sure, no ‘belief’ is required of you here, as if you should believe my words for their own sake. I am only telling you what is necessary for you to turn from being a seeker into a finder !
Nothing more is required of you other than that you do not willfully resist the help which can only reach you spiritually – and in the spiritual way alone. Whether what I say merits ‘belief’ I leave to those who act according to my words, – then see for yourself if you confirm them !
I do not intend to bring you some ‘new faith’; rather I would guide your soul to certainty: – to that truth which can only be experienced as reality ! – – –
You will only then be able to gather and unite the powers of your soul within yourself if currents of spiritual life give you strength. These currents are channeled into the earthly night by those who work from the essential spirit, because they are to work in this way ! –
They are themselves only tools of divine volition !
You cannot receive their powers, only the power of the spirit from which they live in the awakened world of the spirit. They convert the power of the spirit which otherwise could not be felt by you in the darkness of the animal on Earth . . .
They do not esteem themselves ‘higher’ than you, for they have dissolved everything they once might have believed they were – into that from which they are . . .
However, if you feel this being to be superior to you, know that they too feel it to be superior to everything they once knew to be attainable or desirable for them as Earthlings. They really do not desire gratitude for their help; all the ‘help’ they give is grounded solely within their own being !
In no way can they bring you any other help than that which you need in order to attain the living God within you ! Even if you receive spiritual help in other things, do not conclude that it came from your helping brothers on Earth ! –
Truly, there is in the realm of the spirit other help still, which they also often need very much in their lives on Earth! – – –
Neither ‘supermen’ nor magicians, they are exposed in exactly the same way as you to all earthly needs in their human lives. They recognize the exalted wisdom of having to bear in all respects the lot of [the] earthly human . . .
How could they rescue benighted souls from this darkness through the loving effusion of all the spiritual force pouring through them, if the needs of earthly humans were foreign to them ! ? –
Through their knowledge of all human suffering, the might of the spirit is converted in such a way that souls on their path to God, might feel and grasp it in the form of the help they need ! – –
Truly you may entrust yourself to them; for nothing is asked of you than that you take care not to resist in any way their help.
Your will, finding expression in such resistance, would otherwise hinder the help being offered.
But if you are willing and prepared to receive help, it will come onto your path without calling or pleading for it. This help is not entrusted to the arbitrariness of the helper !
You must be found if you are willing to be found !
Then you shall in all certainty also find the truth which you hitherto have sought so often in vain.
You will then recognise something my words repeatedly sought to bring close to your soul: – this truth can only be found as reality. –
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