Hortus Conclusus

Spectre of Freedom:

Every human being on earth in control of his capacity for thinking and his senses believes in his way to be conscious of himself, since he knows about his body and the reactions from the external world surrounding him which he can perceive through the organs of his body.

Furthermore, everyone knows the name others once gave him and to a certain extent the branches of the family to which, as a fruit of union, he owes his physical existence, even though he might curse those who gave him it…

He knows his position in the world; – he knows what he has been able to acquire through his actions, and which desires seem denied to him.

 Most surely he will know about his titles and privileges if he has had any of these bestowed upon him either at birth or in the course of his time on earth…

 Yet all these things do not give him any knowledge about his reality; for everything he knows about himself is only what he has taken on temporarily, and will with indubitable certainty be taken away from him one day. – –

 But there is something that no one needs to take on or give up, since he was it eternally, is it, and will be it, even if he forfeits the power of feeling eternally identical with that certain something…

 There is something in us which is not of this earth, even though it can only be comprehended in our earthly lives in a form determined by the earth. – –

We need to get to the root of this something!

 Above all else one must perceive this something in oneself!

He who has not got to the root of this something is like a beggar wandering through dark alleyways among locked houses; in desperation he looks up to the brightly lit windows which tell him the others have begun their celebrations, – whereas he will not be ‘invited’ to his celebration for a long time to come…

There are so many who wander like this beggar in the ‘dark alleyways’, seeking intoxication in every ‘basement bar’ which sells soul-numbing poison to forget their misery, whilst others are barely ashamed of themselves and exhibit this coarsely. –

Egoism is, quite rightly, regarded as contemptible when it emphasizes the self without regard to anything else, yet one is tempted to look for it when one sees how so many thousands ‘forget’ themselves, and certainly not for the sake of  others…

Trapped in a mass whose individual members, except for a few that can be easily counted, have long ago ‘forgotten’ themselves, and instead think they have given a name to themselves when uttering their external ‘name’; those, thus pulled along with the mass only seldom realise that they do not know themselves, being acquainted only with the coloured rags they are temporarily given to ‘denote’ them. –

There is truly far too much complacency in that self-rejection for the sake of others who, likewise, know nothing of themselves!

In this context egoism could be called a ‘virtue’, if the individual,  through concern about himself, became the cause for others to be encouraged to search for themselves…

It is still almost incredible to those who remain sober that millions in this earthly life become intoxicated by this masquerade they have dreamt up for themselves, because they no longer know who they are!

Where the real must yield to mere appearance, deception surely triumphs, – anyone who no longer knows who he is from eternity, deceives himself!

The highest honour external communal life has to bestow can always only be worn like a garment or an ornament.

Those who try to put ‘value’ on his honour, ‘value’ the appearance; yet what he is will not be changed by such value. –

If he feels more noble in the garments he has been granted than in the nakedness of his human-animal form, he is living in a dream world as the poor victim of his own hypnotic vanity; he remains light years from even ‘suspecting’ who he is! –

The faint suspicion that everything now depriving him of his freedom is not suited to him and not part of his true being comes to earthly man from a long forgotten awareness of himself.

And so an unconscious striving towards himself is transformed into the fully conscious urge to be free.

Yet through this urge the spectre of freedom is, as everywhere in human life, immediately summoned forth to cloud the clarity of wakeful thinking with the deceptions of slippery promises which can never be fulfilled.

Thus man also seeks a ‘freedom’ here which is not rooted in necessity, – and he sees ‘reality’ as the phantom of some crazed theory which tempts him day by day ever further from reality.

If ultimately a horror-filled realisation does not cause him to turn around, the end of such a poor desert nomad will be a miserable languishing of his soul, or suffocation in the lashing clouds of the burning sands of resurrected original delusion…

It is necessary to prevent such an end through the recognition gained from rational thought that freedom rooted in reality can only be attained in awakened sobriety which sees through every unfounded promise, however colourfully presented, as empty deception. How can man’s freedom be discovered if he binds himself in chains in order to overcome his instinctive resistance as soon as a spectre nurtured by delusion tries to charm his aroused self conceit!?

How can freedom be gained for a man who himself industriously forges the chains he would like to escape!? –

All striving for suspected freedom is only about wanting to find again oneself! –

One does not dare admit to oneself that one is ‘lost’; thus one hides one’s misery behind a bitter lamentation for freedom which could only have been lost because one has also lost oneself on the  masking waves of the most external urges to assertion… 

 Although one still recognises one’s mask, one is nonetheless unable to become conscious in that reality for which the mask acts as an earthly  disguise! –

And it has been a long time since one has ‘got used’ to one’s mask to the extent that one feels identical with it.

One does not know any longer, and does not want to know, that one ‘is’ after all something other than one’s mask. – –

At times, of course, doubts arise, – but if one finds oneself in the very midst of the very familiar masquerade, every question takes rapid flight and every doubt is quickly scattered!

Accustomed from youth to moving around in a mask, one is afraid to take it off.

Hitherto one has seen oneself in every mirror in the way one wanted to see oneself; now one is suspicious of recognising oneself if one took off the all too familiar mask.

It is, however, incredibly difficult to rediscover oneself under one’s mask!

From all sides the most wondrous teachings descend on seekers who would ascertain their eternal nature, – for the most part they come from the mouths of unqualified teachers, – one and all present themselves with the claim that they merit recognition on account of the incontrovertible and certain ‘truth’ they bring.

In all these teachings, whether they seek to give new life to the wisdom of ancient times or are the outpourings of modern brains, – one can certainly find elements of truth.

So many words of wisdom are recorded in them, – in a new form, or taken from the treasury of ancient peoples, – which will certainly deserve consideration by all honest seekers.

Nonetheless, how little has all this to do with the reality to which the strongest, most deeply extended roots of earthly man reach!? –

We must try to become aware of this reality within us if, after millennia of continual predatory scuffling for fodder, we want to find expression for forms of life which will raise us at the very least to a level that man’s fellow animals on earth – had they the human capacity for discernment, – would not have to be forever ashamed of. – –

We need neither religious belief nor philosophical systems to attain this awareness of reality!

No religious belief so far has been able to prevent men striking one another down or tearing each other more cruelly to pieces, before his  final release through death, than any tiger tears apart his prey in his frenzied hunger! –

No result of thinking derived from the haughty cerebral activities of the great philosophers was ever capable of restraining whole nations from reciprocal slaughter once the trinity of hatred, envy and lust for power had overexcited the animal instincts and thoughts intermingled with the urge to annihilate! –

We must dig more deeply if we want to find the fertile soil within us where all of us are entwined!

We must think more deeply if we want to reach the state of consciousness in the roots of our being which teaches us how we are only constricting our own arteries of life if we strangle, in our urge for supremacy, the life bringing veins of others…

Full of awe we must reach the very ground of reality within us in order to feel the ‘ground’ of a transformation of the will; this remains imperative for all mankind on earth if it is to avoid a rapid regression into a monstrosity of the animal will to manifest itself on earth. – –

The blood-spattered, gore-covered path to this regression into an animal nature, where jungle apes would once be regarded as exalted ‘gods’, has unfortunately already been walked for so long by hosts of self-deluded earthly men; now is the time to shout out a warning of the danger which cannot be stopped by ridicule coming from the mouth of lunacy! – –

If you who read these words would come to consciousness of reality, you must abandon any kind of supposition that the goal shown to your will’s striving can be reached by some peculiar cerebral contortions, or by rational acrobatics during which the supposed ‘master’ of thought more often than not becomes the ‘mastered’: – obsessed by the wishful thinking that he might gain secret power!

You have absolutely no need to acquire knowledge in the way science requires!

He who undertakes a search for the consciousness of his reality within himself can only attain the goal he seeks if from the start he follows the path reality has laid out for him in his earthly existence.

It is not now appropriate to ask the question, with allusion to what Pilate asked, “What is reality?” –

We will leave that simply to the ‘know-alls’ who end up as fools!

Here you are to regard firstly as ‘reality’ what a child also feels as his reality!

Go ahead and name this ‘reality’ with words your schooling has given you for the sake of differentiation between the necessary ‘concepts’ in your thinking!

Even when you are the practised master in thinking about such differentiation you will not have to sacrifice your intellectual knowledge, for even the manifestation of reality can be accepted as the ‘real’ apprehended by earthly senses for the sake of the goal you are striving for…

Even if you no longer want to call real what your physical senses make you recognise still this recognition through the senses is the starting point for the concept of reality, however high you may have placed this in your thinking. –

Likewise you must make what is ‘real’ to the earthly senses the starting point of your path!

The very closest ‘reality’ attained through the senses is your own earthly body; only by proceeding from your body will you make progress on a secure and straight path if you seek eventually to attain absolute reality too. – –

It is rather a long path you must walk, cautiously and with measured steps!

Yet the goal you are approaching in this way will give you the strength to persevere on your path. –

Begin with the certainty every human endeavour requires if you are to bring it successfully to its conclusion!

Here too the proverbial wisdom applies that there is nothing more difficult than starting.

You are free to choose for yourself the nature of your beginning.

Nothing is demanded of you other than seeking to absorb into your self-consciousness your entire body, from head to toe!

You may well think this happened a long time ago, and it requires no more effort; –  but you can take it from me that you are surely wrong!

If you have not yet started on the path that is to be walked here, then you do not yet know what it demands of you.

There is a difference between whether you are conscious in your brain of your body’s cells, or whether the whole of your earthly body is imbued with your self-consciousness!

What necessity requires here demands much effort, utter steadfastness and indefatigable patience!

Then you will reach your goal in all certainty; once you have arrived, all your effort will seem to be a small price for the inalienable gains you have made!

You have reached the supreme form of freedom in the assured consciousness of your reality propagated by eternity; with a shudder you will now think back to the days when you were also in the throng of the deceived, among those who mistook a spectre from the crypts of false longing for the freedom they ardently sought…