Hortus Conclusus

The Secret:

After the islanders’ festivities had once more given way to everyday’s life, the three friends found themselves in a silent, heavenly peace which offered them everything they had come to seek here for their nerves wearied by continual sightseeing.

Every dawn they looked again at the sea, glittering far and wide, seemingly scarcely able to absorb the fullness of the rays descending in unending floods from the shining endless space above it.

No wonder then that the wish stirred in their hearts to go out onto this sea of light in order to circle the island under the brightness of the sun before taking their leave of it.

*

Early one morning they wandered down twisting paths to the beach where the sailors waited with the roomy boat they had hired for this journey the day before.

What was needed for refreshments for the  day – both for the friends and for the rowers – had

already been carried down by an errand boy; it now rested safely and protected from the impending heat of the sun in the bilge of the heavy rowing boat.

A large sailing vessel crossed in front of the island’s harbour as they set out onto the open sea; its yellow sails were billowing in the fresh morning air.

The high, red rugged cliffs towered gigantically above. Up amongst them were white villas embedded in light green; they seemed to be struggling to get a grip and looked from here like children’s toy houses.

Following a broad sweep they first rounded the rock walls so that they could enjoy their impressive sight from a distance.

Then the rowers came closer to the island, and they could see the rock formation clearly.

They began steering a course through the narrow passage separating the island from the mainland.

Over on the mainland a chain of fairly high mountains moved rhythmically into the distance; above them even taller peaks stood out.

The whole mainland coast was still shrouded in a veil of gentle mist shimmering over it in a rich palette of soft pastel tones, from a light rose to soft bright blue.

Here, sitting in the boat, they could see to their considerable astonishment the shining greenish blue sea with such transparency that they could make out the seabed with its stones and weeds as though they were looking into completely empty depths. They almost felt, with some unease that the boat was hovering over this abyss as though over a void nothingness.

In the furthest distance a few thin pale violet strips of cloud were encamped over the sea as the last witnesses to the vanished night, almost sucked up into the rosy morning light which was already transforming itself into golden brightness above, gradually to merge in the lightest of yellowy greens at an even greater height before ending in the most iridescent of turquoise blues.

You have to experience these early mornings on the southern sea yourself as to comprehend their beauty! – –

*

The boat with the three friends continued to keep very close to the island’s coast.

Towering bastions of rocks alternated here with rough gorges; occasionally steep depressions spread themselves out where light olive groves and lemon orchards, orange groves and myrtle bushes reached down almost to the sea.

The high rocks near the shoreline which they had before only admired from the island, now formed a great gateway; the sailors steered the boat through this vault of rock.

They could now clearly see the site of the Mithras grotto where previously, at that evening, they had heard such significant disclosures.

They discerned the steep path along which in olden days the mystai, arriving by sea, might have climbed to reach the sacred place.

Just a few more strokes of the oars and they would see, high up over a wide, fertile valley, the bright town on the saddle of the hill – now visible from the other side, while in the morning they had seen it rising above the small port.

As from the sight of the port settlement, it appeared to rise gradually, here it lay like a castle crowning the hill’s saddle. To its left it was protected by the island’s highest mountain ridge; to the right overseen by modest  hills.

*

The three friends had so far indulged in gazing with delight upon all the beauties their eyes could take in. The sailors – much proud of their wonderful homeland – never tired of giving explanations or pointing out particularly beautiful sights.

Sweat had been dripping for some time from their foreheads. It was clear from looking at them that they would quite like to have a rest before continuing with the greater part of the journey around the island.

Not far from the spot where they now were was a small landing stage for fishing boats.

Some picturesque, low houses edged the small bay; on the beach they could see nets spread out in the sun to dry.

The travellers made them steer towards this spot.

As they disembarked the three men were pleased at last to escape temporarily the motionless sitting in the boat and to be able to extend their limbs on solid ground.

They enjoyed watching the youngsters swimming and demonstrating all their different diving skills; they looked for a while at the fishermen preparing their equipment for the next night’s catch; eventually they took some refreshment, together with the rowers, who were brothers, in the form of some juicy fruit from the supplies they had brought with them on the boat.

Soon they set off again and observed now from the distance the small fishermen’s houses. The waves, gradually increasing in size, carried the boat smoothly towards the western precipices alongside a massive rock wall, interrupted only occasionally by narrow cracks and colourful shimmering grottos.

Francesco, the younger of the two brothers, knew of a resting place on the this side of the island now lying in shade from the high rocks and  towering

mountains. Although his elder brother certainly knew of it too, Francesco extolled it in the grandest tones as though he personally had discovered it.

There they intended to take their midday rest and tarry for a good while. Then, when the sun had climbed over the mountain and was near the sea, they would embark on the last part of their journey homewards.

*

The rowers, however, had to make a huge effort to row against the waves. They had to steer a course far out into the open sea to avoid being too close to the shallow reefs surrounding the high rocky walls like a pointed fence.

At last the two brothers considered the time right to direct the boat back towards the island. They held the keel sharply towards a light patch they could see on the distant shoreline.

In approaching they discovered a shallow bay  where no surf could reach. Above great, whitewashed piles of stones there was an idyllic terrace of grass with myrtle bushes, deep dark laurel, eucalyptus and olive trees: – really a tempting place to stay a while.

The boat was thrown abruptly on to the land by a skilfully deployed wave. After both travellers and rowers had struggled to pull the boat from the sea onto a bank they secured it and climbed over the pebbles to their chosen resting place.

The two oarsmen brought the baskets with food and drink, were given their own refreshments and returned to the boat to eat there and rest. The travellers found it hard to understand why the men who had brought them to this place of particular beauty would not want to share in its enjoyment.

But here was demonstrated nothing other than that wonderful tact which makes even the simplest son of the south so appreciated by understanding foreigners.

*

Of course you will find in the major cities the vilest rabble. But where the race has been able to keep its nobility untainted, even the poorest carries his ragged poverty as though a prince. The majesty of his inner dignity is particularly admirable because he senses in any situation what is appropriate to his position. Despite all his freedom of expression he never departs from the role fate has allocated him for this earthly life…

Thus the two brothers knew well enough that the travellers would wish to be left to themselves. Regardless of how much they too would have liked to stretch out on the same grass, as frequently they did when staying here with wives and children on some holiday, it would have seemed to them a sacrilege, even a crime, with which they would be for ever tainted. –

*

The repast tasted well. Though there was no clear spring here on this island, the earth had nevertheless provided them with luscious fruit capable of quenching their thirst after the seasoned meal.

There was also the juice from the grapes growing on the island’s slopes, although they are so fiery in nature that they cannot really replace water.

After having observed silence for a considerable while, the youngest of the three spoke and said:

“It was at a very similar place like this one here where we are resting that I once received unforgettably exalted teaching.

It was on the journey to the East, provided by my father, before taking up my present working position.

Like here, I was on an island; like here, contemplating the sea; like here, resting among myrtle and laurel, although the grass was much sparser, and the flowers in less profusion than here.

On that occasion I saw my Guru once more  unexpectedly. The circumstances which led me to encounter him again were very unusual.

But all that can be told on a winter’s evening when the storm howls and the snow whips against the windows, in front of the fire, for now we share a very close and understanding relationship. –

But what I just recalled has to do rather with the teaching I received in those days. It may still be discussed in order to complete what has made our being together thus far so fruitful.”

*

“I don’t know what you want to tell us today,” interrupted the oldest of the three, “but I think that we two elder partners in this circle agree that we can only benefit through you. What you have to tell us will certainly not fall on deaf ears!”

“That’s what I think too,” added the ‘abbot’ beaming with visible contentment. He continued: “It’s hard to grasp what you have been able to make of us two old fellows in the short time since you finally laid your cards on the table! – –

I could almost feel irritation that you’ve been with us so often and always kept your secret from us ‘outsiders’!

In your eyes we must have seemed real ‘sceptics’. But you know that scepticism and mysticism have a very close affinity! –

Those who don’t have a bit of scepticism in them will have no need to want to know something about what is happening behind the curtain which’ imagery he is urged to believe…

But, as you have seen, we ‘sceptics’ are not as beyond improvement as you might have thought!

All our scepticism is nothing other than a disguised yearning to be able to believe; only the ability to believe is made infernally difficult nowadays!

Granted, if one then, as with you, suddenly sees that there is actually behind all these postulates of faith an irrevocable, if clumsily formulated truth, one pays attention and keeps the conclusions reached by rationalist thinking within their proper limits! – –

But who receives this teaching nowadays?! –

Most people just live as external circumstances allow them to; they fear neither death nor devil, and in the end ignore what they cannot puzzle out.

If we knew how to absorb properly what you had to give us during this trip, then we wouldn’t be so speechless and at a loss when mankind, in its feverish search, spins on its own axis without suspecting for a moment that it is keeping itself spell bound to the same spot! – –

Why do our children not know about all  this! – – –

Does every new generation really have to find out itself that two plus two equals four??

But I am talking too much and beg forgiveness. For I expect nothing other than that our young, but so much more experienced friend, should further enlighten us! –”

*

In the meantime the sun had appeared behind the mountain ridge, become more and more prominent,

travelled over the other side of the island, crossed its zenith, and was now evidently longing to sink into the sea, although for the time being she still stood high enough to banish the fear that the sea could swallow her up.

Yet her rays were already starting to turn into the yellow of the early evening. Gradually pinkish red tones blended with its light so that the far distance glowed increasingly in a light mixture of colours and  the nearby also became sated with warm colour.

Their eyes drank in this beauty in full draughts. It amazed them that anyone could be capable of bearing the grim reality of northern latitudes…

Once upon a time it must really only have been the boldest who dared to seek out such inhospitable regions, – if not the poorest who preferred to submit to the misery of sun-impoverished summers rather than continue to be slaves to the rich who imagined that the lushness of the south was there to satisfy only their own lust for pleasure. – –

Many such thoughts might have crossed the minds of the three friends when the youngest of the three began speaking after a short pause and said:

“Look, my dear friends. I feel I must come across as a teacher to you who are so much older. You call me your young friend yourselves; from that I must conclude that the years which divide me from you are like an excuse for much that appears strange to you about me. However, you now know that these supposed ‘peculiarities’ have their grounds! –”

But as though from one mouth the older men stated quite categorically that they intended it as a mark of honour for the younger man to count himself as one of them. They were bound to regard him as so much younger because they saw themselves as almost too old to change their way of thinking. – –

*

The youngest then spoke, and his voice quivered with the deepest emotion:

“Oh, my friends! How limited are the concepts ‘young’ and ‘old’; how little significance do they have within the spiritual realm!

There ‘age’ denotes only the time that eternal spiritual man has already travelled since the day which gave him the impulse to return to his original homeland.

In earthly years though considerably younger than the two of you, I would be the ‘older’ here in the spirit, for otherwise I would not have received what I have received. – –

Now it is my duty to teach you, even though I do not feel myself deserving to be your ‘teacher’! – – –

I pass on what I have received myself in the past and of which only its form be due to me.

So I should like to talk to you today about some matters that I received in a similar place. If you are minded to listen to me, you will learn of many things I have not been able to include in my conversations with you thus far.

The things we have put into words on this journey may be viewed from many perspectives; from every point of view there always appears a new  picture! – –

But what I’d like to say to you today connects with earlier matters and will  explain even better those things I was permitted to say to you  before. – –

I want to let the Master speak himself, as he once spoke to me when I met him again on a southerly island and he wanted to reveal himself to my soul…

The following are extracts from my diary:

*

“Distant from us here are the corrupting, boundless desires of the Western world!

Distant from us be what your forefathers’ grandchildren would yearn for as well-being in their lives! –

On this island which bears us, only the two of us breathe , for only we two breathe consciously! –

Only we seek to give account of what a higher being within us could see …

And so I ask you, – you,  who is loved by my soul, – how do you feel yourself, without being frightened – in the face of the immeasurable extent of your soul!? – – –

But you answered me:

“Those before me, alas, they were certainly no different than me, and they knew better than many we encounter today how to master life!

What benefits it me to raise myself over all those who came before and to experience myself at a height which is surely of no use to me if I have to leave this earth today for ever?!”

But I have different things to say to you, and you will hear me as I say:

You show yourself to be foolish, my friend, if you want to imprison yourself in this way of thinking!

This is how faint hearts and souls fettered to the earth, speak. But I have seen you already looking beyond; there were even further distances I taught you to cover with the eye of an eagle!

*

Surely you are a corruptible beast, a corpse which can merely be dung to the earth, if you allow this earth’s implacable law to become master of your soul!

But I will teach you differently, and you shall vow to me never to be led astray by the lower powers of the earth. Nevertheless, you shall never despise this earth, for only in the body of this earth can you be redeemed as long as you must bear this earthly existence! – – –

I will teach you to change earthly raiment into cherub’s wings; – I will teach you: to raise yourself from the earth’s power to the stars! –

We will walk together, and you will soon recognise that I am showing you paths which you surely did not know before my marking them. But I will also show you how to start on such paths and how to walk on to the highest goal! – – –

Why would we have come close together, if I could not grant you this favour of love?! – – –

*

Those who once taught you said to you:

‘Wise indeed is the enlightening reason of man which can illuminate all those things which human consciousness would banish into darkness!’

But you have known for a long time that your reason has made you a slave to a thousand errors. You begin to be wise when you say to yourself: that your reason will never solve the mysteries which surround you in this earthly night! – – – – –

If you have finally understood this first stage, I can continue to help you. If you entrust yourself to me, you will surely not be disappointed! –

*

Behold, everything your rational knowledge gives you is anchored only in the smallest part of your body – in your brain. But the knowledge which is to give you eternal sustenance must be one with your whole body!

We can build upon this!

From this you shall beget the certainty that your body is necessary to you if you wish to attain full knowledge! – – –

This knowledge can not be gained overnight; but whoever seeks it from the bottom of his heart, will surely attain it! –

*

As every deeper excitement of your soul soon causes all your body’s atoms to oscillate, so too must your body learn to move willingly whenever the spiritual touches your consciousness.

Whatever spiritual things may come towards you: you will only really grasp them and see them becoming completely one with you when every sinew of your earthly body longingly grasps for them, so that, like two hands finding each other, they may seize each other!

Only within such ‘seizure’, as well as within your whole body, will what reaches you from the spirit be capable of uniting with you; for in no other way can the truly spiritual reach you other than by complete unification! – – –

*

Thinking about the spiritual may well be of benefit to you but it will not lead to the goal!

You may well acquire much earthly knowledge in this way, but as soon as you must leave this earthly body such knowledge will be lost to you and of no more use!

Truly, spiritual knowledge is different!

You can only gain it if you can unite yourself with the object of this knowledge! – – –

Whereas transient knowledge is always but a grasping, acquiring, discovering, finding and uncovering, spiritual knowledge, eternally lasting knowledge, is about becoming aware! – –

You can attain nothing in the spiritual unless you let yourself be changed through the spiritual within the innermost of your inner being and become what you want to recognise! – – – – –

*

Today this seems to you incredibly difficult since your thinking has not yet learnt to obey your will.

You can not perceive the spiritual in yourself  until you are able to command your thoughts to be

silent and have learnt to resist their impudent pompous behaviour!

Later, when through awareness you have come to knowledge in unification, you will be able to richly  compensate your thinking for the restraint which you had to impose upon it previously!

Then you will be able to give it a new basis for its working; upon this it may build with the same certainty as where the world of the senses provides a foundation.

*

The power of thought is a wonderful gift, but it can only be beneficial where you provide yourself a secure foundation for it. – –

You must not imagine that you can firstly create or find this foundation through your thinking, if you are not to be subjected to an illusion which has been the cause of a thousand errors in the minds from the earliest times of earthly mankind until our own days! – – –

People repeatedly fail by wanting to think up what can only be experienced through awareness before

becoming material for thought.

People believe they recognise the spiritual in their thinking and do not know that the spiritual can never be grasped in thoughts before it has been experienced. For only in experience can it truly be felt; in an experience which has nothing in common with knowledge through thinking. – –

*

Beyond all thinking, with your thoughts on a tight rein, and as the master of your thinking, you shall learn to see what can be seen within yourself through immersion in your innermost depths: – only then are you allowed to set free your thoughts, only then will the conclusions of your thoughts be capable of concluding the spiritual from the spiritual!” – –

Thus ended the Master’s words on that occasion!

I don’t think it was entirely superfluous to convey them to you?!”

*

“Certainly not,” replied the physicist, “and like everything else, it really makes it clear to me that our thinking is always conditioned by the premises from which it sets out!

If I understand correctly, your Guru also did not doubt the correctness of logical conclusions; he only confronted you with the consideration that our thinking is, as it were, indifferent to the foundation upon which it works. Thus even the logically most unassailable conclusions can, in the last analysis, be false when they rest on preconditions which are from the outset not properly secured.

I also well understand that we need for our thinking inasmuch as it refers to spiritual things, to have no less a foundation of experience than the one we actually possess for our thinking directed at physical things; and that it is incorrect to believe one could ever have a substitute for such experience in thought itself. – –

I no longer have any doubts about all of this, but I do wonder how I could attain such spiritual experience that would precede all thinking about spiritual matters. Here I see very uncertain terrain before me and I hesitate to commit myself to it.” –

*

The younger man answered and said:

“As you have not yet won closer insight from all the things I have been permitted to say to you, I intend to let the Master speak to you on this point. For I too once put the same question, and my diary gives an accurate record of the answer the Master gave on that occasion.

*

Thus spoke the Master to me once:

‘From your youth you have been accustomed to let your thinking make the final decision and you have allowed to atrophy within you the strength through which you should receive certainty in awareness!

All the certainty your thinking can ever give to you is but a shadow of that certain knowledge you will receive in your innermost self as soon as you can raise yourself above your thinking and enter that realm of which your thinking can never give an account.

You must yourself bring news of that realm to your thinking, if it is to prove itself here as well! – –

If you want to find your way to that narrow gate which will lead you to wakeful experience, then you will have to consciously leave all the ways which earthly thought has constructed!

Even the wisdom of the Vedas is often but foolish invention as far as finding that truly narrow gate is concerned!

The Upanishads move along broad paths, the Avesta travels the same wide streets of foolish thought, yet on all of them occasionally trails can be discerned of those who have found that narrow path which leads to the gate of life. – –

Even what the Siddharta taught, the one they called the Buddha, will not lead you to the goal, though it may harbour much wise knowledge which truly cannot be called the fruit of thinking!

*

Many have tried, unrecognised, to show that narrow path, but only One has become known far and wide to mankind who did not just try, but was able to show it through life and deeds …

Subsequently he became ‘God’ to you Christians, and you name yourselves after him. Yet in vain I seek those among you who follow in his  footprints. – – –

Silly fools often believed they were his fellow travellers when they tried to imitate him on the basis of the utterly confused accounts of his life. Even today you find deluded zealots who make an effort externally to be like his image and seek, beyond all shame, to press his exalted words into the service of their smug activities.

The most insane have already profaned his name; but even among those who wanted to follow him sincerely there are not a few who have unwittingly blasphemed him while believing they fulfilled his words.

Truly it is a miracle that, despite all the horrors which have disgraced mankind in his name, he still walks deserving veneration through history of man on earth! – – – – –

*

Full of delusion, the confession of one of the rarest of those who must confess themselves to be what they are has been misinterpreted and he has been turned into ‘God’; from his words they have made a teaching blended with ancient teaching about the gods, without, however, including in it the deeply anchored secret wisdom which reveals itself from these teachings about the gods to the  initiated. – – – – –

Error has been committed from the earliest times!

But he – one of us – and yet so superior in loving power to all of us who are his brothers in the realm of the spirit, was truly the only one among us who could show all mankind that narrow path which leads to the gate of wakeful, eternal life…

It is not undignified for even the wisest to heed marks from him about this path! – – –

But he also said once that he would send one who bore the seal of his mission. And that he can be taken in by those who could accept him as an emissary from the house of his ‘Father’ of which he said that it had many mansions….

*

He showed the way – the narrow path – which leads to the gateway of life and he taught how to open this gate!

But he who come after him can only prove his seal when he is able to show the same path!

In the end there is only the one way, and blessed are you when you walk upon it! – –

Look how the carpenter showed it; he who, like us, was a master of true life!

His life was also his teaching! In vain you would seek to catch sight of some thought up wisdom to which he somehow could have owed his knowledge beneath the rubble of later falsifications to the ancient accounts of his life!

His wisdom did not come to him from Egypt nor from India; indeed, at any time he can find the same wisdom who is worthy of it!

It was his ‘Father’s’ power and wisdom which was revealed in him according to his own words; yet this ‘Father’s’ wisdom is no work of thought but of wakeful being! – –

*

I too, my good friend, cannot lead you to wakeful knowledge through awareness unless I lead you on the same path which the exalted Master of Nazareth taught us to walk after he changed himself into the ‘way’ and was permitted to say that he was ‘the way, the truth and the life’. – – –

Thus I intend to show you this path today and give you the light-filled teaching as to how you can, as soon as possible, follow the high path leading you to the gate to wakeful experience of yourself in the spirit.

Open your heart and listen to me!

You will be able to experience the deepest mystery here in yourself!

The final secret shall reveal itself to you!

I shall lead you to your highest peaks, and by my hand you shall learn to look upon all the abysses beneath you without any danger!

If you will follow me you are truly to find the way to your highest height, to that highest height which shall show you in the mellow light of the spirit your

eternal origin, high above the misty terrain where your earthly days pursue their crazed course! – – –

So hearken and follow me if you are called to follow me and can therefore follow me! – – – – –

*

Enslaved by the primeval fall, you sank into the gloomiest of nights from which only divine power could free you.

Bound by your own will to the power of the masters of this external, physical cosmos, subject to the ‘princes of this world’ you became prey to your thoughts – you who were heretofore lord of all thinking! –

You ought to be released from this subjection! – –

Had he of whom I spoke earlier not walked upon this earth: he whom we call the greatest of men of love, then only a few could reach the goal of which I give witness to you…

But he was able to change the ‘aura’ of this earth in such a way that all who are ‘of good will’ to enter

the light, will also receive the strength which can fulfil the longing of their will. – –

Therefore many can now find their ‘redemption’ who without his act of love on Golgotha would perforce have been subject to annihilation, – at least subject to the tortures of aeons before liberation and salvation could be theirs. – – –

Through him it is easy for you to set yourself free if you want to redeem yourself! –

*

Let go of all imagined wisdom, even though it appears to you to be ‘the words of gods’, in order to discover that wisdom brought about through deed and life which even the wisest in the teachings of this earth cannot fathom, since it is anchored in depths which no thought can ever measure! – – –

Seek to find the simplicity of the child in yourself; through this you can release yourself from the tortuous restrictions where you are kept bound by that which is not yourself! – –

Truly it is easier for a camel – and even if it is only a rope made from its hair – to pass through the eye

of a needle than for a ‘rich man’, rich in earthly focussed spirituality, to enter the Kingdom of Heaven!!

*

This means: that all rational wisdom becomes but folly when it comes to finding the spirit of life in oneself! –

There is no ‘training’ here, no student exercises, which lead to success; nothing can promise a secure guarantee other than deeds and a wakeful life ready to perform deeds! –

He who strives can only make progress here through wakeful deed; only in this way does a secret discloses itself to him which he seeks to fathom in vain as long as he courts it only in his thoughts! – – –

Once he has recognised what it is about he will recall with laughter his folly which heretofore made things seem attainable to him through human thought; things that become only comprehensible through exalted grace. – –

Thus the ancients grasped it. And in no different way can be grasped today what remains a mystery for ever, even if one day thousands may succeed in achieving it…

*

One does not get closer to this mystery by striving for strange powers; but he who attains it also obtains effortlessly truly wondrous powers – to each one different powers, – that can be of service to him towards his perfection. – – –

All arbitrariness is excluded here; and only in the way the spirit bestows its gifts according to eternal inherent law are they attainable by man. –

Those for whom the gifts of the spirit are more important than the happiness of unification which is the prerequisite of these gifts will surely achieve neither the one nor the other and be subject to deception lasting aeons. – –

The happiness of unification is the final goal; the gifts of the spirit which can be yours are the consequence of attaining this final goal.

*

The start of your path is found here on earth in the midst of everyday life; – all the stations on this way remain in the earthly sphere; only when you have been able to reach them one after the other you can truly release yourself from the earth and enter the kingdom of the spirit where the final goal awaits you. – – –

Oh, so many carry within themselves the burning desire to achieve the final goal yet they cannot raise themselves to  the insight  that this final goal can only be reached if one seeks the start of the path in the midst of everyday life; from this point the next station on the way is to be kept in view as the first intermediate goal, until it is reached; then the next station is set as the goal! –

Instead, they think they can only find the start of the path by fleeing everyday life and constructing their own fantasy world which owes its existence only to their power of imagination! – –

From there they look out for the final goal and believe it can be reached without intermediary goals; thus they become prey to their own delusory thinking and dream up the supposed kingdom of the spirit out of the nothingness of the imagination; just

as before, when they created the illusion that they were far removed from everyday life on earth and had set off on the path to the spirit ages before…

They are unable to keep themselves in check and to continue with perseverance on the path of life: much rather they would reach the goal the next day and thus create themselves the deception inherent to misguided bliss, which ends when the earthly body no longer nourishes the powers producing this illusory world. – –

*

Truly those who take their own counsel and recognise the deception of this illusion and show only contempt for it, are far better off, even if they do not suspect that they could, far removed from all delusion, find in themselves the way of truth which is a way of life! –

Be neither one nor the other, but rather follow my teaching by setting off on the path of life, the path of wakeful deed, from its beginning; walk along it from goal to goal until you reach the final goal, without asking when you will reach the final goal!

If you do not reach it here during your earthly life, you will with certainty soon call it your own, even if you have had to leave this place without reaching it. For then you will be offered a kind of help which is unavailable to those who have not already set off on the path of life and deed during their earthly  lives! – – –

*

Here in the midst of your daily life, in the midst of the life of your work and your earthly duties you shall find your beginning! – – –

This ‘beginning’ is nothing other than the awareness that you can also view and work out your daily life from the perspective of an eternal life. – – –

The first task then is to learn to see your daily life as a part of your eternal life and to fulfil all responsibilities of daily life with such iron perseverance that you may believe with certainty

that there will be nothing to regret throughout eternity that you may do or omit to do in this daily life.

The first goal to be reached on the path consists of achieving that certainty of a clear conscience which sooner or later must certainly follow on from this persevered fulfilment of your daily tasks.

*

Once this first goal on the path is reached, the second will reveal itself. It consists in recognising beyond the daily responsibilities, other responsibilities which though not considered as ‘duties’ in everyday life will then be felt as such. –

Now you need to fulfil these duties in the same way without, however, neglecting the day-to-day duties! – –

You will know instantly what these duties demand of you, just as you knew when you reached the first goal on the path!

For each person these further duties present themselves differently; it would thus be impossible to describe them in more detail to you. –

But having reached the first goal on the path you will never be in any doubt as to what these new duties consist in for you and what they require of you!

*

Once you have fulfilled these duties faithfully and with perseverance over a longer period and in the same way as the daily responsibilities, you will reach the third goal on the path by attaining the same certainty of a clear conscience with respect to these higher duties as you received after perfectly fulfilling your daily responsibilities. – – –

*

Immediately a new goal will show itself to you. You will see that it requires from you only that you seek to make effective for others what has brought you so far.

You are not required to show foolish eagerness here in converting anyone who crosses your path to that which has led you to your own self-assuredness. What is required is that you put yourself in the service of the same work which brought you your first liberation and that you seek to be similarly effective through your example.

This fourth goal on the way confirms its attainment through the conscious peace of conscience which indicates to you that you have been able to achieve it – not through talk and disputation – but through life, deed and action!

*

Soon enough you will see your fifth goal on the path before you. This requires of you to establish yourself as creator!

You will have somehow to get involved productively in the life of your surroundings, not by, for example, attempting to eradicate abuses, but by seeking to establish something effective, in the sense of the knowledge you have already acquired, in your surroundings. – – –

If afterwards the certain clear conscience ensues that you have already experienced with certainty many times before, it will, now bound to new consciousness, give witness of itself in you. This is the sixth goal on the path, the sixth stage of your path which is to lead you in the seventh stage to union with your spiritual origin! – – –

*

This new consciousness will say to you that now the time has come to try and try again: to see if you can with complete concentration release yourself spiritually from the hustle and bustle of the earth without abandoning it, to the extent needed to allow completion of the union of the kingdom of the spirit within you through which your earthly consciousness becomes capable of perceiving the holy word of your living God in yourself without ever falling prey again to deception.

*

You shall not attempt to release yourself from this hustle and bustle any earlier; only when you are completely sure that you have passed wakefully through all the previous stations on the way!

If you were to attempt it earlier, you would perforce become prey to deceptive powers, only to

realise with shock  after your days on this earth to what extent you were deceived!

You would be like someone who in his dreams believes he can fly  and is pleased with his ability. On waking up he recognises that he now, as then, cannot master the gravity which ties him to the earth. –

*

As much as it may appear easy for you to pass through those earlier stations, and despite the temptation to believe that: you passed them by a long time ago, I must warn you so much the more against yielding to self-deception!

You are not only putting at risk your whole striving, but you wantonly risk losing for aeons the way which was to lead you to the light, if you try too soon to release yourself from earthly hustle and bustle.

But if you have truly and honestly completed your designated path and are conscious that you have not neglected any of the intermediate goals, then your

release must begin with an attempt to find the naked man within you!

That may seem not too difficult for you, yet it is far more difficult than you can suspect! – –

*

Hitherto you have been accustomed to seeing yourself as the offspring of a particular family, the son of a particular nation, the member of a particular circle – and quite rightly so.

Hitherto you were not to feel yourself as released from such connections if you entertained the hope of ever reaching your goal.

But now you must learn to evaluate all such connections from the perspective of eternity; for the eternal spirit does not give itself to ‘Medes’ or ‘Persians’, to ‘Greeks’ or ‘Romans’ – nor to any offspring from this or that revered house, nor to any member of this or that caste, but only to: – the naked

MAN! – – –

*

You must feel within yourself alone this ‘naked’, cosmically given man; everything which might determine him in an earthly way must appear to you then as transient and inessential!

Yet you would truly give my words a mistaken meaning if you sought to believe that what you have recognised as ‘inessential’ and ‘transient’ should now appear valueless to you in your daily life!

*

With good reason they belong to your daily life and as such must remain intact if you do not wish to disturb the cosmic order. In the same way you would wantonly disrupt this order by seeking in your daily life to give greater value to these defining and, through their definition, separating factors than is due to them through what is naturally given! – –

If you lovingly encompass in your daily life such a limitation, – whether it is called family circle,  caste, people or nation, you will always act correctly

and be able to love the limitations of others. But as soon as you seek to emphasise in particular those things which define you as a part of human totality, you will disrupt the cosmic order in the same way as a musician in a large orchestra would disrupt the musical work if he sought to play his instrument more loudly and powerfully than the part the composer has allocated him requires! – – – – –

*

Having reached this final earthly goal on the way, from which you shall soon enter the kingdom of the spirit, you must not imagine that you can neglect even one of the aforementioned duties!

In everyday life you must constantly render what is due to all things in daily life. Nevertheless, you must bear within yourself that higher awareness that allows you to see as ‘immaterial’ and ‘transient’ what gives everyday its value in every day life! – – –

*

If nothing more can be found in the highest sphere of your inner life than the naked, cosmically given MAN, seeking to unite with the GODHEAD, then you  must have first to learn to truly love yourself, you must increasingly be able to feel yourself only as LOVE until there cannot be anything else in you apart from the FIRE OF  LOVE. – – – – –

Thus consumed in love you shall become the vessel of DIVINE love in this fire-purified domain, and in your innermost ‘I’ your ‘LIVING GOD’ will unite with you …

*

Only now have you reached the final goal on your high path. But you would quickly lose what you have gained if you imagined, while belonging to everyday life as a son of the earth, that you were relieved of your everyday duties! – – –

Within you is now the path by which you can raise yourself henceforth at any time, indeed, in the moment you desire, to your highest height in the kingdom of the spirit, to your unity with your living

God. From this highest height your everyday life will also receive light – a light not of this earth and not subject to earthly laws! – – –

Then you will perhaps be able to apprehend what the great Man of Love once taught when he said that the Kingdom of Heaven was ‘nigh’; one could not say it was here or there nor think that it would come with great gestures for:

‘The Kingdom of God is in you!’”

*

These diary entries were read with great enthusiasm, and the two older men, listening to the voice of their younger friend, were deeply moved by what they heard.

After a moment’s silence the oldest of the three got up and said:

“Truly this is sublime teaching we have received here. The secret of true life has now been disclosed to us!

How many mysteries find their solution in this teaching!

How differently do we see human existence on this earth when permitted to hear these things!

My every question has now died away, and I see the path I must walk with great clarity before  me! – ”

*

The other of the three friends too, who had stood up with the youngest among them as the old man was speaking, spoke likewise, and his words finished in the confession:

“We have experienced great things on this journey; now we return home as different men as the time of our departure from this island approaches!

Now our everyday life, which we all too often have seen as grey and empty, will gain colour and content. If in past times the sun has been worshipped as the symbol of divinity, I may say that I too now surrender myself to such service to the sun; only, I carry this sun within myself and believe I feel its rays already! – – –

I had indeed hoped for many beautiful things from our journey. But I would never have expected to return enriched with that knowledge I have sought all my life. – –

Higher powers must truly be holding their hands above us! – –

And if the two of us older men might regret having acquired late in life the knowledge which has now been shown to us, we must admit that any earlier time would have been premature, and it evidently knew the correct time to choose. – –”

*

The two oars men had long since hauled the boat back down to the sea, now as smooth as a mirror and like fluid light, ready to take the disk of the sun into itself.

Sea and sky seemed united in a golden glow!

The friends eventually noticed that their rowers had been waiting for them for some time, so they climbed down to the beach, whilst the younger of the brothers, seeing that they had got up to leave, rushed towards them to put the baskets and the jugs back in the boat.

*

After a few minutes the boat had left the site of their lengthy sojourn far behind. Now it was no longer necessary to steer a course out to sea; they could without risk travel through the rocks and keep close to the high rocky walls on the island.

The rocks glowed with stunning colours in the abundant rays of the sun, glowing as it sank into the sea.

*

On this side of the island there were only a few green gorges and wider inlets covered with olive trees.

Almost without interruption high walls of rock rose into the sky; often they were hollowed out by the sea so that they could look into wide, mystery-murmuring grottos.

Since the three travellers were showing great interest in everything they could see from close up, their two rowers took pleasure in diverting from the quickest route back home to row into every small inlet, spending more time in particularly beautiful spots.

So it happened that the night gradually fell, – an increasingly glorious starlit night, – while they could see glistening strings of lights in the major port which lay not too far away on the mainland.

The island itself now looked as though it was uninhabited, for they were still quite a distance from the place from which they might have seen the lights of its hilltop town.

*

The boat, moving faster now through more powerful strokes of the oars, glided in the deep, black shadows of the wall of rock.

Flashing, bluish phosphorescent light from masses of glowing sea creatures was released when the oars made contact with the water.

The trace of the boat’s keel remained lit up like a rocket’s tail.

As fish were only caught here at night by torchlight, they occasionally met a fishing boat shrouded in gloom like a spectre, and moving out to its grounds.

Cheerful words of greeting were exchanged before the boat quickly vanished into the darkness.

At times, particularly when they knew their art would be enhanced by a good echo, the two brothers belted out the songs of their homeland with all the power in their lungs. But as their voices did not possess too much of the melodic musicality of their great national singers, the three travellers, knowing the texts, enjoyed listening to them, but appreciated much more being surrounded by the profound evening stillness, even more impressively sensed through the sound of the rhythmical stroking of the oars.

*

At last, having moved round the last high rocky outcrop, they now saw the first lights from the island. It would not take long now for them to reach the small island harbour. The coachman and his carriage, booked beforehand, had been awaiting the boat’s return for hours; now the three friends were taken slowly up the winding streets to the small town where the guesthouse they had become fond of offered them shelter for their last night.

After taking a light supper in the guesthouse the three friends spent a while under the cedars and palms in the dark nocturnal garden. Here they delighted in the sparkle of lights on the sea caused by the torches of innumerable fishing boats making their catch.

*

Intending to depart the next day, they thought it advisable to turn in. Prior to this they had agreed that they would, if at all possible, go by sea from the nearby mainland port and complete as much of the journey home as possible by sea.

When travelling this way they could expect to find delightful opportunities to contemplate together, their souls revived, once more all those things they had discussed during these weeks, and so to apprehend how differently earthly life appears since its secret, as the bringer of blessings, had been disclosed. – – –