On perseverance and dalliance

Many difficulties will already have been removed if one is clear that I am primarily depending on what I have characterised as already ‘familiar’ to the soul as a factor for communication, yet still incomprehensible to the brain.

 

If the reader of my books – for the time being – can reasonably resist the ever pushy, always impertinent persuasions of reason which is so naively ‘sure’ of itself, so that what is ‘familiar’ to the soul, though not yet entered into the consciousness of the brain, can be called upon, he will have opened up himself that access which leads on to the path ‘to the spirit’ as my words reveal to him and teach him to follow.

 

Then he will hardly encounter particular ‘difficulties’, assuming he really has the perseverance which is the indispensable prerequisite for all who would learn to follow the path to the spirit.

 

Surely what I have to impart must be accepted with trust and faith until the pupil himself attains insights which make it possible for him to judge.

 

Surely the seeker, in his own interest, must gain clarity in his own way about the things I bring to his attention in my guidance; he will have to avoid confusing them with instructions from elsewhere – irrespective of their source.

 

Even instructions which do not allow even the slightest doubt as to their provenance from the purest and most sublime of men must be ignored for the time being by the pupil who wishes to gain his own insight if following my guidance is to be of benefit to him.

 

Only when he has himself attained the things he is able to attain can the wise counsels he finds in medieval and – differently coloured – in eastern mysticism, be understood in all their profundity.

 

But at the same time he will recognise the many errors which have subconsciously entered these communications of the truth, and with all the reverence for the accounts given by human beings close to the spirit, or united with the spirit, he will not need to shy away from separating the ‘chaff’,  even if it is more richly abundant than he previously suspected, from the life-generating ‘wheat’. –

 

Yet before he has reached this stage he will do well to forget for the time being whatever is known to him of such instructions.

 

It goes without saying that he must permanently put aside the formulae for development of more recent mystagogues he has followed until now!

 

  If I have to ask for a certain degree of trust in the name of what I have written before the pupil’s own capacity for judgement can be employed, this is far from demanding ‘faith’ in the sense of a definitive decision; rather it is the same will to trust placed, for example, in a captain sailing the high seas who, one unquestioningly believes, knows the shipping routes and can bring his charges to the proper port, – or in a responsible mountain guide who knows that the life of the tourist depends on his assured knowledge of the way and his ability to assess the situation.

 

Just as one will concede to the mountain guide the right to dispense advice regarding the best way to proceed when rock climbing or traversing demanding glaciers – in precisely the same way my pupil will have to endorse the advice he meets in my books.

 

I know the dangers on his path; I can advise him how to overcome them!

 

and so:

Becoming truly conscious in the substance of the eternal spirit is, outside all science; even the greatest and most sublime scientific knowledge will never be capable of bringing even a hair’s breadth closer one’s own experience of the substantial spirit.

 

It should be understood that those seeking to ‘enter the spirit’ – except for the interpreter and pioneer in which functions I have to work in my words of teaching, – need other help, even if they have been almost over-abundantly instructed, as soon as they find themselves on the path!

 

This help is then available, and to receive it only requires the inner disposition of confidence of one who is thankful in advance.

 

No ‘God’ can help man without an intermediary, only man, and with respect to ‘divine’ help: – only a man who has become the transformer of substantial spiritual powers!


(Excerpts from the chapter ‘Unavoidable difficulties’pages 575-581.)


 

 

Bô Yin Râ