|
part1 audio starts here to the right
part 2shortcut part 3shortcut
all/the rest of audiofiles
norsk utg./omtale/snakk
om boka
Teosofi: DEN HEMMELIGE LÆRE - SYNTESEN AV VITENSKAP,
RELIGION OG FILOSOFI
VED H. P. BLAVATSKY oversatt til norsk av John Bruland
-
speilbase
med disse samme over bøker også på link her
|
|
AUTHOR'S NOTE
It is far from my intentions to want to provide a
historical picture of Egypt. A person who is living in any given
place has not the faintest idea of the peculiarities of his country,
and he does not consider customs, language and religion from an
ethnographic point of view. He takes everything as a matter of
course. He is a human being and has his joys and sorrows, just like
every other human being, anywhere, any place, any time; for that
which is truly human is timeless and changeless. My concern here is
only with the human, not with ethnography and history. That is why I
have, in relating the story which follows here, intentionally used
modern terms. I have avoided using Egyptian sounding words to create
the illusion of an Egyptian atmosphere. The teachings of the High
Priest Ptahhotep are given in modern language so that
modern people may understand them. For religious symbols also, I
have chosen to use modern terms so that all may understand what
these symbols mean.
People of today understand us better if we say 'God'
than if we were to use the Egyptian term 'Ptah' for the same concept.
If we say 'Ptah' everyone immediately thinks, 'Oh yes,
Ptah, the Egyptian God'. No! Ptah was not an Egyptian
God. On the contrary, the Egyptians called the same God whom
we call God, by the name of Ptah. And to take another
example, their term for Satan was Seth. The words
God and Satan carry meanings for us today which we would
not get from the words Ptah or Seth. For people living
in our times, these latter terms, Ptah and Seth, are
empty, dry and meaningless. The term Logos and the expression
creative principle have a meaning for us today which we would
not get from the term 'Horus Hawk'. Electricity was just as
much electricity thousands of years ago as it is today, and an atom
was an atom, simply by a different name. I make these comments here
so that my readers may be able to devote their attention to the
content of the story which follows here, without being halted
unnecessarily by what may appear to be an anachronism merely because
of the terms used—as for example when the Egyptian High Priest
speaks of a 'chain reaction'! I have intentionally avoided trying to
reproduce or imitate the ancient terminology for phenomena we now
know under names everyone is accustomed to using.
FOREWORD
The national rhythm of the Indian people is
religion. With every heartbeat the Indian feels himself a step
closer to the eternally glorious goal of the realization of God.
Whenever he hears the name of God on the lips of
someone passing by, his Sharp ear picks up the melody and he starts
to sing a paean of praise. Even though he may have neither food nor
a roof over his head—for often enough the arch of heaven is his
shelter—he still has God in his heart. He knows that in this arena
of life he has come uncounted times and gone again, through myriad
births, that he has enjoyed all the created world has to offer, and
that, as he knows the truth 'Everything here on earth passes away',
nothing more can satisfy him. His wish is now to find and reach that
source from which the stream of manifestations flows.
That is why, from early childhood he prays: 'I
meditate on the magnificence of the being that has created this
universe. May it illuminate my mind.'
The majesty and beauty of nature, reminding him of
that being, becomes an object of his adoration. Every holy writing,
of whatever religion, which breathes the breath of that being
becomes an object of his respect and admiration. And every one who
has found that being and speaks about the way to him becomes
an object of respect and admiration. I have the great fortune to sit
at the feet of an illumined soul: Elisabeth Haich is my teacher, my
guru. In her presence the delicate petals of my soul began to unfold.
Often a word from her opens my eyes, and sometimes an understanding
glance is enough to strengthen me in my conviction. A friendly
comment can sometimes drive away all my doubts. Every moment in the
presence of my teacher brings me new experiences and hastens my
progress. Very often when certain things have bothered me, I have
found help in the words of my guru: 'Don't live for the present;
don't allow transitory things to influence you. Live in eternity,
above time and space, above finite things. Then nothing can
influence you.'
In the presence of my teacher I enjoy absolute
independence of thought, for I have learned that it is wrong to want
to apply the thoughts of another person in one's own life. 'I don't
want you simply to follow me on the path I am following to reach the
goal,' she has told me. 'Go your own way, on the path you select for
yourself, corresponding to your own innermost inclinations. Don't
accept any statement because I made it. Even if it is true a hundred
times over, it still is not your truth, it still is not
your experience, and it will not belong to you. Bring truth into
being, and then it will belong to you. Regard the lives of those who
have achieved truth only as proof that the goal can be reached.'
At these words of my teacher's, I was seized by an
irresistible drive towards absolute independence, and this urge
freed me from the nefarious attitude of expecting help from outside.
I don't need a teacher that influences me, but a teacher who teaches
me not to allow myself to be influenced.
For many years I have had the great privilege of
hearing the profoundest truths explained in the simplest words. I
have yet to hear anyone else explain the revelations of the Bible as
clearly as Elisabeth Haich, and in a manner as applicable to our
daily living. I have travelled far, and in all my travels no priest
has been able to explain the true meaning of these revelations, even
though I have asked hundreds. How, after all, could he if he has not
reached 'the kingdom of Heaven within'? How could it be otherwise as
long as he has not experienced within himself the truth of the
sentence: 'Ye are the light of the world', as long as he does not
yet recognize: 'Ye are the living temple of the Holy Spirit'?
Hundreds and thousands have attended the weekly
lectures and meditation groups led by Elisabeth Haich. It has been
the wish of all of us to possess her teachings in book form.
Through the experience of each lecture our souls
thirsting for truth were enriched to an undreamed of extent. It is a
great joy for all of us to know that at last part of this knowledge
will now be available in the concentrated form of a book. This book
is an introduction to the high art of reaching and achieving the
divine in us and of learning to recognize this unknown creature
called man. We will discover the great truth: Self development is
revealing the perfection which has been in man from the very
beginning. Religion is the activation of the divine principle which
awaits its manifestation in man.
SELVARAJAN YESUDIAN, Zurich, April 1962
CONTENTS
|
Author's Note |
|
|
Foreword |
|
|
Introduction |
|
|
1. Awakening |
|
|
2. Lion and Light |
|
|
3. My Parents are not 'My' Parents |
|
|
4. Sunrise is Different |
|
|
5. I want to get Away |
|
|
6. I long for Unity
|
|
|
7. The Red Man
|
|
8. My Future Appears
9. Struggles of Love
10. First Encounter with Death
11. First Visions of the Future
12. The Past Awakens
13. Second Encounter with Death
14. Darkness
15. Turning Point
16. Struggle for Light
17. I take My Vow
18. The Horizon Brightens
19. Visions
20. The Ayur-Vedas
21. There was Light
22. Past becomes Present
23. HE
24. Sons of God
25. Years of Preparation
26. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
27. The Twelve Sets of Twin Characteristics
28. The Lions
29. Telepathic Exercises
30. The Future and Sunrise
31. Bo-Ghar and the Staff of Life
32. Ptahhotep's Instruction:
33. The Form of the Pyramids: Satan
34. The Four Faces of God
35. The Epochs of the World
|
36. Final
Preparations |
|
|
37. The
Initiation |
|
|
38. As
a Priestess |
|
|
39. We
will meet Again |
|
|
40. The
Lion |
|
|
41.
Mist and Re-awakening |
|
|
42.
Roo-Kha and the Twelve Pills |
|
|
43. The
Young Priest appears |
|
|
44. Ima
and Bo-Ghar |
|
|
45. The
Challenges are Repeated |
|
|
46.
Conclusion |
|
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Divine Horus, Cairo Museum frontispiece
Pharaoh before Amon, Cairo Museum facing page 184
The four faces of Brahma, Angkor-Thom, Bayon,
Cambodia 185
Pharaoh Cephren, Cairo Museum 320
INTRODUCTION
written by a disciple of the author
I am a seeker. I seek an explanation for life on
earth. I would like to know what sense there is in the fact that a
person is born, grows from a child to an adult through all kinds of
difficulties, marries, brings more children into the world, who also
grow up to adults through just as many difficulties, also marry,
also bring more children into the world, who then with advancing age
lose the skills they took so much trouble to learn, and finally die.
An unending chain, without beginning, without end! Constantly
children are being born. They learn, they work hard, they want fully
to develop both body and mind— and after a relatively short time
everything is over, and down under six feet of sod they become
fodder for worms. What is the sense in all of this? Going on and on
just to produce more and more generations of people?
And when certain people not only leave their
descendants behind them, but also the work of the mind and spirit,
why do they have the same kind of experience? Why do they grow old
and take their high gifts to the grave with them? A Michelangelo, a
Leonardo da Vinci, a Giordano Bruno, a Shakespeare, a Goethe, and
many many others—why were these titans born, if finally they had to
decay in the same way as the worm that fattened itself on their
bodies?
No! It is not possible for life on earth to be so
senseless! Behind this seemingly unending chain of birth and death
there must be a more profound meaning, even if it seems to be
inexplicable for a prejudiced mind. There must be a completely
satisfactory and sensible explanation—seen from the other side!
How and where can I find this other side of
all things that definitely must exist? How and where can I find a
way to get acquainted with it? Whom should I ask for directions?
Where do I find a person initiated into this mystery, a person who
can tell me about this hidden truth?
For throughout all recorded time there have been
outstanding people on earth who spoke out with unshakable assurance
about the secret of life and even witnessed their conviction with
their life—initiates as they have been called. But where and from
whom have these 'initiates' received their initiation? And into
what were they initiated?
Socrates for example. Consider him taking the cup of
poison with divine calm, drinking it to the last drop, speaking
fearlessly and objectively, quietly and pleasantly about the effect
of the poison, reporting how under the influence of the poison first
his feet get cold and die, how the deathly cold gradually crawls up
from his feet towards his heart like a snake. He is aware that he is
about to die, he takes leave of his faithful students, and closes
his eyes. Such unshakable peace and calm in the face of death can
only come from sure knowledge. Where did Socrates get this
knowledge?
And where have various other titans living on earth
at different times got their knowledge about the secret of life and
death—their initiation? Even today there must be such 'initiates'
living on earth, and there must be some way to obtain initiation,
the really great initiation.
Life has taught me that the Bible is not a book of
fairy tales, but has been written by initiates to transmit hidden
truth to us in a secret language. And the Bible tells us: 'Seek and
ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.'
I obeyed! I began to seek. Everywhere I could. In
books, in old writings, among people who I thought might know
something about the initiation. At all times I kept my eyes and ears
open, and in my searches through books, old and new, as well as in
the teachings of people both living and dead, I kept trying to
discover hidden mosaic stones with which to piece together the
secret of the initiation.
And I found! At first on rare occasions; here and
there, with my inner ears, I heard the voice of truth speaking in a
book or in the words of a living person. And I always went further
in the direction indicated by this mysterious voice. Like the thread
of Ariadne, this secret voice always led me on. Sometimes I found
someone in my own home town who could give me valuable information
for my further search, and sometimes this voice led me far away into
strange lands, where I often found information that was in
remarkably close agreement with the words I had heard at home.
Thus my path led me to people with ever greater
knowledge who explained more and more to me about initiation and
about the meaning of life. Naturally I also met many ignorant people
and people with half knowledge who pretended to know. But I got so I
could recognize immediately when 'the hands were Esau's, but the
voice was Jacob's.' These poor charlatans, pretending to be 'initiates',
gave themselves away very fast. They were not even in harmony with
themselves and their own life, so how could they have taught me
anything about the deepest truth of life, about initiation? In such
cases I simply went on seeking someone with true knowledge, a true
initiate.
Whenever I found someone who could tell me more than
I already knew, I stayed there to learn as much as I possibly could
learn.
In this way I once came into the presence of an old
woman living in a retreat as if in a convent. She was surrounded by
countless seekers, like a lump of sugar to which long rows of ants
make a steady pilgrimage to get food.
She was working in very close spiritual association
with two very much younger men, one from India and the other from
the Occident, whom the old woman called 'son'.
The old woman was tall, of majestic stature and
bearing, but extremely simple and completely natural in her
movements. Her deep blue eyes were surprisingly big, and her long
dark brown eye lashes gave them a remarkable expression. Her eyes
were smiling, friendly, full of understanding, but so penetrating
that most people were embarrassed when she looked at them.
People felt that this woman could see right through
everybody, that she could clearly see their thoughts, the entire
structure of their souls. Very often while listening to her lectures
among a group of other persons, I felt a number of questions arising
within me. She kept on talking, but she smiled and then in her next
few sentences she made a point of answering my unspoken questions. A
number of other listeners of hers told me they had had the same
experience. I just could not cope with this woman. The more I
learned from her and the more my spiritual eyes were opened, the
greater she seemed to me and the more the field in which her
knowledge surpassed mine seemed to expand in every direction. The
longer I stayed with her, the less I felt I knew her. Every time I
saw her, she appeared to me a 'different person' until I got the
impression that this woman carried within her and could manifest the
whole range of human personality and consequently had no personality
herself at all. Because to be everything, simultaneously
means to be nothing.
'Mother,' I asked her once, 'who are you really?' 'Who?'
she asked in return, 'what is that who? There is only
one being that is, and every person, every animal, every
plant, and even every sun, every planet and every other heavenly
body is only an instrument for the manifestation of this one and
only being that is. How many "who's" would there be? The same
self speaks through my mouth as through yours and through all
living creatures. The only difference is that not every living
creature knows perfectly its own self and consequently is not
able to manifest all characteristics of the self. But
anybody who knows the self completely and perfectly can
manifest all the characteristics that exist in the universe, because
all these characteristics are the various aspects of the one and
only being that is, the one and only self. The
external form which you see before you, thinking that it is 'I' is
only an instrument through which the self manifests that
particular aspect of itself that is necessary nt any given
time. So don't ask any more nonsense like "who" I am.'
'Mother,' I said, 'how have you come to know the "self"
so completely and perfectly as to be able to manifest all its
possible characteristics? I would like to be so far advanced too!
Tell me! Through what experiences have you come in order to become
such a versatile instrument for the manifestations of the one and
only being that is? Or have you always been on this level?
Were you born in this condition?'
'Born?' she echoed, 'I born? When have you ever seen
that an "I" was born? Have you ever seen an "I"? The "I" has
never been and never will be born, only the body. The
true, divine self is perfection itself, so a development In it
is not possible. Only the body must develop in order to be
able to manifest higher and higher vibrations and higher and higher
frequencies of the self. Even the most highly developed
instrument, the most highly developed body, must go through this
process, including mine, which by the way is still far from
perfection. Everything is only a phase of development. The creation
of a body is always a chain reaction—as such processes are called
nowadays—and whenever a chain reaction has made a beginning, it runs
through various
periods until it comes to an end. No material form
of manifestation can escape from this law. And parallel with the
development of the body, the condition of consciousness naturally
changes also.'
'That means that you have had to go through a period
of development too, doesn't it, Mother? Please tell me what it was
like! What kind of experiences did you have that caused you to grow
into your present condition of consciousness? Please tell me all
about it.'
'Why should I tell you about it?' she replied. 'Everyone
must achieve perfect recognition of self in his own way. What
good would it do you for me to tell you my way? You could not
follow my way. Events themselves are not important, only the
experiences and the lessons that you get from them. Just take it
easy. On your way you will learn the same lessons as I on mine.
There are innumerable pathways, but they all lead to the same goal.'
'Mother, you are right. I see clearly that I would
not be able to make progress on your path. Nevertheless it would
help me very much if you would tell me how you have acquired your
experience, because I and all the others who would listen to your
story would be able to learn how one can profit from experiences.
I am not curious about your story, but merely anxious to hear
how you began to seize upon and learn the lesson that is in every
event. Please tell me about the path you have followed, Mother.
It would be so valuable for us to learn your attitude towards life
and how you reacted toward your fate so as to develop your
spiritual horizon to such an ail-inclusively great extent. We could
learn a great deal from your story.'
The old woman looked at me for a long time. Finally
she said, 'So you are curious as to how I reacted'? And you
believe it will help you and others to hear about it? All right!
Perhaps it really will be a good thing to tell you about the
experiences that gradually opened my eyes to the inner laws of
life and the various relationships that bound together the
destinies of different people. Come back tomorrow. I will tell you
and a few others whose eyes are opened to the essential things in
life about the experiences that helped me find what people call
illumination. I will tell you how I experienced my initiation!'
The next day found me and a number of her most
advanced pupils sitting in front of the old woman. And she began to
tell us the story of her initiation.
That is how this book was written.
AWAKENING
Like a flash of lightning a pain went through my
body—and a moment later I landed on the floor.
Danger! Help! But not from this adult here beside me
who is now so shocked and wants to examine me—No! I don't want him
now! I love him, but in a moment of danger he is not the person I
want.
I ran back into the room towards a strange,
beautiful woman to whom we had just said good night. I knew that she
would help me in a completely understanding way. At other times, too,
I liked to be near her; I always liked the scent about her, and I
always found I was in perfect safety in her presence. Now, in my
panic, I ran to her in search of help. I whined as I showed her my
plump little hand that was hanging down like a limp rag, refusing to
obey me any more. The beautiful woman looked at my hand, threw aside
the dress on which she was sewing and cried out:
'Robert! Robert! Come quickly!'
A door opened, and the grown-up man about whom I
dimly knew that he lived with us and somehow belonged to us, came
in. For the first time I looked at him with real attention. He was a
tall man with a face like ivory; hair, beard and moustache as black
as ebony, eyes glowing black, and he always radiated so much force
and strength, that everybody around him was kept at a certain
distance. He cast one glance at my limp and useless hand and said,
'A doctor! Stefi, get a doctor immediately.'
Uncle Stefi ran away and the tall dark man asked us
what had happened. So we told him. After Grete and I had said good
night, Uncle Stefi took me on to his back and carried me that way
into the bedroom. There he let me slide off, but I slid too fast. To
keep me from falling, he suddenly grabbed my hand. In the same
moment I felt a violent stab of pain in my right wrist. Then when I
tried to raise my hand, it just hung limp.
'Yes,' said the tall adult, 'her wrist is sprained.
The worst part of it is that I am just leaving on a business trip
and cannot wait until the doctor comes. All night long I will be
sitting on pins and needles. Wire me as soon as the doctor is
through; tell me what he has done.'
He kissed us and mother and went away. I looked up
astonished to the strange beautiful woman who had always pointed to
herself and said 'Mother' and whom we therefore called mother.
Up to that moment I had been crying and bawling for
all I was worth. I was badly disappointed and frightened to find out
that the adults could not help me. They were not able to stop the
pain that was torturing me more and more; nor were they able to fix
my hand the way it was before. When I heard that the tall dark adult
was going to have to spend all night sitting on pins and needles, I
was so astonished and so concerned for him that I suddenly forgot
about crying and asked mother, 'Why is he going to have to sit on
pins and needles all night long?' At first mother gave me a look of
amazement and then began to laugh and said, 'Because father is all
excited about your hand'.
But what kind of an answer was that! Simply nonsense!
It didn't explain anything. The tall man we called 'father' was
completely in earnest when he said he was going to be sitting on
pins and needles—and now mother was laughing at me. Why? I had only
repeated what father had said. What did she mean by saying that
father was 'all excited' and why did that mean that he was going to
have to sit on pins and needles? Would that mean that he was going
to be dangerously pricked? Mother spent a lot of time sewing and she
had shown me how dangerous a needle can be; the point of a needle
can be very unpleasant. That hurts! That's why needles should
only be used for sewing. So what kind of nonsense was this, the
adults were giving me again—just because my hand was so helpless and
painful that I had to hold it with the other hand? Why did that mean
that father was going to spend the whole night sitting on pins and
needles, when after all they are only supposed to be used for sewing?
I was already pretty used to the fact that adults often talked
nonsense and did senseless things, but this was too much, and I
insisted on knowing more. But I did not get the chance to ask more
questions about this 'sitting on pins and needles' because Uncle
Stefi returned with the doctor.
The doctor was a tall, impressive, friendly man who
looked at me as if we had known each other a long time. He lifted me
up high and so took me out of the protective nearness of my mother.
That filled my heart with terrible fear; the movement caused a new
wave of torturing pain, and I began to bawl again for all I was
worth. The doctor set me on the table—I saw my little feet dangling
very close under my breast—and he shook his head as he laughed and
said, 'Oh how ugly this little girl is when she is crying!'
I was stunned. What? He says I am ugly when I am
crying? How does he know that? Up till now I always thought one
could see everything except me. Everything and everybody else,
the adults, the cook, Grete, the canary bird, my toys—in fact
everything round about me was visible, even my hands, my little
tummy, and my feet, but I myself could not be seen. I
was present, but yet not present, somewhere but invisible. I had
never yet seen myself, and I could not for the life of me
imagine how it could be possible to see this something, this 'I'. So
how could it be possible for this adult to see my desperation, my
pain, my crying: that is 'me'? Goodness! If he sees me, my amazed
and horrified condition, that must really be 'ugly'. For sheer
wonder and amazement, I stopped crying and looked at the doctor
quizzically.
Then all the adults began to laugh out loud, and
mother said, 'See how vain this little girl is! She is even
suppressing her pain in order not to appear ugly.'
There we were again. Here was another one of those
senseless remarks by adults. 'Vain'—what is that? How could I be
vain when I didn't even know what that was, and how could I 'appear'
when I did not even know that I was visible? Up to now I had always
thought that I was the person doing the seeing. I it
was who saw everything round about but I was in some way or
other outside of the visible. All this was going around in my
head, and I just wanted to ask another question when the doctor took
hold of my limp little hand and pulled it hard, so hard I wanted to
scream again—it hurt so terribly! —The crazy man is going to pull my
hand clean off! I thought—but then he twisted the little hand that
somehow or other was fastened on to me, because It hurt 'me'
terribly, and all of a sudden it was in its right place again.
'There we are,' said the doctor. 'Now the joint will
swell up a little bit, so for tonight we will bed it down on a
pillow, and pretty soon we can forget the whole matter.'
Then the adults went on talking about how vain I was,
saying that for pure vanity I had not even cried out when the doctor
was twisting my wrist back into place. Mother was particularly
impressed by this and that made me sad. I could see that the strange
beautiful woman whom I already loved very much just did not
understand me. And even though the doctor could see me, J was
certainly invisible to mother. Nevertheless she radiated a
wonderful love, and a little later, as I lay in my bed, with my hand
resting on a pillow, I was happy that her fine sweet face leaned
over me from time to time and smiled down at me encouragingly. She
radiated sweetness and warmth, and as long as she was near I did not
feel alone or abandoned. I knew that I could count on her; to a
certain extent she was in my power, and I had complete confidence in
her. Gradually I fell asleep. The night passed, and my hand again
became the obedient instrument, the faithful friend that, later on
in life was to bring me no much joy—so very much joy—and was to help
awaken me out of my unconscious state.
But the doctor was wrong! I never did forget the
matter, and through the law of association he has remained
permanently and indissolubly connected with my first awakening and
my first becoming conscious in this life. From now on my
consciousness—my memory—was constantly awake. From now on I observed
everything, everything around me as well as within me, with the
greatest attention and with uninterrupted concentration. From now on
I knew that I lived in a home where the tall, dark, and powerful
adult was unconditionally master. Mother called him 'Robert' and we
had to call him 'father'. The whole household revolved around him;
mother belonged to him body and soul. His power spread over all of
us, and later over many thousands of people, like a tent, like a
protective envelope. Everybody that belonged to father's sphere of
influence enjoyed help, security and prosperity.
audiofile part 2
http://galactic.no/rune/lydboker/nyeLydfiler/Elisabeth_Haich_Initiation/Elisabeth_Haich_Initiation_0003.mp3
starts here2
During the morning hours father was not at home so I
could be with mother. I was permitted to accompany her in the whole
apartment, even in the kitchen, and ofttimes when she sat quietly
embroidering a big tablecloth with brightly coloured threads, I was
permitted to sit beside her and amuse myself by 'embroidering'
various patterns according to my own imagination, using the same
brightly coloured threads. At midday father came home, and after
lunch Crete and I had to go to the children's room, something I did
not like at all. Grete was also a child of the house, like myself,
only—as I was told— she was three years older than I. At the time I
sprained my wrist she was four and a half and I one and a half.
The following summer we spent our vacation in a
village beside a great body of water. We lived in a little farmhouse
that was surrounded by a large garden and a big farm. Grete and I
were allowed to run around barefoot, and we were also permitted to
accompany a woman with a very brown and wrinkled face when she went
to the barn where there was a cow, a calf and a number of rabbits
with red eyes. That was all very thrilling. In the garden there were
gigantic yellow flowers, seemingly as high as trees, that always
turned in the direction of the sun. I liked them too, father came
only from time to time, and when he did people said, 'Today is
Sunday'. The rest of the time we were alone with mother and I could
spend the whole day with her. Every day we went down to the lake and
bathed and splashed happily in the water.
One day mother said, 'Tomorrow is Sunday, but today
is already a big day, and we are going to have a lot of fun, because
father is coming.' That definitely did not impress me as such a
happy event, because I was only very slightly interested in father
and I knew for sure that when he was with us mother's time was
always taken up with him. At such times I had to go for a walk with
Grete and with Sophie, the grown-up daughter of the wizened old
farmer's wife.
During the evening while we were waiting for father,
I suddenly heard our neighbours telling mother that the 'Train had
run off the track' and that was the reason why father had not yet
arrived. Mother was horror struck. She called Sophie, entrusted me
to her care, asking her to pay close attention to me and not to
leave me alone a moment. Then she hurried to the station. Grete was
allowed to accompany her, as Grete was 'three years older' and could
walk better than I could. I stayed alone with Sophie.
It was already dark, and for the first time I was
allowed to be up and outside in the garden at this time of day. It
was very thrilling, although I did feel a bit uneasy, as I was
accustomed to seeing everything in daylight, and now the world
around me was so unclear. I had a feeling of being near trees and
flowers, rather than of seeing them. And the poplar trees whispered
in such a mysterious way. But there was no more time for me to make
further observations about the garden and the flowers, because
suddenly something fearful happened: Sophie picked me up, crooked an
arm about me and carried me to the garden fence where a horrible
apparition rose up out of the darkness. It looked like a man but had
a fearful kind of bush of feathers on its head, its eyes sparkled in
the darkness like burning coals, on its jacket there were tiny
buttons, and over its shoulder it carried something I instinctively
felt to be terribly dangerous. Later I heard the name 'rifle'. I
found this sinister being very repugnant and hoped that Sophie would
take me away as fast as possible. But to my great amazement, Sophie
again did something completely senseless—true to form, of course.
Instead of running away, she went up very close to the fence and
allowed the horrible apparition to whisper something to her in a
terribly deep voice. Then the man—by this time I knew it was a man—put
his arms around her and held her tight. Since Sophie was holding me
in one arm, he was holding me tight too, much to my distaste and
great displeasure. But that wasn't all! He had a gigantic moustache,
and its two 'branches' stuck out from his face like sharp horns.
Next he pulled Sophie quite close to himself and acted as if he
wanted to bite her. I expected that Sophie, in the face of this
deportment, would finally run away. But no, with her free arm he
embraced the neck of the terrible apparition, and when he wanted to
bite—or eat—her, she did not turn her face away but held her mouth
to his, and both of them acted as if each were absolutely bent on
eating up the mouth of the other. All this time they were squeezing
me so hard I could scarcely breathe. I fought with all my strength
to keep this horrible apparition as far away as possible, struggling
to keep my nose free. His presence was unspeakably unpleasant. He
smelled of all kinds of things, and a certain kind of bitter smell
was particularly repugnant. But neither he nor Sophie paid the least
attention to me, squeezing my head so tightly that I heard the man's
heart beating, while both of them acted for all the world as if each
wanted to slip Into the mouth of the other. Gracious! these adults
and the funny things they do! As they hugged each other, I could not
for the life of me imagine what had got into the modest, quiet
little Sophie. She was like a strange person who paid no attention
to my struggles. And then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the
horrible apparition released us and disappeared into the darkness. A
moment later I heard the comforting voices of mother and father, and
soon their happy faces appeared out of the darkness. All the
neighbours gathered round and asked father about the derailing of
the train. Sophie acted as if nothing had happened, not even
bothering to tell anybody what a horrible being had held her in its
arms only a few minutes earlier. She just stood there with her calm,
innocent face. That was another big surprise for me, but I had no
time to think about it, for father had brought us bonbons from the
city and I was extremely eager to find out whether I was going to
get as many as Grete.
I was satisfied; to each of us he had brought the
exact same bonbons. And now it was mother's turn to spoil my fun;
for just as I wanted to stick all the bonbons into my mouth at once,
she took them away and gave me just one, promising that I could have
another one the next day after lunch. Oh my! Someday when I'm grown
up, I'll eat as many bonbons as I want all at once!
But this time I had to give them up and go to bed.
As mother was putting me to bed, I asked her just before we said our
prayers (for afterwards I was not allowed to speak), 'Mother, what
is it that wears a bush of feathers on its head, carries something
strange on its shoulder, has buttons that shine in the dark, and
smells so terribly bad—Mother, what is it?'
Mother gave me a surprised look and said, 'Why,
darling, that's a soldier.'
'Mother,' I asked again, 'do soldiers eat people?' I
wanted to know whether he really wanted to eat Sophie, or what
else could he have wanted?
'No, no,' mother answered laughing, 'they take care
of good people; don't be afraid, he doesn't want to eat you.'
I wanted to tell her that it was Sophie he wanted to
eat, not me, but mother kissed me, covered me up and said, 'Now,
just go to sleep, dear, I have to go to father.'
I lay there alone with my thoughts, and went on
wondering for a long time. I just could not understand what the
soldier could have wanted from Sophie, and why Sophie let him hold
her so tight that I was forced into his unpleasant presence. What
did this all mean? Like everything I could not understand, the
matter upset me. But finally I fell asleep. Next day the sun shone
brightly, and after I had received my bonbon, we all went down to
the lake to bathe and splash. On the way we met the soldier. Then I
saw in daylight that he was a friendly adult who spoke cheerfully
with father. Only I could not understand why he acted as if he had
never seen me before in his life. He certainly must have known what
happened yesterday! But I was still afraid of his gigantic moustache
and did not dare ask any questions ... .
Dating from this same summer there is another memory
that I have carried with me through the years, arising from an
experience that made a profound impression upon me. One
afternoon—father was with us and the farmers were all sitting in
their good clothes in front of their houses, so I knew that it was
Sunday—we heard the village bells ring. But their ringing was not at
all of the usual kind. They rang as if they couldn't stop ringing.
They rang and rang. Their ringing put an end to the Sunday peace and
quiet for the whole village. In a few minutes everyone seemed to be
running past our house, all going in the same direction. Then father
and the son of the wizened old woman ran off too; everyone was
carrying buckets and axes. Mother and a few other women remained
behind with us children, and the woman kept repeating the same
words: 'Oh, my Heavenly Father, do not desert us, Oh, my Heavenly
Father, do not desert us!' Mother, too, was very serious as she
said: 'We must all of us pray together that father comes back to us
alive.'
I asked where he had gone and why. Mother said that
a fire had broken out in the village, and father had gone to help
fight it. We prayed, but I was very curious about what 'fire in the
village' meant. One woman vouchsafed the information that 'the
tongues of flame' could be seen from the edge of our garden. I
wanted to go to look, but mother did not allow me. Grete, however,
WAS allowed to go along with the son of the owner of the nearby
grocery store, to look at the fire, something I considered bitterly
unjust. Why should she be allowed, again and again, to do things I
was not allowed to do, just because she was three years older? If
fire is dangerous, then it's just as dangerous for her as for me,
even if she is 'three years older'! Oh, these three years! How many
more times will I have to hear that she is three years older, every
time she is allowed to do something and I am not, and every time I
refuse to recognize and tolerate her authority!
Late in the evening a few men came back past our
house, then more and more, all exhausted from their efforts and
talking about how father had saved several houses, how he had defied
death again and again by plunging into burning houses to save
children or animals, and how he had been an untiring leader whom all
the rest of the men had obeyed. With a steady stream of inspired
ideas and with his unshakable courage, he set an example that others
followed so that everyone performed extraordinarily well and the
fire was finally localized. Mother listened proudly, and when father
finally came home with the son of the wrinkled, old farmer's wife,
mother threw herself into father's arms. 'Oh, you dear, dear Robert,
how wonderful you are! Wonderful in every way!'
Father smiled silently. He was covered with soot,
and withdrew quickly to wash and get cleaned up.
To me it seemed a completely natural thing that
father was such an exceptional person. The concept 'Father' was
identical in my mind with that of the 'Great Master' who was above
everyone and whose will everyone had to follow. His word is law, and
obviously he is perfect. If it were not so, he would not be the
'Great Master'! In those days I was only very slightly interested in
father. He simply meant for me an unshakable feeling of security. He
was no problem for me, so I paid very little attention to him. Only
when the whole family was out walking—father, mother, Grete and
I—and with his powerful hand he took hold of mine to help me across
a street, I noticed that his hand seemed to radiate tremendous
strength and that his finger nails were always as clean as fresh
snow. So for me it was obvious that father wanted to wash himself
free of soot and grime immediately.
The summer passed, and we were back at home again.
Once I noticed that when mother was getting me ready for a walk, she
bundled me up in a heavy coat and fur cap. The air outside felt as
if it were biting my skin. People told me that it was 'cold'. My
nose and my feet did not like it. But there were white flakes
floating down out of the sky, and everywhere in the stores there
were Santa Clauses with white beards. And later there came a time
when mother put a straw hat on my head and helped me slip into a
light coat. The fields and gardens were alive with flowers, and we
were permitted to play with our ball and our hoop in the city park.
This was a period in my life when I could have been
completely happy if my mother had not made my life bitter from time
to time by cutting my finger nails. I was even afraid in advance
when I sensed that the day for trimming my nails was nearing. The
skin under my finger nails was so sensitive that to touch anything
at all after my nails were cut, even the contact with the air
itself, caused me terrible suffering. After each trimming I would
run around the room screaming, with my fingers spread apart, not
allowing anything to touch me. I could not say that it was pain I
felt. No, it was not pain, but an unbearable feeling. When mother
noticed it for the first time, she did not know what was wrong with
me. She thought she had perhaps cut me without noticing it and
wanted to inspect my fingers. But I yelled when she merely touched
me, so loud that she was frightened and called our family doctor and
asked him what could be the matter with me. He explained to her that
my nerves were over-sensitive to a very unusual degree. He advised
my mother to bathe my hands in lukewarm water, each time she trimmed
my nails, letting me splash around in the water for a while. That
did help somewhat, but many years were to pass before my skin was
strong enough for me to cut my nails without undergoing this
unbearable sensation.
My dear, darling mother! With how much loving
understanding and tenderness you tried to overcome all the
difficulties caused by this over-sensitivity of mine. If you had not
surrounded with your tender love my sensitive nerves, I would have
died in early childhood. Only with your help was I able to grow up
in health, slowly and purposefully developing resistance. The warm
soft nest that you and our loving, generous father built for us
children enabled me to become a useful person. You helped me learn,
through consciously developed powers, to keep my sensitivity in
balance. I was just a child then and had not the slightest inkling
about my sensitivity. I merely observed everything and wanted to
know everything, while with regard to my health I merely followed
your advice. I had perfect confidence in you!
LION AND LIGHT
In this way a few winters and a few summers went by.
Once I heard that I was four years old. Grete was already going to
school, and I often listened with the greatest attention to what she
read out of her primer. She also had a children's newspaper and read
me stories from it too. When she was not at home, I pestered my
grandmother, the mother of my father, who some time before had come
to live with us, and I kept on teasing her to read something to me,
for I was always curious as to what was going to happen next in the
story. I never tired of listening to what happened to people. I was
full of curiosity about life. It was simply marvellous to think of
all the things that could happen! There was just nothing I liked
more than fairy tales!
My Aunt Adi, the sister of my mother, visited us
often and was always willing to fulfil my wish. She had a pretty
face. She was loving and as beautiful as a cat. Her warm brown eyes
sparkled joyously, and she possessed a peculiar scent about her, as
only people do who carry love within their hearts. I enjoyed
breathing this wonderful 'love scent' but encountered it only with a
very few people. When Aunt Adi came, we surged towards her joyously,
helped her out of her coat, and our first word was always, 'Aunt
Adi, tell us a story!'
And she told us the most wonderful stories. Without
tiring. She could go on telling one story after another, the most
interesting fairy tales I ever heard. When I was sick, Aunt Adi came
and told me stories until I forgot all about my illness. We just
would not let her stop. Whenever she wanted to, we immediately began
to ask her, 'Aunt Adi, what happened next ... what happened then?'
And we kept on plaguing and pestering her till she resumed her story
telling. When the time came for her to go home to her mother, to my
other grandmother who played the piano so beautifully, I was left
alone with Grete and watched how she read in her book of fairy
tales. The fairy tales in her children's newspaper and in her
picture books were not nearly as nice, of course, as the stories
Aunt Adi told us. But still they were fairy tales and I wanted to
know them. I began to spend long periods intently looking at the
books from which Grete had learned to read. I looked at the
different letters in them and wanted to read. But I did not know
what they meant.
One night I dreamt the same dream I had had many
nights before, so often that by this time the whole family knew
about it: I was running, running with all my might and main, with a
lion chasing me, ready to grab me and eat me up. I was running
desperately, gasping for breath, along a path leading to a little
house. In the open doorway there was a woman who did not
resemble my mother, but in this dream she was my mother,
awaiting me with outstretched arms. I knew that if I reached her,
the power of the lion over me would be at an end and I would be
saved. Now he was so close I could feel his hot breath on my neck
... his shaggy mane is almost touching me ... soon he will catch me
... I run with my last ounce of energy, then suddenly feel a blow,
with all the strength that is left in me I cry out, 'Mother!' ...
Then I reach her and fall exhausted in her arms. I am saved, the
lion disappears, and I awaken with terrible palpitations of the
heart, shaking with the frightfulness of the dream. Without a
moment's hesitation, I jump up, throw a blanket about my shoulders,
and run—barefoot and in my little nightie—into my parents' bedroom
and crawl into bed beside my mother, under her blankets. Oh this
wonderful, blessed feeling of peace and security that sweeps over me
like a welcome wave of warm water. Mother embraces me and asks, 'The
dream again ... the lion again?'
'Yes,' I answer, and in her blessed presence my
heart stops pounding. In a few minutes I am sleeping soundly.
The next morning I wake up in my mother's bed. She
is gone, but her nightgown is there beside me. I quickly bury my
little nose in it to inhale the precious scent of mother. Father is
lying in his bed near by and reading the paper. That means it must
be Sunday, I figure out silently for myself. Mother comes in and
begins to talk to father. Father lays down his paper, and as luck
would have it, right beside me. I pick it up and start to look
searchingly at the many mysterious black letters on the white paper.
What can they mean?
'Father,' I ask, 'please tell me what these letters
mean.'
'Look,' father answers, 'that is an L, that is an I,
that is a T, and then another T, that is an L, and this last letter
is an E.'
'And this one here?'
'That,' says father, 'is an A, and that a D, and
that an S.' While I look at all these letters, something suddenly
seems to open up in front of my eyes like the parting of a veil, and
just as suddenly a flash of light seems to flood my mind, a light
... a light!!! The mysterious letters reveal their meaning, and I
find myself reading excitedly and joyously.
'Father!—Father! It says "Little Ads", doesn't it?'
Mother stands stock-still for sheer surprise, then
comes over to me, picks me up in her arms and kisses me with joyous
excitement. 'Why you can read!'
Father congratulates me just as he would a grown up,
somewhat to my embarrassment. Then Grete comes in, all happy and
excited too, because I can read. Soon everybody in the house knows
the news, and Adi, when she comes at midday, gets to hear the news
as soon as she opens the door.
I can read! The black letters on the white paper are
no longer a mystery for me. I can understand them, I can read!
And thus began a new epoch in my life. I read
everything I could get my hands on, I wanted to learn, learn
learn! I read everything that was readable: books of fairy
tales, children's newspapers, school books, calendars, newspapers
lying on father's desk, everything ... even a magazine that some man
had given our maid. In it I read about such things as 'kissing',
'love', 'secret rendezvous', and finally about 'killing', 'murder',
and 'corpses'. Then, when I asked mother to explain some of these
strange and somewhat frightening words, she snatched the magazine
out of my hands, crying 'For Heaven's sake, where on earth did you
get that?' Then she went into the kitchen and told the maid never,
never, never to give me such a magazine again. Why, what a pity! To
this very day I do not know what happened to the beautiful countess
who was kidnapped in her bed at night by a man in black who carried
her off on his galloping horse ...
So I had to face one of the sad facts of life.
Whenever I was absolutely fascinated by something, my mother did not
like it. Little by little I came to the conclusion that it was much
better not to discuss the really interesting things with adults, as
such discussions always came out wrong. The only exceptions I found
were the menservants in the house. In my very rare moments alone
with them, I asked them questions. Somehow, I felt that they were in
my power. And whenever they gave me information, they did not dare
talk to mother about it afterwards, as they would have been the
first to be scolded for it.
MY PARENTS ARE NOT 'MY' PARENTS
I WAS about five years old when one day at lunch
father spoke about his 'manager'. I was always interested in
everything the grown-ups talked about, and so I asked straight away,
'Father, who is this manager?'
'The Director is the top man in the office,' he
answered. 'All the others have to do what he says. He is in charge
of the whole office.'
'But father, you don't have to obey him, do you? He
is not higher than you, is he?'
'Yes he is,' father answered. 'I am not a manager
yet, and so I have to do what he says.' And father explained to me
what a director or a boss is.
No! I refused to believe my ears. A manager higher
than father? How was that possible? Up to that time I had taken it
absolutely as a matter of course that the word 'Father' meant 'the
Great Master' over everything. He commanded everyone in the whole
country and was responsible for all the treasures of the empire; his
word was law; no one would dare speak up against him; 'He'
was the only being whom father occasionally asked for advice; or
once in a while he would discuss the affairs of the country with
'Him'. But that was something entirely different! 'He'
was not what we called a per son. If father is over and above
all other people, how could he possibly have a manager superior to
him?
Now I looked at father with the greatest attention
for what was perhaps the first time. And while I looked at him and
observed him very thoroughly, it suddenly dawned on me that this
person whom I loved very much was not 'my father'.
Ever since I awakened to consciousness in these
surroundings, I have become accustomed to the fact that I am here,
that this beautiful, strange blonde woman is my mother, and this
tall, dark, powerful man is father. Yes, here he is father,
but he is not my father! In my home he is not my
father; only here where I am now! Actually he is just as strange as
the strange, beautiful woman —mother; only gradually have I become
accustomed to them. They are pleasant people, they love me, I am
important to them, and by this time I have definitely come to love
them. But they are not my mother and my father. I have come to call
them 'mother' and 'father' only out of habit!
Up to that time I had never thoroughly considered
the situation. I accepted things just as they were, as I felt happy
with these people. They gave me security, they enjoyed my presence,
and everything I did struck them as most remarkable, charming, and
delightful. Under these circumstances why shouldn't I have enjoyed
myself in their surroundings? Even with Grete I could sometimes play
quite well, whenever she forgot for a moment that she was above me
because she was 'three years older' than I was. Yes, everything was
all right this way. Uncle Stefi came often, played beautiful music
on our piano, and showed me all kinds of attractive things. He blew
soap bubbles for me, and with his pocket knife he made a little
rattle out of a nutshell. On another occasion he made me a little
pig out of dried prunes and toothpicks, and once he brought me a tin
box full of beautiful colours and a brush.
I was, allowed to paint
pretty, colourful flowers in a notebook which belonged only to
me. This time I didn't even have to share it with Grete! Aunt
Adi was charming with her many jokes and fairy stories. Grandmother
too—my mother's mother—was so gentle, so fine and always smiled at
me with such a loving expression. I loved her very much. When she
sat down at the piano, it was a holiday for me. She delighted me
with heavenly music, and I was absolutely enchanted as I listened.
Here I was in complete agreement with my dear, tender Mother: she
loved music more than anything else just as I did. My other
grandmother was a most interesting lady. She often told me about her
many travels in foreign countries, and numerous times she took me
with her to the National Museum. There I saw splendid things.
Wonderfully pretty, colourful, giant butterflies which, grandmother
told me, lived in dome distant part of the world—strangely enough I
knew them well—then a number of gigantic stuffed animals. At first I
was terribly frightened, but grandmother calmed me.
I also enjoyed it very much when my whole family
showed great surprise and delight at all the things I did as a
matter of course, and when our relatives spoke about my 'talents'.
When I was four years old, mother showed me how to 'crochet' with a
bent needle. Then I crocheted a little dress for my doll which
always sat alone in its little armchair because I didn't know what
to do with her. She was lifeless, and I was only attracted by what
was alive. When I was finished with it, the little dress caused such
a sensation in the family that I was really amazed. If mother can
crochet such beautiful lace, then why is it so remarkable for me to
be able to crochet? My colourful flowers I painted in my notebook
caused so much enthusiasm in the family that father gave me a little
piggy bank, and from then on whenever I had painted a beautiful
flower, he dropped a silver coin into my bank. Oh, that was all so
pleasant, so very pleasant ...
But now there came this terrible surprise!—That
father had a manager above him!
At that very moment it became completely clear to me
that I was here in this environment, and that I called
this here 'home', and yet that I was not at home here.
Here I was not in my home! That was my steadfast, unflinching
conviction.
If I had had, at that time, my present knowledge and
experience in psychology, I would have immediately analysed how I, a
child, could get such an idea. But I was still a child, experiencing
everything in a child's direct way, and I was completely convinced
that I had been dragged away from my home by force. I naturally did
not know where I had come from, because, in the meantime I had
forgotten all about it.
a3 audiofile part 3
http://galactic.no/rune/lydboker/nyeLydfiler/Elisabeth_Haich_Initiation/
starts here3
Who could explain it to me? Only the two
people who called me their child! But I knew that if I were to ask
questions, they would only give me once again one of their
characteristic 'grown-up answers' that I would not be able to
understand. And once again the end of the story would be, 'wait
until you're grown up'. Oh, how I hated that! Wait until I'm grown
up? Why did I have to spend all this time in darkness, in ignorance?
I wanted to know everything now and not 'someday'!
So I brooded over this question until evening and
time for me to go to bed. Then mother came and sat down on the edge
of my bed and asked me, 'Why are you so quiet? Why haven't you
played with your doll again? And why have you wandered around our
whole apartment day-dreaming about something? Tell me what is the
matter with you. You can tell me everything, and you can ask me
anything you want to.'
Oh, now I loved her with all my heart and with all
my confidence. She was delicate, sweet and beautiful. I often found
out that she stood up for me when somebody had criticized me; I
could always run to her; with her I always found a safe haven. Now
we were together so trustingly, and I believed that I could discuss
everything with her. I put my arms around her neck and asked,
'Mother, where did you and father get me? Where did I come from?'
At first I saw a little surprise in her eyes; she
was even a little taken aback, but then she smiled lovingly and
said, 'There is a great lake where all little children are swimming
around; when two people love each other and pray to God for a little
child, God allows his servant, a great stork, to fly to the lake and
fish out the little child that God has selected for these two
people, take the little child on his back and fly to them. Then he
takes the little child in his long bill and lays it down beside the
woman. So the little child gets his "earthly parents" and becomes an
earthly child.'
At first I listened with eager attention, but then I
clearly realized that she was 'telling' something like Aunt Adi did
in her fairy tales. No! That is not the truth! She just does not
want to tell me the truth about how and where she and
father found me. I was disappointed and looked into her eyes
enquiringly. Then she told me I should be a good girl and say my
prayers after her. A moment later she said good night and left. I
was all alone.
From now on it became clearer and clearer to me that
father and mother were not my true parents and that this country was
not my true home. I knew that mother did not know me; I knew that
she did not see me. I was a stranger to her, and all these
people around me seemed completely strange to me. We just did not
understand each other. When I talked to mother about things that
were perfectly obvious to me, she was often so surprised and amazed
that she would run to father and tell him about the strange things I
was saying. Father too was surprised. I saw that these things were
new for both of them, completely strange. Later they told all my
relatives about my remarks and observations, and then they all
laughed at me. 'What a strange child!' I heard again and again. But
I for my part did not find myself the least bit strange; on the
contrary the people around me seemed strange, and even though I
loved them I felt myself a total stranger among them. Everything
seemed too little and restricted and colourless. Way down deep in my
subconscious I felt the overpowering conviction that only 'He'
could understand me perfectly and I would have been happy
to have been living in much larger rooms, much freer and among
people who at the very least were similar to myself,
This feeling that I was a stranger and alone has
never left me all my life long; on the contrary it became clearer
and clearer. I tried to find some kind of contact, but in vain.
Mother spoke beautifully about the love of children for each other.
'It is so beautiful to have a sister with whom you can discuss
everything and in whom you can have complete confidence,' she said.
I determined to create such a relationship with Grete, but she did
not keep my confidences. She looked down upon me because she was
'three years older' mid when I told her something in strict
confidence, she ran to mother right away and told her all my little
secrets. Thus all my efforts in my sister's direction were
completely one-sided. Finally I gave up trying to establish a
relationship of confidence with her, and we lived side by side and
yet apart, like two beings come together from two separate worlds.
Everybody was strange to me ... strange ... everybody.
Time ran past with seven league boots and soon I was
six years old. Then one fine day mother took me to school. I soon
found myself among many children, and the feeling that I was alone
and strange became even stronger within me. In my family everyone
loved me and I loved them too. Love reigned above all, and
everything else came afterwards. That is why even in this
environment I felt at home. I had gradually become accustomed to
these people. But the school children were completely strange to me.
They understood each other very well, but in their midst I was like
a little freak of nature.
They were constantly amazed at me and I at them.
They laughed at me and that hurt me deeply. They were always talking
about all the things they had and showing each other all kinds of
things—pens, pencils or erasers—and they all wanted to have
something to show that the others didn't have. To me that all seemed
terribly boring and ridiculous. I was fascinated by books, fairy
tales, music and museums. The other children's eyes just popped open
wide when I talked about these things, and they asked me very
strange questions. They played with dolls and balls and hoops, while
I played with a prism that made the most beautiful colours in the
sunlight, and with a magnet that had been given me by Uncle Toni, my
mother's other brother. That was so mysterious! The magnet attracted
all my mother's needles; then her scissors got magnetized, and
mother had to hold down all her pins and needles to keep them from
jumping over to her scissors ... yes, I wanted to know about the
power that lay hidden in the magnet. Finally I decided that the
magnet surely must love the pins and needles the way my mother loved
us children. After all, I jumped to throw my arms around her neck
just like pins did with the magnet. I found that all so wonderfully
interesting! But the other children laughed at me. I was alone ...
alone.
That winter I began to take piano lessons. Whenever
I played the different pieces of music, I had the feeling that
somehow or other inside the music there were the very same kinds of
shapes and figures as those which Uncle Toni made with cardboard. He
called them 'geometrical figures'. I played one piece that just
seemed to bounce out tiny little cubes. Then there was another one
that seemed to have little points all over it, and little balls
climbed up all these points. Whenever I went out with mother for a
walk in the city park, I was always awestruck by the fountain
because in its main jet I saw fairies and gnomes who. danced and
turned and jumped. And I saw that the dancing of the water in the
fountain was music too. I did not hear this music with my
ears, no, I saw it. I knew that it was music. For me
that was all perfectly obvious! But the other children at school
laughed at me whenever I talked about it, and said that I was
'stupid'. I did not know why.
But the first time I heard other
children playing music in our music school, I was simply astonished.
What?—couldn't they hear how they were hurting the geometric figures
in the music? The teacher said they were not playing in rhythm. It
was just as if their heart were not beating in rhythm. And couldn't
they hear when they were playing wrong? Oh, it was awful when they
hit the wrong notes—it hurt my ears so much I wanted to scream—and
they didn't even notice it! I looked at these children curiously and
thought to myself, 'Have they no ears? How is that possible? Are the
other children not like myself?' I thought that every child, and
indeed every person, could see and hear as I did. But little by
little I was to learn that most children, and most other people,
have very different eyes and ears from mine, and that for
this reason they regarded me as if I were a freak of nature.
And so I was alone—more and more alone.
SUNRISE IS DIFFERENT
In the spring I was very pale, and mealtimes were
constant agony for me. I had no appetite, not even for the best
foods, yet mother wanted to persuade me to eat. But when I could
not? My only interest in the soup was to play with the blobs of
grease on its surface, stirring them with my spoon and trying to
unite the little ones into one big one. First I would get two little
ones to merge and then stir in another one and another until there
was only one big blob of grease on top of the soup. My parents did
not appreciate my efforts, and a number of times father sent me away
from the table because I was disobedient, refusing to eat my soup
and spinach and turnips, and because I only wanted to play with my
food. When father saw that his punishment left me completely
unimpressed and that as soon as he had taken me to my room, I busied
myself with the books I loved so dearly, he decided, on the advice
of Our doctor, to take our whole family to the seaside for the
summer. As soon as our spring examinations were over, we set out on
our journey.
We travelled through the night; mother covered us
with blankets and saw to it that we were warm and comfortable. I
fell asleep, but the strange surroundings woke me well before
sunrise. Father and Grete were still sleeping, but mother was awake,
and I asked her to let me sit next to the window. I had heard so
often about the beauty of sunrise that I wanted to take advantage of
this opportunity to see it for myself.
I sat beside the window, poked my head behind the
curtain and looked out. The sky was still quite dark and just
beginning to get light, little by little turning a dull grey. Slowly
the sky became quite light and I saw how our train was roaring
through all kinds of changing landscapes—houses, trees, and fields
with people and horses and cows in them ... and still the sun was
not yet up! How can it be light when the sun isn't up yet? That was
a big surprise for me, but still it was true! Then, when the sky was
almost as bright as day, the sun appeared on the horizon ... finally
it came up, and with it, the sky turned a beautiful purple red, just
as I had been expecting it to do, so far in vain. But this colour
was much more pale—as if diluted—so different from what I had
expected. What a disappointment! Sunrise isn't like this!
Meanwhile the others in our compartment had
awakened, and father asked, 'How did you like the sunrise? Now
you've had a chance to see it for the first time in your life. Isn't
it beautiful?' He smiled at me.
'No, father,' I answered disappointed and angry. 'It
wasn't beautiful at all! Sunrise should not be like that! It was
boring, it took much too long and was all spoiled because the sky
got light much too early ... light, but still so colourless and ugly
... before the sun finally came up. No! It wasn't pretty at all!
Sunrise is really very different! Quite different!' And I looked off
in another direction, angry and dissatisfied.
Father listened to me, as he so often did, with
patience and close attention. In his beautiful glowing black eyes I
saw his interest and his usual amused expression that told me he was
making fun of me but still full of love and understanding. 'You
don't say! Sunrise is supposed to be different? You're not satisfied
with the sunrise? Do you mean to say that you, little upstart, are
not satisfied with what nature does and you want to dictate how the
sun is supposed to rise? How do you think you know how the sun
should rise when you've never in all your life had an opportunity to
see a sunrise? Just tell me that!' He scrutinized me and waited for
my answer. Then I looked at him confidently and said, 'I do not know
how I know, and I don't know where I've seen a sunrise before, but I
do know that it's not supposed to be like this! The sun should rise
right up out of the dark sky, and all at once everything should turn
light and bright ... not such a dull, boring grey ... but all red
and reddish-purple so that the whole sky and everything on earth is
flooded with red. It's supposed to be much, much more beautiful,
more surprising and more uplifting. I know ... I remember?
'Hmm,' said father, 'you remember?' He smiled
condescendingly. 'Your imagination is working overtime!' Then he
took the cup of coffee mother proffered him, took a sip and turned
again to me: 'I'm really very sorry that you weren't satisfied with
the sunrise. The weather is perfectly clear today, and it just
couldn't have been more beautiful and more colourful. But I can't
help it, there's nothing I can do about it.'
I didn't answer. I was angry, not only about the
disappointing sunrise, but especially about the fact that
father—when I knew exactly and remembered, yes, remembered
clearly!—said that 'my imagination was working overtime'.
Imagination is something quite different, when I think out something
in my mind, that is imagination. But sunrise, the real sunrise, the
way it should be— I didn't think that out! That was something which
was living in me, engraved deeply in my memory, even more deeply
than yesterday and everything that happened then. I was angry
indeed! I was always angry when I felt helplessly unable to prove
something that I knew for sure. I looked defiantly off in the
distance until all of a sudden there was a rush for the corridor and
father called us, 'The ocean! Children, come here quickly. There's
the ocean.'
We rushed to the window in the corridor, and there
far below, was the sea— Oh, my dearly beloved sea!
The train roared along, high up on a mountain side,
and down below was the vast expanse of the sea. I was all excited
and happy, because I knew exactly that I was acquainted with the sea
and that I was not seeing it for the first time. I regarded it as a
matter of course, something perfectly obvious, not even bothering to
wonder how my feeling could be possible. I looked down at it without
saying a word, while in my heart a happy voice was singing: 'Oh, you
wonderful, wonderful sea! Beloved sea, always the same,
understanding everything, experiencing everything and surviving
everything! Oh, you dear friend, you who have listened so often to
me tell you of my pains and joys and sorrows ... listened so
understandingly ... and offered me the consolation of your infinity
and eternity ... your uplifting consolation surpasses everything
human! You are here—you are here again—you are always here,
unchanged, and I can look into your depths again, listen to your
waves as they tell about eternity ...'
Father touched my shoulder and asked, 'How do you
like the sea? Does it suit you, or should it be different too?'
'No, father,' I answered, 'the sea is just the way
it should be ... but the shore? Why is there a shore all around it?
The sea should be unending. We shouldn't be able to see the other
shore!'
'Yes,' said father, 'you'll see it's that way when
we get down lower. Right below us now is a big bay, and that's why
it looks as if the sea has shores all round it. When we get down
lower and closer you'll see only water, open water us far as the eye
can reach.'
I was greatly relieved. I was enthusiastic about the
magnificent view, and so was my sister. At last we had found
something about which we were in perfect agreement. She enjoyed the
sea as much as I did, and later when we went hunting for mussels and
crabs between the rocks, we were the best of friends in every
respect.
We were all very happy at this beach resort. Father
was in good spirits and that had a stimulating effect on all of us.
Mother was radiant as she could be with father all day long.
One day we went into a little church which stood
surrounded by Cyprus trees in a beautiful garden. Mother knelt down
and prayed long and fervently. Father stood beside her and looked
very grave. Grete knelt and prayed too. I wanted to be devout too,
but I could not. I did not kneel because I felt no til-sire to do
so. I never wanted to bend my knees before visible forms! Should I
kneel down because others were doing it? No, certainly not! Just
because I wanted to be a 'good girl'? God does not need that; God
can see that that would not be honest. No, I did not kneel; instead,
I watched how the other people were praying.
After a while, when I was already getting a little
bored, father touched mother's shoulder. She stood up and we all
went out. Outside, everything was drenched in sunshine. I jumped
about happily and felt much closer to God in the sunshine than I had
in the cold church!
That evening while mother was praying with me, I
asked her, 'Mother, why were you praying so fervently in church?'
'I was praying,' she said, 'that if God is going to
send us another little child, it may be a little brother for you.'
I was speechless. A little brother? Maybe he would
be a good friend?—
Fine! That would be splendid. Then I understood why
mother had knelt down and prayed so intently. For a child ... that
made sense!
The next winter I awoke once in the middle of the
night. From my parents' bedroom I heard strange sounds. It was the
crying of a babe in arms. A few moments later father appeared, fully
dressed, and asked, 'Are you awake?'
'Yes, father,' said Grete and I.
'Something wonderful has happened! God has sent you
both a little brother.'
Oh! That was very exciting, and I wanted to go and
look at my little brother immediately. But father said I should wait
patiently until morning; then he and mother would show me the child.
Father was very strange. He smiled sweetly and gently and spoke in
such hushed and tender tones that I did not dare to contradict him.
The next morning my maternal grandmother came in,
helped me to get dressed, and we both went into my parents' bedroom.
There lay my mother, and on a cushion in her arm, a little child
with black hair. I looked at it attentively and then observed that
it had long and very fine tufts of hair on its ears, like a little
monkey. Because I was freshly washed, I was permitted to stroke its
little fist. Everybody looked at me, and everybody was so still and
grave and dignified.
From then on there were three of us children in the
family, and I was even more alone than before.
I WANT TO GET AWAY
It was about this time that I met Aunt Raphaela, my
father's sister. She was living with her husband, Uncle Ferdinand,
in another city. Now they came for a visit to see the newborn baby.
I was greatly impressed and full of admiration for this most
unusual, queenly beautiful woman. She was tall like father, with a
figure like a Greek goddess, with a classically beautiful, noble,
imperturbable radiant face crowned by hair as black as ebony. Her
eyes too were sparkling black like father's. Her movements were
majestic, dignified and yet full of charm. She was the perfect
incarnation of all that one could call beautiful and elegant. I
loved her from the first moment I saw her. She loved me too and
often took me along when she went out shopping. Her husband was a
very wise and loving man. We got along well from the moment we met.
I was delighted to hear that we were going to spend the summer in a
mountain resort very near where Uncle Ferdinand and Aunt Raphaela
lived with their children.
The summer was beautiful, and I was often permitted
to go for walks in the mountains with father and Uncle Ferdinand.
The forests and mountain meadows were glorious, and I revelled in
the beauty of climbing up to a mountain vantage point and looking
down on towns and villages with all their tiny houses. Yes, up
there I was happy!—but down below, within the family circle, my
happiness was much less complete. Grete was very different from me
and always wanted to play something else, while mother busied
herself with our little brother. She had no time to show me how to
make things with my little hands, or answer my unending stream of
questions. The feeling that I was alone grew and took on such
proportions that I gradually withdrew from the others and ceased
participating in all they did. But mother's view was simply that I
was disobedient.
One evening when we were about to go to bed, mother
scolded me for coming in so late from the garden and for not wanting
to go to bed. I frowned and said nothing. But when mother went on
scolding me and called me a disobedient child, I flew into a tantrum
and said, 'I see that you don't love me at all. The best thing for
me to do is to run away and leave you forever.'
Mother answered angrily, 'Go ahead and run away,
anywhere you want!'
I ran out of the house, down the steps, through the
big garden, out on to the broad pathway in the forest, and headed
straight for the mountain. Just the day previous, I had climbed this
mountain with father and Uncle Ferdinand. Rather far up on the
mountainside, we had seen a big cave known as the 'robber's cave'. I
wanted to spend the night there to figure out what I should do next.
In the darkness I did not see the footpath, and so I beat my way
through bushes and trees, branches and leaves as I made a beeline up
the hillside towards the 'robber's cave'. Suddenly, far behind me, I
heard my mother's voice. She was calling my name. I stood still for
a moment, then resumed my noisy climb through the bushes. Mother
called me several times in succession; then I heard her hurrying
after me. Probably she heard me breaking through the bushes. She
reached me, grabbed me by the shoulders, and asked excitedly,
'Aren't you afraid a dog will bite you? Have you gone completely
crazy?'
I did not answer. Why should I care about dogs? I
would be able to defend myself, but I wanted to get away! Away to my
own home, where I was really at home, away from these strange
people, away from these strange surroundings where no one understood
me. People were good to me, and full of love, they wanted the best
for me, but they were strange, they were different from me and
different from the people living where I was at home.
We walked home in silence, and I was fully expecting
to be severely punished. To my great surprise, however, neither
mother nor father said a word. As mother and I came into the room,
father looked at me somewhat curiously and a bit amused. My only
punishment was that mother put me to bed and went out without saying
good night.
The next day my parents acted as if nothing had
happened. Nevertheless, I could see clearly that mother was
frightened at my dare-devil attitude, while father recognized and
respected my courage. In his eyes, I had grown in stature. But for
my part, I felt neither daring nor courageous. I was just the way I
was.
And Grete, the always obedient, always well-behaved,
always well-dressed, looked down on me as if I were a criminal,
avoiding my glance with her eyes. And I looked at her with my heart
full of scorn because of her cowardly obedience!
The next winter I did not go back to school, because
I was still very pale and because it was extremely difficult for me
to get up early in the morning. A tutor came to our home and tried
to stuff all kinds of things into my head ... things that bored me
terribly. Geography! Why should I have to learn things about
countries that I didn't know? If I want to learn about these
countries, I will go there when I grow up, I thought, and so I won't
have to study about them any more. But as long as I do not know
them, why should anybody want to hammer into my head what these
countries look like? While my tutor was talking about Paraguay,
Nicaragua and Venezuela, I was listening to the gas hissing gently
in the lamp. And when he had finished his discourse about South
America, I asked him whether he also heard the hissing of the gas in
the lamp. He answered very sweetly that I should now be listening to
him, not to the lamp.
'But the lamp is much more interesting,' I said.
Later he went to my mother and they talked together
for a long time about this strange child that was much more
interested in why the gas hissed in the lamp than in geography. And
after my tutor had left, mother gave me a long and serious 'talking
to' to explain to me why I should study and learn.
'All right, all right, I'll be glad to study, but I
want to learn different things from what you want me to,' I said.
Mother remained adamant and said that I would have to take the
school exams. That's why I would have to study the subjects provided
in the school curriculum. I tried to explain to her that I found
these studies uninteresting, while mother tried to make it clear to
me that I still had to study; we just did not understand each other,
and I was fed up. I wanted to get away! I wanted to know the truth,
I wanted to get back to my true parents, I wanted to live among my
own people where I would not have to learn such things, where I
could do what I wanted, where I could play, not only boring finger
exercises, where I would have freedom— in a word— where I would be
at home.
Little by little I got into the habit of sitting on
an armchair in the dark bathroom, with my feet hanging down, and
pondering in this twilight what I should do. I wanted to get away
from here ... and go home ... to my true home! I did not dare tell
this to my mother, for I knew that she would be very angry; so I
thought it would probably be best if I explained my decision to her
in a letter that I could give her at an opportune moment.
Mother was very busy with my little brother. She was
an enthusiastic mother who never entrusted her children to
strangers. She nursed, bathed and cared for all her children
herself. For this reason I had plenty of opportunity to write my
letter to her in the children's room. I wrote very politely and yet
very simply that I knew very well I was not her own child, that she
and father were not my true parents, that they had probably found me
somewhere and brought me home with them, an act they had probably
regretted as they could not love me, and this was why I would like
to have them take me back as fast as possible to wherever they had
found me. I explained to her how terribly unhappy I was here and
that I would not want to stay here longer for anything in the world.
I went on to explain that this would probably be best for her too as
she would soon be free, once and for all, of all the care and worry
I had caused her. At the bottom of the letter I wrote 'I kiss your
hand' and my name. My letter was finished. But I did not dare
deliver it. So I waited for a favourable opportunity.
One fine afternoon some of mother's friends and
relatives were at our house for a visit. They chatted pleasantly,
admired us older children and our new little brother—we three were
all wearing our most beautiful clothes—then went into the
dining-room where the table was set and coffee and cakes were
waiting for them. In this circle of ladies, my mother was really
charming, sitting at the end of the table, as was her habit. She was
radiantly beautiful, gay and full of peace and I thought that this
at last was the moment to give her my letter. She would surely not
be angry now. I waited until all the ladies had drunk their coffee
and then stole up behind my mother's chair. While she was chatting
with her neighbour, I reached around her waist and dropped my letter
in her lap. Mother noticed me immediately when I slipped into the
room, because she did not like to have us children mixing with
adults. We were supposed to stay in the children's room and come out
only when we were called. Busy as she was with her guests, she was
not able right away to ask me what I wanted. When I slipped the
letter into her lap, she looked at me in wide-eyed surprise, put the
letter into her pocket and went on chatting with her guests as if
nothing had happened. I was very pleased to have picked such an
opportune moment!
But that evening after the guests had left and
father had come home, the storm broke. A storm that I had not
expected! Mother was really very frightened and unusually excited.
She gave father my letter and, all shaken and unstrung, said to him,
'This child is certainly quite insane; look what she has written
me'. Then turning to me she poured out her wrath, 'Just wait, young
lady, if we are not good parents for you we can be quite different.
Then you will have different parents, and believe me you will regret
it!'
Father read my letter with great interest, and I
noticed that he found it very entertaining. It was generally very
hard to upset father, and he was certainly not upset about my
letter. He looked at me quizzically and asked 'What do you mean by
saying you want to get back to your "true" parents? Who do you think
your "true" parents are? And where are they? You silly little
girl!'—and that was the end of the matter as far as father was
concerned.
On the other hand, mother was very excited, and for
days she talked with grandmother, Aunt Adi, and Uncle Stefi about my
letter, even showing it to my father's best friend, our family
doctor. Our doctor was a very profound and thoughtful man, highly
educated in the sciences, a friend and adviser to all the members of
our family in all matters affecting body and soul. Mother was very
bitter about my attitude and told him that, as he well knew, our
whole family was doing everything possible to make me happy and that
I was an ungrateful child, because in spite of all my family was
doing for me, I still wanted to run away and leave them.
'And where do you want to go, you crazy little
child, just tell me where you want to go?' she asked again and
again. But that was something I didn't know myself, a question I
would have liked to have mother and father answer for me! I
wanted to know about the place where they had found me, the place
from which they had brought me! Our family doctor, with his peaceful
blue eyes, looked at me searchingly and asked me very earnestly,
just as he would have asked a grown-up, 'What did you mean by that,
child, tell me frankly just what you meant.'
But I could not and would not talk any more about
it. I just wanted to go back, back to where I had come from, to
where they had brought me from! Where I was at home, where I would
again be among people like myself.
But I realized that I could not yet reach my goal. I
was going to have to stay here. I realized that these people knew
just as little, or perhaps even less, about my origin than I did. So
I could not expect to have them help me find the solution to this
puzzle. With my questions I had only offended and frightened them. I
realized that my letter had been a big disappointment to my mother,
and I didn't want that! I went back to the children's room where I
found Grete looking down to avoid meeting my glance ... to avoid
having to look at such a villainous little child. I felt as if I
were a criminal. No, the whole question was quite hopeless! I never
spoke about the matter again. Little by little the family forgot the
whole matter, and little by little there sank down upon my soul a
veil that kept getting thicker and thicker. I wanted to avoid
thinking any more about my true homeland, as it appeared quite
impossible to find out any details about it.
It was around this time—I was just seven—that father
one mealtime said something about the human being as the 'crown of
creation'.
'How do you mean that, father?' I asked.
'Just that man is the most perfectly developed
creature on earth. There is nothing higher.'
I was simply amazed. How can it be possible, I
thought, that father who has such a brilliant mind, who knows all
the answers, and who always comes out on top in any debate—doesn't
know that over and above the human being there are ... what should I
actually call them? ... titans or giants—not in physical size but in
knowledge and power—towering up above us human beings, guiding us
with their powers, and helping us forward on the pathway of our
development?
I glanced at father to see whether perhaps he did
not want to speak about these superior beings, or whether he
actually did not know anything about them. I observed his face and
saw that he was completely convinced as he spoke about Man as the
crowning achievement of nature. I did not dare ask any further
questions, as somehow or other it was deeply impressed upon me that
'He' did not like to have me speak about secret things with
ignorant people. One must be able to keep silence.
But a moment later I started up as if shocked.
'He?'—who is this one whose very existence I take for
granted, believing as a matter of course that 'He' is always
with me, that 'He' always stands behind me ready to help? Who
is this 'He' to whom I look up so humbly, to whom I flee for
refuge whenever I feel alone or misunderstood ... from whom I can
always expect absolute love and understanding ... who never judges
or condemns me but always listens to me first, always taking me
seriously, always helping me onward and never ... never ... never
deserting me. Who and where is 'He'? And as
I was seeking the answer to this question, there suddenly appeared
before my mind's eye two dark blue, all-loving, all-knowing,
almighty eyes, eyes as immensely deep and infinite as the canopy of
Heaven itself ...
I want to cry out His name, but the letters are
buried too deeply in my memory, my thinking is not clear enough to
draw them out of myself, up to the surface. Then suddenly I notice
that I am sitting at our family table, that mother is sitting at one
end of the table, with my little brother on her lap, as she spoons
bits of porridge into his open mouth ... and my vision disappears.
All afternoon I sit at my little writing table,
trying to force my mind to bring forth out of the unconscious part
of myself the memories that are there, that I just cannot quite
grasp. Sometimes blurred and misty pictures rise up before me. I
want to seize them, but they disappear again immediately ...
But one thing did become clear for me: in all the
time that I have been conscious on this earth, I have always carried
within me the picture of someone whom, simply and in a very matter
of fact manner, I have called 'Him'.
I LONG FOR UNITY
One day mother received an invitation to visit a
cousin who, with her husband and sons, had moved away to live in the
city. The whole family came out of the house to welcome us. The two
boys eyed us critically, and we two girls gave them a thorough
inspection, all in silence until our aunt sent us into the
children's room.
Suddenly we found ourselves in a little boy's world.
They had a train that ran on a track, a little printing press, and a
magic lantern. Everything impressed me greatly, but what excited me
most was the fact that the boys had many many books. All books by
Jules Verne! We had a grand time, and it was late in the evening
before we went home. Our two families got along together quite
harmoniously, and from then on we saw each other every week. These
afternoons were pleasant and enjoyable, and the boys were well
brought up and happy.
Under the influence of what I had once read in a
book, I was always seeking a kind of eternal unity in friendship',
but my girl friends in school made fun of me. They were not
interested in such 'stupid' things. Now I suggested to the boys that
we make a 'pact of eternal friendship'. They found it a splendid
idea. However, the younger boy, who had a strong will and was thus
inclined to be the ring-leader, said that we would each have to show
our signature. So each one of us was obliged to write his name on a
piece of paper. The two boys and Grete wrote their names with the
first letters very big and provided with all kinds of fancy twists;
the remaining letters they wrote as illegibly as possible, finishing
off with an impressive curlicue. I found all these embellishments
superfluous and wrote my name with simple, clearly legible letters.
After looking at the signatures, the younger boy
turned to me with his voice full of scorn, 'What? You want to enter
a pact of eternal friendship, you want to be a member in an alliance
of friends and you don't even have a decent signature? You can't
join our friendship alliance until you have a decent signature!'
Whereupon the two boys and Grete formed their pact for 'everlasting
friendship in life and death'.
I was profoundly disappointed, defeated, dejected.
No sooner had I reached home and hung up my hat and
coat, than I began to practise my 'signature'. I wrote my name a
thousand times, beginning the first letter with a gigantic curve and
scribbling off the remaining letters in a completely illegible
manner. I attempted to imitate the signature of our family doctor
who wrote such completely illegible prescriptions. Then I finished
my work of art with a long line that wove back and forth across the
page. It was artificial. It was anything but true and real. But the
next Saturday I was able to greet my two friends proudly; 'Now just
look at what I have ... Now I have a signature too!' With that, I
scribbled a most impressive signature on a piece of paper.
The two boys and Crete examined my work of art; then
the younger said, 'Good. Your signature is still too legible,
but we're going to accept it anyway and take you in as a member in
our alliance.'
I expected to be happy now that my wish was
fulfilled, but strangely enough I could not. No! Something was not
as it should be. And back home, standing before the mirror and
looking face to face at the 'invisible'—myself—I heard a voice
within me: 'Your signature was false. It was not your picture. Do
you believe that you can obtain true things through false
things? True friendship with a false signature? People who
cannot accept your true signature cannot be your true friends ...'
I turned away from the mirror sadly and went to bed.
I could no longer use the signature I had practised so long. I was
revolted by it. I knew that this 'eternal friendship in life and
death' was just as artificial a thing as my 'signature' and that
these two boys hadn't the vaguest idea about the kind of friendship
I was seeking—real, true, eternal friendship that stands over time
and space! And I was alone in my search for true friendship, my
search for true unity ... alone ... alone.
THE RED MAN
At the age of nine I was greatly shaken by an
experience which stands out starkly in my memory. My little brother,
whom I dearly loved, was just two. He fell sick, but our doctor
could not diagnose the cause of his suffering. I was in the room
where he was lying in bed, with mother sitting beside him. All of a
sudden, the child started up out of a sound sleep, wide-eyed with
fright as it stared in the direction of the door and called out,
'Mother, Mother, the Red Man ... the Red Man is coming to get me!'
The child waved his tiny hands as if he were fighting someone off,
and then screamed at the top of his lungs, 'Mother! Help! The Red
Man!' ... and fell over in a faint.
Mother sprang up, caught him in her arms, laid him
gently back into bed, and immediately sent for the doctor. While we
were waiting, I asked, 'Mother, who was this Red Man he saw?'
Mother answered, 'Nothing real, darling. He's just
seeing things ... hallucinations ... in his fever.'
When the doctor came, he found the child had
pneumonia.
Poor dear mother! Three weeks long she carried the
child day and night in her arms, not sleeping and not leaving him
alone for a moment. I was aghast as I watched the fearful struggle
my brother was making for his life and mother was making to save her
only son. It was perhaps the first time in my life I opened my heart
all the way for mother; and perhaps it was the first time in my life
I saw that, through and through, her heart was made of a fabric of
love. I too lived through this period in fear and trembling for the
life of my brother, and from this time on I felt I really belonged
to my family. When he finally returned to health, I took my full
part in the family rejoicing. At last I had begun to feel 'at home'
in this place.
But I did not forget the 'Red Man'. Mother tried to
reassure me in vain that it had not been something real. My brother
had seen him—something had caused him to see a red man—and that was
not supposed to be something real? What my brother had seen remained
an open question for me, one I pondered long and often. At that time
I could not dream that I would someday—many, many years later—find
the answer in India.
A year later we moved to another part of the city
where there were many trees and where the houses were surrounded by
beautiful gardens. From the windows of our new home we could look
out in every direction towards hills and mountains.
I went back to school, and once again the old story
began for me. The other girls in school were as amazed at me as I
was at them. They played with dolls, and that bored me stiff. And I
read books they thought were just as dull. The older I grew, the
more feverishly I read. Not only the books we children received, but
all the books in my father's library. There I found a set of volumes
which caused me to begin reading even more avidly than I had before.
The complete works of Shakespeare! I devoured one book after the
other. They made such a profound impression upon me that I just
could not stop reading. All day long I could think of nothing else.
I acted like a sleepwalker. At mealtimes I did not even hear what
people said to me. I was still reenacting the fate of the hero and
heroine of the particular tragedy or comedy I had just been reading.
First I read all the tragedies, one after the other, living in a
state of deep emotional turmoil. Then came all the comedies, which
kept me rocking back and forth on our sofa out of pure amusement.
Along with Shakespeare, there was another set of
thick books entitled Ethnographical Research which meant much
to me. There I found descriptions of all kinds of rituals in the
field of superstition and black magic. In these volumes I read
things that were startlingly new and difficult to understand:
superstitions about love, recipes for brewing love potions, and
other obscure rites having to do with love and sex. After spending
quite a time reading some of the most fantastic things I fired some
questions at mother.
'Mother,' I asked, 'Can you make someone love you by
taking a yellow turnip, boring a hole through it from top to bottom,
spitting through the hole three times, then taking the turnip out at
midnight and throwing it over the house of the person you love? And
is it true that if you take a piece of a girl's nightdress, burn it
and bake the ashes in a cake, the person who eats the cake will fall
in love with the girl who owns the nightdress and do anything she
wants him to?'
Mother let me finish asking questions, while the
expression on her face changed from amazement to horror. Finally she
burst out, 'For goodness' sake! Where did you hear all this terrible
nonsense? Have you been talking to the washwoman? How often have I
forbidden you to talk over delicate questions with the cook or the
washwoman! Where have you heard all this fearful black magic
nonsense? Tell me right away!'
'Mother,' I answered, supremely certain of my
innocence. 'Don't get excited. These things cannot be so fearful if
a scientist spends his time investigating them. I read them in
scientific books, in the Ethnographical Research books, in
father's library.'
That was enough to set mother scurrying to father's
bookcase which she promptly locked, withdrawing the key and keeping
it. From then on I was allowed to read only what she gave me. In
order to obtain otherwise inaccessible information, I asked mother
from time to time to let me have a volume of the encyclopaedia in
which to read up on some plant or animal we were studying in school.
And I saw to it that this volume contained the particular word that
interested me much more than the plant or animal. Then I went into
the children's room and thoroughly studied the things I wanted to
know. Thus with mother's express permission—and assistance!—I read
item after item of prohibited information, while mother lived on in
blissful ignorance of the true objects of my attention. Even better,
mother herself had tipped me off to the fact that I could learn all
kinds of exciting things about superstition from our washwoman. As
fast as I possibly could I sought out opportunities for clandestine
conversation with her. Thus I came to hear some of the most horrible
stories about ghosts, superstitions, and witchcraft until I got into
such a state of fear that I no longer dared enter a dark room alone.
Then Uncle Stefi asked me once why I was afraid.
'Because I might see a ghost,' I said.
'Oh, so that's it! Want to know an easy way to
defend yourself? ... Just whistle real loud, and all the ghosts will
scamper away instantly,' he answered.
From then on I was constantly whistling, while at
the same time delving further into ghost stories. Thus, on the one
hand, I extended my knowledge about the lowest levels of mysticism,
and on the other, developed an above-average ability for whistling.
MY FUTURE APPEARS
We spent that summer on the great inland lake, where
we lived together with some of our relatives. This particular summer
stands out strongly in my memory because of events I had to think
back upon much, much later.
Mother was still very busy with my little brother,
and so I had a bit more freedom. In the company of a girl friend of
my own age, I was allowed to roam about the village and nearby park
and meadows. Mother thought I was going to my friend's house, while
her mother thought she was coming to mine. Instead, we rambled
around the village and its environs, trying to satisfy our girlish
curiosity. On the lakeshore there was a row of villas, and we
watched a gypsy boy go up to each villa in turn, play a few tunes on
his violin, and hold out his hand for money. It suddenly struck me
that my grandmother earned a lot of money by giving concerts, and I
wondered whether I too could earn some money. My little girl friend
always did blindly whatever I told her to do; so we two went up to
each villa, straight up to the porch or into the garden wherever the
people were sitting, and I recited a poem. The people were very
surprised, but when my friend made the rounds holding out a plate,
everybody dropped some coins in it, some more, some less. All of
them had a hearty laugh at our expense, and one lady asked whether
my mother knew what I was doing.
'No,' I answered, 'this is our private enterprise.
Mother doesn't know about it.'
'Just as I thought,' said the lady, 'why don't you
two children run along home now.'
The promising business venture came to an end that
very day. After we had divided the money between us, I went home and
told how I had earned some money, proudly displaying the many coins
of nickel and copper. Mother almost fainted.
'For goodness' sake!' she whooped, 'Where in the
world did you get such an idea? What will people think? You're
plunging us into shame!'
'Why?' I asked. 'Grandmother earns money with her
performances. The little gypsy boy earned money too. So what's so
shameful about my earning money reciting poetry?'
'Just try to understand, you stupid little ninny,'
my mother answered, 'that your father has a high position with a
nation-wide reputation, and you just cannot do such things!'
'What does father have to do with what I do? Father
is father, and I am I. I don't have a high position, so why
shouldn't I earn some money? Every job is decent if one just does it
decently. And I really recited very beautifully!' I ended my
argumentation proudly.
Mother snorted angrily, 'You just don't understand.
And as punishment for doing such things and for contradicting me, I
am not going to let you leave the garden!'
Thus I came to lose my liberty, but the episode had
further consequences. My great-uncle, who had rented the other half
of the villa for himself and his family, was a loving person blessed
with a magnificent sense of humour. When he heard that I had recited
poetry in the villas along the shore, he wanted to hear me too. Our
two families took all our meals together, and that evening my
great-uncle suggested that I recite something after supper. I had no
objections. The grown-ups all sat in a circle, while I stood in the
centre and started reciting some poems I had learned at school. My
great-uncle liked them and wanted to hear more.
'But I don't know any more,' I said.
'Then tell us something, anything you want.'
'Can I tell you a story out of the book I got as a
prize for my good exams?' I asked.
'Surely,' said my great-uncle, 'go ahead.'
I began to tell stories from The Vicar of
Wakefield. But I didn't content myself with just telling them, I
acted them out as if I were on stage. In this way I gave an animated
story about how the vicar of Wakefield led a holy life, how a young
man got acquainted with his daughter, Olivia, and finally ran off
with her. I hadn't the vaguest idea of what it meant to run off with
somebody that way, and sol didn't know why the vicar was so excited.
I was merely telling the story in the way I read it in the book.
Continuing with my improvised one-person drama, I told about the
lovers' tryst in the darkness and the sweet and tender words they
whispered to each other, how the vicar bellowed with rage and
reached for his gun, and finally how his gentle wife calmed him
down, by slipping a Bible into his hand ...
By this time the grown-ups were all doubled up with
laughter, and when I was ready to stop, my great-uncle insisted he
wanted to hear more about the vicar. There was nothing for me to do
but go on, and that made them laugh some more. They laughed as if I
had been telling the funniest stories in the world. And here I was
telling a tragedy!
When I was through, my great-uncle took me by the
hand and pulled me over to where he was sitting. 'Tell me where you
heard all these stories,' he asked.
'Yes,' echoed mother, 'that's just what I'd like to
know too!'
'From the book I got in school as a prize,' I
answered.
'Amazing!' said mother, somewhat vexed, but still
laughing, 'How can these people in school give such books to a
child?'
'Forget it, Lilian,' said my great-uncle, 'they
certainly didn't read the book themselves, and undoubtedly they
thought that a book about a vicar is bound to be full of holy and
harmless things. They didn't realize that Ministers of the Gospel
sometimes have daughters. Just relax, Lilian, and let her tell us
some more stories another time. What she's got in her head you can't
get out again anyway. And I haven't had such a good laugh in a long
time!'
From then on I had to give a performance every
evening. In addition to our family circle, my audience soon began to
include friends from the neighbourhood who came to hear me tell the
stories I had been reading in books. These included some of
Shakespeare's tragedies, and once again I could not understand what
there was in these profoundly tragic scenes that struck the
grown-ups as funny. Despite their hilarity I put on the scene in
which King Lear, alone and deserted, lets out his last dying
gasps—and the grown-ups were in stitches! ... In Richard III
I went through the scene in which everybody dies one after the
other, one in one way, the next in another, and I demonstrated
how;—by this time the grown-ups were practically splitting their
sides. How, I wondered, can people laugh at such tragic events where
so many people die? That's not funny! That's horrible, I thought, as
I went on with my act in deadly earnest.
How often—how very often—I was to think back in
later years about that little girl who was so serious and so
convinced of herself as she told stories and put on an act. My later
destiny in life had already come into evidence. Even at that early
age, I had become accustomed to bringing things forth out of my
inner world—beautiful, divine, true things—irrespective of whether
my audience understood my truths or not. I speak for the sake of
truth itself, and only one listener is important: God!
* * *
Summer went by, and we came home. That winter I
decided to stop wearing little-girl clothes and to dress as a clown.
I just could not get over the feeling that I was not the person I
was, and that I was really someone else. Even though I had stopped
talking about it, I had not got over this feeling. On the contrary,
it had merely worked its way deeper down inside me and was active in
my subconscious. I begged and kept on begging till my good-hearted
mother could not say 'No' any longer. With her own hands she made me
a real clown costume, a pretty one. She even bought me two colourful
clown caps, and from then on I went around in this attire. I derived
tremendous enjoyment from exercising on a trapeze and flying rings,
imitating at home everything I had seen in the circus. Hanging head
down and seeing the world upside down, I felt free.
At that time I did not yet know that psychologists
call the clown a 'person changing type'.
Along with my amateur circus acrobatics, I acquired
the habit of assuming strange and unusual body postures. At first my
parents were surprised and laughed at me; then soon our relatives
and friends were amused and entertained at the 'comical' positions
into which I put various parts of my body. Wherever I went, I was
asked to demonstrate these postures. I did them instinctively,
without thinking at all why I did them. I merely noticed that they
made me feel good, that in certain positions I could study better,
and that when I was tired I could feel surprisingly fresh again in
only a very few minutes by virtue of having sat in certain other
positions.
The rest of the family laughed about my 'crazy'
habit and mother gradually got used to seeing me in some impossible
position whenever she came into her room. At first she lectured me
about how a 'good girl' has to sit on a chair and must not stand on
her head or twist her legs into impossible positions or hang her
legs over her shoulders. In due course, however, she left me in
peace with this new idiosyncracy of mine.
For me these different body postures were a matter
of course. They were in my blood, I enjoyed them even without
thinking about them much, and I was only amazed, once again, that
the people around me were so surprised about something so obvious.
Once while our whole family was visiting Aunt Raphaela for several
weeks of summer holidays we had a visit from a gentleman who had
spent many years travelling in the Far East, and who—as Uncle
Ferdinand informed us—could tell all kinds of interesting stories
about these far-away places. We children were introduced to the man
and, as usual, our parents told him what we could do. Aunt Raphaela
laughingly told him about my remarkable habit of assuming strange,
leg-twisting postures which nobody else could imitate, except
perhaps an India rubber man.
I lay down on the floor, and as I was always
embarrassed when people were talking about me—feeling uncomfortable
about merely 'protruding' above ground—I assumed a position in which
I could completely conceal my head, giving spectators the illusion
of its having been cut off. The grown-ups laughed. Then I
demonstrated a few other 'difficult' postures that I enjoyed so
much. Our strange guest watched my performance for a while without
cracking a smile and finally burst out in astonishment, 'But this
child is doing typical Yoga exercises! Where did you learn
them, little girl?' He turned to me.
I did not know what the word 'Yoga' meant; so I
answered that no one had shown me these exercises and that I did
them just because I liked them and felt better afterwards. The man
refused to believe it, looking at me long and enquiringly,
and shaking his head.
The grown-ups' questions had already begun to bore
me; so when mother waved us off, we disappeared into the children's
room, and I promptly forgot the remarks made by our distinguished
visitor.
Only much, much later, when the memory suddenly came
to life and I began to understand many other things which had been
obscure and inscrutable in my life, I remembered the remarks of the
widely-travelled gentleman from the Far East ... . Then I understood
where I had learned these physical postures which I had practised as
a child and later as an adult ... postures our distinguished visitor
had called 'Yoga exercises'. Then I realized clearly that I had done
these exercises out of long-standing habit, because I had
been obliged to practise them daily in the temple year after year.
These exercises were a reflection of my past and at the same time
the shadow of events yet to come in my life; for much later, as an
adult, I taught these exercises to many people in order to further
their mental and physical development.
STRUGGLES OF LOVE
The years passed rapidly. As I grew my body began to
mature. I enjoyed reading books that dealt with love stories and
problems of love; so I delved deeper and deeper into my personality.
I looked forward into the future and determined to find a
noble-spirited husband who would understand me perfectly. In this
way I began to concern myself less with books and more and more with
young people, later with young men. The young men were also
interested in me. Mother tried in vain to bring me up as a modest
young lady. Even in my earliest years I had to realize that I
possessed a power of attraction. However, in my blindness, I
considered that this power which drew so many people towards me was
an attractiveness emanating from my person. We always have to pay
for our spiritual deficiencies, and because of my being blinded to
the truth at this age, I was later to have to pay the price of
almost becoming physically blind. I had yet to learn that my power
of attraction was not intended to serve my private life, but rather
to lead the people following me along the path of their salvation.
At that time, however, my whole thinking centred
around my personality, and I believed I would find my highest
happiness in the love of man and wife. I thus went through many of
the experiences that are usual in this world. I was loved and fell
in love, but all my joys and sorrows were merely a prelude to my
later destiny.
A relationship with one man in particular dominated
the six years of my life from the age of thirteen until I was
nineteen, and looking at it in retrospect I would call this whole
experience a 'training school for the development of unusually
strong will-power'. My destiny knew that I was going to need this
weapon in life. When I was thirteen, I met a young man whose
brilliant traits made him stand out high above the average. His
character was made up of a purposeful and determined striving for
the highest and finest and most beautiful things in life, combined
with an almost pathologically acute egotism and desire for power. He
loved me, so he said, but he loved himself and wanted to make me his
obedient slave. He recognized very early that we both had the same
spiritual viewpoint and that art meant the same to me as it did to
him. This led him to believe that he had found in me a partner
worthy of himself. He hoped, in time, to make me over into his own
image—a highly cultured but absolutely obedient wife. He thought he
would do away completely with my independent thinking. He brought me
excellent books about art, the history of art, music, world history,
the best works of literature—both modern and classical—and he
insisted that I read these works in the original. Since I found
learning languages just for their own sake extremely boring, he took
the time to learn languages with me. Then he sought out the best
piano teacher for me. In short he did everything imaginable to help
me get an unusually good education. Mother saw in him a helpful
angel for my education, because languages were really hard for me.
The best tutors tried in vain to teach me; I refused to learn long
lists of words by heart. This young man brought me German, French,
and English newspapers, magazines, and theatrical works, then read
them with me, thus helping me to work my way into various languages.
That was very helpful and certainly all to the good, but along with
his helpfulness he kept trying consistently and purposefully to
force me under his domination. Shortly after we got acquainted, he
said that I was going to become his wife and he wanted me to
consider myself as his property. Everything I wanted to read
I had to show him first to get his permission. He refused to let me
make friends with anybody at all without his prior permission. Like
other young girls, I went to a dancing school with my sister. I was
passionately fond of dancing and equally fond of having a good time
with the other young people in the class. I also enjoyed
ice-skating. None of these things had any appeal for him. But I was
young and I wanted to dance and skate and have a good time with
other young people. This made him jealous—and to a degree far
surpassing anything one might consider normal. Worst of all, his
jealousy went hand in hand with an almost insatiable desire for
power.
At first I was flattered that a man who was so well
known and highly esteemed by so many people should have chosen a
little girl like me as his future wife. He was a brilliant talker,
and quite often I enjoyed conversations with him tremendously. I was
also pleased that he took the same profound and serious views of
friendship and love that I did. On the other hand, when I began to
feel he was systematically and consistently trying to force his will
upon me, more and more, like a band of steel, all his attentions
became annoying. A struggle began, a terrible struggle between the
invisible forces of two souls! The more he felt I was growing out of
his power, the more firmly he sought to hold me. When I was
seventeen, he wanted us to announce our engagement publicly. He sent
his father to visit mine. My father was not exactly delighted. A
long time afterwards, he told me he had never been impressed by my
fiance's aggressive approach, but he didn't want to interfere with
our free will. He respected everybody's right to make up his own
mind— including his own children—and so he gave his consent, even
though reluctantly. I hoped my fiance's jealousy would die down
after our betrothal. As time went on, however, and my body continued
to develop in form and charm, his jealousy knew no bounds, and he
often made terrible scenes.
After torturing me for hours, he often
went to the opposite extreme, asked me for forgiveness on his knees,
cried like a baby, begged for my love, and promised never to torture
me again. I found such scenes absolutely unbearable. Never before in
my young life had I experienced any such thing. My father possessed
tremendous power, a kind of power which he radiated about him
automatically and unintentionally. He never tried to force his will
upon others. He liked to leave everybody his freedom and never
expected others to follow and obey him blindly. At that time he was
holding a top-level position, and my little-girl wish had already
been fulfilled for quite a period—he no longer had a manager or
director supervising him. Even so, he was never domineering or
tyrannical towards his subordinates. He was like a tower of strength
for all around him, both at home and in his office. Hundreds of
subordinates and all our relatives sought his counsel. He was just,
generous, and always ready to help. No wonder I had grown up
thinking that all men were like him. At home I had never known such
things as egotism and unscrupulousness, and my sister and I had both
grown up in a healthy atmosphere of true, selfless, love. I could
not have known what sadism and masochism were any more than I could
have understood—let alone bear—all the quarrels I got involved in
with my fiance. I wanted to be free! Free!
For a long time, however, I could not resist his
will. An innate propensity towards faithfulness, together with an
understanding approach towards the weaknesses of other people, also
kept me for quite a time from taking action. But my will power
developed with the years, and all of a sudden I began to ask myself
why I should go on enduring this torture.
One day I told him I wanted to be free. He would not
hear of it. We struggled desperately, for his will still held me in
a grip of steel. The longer I struggled, the more my will power
developed, until finally it was greater than his. The moment finally
came when I had enough courage to tell him I no longer wanted to be
his wife. More stormy scenes followed, but their effect was
completely lost on me! I was sorry for him, but at the same time I
had lost all respect for him because of his behaviour, so
domineering and tyrannical on the one hand, and so extremely
cowardly on the other. In those days I did not know that these two
characteristics are very closely related, so closely in fact as to
be two complementary aspects of the same disease. On the other hand,
I felt him to be sick in his soul, and I wanted absolutely to be
free. With a last great effort I shook off his will.
I spoke to my parents. They were not surprised. And
one fine afternoon when I was nineteen I set out on a journey with
my cousin to his mother, my father's sister, beautiful Aunt
Raphaela.
I broke my engagement ...
FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH DEATH
Ever since my childhood days, I had often become
pale and tired around springtime. In most cases, the best remedy was
to visit my Aunt Raphaela. She lived in the mountains with her
family, and the combination of the bracing mountain air and the
atmosphere of wisdom and religion these people lived in always cured
me very quickly. I felt very happy in these quiet and noble
surroundings and would come home, fresh and full of new energy and
vitality.
After my engagement had been dissolved, I went again
to see my aunt. At that time, she was already a widow and was living
with her daughter. She welcomed me with great affection, and I fully
enjoyed the long desired peace and tranquillity. I felt like a kite
with a broken string—soaring up into infinity. What a wonderful
spring it was! As usual, my aunt understood me perfectly. She
expressed her views upon my decision with great insight; afterwards,
she never mentioned the matter again. In her home I lived in
absolute freedom. She let me come and go as I liked. I could roam
through the hills and woods and enjoy nature to the full. During
this period when I felt completely happy in my freedom and looked
towards the future with confidence, I encountered death for the
first time in my life!
While hiking one day I came to a field of grain. As
my plans for marriage had recently been blasted, I stopped there and
tried to picture my future. First of all, I was going to be a
pianist, I told myself, like my grandmother. Then I'd get married to
a healthy, happy, normal husband and have children. Then the
children would grow up, and I might even have grandchildren. And
then what? Then I'd grow old. And then? ... Then one day I'd have to
die.
Death! That is the end, the aim, the
direction in which we all go. But why? Why all this trouble? Why
should I practise at my piano and become a great artist? Does it
really make any difference, whether these bones, covered with skin,
ever glide over the keys with great proficiency? If human beings
have to die anyway some day, does it matter what they have made out
of their lives? Whether they have been famous and brilliant or
unknown and unrecognized, whether they have been honest or
dishonest? Why struggle, toil, bear children, suffer and be happy,
joyful and sorrowful, when the ultimate end is death and
destruction? It would surely be much easier to die right away!
This thought was so terrible, so unbearable, that
the world around me became dark and void. I leaned against a tree
and gazed down into the valley, upon the town, the endless houses
with the many human beings who lived in them. From up here they
looked like tiny ants. All those beings lived, fought, struggled for
love and money, all of them had their problems, their cross to bear,
they took everything so desperately seriously ... But why? Why, when
life is but a fleeting moment, when death is waiting at the end,
solving all problems, terminating all suffering and all joy? What
are we running after? What do we attain? Death! Whether we
are happy or unhappy, a king or a beggar, the end for all of us is
death!
Panic gripped me. No! I won't go through with it! I
cannot learn, love and live with this thought. Everything is
senseless! I would rather commit suicide right now so that I
won't have to die at the end of my life!
A devilish, sarcastic voice laughed in my ear: 'Ha
ha ha! That's really like you to be so stupid! You want to kill
yourself, so you won't have to die? Do you really think you can
escape death? You are here, here on earth in a body. You
cannot just flee from here without death! If you kill
yourself, the end, from which you wished to save yourself only a
moment ago, will be imminent. Instantaneous death! Not just "some
day" far away, but right here and now! Do you understand? As long as
you are here, in your body, you cannot get away unless you
die! You are a prisoner! Do you understand? A prisoner! Only through
the portals of death can you be released from your body, you cannot
escape death ... you cannot escape ... Ha ha ha!'
I tried to gather my scattered thoughts. Yes, it was
true, I was in a trap and suicide would not help matters. It would
only take me right into what I was anxious to avoid. So now what? In
any case I could take momentary comfort in the fact that I was still
very young, and that death was still probably far away. I was
healthy. All my ancestors had reached a great age. These facts gave
me new courage. By the time I get old, I thought, a lot can still
happen. The scientists, who constantly discover new things about
life, will some day certainly discover the secret of immortality.
I clung to this thought, and gained the incentive and the energy
to go on living, working and wishing.
I was absolutely right! Immortality was discovered,
only I did not know at the time, that this 'discovering of
immortality' was really something I would have to do for myself
to find out that death does not exist, and that all human
beings—myself included—are and always will be immortal! For everyone
must discover immortality in himself and for himself. No other
person can pass this truth on to him. If somebody does not believe a
truth, even a perfectly obvious fact, it simply does not exist for
him no matter how many other people have discovered it already.
Every human being must recognize the fact that death is nothing but
life itself and that man not only does not have to die, but
is not even able to die! It is absolutely impossible!
At that time, I knew nothing of all this; to me,
death was a big, black wall against which I had cracked my head with
considerable force.
Nevertheless, I was young, and so I calmed down as
well as I could. I postponed the whole thing and decided, as far as
humanly possible, not to think about the problem of death. Such
thoughts would only weaken me, and I preferred to make plans for the
future.
In normal circumstances, I was used to doing
everything on my own and upon my own initiative. My father had never
concerned himself with the personal affairs of his children. His
profession occupied him to such an extent, that he had never had
time to interest himself in what went on in his family. We usually
only met at the family table where I never mentioned the scenes
which occurred between myself and my fiance. My mother loved me, as
she loved all her children, but she only began to understand me much
later on, when we said good-bye to each other for good. At that
time, she wanted me to become as efficient a housewife and mother as
she herself was. I myself regarded this as the central aim of my
life, but the way in which I wanted to achieve it was quite
different from the one she envisaged. The path of my life could be
only my own, and I could not accept the advice she gave me in
respect to my future. Mother wanted me to prepare myself for the
role of the gentle little mother, whereas I, with every drop of my
blood, sought fulfilment in music and art. I was therefore left
completely to my own devices and gradually got used to thinking and
acting independently as far as this was possible in the family
circle. I therefore tried to picture a future completely on my own,
without asking anyone for advice. I decided to continue my studies
at the music academy, and pass the final examinations so as to get a
diploma.
Father often said to us: 'Don't be blind to the
vagaries of fate just because everything is going well at present.
Earthly riches can be destroyed. Whatever knowledge you acquire is
yours to keep and cannot be taken away from you. Learn as much as
you can, and at least get a diploma of some sort. If things go well,
you can leave it in a drawer, but if you run into hard times, you
can earn your living with it!'
Oh my father, you wonderful, unselfish, wise man.
This piece of advice was the greatest treasure among all those you
ever passed on to me. At that time, none of us could imagine how we
could ever get into any difficulties and believed in secret that you
were just talking like a strict pedagogue. How often I remembered
this advice during the war when everything we owned was destroyed
and I was stranded with a gravely wounded, disabled husband. We were
saved by what I had learnt, by what I carried in me, what I
knew, for all our outward possessions were lost. As I stood
there that day on the mountain, a young, inexperienced girl,
thinking about my future, I had no idea what fate held in store for
me. But I felt I had to follow your advice.
And so, when I got back home that summer and started
a fresh page of my life, the most important thing was to concentrate
all my energy on acquiring a piano teacher's diploma. Everything
else I left in the hands of destiny.
FIRST VISIONS OF THE FUTURE
During the six years I was engaged something
happened that was so surprising and so impressive it had an effect
on the direction all my later life was to take. Through it my
attention was guided towards a world lying hidden deep within the
human being: the unknown, unconscious world of the human self.
I was fifteen years old when I discovered that I was
sometimes able to see the future in dreams, very precisely, as if
what I was seeing were a faithful reproduction of reality. What
occurred then happened again later at various times and still
happens today always in the same manner: at first my dream runs
through all kinds of chaotic and irrelevant pictures. Then suddenly,
as if a curtain were pushed to one side, I see colourful, plastic
and logically connected pictures, with absolute clarity just as in
real life.
In that first clear dream of the future I saw, in my
parents' bathroom, a young man holding a newborn baby. The baby was
all blue, as if suffocated, and the young man was trying to get it
to breathe. A woman assistant stood beside him, ready to help. The
child was not breathing. The doctor held it first under ice-cold
water then under hot water. Then he held it head downward and swung
it to and fro. When it finally let out a cry, all of us round about
heaved a sigh of relief. From where he stood in the doorway father
now ran to mother's room, fell down on his knees beside her bed,
laid his head on the edge of the bed near mother and sobbed as I had
never seen this strong man sob before in all my life. Mother was
very pale, but she smiled tenderly and stroked father's black hair.
Father calmed down after a while, got up and went into the next room
where Aunt Raphaela and her daughter were waiting to be able to
visit mother. Curiously enough, in my dream I was able to look into
all rooms simultaneously, which of course would have been impossible
in reality. Another thing that struck me was that the young man,
after turning the baby over to his assistant, came out of the
bathroom, walking with a peculiar gliding gait. I also noticed his
pretty, curly, blond hair, and very distinctly I heard him say,
'Mother and child are out of danger but need absolute quiet. If
anybody comes to visit them, I cannot take the responsibility for
any infection that may occur during this present condition of
weakness.'
'Of course, doctor,' answered Aunt Raphaela, and I
saw how she very sensibly took her leave and went away with her
daughter. Then the picture blacked out, and I awoke.
The next morning I ran to mother and told her my
dream. Mother laughed and said, 'Please don't dream things like
that, I have enough children! And what is Aunt Raphaela doing in
this dream? She doesn't even live here. And who is the handsome
young man with the gliding gait and the curly blond hair? Your
dreaming like this about good-looking young men seems very
suspicious to me.'
'I don't know who he is, Mother, but I saw him just
that way in my dream.'
Later, at lunch time, we all discussed my strange
dream for a while, but by the next day nobody gave it another
thought.
Haifa year later mother felt very ill. She could not
eat and the doctors suspected she might have a duodenal ulcer. They
x-rayed her and made other examinations. The result ... no exact
diagnosis. Our doctor advised mother to see a famous gynaecologist.
After his examination, the old professor said, 'Congratulations! The
end of this great sickness will be a baptism.' He laughed gently.
Mother came home in desperation. She was already
thirty-nine years old. Little by little she calmed down, however,
and six months later, exactly a year after my dream, when no one
could have believed that we would have another addition to the
family, the little baby arrived. The old professor recommended a
young doctor who had already gained a great reputation for his
skill. When the baby was born, it seemed to be dead of suffocation.
It was twenty long minutes before it took its first breath. Father
was so exhausted from the protracted worry that, when the danger was
over, he sank to his knees beside mother's bed and, strong man that
he was, sobbed like a baby. Aunt Raphaela and her daughter were
visiting us briefly en route to Italy. They spent two days with us,
and the child was born just as they were ready to go on. They waited
in the next room, and when father came in to say that all was safely
over, Aunt Raphaela asked whether she might see mother and child
before her departure. Then the young doctor came into the room. He
had curly blond hair and a peculiar gliding gait! He then said
exactly, word for word what I had heard him say in my vision.
Indeed, everything happened exactly as I had already experienced
it! It was as if I had seen part of a motion picture a long time
before the other events in the film and completely separate from
them.
From then on I often saw future events, as dream
pictures, with precise details. At first this experience always came
to me in dreams. Every time it was as if a curtain were being shoved
to one side. Later, however, I was able to enter this state
intentionally, by an act of will, without being asleep. But this
only came much later.
My new baby sister was almost like a granddaughter
in the family. Grete was then nineteen, I sixteen, and my brother
nine years old. She was everybody's little darling. But the
attention she received pushed us two older children pretty far into
the background, and we often found ourselves alone. For several
years, only our governess accompanied us when we went skating and to
concerts and parties. Mother was just as busy with our new little
sister as she had been nine years before when my brother was born.
No wonder that they had no time to bother about my affairs, even
when they noticed I was having disputes with my fiance. I had to
fight my battle alone, without help.
THE PAST AWAKENS
When I left Aunt Raphaela's and returned home
following the breaking off of my engagement, summer had come. I was
nineteen years old and wanted to enjoy my freedom. At last I could
see other young people without having to risk a terrible scene from
my jealous fiance. On my return, I went straight to the local
tennis-courts. On the first day, I met a very attractive,
trim-looking young man. His bearing and manner were most charming.
He had a good-looking head on his shoulders, a well-built, slim,
muscular body and always turned up in faultless white tennis-slacks
and jersey. I took to him from the first moment, and he seemed to
like me too. On our third day, one of our team-mates rather
unhappily cracked her racket over the head of our ballboy. He began
to cry bitterly. The sympathetic young man threw his racket away,
ran up to the little boy, took him on to his lap, and started to
comfort him. He did not seem to mind the boy's dirtying his
immaculate tennis-clothes at all. He stroked his head, dried his
tears, and gave him some money. In a matter of moments the boy
started to smile through his tears and ran off to the counter to buy
some sweets.
My heart went out to him. Are there really such
young men, I thought, who have a little compassion? I began to love
him ...
In the following winter, I became engaged to him. We
loved one another deeply and passionately, and I could hardly wait
for the moment when I was to become his wife with body and soul,
with every part of my being.
My father wanted me to finish my studies before my
marriage, and I still had one year left to go at the music academy.
So we had to wait, and I continued to practise daily for four or
five hours, learn the laws of harmony, play chamber music, and do
everything I could towards passing the exams. My fiance spent every
evening at our house.
One evening, when he had left, I went to bed and
fell fast asleep. I slept, and, as usual, I dreamt of many things in
a chaotic and senseless manner. Suddenly, I began to hear a strange
sound which repeated itself in a rhythmical way, a kind of snapping
noise which became louder and louder, till I abruptly regained
consciousness and awoke.
I open my eyes and notice that the rhythmical sound
is coming from the whip of a slave-driver who is marching beside me
and cracking his whip to keep all the slaves who are pulling me in
step. I am reclining on something like a sledge on rails which
glides along slowly. I realize that I am being taken away from the
palace; a moment ago I heard the doors being closed.
I want to jump up, but find that I cannot. I am
unable to move a muscle, because I am wrapped up tightly from my
neck right down to my feet. I am lying there, as though hewn out of
a piece of marble, my hands crossed over my chest, my legs stretched
out side by side. From this position, I can only look straight ahead
or gaze upwards. Looking in the direction of my feet, in the
brilliant sunshine, I see the naked, perspiring backs of the men who
are pulling me on and on in continuous movement. Above and beyond
them, in the distance, a white stone building looms up, a black
cavity seeming to mark an entrance. In the gleaming white light, the
walls of the building stand out starkly against the dark blue sky.
As the slaves continue forward, the building seems to approach, and
the black cavity becomes larger and larger.
The sky above is so intensely blue it seems almost
black. Two large birds circle slowly overhead—storks or cranes?
The stone building suddenly appears to be very near;
the black cavity yawns wide ... yes ... it really is an opening. Now
I recognize it. We are in the City of the Dead! This is a tomb!
We arrive, the slaves enter and disappear into the darkness. Now the
cavity engulfs me ... and suddenly the world around me becomes black
after the blinding sunshine outside. Everything is gone ... I am in
complete darkness! A terrible fear grips me, and silently I search
for an answer to the question, 'How long—how long must I stay in
here, a prisoner?'
Clearly I hear a familiar voice, calmly and
imperturbably telling me its inexorable will:
'Three thousand years ...'
Terror grips me anew, and consciousness fades into
oblivion ...
* * *
Somebody was shaking me roughly. I looked up and saw
the eyes of my sister. She gripped me and stared at me in sheer
fright.
'For goodness' sake,' she said, 'what on earth is
wrong with you? You sit here with a vacant look in your eyes and
groan terribly, as though you were going to die. Are you feeling
ill? Shall I call mother?'
I felt I wanted to answer, but I could not utter a
single sound. The terrible experience I had just been through
paralysed every part of my body. I groaned and waved my hand to
reassure her that all was well. Then I stretched out again and tried
to think, but even that was impossible. I lay there, still
panic-stricken, and some minutes went by before my heart started to
beat normally again, before I began to calm down and realize who I
was and where I was. My sister stayed near me for a little while;
then noticing that I had regained my senses, she repeated her
questions, 'Can I do anything for you?'
At last I managed to croak: 'No thank you, I'm all
right.' * * *
Next day, I tried to collect my scattered thoughts
and review the position. What had I seen? What had I experienced
during the night? It looked like a vision of the future, but it
could hardly be my own future. In my visions of the future, I
always remain the same per son, but in this vision, I was someone
completely different! I gazed at myself in the mirror for a long
time and tried to understand how it was possible that one human
being can be two persons at the same time? For I am here, this I can
see in the mirror, yet there exists another picture of me, one I
saw in another mirror, an enormous silver mirror; at the time when I
was the other person!
I am the being, who is here, yet simultaneously I am
the other being, who was buried in a tomb. In only a few
minutes, I had the experience of being someone who knows exactly who
he is, where he belongs, in fact who lives his life consciously, as
does everybody, whether he reflects upon it or not. Suddenly I
grasped the memories of a life, a home, and realized, that, as a
child, I had searched for this home where I really belonged, and
that I knew the 'Great One', my father and husband, to be my 'real
father'. As the years had passed, I had become accustomed to my
present position ... to accepting the fact that my present father
and mother were my true parents. Somehow, however, the strange
feeling had never left me, and now I felt it very strongly. Yet it
was queer that many things which, when I had experienced them in the
past, had seemed quite normal, now struck me as being very abnormal.
The two concepts contrasted strongly with each other. To take an
example, I found it completely correct, in fact I was honoured to be
the daughter and the wife of my father, the Pharaoh. Yet now, when I
became conscious of the fact, I felt deeply shocked, for the moral
standards of my time were quite different. Yet at the time of my
ancient existence, this was looked upon as being quite normal, for
if the wife of a Pharaoh died, and he had no sisters, the accepted
procedure was to make his own daughter his wife. He could never have
placed a woman, who did not belong to the family, over his own
daughter, who was born in the family of a Pharaoh. And who else but
his daughter could have sat beside him as his queen and regal wife,
if not the next female member of the family in line of descent? It
would have been immoral to introduce a woman of lower heritage into
the family. I remembered many things, especially the temple where I
often went, yet many things remained blurred, such as the reason why
I was so rigorously bound down in my coffin. Why was I taken to a
tomb? And whom did that voice I remembered so well belong to?. Whom?
A barrier blocked this part of my past, and if I tried to recall
anything, something like an electric shock pushed me back. I could
not think in reverse!
As we were sitting at the family table next morning,
I said to my father: 'Father, in school we learnt that the pyramids
were the burial-places of the ancient kings. That's not true! Not
all the pyramids were graves, some were used for quite different
purposes. The dead were buried outside the city in a special burial
city. They were carried out of the town in coffins very similar to
sledges, where they were then immured in large buildings. The tombs
were closed with stone doors.'
My father gave me an astonished look and said: 'How
on earth can you know that, when all the scientists agree that the
pyramids were the tombs of the Pharaohs, yet never mention a City of
the Dead.'
'I'm quite sure, Father, that this is the way it
is,' I said, knowing what I had seen to be true.
'Well, tell us how you know,' he said, and everybody
gazed at me expectantly.
'I know it and yet I cannot explain it,' I said, and
told them of my vision. My father listened attentively and noticed
that even then I shivered with fright when I recalled my
experiences. Seeing that I was obviously telling something I had
taken part in, he replied 'In Hamlet, Shakespeare says:
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt
of in your philosophy." Nowadays people talk about inherited
memories, a thing I do not believe in. I'd like to know how the
history of a whole family, containing innumerable ancestors, can be
contained in one minute living cell? Scientists evolve great
theories which change every twenty years. I don't advise you to
worry about these things, and don't think about your dream—or your
vision—whatever you want to call it. It would simply disturb your
mental balance. Maybe you read something about the subject in some
paper?'
'No Father, I've never yet read or heard anything
about Egypt except what they taught us in school. It never
interested me. Yet in school, I learnt things which were completely
different from my experiences in my vision. I cannot explain what
this vision should mean, for I'm absolutely certain that the facts I
witnessed were correct in detail. I'm also certain that the person I
was in my dream existed, yet I cannot explain how I can be this
person in the present. Who was the other person? I don't understand.
Can it be possible, that human beings live more than once?'
'May I have some fruit?' my father said, turning to
my mother. The fruit was brought to the table, and the family talked
about other matters.
When I went to bed that night, I wondered whether
the dream would repeat itself. But it didn't. I waited for many
days, I even tried to dream myself back into this strange world. But
all to no avail, the dream didn't return.
As time passed, I ceased thinking about it. My
healthy attitude towards life drove me on with fresh vigour. I
practised at the piano, painted pictures, learnt my lessons and
spent each evening with my fiance. And so the year went by.
SECOND ENCOUNTER WITH DEATH
At last it was my wedding day.
Looking back now, it seems as if it must have been a
dream. All decked out in a white dress with a train and wearing a
lace veil, I stepped into our living-room, saw how splendid my
fiance looked in his best Sunday suit, and laid my hand on his arm.
We were photographed, much to my annoyance, as the photographers
made me nervous. Then we went out and down the steps and got into a
carriage all decorated with flowers. We were followed by Grete and
my cousin wearing pink silk dresses and accompanied by the two boy
cousins with whom we had once formed our alliance of 'eternal
friendship'. Both of them were now gallant young officers.
Then came my brother, with his sad and serious face.
He was fourteen, and my little sister, pretty as a doll, was four.
She looked completely self-assured and quite superior among all the
adults. Then came a whole crowd of relatives including beautiful
Aunt Raphaela, dressed like a queen, then my fiance's mother, and
finally my own mother, radiantly young and beautiful, accompanied by
father, who in his top hat and tails, was truly a splendid sight,
enough to make any woman's heart beat faster. When he saw I was
amused at his top hat, he gave me a roguish look which clearly meant
he considered all these formalities just as ridiculous as I did. If
only he knew, I thought, how much I'm suffering in these arm-length
gloves! I would have just loved to rip them off, they were such an
obstacle to free movement. As I held my bouquet in my hands and
stood beside my fiance with a flower in his button hole, it seemed
to me that we were two sacrificial animals, gaily adorned with
flowers, forced by the tyranny of almighty 'custom' to go through
with all this fancy nonsense.
It would have suited me best if I had been able to
run away so that the crowd of old aunts, uncles, friends and strange
spectators could not look at us like two dolls in an exhibition. I
knew that they were all thinking of the one thing I regarded as the
supreme sacrament, the fulfilment of love. But with what a
difference of viewpoint! And I knew that some of the men present
were whispering stupid jokes to each other. But I could not escape,
and soon the long line of cars was under way towards the church. A
few moments later, we were inside, standing before the altar. I
tried to appear agitated and sentimental, but without success. I
felt just as matter of fact as ever. As patiently as I could, I
listened to the wise and beautiful things our friend and family
pastor was saying.
He looked at me and I could see in his eyes that he
was thinking how I had asked him not to make a long speech at our
wedding, as otherwise I would be forced to yawn big and loud out of
utter boredom. At the time mother was incensed about my boundless
impertinence, but at least I succeeded in prevailing on the pastor
to give a wise but short talk. Thank goodness! A long speech at a
wedding ceremony has never yet made a happy marriage! Soon the crowd
of friends and relatives were swarming about us, kissing us, and
embracing us for three-quarters of an hour, with the old uncles
taking full advantage of the opportunity to hug and kiss the young
bride from every side while I suffered their attentions with silent
disgust. Finally all of this was over too, and we only had to bear
up through the wedding banquet. At last the relatives and friends
took leave, and I changed my clothes to begin my honeymoon trip with
my 'husband'.
In becoming the wife of my beloved after this long
period of waiting, I experienced extreme happiness as I expected I
would. I had attained my goal; I had become his wife before God and
humanity. Between us there were no longer any 'forbidden' signs. I
loved him passionately, with my entire being, and he loved me in
just the same way. I experienced the highest fulfilment of love, in
body and soul.
And then everything collapsed around me.
I dashed my head even more violently against the
black wall I had struck once before: for the second time in my life
I encountered death. This time the meeting was much more serious.
As long as I was waiting for happiness, there was a
fixed point in my future towards which I was moving. I had something
I was waiting and working for. But when the expected event
materialized, the future suddenly became empty. I fell into a
vacuum, for I did not know what I still had to wait for. What was
there in the future for me to look forward to? I had achieved
everything. Whatever else might come could only serve to fill out
the remaining time. The remaining time, remaining time? Till
when? And the answer was: until death!
I was forced to realize that no matter what else I
might do or attain in this life, or whatever my destiny might bring
me, I and all other people with me were moving only in one
direction—towards death!—without the slightest possibility of being
able to move in any other. Nobody can know in advance how long it
will take him to get there, but sooner or later we all fall into
this void.
I was obliged to realize that even our love could
not last forever, for the simple reason that sooner or later one of
us would have to die. Then happiness would be over. In the presence
of my husband when I looked into his bright, loving eyes, I felt as
if a cold hand were strangling me, and deep down within me I heard
the question: 'How long will you be able to see these beautiful
eyes? What will the future bring? Even though you may be ever so
happy and supposing that you will live a long life with him, even an
exceptionally long one, sooner or later the end will be the same,
namely, that he will either have to close your eyes or you will have
to close his! Then you will lose each other and have to say
good-bye. Time passes with amazing rapidity, and it won't matter
much whether the end comes after a short time or a long time. The
greatest happiness, the most beautiful love—everything— must some
day come to an end, and you will lose each other and everything that
has been beautiful and good ...'
I looked into my husband's loving eyes but heard
this voice. I knew that no matter how much I might try not to
hear it, I would still hear it anyway, I would not be able to
silence it, because it was right, it was speaking the truth!
I have often noticed that people act as if
everything were permanent. They simply do not think of the future.
Most of them go through life as if they would never be obliged to
die and as if their loved ones were not mortal beings. They refuse
to realize that our being together here on earth is only a gift of
short duration as it will some day have to end! Sooner or
later one or the other dies, and then everything is over. People
refuse to think about it, but whether they think about it or not,
it is so! No one can deny it. But what is the sense of being
happy if destiny is, inexorably, going to take this gift away from
us some day? What's the good of being happy if we are obliged to be
even unhappier later? We struggle for happiness, and when we have
attained it we know in advance that we must lose it. The
greater the happiness, the greater the loss. In the days when I was
not yet so happy, I was actually much happier because I did not
yet have the possibility of losing my happiness! So it becomes
evident that only the person who was never happy is really and
permanently happy! What a terrible contradiction! And why is that
so? Because everything lasts only for a time, because nothing is
permanent, because everything dies, everything passes away,
everything must pass away!
Oh time! Oh mortality! How long will I have to
continue to suffer as a prisoner in your chains? How often will I
have to bang my head against your black impenetrable wall? You have
poisoned every happy moment of my life, because I always had to
realize, in the very moment I had something, it was already lost,
for it had to come to an end.
And now I am grateful to you, oh mortality I
Because you never, even for a moment, allowed me to enjoy passing,
temporal happiness, this constant suffering led me to find
the unending, infinite eternity, the eternal, divine being
itself!
In those days, to be sure, I had not the faintest
inkling of all this. I did not know that this condition in which a
person feels as if he were in a desert, crying from the depths of
his soul for help, is the forerunner of salvation. Just as the Bible
tells us, 'I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. I make
straight the path of the Lord. I baptize you with water; but after
me there will come one stronger than I, the latchet of whose shoes I
am not worthy to stoop down and unloose; He shall baptize you with
the Holy Spirit and with fire.'
During that period of my life I was still in the
desert, crying soundlessly for help, and shedding invisible tears. I
was being baptized by water—with tears— and did not know that the
time was soon at hand when I would get acquainted with eternal
being. For after this condition there comes He who says of
Himself, 'I am the resurrection and the life; whosoever
believeth on me, even though he die, yet shall he live'—and
who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire ...
But he was not yet there, and I was still
experiencing the John the Baptist condition; I was crying in the
wilderness for help, for I was all alone with my desperation, as if
in a desert. I did not want to tell my husband anything about the
desperate state of mind I was in. He was completely happy and would
not have been able to understand me. If he had no such ideas and was
still dreaming the dream of mortal people, why should I
awaken him and make him unhappy? I saw no solution at all for my
problem, as no one could have said that I was wrong. At best he
would have had to admit that everything is destined to pass away and
the one and only consolation is not to think about it. For my part,
however, I was not at all satisfied at the idea of overlooking
reality ... and even less satisfied by the fairy tales of religion
about 'the other side' and the 'other world'. These are figments of
the imagination intended to be a sedative to people. Whoever can
believe them is happy, but a thinking person insists on having
proof. Within myself I constantly bore a heavy spiritual burden
without being able to shake it off. Sooner or later, however, a
constant burden on the soul is bound to affect the body ...
DARKNESS
In build and figure I resembled my father strongly.
I was as tall as he was, my hair, though not as black as his, was
nevertheless dark brown, and my skin was pale like his and not
reddish like my mother's. Only my eyes were dark blue instead of
black.
After my marriage, I became paler and slimmer than
ever. I could never get used to the idea of the passing of time and
the transitory aspect of human existence. As a consequence, I could
never feel completely free and happy. This constant pressure on my
soul was very bad for my well-being.
One evening I lay down with no bodily affliction
whatsoever. When I opened my eyes in the morning, I involuntarily
glanced at the ceiling. To my utter astonishment I saw a thick black
line that had never been there before. Completely taken aback, I sat
up suddenly to see what this queer black line was. As I did so, the
line seemed to jump up and sink back slowly again.
My heart nearly stood still. I realized that the
black line I saw lay in my eyes and not on the ceiling. I opened and
closed my eyes, then closed one and afterwards the other,
discovering that I could only see this line with my right eye.
I remembered hearing about an affliction of the eyes
called mouches volantes. One is said to see little black dots
dancing around, as though a lot of flies were buzzing around the
room. As I heard it, these nervous illnesses are not particularly
dangerous. I tried to find out whether I could see these mouches
volantes. I looked up, I looked down—the black line followed the
laws of gravity. It seemed to me as though a thick black thread were
tied to some spot above my head. The other end seemed to hang down
and moved along following the movement of my eye. It certainly was
no nervous delusion, it was real, it was there!
From that moment on, a painful journey began, a
journey which anybody will know who has been afflicted with a
disease not yet fathomed by the resources of science.
I travelled from one famous professor to another,
only to be told that my eye could not be healed, because the
symptoms were not those of an organic illness. One of the professors
said to me: 'It isn't an illness at all, therefore it can't be
cured. It's a condition occurring in old age which very rarely
occurs in somebody so young. It's like getting white hair at a very
young age through constant strain. How could you cure that? It can
stop if the person is relieved of the strain. But to cure it is
impossible. You can only cure illnesses; science knows of no
remedies for such complaints of the eye as you have. In the case of
old people, such an affliction is not dangerous, for it develops
very slowly. Nobody knows what happens in the case of young people.
From an organic point of view, your eyes are completely healthy,
only extremely sensitive.
All our tests have shown that your
eyesight is powerful beyond belief, eyes as strong as yours are very
rare. Your perceptive powers are equally great. Your susceptivity to
light is so strong that you can see how many fingers I am holding up
and can read very small print in practically complete darkness. Very
occasionally, sailors who can recognize objects at a great distance
have similar eyesight. They have the advantage of living in very
healthy sea air and are not under any constant nervous tension.
Furthermore, they have enough resistance to uphold a balance of
susceptivity. But you, my dear woman, live in a great city and are
not very resistant, as you are abnormally thin. Tell me, do you not
suffer under continuous mental strain?'
'No, Professor,' I said, 'I'm very happy.'
How could I have explained to him that I suffered
from fear of mere mortality? How could I have told him that I was
fighting against time which moves unflinchingly and transforms all
beings, all happiness, into destruction and death?
And even if I had told him, how could he have helped
me? Instead, I asked him something else: 'Can you tell me whether
this symptom will occur in the other eye as well?'
'How can I tell? I hope that the injections I am
prescribing will help you and will clear away the exudation. I also
hope that the other eye won't be affected. But I can't look into the
future and even less guarantee anything. My advice to you is to take
good care of yourself and eat heartily to build up your resistance.
Wear sunglasses in bright sunshine to protect your eyes, rest a lot,
and let's hope that things will turn out all right again.'
That was enough. I went to my parents together with
my husband, feeling as though somebody else had been through all
this instead of myself. I noticed how this somebody answered the
questions my parents asked, and I watched this somebody eat dinner;
everything had become so changed, so different. My family was very
upset, but tried not to show this to me and made a big effort to
seem happy and gay. My mother tried to console me: 'Rest assured,
everything will turn out all right again. Nobody in our family has
ever had any trouble with his eyes. Your eye will soon be normal
again. Don't think about itl'
Oh, how often have I heard those words from friends
who loved me and who tried to help or console me! 'Don't think about
it!' How can I possibly help thinking about something which keeps on
dancing about in front of my eyes? How can I forget the black thread
which hangs down in front of me wherever I look? When I glanced at
somebody, the black thread seemed to stick on his nose or his brow
or sink down slowly to his mouth. Later on when the black lines
increased, I saw everything through a dirty, jagged web. How could I
not think about it?
In the first days of my affliction, I felt as though
an immense rock had hit my head and completely flattened me. I could
not believe it: my eyes in great danger? It must be a bad
dream, which will soon pass when I wake up. Then I will be relieved
of this terrible nightmare ... and free again.
But I was never freed of this nightmare. I sat in
front of my mirror and looked at myself. A childlike face with large
dark blue eyes looked back at me. These eyes were supposed to show
signs of old age? But I'm young, I've only just started off in life!
I can't be old yet! When I was up on that mountain and encountered
death for the first time, I knew that everything was of purely
transitory value. Yet does time pass so quickly, so unexpectedly? At
the time, I calmed myself, knowing that death was a long way away.
Should death be coming to me so soon? Or can it be that certain
parts of the body grow older sooner than others, that a delicate
mechanism like the human eye perishes sooner than other
organisms?—and that the whole body might live longer than the eyes?
Blind? —terrible!—terrible!
No! I could not stand that! I wanted to run away ...
to flee ... but where? My stigma, the black line in my right eye,
accompanied me wherever I went. I could not get rid of it.
I fell into a state of dejection only those who have
experienced similar misfortunes can understand. How my heart bled
for the blind people I saw on the streets, how I felt for them! I
could not forget my despair for one minute, not for one single
instant. The dark blotches fluttered up and down in front of my eyes
and constantly changed their appearance. I never ceased watching
them. I got into the habit of carefully scrutinizing my eyes when I
woke up in the morning. Has it become worse?—Can I still read small
print with my right eye?—And if not—if I had to admit with
indescribable terror that my condition had worsened overnight, the
blood used to rush to my head, and with my heart pounding I
continued to examine myself to see how much worse it had become.
Oh Beethoven! In these days I learnt to understand
your despair when you lost your hearing! You knew the frame of mind,
the panic, which comes when one is overwhelmed by the feeling of not
being able to stand it any more, of wanting to flee, to escape from
terrible suffering. Yes, but where? My ill-luck will always be with
me; I cannot get rid of it, I am stricken forever!
My despair over the evanescence of life was not
enough, I now carried something like an eternal 'memento' around
with me to remind me of decay and death. I sometimes felt that those
black lines would drive me mad!
Never again could I really enjoy myself. My husband
did everything to make me forget the condition of my eyes. But
whatever he did, however much he pampered me with presents—I could
never be happy. Everywhere I looked I saw corruption and death, for
I always saw black lines. As the Carthusian monks, who are forced to
regard the two letters 'M' 'M' in the palms of their hands as a
reminder of the words Memento Mori, so did the black lines in
front of my eyes constantly remind me of blindness and death.
If my husband took me to a beautiful spot in the
country, I used to think:
'How long will I still be able to see the sunshine,
the mountains, the fields, the sky, in fact, the treasures of
nature?' If I saw a wonderful performance at the Opera, I thought:
'How long can I still delight in the delicate movements of graceful
ballet-dancers?' Deepest despair, brought forth by the cruelty of
reality, had taken hold of me, for my left eye was, if only very
slowly, yet definitely beginning to be affected as well. I was
therefore well on my way to becoming blind. I could not even cry
properly; I had never cried much, for I regarded crying as a
senseless means of expression, a form of self-pity which I
considered myself to be unworthy of. Now crying was strictly
forbidden, for it would have harmed my eyes very much. I bore my
despair without any exterior sign, and I never talked about it, for
I saw that if I were constantly to talk about my affliction, my
friends and acquaintances would suffer as much as I; and
consequently, as normal human beings usually try to rid themselves
of everything which seems unpleasant, they would drift away from me.
I did not want to become disagreeable and boring in my own troubles.
On the contrary, I was always gay and humorous, like a clown who
hides his deepest sorrows under a painted mask. Thus did I bear my
misery in silent suffering.
This blow also destroyed my artistic ambitions.
Besides playing the piano, I had made great progress in drawing and
painting and my teachers expected a lot in the future. Painting and
drawing had always given me much pleasure. This too now came to an
end. When I tried to paint, I saw lots of little black blobs on the
canvas. This made me very nervous, and I had to control myself so as
not to throw my brush away in anger. I lost my energy and my will to
paint. The thought of gaining a reputation and becoming famous only
to have to give everything up because of blindness disturbed me
profoundly. No! I preferred to give up my artistic career and to
continue playing the piano, for I could play blind as well.
I practised with my eyes closed. I walked around the
room blindfolded and tried to find various objects. I tried to dress
and comb my hair with my eyes closed, so as to be prepared when
complete darkness came. I also did this because closing my eyes was
the only way of escaping from those aggravating black lines which
kept on dancing in front of my eyes. It was my only hope ...
The salt injections were an equally trying ordeal.
Human reflexes are such that the eye closes immediately in the face
of possible danger. The eyelids shut instinctively when an object
approaches the eye. I had to conquer those reflexes and control
myself. I had to keep my eye open without movement and watch—
for if the eye is open, one is obliged to watch, whether one likes
or not—how the doctor pricked my eye with the needle. I had to go
through this procedure many times. I did not know at the time that
what I was learning, namely to control the natural instincts,
was in fact one of the most advanced Yoga exercises which
eventually brings about complete control over all bodily functions.
I was forced to do so by fate, and so gained a very powerful grip on
my nerves by pure chance. Yet when the doctor saw me to the door
after my first injection, I felt very weak and had to pull myself
together so as not to stumble and fall. The smile I tried to give
him did not come very easily; I felt as if the muscles around my
mouth had rusted. And for all my troubles, the injections did not
help at all.
I stopped going to professors and became more and
more pessimistic. The answer was always the same. 'It's no organic
illness; your eyes are completely healthy. It's the lens which is
filming over.' From day to day my eyesight became worse and worse.
What difference does it make if one goes blind with healthy or with
diseased eyes?—I had to accept the seemingly inevitable. I might
have given in. But I could not! How can somebody give up and accept
blindness as a normal state of affairs? Immutability and I were
fighting against each other. There was no question of my losing. I
could not give in, so I had to be destroyed ...
The night the black line appeared for the first
time, I my self was slain. I did not notice it straight away.
This amusing, vain, impertinent and sensual little being which
wanted to be a famous and celebrated artist and a beautiful woman
was destroyed. My hidden philosophy of life, which had been born up
on the mountain following my first encounter with death, now took
hold of me forcibly. Now I could not—and did not even want to—let
the voice, which repeatedly reminded me of the past, go by unheeded
... And as I started to listen to this voice very attentively
instead of turning away from it, I began slowly to recognize a
familiar and dearly beloved voice: HIS voice ...
TURNING POINT
One afternoon, I came home from town. The houses in
our row stood in well-kept gardens, the sun was shining brightly,
flowers were blooming everywhere, birds were singing joyously, and I
recalled the words of Don Carlos: 'O, my queen, in spite of
everything life is so beautiful!'
'Yes,' I felt like adding, 'if only my eyes were to
retain their power of sight!' Suddenly I heard the voice in me,
asking me quite distinctly: 'Are you blind already? Can't you see
the world, the sky, the trees and the flowers any more?'
'I can,' I answered, looking around me, 'everything
is still quite clear,' and I remembered what my doctor had said to
me the last time I visited him to check up on my eyesight: 'The
right eye has become pretty dim and hazy, but you still perceive
more with the other eye than most average human beings with both
eyes.'
'Well, if your eyesight is still as good as that,
why do you behave so desperately, as though you had already gone
blind? Why give up hope? Let us assume that you were to go blind in
the second half of your life. If you start giving up hope now, while
you can still see quite adequately, your whole life will be
blighted by your desperation and your affliction! Quite apart from
the fact that you really don't know whether you are going blind or
not. Maybe you will die before you go completely blind; in this
case, you will have spent weeks, months and years of useless worry,
while all the time your eyesight was clear and normal apart from a
few annoying black blobs. What a waste of time to worry about events
which have not yet occurred! The future? Do you really know what the
future is? Events which have not yet come to pass! Why mar
your pleasure in life with things which do not exist? Your present
circumstances are not too bad. Enjoy life, your chances of recovery
will be much better so. Your depressions will only accelerate the
destructive process in your eyes. Live in the present, and remember:
as soon as your spiritual blindness ceases, your corporeal eyes
will regain their functions.
Oh, how true were the words of this sacred voice! In
the moments of deepest despair, I felt that the black spots in my
eyes showed up my interior darkness, my spiritual
blindness. But how on earth is one to cure spiritual blindness? For
this was the hub of my problems, the fact that I felt completely
blind in the face of the secrets of life and death. I was enclosed
in darkness, for I sensed death everywhere and could not grasp the
meaning of life. I desired to become 'seeing', it was my greatest
wish—but how?
And the voice replied: 'Seek and ye shall find;
knock and it shall be opened unto you!'
I did not understand those words at the time, but I
wanted to obey them. I tried breathing deeply and calmly, and
concentrating on the present. It was very hard—the black spots
kept dancing in front of my eyes and reminding me of my misery—but I
tried again and again and reached the point where I felt happy and
content again; indeed, I felt I had to be happy, for my eyes would
benefit from my state of mind. I wanted to help myself. I had to be
happy, I had to enjoy myself! I began to think about future
occupations which would afford me constant pleasure. My husband was
very much engrossed in his job —he was a construction engineer—and I
rarely saw him except at meals. A thought flashed through my mind: a
baby! How long have I wished for a baby! What greater joy could I
expect? And I would not be alone all the time.
I opened my spirit to the anonymous being which was
waiting somewhere to become my child. And the being heard my
cry ...
During my pregnancy, the discharges slowly
disappeared from my eyes, and when my confinement came, I had
completely forgotten that I had ever had any trouble at all. My
memories of lying in the operating theatre of a sanatorium, and
waking up after an anaesthetic, completely exhausted, seem like a
long-forgotten dream. I find myself in a form of ecstasy, yet I hear
a sound which flashes through me like lightning and brings me back
to my senses. It is a cry ... not like the cry of a new-born child
but more like the roar of a lion! 'It's alive', the thought grips me
and a great feeling of gratitude overwhelms me. I open my eyes. A
face appears above me and I hear a voice saying: 'A boy, a
beautiful, healthy boy'—I catch sight of a little round head and a
fat, rosy body.
'Is that my child?' I ask myself as I gaze at it
expectantly! I feel that only its body is 'my child',
otherwise it is an independent being I know has come into being as
'our child'.
Then for the first tune in its life, the baby lies
in a crib, swathed in human vestments, and gazes wide-eyed at the
world.
My mother and my father have already arrived,
waiting to welcome my child and myself after this terrible fight for
life. I am at the end of my tether, my heart is hardly beating after
my great loss of blood. But the child is alive!
After this strenuous experience, my convalescence
was very slow. For a long time, I felt very weak, very susceptible
to any form of light, the discharges reappeared and the vitreous
humour of my right eye became opaque again. Thick clouds of a sort
of fog covered my vision in this eye. Yet I never got around to
bothering seriously about my eyesight. There was my child, I spent
all my time in its presence, and when it smiled at me and embraced
me with its podgy little arms, the weight and pressure of my worries
seemed far away.
The years raced by. My little boy developed
magnificently and was admired by everyone for his big blue eyes
which radiated so much love and warmth. He was a very precocious
child. When he was four, a scene of my own childhood was re-enacted.
My child showed me a picture-book and asked me the meaning of
certain letters. I explained them in detail. The child regarded the
letters attentively and suddenly cried: 'Mother, that means "bull",
doesn't it?'
I took it on to my lap and kissed it again and
again. Then I explained all the other letters. It did not have to
learn them. It seemed as if it only had to recall them.
We spent the summer together in our family villa
near the lake. In fact, a whole series of wonderful summers! My
brother and my younger sister invited lots of friends who sometimes
stayed at our place for weeks on end. We played croquet, rowed and
swam, and in the evenings we used to play chamber music or play
games, or dance on the terrace. It was a healthy, happy life.
My eyes did not bother me very much during this
time. After the birth of my child I spent some months at the
seaside. The secret sources of energy of the sea completely renewed
me. I returned home in excellent health and very much more able to
stand light. I started drawing and painting again and even took up
wood carving. This artistic occupation afforded me great pleasure.
On the surface everything seemed in order.
Nevertheless I was not happy! I did not know why. An inner
discontentment grew in me until I could not disregard it any more.
One night, after I had experienced once again the
greatest fulfilment of earthly love and unity, instead of falling
peacefully asleep, I sat on the side of my bed for a long time
brooding over my problems in abject despair. I cried and I sobbed,
and in the darkness of that night, I began to examine myself cruelly
in order to find out why I was so unhappy and so discontented. I had
everything necessary to make a human being happy, from where could
my misery originate?
This question seemed to call forth the answer. From
the depths of my subconscious, the reasons began to ascend and gain
consciousness.
I was searching for a human being, who was my
other half, my complement. Love is the revelation of a power
which forces two complementary halves to unite. In fact, the
subconscious will to unite is commonly known as 'love'. I had
experienced this union, I had attained the supreme fulfilment of
body and soul and was not happy, and became more and more unhappy
after each occasion.
I sat there in the dark and questioned myself in
despair: Why can't I be happy? I desired an answer and reflected
intently. And then I realized that the joy of union was not what
I had expected! I had searched for some sort of fulfilment
subconsciously, and, having found nothing else, I believed
physical love to be this fulfilment. Having experienced it, I
had to admit that it was not what I had expected. After
experiencing the supreme form of physical unity, I was compelled to
see and realize I was looking for something else!
But what?
I was searching for fulfilment of an eternal
nature, a real union which remains! I was
searching for a union in which the identity of myself and that of my
lover became one and the same thing. I desired to participate in his
soul, his thoughts, his whole being! I wanted to become
him!
But I did not desire what physical unity had brought
me. This physical union is a desperate attempt to become one
being—every fibre and muscle is strained to the highest pitch—and in
the moment when both believe that they have achieved fulfilment,
they fall apart ... without ever attaining union.
In the darkness a picture of my childhood appeared
in front of me: I remembered sitting at the family table and trying
to bring together two little grease spots swimming on top of my bowl
of soup. Yes! In exactly the same way as I had tried to unite the
two grease spots, years ago, I now wanted to make one being out of
our two souls. Out of the two selves I wanted to create a single
one. But that is impossible! In love, each lover craves to come
together with the other. Yet their craving is merely a physical
desire, and they strain against each other in despair. Everybody can
observe how two lovers press their hearts together in their fervent
embrace; they seem to be compelled to unite their hearts, to be
united in their heart. But they fail! Why? Their bodies
stand between them. The resistance of the body prevents the
union. How strange that I should desire to become one single being
with my lover in body and that the body itself should bar my
way. Does my body desire this union? Can the body desire anything
which is impossible by reason of the very existence of the body? No!
The body cannot carry within itself a wish which cannot be fulfilled
by reason of its own presence. Who and what therefore
desires this supreme union? It can only be the immaterial spirit,
the self.
And why do I desire this union? Why do I want
something which is impossible? I want it because I know that only
through this complete concord, this supreme union, will I find
satisfaction, and only in this state of mind will I achieve final
happiness! This happiness I have been searching for since I began to
live. But why do I search for something which is impossible to
attain? I do it solely because I know, I feel certain, that somehow
it is possible, and that somehow this possibility exists—only I
don't know how. What impedes my progress towards my aim? The
body! The body stands between us!—Therefore, this possibility might
exist, but only in a bodiless condition. I long for this lost
unison. I once knew it, somewhere and somehow, but I have lost it.
Could it be possible that I lived in an immaterial state a long time
ago, and that, having been born into this body, I fell out of
this spiritual harmony? Is it possible that I once lived in a
world of complete unison, a world without corporeal elements, where
I lived in a bodiless condition?
Having got this far in the logical sequence of my
thoughts, I began to feel very afraid: a bodiless state? In a world
without corporeal elements? Therefore, in 'another world'? In the
'hereafter'? Could it be possible that this 'other world' really
exists? A world, in which I had never believed and which I had
always regarded as a necessary invention of a religious nature, used
to enforce a moral standard of living among primitive people with
promises of 'heaven' and warnings of 'hell'? It is my body alone
which exists in our earthly world? And my self, which is
cognizant of this impossible union of the flesh and which
desires to reinstitute it, does it belong to 'eternity'? If
that is so, all human beings originate in another world where this
unison is reality, and have fallen out of it into this
world—into the material body and an earthly world? ... Yet the
craving for our former happiness lies in us, in our soul, which
belongs to this 'other world'. And again and again we err by trying
to attain this happiness, this unity in our body and with the aid
of our inherent bodily sexuality. Yet it is the body which
itself impedes our success. Oh, now I realize what is meant by the
'fall from paradise'!
Therefore I can only reach the happiness I desire in
the other world—in paradise. As I cannot force this other world into
my own material world, I will strive to get to know this other world
where my eternal happiness resides. But how? Empty words are of no
use to mer—I want reality! I want concrete facts!
This night was the turning point of my life. I
realized that sex is the greatest of all frauds. Nature promises us
a wonderful event, the supreme heights of joy, the embodiment of
fulfilment, yet she robs us of our powers, and when we believe we
have reached the limits of fulfilment, we fall lower than ever
before. We lose a tremendous lot of energy and feel as poor as
beggars after the event. An old Latin proverb mentions that both
humans and animals feel depressed after physical union ...
I was looking for eternal, ever-present sublimity,
not what sex can give. What is left of sexual pleasure in the
morning? Nothing, except possibly great fatigue! And this state of
affairs is to repeat itself forever? What else is it but a
continuous struggle for unattainable unison? Never will a human
being achieve the fulfilment of his strivings, never can he delve
into true concord where he can stay forever. Formerly a certain
force existed—the power of attraction, which brought together two
beings in their search for each other. Later on, this force is
appeased, emptiness remains, and each is left alone, desperately
alone, eternally alone ...
I realized at last: This was not the aim of
my quest.
And if I was not looking for this, if sex had
deceived me, I would refuse to go on in this way! I would refuse to
let myself be deceived! Sex can satisfy only the body, but never the
soul, the self. Never could sexual satisfaction appease this desire!
What now? I want to, I must find this happiness. I
must search for an answer to my questions. I cannot stand still, I
must go forward. But where to?
If happiness lies in the other world, I will search
for it in the other world!
And so I set out to find my happiness and fulfilment
where I hoped to discover it, in the other world ...
STRUGGLE FOR LIGHT
I was trying to capture the world beyond, but I did
not know how to set about doing it. I felt like somebody who was
trying to conquer a jungle, but who did not know where to start, and
whose only instrument was a little axe with which to cut a path
through the undergrowth. He knows the jungle to be full of lurking
dangers, poisonous snakes and wild animals. He might well lose his
way and fall into some abyss. Yet his ignorance of these dangers
lends him the necessary courage to penetrate this jungle all the
same.
I did not know that my voyage of discovery into the
other world was going to be fraught with dangers, that unknown
forces from the regions of the subconscious would hurl themselves
upon me like wild animals, that will-o'the wisps would lead me down
false trails, and that abysses of madness were lurking on every
side. All I had was my little axe, my normal human common sense!
Where was I to begin? Religion talks about the life
beyond, yet all the priests I had talked to up to this moment had
either wanted me to believe all sorts of dogmas which they
themselves did not really understand, or they told me sentimental
stories about the kingdom of heaven which they themselves did not
believe, but which they deemed adequate to satisfy the 'little
woman'.
I preferred to find out what the world's great
philosophers thought of this tremendously important question, the
meaning of life and death. And as I had never heard of great
oriental philosophers, I began to study the works of European
thinkers.
First of all, I read the ancient Greek and Roman
works, translated into a language I could understand. I was
enraptured by Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Epictetus and Marcus
Aurelius. Under the influence of these great men, my mind matured
and I learnt very much from their teachings. Especially one little
sentence of Epictetus remained with me on my voyage like an eternal
flame and helped me to cross over from darkness into light:
'Things are never bad; it's the way you think
about them.'
From the moment I read that sentence, I tried to
change my complete frame of mind, my spiritual position—to think
differently about things!—Yet all these great truths could not
supply the answer to my great question concerning the great beyond.
Later on I read the newer philosophers: Kant,
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza. None could
satisfy me. I felt that they had all gone as far as reason and
intellect could take them, but that they had not reached the
ultimate goal, union. In fact, they were less capable of
answering this question than the ancient philosophers. Among these
modern philosophers, Spinoza probably achieved the highest degree in
this quest, but I felt that the newest thinkers had somehow
entangled themselves in their own cerebral convolutions and come to
a dead-end. In spite of their philosophical systems, they had
remained discontented, disappointed and unhappy men. How indeed
could they have helped me find the great truths of the other world?
They themselves were ignorant of them and had searched for them as
desperately as I was doing. I wanted reality, not words.
One autumn day I stood at the window of our
apartment with my small son and watched the leaves of a
chestnut-tree floating slowly to earth. As I had so often done
before, I meditated upon the meaning of life and death. 'Death,' I
thought, 'death again and again!'
Suddenly I heard the voice in me speaking:
'Death?—Why do you persist in seeing but the one side of
truth? What do the trees and nature reveal in spring? Life!—again
and again!' Life and death alternate in an everlasting circle. Death
is but the other side of life ...'
In this moment I saw quite clearly, that as life
recedes from the tree and its leaves in autumn, the leaves become
lifeless, empty husks, fall off and die. But only empty husks! The
essence of life which has lived in the leaves now rests in the tree
and bursts forth again in spring, clothes itself anew with a
material form and becomes leaves again, repeating its eternal cycle.
The tree inhales and exhales life, and only the leaves change, only
the outer shell! Life remains eternal, for life is the eternal
being. And I saw even further: The fountain of eternal
existence—human beings call it 'God'—breathes life into man,
just as the Bible says that God breathed life into Adam's nostrils.
Then God inhales again, withdrawing his breath, so that the empty
husk falls: The body of man dies. Yet life does not cease at this
moment, it clothes itself with a new body, in an eternal cycle and
moves on, as everything in this world lives and moves in rhythm,
from the orbit of the planets to the breath and pulse of every
living creature.
Then, in a flash I suddenly remembered how, at the
age of six or seven when I first heard about death, I had stood
before the mirror, examining the picture of the invisible: my own
reflection. Even at that early age I simply could not understand
that I would some day have to die, that I would some day cease to
exist. I wanted to see where this 'I' was that was thinking these
things and did not want to die. I kept looking into the mirror,
moving closer and closer until my nose touched the glass. I looked
into my own eyes from as near as I could get. I wanted to see this
'I'! Even though there was a black hole in my eye, I couldn't see
'me'. The 'I'—myself—was invisible, just as I had always imagined it
to be ever since I first became conscious on this earth. Even in the
mirror I could not see me, only my face, my mask, and
the two black holes in my eyes out of which I was looking. I felt
very clearly that it was impossible for me not to exist!
'Good,' I asked myself as I stood before the mirror,
'but what will you be looking at the world through when these eyes
are some day closed?'
'Through two other eyes!' I answered without a
moment's hesitation. 'Here I will close these eyes, and in a new
body I will open two new eyes.'
'And what if there is a time delay between the two
bodies; what if you do not find a new body right away? What if you
have to wait a week, or perhaps months, years, even thousands of
years?'
'That just cannot be,' answered the little girl that
I was then, 'for when I fall asleep, I do not know, on awakening,
how long I have been asleep. In sleep there is no time, and in death
it will be the same as long as I am without a body. Whether I spend
a week in darkness and nothingness, or a thousand years, it's all
the same. I will feel as if I had just closed my eyes here and
opened them again there. In nothingness there is no time. But my
ceasing to exist just cannot be!' And then I left the mirror,
completely satisfied, to go on playing.
Now, as I stood before the window as an adult and
recognized the law of reincarnation in the chestnut tree, the memory
of this childhood experience flashed through my mind, and I was
astonished that a child could find this truth so naturally and
spontaneously with its little primitive understanding, without ever
having heard or read anything about re-incarnation. Now I would not
say that there is no time in 'darkness', but rather that in the
'unconscious' there is no 'time concept'.
Now I also understood how it was possible for me to
carry within me the blurred and hazy memories of a person I had been
long before. The vision of ancient Egypt was only old memories
bobbing up into consciousness.
My search for the other world and the life beyond
this one and my ideas about re-incarnation turned my attention to
spiritualism. Spiritualists claim to be able to establish contact
with spirits of the departed dead, and they also believe in
re-incarnation. However, I had a pronounced antipathy towards
spiritualism because at home I had heard my parents speak about it
in a rather disparaging way. Mother had a very dear old friend who
concerned herself with spiritualism. Mother told us that this friend
held spiritualistic seances and that during these experiments a
heavy massive oaken table would rise up in the air. Mother never
participated in these seances and never concerned herself with such
things at all, because she was convinced that such experiments were
harmful for the nerves. While I was reflecting about reincarnation,
I remembered that once as a young girl I had participated in such a
stance at the home of this elderly lady without my mother's
knowledge of it. That is, of course, if what we experienced then
could be called a 'seance'!
My mother's elderly friend loved her grandchildren
very much and often invited young people to lunch. I was often one
of the guests at these young people's luncheons. Once, several of us
stayed on after the others had left. The lady was of a gay and
sparkling nature and enjoyed talking with us youngsters. I was
fifteen, and the other children were about the same age. We were
curious and eager to hear the kind lady tell us about spiritualism.
'If you wish,' she said, 'we can watch the table
move.' All of us young folks agreed immediately and began to wonder
what was going to happen next.
A table was brought in for the experiment. It was
not the heavy oaken table mother had talked about, but a little
table with only three legs. The lady set the table in the middle of
the room, and we youngsters stood around it, with the palms of our
hands on the top of the table and our fingers spread out in such a
way that the thumbs of each person's hands were touching each other
and their little fingers touching the little fingers of the persons
to the left and the right. The room was brightly lit. We youngsters
were in high spirits and thought it was just terribly funny when the
elderly lady called out in a loud voice, 'Is someone there?'
We looked at each other roguishly and could hardly
keep from bursting out laughing. But we did not want to offend the
dear old lady and tried hard to keep a straight face. We stood and
waited. All at once the little table began to shake as if some inner
force were trying to split the wood apart. Then the shaking became
stronger and stronger and suddenly the table leaned over to the side
so that one of its feet was in the air; then it fell back and stood
still.
'Yes,' said the lady, 'the table said "yes". When
the table raps once, it means "yes", when it raps twice it means
"no".'
'Wolfgang,' she said to her grandson, 'take paper
and pencil and write down the letters. A spirit is present.'
Wolfgang took a pencil and waited. Then the table
began to move, rapping and rapping again. We called off the letters
in the alphabet and whenever the table stopped at one of the letters
we had called, Wolfgang wrote down the letter.
I cannot explain why this all seemed so terribly
funny to us. We found it was comical to be calling out letters and
ludicrous that the old lady took everything so seriously. I could
not believe for a minute that the table was moving by itself. It was
surely Nicolas, the lady's other grandson. The rapping itself was
amusing enough, but what came afterwards made us burst out laughing
irresistibly, and this made the old lady shake her head at us. But
we just couldn't help laughing anyway, even if we did not want to.
The table suddenly began to tip over so far that its edge almost
touched the floor. I thought its feet were going to slip and it
would fall, but no, it came back again to an upright position and
then began to turn and twist and move around the room. We had to run
with it, and when the table began to rotate, we had to run around it
and follow it wherever it went in the room. Finally the table came
to rest in a corner and moved no more. The lady again called out,
'Is no one there?'
The table did not move.
'It was a waggish kind of spirit, because you were
all so hilarious,' she said, 'and now all spirits are gone. Wait a
moment, children, I'll have some coffee brought in.' With that she
disappeared into the kitchen. We youngsters were left alone. It was
my chance to ask Nicolas, 'It was you who moved the table,, wasn't
it?'
'I?' he echoed in astonishment, 'I thought it was
you, or Emmerich. But it certainly wasn't I. I only played the game
with the rest, but my fingertips were scarcely touching the table.'
We all looked at Emmerich. He protested earnestly,
'No, I didn't move the table either.'
'Come on, all of you,' I said, 'let's get the table
to move again ourselves.'
All agreed and .we ran to the table, stood around
it, and began with our own hands to push it back and forth and get
it to move. To our great amazement this didn't work! The table was
motionless, just as a piece of wood is normally lifeless and
motionless, and when we pushed it harder and harder, it simply fell
over and lay on the floor. During the previous experiment, the table
had sometimes leaned over so far that its edge almost touched the
floor and then stood up again. But no matter how we tried, we
couldn't get it to do so again. Finally, after we had agreed to push
the table in the same direction, all of us together, one side would
rise after which the table simply fell. We could not hold it or get
it to stand upright again.
We looked at each other and suddenly fell silent. We
couldn't understand the whole affair. None of us felt like laughing
any more. The elderly lady's two grandsons admitted quietly that
they couldn't understand the matter either, but it was a fact that
when their Aunt Margaret was present even the gigantic oaken table,
which was so heavy that only four men together could carry it out of
the room, would rise up in the air. Obviously Aunt Margaret was not
lifting it.
On my way home, and for a long time afterwards, I
thought about the moving table and wondered how it worked. I did not
believe for a moment that a 'spirit' had moved it, but I had to
admit that an unknown force was there.
After this all happened I went on with my piano
practice, went skating, fought with my fiance, and the moving table
disappeared in the storehouse of my memory. Now it all came back to
me. I could see clearly that the dear old lady did not understand
much about spiritualism, but perhaps there were spiritualistic
groups who went into such matters very seriously. If I were to study
and investigate the whole matter thoroughly without prejudice, I
might perhaps learn something through spiritualism that would help
me on my path.
I obtained an introduction to the leader of the
largest and the most famous spiritualistic group in the country. He
began by giving me books to read which I could believe or not
believe. Theories cannot satisfy a seeker after truth. I wanted
practice and conviction. In one book I read about a very famous
medium who achieved his ability by sitting down at the same time
every day with paper and pencil, holding the pencil in his hand in
readiness to write, and waiting a solid hour. This he repeated
religiously day after day, week after week, and month after month.
After about six months, the pencil began to move and wrote various
words. In this manner, the medium wrote a number of books which were
very famous at the time. They did not interest me because they were
sermons full of sweetness and light and not as good as the sermons
one could hear in any church. Why, I thought, should one have to
call upon a 'spirit' for things like these, if indeed it really
was a spirit which moved the hand of the medium!
I, too, took pencil and paper, held the pencil over
the paper in readiness, and waited.
The first day nothing happened.
The second day the pencil began to shake so hard my
hand shook with it. Then it began to move stiffly, jerkily, back and
forth and wrote various abracadabras on the paper.
On the third day the pencil immediately began to
shake and soon wrote words one could clearly read. They looked as if
they had been written by an old person with a trembling hand. I
continued the experiment every day, and the pencil went on to write
longer and longer sentences. While the pencil was writing, I
observed my arm and my hand. Whence came the force that moved my
hand? If the pencil could write all by itself, I reflected, every
pencil lying around could stand up and start writing. Therefore,
without any doubt, the pencil was being moved by my arm, but
without my having wanted to do so and without my
having known before what it was going to write. Consequently the
force must be coming from a source outside my own consciousness, but
doubtless from me. It can be a force coming from my subconscious,
but for the present there is no proof that this force comes from a
strange being outside myself, or let us say, from a 'spirit'.
But who knows precisely what our 'subsconcious'
is?
I showed these writings to the leader of the
spiritualist group. With amazing assurance he said they were
typically mediumistic writings coming from a spirit. I was silent. I
am very cautious in making such claims. It was certain that the
force moving my arm did not come from my consciousness, for there
was no active will on my part to move the pencil. But this force
could still come from me, from my unconscious. The fact that
spiritualists believe that these forces come from spkits is
no proof that it really is so!
I continued the experiments and observed myself and
the pencil.
One Sunday afternoon my husband and I were sitting
together. He was reading a book, and I was busy with my wood
carving, and as I worked with my hands, I thought about my recent
experiments with pencil, paper and the strange writing. If it is
possible, I concluded, for my hand, my nerves or any as yet unknown
instrument within me to receive and manifest the thoughts of a
strange, disembodied being outside myself, then it must also be
possible, in exactly the same way, for me to receive and manifest
the thoughts of another person, separate from myself but dwelling in
a body. This would mean a step forward along my path.
I told my husband what I was thinking about and
asked whether he felt like making an experiment in thought
transmission with me. He agreed immediately, and he was as eager as
I to know whether we would succeed.
I did not know how such experiments are made, but I
imagined that, if I wanted to receive the thoughts of another
person, the most important thing for me to do would be to make
myself completely passive and empty of my own thoughts so they would
not intrude. Then with my right hand I held his left wrist, thinking
that it would help for us to have this sort of physical connection;
and relaxing all my muscles and trying to think of nothing, I
waited.
I imagined that for successful thought transference
my husband would think about something and his thought would, in
some way or other, appear in my mind. I was thus expecting a
thought that would not be coming from me. (At that time I had never
realized that we do not actually know the source of the thoughts we
believe to be our own!) To my great amazement something quite
different happened, something for which I was truly not prepared. As
I stood there with my husband and waited to receive a thought from
him, I felt very distinctly—and even 'saw'—that a stream of force
about three to four inches thick flowed out of his solar plexus
area, surrounding my body like a lasso, also at about the height of
the solar plexus.
I felt this flow of force as distinctly as if it had
been material—very fine, like a dense mist but nevertheless
material. After this flow of force surrounded me, it pulled me
unmistakably in a definite direction so that I had to take a step.
Then it pulled me on and on. Whenever I took a step in the wrong
direction, it very distinctly pulled me back into the right
direction. In this way we reached the window where the materialized
will of my husband left me standing. Then came a new surprise. My
left arm which was hanging down at my side as usual, suddenly rose
in the air, becoming weightless! Until then I had never
realized that my arms hung downward because of the gravitational
attraction of the earth. One hears about gravitation in school, but
I had never before been conscious of the fact that my own arm hung
downward because of this force.
There in front of the window,
however, I was able to experience for myself the fact that my arm
lost its weight and rose up in the air when the earth's
gravitational pull ceased. As my arm moved upward, it also raised
the curtain. I had not moved a single muscle, so it seemed. It was
as if a mass flowing out from my husband's solar plexus was
supporting my arm. Then this mass pushed my head forward until my
nose touched the window pane. At this moment, the mass left my
body—my arm and my head—and I was able to move again freely.
We looked at each other and were both very excited.
I was thrilled by the new experience, the fact that the human will
flows out of the solar plexus, literally reaching another person,
embracing him like an octopus, and even cancelling out the effect of
gravity. This 'material' seemed as if it consisted of myriads of
little droplets of mist, somewhat like the milky way appears in the
sky at night. It was as if these droplets of mist were all closely
related to each other and all flowing in one direction.
My husband was excited because he could not
understand how it was possible for me to carry out everything he was
thinking—going to the window, raising the curtain, and looking out
through the window pane—just as if I were an automaton. I told him
that there was a stream of force flowing out from his solar plexus
area and that I felt this stream as dearly as if it had been
material.
I told him also that it is only subjective when we
feel something to be matter. Force gives us the impression of
matter.
I recalled that once, several years previously, when
our child had a stomach ache and I put our electric heating pad on
his stomach, I found when stroking his face, that his skin, which
was normally as fine and soft as a rose petal, suddenly felt as
rough and coarse as a rasp. It felt as if I were stroking the face
of a man two days unshaven. We found out that the heating pad had
become a bit damp and some of the current was leaking into the
child's body. When I switched off the heating pad, our baby's skin
ceased to feel rough to the touch. Hence, to my hand, the electric
current felt just like coarse matter. When we consider this fact
which everyone can check for himself, we can decide whether we want
to compare this 'material' manifestation of the human will with a
form of matter or with electric current. The result is the same in
either case, for modern science knows that matter is nothing but a
form of energy, a vibration, and only gives us the impression of
being matter because it is impenetrable for us.
It was the custom for our whole family to get
together every Sunday evening; so I soon found myself telling the
assembled group about our experience of that afternoon. Everybody
immediately wanted to try some experiments too. First I stood up
with mother. Everyone else sat quiet as a mouse and tried to think
about nothing; for when I was in this ultra-receptive condition, I
was so sensitive to the thoughts of persons present that this would
have disturbed our thought transference experiment.
With mother I experienced something new again. The
current she emitted was weaker, much finer and smaller in diameter
than that of my husband. Then I made the same experiment with the
various uncles, aunts and other relatives who were gathered that
evening for supper at my parents' house. In these experiments I
learned that each individual emits a different kind of current. One
of my uncles who always found it difficult to make up his mind and
discipline his thoughts sent out a large, powerful stream of
thought, but the tiny particles of force in this current did not
flow in the same direction, but to and fro in a chaotic manner. The
effect was just as chaotic. It was a very difficult task for me,
too, to find out what he wanted. One of my aunts had a very thin,
but piercingly sharp flow of current which to me felt like a stiff,
hard wire, hurtful to the touch. We all knew her as a very
aggressive person. Each and every person present had a different
radiation of will.
This opened up a new world to me! I began to
understand many phenomena which I had previously only felt, or
suspected, or not noticed at all. All at once it was clear to me why
a person can be just as tired after a dispute or argument as if he
had been through a wrestling match. I also understood why being
together with other people sometimes is very tiring and sometimes
very refreshing and stimulating. I understood clearly and in an
almost physically palpable manner the real meaning of sympathy and
antipathy: emanations that give and those that absorb. The former
radiate strength, while the latter cling to a person like the arms
of an octopus, drawing out and absorbing his strength. This kind of
experiment with such people always made me so weak that my knees
would be trembling when the experiment was over; I would have to sit
down, completely exhausted, and wait a while to recover strength to
continue the experiments. On this particular evening, everyone in
the family—including the maid, the cook and my parents' other
servants—wanted to make an experiment in thought transference with
me.
During that period of my life I learned something
else, a fact which cannot be changed by any human decree, namely,
that cultured, self-disciplined people emit very different
radiations from those of coarse and uncouth people living only for
the satisfaction of their instincts. Naturally this is not a matter
of social or economic class! Many a simple, unlettered and untutored
person living near a forest or on a mountainside, alone and often
completely untouched by civilization, emits a higher and purer form
of vibrations than those of learned, highly educated and well-read
but completely egotistical persons. These radiations cannot be
hidden, falsified, counterfeited or 'explained away'. They reveal
immediately the kind of person one is dealing with.
I acquired another interesting bit of knowledge
through these experiments. Whenever someone wanted me to do
something that was against the code of conduct I had been taught to
accept, this latter stood like an insulating wall between the will
of the other person and myself, and it required tremendous effort on
my part to overcome this obstacle with an almost explosive
'breakthrough'.
These experiments always fatigued me greatly. Even
when I was experimenting with people who had a positive disposition,
I first had to empty my own mind and will in order to be receptive
to the will of the other, that is, to make the will of the other
person conscious within myself and guide the other person's
vibrations through my own nerves, suppressing as much as possible my
own radiations. This was actually the hardest part. Our nerves are
always adapted to our own vibrations; their power of
resistance is adjusted to our own vital current.
Every change in our mental or physical state
requires an effort from our nerves, irrespective of whether this
change is upward or downward. It always makes demands on our nerves.
Even when we experience such mental or spiritual changes within
ourselves, they can often be harmful, irrespective of whether they
are caused by a sudden shock, a passionate outburst, or even
excessive joy. Under these circumstances, it is understandable that
it can be tiring or deleterious to have to adapt our nerves to
completely strange vibrations, differing from our own not only in
frequency but even in their very nature. When the difference in
vibrations is very great, the result can be substantial damage,
over-excitement of the nerves, neuritis or other diseases of the
nerves.
This explains why many sensitive people always get
mysteriously sick in certain environments. It also explains the
great danger threatening every medium, namely the loss of his own
character. Unfortunately, this is what happens unavoidably in most
cases. The medium receives all kinds of vibrations but cannot digest
them or assimilate them; so he becomes chaotic, unreliable and
weak-willed himself! We should never play with these things! The
literature of this field contains masses of sad stories of different
mediums who finally degenerated into weak-willed automatons,
receiving any and all kinds of impressions, possessing no resistance
of their own, and finally being 'exposed' as lying, cheating frauds.
No wonder! As a direct result of their abilities as a medium, their
own will became weaker and weaker until they became a mere plaything
for the spectators around them.
I myself was witness to this kind of development.
One woman with unusually great ability as a medium was able
initially to perform prodigious feats. Later, however, she lost her
own character to an ever-increasing extent, getting to the point
where she had less and less resistance to put up against other
people's wishes and was always eager to perform an experiment.
Whenever the unknown power did not appear, she began to cheat in
order to satisfy the curious people around her. The story ended with
a gigantic scandal. As usual, the ignorant people triumphed,
claiming that all this woman's accomplishments were nothing but a
hoax from beginning to end. No! Her accomplishments were not all a
fraud by any means. On the other hand, precisely as a direct
result of her true ability as a medium, she became so weak-willed
and lacking in character that she finally ended up as a cheat.
I was able to observe these effects on myself. I did
not want to deceive myself; I wanted to learn the truth, and as time
went on I discovered the very pernicious effects of experiments of
this nature. I was conscious enough and had a sufficiently strong
will to overcome foreign vibrations and to become myself again after
each experiment. However, I found that having to resist the
influences of other persons made me very tired and nervous and this
led me to stop this activity. Later I gave up all spiritualistic
experiments completely. I know very well that many spiritualists
claim their work of manifesting is not tiring or injurious. I hope
they will pardon me for giving my plain, straightforward opinion,
based on many years of experiments, namely that those mediums who do
not feel tired after their experiments never receive the will of
another person or being, but merely produce manifestations
from their own unconscious; this despite their firm conviction
that their manifestations come from beings outside themselves.
My experiments convinced me that a person can
'receive' his own will from some unsuspected complex lying deep
in his own subconscious and manifest it just as he would the mil of
another being. This is the reason for most of the
self-deceptions which occur in this field. But it is impossible to
discuss such matters intelligently with ignorant people. They stick
to their fantastic belief in 'spirits', deceiving themselves and
whole hosts of undisciplined and gullible people. They have not the
vaguest idea about their own unconscious powers.
On the other hand, persons who are determined to
learn the truth and systematically to check and investigate all
phenomena can discover extremely interesting facts. We just
have to be careful when we use the word 'spirit'!
Let us just reflect for a moment. If a person's will
can cause the arm of another person to rise and thus conquer the
gravitational pull of the earth, how much more can it do? What
is the limit of its powers? As I began to learn these facts, I
understood a phenomenon known here in the West as 'levitation'—an
exercise still practised diligently, and carried out even today, in
the monasteries of Tibet. Without ever having heard of these Tibetan
exercises at that time, my experiments led me to the same
conclusions. The phenomenon is known in Europe too, and reliable
eye-witnesses have described how the great Teresa of Avila, John of
the Cross and Francis of Assisi all were observed to rise and float
in the air, not only once, but on numerous occasions and for hours
at a time. I know that this is possible; for a person's own
will power has the same effect as that of another person and can
overcome the earth's gravitational pull for a certain period of
time. It all depends on the size and strength of the will.
There were also times during my experiments when I
could not become conscious of another person's will. At such times
it was impossible for me to manifest what he was thinking. On such
occasions I felt as if the mass of his will were bearing down on me
like a giant weight. I found it hard to breathe, sighing and
groaning as if I were dying. I would then ask the person concerned
to concentrate better. As soon as I became conscious of his will and
carried it out, I was able to breathe easily and freely again and
the terrible pressure ceased! These experiments gave me the
conviction that in very many cases asthma is nothing else but the
invisible will of another person bearing down like a heavy weight
upon the diseased individual. On the other hand, this invisible,
unexecuted will can be that of the diseased person himself coming
forth from his unconscious and causing his sickness without his
knowing that his disease is indeed the result of his own will.
Our entire life consists of such invisible battles.
In some we are defeated, in others victorious.
These experiments and experiences were a splendid
school for me. They gave me an opportunity to look deep into the
unconscious and to get thoroughly acquainted with myself and with
other people. I became firmly convinced that it is possible to
receive the thoughts of another being. But at the same time I saw
how extremely difficult it is! I came to understand why the Tibetans
or the East Indians spend three days in the wilderness—miles away
from every human settlement—fasting, praying, and otherwise
preparing themselves before they seek to establish a connection with
the spirit of a departed person. Certainly not the way thousands of
so-called spiritualists, after their work in an office or in the
midst of a completely worldly life, gather together and believe they
can suddenly be in rapport with the world beyond.
They imagine that saying a quick little prayer will
protect them from danger. Have they ever been able to observe that
saying a prayer can keep a person who jumps into an abyss from
falling to his death? Experimenting ignorantly with spiritualism
represents just as great a danger as jumping into an abyss. Let us
be reasonable! Let us not forget that we have the power of reason in
order to check and test all our experiences. During the many years I
have spent in the most widely differing groups, I was forced to
observe how countless catas-trophies, nervous breakdowns, suicides,
and serious mental disorders resulted from the irresponsible games
people call spiritualism. Well-intentioned, honest but completely
ignorant and psychologically unschooled people hold seances!
Ignorant people call into being powers whose origin and nature is
completely unknown to them. Neither understanding these powers, nor
being able to control them, they are completely at their mercy. Only
people who are strong enough to resist all influences, have deep
psychological knowledge, extensive experience and an enormous
conscious will power and self control should concern themselves
and experiment with spiritualism.
I TAKE MY VOW
Little by little I realized that my circles of
spiritualist friends had nothing more to offer me. My experiences in
these circles, however, opened the door to the human soul, and I saw
in amazement how forlorn and lonely people are as they wander around
in the extreme darkness of ignorance. My own ability as a medium
enabled me to look into the enormous field of the subconscious. I
literally took myself apart in the most rigorous kind of
self-analysis, refusing to be blinded by uncertain and nebulous
theories. Hewing my way with my little axe, I went ahead in this
jungle, step by step. Spiritualism finally led me to the study of
psychology. I began to make a thorough study of the Western
science of psychology; for at that time I had not the slightest
inkling of the enormous psychological knowledge of the Orientals,
particularly the Indians and the Chinese.
Whenever we earnestly strive for something and
concentrate completely on attaining it, fate always helps us onward.
After a thorough theoretical training, I met the head physician of
the state mental hospital who helped me get systematic training and
practice. I was given permission to study the patients in every
section of the state asylum, including the wards reserved for raving
maniacs.
One evening at home I sat for a long time alone in
my room and tried to put my thoughts in order. What I had
experienced in the asylum was simply horrible! Terrible! Dante's
Inferno is tame compared to what I had seen. And how many sick
people are there on this earth who are suffering, either committed
to an asylum or walking about freely; and how many healthy people
are there who suffer themselves because they watch the torture these
other people go through. Little by little they get sick and go to
ruin. And how many mental cases are there who deceive ignorant
people simply because they behave normally and have no stamp on
their forehead to show they are mentally ill.
Sometimes they get high positions, marry an innocent
trusting husband or wife, and then plunge their relatives, their
surroundings and family, often an entire business firm—or even an
entire nation—into ruin.
Hell lay open before my very eyes, and in
desperation I stood on the brink of an unfathomable ocean of
suffering, desperate at the helplessness of mankind in the face of
this terrible misery.
Something must be done! Everybody must be informed
about the causes of mental disease. Healthy people everywhere must
work together with united efforts to fight this misery.
My preoccupation with the mentally ill opened the
door to the deepest secrets of a wide range of people's families,
and I was amazed to discover that there are many more mentally ill
than sane people living in the world. I saw the countless mental
abnormalities from which people suffer, and I saw that vast numbers
of people could be saved by proper treatment; their mental balance
could be restored by simple means, often merely by a change of
surroundings, thus restoring happiness to the families concerned.
I sat and pondered about how much could be done if
every healthy person would devote himself to this work. With all my
strength I wanted to devote myself to overcoming this suffering ...
but how and where should I begin?
And where could I find some help?
As I sat there asking myself this question I
suddenly knew that somebody was in the room beside me. My
experiments with mental telepathy and spiritualistic seances had
trained my nerves to such a degree of sensitivity that even if I
were led into a room blindfolded, I could say immediately whether
the room was empty or occupied. And if the room was occupied I could
even tell something about the character of the person in it. I now
felt the familiar prickly feeling, like a fine electric current,
telling me that something or somebody was near. But this time I felt
the familiar radiation without knowing why it was familiar or where
I had met it before ... this majestic, completely pure, extremely
powerful radiation ... and again I heard the familiar voice inside
me: 'Where will you find some help? Inside yourself! Don't you see
this is just the trouble—everybody is waiting for help from outside,
and as everybody is expecting help and not giving it,
nobody gets help. But if everybody would give help, everybody
would receive it too. Then the whole world could be freed of
suffering!'
I answered the voice within: 'I don't know who you
are or even what kind of a force you are; I only hear your voice
that always tells me the truth. You see my thoughts, my inner being
which is invisible to people, so I don't need to tell you I want to
devote my whole life to overcoming the sufferings of others. Even
though I be only a grain of dust, with this one grain of dust I want
to increase the helping force. Nothing else in life can interest me
any more, nothing can make me really happy again as long as I
constantly carry the sufferings of others in my consciousness. I
want to be a co-worker in the salvation of the world!'
'Careful!' said the voice within me. 'Watch all
those big words! To be a coworker means duty and sacrifice. Then you
have to put an end to your imperfections! You must never forget
yourself for even a minute. You must always be on guard that you
don't do a single thing in contradiction to the eternal laws of
life. All the temptations you haven't been able to withstand so
far in your life will come back to haunt you again and woe to you if
you do not withstand them. No mortal can play with the divine
forces. You may never again use the powers you achieve as a
co-worker for your own personal ends. You may never have
personal feelings or consider anything from your own personal
standpoint. Be careful! It would be better to go on living your
personal life like other people than fail as a co-worker. I warn
you.'
'I am not afraid,' I answered. 'I am absolutely
through with my personal life and no longer have any more personal
wishes. After all I've been through and experienced, there can be no
more personal happiness for me. I'm not afraid of any temptations. I
will resist them because I have no more illusions. I want to be a
co-worker in the great task!'
For a while I heard nothing, merely felt infinitely
great love radiating towards me. Then I heard the voice within me
again: 'Your self-assurance is well known to me, my child, but don't
forget yourself this time ...'
I sat on the divan, rubbed my brow, looked
around—the room was empty. Who was that? Who is that?—Or what kind
of a power is it that speaks to me with a voice I know so well? How
do I know this voice? How does it know my 'self-assurance'? And when
had I ever not paid enough attention ... so as to merit the
admonition not to forget myself 'this time'?
But I got no further answer.
THE HORIZON BRIGHTENS
Days passed, weeks passed, months passed ... I
waited for a sign, something that would point the way towards what I
should do, towards my duty, towards my sacrifice ... in accord with
the voice of the invisible one who had spoken to me, but the voice
came no more ...
No matter how often I tried to enter the special
state of mind and spirit in which I would feel again the strange and
indescribable buzzing and tingling throughout my whole body, as if I
were bathing in soda water, no matter how often I tried to close off
my organs of sense, to get myself into a state of inner receptivity,
ready to hear the voice ... it was all to no avail.
I was perplexed. I was waiting and waiting for a
sign—in vain. On the other hand I did not want to waste time; so I
came to the conclusion that the best thing for me to do would be to
carry out my earthly duties as well as possible, hoping all the
while that my inner voice would sooner or later tell me what my duty
was to be as a co-worker in the great plan. I also felt that I would
have to free my soul of every selfish attitude if I wanted to see
the truth with perfect clarity, just as a window pane must be clean
in order for us to see the sunshine clearly through it. The first
step in this direction is to know what is really inside me. As soon
as I know my inner self throughly, I can cleanse and purify it.
I began to investigate the source and inner
motivation of all my thoughts, my words, my movements and deeds.
What kind of unconscious power is at work within me? Where do my
thoughts come from? What is it within me that wills me to say
one thing or another? Why do I want to do just this thing,
not something else? When I was happy about something, I investigated
why I was happy about it. When I was depressed or angry, I
sought out the reasons for these feelings. When I felt attracted
toward another person or repelled by him, I immediately analysed
myself to discover the characteristics responsible for this feeling.
I kept myself under constant observation as to why I liked to do
some things and disliked doing others. When I was feeling talkative,
I sought to find the reasons and motives behind my loquaciousness;
when feeling reserved, I sought the reasons for my taciturnity. I
analysed every word that came out of my mouth to see whether it was
completely true, whether it could prove hurtful to no one. I
observed the effects of my words and my deeds on others around me. I
constantly tried to trade places in my imagination with the person
to whom I was speaking. What would I feel if he were
saying to me the words I was saying to him? Constantly,
uninterruptedly, I kept myself under observation.
This everlasting self-scrutiny brought me uncounted
riches. Little by little I became acquainted with the magical world
of the subconscious and super-conscious. I came to recognize the
various manifestations of one and the same force, from the
lowest urges on up to the highest spiritual self. I came to realize
that we have a free choice: we can identify ourselves with our
instincts or remain masters of them, that is to say, remain
ourselves! I learned that to be a free human being means to
control one's instincts and not become the slave of one's passions,
desires and wishes.
Along with my incessant self-analysis, I continued
to study psychology and philosophy, without neglecting my wood
carving or my music. Artistic work provides a wonderful opportunity
to turn inward spiritually and to ponder all kinds of questions.
Once an art critic was visiting us and saw my
furniture that I had carved myself. Over the bed I had hung a faun
playing a flute all carved out of wood. The critic asked me whether
I had first modelled this figure in clay. I told him I didn't even
know how to model in clay and that I had carved it straight out of
wood. 'I simply cut away all the wood that was superfluous,' I said.
'Have you studied anatomy?' he asked further.
'No, I studied music and was not able to attend two
colleges at the same time.'
After scrutinizing my carvings a little while longer
he said, 'It's a shame you're not a sculptress!'
'Without training I would always be a dilettante,
and that's just what I wouldn't want to be. But I cannot register at
the art academy because I don't want to neglect my husband and
child.'
'All right,' he said, 'I'll talk to the Director of
the School of Manual Arts. He may perhaps make an exception and
permit you to attend the lessons in sculpture without taking all the
side courses. You don't need them anyway. I believe it should be
possible for you to attend the art school on special terms.'
In this way I was able first to attend art school
and later to receive training from one of the greatest master
sculptors of the time. The first time I reported to him, he came
very close to me, peered into my face intently, and said in a very
surprised tone, 'How interesting! You are the first living person I
have ever seen with Egyptian eyes. Did you know you have Egyptian
eyes?'
'No,' I replied, 'I don't even know what the
difference is between Egyptian eyes and ordinary eyes.'
'The openings of the eyes are slit longitudinally at
the side of the eye, and this makes the eyelids rest in a completely
different position from those of other races. When you look at a
picture, you can tell immediately by this characteristic whether the
picture is Egyptian or not. But I never dreamed I would find such
eyes in a living person. Present day Egyptians don't have eyes like
this any more. One only sees them in pictures, just as one can only
see the long, drawn-out Egyptian skull formation in pictures and
sculptured artifacts. But where did you get these eyes of yours?'
I smiled politely and said, 'I just don't know,
Professor. Perhaps I am reverting to type.'
He smiled too, then started me on my work.
A year later he entered the studio where I was
working. He had several of them all near each other.
'From now on,' he said, 'I'm not accepting any more
tuition from you. If you have no studio of your own, you can work
here, but as an independent artist. You no longer need my guidance,
only practice in order to get better and better at expressing
yourself in this medium.'
I thanked him for his efforts and for his kind
offer. Since I had a large studio at home and had already held
several exhibits, I continued my work under my own roof. My
professor remained a good friend and dropped in from time to time to
see how my work was progressing.
The work made me happy—completely happy, even
ecstatic. Time, space and the world around me ceased to exist; I
felt no physical wishes, hunger or thirst—I even forgot myself
completely. I-noticed that a force flowed into my nerves while I was
concentrating on my work, and that this force exerted a healing
influence on mind and body. Many times when I was concentrating on
my work and thinking about nothing else, I suddenly recognized a
truth which had no relationship whatever with my work. In this way I
often received answers to philosophical, psychological or other
unsolved problems which had been occupying my mind. In such cases I
would stand motionless a moment, my modelling tool in my hand, while
my inward eye surveyed the new truth, the new discovery.
At such
moments I felt as if my head had just poked up through the ceiling
of one room and emerged above the floor in an upper room. It was a
wonderful feeling to look around with my inward eye in this newly
discovered upper room, inspecting all the hidden treasure lying
there. These brilliant flashes of inspiration began to come more and
more frequently, not only while I was modelling in clay or playing
the piano, but almost any time when I was concentrating on
something.
Once I experienced something very strange! This
time, however, it did not occur during my work, but in the late
evening just as I was about to drop off to sleep.
Our beds were next to each other, and we both had
the habit of reading for a a little while in bed before falling
asleep. On this particular evening we both of us read for a while.
Finally I got sleepy, said good night to my husband, turned off my
reading lamp, stretched, and closed my eyes to go to sleep. I closed
my eyes, but I still saw everything in the room! My eyes were
closed quite normally, but I was able to see everything—every
object—in the room, including my husband lying in his bed next to
mine and leafing through his book. I quickly opened my eyes again to
see whether my husband really was leafing through his book or
whether the whole phenomenon had been a projection from my own
imagination.
But his motions continued just as I had seen them with
my eyes closed! I closed my eyes again but still saw everything.
Thus surprised, I sat up in bed again, looked around the room with
my eyes closed, and still saw everything quite clearly! Only one
thing was very peculiar, namely, that I did not see things in three
dimensions, but flat and transparent—just as my eyelids seemed to be
transparent like a photographic negative, or like an X-ray picture,
but much clearer and more transparent. For example, I saw my sewing
machine through its wooden cover, the pictures on the wall in the
next room through the closed door, the clothes hanging in the
closet, and all my little possessions lying chaotically in my
writing desk. The whole picture was like an impression of all the
things lying one behind the other.
My husband watched for a while as I looked around
the room in various directions with my eyes closed.
'What are you doing?' he finally asked.
All excited, I answered that I was able to see
everything in the room with my eyes closed. He became curious and
tried several little experiments to find out whether I could see how
many fingers he was holding up, and similar things. I was not only
able to see his finger's, but even the bones and organs in his body.
It was really positively weird, but my sense of humour won the upper
hand and I burst out laughing at seeing him so transparent.
Finally we did fall asleep. As usual, I slept
peacefully, and the next morning I saw everything quite normally
again, and only when my eyes were open. And for quite a long time
afterwards, there was no recurrence of this strange phenomenon. I
went on with my sculpturing as if nothing had happened.
As I continued to work with my modelling tools, I
did not neglect my studies in psychology. More and more people came
to me to discuss their spiritual problems. In this way I kept on
gaining in practical experience.
Several years went by in this manner: steady work in
the wintertime, family life together on the lake shore amid the
beauties of nature in the summer.
VISIONS
There came a period in my life in which I often had
visions while perfectly wide awake. Many of them had such a
tremendous effect on me and on my later life that I must mention the
most important of them.
Towards the end of every summer my husband and I
made a journey through various countries. Once, as we were on our
way back from Italy, we stopped over in the Dolomites for some
mountain climbing. Here I experienced one of the most profoundly
impressive visions of my life.
One evening after an exhausting day in the
mountains, we returned to our hotel and I lay down. The sun had
shone with such intense fierceness during our hiking that it had
seemed as if every single ray were a spear aimed straight at my back
and my heart. The gigantic reddish rock walls reflected the sunshine
in every direction, seeming to magnify it a thousandfold. The whole
atmosphere was demonic; everything was glowing with heat as if we
were walking in the antechamber of Hell. I was really happy when we
finally turned towards home, and the sun which had been burning like
a flame-thrower disappeared behind the horizon at last.
I went to bed early and stretched out, ready to fall
asleep. In this self-same instant I suddenly felt as if the ceiling
were falling in on me ... as if I were falling into a bottomless
abyss ... falling towards instant death. A doctor, summoned at the
desperate plea of my husband, found I was suffering from a heart
attack. He gave me an injection. The night dragged by, and when
morning came my pulse beat was still so weak that it was scarcely
discernible. Tortured with a feeling of annihilation, I learned to
know what it means to be afraid of death. As was my custom, I
observed myself closely, even under those circumstances, discovering
that fear of death is a physical condition. In my consciousness
there was peace and calm, no fear of death at all; yet I was
suffering from such terrible fear of death that I can scarcely find
words to express it. It was unbearable. I was no longer completely
in this world, and not yet in the next. I was hovering in
nothingness, suffering so horribly I thought I would rather die than
go on bearing this torture. I gave up the struggle, deciding to go
into death knowingly in order to escape from this fear of it.
However, just as I wanted to glide over with my
consciousness into this nothingness of which I had been so afraid,
the space around me suddenly expanded in all directions, and
infinity spread out before my astonished eyes. In this infinity, I
saw a long, long road winding onward, and at its end, beyond
everything material, standing in eternity, the majestic form of a
man made of blinding light, his arms stretched out in indescribable
love. He seemed infinitely far away from me, and his countenance
shone with such an intensely powerful light that it blinded me and I
could not see his features. Nevertheless, I recognized him as the
Saviour of the world.
On the road, oval beings that looked like eggs were
moving forward slowly. As they moved along together, they gave me
the impression of so many sheep, viewed from such an angle that only
their backs were visible, but not their feet. I stood at the
beginning of this road and had to show them the way. They jogged
past me slowly in a steady stream, moving in the direction of the
figure of light who awaited them with outstretched arms. Those who
reached him, entered into his light and disappeared, merging
with his resplendent glory. The whole long road was covered with a
seemingly endless stream of these oval beings which I recognized as
human souls. I showed them the way and kept on pointing out
the direction to take, as more and ever more of these souls
approached.
I began to realize that I was not yet going to die,
because I still had this work to do, and that I could not die at all
until I had fulfilled this task. I realized, too, that I would be
doing this work for a very long time, until my sand in the great
cosmic hour-glass would run out and I myself would return to my
homeland of light where ever-radiant love would be awaiting me.
Infinite peace came over me, and my heart began to
function more normally, even though still weak. I glanced at my
husband who was observing me with a worried face. I could move my
tongue again a little, and I whispered to him that I was better. The
poor dear boy cried like a child out of pure joy that I could speak
again and that the light was coming back into my eyes.
After another day in bed, I had recovered
sufficiently to be able to travel again. A few days more and all was
back to normal.
During our summertime sojourns at the lake shore, I
was almost always more receptive to visions and in a state of
greater sensitivity for sending and receiving telepathic messages.
Once during our summer vacation we went to bed after a happy day.
The house became quiet, and I fell asleep beside my husband. I
dreamed all kinds of chaotic, apparently unrelated pictures, and
then in my dream I suddenly heard steps ... slow, dragging steps.
They caused me to realize that I had dozed off where I was sitting
at the top of a long flight of stairs. For a long time there had
been no one passing from whom I could beg anything. Now the sound of
someone approaching woke me. In a few moments I was quite awake,
with my eyes wide open. Then I saw that the slow, dragging steps
were those of a very old, broken man who had plodded along painfully
to the position I occupied and was now preparing to sit down at the
other side of this flight of stairs.
These stairs led from where we were, in an elevated
corner of the city, down into the centre of town below. In the
section around us, there were many state and municipal offices, so
thousands of people had to go up and down these steps every day.
Only now, at midday, is there a short intermission in the otherwise
steady stream of people. It's a good place for me to sit. The roof
at the entrance of the staircase protects me from rain, and my
revenue is good. I have my 'regular customers' who give me alms
every day on the way to their offices. But what an impertinence it
is for this old beggar to post himself here too! He's bound to do me
harm. People going by are not going to give to two beggars at once,
and so I am certain to lose half of my income.
I look at him impatiently and want to tell him to go
somewhere else to do his begging; this is my place and it's up to
him to clear out! I look at him and an uncertain feeling grips me. I
peer into his eyes and suddenly feel uneasy. I see that he too is
embarrassed. He makes a movement as if to run away, but it is too
late. I recognize him, and he recognizes me. O Father of mercy, it
is he! Here is the man I have been seeking all my life, the
man who abandoned me, the man I could never forget. And now he is
sitting opposite me, a beggar just like myself. O why, O why do we
have to meet again like this!
I look at him, his wrinkled old face, and his skin.
His lips hang loose and limp; his thin, matted hair and his beard
are neglected: his clothing consists of old, worn out rags. What has
become of the handsome, elegant young cavalier he was once? He looks
at me in pain and anguish, conscious of his debt ... ashamed. His
old, wrinkled face contorts. His weak and flabby lips droop
downward, and he begins to cry in silence. He reaches upward to wipe
away his tears, and so I see his hands covered with brittle skin,
cracked and full of wounds; his long, dirty finger nails; his stiff,
neglected, revolting, gouty fingers. Oh, these hands that were once
so beautiful, so elegant, so well cared for ... these hands I was
once so happy to kiss ...
Then I look at my hands ... O horrors! ... they are
just as old and neglected as his. When I raised them up, I see my
own fingers bent and knotted with gout, the skin of my hands cracked
and bloody in thousands of places. Since when have my hands become
so horrible, so revolting? I do not know! I have never thought of
observing myself. I have been living like a sleep walker. Now, as if
coming out of a stupor, I begin to remember. It is as if a heavy,
impenetrable fog covering my consciousness were now beginning to
roll back and give me a clear view. I survey my whole life, my
situation among people who treated me as if I were half animal,
without love, without pity. In my semi-conscious state, I put up
with everything, their many blows, their heartiessness, their
ridicule as they—the people on the farm—made fun of my imperfections
and my helplessness. How could I have thought about the way my hands
looked, or about my appearance in general? When I was young, I
sometimes wanted to be pretty to please him. In those days I
tied coloured ribbons in my hair, but after I lost him and the baby,
I didn't care about anything any more.
I never thought again at all about looking in a
mirror, and didn't care how my hands looked. I only cared what
people put in my outstretched, begging hands. Yes, now I can
suddenly remember clearly that many people, as they were reaching
over to put a coin in my hand, and I was grasping it eagerly,
quickly drew back their hand from mine and let the money fall in
order not to touch my fingers. Now I understand. Now I am disgusted
too when I look at my decrepit hands ... when I look at my dirty,
torn, stinking beggar's rags. I wonder what my face looks like? O,
if only he had not abandoned me so cruelly, neither of us would now
be in this terrible state of neglect, and I would not have lost the
child ... Why? Why did it all have to happen? And why must we meet
again in this way? Our lives are over! There is no way we can make
amends! It's all over ... too late! ... too late!
Unspeakable hopelessness comes over me and I plunge
into absolute despair. A terrible pain cuts through my whole being.
I feel my heart is breaking. A cramp holds my heart as in a vice.
Then everything blacks out before me ... everything disappears ... I
fall into an abyss of nothingness.
Someone is groaning, rasping and gasping ... I hear
it and want to see who it is ... slowly it gets light around me, and
then my glance comes to rest on my husband's terrified face.
Suddenly I realize that I am the one who is struggling to breathe. I
am sitting up in bed, and he is shaking me desperately. When he sees
that I recognize him, he breathes a sigh of relief and asks in a
half-terrified voice:
'What's the matter with you? Are you all right
again? I was frightened stiff. I woke up because of your groaning.
You were sitting up in bed with your eyes wide open, but you didn't
recognize me. You were looking right through me, right off into
space ... didn't even see me. What's the matter with you? For
Heaven's sake tell me what's the matter!'
I look at him, open my mouth to reply, but cannot
bring forth a single sound. My throat is still clamped shut out of
sheer horror. Little by little I recover my senses enough to form
words he can hear and understand: 'Not now—I cannot speak
now—tomorrow.'
My husband stops asking questions, and I fall back
on my pillows. He holds my hand in his as he observes me carefully.
Then, seeing I have calmed down again, he puts out the light.
The next morning as we sat together in the garden, I
told him my vision of the previous night.
I was a beggar woman who remembered her whole life,
and I am—or was once—this beggar woman. I remember
everything clearly that I once experienced when I was this woman. It
was my own life which suddenly awakened to consciousness.
'I was an abandoned servant girl,' I went on telling
my husband, 'living on a large country estate. I had no father, and
had no memory of ever having had either father or mother. Among the
many people around me as I grew up, there was a coachman who took
care of the horses, men servants who cut wood and fed the hunting
dogs, the cook who worked in the big kitchen and many other girls
working in the kitchen, the courtyard and the house. This is where I
have grown up, and this is all I know as home. Ever since I can
remember, people have been pushing me around, and I have had to work
at whatever jobs they gave me to do. After I grew up, I also had to
help in the big house where our master and his family lived. It was
a huge house with many rooms, and I learnt from the chambermaids
that the rooms and their furnishings were all very beautiful. I was
never allowed to enter them because I had no shoes, and only
servants with shoes were allowed inside. I was an outside maid. All
the rooms opened on to a very, very long corridor, and it was my job
to keep this corridor clean. I carried over huge buckets of water
from the well.
Then, kneeling down, I scrubbed the big coloured
tiles with a brush. I still see these tiles quite close to my face
as I bend over them and rub, rub, rub, move back a row and then rub
some more. Now and again I pour out water on to the floor and go on
rubbing, row by row ... endlessly! And when I finally do finish, I
have to wash the corridor on the floor above. Days go by ... months
and years, and I go on washing and scrubbing these same stone
floors. I am contented and seldom think about anything beyond the
work I have to do. I like to wash these tile floors. They are
colourful, and I like colourful things. In return for my work I can
eat in the kitchen and sleep in a little room over the stable behind
the house. In the courtyard I often see carriages which do not
belong to our master. They belong to his guests who have already
alighted at the front door. The coachmen drive their carriages into
the courtyard, unhitch the horses, walk them around in a circle
until they are cooled off, then lead them into the stable for the
night. Many guests come for hunting and then my corridors are full
of mud. The many men walk around with muddy boots, and I have to get
up at the crack of dawn to wash my corridors so they will be clean
when my master and his guests get up.
'One day when I happen to be in the courtyard, a
wonderfully handsome young man comes out of the house, crosses the
courtyard and enters the stable to look after his horse. He has his
horse saddled, mounts and rides away. As if struck by magic, I look
up at him. He is so marvellously handsome, and once he even looks
around at me! I idolize him as if he were a God, and later during
that very same night when he visits me in my little room, I allow
him with joyous abandon to do with me whatever he wishes. His face
shines through the mists which obscure my mind ... for long and
rapturous minutes I am in his arms ...
'As he often came for hunting, my life was made up
of happy days when he was there and long days of waiting for him to
return.
'In a year's time our baby came. The cook helped me
when I sought assistance and collapsed in front of her door. I did
not know what was happening. But after I had endured terrible
suffering and they laid the baby in my arms, I felt warmth in my
heart for it. For the first time in my life I was really happy.
Somebody needed me; for somebody I meant everything! The cook
spoke with her mistress, who came, looked at me and the child, and
gave her consent for the child to remain with me. I will work, I
promised, harder than ever before, if only I can keep my child ...
'When he, the father of my child, came back to our
house again for a visit and came up to my little room to see me
again, as was his custom, I proudly showed him the child and asked
him to allow me to work in his house, on his estate, so that I could
serve him. At first he shrank back horrified and then went on to say
it was not at all sure that he was the father. "Who knows", he said,
"what servant around here may be the father!" In vain I tried to
explain to him that no man had ever touched me, that I had defended
myself like a wild animal, and that I had allowed only him to do as
he wished with me. In vain I pleaded with him to allow me to work in
his vicinity, promising not to molest or disturb him if only I could
be near him. For a while he listened. Then as I knelt before him, my
arms around his knees, he pushed me away and ran out into the night.
I never saw him again. Whether or not he ever came back to the
house, I do not know. In any case, he never entered our courtyard
again. In vain I waited year after year. He disappeared out of my
life. But the baby was there! It meant everything to me. It filled
my every waking thought. It meant more to me than life itself!
'I scrubbed the coloured tiles in the corridor and
thought of my baby ... I drew water from the well and thought of my
baby. I hurried through my work even harder and faster, so that I
could be with the child. It was a girl, pretty and intelligent like
her father. She always did the opposite of what I told her, brooking
no opposition. The more I became her slave, the less loving she was
to me. When she was still quite small, she was rude and
disrespectful towards me. Nothing I said or did pleased her, and
what she liked best was to leave me and run around the countryside
alone. Sometimes she went so far that she came back only the next
day. I was in desperation and, when work was over, went out into the
night to try to find her. When she came back the next day, the light
came back into my life and everything was all right again.
'One day my child left me and did not come back. I
waited in desperation, searched throughout the surrounding
region—waited and hunted—but to no avail, my daughter was gone. The
sun went out of my life, my world was suddenly empty; I had nothing
more to live for and was absolutely unable to work. After a time I
could bear it no longer and went away to search for my child. I
never returned. I travelled from town to town and village to village
asking people whether they had seen my child. Years went by, and I
was still searching. Searching without hope, going on and on out of
pure habit, driven by inner unrest. People gave me food to eat, and
as my clothes began to wear thin and get torn, they would give me
old worn out odds and ends of clothing. I kept on going from place
to place, on and on ...
'Once in my wanderings I met the cook I had worked
with on the country estate. In the meantime she had married and was
living with her husband in this city where I met her. She took me
home, gave me some supper and told me that the father of my child
...'
Here my husband suddenly seized my hand and
interrupted my story. White as a sheet and with trembling voice, he
said, 'Wait, wait! I'll go on with the story. I know what happened.
I remember what happened then! While you were talking,
everything suddenly became clear to me. I recognized myself and I
know I was this man who abandoned you. I know I was terribly
frivolous then and lacking in responsibility. I lived only to amuse
myself and threw my money around with both hands until the day came
when I lost everything.
'My family property was auctioned off, and I was
obliged to leave my land and my manor. At first I turned to the
friends who had spent time drinking and gambling with me and
otherwise helping me squander my inheritance. But after a few weeks
they made it obvious that my presence in their homes was
superfluous. This experience was repeated with other so-called
friends until I was completely disgusted at myself and at them.
About that time, a real friend advised me to go to work. I wanted to
make a fresh start and sincerely tried to get work, but nobody took
me and my search for work seriously. I did not know how to
work, or what I should do. And so I sank lower and lower. Finally I
got a fixed idea that my tragic lot was God's punishment for having
so despicably abandoned you and our child. I went to see my friend
in whose home you had worked. I had no mission other than to find
out what had happened to you both, but when I came you were gone,
and no one knew where. As time went on, I found fewer and fewer
friends willing to lend me money.
'When the time came that none of my erstwhile
friends would take me in and give me a "loan" and as I was getting
on in years, I began to ask complete strangers for help. So little
by little I became a beggar, roaming the country, travelling from
place to place, and spending the night wherever good-hearted people
would allow me to sleep in their barn or stable. Physically as well
as financially I fell further and further into ruin. With hunger
plaguing me more and more as I got on in years, I finally reached
the point where I had no pride or self respect any more at all and
began to beg publicly on busy street corners. Thus it came about
that we finally met as beggars.'
I listened eagerly to everything he told me, for it
was exactly as I knew it to be. I knew from the very beginning that
my husband was the old beggar, and I was amazed that he too
remembered this previous existence in as much detail as I. The
events he recalled tallied exactly with what the cook told me when I
visited her, namely that he had squandered his inheritance and
estate, and that one time—much later—he had come by the manor where
I had worked in the hope of finding me. There was nothing left of
the dashing young cavalier he had once been. Through sheer neglect
and lack of honest effort, he had already become a human derelict,
roaming the countryside and looking for hand-outs. After I had met
the cook, I went back to our old manor to ask whether anyone knew
his address. But there was no one who knew where he had gone or
where he could be found. As I got on in years, I found it harder and
harder to travel. Finally I settled in the city and made my living
by begging near the stairs. It was there we finally met again and
there I passed my last hours. For when I recognized him and realized
that my whole life had been wasted and that there was no way of
making amends because it was too late ... too late ... our child was
lost and my life was over ... I died right there sitting on the
corner stone. My memories stopped there ...
For a long time we looked at each other speechless,
scarcely believing that such a thing could happen to two intelligent
people in this modern world. What we had just experienced cannot be
explained by any of the current theories of heredity or psychology.
We knew that everything had really and truly happened just that
way! There was no imagination involved!
The experience of having remembered this earlier
meeting shook us both to the depths of our being. For a long time we
sat beside each other in complete silence, while our thoughts spun
around in circles. Finally my husband said, 'I never before wondered
why, since my early youth, I have strictly avoided drinking, cards
and other games of chance, dancing and all other forms of social
life. This despite the fact that it is very much in my nature to
enjoy drinking, dancing and entertainment. Now I realize how, after
squandering my inheritance in riotous living and being obliged to
live in abject misery, the idea was hammered home deeper and deeper
into my consciousness that I must never again drink, never again
gamble, never again be careless and happy-go-lucky.
'Since then I have learnt to recognize the value of
money. And I have come to realize that the worth of a human being
begins when he is able to make a living for himself and his family.
All of these views now lie anchored deep in my subconscious
because of what I learned and came to realize in that incarnation.
That's why, in my present life, I was so anxious to study—just study
throughout all the years of my youth. The subconscious knowledge and
recognition of these facts was what gave me strength to resist and
say "no" when the boys I went to college with set out to amuse
themselves. I was always afraid that something terrible would happen
to me if I allowed myself to get caught up in their parties and
social life. Now I realize that I was only afraid of the misery
which resulted from my devil-may-care way of living in that previous
existence. My profound antipathy towards drinking and gambling and
my realization that I must never indulge in such a way of life were
rooted deep down in my subconscious.'
'Yes,' I replied, 'and after having been completely
idle in that life, you are now diligent to a fault, thinking only of
your work.'
'That's right. In the second half of that existence
of mine I wanted to work but I hadn't learned a trade and
didn't know what work meant. When I asked for work, people refused
to take me seriously ... wouldn't even trust me to do a job. Later
during my vagabond years, strangers took pity on me and gave me
work—cutting wood, loading carts, gathering grapes, beating
carpets—and while I did these menial tasks with unskilled hands
unused to work, I began to feel the great and overpowering desire to
learn something useful ... to be rich in skill and knowledge. And so
in this life I have learned everything I possibly could, and I
intend to continue learning until the end of my days!'
When he spoke the words 'till the end of my days' I
felt as if an iron hand were contracting about my heart. Where will
my child and I be at the end of his days? I became stiff with fear
... it is a law of nature: when we strike our hand against a
wall, the wall strikes back without intending to! It isn't the wall
which really strikes back, but our own blow bounces back. In any
case, whatever we hit always gives back the same blow we gave it.
No, I don't want to think through this premonition clear to the
end. We will not leave him ... no ... no ... no!
Then I thought about the relationship between my
past life and my present one. What was the reason for this weakness
of mine, for my having lived in this mental fog? And why, without
any transition, was I now blessed with talents and skills? I could
find no explanation.
For days we were under the impression of this
tremendous experience, but soon we found ourselves going swimming
and boating with our neighbour friends; so our memories from a
previous existence soon began to pale. We were both of us much too
business-like to bother our heads about the long distant past. My
husband was soon obliged to leave anyway as his holidays were over.
I stayed on with the other members of my family and their children.
The entire region of the great lake was of volcanic
origin, and the local radiations probably affected me so greatly
that I often had visions there.
I am inclined by nature to be very matter-of-fact,
and always try to find a natural reason for everything I experience.
I was never inclined to believe in ghosts or demons, and when people
told me stories about nocturnal manifestations or appearances that
were supposed to be almost nightly events in one old castle or
another, I just smiled condescendingly in the manner of the
inexperienced, thinking to myself that these persons were letting
their imagination run away with them. The very last thing I would
have 'imagined' is that I myself would have such experiences.
Moreover, it is characteristic of visions that one never succeeds in
having them through an act of will. On the other hand, they can come
quite suddenly and unexpectedly when one's mind is fully occupied
with other things.
That very same summer after my husband had returned
to his work in the city, we were all retiring to rest after a happy
day. I entered my room where my little son was already fast asleep.
I lay down, extinguished the candle—in this remote place there was
no electricity—and went to sleep.
I do not know how long I had been sleeping when I
suddenly awoke, aware of a noise in the room. It sounded as if
someone were groping around in the darkness. I reached for the box
of matches, quickly lit my candle ... and a moment later was lunging
towards a horrible apparition which was already carrying my
child in its arm and trying to escape. It was a female form, similar
to pictures one sees of witches, and when I surprised her with my
light, she was trying to glide out of the room on a cord or wire
which led from our beds through the window. I lunged at her, seized
my child and tried to take it away from her. She hung on tight, and
a terrible struggle began. The witch had already moved up a bit on
the wire. It seemed almost as if in some way or other she were
connected to it, as if there were a flow of force from it to give
her strength. But she could not get away because I clung desperately
to my child. Each of us was holding my boy's body in a grip of
steel, pulling him to and fro as we struggled. Somehow I felt
intuitively that she could only hold on to my child for a short
time, and if she could not succeed in wrenching him from me within
this short time, she would have to fly away empty handed. So this
violent struggle continued until suddenly and quite unexpectedly she
relinquished the child, glided out of the window on the wire, and
disappeared in the darkness ...
And I ...? I was kneeling in my bed; my son was
lying beside me, resting in absolute peace, snugly covered, and
sound asleep. But the candle was burning on my night table. Had I
been dreaming? Had I forgotten to extinguish the candle before
falling asleep? No, the match was still glowing beside it, proving
that I had only just lit the candle. The entire scene must have
taken place within the space of a few moments. If it were not so,
the match would not have been still warm. No, I had not been
dreaming!
I extinguished the candle, lay back in bed, and
tried to quiet my galloping heartbeat. What was that? A witch? Are
there such things? What is a witch? Why do painters everywhere
always paint the same kind of witches, and where does this figure
come from? How does it come about that there are such things as
witches in the first place, and why do people claim that witches
ride on broomsticks? If witches are really only a figment of the
imagination, why do drawings and sketches of them look just about
the same the world over—showing them with long, pointed, drooping
noses, hunched backs, and broomsticks in their hands? Why isn't a
witch ever shown with a club foot? Because people say the devil has
a club foot. But how do they know for sure that the devil has a
club foot and a witch does not? Who has ever seen a devil and a
witch? Now I have some idea about why witches are drawn with
broomsticks in their hands. The witch I had seen was holding on to
this wire, and when she flew out of the window on it, I could easily
have imagined her to be riding on a broomstick. I can understand
that uneducated villagers who know nothing about currents of force
think a witch is holding on to a broomstick and flying away on it.
The witch was the personified servant of the 'evil one'. I simply
knew it. She was reality, a fact! Had the whole scene been merely a
projection, an illusion? Naturally, I knew it had been. But what
caused it? Where did it come from? And why just such a picture?
For me that was reality and the interesting question was why
everyone who sees such an illusion, or projection, or whatever we
may choose to call it, sees it in the same form. Why do we all carry
this picture in our subconscious, if it really does come from our
subconscious? It could of course be answered that I had seen
pictures of witches and this was a projection of pictures I had
seen. But such was not the case! For even though the witch was very
similar to the usual pictures one sees, I noticed to my great
surprise that her appearance did not coincide with them in all
details.
And where did this strange wire or rope come from? I
had never seen such a thing in any of the pictures and yet it was
there. Moreover, after my experiments in the transmission of will
from one person to another, I had quite a different opinion about
this wire. I could understand it in terms of a flow of force,
perhaps even a flow of will. But where did it come from? And from
whom? And if a flow of force can be seen as a physical form, is not
the witch herself perhaps merely a form built up of forces radiating
from a source or from different sources? And what are we human
beings? Where does the human form come from? Are we not also visible
forms made up of various flows of force? What is 'reality'?
Only
what can be touched and grasped? Are not we human beings, too,
merely projections? And do we not merely believe that we are
actually formed? Are not love, hate, hope, desperation, good and
evil realities too? Do not people suffer or rejoice because of these
intangible, invisible forces which are not any less 'actual' than
the tangible 'realities'? Naturally I know the physical form of my
child—the 'real child'—as people would say—was lying peacefully in
bed during my struggle with the apparition. And I am equally
convinced that the entire struggle occurred only between forces
and not between 'bodies', but does that make this
struggle any less real? Was not perhaps the apparition of the witch
and the child even much more real than the child's material form
lying in bed? What is a material form? Only the resultant outward
cover of forces which build up the material body. Hence the force is
the cause, the material body only the effect. Which is more
important and more real?
For a long time I went on asking myself these and
similar questions about the experiences I had had. For me it was
perfectly real. I had enough proof that I had not fallen asleep. And
even had this been the case, it is perfectly possible to experience
complete reality in a dream!
Several nights later, after all the family had gone
to bed, and the house had quieted down for the night, I too went to
bed. It had been an exceptionally hot day, and my room was close and
sultry, so I not only left my window open, but also the door from my
room into the hall outside. Thus from my bed I could see the
staircase leading up to the rooms above.
As I lay there, I reviewed the whole day in my mind.
What had I done well? what not so well? What should I have said or
done, and what should I not have said or done? Then I went
over in my mind what I wanted to cook the next day, for the
housekeeping was my task. Thus my thoughts were occupied with quite
everyday, matter-of-fact things. Suddenly I noticed that two
peculiar forms were approaching from the house door trying slowly
and stealthily to cross in front of mine. They were both full-size
human forms, absolutely black like shadows. I did not see them as
three-dimensional figures. Instead, I had the impression that the
only reason I could see them at all was because they were absorbing
all the light in the place they happened to be. To express the
matter in different terms, I did not really see these beings
themselves but the hole they made in the rays of light where they
were. In scientific terms, they were causing complete interference
with the light rays, and I could only be aware of their presence by
virtue of the fact that there were no light rays at all where these
two beings stood.
Otherwise, they were invisible. It is difficult to
find an expression adequate to describe this phenomenon. In a
twinkling I understood why farmers use the word 'shadow' in talking
about ghosts or spooky apparitions. Actually these two figures were
'shadows', but not shadows made by anything else. On the contrary,
they were shadows solely because of the complete absence of light. I
had never dreamed that there could be such complete blackness. Later
it occurred to me that the astronomers know of such a 'black hole'
in the skies. Caused by a complete absence of light, it is known as
the 'horse's head 'because of its peculiar shape. They cannot
explain it in other terms than as interference in light rays.
Something swallows up and destroys the light radiating from the
universe, and we see only a huge shadow. The two figures I saw were
made of the same absence of light.
On their shoulders they carried a pole from which
something utterly and indescribably horrible was hanging. It
resembled an octopus, except that it had no organic and organized
form. It hung down from this pole like an amorphous mass of raw
dough, constantly expanding and then contracting. It was a
loathsome, greenish, pussy, decaying mass in which—somehow or other
I knew sicknesses, misfortune, catastrophes and death were lurking.
I knew that this monster was concentrated 'evil' itself! It turned
and stretched on the pole with intentional wickedness, and I
realized it was looking for new opportunities and victims on which
to wreak its fearful power. I saw the shadowy figures moving towards
my sister's room. Horrified, I knew I must prevent this satanic
source of power from causing any harm. Sitting bolt upright in bed, I screamed at the top of my lungs,
'Grete!—Grete!'
Even as I screamed, the two shadowy figures
disappeared instantaneously, while the demon shrank in size and
rolled up into a greenish phosphorescent sphere about the size of a
football, then rolled with gliding and jumping movements up the
steps. In a voice filled with Hellish laughter, of which I was
perfectly aware although I could not hear it with my physical ears,
it screamed scornfully at me, 'So you think you can catch me! Ha ha
ha ha ha!' With that, it slipped through the open window and
disappeared in the darkness.
I sprang out of my bed and ran out into the hallway
to see what it was. Everywhere there was absolute silence!
Almost at the same moment my brother opened his door
upstairs, came out to the banister, looked down and asked, 'Who is
down there?'
I lighted a candle and answered, 'It is I. Why have
you come out of your room?'
'I woke up suddenly,' he said, 'as if in a
nightmare, with a feeling that some terrible danger was in the
house. I came out of my room to have a look around ... and you're up
too. What's the matter?'
While he was speaking, my two sisters came from
their rooms, and then the servants, all wondering why I had
screamed. I told them everything. Then we searched the house. We
found the door locked and everything in its proper place. I asked my
brother to try to move the window above the stairs to see whether
perhaps a draft of air could have moved it in such a way as to cause
it to reflect the full moon. Perhaps this was the reason for my
having seen a greenish phosphorescent ball? But the moon was on the
other side of the house, and it was quite impossible for me to have
seen a reflection of it from my bed.
Having found nothing, we all had no choice but to go
back to bed. For a long time I kept hearing the fiendish taunt, 'So
you think you will catch me?— Ha ha ha ha!'
A few days later my little son complained about a
tummy ache. I felt sure the pains were caused by appendicitis. I
left with him the very same day to go back to the city and have him
examined by one of my father's friends who had become a famous
surgeon and director of a large hospital. He found there actually
was an irritation of the appendix, but said that we could wait until
autumn to operate. So we drove back to the lake shore where my
little son was able to play with his young friends until we left the
resort at the end of the summer.
In looking back, I would like best to be able to
skip the period which followed in order not to have to re-experience
all the events of the time in my memory. Nevertheless I find I am
obliged to recount the broad lines to make the later events of my life understandable.
The child was operated on and the operation was
successful. A week later he was allowed to come home. During the
time he was in the hospital, my sister's little daughter took sick
with a very strange and persistent throat infection. Once during a
visit I saw she had a red skin rash under the compress around her
neck. On the assumption that the rash might have been caused by the
wet compress, her skin was then treated with a powder, and by the
next day the rash had disappeared. By the time my son was discharged
from the hospital, his little cousin was up, and the two were soon
playing together all day long. But there was something about my
son's appearance I did not like. He was pale, tired and lacking in
energy. Worst of all, instead of gathering strength, he became
weaker and more depressed with each passing day. A week later, when
I took his temperature, I was shocked to find he was running a high
fever. He began to cry bitterly and seemed to be getting worse
moment by moment. Singularly enough, his body was covered with a
rash which looked exactly like the one his little cousin had had on
her neck. We called the most famous child specialist in the area.
After his examination he asked whether anyone in the family had had
scarlet fever.
'No,' I replied, 'no one.'
'Are you sure no one had a persistent throat
infection?'
The ground began to teeter under my feet.
'Yes,' I said, 'his little cousin had a sore throat
for a long time and a similar skin rash on her neck.'
The professor smiled. 'Yes, that was scarlet fever.
Your son's resistance was still low and he caught a severe
infection. We'll have to vaccinate him immediately. Are you
going to take care of the child?' he asked me.
'Yes.'
'Have you had scarlet fever?'
'No, and I won't get it now either. I am immune to
all infectious diseases.'
'I can only assume the responsibility,' said the
professor, 'if we vaccinate you too.'
I knew from experience that I could not endure serum
of any kind, and I tried to convince him that he should not
vaccinate me. All in vain. We were both vaccinated with a serum
which was quite new at the time and scarcely tested. I felt like an
ox being brought to the slaughterhouse! I was obliged knowingly to
permit myself to be poisoned.
'You can take my word, it will not harm you!' These
words were to ring in my ears for a long time to come. Later as I
lay helplessly sick and poisoned, a hair's breadth away from death I
wished many times I could call in this well-intentioned doctor so he
could see why a physician should sometimes listen to his patient and
not merely treat him like a number. The serum was a slow, insidious
poison ...
First we had to fight desperately for the boy's
life. Six long weeks I sat at his bedside while his fever raged at
104° and 105°. The effect of the long protracted fever and the
reaction of the serum were so strong that his heartbeat often failed
him. A young doctor moved in with us to be ready any minute, day or
night, with an injection to start the heart beating again. There we
were, three of us in an isolated apartment, fighting for the boy's
life.
'So you think you can catch me?—Me?—Ha ha ha ha!'
Again and again I heard the hellish voice in my ears while for long
days and nights I held the child in my arms, refusing to give it up.
I got him back from the witch: His appendix was already out. But the
battle with the greenish phosphorescent monster was not over yet.
My son became weaker and weaker as his fever
mounted. The professor vaccinated him with a new dose of serum. For
some days the fever abated, but then the left side of the boy's
throat began to swell. The doctors said the infection had settled in
a gland, and they watched the swelling to see whether they would
have to operate. It grew bigger with each passing day so the boy's
head was leaning far off to one side. Our struggle grew more and
more desperate as his fever kept on rising. The child was in
constant delirium. For five long weeks we had scarcely been able to
get more than an hour or two of sleep in a day. The child rolled to
and fro in the bed, quieting down a bit whenever I held him in my
arms. The last five days I was sitting beside his bed constantly,
holding his poor little body in my arms and waiting ... listening to
his heavy breathing and waiting ... for five endlessly long days and
nights I waited ...
I had never believed it possible for a human being
to go so long without sleep. After five days and five nights, I was
still holding the child in my arms. During those long hours I
recalled often having heard mothers complain about their children's
ingratitude: 'Is that why I took care of him?—Is that why I made
such sacrifices and sat at his bedside when he was sick?—etc, etc.'
In so doing, I realized that a mother does not take care of her
child for its sake, but for her own sake! There are many women
who imagine themselves to be good and devoted mothers because they
take care of their children. No! by such a criterion I was not a
good mother, for I was nursing my child and doing everything in my
power to save its life—for my sake! I shuddered at the
thought of losing the child. No, it was not that I loved the
child; it was for love of myself, that I wanted to save
it. It was so important to me. I was spiritually so closely
tied to my child that I couldn't even bear the thought that it might
disappear from my life. I sat there holding my boy in my arms,
realizing full well that I was doing it for myself and that I
wanted to keep the child for myself. I held him close in my
arms and tried to give him some of my own vital force so that he
would remain with me. Yes, I knew that an invisible force
radiates from the solar plexus of each human being, a force which
can grow to giant strength when the person concerned really wants
something with all his heart. It can even conquer the gravitational
pull of the earth. Now I wanted to increase the power of
gravitation; I wanted to keep my child here on earth.
I sat there with my child, trying to concentrate all
my thoughts on giving him strength to overcome the terrible
sickness. Nevertheless I could not pray God to keep my child alive.
'Things are never bad,' I remembered the words of Epictetus, 'it's
only the way you think about them.' From my standpoint it
would have been the greatest catastrophe to lose the child. But I
must not pray to the greatest power, the Creator, for personal,
subjective things; for He knows what is good and why, and I
must not want to keep my child for shortsighted, human reasons. And
the child? For him too it is certainly best for God's will to be
done, whatever that may be. So as I sat there with my boy in my
arms, my little human-maternal self was trembling for fear of losing
the child, but I was praying constantly, 'Thy will be done ... Thy
will be done ...'
I repeated it hundreds of times in those long hours,
while my body was getting stiffer and stiffer, until it finally
began to rebel. My back was so numb I couldn't feel it any more. I
tried to change my position ever so slightly, but the child noticed
my movement at once, tightened his grip on me and cried out, 'Stay
here, stay here, hold me tight! If you stay here and hold me tight,
I'll forgive you for all the wrong you've done me!' My mind began
reeling ... what wrong have I done that he could forgive me for?
Up to that time I had thought I was doing everything
a mother should do for her child. From the moment of its birth, this
child took first place in all my thoughts. In every way I could, I
wanted to make it happy. What secret wound was it now nursing? What
wrong had I done for which I needed its forgiveness?
I tried to find out. 'My little darling,' I said,
'be quiet. I'm here with you now and holding you tight. But what are
you going to forgive me for?'
He answered, 'I don't know, just hold me tight and
I'll forgive you for everything ...'
I looked over at the young doctor who said quietly,
'He's talking in a delirium —pay no attention to his words.'
'Yes, yes, he is delirious ...'—but I already knew
enough about psychology to know that the boy's words were coming
forth from some great depth. I thought about them for a long, long
time, wondering how I had wronged this human soul ... what great
debt I might owe it ...
Until one day everything became clear ...
On the evening of the fifth day we had gone without
sleep, the child left me free again for a few minutes. With the
young doctor's help, I got up, stiff in every joint, and went about
like an automaton doing the things I needed to do. But my spirit Was
in such abysmal darkness as if all the devils of Hell were plunging
after us. I was afraid I was going to crack up. I needed to find
some kind of new strength to bear my burden. In such moments a
person gives up all his arrogance and reaches out for help wherever
he hopes to find it. The Bible! The book lay on the night table and
I reached for it like a drowning man. I opened it without thinking,
and my eyes fell on the following passage in the old testament: Tear
not, Your enemies shoot their invisible arrows upon you only as long
as the Lord allows. But when their time comes, ye shall be free of
all evil.' .
The effect of these words was indescribable. I felt
as if a mountain of weight had fallen from me ... after six weeks of
endless darkness—light ... at last, light ... light!
The telephone rang. It was mother. 'How is our
little one doing?' she asked. 'Mother, the child's going to get
well!' I shrieked into the telephone. 'Has the fever gone down?'
'No, it's still up to 104, but God has sent me a
message ...'—and I told her what I had read in the Bible. 'May God
grant it so,' said mother.
I had to hang up immediately, because the child was
crying for me. I ran to him, and in the very next moment the
horrible swelling opened up. In the last few days it had become as
big as a large ball. It burst internally into his throat and mouth,
and a horrible greenish mass of pus came pouring out over his lips.
I couldn't help remembering the green ball ... it was the
same colour.
The doctors had been waiting for the swelling on the
outside of the boy's neck to get soft so they could cut, but on the
outside it was still so hard they did not dare. Now nature had taken
a hand herself and freed the child. A few moments later he lay down
again and fell into a deep sleep. He slept as if he were dead. The
whole night long we kept watch. His pulse became stronger, his
breathing slower, and his forehead was no longer wet with
perspiration ... He was sleeping peacefully. After the long weeks of
unending vigil, I lay down myself and tried to go to sleep. But with
no success. My nerves had forgotten what sleep was.
The child slept soundly until 11 o'clock the next
morning. Father telephoned often: 'How's the boy? Still asleep?
How's his pulse?'
'Yes, father, the fever's gone and he's sleeping
soundly ... a healthy sleep.'
Finally he opened his eyes and asked for milk. Like
a dry sponge soaking up liquid, he drank four glasses one after
another. Then he asked for his playthings.
The next day was Christmas. My husband, my parents,
and my brother and sister came by that afternoon to bring a little
Christmas tree and armloads of toys for the boy. I set him in an
armchair and pulled him into the middle room so that our family
could wave to him through the grill work in front of the door of the
house. The boy was still thin beyond recognition and weak ... but
alive! We all cried for joy. The evil had been forced to yield ...
its time on the great cosmic clock had run out. I was so moved I
could not speak. I felt as if I were dreaming. I was the very
picture of gratitude. My wish and God's will had been identical in
this case ... He gave me back my boy!
My son recovered slowly, the young doctor bade us
farewell, and the day finally came when our youngster could get up.
He had to learn to walk all over again. But he became stronger from
day to day, and by the end of two months he was well enough to go
back to school. I could sleep once more and wanted to return to my
sculpturing. I felt so strange, however, just as if I were a little
bit tipsy, and the world about me looked as if I were seeing it
through water. Everything seemed to get hazier and hazier ...
farther and farther away from me.
The serum with which I had been vaccinated had been
prepared from hormones of stallions. As I later heard, the new,
scarcely tested preparation affected women as if it were a
completely foreign substance—a poison—in their blood. The papers
were full of the scandal. Most of the women who had been vaccinated
showed early symptoms of neurosis. Then, as their bodies tried to
get rid of their poisoned blood, they suffered from incessant
haemorrhages. There was no way to help them, and many died. As a
consequence, there were masses of lawsuits.
I felt worse and worse from day to day. Things
around me looked more and more as though I were seeing them through
water. A strange feeling overcame me, and I didn't know myself any
more. I was able to walk straight, but I always felt dizzy. This odd
feeling that I was looking at the world through some strange liquid
grew stronger from day to day.
One day I had an attack. Instead of a regular pulse
beat, there was only a flutter. Unable to walk, eat or speak, I lay
in bed with an ice pack over my heart still seeing the world as if
it were swimming around me. It would take us too far afield if I
were to describe how I suffered. Suffice it to say, I wandered
through the various departments of Hell ... for months!
By summertime I was somewhat recovered, and on our
doctor's advice, we all went to the lake. Perhaps the change of air
was good for me. I lay on the terrace of our family villa, trying to
calm and control my dancing nerves. Hundreds and thousands of times
I repeated the word 'caaaaalm' ...'caaaaalm' ...'caaaaalm' ...
Slowly my condition improved and sometimes I was even able to sleep
at night.
One day I noticed my son was not playing with the
other children on the beach. On the contrary, he was hanging around
my sofa and being suspiciously quiet about it. With a sudden shock,
I began to hope he was not falling ill again. I do not like it when
children are suspiciously quiet.
'What is the matter with you?' I asked him. 'Why
aren't you playing with the other children?'
The boy leaned against the back of my sofa, looked
at me attentively and answered, 'Mummy, is it possible that I have
lived before?'
His question amazed me. 'Where did you get that
idea?' I asked in return.
'I was in the garden and saw a big black beetle.
When I poked him a bit with a twig, he turned over on his back and
lay still as if dead. I was curious to see what he would do, so I
watched him and waited. I kept on watching him for a long time,
perhaps it was even half an hour. Then all of a sudden, the beetle
righted himself and ran away. It was then I had a very strong
feeling I had lived before. It only seemed as if I had died and
people thought I was dead, but then I got up and went on just like
the beetle, and here I am now alive again. That means I never died
at all! And I'm asking you for another reason, Mummy. Every day when
I wake up in the morning, before I open my eyes, I always have a
feeling as if I had to jump right up and go hunting to find food for
my wife and my children. And only when I open my eyes and look
around my room, I realize that I'm a little boy and your son. But
Mummy, my wife and my children and everybody there are not like the
people here, but they're ... all ... all black and quite naked.' An
embarrassed smile spread across my son's face.
I listened to him with ever-growing interest, but I
did not want him to notice my surprise. I let him finish talking.
Then I asked, 'So you were the father of several children ... but
where did you live?'
The child took paper and pencil, and with a sure and
steady hand he drew a round hut with a very special opening in the
roof for the smoke. He could never have seen a hut like that in our
country. Before the hut he sketched in a naked woman with long
hanging breasts. Beside the hut there was a body of water with
waves, and in the distance palm trees. 'We lived in huts like this,'
he said, showing me the drawing. 'We built them ourselves, just as
each of us built himself a boat by hollowing out a log. There was a
big river there, but we couldn't go in deep as we do here in the
lake, because some kind of a monster was living there in the water.
I don't remember what kind, only that it bit off people's legs, and
that's why we didn't go into the water.
'Now you can understand why I always screamed and
howled last year when you tried to take me out into the water. I was
afraid that something under the water was going to bite off my legs.
Even now, whenever I go bathing, I have that same feeling. Only I
know by now that there's nothing dangerous in the water here. And
remember last year, when I wanted to row, Mummy? It was just after
we had bought the big family boat. At first you wouldn't let me,
because you said I would have to learn how. But I just knew I could
because I remembered how well I was able to get around in my dugout
canoe ... as well as if it were a part of me. While sitting in it, I
could even flip over into the water and come up again on the other
side.
'Remember I kept begging so long, you finally got
impatient and said I could try but I would see I could not row.
Remember? And remember how surprised you all were when I did
row, and with only one oar. I was too small to handle both
oars—my arms were too short—but I was able to move our big boat
around safely among the other boats and all the bathers. Oh boy,
with my dugout canoe —there where I was living—I could do anything!
You should have seen me then! And the trees were not like the ones
here.'
With his stubby finger he pointed to the drawing.
'They were like this one. and there were all kinds of other plants
there. See, that's me hunting for a big bird, and that's my hat
beside me.'
Everything he drew made up a perfect tropical
landscape with palm trees and other tropical plants. The figure
supposedly representing him was a typical negro. Only his hat was
suspicious. It looked exactly like a modern man's felt hat. Not
wanting either to disturb him or excite his imagination, I
questioned him very cautiously. He had never seen naked women,
except perhaps as works of art, and these latter never have hanging
breasts; so I asked him, 'Why have you drawn your wife with such
long, ugly, hanging breasts?'
The child looked up at me in amazement at such a
question, then answered without hesitation and very
matter-of-factly, 'Because she had breasts like that! And they're
not ugly! She was very beautiful!' he added proudly. This reply
convinced me that my boy had not heard these things in some way or
another from others. He had never been to the cinema and had never
had any books about Africa. Where could he have picked up the idea
that a woman with long, hanging breasts is beautiful? Our ideal of
beauty is quite different. Finally I asked him, 'What is the last
thing you remember?'
'I was hunting when a tiger approached. I threw my
spear, but that didn't stop him. With my spear in his breast he
jumped on me. I don't know what happened after that.'
'Good, that's all very interesting. Naturally it's
possible that you have lived before and all of that really happened.
But now you're here. Don't think about the past any more; think
about the present. You can tell me all about things like this, but
don't tell other people about your memories.'
'Yes, Mummy,' said the boy, 'I already know that,
because grown-ups think we kids are crazy. They always make fun of
us. But what do you think happened to my wife and children?'
'I cannot tell you that. But don't forget that
everything passes away. Only love remains eternal, and so love will
lead you to them again in this life.'
'Oh, that's fine!' said the boy, and he ran off to
resume his playing with the other children. I took his drawings and
put them into the diary I had been keeping since he was born ...
I never asked the boy any more about these memories.
I did not want his imagination to be stimulated, nor did I want him
to lose himself in these memories.
Why should I? I knew that he had not been able to
see or read any books about Africa. I knew every step he took and
what he was doing. And it really was surprising to recall that,
although he was generally quite brave and even inclined to be a bit
of a daredevil, when we had first taken him out to bathe in the
lake, he had fought and kicked and struggled most savagely,
screaming at the top of his lungs as if we were trying to kill him.
I had had to explain to him that he could come along with the rest
of us without fear and that nothing was going to happen to him. It
was only then he let me carry him into the water, but I had to
promise to watch out for him and not leave him alone. The next day
the very same thing happened. He refused to go into the water alone,
kicking and screaming as he had done the day before. Again I had to
carry him in my arms. Little by little he conquered his fear, and he
finally became a little duck, happily splashing, rowing and sailing
on the lake all day long. Our conversation made me remember how,
when he was very small—around four or five—he and-his little cousin
would paint pictures together. While the faces his little cousin
painted were always pink, his were always dark brown. When I once
tried to show him why he should not paint the faces so dark, he made
no reply, but merely went on painting chocolate coloured faces.
We spoke no more about his memories. Now and again
he made some comment which showed me that these things were still
alive within him. Several years later, when he was about thirteen,
one of the neighbours came running into our garden, calling for me
to come out to the street. My son, he said, had climbed up to the
top of a very high poplar tree, so high that he certainly would not
be able to come down without falling. There were a number of trees,
all of them about sixty to seventy feet high. I peered upward into
the branches to try to see which tree my boy was in. Finally I
yelled up to find out where he was and he promptly yelled back to
ask what I wanted.
'Come down immediately!'
'Why?'
'We're not discussing why now,' I called back. 'You
come right down here!' Without saying a word, he started to descend,
climbing skilfully but cautiously with complete assurance, like a
little monkey. Finally he jumped down from the lowest branch and,
with controlled annoyance, asked, 'Why did I have to come down?'
'Because it's absolutely senseless for you to climb
up so high. It's positively shameful when other people have to tell
me what you're doing. What's the good of such dare-devil stunts?
What in the world were you doing up there?'
'I've made myself a nest where I can eat a meal of
boiled corn. It tastes much better up there, and I get such a
wonderful view. I can look out over everything.'
'Well don't do it any more. What sense can there
possibly be in doing anything so dangerous? Build yourself a nest
down here!'
The boy looked away for a moment angrily, then said,
'O.K. I'm not supposed to climb up there any more because you think
it's dangerous. But who do you think looked after me when I was
living in the jungle and climbed around the trees which were a lot
higher so that I could watch the animals? Where were you then?'
'I don't know where I was then, but now I'm here and
you have to obey!' I answered emphatically. He wasn't pleased at
all, but as I gave him plenty of freedom in other respects, he soon
found other occupations and the matter was forgotten.
Some time later he came home from school in complete
exasperation. 'Ridiculous!' he exploded. 'The priest was trying to
make us believe that people live only once. But I know that people
live more than once! I know it! But it's best not to try to talk to
grown-ups. A fellow just has to keep his mouth shut!'
The impressions of this life had probably displaced
the memories in his consciousness, and for a long time he made no
further mention of these matters; When he was about fifteen, he
asked us to buy him a big jazz drum. Together we went to the best
music shop in town, and he picked out the biggest drum in sight with
all its trappings. Then the miraculous experience we had had when he
first tried to row was repeated again. As soon as he had the drum in
the house, he took the two drum sticks, sat down beside it and
started playing the most difficult rhythms and the most
impossible syncopations, all with a perfectly sure hand and
complete self-confidence. He played ecstatically, his eyes beaming
and tears rolling down his cheeks. He said nothing about how he came
to be able to play a drum. Only once, as he was playing a very
peculiar rhythm, he remarked, 'Hear that Mum? That's how we used to
signal each other and pass on messages across tremendous distances.'
And he went on drumming like one possessed.
He was never interested in reading stories about
negro life. 'Why should I?' he asked. 'I know better than books can
tell me what life was like there. Why should I care what white
people have written about it? And when I read real true
descriptions, I always start to cry, even when I try not to ...'
Even as a grown-up young officer in the air force,
seeing a negro cinema-film always moved him to tears. Sitting there
in the darkness, he would cry like a baby—although silently—with big
salty tears streaming down his cheeks.
Where had he learnt to play the drum? How hard it is
I learnt myself when I once tried it. How does a city child come to
want to own a drum? And why should a happy, up-to-date young man
burst into tears when he plays a drum or sees negro films?
Years later Paul Brunton paid us a visit when he was
returning to Europe from India. I told him about my son's memories.
He asked to see the drawings. After examining them attentively, he
said, 'This kind of hut is typical of a particular tribe living on
the banks of the Zambesi in Central Africa. He has drawn it
correctly in every detail.'
'Yes, but this hat isn't an African native's hat? It
looks just like a civilized man's hat made of felt,' I said.
Brunton smiled. 'No, you're mistaken. The child is
right. The hat is indeed typical of this tribe. Only it's not made
of felt, but of bulrushes plaited together. His hunting weapon is
correctly drawn too. And the monster that bites off people's legs is
a crocodile, of course. There are many of them there. But tell me
how you came to attract a negro as your child?' he asked finally.
'I don't know how to answer that one,' I replied.
Then we both smiled and talked about other things.
This all happened several years later. My son's
first memories came that summer at the lake shore when the little
black beetle attracted his attention and he stopped playing to watch
it for a long, long time. Without knowing it, he used an Indian
method to achieve great concentration. Indian yogis do it by staring
for a long time at a black spot on the wall, or at a crystal ball.
Unknowingly, the child did the same, for the little black beetle was
like a black spot, and the boy probably fell into a trance quite
unintentionally. Thus the memory of a previous incarnation came to
life within him.
The summer went by and my condition improved. My
consciousness was clear again, and I no longer saw the world in such
a hazy fashion. The burning sensation in my blood also stopped. But
in the autumn, after our return to the city, I began to have the
same symptoms as the many women who had died from their horse serum
vaccinations. I had to go back to bed again, suffering from terrible
cramps and pains. I never would have believed that a human being can
endure such torture without dying. I completely lost control of my
body, just as if my nerves had been quite paralysed. When I wanted
to raise my hand, my hand did not budge. It was a terrifying
condition. And in my sleepless nights, I heard an ugly repugnant
voice drowning out the roaring in my ears: 'So you think you can
catch me?—Ha ha ha ...'
The doctors consulted each other again and advised
an operation.
That same evening we had a telephone call from one
of my husband's boyhood friends with whom we had kept in close
touch. He had just returned from a sojourn of many years in India.
The next day he came by to pay us a visit. Seeing me in such
miserable shape, he said, 'You know while I was in India I spent a
lot of time learning yoga under a great master. If you follow my
advice and do as I say, you will get well again. Under no
circumstances should you submit to an operation.'
I promised to do whatever he told me to.
He then showed me a few simple breathing exercises
which I could do as I lay there in bed only half alive. He told me I
should practice them often during the day, and in doing them I was
to guide and control my consciousness, I followed his
instructions to the letter.
Within a few days' time my condition was
considerably better. The pains were abating, and all my other
symptoms showed a surprising change for the better.
Within two weeks I was so much improved that I could
even stand up for a few minutes at a time. I became my self again!
I still felt minor disturbances, but our friend showed me some more
yoga exercises, and I kept on improving. By the time spring came
around, I was strong enough to travel to the seashore to spend a few
months convalescing. That blessed climate, combined with the salt
water bathing and yoga exercises, gave me back my health. During my
last four weeks there, my husband was with me and I experienced the
most beautiful period of my personal life. Only one who has
been hopelessly sick and then recovered knows what it means to be
well again!
Oh, thou unknown strength and power people call
God! I thank thee that thou hast given me back my
health; that thou hast permitted me to escape from Hell; that thou
hast enabled me to avoid becoming a burden upon my loved ones ...
enabled me to become a useful working human being again!
The sun had never been so beautiful, nor the sky so
blue, nor the sea so sparkling as that summer.
When autumn came, we went home, and soon I was back
at work in my studio.
One evening we all went to the cinema together. The
programme consisted of a number of Walt Disney films, and we got an
immense amount of fun out of watching Mickey Mouse, Pluto and Donald
Duck. Then came a film in which all three of these animals teamed up
and founded a firm to drive the ghosts and spooks out of haunted
houses. They advertised their service in the newspaper, and their
advertisement came to the attention of one of a number of ghosts who
were living together in an old castle. He straightway summoned all
the other ghosts and spooks and goblins, and indignantly read the
notice to them. Incensed at the idea that even ghosts would no
longer be able to live in peace, they all consulted together and
decided they would teach the people in this new firm a lesson. One
of them called up the firm and asked to have a man sent over.
Then
the head ghost assigned a specific task to each of the many spooks
assembled. One was to hide behind the door, another under the bed,
another inside the mirror so that anyone looking at it would see a
ghost instead of himself—all with the idea of giving the people in
Mickey & Co. such a terrible scare they would be glad to give up
their plan. When the jobs were all assigned, the chief spook gave a
signal and all his cronies disappeared by simply rolling up into
greenish phosphorescent balls which rolled away, gliding and
hopping, and disappeared in different directions, laughing
fiendishly at the idea that earthly creatures should think of trying
to catch them!
I became stiff with amazement! My younger
sister and brother began to call out, 'Look, look! Esther's green
ball! Just look at that! ...' They were so excited and so loud in
their comments, I thought for a little while the ushers were going
to throw us out of the house. They could not have known—no one could
have!—that the entire scene, as the chief spook himself rolled up
into a greenish ball, laughed fiendishly and hopped away, was just
exactly the way I had seen it long, long before!
I was thoroughly shaken. Could it really be that
other people saw these manifestations too? I did not doubt for a
moment that Walt Disney had actually seen such a greenish ball! Or
how could he have come to invent—out of pure imagination—a sequence
matching with exquisite precision exactly what I had seen long, long
before? It was absolutely too much to suppose that this was pure
coincidence. But that was not all!
A few weeks later I received a book entitled,
Aram Magic and Mysticism. It was a large collection of authentic
documents. After reading about a number of phenomena, I came to the
following quotation: ' ... how should this somebody come through a
door that was locked and bolted? Knowing full well that the door was
firmly locked, I thought: "Nobody can get in here!" Even if the door
knob is turned and the door made a noise. But what was that? There
was a rustling sound in the room, a rapping sound in the wardrobe.
It came over to my bed and made its presence known by rapping on my
bedstead, then went past my bed and tinkled on the glass of the lamp
on my night table." (page 458) And a bit further on: 'I saw nothing,
and I did not particularly try to see anything. Only the person in
the next room claims to have seen, on the floor of my room, a
light about the size of the full moon. He claims to have seen
clearly how this rolling ball of light appeared in the doorway and
disappeared behind the wall.' (page 459)
I could scarcely believe my eyes. Was I meeting this
full-moon-like ball of light again? Apparently this ball of light is
not such a rare thing. How strange! With a little reflection, we can
find an analogous example in electricity: the ball of lightning.
This ball also seems to roll through the air. There are reports
recording how such balls of lightning have bounced into a room
through a window, rolled across the room and out of another open
window without doing any damage. As long as the lightning stays
rolled up in a ball, there is no danger, but when it emerges from
this spherical form, it destroys everything in its path. In this
latter case, a ball of lightning is a thousand times more dangerous
than ordinary lightning. What then is this greenish phosphorescent
ball which can do such catastrophic damage, if not a ball of
lightning, only on another plane?
Handed down to us from incredibly ancient times,
there is this saying attributed to an outstandingly great initiate,
Hermes Trismegistos, who was said to know all the secrets of Heaven
and Earth: 'As above, so below; as below, so above.'
What a remarkable parallel phenomenon: This green
ball and the ball of lightning!
THE AYUR-VEDAS
I was working again every day in my studio.
Once while I was working, I was suddenly overcome by
unbearable restlessness. I felt as if I were really doing
nothing. Time was rushing by madly with giant strides. Days were
going by, each like the one before, and I was doing nothing.
Nothing? How come I am doing nothing?—I asked myself. I am working
all day long, studying and reading a whole library of books. When I
am tired, I play the piano. Why should I feel I am doing nothing? I
thought back about the last few years and heard an answer within me:
'You've done nothing, absolutely nothing, to alleviate the
sufferings of others. Being a wife, a mother, a sculptress—all these
things are purely personal matters.' That was true, but what could I
have done? For several years I had been waiting for higher powers to
give me an order about what I should do. I had never once heard the
voice. How am I to know what kind of 'work' I am to do?—I asked
myself. When I think back, now as I am telling this, and call up to
mind the person I was then, I simply have to smile. How naive is the
human being, the unknowing person! How could anyone be a co-worker
in the 'great plan' if he has not yet reached the goal himself? If
he has not been able to conquer himself?
But every person who awakens and sees the goal of
life goes through the growing pains of wanting to save humanity
instead of first saving himself! The higher powers actually do
see to it that every neophyte is cured of this naive idea. At that
time, however, I was not yet cured and was bent on making people
happy. Ever since I had taken my vow, I never forgot for a moment
that that's what I was living for. Various temptations which might
have been real temptations for other people or for me early in my
life, no longer presented any problems. There were men enough who
wanted to satisfy their desire for pleasure. They said they 'loved'
me. I saw quite clearly, however, that they did not even
notice me, the being I am in reality. They simply wanted
physical love; how could that have interested me after I had once
looked into nature's trap? Such desires were not even flattering for
my vanity. On the contrary, I found it degrading that men, again and
again, coveted my body.
When the conversation was ranging over profound
philosophical themes, the man with whom I was talking and who
claimed to be a friend, was enthusiastic about my 'intelligence',
but at the first opportunity he wanted to kiss me. Did he perhaps
want to kiss my intelligence?
Another was enthusiastic about my musical ability.
When I played the piano for a group of friends, he said he was a
music worshipper. Kissing my hand, he looked deep into my eyes ...
but with what sensuality. I was already acquainted with such 'music
worship' and laughed at him. How boring, how boring!
I really was attracted by music, philosophy and
psychology, in fact by all kinds of art and science, but I had to
learn again and again that most philosophers, psychologists,
astronomers, scientists, artists, just like other men, considered
sex much more interesting! The poor boys! What will they have left
when they some day lose their masculinity! Emptiness, their own
terrible emptiness! And these men wanted to convince me that I was
wasting my life because I did not want to taste sexual pleasures at
every opportunity. How debasing! Can men only see sex? Can
they not simply be human beings over and above the level of sex?
Like children who play together for the fun of playing and
not because the game concerns sex in any way.
Many people go in for music, art, theatre and
psychology only in order to be able to conquer new partners one
after the other. The Bible says: 'If ye are not like unto little
children, verily I say unto you, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom
of Heaven.' The tremendous depth of this wonderful saying became
really apparent to me when I saw the unrest and dissatisfaction of
the people who live only for sex. And these poor, empty people, when
they noticed my indifference, thought I was inhibiting my natural
urges or simply pretending. I always analysed myself very strictly,
and I never had a thought which would have attracted me to a man. I
loved my husband just as much as ever, but no longer as a woman
loving a man, but as one human being loving another! It was no
temptation, no struggle, and no 'victory' over my desires, for I
simply had no desire for a man. Ever since the night when I had
clearly recognized the deceit of physical love, I had no longer felt
myself to be a woman. In that night I became a human being, a
self, and the self has no desire for sex! The 'self' is
without sex! The self is not a half of something seeking its
complementary half; the self is a complete whole!
And when a person recognizes this truth, the body
follows!
As I cogitated on these things there in my studio, I
suddenly had the same feeling I had had years before when practising
thought transmission and when unable to pick up and carry out
another's thought. I felt such a weight on my chest that I could
scarcely breathe.
Putting down my modelling tools, I tried to
concentrate. Then, just as I had felt it years before, I felt the
strange prickling sensation throughout my whole body, and again I
heard the well-known voice which had been silent for so long, the
blessed voice: 'Why are you neglecting your spiritual abilities?'
'How shall I not neglect them? What can I do
about them?' I asked back.
'You know very well that merely being born with a
talent for music, sculpture or other arts does not mean by any
manner of means that a person is an artist. He must develop his
talent, and to do that he must practise, practise, and practise some
more! Talent without diligence and diligence without talent is
not art. But if you combine your talent with diligence, that
is real art! You have talents which you simply allow to lie
idle: the ability to express the spirit. Practise, practise,
practise ... and you will become an artist in the kingly art which
stands above all other art: in the artless art!'
My heart began to beat fast. For years I had been
waiting for an inner order as to what I should do. I had never
received an answer. There was nothing else for me to do but keep on
working and fulfilling the daily duties that life demanded of me. I
learned psychology and sculpturing. These two studies supplemented
each other wonderfully. When I was working on a bust, I delved deep
into the psychology of my model. I found all people simply
fascinating, and the more profoundly I was able to penetrate into
their psychology the better my heads turned out.
I began to realize
that a portrait and psychological analysis are one and the same kind
of work! In making a bust of a person, I had to be simultaneously
giving him psychological advice, and everyone whom I have ever
modelled has remained spiritually very close to me. My monumental
works and large compositions were also a great source of pleasure to
me. The concentration opened ever-new doors to ever-new vistas of
truth. But in the depths of my soul, I was sorry not to be hearing
'the voice' any more. I was as dry as sawdust, feeling that I had
lost contact with some power coming from a very high source.
Now this source was re-established and 'the voice'
was telling me that I should practise the artless art. How
should I practise it? Is there such a thing as an appropriate form
of exercise? If there is, I never heard of it ...
Once again and very clearly I heard the voice within
me: 'Seek!'
'Seek? Where? And how?' I asked.
There was no answer.
That evening we were invited over to the home of our
friend who, when I was dying, had saved my life by teaching me yoga
exercises and how to guide my consciousness.
We were a jolly group. The men freshened up their
schoolday memories, and I amused myself by looking at our friend's
library. One book in particular attracted me very much, and I asked
whether I might take it home.
'Of course,' said our friend. I took the book and
sat down to talk with the men. I asked our friend to tell us how and
where he had learned these yoga exercises, with which he had healed
me. He told us that he had once been invited by an Indian Maharaja
to go tiger hunting. During the hunt, his horse suddenly shied and
threw him out of the saddle in such a very unfortunate way that he
fell on his back and was not able to get up. He was carried back to
his room. The Maharaja visited him and asked him which of his two
physicians he should send, the English or the Indian.
Our friend asked for the English physician. The
latter prescribed various sedatives and pain-killing drugs, and
advised him to stay in bed. Days went by, weeks went by, and he was
still lying helpless, unable to get up, unable even to move his neck
or back. At the end of six weeks, he was still getting worse.
The Maharaja came to visit him again. 'You asked for
the English physician,' he said, 'and I sent him to you. He has been
treating you for six weeks, but your condition has only been getting
worse. I suggest you ask the advice of my Indian physician, my
Ayurvedic practitioner. He could help you.'
Our friend asked the Maharaja to send him at once.
'What is an Ayurvedic practitioner?' I asked.
'It is a person who is initiated into and acquainted
with the Ayur-Veda,' our friend replied. 'The Vedas are the holy
books of the Indians, the highest philosophy on earth. They are made
up of various parts. The Ayur-Veda is the science of health. It
contains all the secrets of the human body, diseases, methods of
healing and maintenance of health. As early as five to six thousand
years ago, these initiates had developed operative techniques for
replacing injured organs of the body with healthy organs removed
from corpses. They were able to, perform the most unbelievable
operations. They were able to replace a blind eye with a healthy
one, both in animals and humans, and they were even able to replace
an entire leg. They also knew that diseases were caused by myriads
of tiny invisible creatures which today we call bacteria. They also
regarded bacteria as the cells of the invisible body of a demonic
spirit, whereas Western scientists with the exception of a few
initiates like Paracelsus, have never made an attempt at research in
this field. The evil spirit takes possession of one or more persons,
invades the person with his body, and when this person's vibrations
coincide with those of the evil spirit, he becomes sick. However,
there are always persons whose vibrations are different from those
of the demon. These persons do not become sick. In the terms of
Western science, they are immune.
'In the holy books of India, all these disease
spirits are thoroughly described as to their appearance and even
shown in coloured pictures. They are horrible figures, each with its
characteristic appearance and colour. The demon of the plague, for
example, is a black monster and you will recall that the plague is
also called "The Black Death". The spirit of another equally fatal
disease is a yellow demon and the disease he causes is known as
yellow fever. The spirit of leprosy has a lion-like head, and you
perhaps know that lepers can be recognized from quite a distance by
the lion-like appearance of their faces. Through the face of the
leper, one can see and recognize the lion face of the spirit by
which he is possessed. Pneumonia is caused by a gigantic red demon
represented as consisting of fire and flame. And so it goes, each
disease is ascribed to a person's being possessed by a certain
specific demon.'
'Just a moment,' I interrupted. 'What did you say?
Pneumonia comes from a gigantic red demon? How interesting ...' And
a childhood memory suddenly came to light again before my eyes.
Again I saw my little brother jumping up hi bed, looking off in one
direction of the room with his eyes bulging, and screaming at the
top of his lungs, 'Mother, Mother, the red man is coming to get me!
Mother, help! ...' And I can still see how he waved his little hands
as if trying to ward off an invisible enemy. Then he fainted and
mother said, 'What he sees is nothing real; he's having an
hallucination ...' But I saw at the time it happened that this 'red
man' represented reality for the child. Apparently it was an
objective reality, as the Indians already knew several thousand
years ago! For reality is not only what we can grasp with our hands
and see with our eyes!
I told him about this experience I had had as a
child, but our friend was not surprised.
'The sick often see these demons at the moment they
become possessed by them. Sometimes later too, during the sickness
when they are fighting with the demon. Whenever they mention this,
however, people merely say they have fever and are seeing things. No
one ever seems to consider the origin of these pictures in the
imagination of the diseased, as the persons have never thought
about such things: nor why per sons suffering from the same
disease always see the same pictures without ever having spoken
to each other, or even having met and known each other.'
Then our friend went on with his story about the
Maharaja's Ayurvedic physician. He was a rather young Indian,
friendly and well bred, who later became a close friend with whom he
was still corresponding. After investigating his nervous reflexes,
the young Indian physician went away and brought back pills,
ordering him to take three a day. On parting, the young Indian
doctor smiled and said, 'In three days you'll be riding again.'
Our friend sighed in disbelief.
The next morning he was able to move his head. Then
the Indian physician came again, gave him some more pills and had
him do a few breathing exercises combined with guidance of
consciousness. The next afternoon he was able to sit up and felt a
prickling sensation in his spinal column as if new vital force were
flowing into it.
On the second day he was able to get up, walked a
few steps in the room, ate his lunch with a ravenous appetite, and
later went down to the garden.
On the third day, after waking up fresh and full of
pep, he went out for a ride.
As the friendship between the two men grew, he once
asked the Indian physician what he had given him to heal him so
miraculously.
'Our science is handed down from father to son,'
said the Indian. 'When a son is initiated into this science, he must
first make a solemn vow that he will never, under any circumstances,
betray these secrets. No one has ever yet broken this oath. I cannot
tell you the secret of these pills, but I can tell you a few things
about our science. The pills I gave you represent a chemical
compound consisting mainly of gold. This gold compound, however, is
not merely so much inert matter. On the contrary, we might even call
it "living gold". In its preparation, it was kept at a constant
moderate temperature in a hermetically sealed crucible for several
weeks.
'Through this process special properties connected
with life are developed in the gold. You know that if you keep an
egg at a constant temperature of 104° for twenty-one days, it will
hatch out in a living chick. On the other hand, if you subject the
egg to a temperature of 212° for ten minutes, the egg will harden
but never become a chicken. That is just exactly what happens with
this gold preparation. The constant temperature over several weeks'
time develops in the gold a form of energy with the same vibrations
as our "vital energy". This energy stands far above atomic energy.
It has taken millions of years for gold to develop from the ordinary
coarse matter of the earth through an exceedingly slow process.
If
we develop this process further, we can transform the gold into
another material charged with the very highest form of energy. Just
as one can magnetize a piece of ordinary iron, we can also develop
ordinary gold into magnetic or "living gold". The magnetism of the
gold, however, represents a much higher energy than the magnetism
found in iron. It has the same vibrations as our own vital energy.
In fact, it is life itself and has a miraculous effect on all
living creatures. Man may be likened to a living magnet charged with
this very highest form of energy.
'Just as a magnet loses its charge in time, but can
be re-magnetized by passing an electric current around it, in the
same way human beings can be recharged with this energy. The seat of
this vital energy is the marrow in the spinal column. In your fall
from your horse, this very delicate organ was injured and the
tension of your vital energy fell abruptly. Your organism was unable
to recover, because the healing centres themselves were injured.
These pills recharged your nerve centres, natural processes were set
in motion, and now you are well. That's all there is to it. See what
these pills do for the Maharaja. In spite of his very advanced age,
he wants to keep on demonstrating his many powers every day with his
favourite wife. With the help of these gold pills, he still retains
the powers of a young man. Unaided nature is no longer able to
supply his body with this energy, but this preparation sets his
nerve centres in motion, and that is sufficient to recharge his
sexual organs daily.'
Our friend asked the Indian physician, 'Why do you
keep your knowledge so secret? Why can't all humanity enjoy the
blessing of your science? Why don't you teach it to the English
doctors who are here?'
For a while the Indian physician looked off into the
distance. Then he said: 'Just as an egg needs to be fertilized for
the life within it to be changed from a latent state into an active
state, in the same way the preparation of this gold compound
requires a source of power to transform certain latent forces within
the gold molecules into active ones, thus changing the inert gold
into an active, vital material.
'This source of power is a human being himself.
The power of reproduction can not only be manifested by the
body, but also on another plane as energy. A hypnotist, for example,
manifests his power of reproduction on a spiritual plane and can
penetrate the mind of another person, causing certain forces to
change from a latent state to an active state, just as a sperm cell
from his body is able to unite with an ovum to set in motion a
process of life within the latter. In order to set in motion a
certain process in various materials, in this case gold, a person
needs the radiation of his own vital energy. However, if he expends
this energy through his sexual organs, he automatically puts into a
latent state the very nerve centres he needs to radiate vital energy
in its original, basic form. These nerves open and close
automatically. A person can either channel this energy into his
sexual organs or into other, higher nerve centres, but he cannot
simultaneously channel it into both!
'You can easily understand that when a father
initiates his son into this science, the son, along with his oath of
silence, must take a vow of complete continence. That's why the son
can only be initiated when he is already married and has several
sons of his own, in order that there be no interruption in the chain
of knowledge. But just show me a Western physician who would be
willing to live a life of complete continence for the sake of this
knowledge! On the contrary, it has been our experience that the
majority of your physicians want to use their knowledge to earn as
much money as possible in order to be able to satisfy their animal
instincts to the maximum extent.
'Many Western physicians have visited us and tried
all kinds of persuasion to get us to part with our secrets. We saw
that with these secrets they merely wanted to earn piles of money,
satisfy their vanity, or become famous. It is a sad fact that the
foreign power in this country even went to the extent of torturing
several of our Ayurvedic physicians in a fruitless effort to get
them to reveal their secrets. Ever since then, foreigners in India
do not meet any Ayurvedic physicians, simply because none of the
latter will admit that he is one or that he possesses any special
knowledge. We were forced to wear masks and become "mysterious
orientals". We had to pay a high price to learn this lesson.
'Nevertheless I can tell you this much: All through
the years there have been foreign physicians who for high-minded,
truly humanitarian reasons sought to acquire our knowledge and were
willing to take the oath of Brahmacharya (continence). These doctors
have received initiation and are working with us. On the other hand,
they keep their knowledge just as secret as we do. When humanity has
progressed to such a point that the majority of doctors are willing
to forego their sexual lusts in order to be able to heal, Indian
Ayurvedic physicians will be willing to reveal this secret knowledge
to them. At present, however, people in the West use all of their
inventions to harm each other. Take dynamite, for example, and
aeroplanes. What have they done with these things? Made them into
new weapons! What would they do if they knew the secret of cosmic
energy and of the still higher vital energy? They'd merely figure
out new ways to kill each other off and earn still more money! War
is business! and what's this business for? Why do people run after
more and more money? In order to indulge their sexual pleasures,
lusts and perversities to a greater extent. You ask why we do not
reveal our secrets! The answer is that foreign doctors really do not
want them. When they hear that they would have to give up their
lusts in order to acquire this knowledge, they lose interest right
away. They simply cannot believe that by paying such a cheap price
they could learn the secret of all life. It's much easier for them
not to bother to make a single attempt, but merely to poke ridicule
at Orientals.
'Most of the foreigners who come to our country
think that the highest happiness on earth is the satisfaction of
their sexual desire. How could they ever know anything about the
tremendous power that a spiritual person possesses if they never
make an attempt themselves to attain it? This power cannot be
acquired through either money or might. The price is renunciation!
But the people who have paid this price have quickly discovered that
they really did not need to give up anything. They find, on
the contrary, that they have discovered immortal happiness in the
place of mortal ... a permanent state of pleasure instead of a
transitory one. No one can make a better bargain! But we do not
discuss these things. These secrets cannot be understood with the
intellect alone.
'Spirit cannot be understood, it can only be
experienced. One can only be spirit. We are content to let
others travel the path of the intellect. They have already
accomplished much and will still accomplish more. But the "highest
truth" will always remain hidden for the person who merely follows
his intellect and never learns the bliss of pure being to
which the path of renunciation leads. People in the West have made
the Oriental yogi a comic book character. Is it any wonder that the
initiates do not reveal their secrets but merely withdraw and remain
unreachable for Western people?
'I have told you all of this because I can see that
you're not interested in our sciences purely out of curiosity, but
rather because of deep spiritual desire. You seek the truth. You
seek God! We are ready and glad to help such people. I'll give you a
bit of advice: If you want to make faster progress and plunge deeper
into the secrets of human life, practise yoga!'
The Indian doctor went on to explain that for many
thousands of years the Orientals have been discovering and
perfecting various methods by which people can reach the goal of
happiness, a goal everyone carries in his heart regardless of how
ignorant he may be or how low his individual state of consciousness.
Right here on earth people can reach this fulfilment, this
salvation, this state of eternal bliss—or as Orientals call it,
Nirvana. The door is open for every person when he finds the key.
This key is yoga!
Our friend's Indian doctor went on to explain that
every human act or activity which is done with concentration is
actually yoga, as the only way we have of reaching the great goal is
through concentration. In studying yoga systematically, however, we
learn techniques for developing and improving our powers of
concentration, and these are methods which have been perfected
through thousands of years. There are various paths in yoga:
physical, mental, and spiritual exercises in concentration. These
exercises develop the highest abilities of the human being, opening
up his spiritual eyes, his spiritual ears, and teaching him to be
master of himself ... master of creative forces ... master of the
forces of fate. The pathway to happiness is opened up, or to express
it another way, the path to self-realization—to God! The
highest and at the same time the most difficult yoga path is that of
Raja Yoga. Raja means 'king', and if we translate the term
literally, we find that this yoga path is known as 'regal yoga' or
'majestic yoga'. It is the shortest path, but at the same time the
steepest and bumpiest. It is the pathway Jesus taught in the Bible.
With patience and perseverance, however, one reaches the goal.
My husband's schoolboy friend went on with his
story: 'The Indian physician showed me the basic exercises of Yoga,
the ones I snowed you. But later he told me how to get into touch
with one of the greatest living yogis. I went to him. He was a man
over eighty years old, but he did not look to be over forty. He was
a Hatha Yogi. These yogis know all the secrets of the body. They are
able to maintain their bodies in constant and perfect health for
several hundred years if they want to. The Indians claim that in the
mountains there are yogis living today who are seven hundred and
eight hundred years old.'
My husband began to laugh: 'Now I'll tell one! Seven
hundred years old? Not bad at all, but at that point you woke up,
right?'
'See,' our friend answered quite seriously, 'you are
a true Occidental. Just because there are some things you haven't
heard about, this doesn't mean by any manner of means that they
don't exist. The Orientals know much more about the science of man
than we in the West, but they have learnt to keep quiet. From the
time the first Occidentals arrived in the Orient, they have done all
kinds of things that have made the Orientals keep silent. Even
today they can still keep their secrets. I saw things in India
that taught me to be very cautious about laughing other people out
of court.'
'O.K., O.K.,' my husband answered, 'I believe too
that there must be some way of living longer when we think that even
here in the West the human life span is constantly being lengthened
in spite of all we do to shorten it with nicotine, alcohol and wrong
living habits. Fifty or sixty years ago the average life span was
thirty-five years, whereas now it's around sixty. Makes one wonder
what the limit is! Medical science is progressing with giant
strides. Who knows how far we'll go?'
'See—your real conviction is not cynical at all. But
here in the West we don't dare admit what we believe just because it
isn't considered the thing to do. To talk about things we don't
understand we always try to affect a superior, cynical manner. I
have great respect for what our scientists know, but they act as if
they knew all the secrets of life, whereas they are completely
ignorant about death. The Orientals have discovered the secret of
life and death, but their one and only weapon against the cynicism
of the West is silence. No wonder. Here's an example.
An Indian
showed me a cigarette lighter. It was a little figure of Buddha
sitting in the so-called lotus posture, a cheap lighter such as one
could get at any bazaar. He told me, "An Oriental would never use
the figure of Christ for a cigarette lighter, because we feel
respect for the sacred symbols of other religions, just as for our
own. We know that one and the same God stands above and
behind all the various sacred symbols!" So saying, he gently put
down the Buddha cigarette lighter on his household altar. As a
Westerner, I felt deeply ashamed, and I often wonder when we in the
West will wake up and have enough sense not to go on constantly
insulting Orientals by such offences against tact, respect, and good
taste. Just think, too, about all our Western films that deal with
the Orient. Orientals see these films too, and I'm sure you can
guess what they think about them. But they are silent ...'
I asked our friend, 'Are there books about yoga?'
'The most beautiful and the most sacred book of the
Indians is the Bhagavad Gita. In it you can read the most
beautiful description of the spiritual path to self-development
through Raja Yoga. That's what I would recommend to you.'
I had heard enough.
That very evening I wanted to begin reading the book
our friend had loaned me. I lay down comfortably in bed, took the
book and opened it.
To my great surprise, I saw it was not the book I
had chosen! I turned it around and looked at the title on the back.
How strange! I had read the title while browsing through our
friend's books, and I now remembered distinctly that I had taken out
the book I wanted. Could I have made a mistake and pulled out the
book next to it? Apparently. But now that I had this book, I wanted
at least to look at it. It immediately awakened my interest. On the
outside it looked like a modern book. But inside it contained a
very, very old manuscript. The paper was yellow and brown with age,
full of traces of worms. Both the dark black ink as well as the
writing showed that the book was very old indeed. The more I read,
the more surprised and excited I became ... until finally my hands
fairly trembled with the enforced suspense as I devoured page after
page.
The manuscript told about a secret spiritual order
that was as old as the earth itself. Without any external, visible
form of 'membership', the order was constantly taking in neophytes
who came in contact with it without actually knowing anything about
it. This 'coming into contact' occurred when a person reached such a
state of development that he completely gave up his own person and
dedicated his entire life to alleviating the sufferings of others.
Whenever a person has reached this decision, a member of the secret
order gets in spiritual touch with him, or rather the individual who
has decided to give up his person and thus has reached universal
love has reached a stage in his development such that he
automatically responds to the vibrations flowing among the members
of this secret spiritual fraternity. First he hears within himself
the voice of the spiritual leader and guide, warning him about the
difficulties, dangers and consequences of his decision. If he still
sticks to his decision, this 'order' which exists to help humanity
climb up out of chaos, accepts him as a member.
At first he is on probation without actually knowing
it. This probationary period begins immediately and for seven
long years the neophyte is left completely on his own. During
this time he has no contact with the order, no matter how much he
may desire and seek it. But the various tests he must pass come one
after the other. Seven of them relate to the human virtues: becoming
free of sensuality, vanity, anger, covetousness, envy, sensitivity—
then on the other side, th6 ability to withstand outside influences.
If he passes all of these tests in spite of being
entirely on his own, and if he sticks by his decision, he is
considered ready to begin his work and is definitely accepted within
the order. On the very same day, he learns about his acceptance
through an 'apparent' coincidence. From then on he receives thorough
training and, simultaneously, specific tasks. At first these tasks
are easy, and as he performs them satisfactorily, they become
progressively more difficult. The tasks are very different. Some
neophytes must work in public, others behind the scenes. Some roam
the countryside as beggars, others are very rich. In either case
they must fulfil their duties. Some work as assistants of famous
discoverers, others as writers or lecturers. Some hold positions of
great worldly power, while others may hold down jobs as workmen in
huge factories. It can even happen that two members of the order
appear to be working against each other. Such persons are not
permitted to reveal in any way at all that they belong together and
are in contact with each other. Sometimes they are celebrated and
enjoy tremendous popularity; at other times they may live in abject
misery and be subjected to privations and degradations. They must
fulfil all their tasks in a completely free and impersonal manner,
simply as servants within the great plan. And as they perform their
tasks, they must bear full responsibility for their each and
every act! They receive their assignments, but they must figure
out themselves how to carry them out in complete awareness of the
responsibility they bear for everything they do. The higher they
rise, the greater their responsibility.
Anyone who refuses to bear the responsibility for
his acts and his work, and tries to unload this responsibility on
another member of the order, anyone who does not recognize his
work as his own, personally chosen task but tries to make it appear
that he is acting on the instructions of the order or as a spiritual
tool of a member of the order—such a person is a traitor and
instantly loses all contact with the order. He does not know,
however, that he has lost contact, and it is possible for him to go
on for years believing himself to be a co-worker within the order.
Such persons are used by the order to test other people and find out
whether they accept and follow false prophets or whether they have
progressed far enough in thinking independently and reaching their
own decisions so that they weigh every word they hear and only
accept it after it has passed examination. Those who follow false
prophets are still blind, allowing themselves to be led by blind,
and both fall by the wayside.
Membership of the order is restricted to persons who
are completely self-reliant and able to resist influence. They must
not be people who do good or avoid doing evil merely
out of a spirit of obedience or because they expect to be rewarded
and 'go to Heaven', or because they fear punishment and want to
avoid going to Hell. On the contrary, the order's members must be
persons who always— in life and death—follow their own deepest
conviction and act accordingly! This is because the members
hear the order's messages in their own hearts, as their own
profoundest convictions!
I read these lines with ever mounting excitement.
Renounce earthly pleasures? How I remembered the night when I sobbed
so desperately in bed! ... Can one renounce them any more
definitively than I did then? Sincere and deep desire to alleviate
the sufferings of others? God alone knows how earnest was the vow I
took that time in my room, thinking intently about the terrible
sufferings of the mentally ill and the incessant, unremitting pains
and troubles of all people all over the world! Now I remembered the
warnings I so clearly heard then, and the awesome feeling of being
alone, the desperate feeling of being completely abandoned for many
long years! How many years since that time? Seven years! Yes,
exactly seven! And today, this curious coincidence with the book.
Coincidence? No! It was a message ... a message!
I was shaken to the depths of my being by this
experience! As was my custom, I examined the whole matter again with
my mind and intellect, for I never stopped using my intellect as a
means of testing and checking. But what could my intellect say now?
I knew best that all this was so. What else could my
intellect do but simply recognize the facts? Even the most sceptical
intellect would be silenced in the face of so many coincidences! No,
I could not doubt it: I had been accepted!
I was overcome by a feeling of inexpressible
happiness and gratitude. I felt the grace of God, his blessing, deep
humility, and a profound sense of awe. In this condition, I have
remained ever since.
THERE WAS LIGHT
It was strikingly noticeable that from this time on
more and more people— men and women, old and young—came to me for
advice on how to find their paths to happiness. More and more
'seekers' came to me for help. I felt, however, that I was still in
extreme darkness. How should I be able to help others? How should I
be able to heal the many wounds in the souls of people about me if I
myself had not yet solved the puzzle of life and death?
The most important thing was for me to escape from
my own darkness. I 'searched' in whatever direction my inner voice
advised me, and tried to make progress through reading good books. I
found a book describing the secret exercises of Raja Yoga, that is,
the path to the self. I wanted to begin these exercises immediately,
for I had reached the point where I knew that reading is only
necessary in order to know what one must do! If we want to
reach the goal— the self—we must bring what we know into
actuality! I wanted reality, not only beautiful descriptions and
theories. On the other hand, spiritual yoga demands the strictest
asceticism.
I spoke with my husband. He was always my best
friend and knew how vitally important it was for me to find the
answer to the three great questions: Whence, whither, why? He
gave his consent to my ascetic exercises.
My father had bought an estate in the mountains.
There in the forest we had a little house into which I now moved all
alone. At that time my son was away from home, studying, and
returned only for holidays, while my husband was constantly
travelling and saw me only at weekends.
The large terrace in front of the house offered a
glorious view off into the valley where the vast plains began. It
was almost like looking off into infinity. At the foot of the
mountain a wide river wove its way slowly and majestically out into
the distance. On the farther shore, roads and highways formed the
veins and arteries of a giant body and the cars travelling about
seemed like tiny cells within the gigantic bloodstream. Everything
was diminutive, the villages with their little doll houses, and the
tiny, busy ant-like people.
The other window looked out into the forest where
one could walk for hours and hours in the awesome silence. Pheasants
often ventured up to the house, and deer frequently came quite
close. At night one could hear them trotting by. Doors and windows
were heavily barred against wild boar and other dangerous animals.
Here I lived quite alone. Every morning I found my
day's supply of fresh milk on the terrace, then went downstairs to
the wood cellar, chopped my day's supply, and built a fire in my
stove. Then I began my exercises. This forest house was an ideal
place to practise yoga. The entire region was famous for its
awe-inspiring atmosphere. The peace and quiet in the forest and the
primeval purity of nature round about were so great that every one
who came by tended to rise up in spirit in contemplation and
meditation—even without yoga exercises. Everyone who visited this
sylvan retreat became more sensitive to higher vibrations. Their
latent organs of psychic sense developed. While living here I was
able to perform without exertion the most difficult exercises in
concentration and meditation.
For something to study I took a collection of old
figures of the Rosicrucians dating from the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. It was truly a treasure chest of the greatest
wisdom. When I had finished my concentration exercises lasting
several hours, I meditated on these wonderful symbolic
representations of profoundest truth, and step by step the hidden
secrets of this book revealed themselves to my marvelling spiritual
eyes. Another subject I studied while here in reclusion in the
forest was Oriental philosophy, primarily the Vedas and the
Upanishads.
The long exercises in concentration and meditation
helped me to penetrate, step by step, into the profoundest regions
of my psyche. With these exercises I set forces in motion which kept
on working during the time I devoted to everyday activities, and
even during the time I was sleeping. Sometimes as I wandered through
the forest there arose within me pictures of places I knew well
without being able to identify them, for I had never seen them in
this life. While I was awake, and even in my dreams at night, I saw
people whom I also knew, and in some cases knew very well, but whom
I had never seen in this life. Their clothing and their names were
strange, and their language in which we communicated in my dreams
was quite different from any language I had ever heard in this life.
Whenever I sat down to meditate and turned my
attention inwards, I was aware of a greenish-blue phosphorescent
light within me ... a light which seemed to come from the invisible
eyes of a great and wonderful spirit being. An indescribable kind of
strength, love and goodness radiated to me from these eyes. With a
sense of absolute confidence I plunged into this source of loving
power. I felt myself in security, and without any trace of fear. I
delved deeper and ever deeper into the unknown world of the
unconscious.
Then once, quite unexpectedly, the light drove away
the darkness, which had been hiding both the past and the truth, and
everything became clear.
When I had seated myself to practice meditation, the
phosphorescent light appeared before my inner eye as usual. Then I
felt with even greater clarity than ever before that the source of
light lay in the eyes of a powerful being whom I knew well. Little
by little they became so clear that I no longer merely felt—I
knew—that they were looking at me. I felt their glance, their
brilliance, their power, their light and their love shining upon me,
and in the next moment, as an effect of this glance, the last
remnant of cloudy haze in my consciousness disappeared, and before
me there stood, as if emerging from darkness, a majestic figure with
two dark blue, infinitely deep eyes, His figure, His
face and His eyes: —HE!
22
PAST BECOMES PRESENT
He stood there and looked at me calmly. This
radiant glance with its heavenly peace gave me strength to bear the
soul-shaking experience and the infinite joy of seeing Him
again. His noble face was unmoving, but His eyes were smiling at me,
and I knew that He was happy that I had at last come fully
awake and was seeing Him again. For He has always seen
me. His eyes have always been able to penetrate the mists covering
my consciousness. He saw all my struggles, all my pains and
sorrows, and He has never once abandoned me. On the contrary,
He has helped me to wake up and become conscious.
The memory seized me powerfully, and the hazy
pictures I had been carrying inside myself without being able to
bring them into conscious focus suddenly became sharp and clear. New
pictures emerged into my consciousness, new memories which had been
lying hidden and buried in the depths of my subconscious. Now,
fitting together like the stones in a mosaic, they formed the
perfect picture of a past life in a land beside the great river, the
Nile, in the land of the Pyramids ...
The memory pictures came ever more alive, while the
impressions of my present life gradually paled, turning over their
place to the re-awakened consciousness of a person I once was. The
environment in which I sat, the simple little room in the house in
the forest ... the beautiful view out over the river in the valley
... disappeared bit by bit. And He too was nowhere to be
seen. The room opened and spread out about me. I found myself in a
great hall, in my own chamber, and I became aware of a fat and
lovable woman smiling at me joyously ...
Yes of course! Today is my sixteenth birthday, and I
am just putting on my festive robes. I am to wear them at the great
reception in which my father is to present me to the representatives
of the country as his wife, successor to the Queen who died an early
death.
In a great oval silver plate which has been hammered
and polished with loving care and high art, I see my own figure, my
own picture, and I watch my dear old Menu as she dresses me.
My mother died while I was still very young, and I
have only a vague memory of how pale she was ... and how fine. In
the treasure chest of my precious recollections, I still see her
great, sad eyes as she took her last long, long look at me before
she died. This last, long, loving glance created a contact between
us which I still feel within me, and today when I am to be presented
to the country as her representative, I feel this contact even
deeper, even stronger.
Now fully robed and ready I stand before my mirror
and look at my image. I like it! I see a fine, delicate, slender
person in a beautiful robe ... scintillating, silken with golden
hems. The golden sash about her waist enhances her slender-ness, her
broad collar emphasizes her shoulders and the kerchief around her
head accentuates the self-confident and superior expression in her
face. I am vain; I like what I see in the mirror. And dear, old,
warm-hearted Menu, who considers me the most perfect being on earth,
can hardly see through the tears of joy welling up in her eyes.
The two oldest representatives of the country come
and lead me down the long corridor into the great reception hall.
With slow, ceremonious steps, they lead me between the rows of
people of rank to the 'Great House'—to the Pharaoh—to my father who
is now to be my husband. He sits on a golden throne like an image of
God. It is not without reason that his name, Phar-ao, means
'Great House'. His person is the outer integument, the 'house' of
God. God dwells in him, manifests himself in him, radiates through
him. The power of his glance is so penetrating that people who are
not completely true are compelled to look aside. He is sitting there
looking straight at me, through me! I look back at him fearlessly,
engaging his glance with mine. I know the tremendous power radiating
from his eyes is the power of love. He sees everything. He sees that
I am vain, just as he sees all my other imperfections, but he
understands everything. He is love itself, he is my father!
A magnificent lion, his lion, sits motionless beside
the throne. Majestic and dignified, it is a symbol of the supreme
power of the Pharaoh. I arrive at the steps to the throne and stand
still. The Pharaoh rises, comes down, turns to the magnificent jewel
box the Chamberlain holds out to him, lifts out the most beautiful
creation of the goldsmith's craftsmanship: a golden shoulder collar.
Picking it up lovingly, he lays it over my shoulders. Then he takes
the golden hoop that ends with the head of a serpent and fastens it
firmly on to the white silken cloth over my forehead. It is the
symbol of the members of the ruling race, the Sons of God. It is the
symbol of the initiates ...
Then taking my right hand, the Pharaoh leads me up
to the throne. We turn to the representatives of the country and the
people of rank, and he presents me to them as the representative of
the Queen, as his wife. We seat ourselves, I to his left, somewhat
ahead of him. Now the people of rank with their wives, the eldest
among them first, pass by us slowly, and bow low with outstretched
arms, first before the Pharaoh and then before me. We sit
motionless. Only our eyes make contact with each and all as they
move by. I think of the fact that I now manifest the spirit of my
dear mother, and this makes me aware of my duty and responsibility.
The people of rank pass by and I see their souls
reflected in their eyes. In some there is real love and respect, in
others envy, curiosity or cowardly servility. The Supreme
Chamberlain, Roo-Kha, also bows before me. As he has so often done
before when I have met him in the palace, he gives me a glance that
is somewhat cynical, impertinent, and flatteringly intimate all at
the same time.
I answer his impertinence with a cold stare, and the
procession marches slowly onward. Then I see friends of mine, old
and young, some of them former playmates, their faces full of
genuine love. I meet their glances with mine, and this union
enriches us. Slowly, ceremoniously, all the people pass by us,
silently, but united in spirit.
The lengthy procession finally comes to an end. The
Pharaoh stands up and reaches me his hand. Slowly we descend the
steps, and, walking between the rows of statesmen and people of
rank, leave the room. Leading me into his chamber, my father seats
himself, waves me to a seat, and looks at me smilingly for a while
in silence. I can see that I am pleasing to him. From head to foot
his glance moves over my figure with satisfaction. Then, looking me
happily in the eye, he says, 'From now on we'll see each other
often, for you will take your mother's place and fulfil her duties
before the public. For many years we have been preparing you for
this task, and you know your duties. I want you to have a happy
memory of this day of days, so you may make a wish. You've known for
some time that I was going to ask you what you wanted, so tell me
now. What is it?'
Yes I was prepared, and like other young women, I
could have had a number of wishes. I could have asked for beautiful
jewellery, for I knew I could wear the great festive jewels only on
occasions of high ceremony. Or I could have wished to travel, or
asked for a young trained lion, or for something else of the sort.
But I didn't want any of these things!
'Father,' I said, 'what is the significance of the
ornament I am wearing on my head?'
The Pharaoh looks at my forehead, then into my eyes,
then answers, 'The golden snake is the symbol of the ruling race,
the Sons of God.'
'Yes, father, but it is also the symbol of
initiation. I am not worthy to wear it because I haven't been
initiated. I want to be initiated! That's the wish I want you to
fulfil for me!'
Father becomes very earnest. 'Ask for something
else, my child,' he says.
'You are still very young and not yet mature enough
to receive initiation. Tender young sprouts must not be exposed to
hot sunshine; otherwise they burn up and can never blossom. Wait
till you've acquired the necessary experiences in earthly, physical
life. To be initiated now would make your later problems much, much
harder for you to solve. Why cause yourself unnecessary troubles?
Take my advice and wish for something else.'
'Father,' I answered, 'there's nothing else I want.
The things other young people like just bore me stiff. Above and
beyond all earthly joys I see the wishes of the body. I like
beautiful jewels very much, but even gold is a form of matter which
is made precious through a manifestation of the spirit, through the
work of the artisan. Naturally I enjoy beautiful scenery and new
sights when I'm travelling, but I can never forget that this is all
creation, not the creator. I should like to experience the
highest truth in its reality. I want to learn to know God, the
creator himself! Father, you know that what we call life
is only an unreal dream. Here everything slips out of our hand, we
can never be definitely happy about anything, everything is merely a
transition between past and future. But I want to experience the
eternal present which will never become the past and which was
never the future. And I want to find that condition or "place" which
was never "there" before I reached it, becomes "here"
when I reach it and turns into "there" again when I go on. I
want to experience the eternal present in time and space.
Father, I want the highest reality—I want initiation!'
Even as he listens to me, father becomes sadder and
sadder. 'Your spiritual awakening has come earlier than it should
have,' he says. 'All I can do is to go to my brother Ptahhotep, the
High Priest of the Temple and the Head of our race. I will speak
with him, and he will take you under his guidance. May God's eternal
light illumine your pathway.'
He lays his hand upon my head and blesses me. I
should like to throw myself upon his breast to thank him for
granting my wish, but my heavy golden collar holds me back and keeps
me from making any sudden motions. Father, who can read a person's
every thought, sees that I wanted to express my joy through this
sudden outburst. 'In one way you are still a big child,' he says
kindly, 'and in others you are grown up and mature. You'll have to
practise great self-control if you want to be initiated.'
I answer with a laugh, 'I already have self control
Father, when I want it.'
'Yes, I believe you, but do you always want it?' he
asks with a smile.
'It's boring to always exercise self control,
Father.'
'That's just the trouble,' he replies with a loving
nod. 'There's danger in your finding self control boring. Just
remember, if, even for a second, you do not keep your will directed
towards your favourite lion and if he attacks you in this weak
moment, you're lost. The low self is just as much an animal in its
nature as a lion is. We must keep both of them under constant
control; then they serve us with their gigantic strength. Always pay
attention!'
We take leave of each other. He escorts me to the
door and turns me over to the two elders waiting in the antechamber.
Oh, what a nuisance these ceremonies are. Why do I have to walk in
such a slow and dignified manner between these two old men, just to
get back to my own room? I'd like to run down the long corridor and
burst into my room where my Menu will be waiting for me full of
excitement and curiosity. But no! I have to walk ... with
dignity and majesty ... so the beautiful golden collar on my
shoulders will not slip off askew. Finally we reach my door
where—with dignity and majesty—I take leave of the two elders. I
walk in and stop inside the doorway so that Menu can admire me in my
glittering gold ornaments. She is truly beside herself at the sight
of my beauty and my majestic movements and because, as she expresses
it, I look so much like my mother.
Then I tell her, 'Do you see how ignorant you are,
Menu? I can't look like anybody else, and I don't like to have you
say things like that. My nose or my mouth can perhaps resemble my
mother's, but I? Can you ever really see me, the real
me, my self? You see only my body, the dwelling place of my
self, but you never see my self. How then can I look
like somebody else?'
'Oh ho,' says Menu, 'if I can't see you, how
come you are so beautiful? Just tell me that! If I can't
see you, then what I do see here in front of me and what I
consider so beautiful is not really you but merely the
dwelling place of yourself, so you are not beautiful at all!
Then don't stand there looking so proud and majestic!'
At this we both burst out laughing. Despite her
limited intellect, Menu can often give me such a wise and witty
answer that I am ashamed of myself. Yes, she has discovered my
weakness, my vanity. Then with infinite tenderness she removes my
golden collar and the ornamental band from my head, laying them with
tender care in the jewel chest, because the Chancellor, Roo-Kha, is
waiting outside with the two ornament bearers to carry these
precious works of gold back to the treasure chamber to await the
next high ceremony in court. He enters my antechamber and bows
before me. This man annoys me, because I see he is not bowing out of
respect for me, but because he must. He gives me another
saucily intimate look, while I do my best to look as dignified and
regal as possible. Then at last I am alone with Menu.
Menu became my nurse when my mother died. She was
and still is my bodily servant, and I am much more intimate with her
than with the ranking ladies of the court who have taken on the duty
of bringing me up and educating me. From the bottom of her heart.
Menu loves me with such infinite affection that I could do with her
whatever I wanted. She has always been absolutely delighted with
everything I've ever said or done, and I have never had a wish that
she would not fulfil blindly if it was within her power to do so.
She was always close to me, or somewhere near by, and now that I
have to take on public duties beside my father, she has started to
worry that I might keep her more and more at a distance. But I love
her with a boundless confidence because I know and can, read in
people's eyes that no one else in my father's court loves me so
sincerely, so unreservedly, so completely uncalculatingly as Menu.
I saw my father only seldom during my childhood. He
was and is a 'great man' in our country. For he came to the earth
with the duty of guiding and governing people in their earthly
life. He dedicated his life to the task of showing the sons of
men how to govern a country in such a way that all its inhabitants
can develop happily. This task gave him so much to do that he had
very little time left for me. Every day he spent a few minutes in
the garden where I was playing with the children of the Royal
family, or he arranged for me to visit him for a few minutes in his
chamber.
When I was still quite small, he would pick me up in
his arms or crouch down beside me on the floor for a while. Then he
would look at me with endless love, bless me and go away. He always
spoke to me just as if he were speaking to an adult. In our race,
known as 'the Sons of God', it is not considered important at all
whether we have been on earth for a long time or only a short time,
or whether a spirit is living here on earth in a still undeveloped
body—as a child— or in a developed body—as an adult. This question
of size and age is only considered important among the sons of men,
who are so closely tied to their bodies and identify themselves with
their physical instrument to such an extent that they completely
forget their true nature as spirit independent of time and place.
The sons of men believe that someone can actually be 'small' or
'large'.
But the members of our race, the Sons of God, even
keep their spiritual consciousness when they are born into their
bodies. They never forget that only the body can be 'a child' or 'an
adult' and that the spirit is and always remains the same. It is
neither 'big' nor 'small', neither 'young' nor 'old', for spirit is
independent of the world of time and space! This is why my
relationship with my father was never disturbed at all by the fact
that we were of different ages and seldom saw each other. As I grew
older, father sometimes took me along on his walks, and when I would
get tired, he would pick me up and carry me in his mighty arms as he
went on talking about all the secrets of nature. I found such
discourses of his extremely fascinating, and I once said to him,
'Father, I'd like to know so much about everything, just like you
do!'
'When you are initiated,' he answered,
'all the secrets of Heaven and earth will be known to you.'' I
never forgot these words of his, and I waited patiently for the time
when I too would be initiated.
Although I was always living among strange people, I
never felt alone because of this. I knew my father understood me
completely, and even though we were not near each other physically,
I was united with him in spirit, I belonged to him. And in the same
way I was united with my mother. She was no longer living in the
body, yet I was indissolubly united with her in spirit. It is
astounding to realize how little the unity of the spirit depends on
physical togetherness! My dear Menu, for example, is almost always
with me, scarcely leaving me alone for a moment, and still I
am not with her. She can love me but not understand me. She hardly
thinks for herself any more, and scarcely lives except for me; she
lives in me and is completely in my power, even though I do not
exploit this situation. Father told me once that one should never
abuse the power arising from superiority of the mind.
Right now Menu is as happy as if my father had
presented her to the court as his wife, as if she were
so beautiful, and as if she had been given my ornaments as a
representative of the queen. Oh, my dear old Menu! And now,
naturally enough, she asks me what wish I asked my father to grant.
'Initiation of course!' I reply.
'What?' Menu cries out in horror. 'Initiation? You
don't mean to say you want to leave the court and join the neophytes
in the temple? Why didn't you ask for beautiful jewels? Or to have
Imhotep, the artist, make a statue of you? —Or anything else, except
initiation!'
'Why get so excited?' I ask in reply. 'The one and
only thing I want is initiation, and that's all. And how could
anything make me happy that is not in me, not myself,
but hanging outside on my body so that I don't even see it? I now
even own the jewels with which people will some day adorn my body,
after I have left it, when they put it into a tomb, so that people
may know that I belong to the race of the Sons of God. I have these
jewels right now, but still don't feel happier in any way than
before. And for the same reason people will immortalize my outward
form. Why should I wish for such things? Who cares what the sons of
men will say a few thousand years from now about the statues of my
outward form? The only thing which can make me happy is what is in
me, what is identical with me, but not things outside myself.
The only thing that can make me truly happy is an inward experience
through which, in spite of my earthly body, I can earn the ultimate
truth in life. I want to be initiated!'
Menu groans in desperation, as if I had asked for
death itself: 'Oh, I know, no one can talk to you. When you have
your mind set on something, it just has to happen. But I feel
initiation is going to bring you into great danger. Don't wish for
that! Wish for something else, please! What did the Pharaoh say to
your idea?'
'He has given his permission for me to see his
brother, Ptahhotep, and now
please stop groaning. Don't spoil the whole day for
me!'
23
HE
That evening, I leave the palace with Menu. Wearing
heavy veils, we walk through the long colonnade from the palace to
the temple, on our way to the High Priest, my father's brother, the
son of God, Ptahhotep. Ptahhotep is the highest of all
priests. At the same time, however, he is the highest physician and
architect, because he knows and masters all the secrets of nature.
He has come to earth with the duty and the task of leading the sons
of men in their spiritual life and initiating them in the
sciences. He stands above father because he never identified himself
with his body, whereas father married and thus anchored himself more
firmly in the material plane.
Without talking, we make our way to the temple. Menu
has learned to keep silent when I am withdrawn in thought. A
neophyte awaiting us before the temple takes me inside. Menu remains
in the antechamber. At the end of another long colonnade, Ptahhotep
awaits me in a little reception room. The neophyte remains outside.
There HE sits, the representative of God.
I see Him for the first time close to, and
his eyes overpower me. Oh, these eyes! Dark blue, such a deep dark
blue that they look almost black. They are so dark because they are
bottomless, as endlessly deep as the vault of heaven itself. When
one looks into the eyes of the sons of men, one easily sees the
bottom. In their eyes, one sees their soul, their whole character.
One sees individual eyes. Ptahhotep's eyes are completely
different. These eyes have no bottom at all, and looking at them is
like looking into the infinity of the sky on a starry night. In
these eyes there is nothing personal, nothing individual, only an
endless depth where eternity is at home. The whole world, all
creation lies within these eyes. I have recognized myself in these
eyes, and from the very first moment felt absolute confidence
because I know these eyes know me and contain me within
themselves. I know I am in Him, and He is in me
and loves me as Himself because I actually am He and
He and I are a complete unity. He is Love
incarnate, and I feel this infinite love penetrating me, glowing
within me.
Moved to the depths of my being, I fall to my knees
before Him.
Ptahhotep holds out his hand, raises me to my feet,
and says, 'My little daughter, never bend your knees before a
visible form. Do not humble within yourself the divinity that
every living being carries within itself. The same God manifests
himself through you, through me and through the entire created
world. God alone is the only one before whom you can fall to
your knees. Now rise and tell me why you've come.'
'Father of my Soul,' I say as I arise, 'I want
initiation.'
Ptahhotep asks, 'Do you know what initiation is?
What does it mean to you when you say you want to be initiated?'
'I don't know exactly what it consists of, but I
want to be omniscient. I feel like a prisoner in my body, as if I
were feeling my way around in darkness, completely at the mercy of
invisible forces I do not know and therefore cannot control. I want
to be able to see everything clearly, I want to be all-knowing like
you and father and the other initiates.'
Ptahhotep answers, 'Initiation means becoming
conscious. You are now conscious to a degree corresponding to
the resistance of your nerves and body. When a person becomes
conscious to a higher spiritual degree, he automatically guides
higher, stronger, more penetrating powers into his body. For this
reason, he must also raise the level of resistance of his nerves and
body. To achieve the supreme, divinely creative degree of
consciousness, while at the same time increasing the resistance of
the nerves to the supreme degree in order to be able to endure this
divine condition without harm to the body—that's what initiation
means. Initiation also entails omnipotence and omniscience.'
'I understand, Father of my Soul, and that is just
exactly what I am longing for.'
Ptahhotep looks at me silently for a time, and I
feel his glance going completely through every fibre of my being.
Finally he says, 'You will be initiated, but not
now. You are not ready for it yet in every respect. You have not yet
learned to control the divinely creative power within your body.
And if you make yourself conscious of this power on the
spiritual plane before having learned to control it in its physical
manifestation, this would mean a very great danger for you.'
'What kind of danger, Father of my Soul?'
'There would be the danger of your possibly burning
your nerve-centres. If you achieve the highest level of spiritual
consciousness and thus acquire control over this power you could do
yourself great harm by guiding this power into your lower nerve
centres. In this case your consciousness would sink lower than the
level at which it was born in this life. You have no experience yet
in the guidance of this power. The awakening of consciousness must
begin on the lowest level in the scale of manifestations, because
then you will only be guiding into your body power corresponding to
the level of your development, i.e. power your nerves can bear
without harm. In this way the nerves have strong enough resistance
to carry the forces conducted into them.'
'Father of my Soul,' I reply, 'what does it mean
to conduct divine power into the body and to experience this
power in the body? How can I learn to know and control this power in
its physical manifestation? If that's how initiation begins and I
must first go through this experience then I'd like to do it
immediately so that I can prepare myself for the higher initiation.'
Up to now Ptahhotep's divinely noble face has been
as motionless as an alabaster statue, with only his eyes glowing
brightly. But now at these words of mine the calm features of his
face break out into a smile, while his eyes radiate even more light
and more understanding.
'Immediately?' he echoes. 'That is not possible, my
child. To become conscious of divinely creative forces on the lowest
level of the scale of manifestations means to experience physical
love. You must wait until some young man appeals to you, until
his positive manly radiation awakens your heart and makes it glow
with negative feminine power. You must come to know this power of
love, for unless you have this experience behind you, you cannot
control it. It would always represent a constant temptation,
involving the great danger of your falling to a much lower level of
consciousness than the one you're on now.'
'Father of my Soul, I will never fall prey to
physical love! Love is not a temptation for me, and I am not afraid
of this danger because it really isn't a danger for me! Permit me,
please, to be initiated.'
Ptahhotep turns quite serious again and says, 'My
child, you only think that love could not be a danger for you
because you do not know this tremendous force. To be courageous in
the face of a danger we do not know is neither courage nor
power, but only ignorance and weakness! Because of your lack of
experience you do not know the temptation of love, and you believe
you are able to face this force. But don't forget that love is
also the manifestation of divine creative force and is therefore as
strong as God himself! You cannot destroy this creative force; you
could only transform it. But if you don't know this force, you
can't know how it can be transformed. Be a good girl now and go home
and wait till your destiny brings you this experience. When you have
found out what love means in its full reality, when you have
experienced it and clearly know what this force is, then you
can come back and I will give you your initiation.'
At this I threw myself on my knees before Him,
embraced his feet and begged him desperately, 'No, no, don't
send me away, don't deny me initiation! I will resist all
temptations of love, I will not vacillate, I beg of you, give me
initiation!'
Ptahhotep smiles again and strokes my hair. I feel
tremendous power flowing through his hand and into my head like a
strong current.
'Truly,' he says, 'I am not accustomed to this type
of behaviour. Do you think, my child, that when I tell you I won't
initiate you and you throw yourself on your knees before me, this
will make me change my mind? One of the requirements of initiation
is absolute self control. Child, child, you still have a long way to
go on the path of self control. And your self assurance is not in
equilibrium with your experiences. First gain the necessary
experience, then you can come back.'
I see that he has nothing more to say. I stand up
and take leave of him, 'Father of my Soul, I'll go now, but you're
not going to abandon me, are you? May I come back to you again some
other time?'
Ptahhotep answers with ineffable love: 'I know that
you have been alone very much ever since your early childhood and
you still are. It just had to be that way so you could develop your
self reliance. But you are never alone and you must feel that,
really. You arc united with us by the eternal band of the highest
laws of affinity and association. I am always with you even when you
do not know it. I knew before you did that you were coming to me
today with this request, and I also know what will follow. But
there are laws which even we must obey. You belong to us.'
I bow low before him to receive his benediction.
Then I go.
Waiting for me in the ante-chamber Menu asks,
'How was it? What did the Son of God tell you?
Please tell me everything! Right away! I just couldn't understand
what was keeping you so long. Please, please, tell me! Are you going
to be initiated?'
'The Son of God will not give it to me. He says I
haven't had any experience in earthly life.
'Thank God!' says Menu, beaming with joy, 'Didn't I
tell you it wouldn't be good for you to be initiated? I knew it!'
'Yes, yes, Menu you know everything better, but just
leave me in peace now. I want to put some order in my thinking ...'
And we walk on silently back to the palace.
All night long and all the next day I can think only
of Ptahhotep, the representative of God. I have known that on the
basis of my ancestry I belong to the Sons of God, but it was a great
experience to hear from him that he is the guardian of my soul.
He is the visible representative of God here on earth, and I
know I could speak as openly to him about my most secret
thoughts as in my own innermost prayers to God. His eyes saw right
through me, his glance illumined the hiddenmost corners of my soul,
and that made me happy. It is so wonderful to know that I belong to
a living being who understands me without words and who can never be
angry with me because he sees everything from above, just as God
Himself does.
I don't need to explain to him what I mean, or why I
want to do something or achieve something, as I am accustomed to
have to do with my tutors. Ptahhotep sees the most secret motives
behind my thoughts and my deeds, even those I am not conscious of
myself. I don't even need to say a word to him; it is enough when I
merely stand before him. He sees me! His spirit is open for
me, and I feel I am in constant contact with him. I even felt it
before I met him. I felt a force as strong as steel was guiding me,
and now I know this force was—and is—his radiation. I know that he
even sees me when I am not with him. Even now I feel his eyes upon
me; whatever I do or think is not hidden before him. And in this
case he can also see that I cannot take no for an answer on the
question of my being initiated. No! I can't see why I should first
have to have experiences in love behind me. I'll never fall in love.
Men only interest me to the extent that I expect them to notice and
admire my beauty. Since they all do that, it's quite enough for me;
for vanity is only at work in me when I am in the company of others.
When I am alone, there is only one wish that fills my whole soul—
initiation. I cannot and will not wait until I have had the
experience of falling in love, because I never will.
And so that evening, accompanied by a very worried
Menu, I go again to Ptahhotep to ask him once more for my
initiation.
Once again Menu waits in the ante-chamber, while the
neophyte takes me to the garden where Ptahhotep is sitting under the
palm trees. I bow before him. He returns my greeting, looks at me
with his shining eyes—I feel he's looking into me—and waits.
I stand and say nothing. Why should I speak when he knows anyway
what I want. He reads my thoughts.
He lets me stand.
Finally he gets up, lays his hands on my shoulders
and asks, 'Why have you come?'
'Father of my Soul,' I reply, 'why do you ask when
you already know anyway? I am unhappy because you refuse to initiate
me. I have no other wishes, no other thoughts—only initiation.
Please give me initiation.'
Ptahhotep strokes my hair lovingly and says quite
earnestly, almost sadly, 'I gave you your answer yesterday, just be
calm and have patience! Remember what I told you yesterday about
creative power, and live your life as other young people do. Occupy
yourself with your flowers and with your animals, go and play with
other young people, enjoy yourself and for the time being don't
think about initiation.'
'Father,' I reply in agitation, 'I can think only
about initiation. Whatever I do guides my thoughts directly back to
initiation. When I look at my flowers, or when I watch my turtles
crawling back and forth and living their life as wisely as if they
had an intellect, I run into secrets and mysteries to which I would
like to know the answers. I would like to know everything,
understand everything, I'd like to be initiated!'
'If the turtles had an intellect,' says Ptahhotep
smiling, 'they wouldn't lead such a wise life. And now you don't
want to be wise because you have an intellect, but because you have
too much intellect. But now just try with your excellent intellect
to understand that you're still too young to be initiated.
Come back again when you have your earthly experiences behind you.
Then I will give you your initiation.'
Oh my! It's not so easy to deal with Ptahhotep as
with my dear old Menu. Ptahhotep is hard, and all my strength
bounces off him like arrows off a stone wall. Again I bow low before
him and go. But outside I answer Menu's questions in a spirit of
rage and desperation, rage because Ptahhotep thinks I am too young,
and desperation because I stand powerless in the face of time rising
up before me like an impenetrable wall, as invincible as Ptahhotep
himself.
All that night I can't sleep again, and all the next
day I pace back and forth in my room, as restless and unhappy as the
trained lions in the lion's court. Through being born into my body,
my consciousness has been dulled and deadened; I feel as if I were
in perpetual darkness. I want to see clearly even though I am
imprisoned in the body. I want to know. I want to be initiated! Why
should I wait? If love is a matter of indifference to me now, it
will still be when I am initiated and omniscient. I already know
that physical love is only a necessity of nature to carry on the
race. Why should it be dangerous for me not to know this from
experience? I have my intellect and my consciousness and they will
protect me from this danger. I won't fall into nature's trap, the
trap of love. I'll be able to resist this temptation all right ...
In this manner I brood all day long. By the time
evening comes again, I just can't stand it any longer. I take my
veil and go again with Menu through the long colonnade to the
temple, to Ptahhotep. I want to tell him that I'm not afraid of this
temptation, that I'll be strong enough, that he can initiate me.
Oh how blind I was! How foolish! As if Ptahhotep had
not seen the future clearly. As if he had not known how everything
was going to turn out. But even he must obey the divine law
and watch patiently, as I run headlong into my undoing ... watch
patiently as I plunge head over heels into an abyss, only to have to
climb out later by my own strength.
He receives me again in his little reception
room. I enter, bow, and tell him with all the determination I can
muster, 'Father of my Soul, I wanted to obey you, but I cannot. I
long so much for knowledge that I've come back again. I cannot see
why I should wait when I'm absolutely sure I have enough strength to
withstand the temptations of physical love. I am strong enough. I
have self control. Please give me the initiation.'
At this Ptahhotep closes his shining eyes and
remains motionless a long time. I wait with inward impatience, but
outwardly without moving a muscle in order not to disturb him.
Finally, Ptahhotep opens his eyes. He stands up, comes over to
me, takes up my hands in his, and says, 'Three times you have asked
to be initiated. Three times, despite my refusal. It is a law that
when a member of the tribe of the Sons of God asks three times to be
initiated, we cannot refuse him any longer. It is a sign that
initiation is necessary for him, regardless of the danger he may
risk as a result of it. I will speak to your physical father. We
will need to discuss how you can carry on your duties during the
time of initiation. Other neophytes normally live in the temple
during this time, but with you we will have to make an exception
because you have to fulfil the duties of the wife of the Pharaoh.
Now go in peace.'
I feel like throwing myself about his neck to thank
him for giving me his permission to be initiated, but I prefer to
show him I can control myself. I stand motionless, and my eyes
express my joy. Ptahhotep smiles at me and says, 'What you've done
in thought, you've already done, don't ever forget it!'
'Oh, Father, if you already regard me as having done
it, then I will really!' And with that I throw myself into his arms
and kiss his noble face, right and left. 'I thank you, I thank you!
How wonderful! I'm going to be initiated! Initiated!'
'Yes I can see you have tremendous self control,'
says Ptahhotep.
'Only now, Father,' I answer with a joyous laugh,
'only now! After all, you're not only the high priest, but my own
blood uncle. So I can kiss you, can't I? But when I'm initiated, you
will see how serious I am and how much self control I have!'
'Yes, I know,' says Ptahhotep, embracing me
lovingly. Then he strokes my head again and leads me to the door. We
take leave of each other.
Dancing and skipping—practically walking on air—I go
back to the palace with Menu. I am infinitely happy. But Menu, from
the moment she hears that I am to be initiated in the temple, cries
and wrings her hands continually as if I were dying. Her
lamentations spoil the fun for me, and I feel as if surrounded by
invisible shadows. Finally, at bedtime, when she starts again to
talk about her gloomy forebodings, my patience is at an end. 'Look,
Menu,' I tell her, 'you know they wanted to take you away from me
after my sixteenth birthday when I was presented to the country as
the Pharaoh's wife; you know that according to the rules I should be
surrounded by ladies of the court. It took me a hard fight to get
the Pharaoh to agree to your staying on with me and to my being
accompanied by ladies of the court only on high state occasions, the
way things have been in the past. But if you act this way, I surely
will have you sent away and take on the ladies of the court. To be
sure, most of them are terribly boring, but at least they don't
interfere in my private affairs.'
Menu, poor old fat Menu! She is so frightened at my
words that she stops crying immediately, sits down on the floor
beside my bed and looks at me silently but with so much love, so
much care and solicitude that I can't help bursting out laughing.
Throwing my arms about her, I tell her, 'Just calm down, Menu, I'm
not going to send you away. Never. I love you. You're the only
person who really and truly loves me with all your heart. I'll
always want you with me. Just calm your fears. The initiation will
not harm me, only help me! Ptahhotep will take care of me. He will
be with me always!'
Then in leaving Menu says, 'I hope the initiation
really won't harm you, but I am always afraid when I see the big
flashes of lightning and hear the thunder coming out of the
pyramids. I hope you won't have anything to do with that.'
'No, no, Menu, now be a good girl and go to bed,' I
tell her, and Menu leaves.
But for a little while I ponder over her parting
remark. Lightning and thunder coming out of the pyramid? Yes, it's
true! Ever since I was a little girl, I have known that lightning
and thunder have struck out of the pyramid occasionally and after
that it would rain. It was always as much a matter of course as life
itself, and I never gave it a second thought. But now when I am
initiated in the temple, I will probably learn the secret behind
this phenomenon too.
Then with a great and wonderful feeling of
expectation, I fall asleep.
24
SONS OF GOD
The next day the Pharaoh summons me. I am to see him
after his audience.
At the appointed hour the controller of the royal
household comes and escorts me to father.
'Come, my child,' says he, 'I want to tell you what
Ptahhotep and I have agreed upon about your initiation.'
'Did he come to see you?'
'No,' says father and looks at me quizzically.
'Did you go to see him?' I ask again.
'No again,' he answers and smiles.
'Father,' I tell him, 'for a long time I've wanted
to ask you how you discuss things with Ptahhotep without going to
see him or his coming to see you. I've often noticed that you've
told me something about Ptahhotep as if the two of you had been
together in a long consultation. And yet you had not left the palace
and he had not come to see you. How was it possible, Father?'
Ever since my childhood father has been accustomed
to my questions, and he now answers me as patiently as ever:
'You have a mirror, and you have seen your head in
this mirror, haven't you?'
'Yes, Father, I see my head every day when Menu does
my hair.'
'And what have you noticed?' asks father.
'That I have a much longer head than the sons of men
in general. But you too, and Ptahhotep and most of the people in our
race—the Sons of God, as people call us—have the same longer head
form. It's noticeable even in spite of the kerchief or head-gear or
ornaments the person might be wearing. How is it, Father? Why is the
shape of our heads different from that of the heads of the sons of
men?'
'Look, my child, for you to understand many of the
things here on earth, you must first know something about the
earth's development.
'Just like all the celestial bodies in the universe
and like all the forms of life on these celestial bodies, our earth
is subject to the laws of constant change. The divinely creative
forces radiate from the eternal infinite original source and in
constantly expanding waves they penetrate the plane of matter. That
is to say, matter is formed from these forces. This process reaches
its highest point in ultra-matter, then automatically reverses
itself. The process of spiritualization begins again and the matter
is transformed into force. But this process takes aeons of time! The
changes are going on regularly but so subtly and slowly that they
cannot be noticed or observed in the course of a human life. On the
other hand, some changes, which require thousands of years of slow
and unnoticed preparation, occur suddenly and visibly when the
proper time has come. Right now we are living in such a period of
transition in which changes are noticeable. One of these phenomena
is evident in the fact that various races of people with roundish
skulls are led and governed by rulers who are spiritually greatly
superior to them and who are even different from them physically.
They have a more graceful figure and an elongated cranium.
'Once there lived on earth a race of people very
different from the races living today. They manifested completely
the law of spirit and not the law of matter like the races of people
living today. These people were conscious on the divine plane
and manifested God here on earth without any admixture of the
self-seeking characteristics of the body. In their divine purity,
these people deserved the name "the Sons of God".
'Their entire life was based on spirituality, love,
and selflessness. And they had no physical appetites, urges and
passions to cast shadows on the spirit. The members of this high
race possessed all the secrets of nature, and as they were perfectly
acquainted with their own powers and kept these powers completely
under the control of the spirit, they were also able to control and
guide nature with all of its tremendous forces. Their knowledge was
boundless. They did not need to earn their bread with physical toil
and instead of earning their livelihoods with the sweat of their
brow, they put the forces of nature to work.
'They knew all the laws of nature, the mysteries of
matter, the powers of the mind, and the secrets of their own being.
They also knew the secret connected with the transformation of
force into matter and of matter into force. They constructed
devices and tools with which they could store up, set in motion, and
utilize not only the forces of nature but also their own spiritual
forces. They lived happily and peaceably as the dominant race in a
great part of the earth.
'At the same time, however, other creatures similar
to the Sons of God were also living on earth, but with much more
material bodies and on a much lower plane of development. Obtuse in
spirit, their consciousness was completely identified with the body.
They lived in primeval jungles, struggling with nature, each other,
and animals. These creatures were the ancestors of present-day man.
The race of the sons of men you see in our country represent a
cross between these two races.
'As I said a moment ago, the law of constant motion
and change is at work throughout the universe. The earth is now
going through a period in which the process of materialization is
advancing. This means that the divinely creative power is moving
farther and farther on into matter, and the power on earth is
gradually falling more and more into the hands of ever more material
races of people who were once under the guidance of higher, more
spiritual races. Little by little the higher race is dying out. They
are withdrawing from the plane of matter to the spiritual plane and
they will leave humanity alone for a period of time—as time is
reckoned on earth, many, many thousands of years—so that humanity
may, without visible guidance, climb upward with its own power.
'And so it has come about that this animal-like
material race of cave men is experimenting in accordance with divine
laws, growing mightier and more powerful until the time comes for it
to begin ruling the earth. Before leaving the earth, however, the
higher race had to implant its special powers in the lower race.
Through the operation of the laws of heredity, this will enable the
lower race—after a long, long process of development—to arise out
of matter again. This is why many sons of the divine race made
the great sacrifice of begetting children with the daughters of
primitive man. Through this first crossing of the races there have
developed new individual types and, gradually, new races of people.
'The divine power of the Sons of God and the mighty
physical powers of the daughters of men have produced different
types of descendants. On the one hand, physical, and on the other,
spiritual giants. There have also been physical titans who, from
their mother's ancestry, have inherited primitive, undeveloped
brains. In these persons, the spiritual power of their fathers,
working on the material plane, created tremendously strong bodies.
With their gigantic physical strength, these individuals have
overcome weaker persons and, because of the animal appetites of
their nature, they have become tyrants greatly to be feared.
'But there have also been spiritual titans who have
manifested their inherited creative power through the higher centres
of the brain, rather than on the lower physical plane. These
spiritual giants were assigned the task of leading and teaching for
a time, the lower, animal-like, body-conscious race of humans, as
well as the hybrid race which later rose through the inter-breeding
I have already mentioned. These spiritual giants have the task of
teaching the people of these two races wisdom, sciences and arts as
the basis of a higher civilization, and of giving them a good
example of divinely universal love, unselfishness and spiritual
greatness. That is why there are some countries today where
despotism and tyranny are dominant while others are ruled with love
and wisdom. This will gradually disappear and humanity will know the
great initiates and their secret sciences only through historical
records, tradition and legend. However, even in the darkest period
of human development, by virtue of the laws of heredity, there will
be the possibility that a son of God may be born in a human body in
order to show humanity the way out of darkness and misery.'
'Father,' I ask, 'is our country the country of the
Sons of God?'
'No, my child. The continent which once was the home
of the Sons of God has been completely destroyed. Gradually there
were fewer and fewer descendants of the divine race. They left their
mortal frames behind them and did not reincarnate themselves.
Finally there were only a few left in various parts of the earth to
transmit dominion to the human beings who were constantly growing in
power. Because of the inter-breeding of the two races, however,
there arose some individuals with a knowledge of magic acquired from
their fathers and the animal-like, physically oriented selfishness
of their mothers. These were able to infiltrate into the temple, and
by virtue of their spiritual powers, they received initiation.
However, they degraded their knowledge to black magic and made
selfish use of their own powers and the natural forces they
controlled with the instruments and equipment of the temple.
'The Sons of God who were then still living in this
part of the earth saw what was coming. They knew that these powers
mercilessly destroy anyone who uses them wrongly, that is, with
satanic selfishness instead of with divine unselfishness. They knew
the black magicians were headed straight for perdition and their
blind avarice would cause general destruction. So the last Sons of
God built huge ships, closed on all sides and even insulated against
the forces which penetrate and dissolve matter. Then they secretly
took aboard a few of their instruments, their families and their
domestic animals; and closing all openings, they sailed away from
the part of the earth that was to be destroyed. Some sailed north,
some east, some south, while some, sailing westward, arrived here
where we are now.
'The black magicians soon lost control over their
instruments. It should have been their task to conduct the highest
cosmic divine forces into these instruments and store them there,
because the only source of this power on earth is the human being
himself. But the more selfish these people became, the more a
change took place in the current with which they charged these
instruments for later use. One day, when the Sons of God in their
insulated ships had already sailed away to a sufficient distance,
the tragedy occurred. One of the black magicians unintentionally
conducted into his own body a force which dissolves matter, that is,
changes it into another form of energy. When this process has once
been set in motion, the matter which has been transformed into
energy goes on and on, acting as a destructive force, until it has
dematerialized everything. In this way the whole continent was
destroyed. Finally the new forces thus created slowed down and
eventually halted the process of disintegration.
'The entire dematerialized continent was transformed
into energy of radiation, at first rising up to the upper reaches of
the earth's atmosphere, then returning transformed into the
primordial form of all matter. After further transformation
processes, the whole gigantic mass fell to earth again in what
appeared to be an unending downpour of water, mud and sand.
'The waters of the oceans rolled over the gigantic
cleavage in the body of the earth. The land masses of the other
hemisphere, split asunder by the cataclysmic shake-up, moved farther
and farther apart in order to restore equilibrium throughout the
earth, until they finally occupied their present positions. Part of
the destroyed continent now lies in our country as a mighty desert
of sand, and there is a danger that winds may carry abroad these
mountains of sand and cover up fertile, inhabited areas.
'The Sons of God in their ships had special
instruments and equipment to stabilize their vessels and keep them
horizontal at all times. Thus they survived the catastrophes and
finally landed. In every part of the earth where they set foot they
began a new civilization.
'With their knowledge, wisdom and love they won the
hearts of the natives. They became rulers. They were worshipped,
revered as Gods or demi-Gods. Their first acts were to construct
suitable buildings for their secret instruments in order to insulate
them completely from the world outside and provide adequate
protection against the powerful, penetrating energy stored up in
their instruments. These buildings, which we call pyramids, can now
be seen in all the various parts of the earth where the Sons of God
fled with the instruments they salvaged.'
Profoundly impressed, I listened to the story of
these tremendous events. It cleared up many things I had not
understood before—but not everything. 'How did the Sons of God bring
these mighty blocks of stone and set them in place, one upon the
other?' I asked.
'Do you remember, my child,' the Pharaoh replied,
'that I told you the Sons of God did not need to work with physical
force because they caused the forces of nature to work for them? We
still possess some of these instruments with which we can control
the gravitational force of the earth at will, neutralizing it or
amplifying it, depending on the result we wish to achieve. In
this way we can make an object weightless or, inversely, even
heavier than it normally is. When a huge block of stone has been
made weightless in this way, even a child could push it about with
its little finger or raise it to any desired height. Ships were
piled high with these gigantic blocks of stone without being
overloaded, because the blocks had been subjected in advance to the
proper form of radiation and so made weightless. All the gigantic
edifices, here and in other parts of the world, which human power
would never have been able to build were erected by the Sons of God
in this way.
'Wherever the Sons of God disembarked from their
ships, they created a high civilization. Wherever they are still
ruling, they are leading the people in unselfish love and making a
sacrifice for their benefit ... the sacrifice of remaining here on
earth for a time in order to teach them and propagate spiritual
powers. There was once a time when the ruler, the Pharaoh, was
simultaneously the high priest. In one and the same person, he was
the earthly and spiritual leader of the people. Later, however, as
the country grew greater through culture and wealth, the Sons of God
divided up the tasks, and ever since then one of them has fulfilled
the duties of worldly government, while the eldest, the leader of
the race, has been the spiritual leader of the people. The Pharaoh
rules the country. The high priest fulfils his duties in the temple.
He is the guardian of knowledge in every field. Since all knowledge
comes from a single source, it is he who gives the initiation into
the sciences, into the arts, and also the great initiation in the
temple into the "artless art" of the spirit.
'Now you know why the people we are ruling and
teaching have differently shaped heads from those of the descendants
of the Sons of God who are now the reigning family. Those of us who
have this elongated skull make relatively little use of our
intellects because we are able to experience truth directly with
our inner sight. Our forehead is not heavily arched, because in
our heads the brain centres having to do with the power of thinking
are only developed to the point necessary for us to perceive and
consciously experience external impressions. On the contrary, in the
rear part of our cranium we possess fully developed brain centres,
the physical instruments of spiritual revelation. These brain
centres enable us to be conscious on the divine plane and give us
those superior qualities and characteristics which distinguish us
from the sons of men. Human beings, in their consciousness, live
in time and space. We, although we too inhabit earthly bodies,
enjoy the perfect spiritual freedom, in freedom from time and
space. Through the power of the divine consciousness and with
the help of these brain centres, we are able to move freely in time
and space.
'This means that we are able to shift our
consciousness into the past or into the future at will. In other
words, we are able to experience the past and the future as
present. And with the same ease we can free ourselves from the
hindrance of space and move our consciousness to any place we wish.
In this condition there is no "here" and no "there",
but only omnipresence. For past and future—here and there—are
only different aspects, different projections of the one and only
reality, the eternal omnipresent Being: GOD.
'The blood of both races is flowing in your veins.
You inherited characteristics of our race, but also of the hybrid
race from your mother's side. In you the higher organs are beginning
to function, unfortunately much too early for you to have had time
for earthly experiences or for you to have conquered your partially
earthly nature. You are unsatisfied because you feel imprisoned in
time and space, caught between "here" and "there". The spirit within
you is beginning to awaken and long for its divine freedom. You have
asked three times to be initiated and you will be. Then you will
learn to make conscious use of all the higher organs which are not
yet fully active within yourself. You will also acquire the ability
to establish contact at any time with similar beings in order to be
able to exchange thoughts with them.
'I am thus able to establish spiritual contact at
any time with my brother Ptahhotep or with any of the other
descendants of the race of the Sons of God still living on earth.
Through a complete union of our consciousnesses, we are able to
exchange our thoughts on any given subject much better than if we
were talking together on the earthly plane with the help of larynx,
tongue and ears. With our consciousness we can seek each other out
at any time, but we feel immediately if the other is occupied and
concentrating on something else. In such a case we disturb each
other only if we have something very important to communicate,
otherwise we withdraw. But you can easily understand why only
persons who have achieved perfect unselfishness can have such
abilities. If self-centred sons of men also had them, they would
create such chaos that all the finer, higher organs would be ruined
in the general confusion.
'For the most part we "meet" through uniting our
consciousnesses in this way in the evening after our daily duties
are done, and in this union we see each other's thoughts.
Thus in a matter of moments we are able to agree on things which
would take long discussion in the three dimensional world.
'After we have thought over our worldly tasks, we
shift over with our consciousness into the dimensionless state of
all-consciousness, in order to draw new vital energy from the
eternal, divine, original source. In this condition we are one with
all living creatures, with the entire universe, identical
with it in the divine, primordial union, one with life
itself, with the eternal being, hence with the essence of
every manifestation—with you too and with all other people. Only
these beings who with their consciousness are still living in three
dimensions are not aware of this union. On the other hand, every
creature awakens from sleep with renewed vital energy, whether or
not it knows that this energy comes from the divine original source.
'And so you are going to be initiated. This means
you are starting on a long, long journey. You will have to travel
this path on earth even after Ptahhotep and I have left the
three-dimensional world and only remain in spirit in the sphere of
the earth. I have different tasks from Ptahhotep. Your spiritual and
intellectual guidance is in his hands. In the eternal union,
however, we will always be together. It would have been better if
you had had more patience. But you are as you are, and the way
you are will also determine your fate and your future. We cannot
interfere. The power which comes from union will always accompany
you and help you through the most difficult times.
'Since you have the duty of representing the wife of
the Pharaoh beside me, you will not be able to dwell in the temple
as other neophytes do during the period of preparation for
initiation. You will go there every morning for instruction. During
the day, you will do your exercises there with the other neophytes
and when evening comes you will return to the palace. At palace
ceremonies you will come in time to fulfil your duties at my side.
So you can report to Ptahhotep tomorrow morning.'
But I still have a question and so remain standing.
Father looks at me quizzically. 'Father,' I ask,
'you have told me that the Sons of God, in order to propagate their
spiritual powers, took wives from among the daughters of men. Didn't
the daughters of the Sons of God also take husbands from among the
sons of men? Why have only the Sons of God begotten children with
the daughters of men?—And not the daughters of God too with the sons
of men?'
Father looks deep into my eyes and says, 'Engrave
this answer of mine upon the tablets of your memory. If you
understand this truth really well, we may perhaps be able to set the
rudder of your fate on a different course: If you pour out a drop
from a glass of red wine into a glass of white wine, the red wine in
the glass remains pure red wine as it was before. The white wine, is
no longer pure white wine, but a mixture of both. And if you then
pour out some of the white wine, what you pour out is actually a
mixture of red and white wine. Do you understand, my child?'
'Yes, Father, I understand. You mean that the blood
of a pure bred Son of God still remains pure if he begets children
with a daughter of the sons of men. But the blood of a pure bred
daughter of God would become mixed blood if she were to marry one of
the sons of men. From then on she would be mixed and so would her
children.'
'Remember this truth every moment of your life,'
says father. Then he arises, I bow before him, and he blesses me.
Preserving the unity of the soul in my heart, I leave the room.
25
YEARS OF PREPARATION
Accompanied by Menu, I go to the temple.
How often will I be going through this long
colonnade between palace and temple? How often and for how many
years!—until I myself have become the path, so that with my eyes
closed my feet would carry me to the temple.
Today I enter the temple for the first time as a
neophyte. Just because I would like to hurry, I hold myself in check
and walk with ceremonial slowness. I am determined to enjoy to the
very last drop the pleasure of beginning my initiation. I am
withdrawn within myself, deep in thought. Fully conscious of all the
things my father told me yesterday, I go forward to my future duties
as an initiate.
At the entrance the same neophyte as before is
awaiting me. Menu takes her leave. At first she embraces me, kisses
me and holds me tight as if we were never to see each other again.
Then she calms herself and bows before me in the way she believes
she should. I embrace her and feel that my mother is also kissing me
through Menu's lips.
The neophyte accompanies me to Ptahhotep who is
waiting in his little reception room. How often—how often—will I be
standing thus before him! How often will his eyes rest upon
me, or pierce me through and through with their peace, assurance and
strength!
'My dear child,' he begins, 'initiation, as I have
already explained to you, means to become conscious on the highest
level, the divine plane. To be able to do this requires long
physical training and spiritual preparation. One first must
strengthen the nerves to enable them to bear these high vibrations
without harm, without death.
'To become conscious on a given plane means to
conduct the vibrations characteristic of this plane into the nerves
and through the nerves into the body. From the time a body is born,
that is, from the time a "self" dwells in it, the body develops a
power of resistance corresponding to the average degree of
consciousness of the spirit dwelling in it.
'The degree of consciousness of a living creature
fluctuates up and down, depending on its emotional condition, within
the limits of an octave of vibrations. These fluctuations, however,
must not exceed the limits of elasticity of the nerves; for if they
do, injuries and sicknesses of a more or less serious nature occur,
even death. The vibration belonging to creative vital energy is
absolutely lethal for creatures whose consciousness has not yet
reached this level. It would burn out the nerves and nervous
centres. For this reason, vital energy from the spinal column, where
it has its seat, is transformed into a low vibration corresponding
to the degree of consciousness of the person concerned and only this
transformed vital current is conducted into the body.
'Thus animals, for example, are animated by a much
lower life vibration than primitive man; and primitive man with his
beast-like selfish nature, is animated by lower vibrations of vital
energy than a person who is spiritually developed. If one were to
conduct the vital energy of a highly developed human being into an
animal or a much less developed human, the animal or "lower-level"
human would die instantly because of the contact with the more
powerful vibrations.
'The great initiation means consciously
experiencing the vital energy and creative vibrations of eternal
being, experiencing these vibrations on every plane of
development and in their original frequency, without transformation,
and simultaneously conducting these vibrations into the nerves and
the body. This naturally requires a corresponding amount of
resistance which can be obtained through physical and spiritual
training. That means that one must slowly and cautiously prepare and
awaken the appropriate nerve centres and learn to control them.
Initially you will receive this physical and spiritual training from
Mentuptah, the leader of the school of neophytes. In your
concentration exercises, Ima'—and Ptahhotep points to the neophyte
who brought me here—'will help you. When you have passed your
preparatory tests given you by Mentuptah and Ima, you will receive
further training and your initiation under my guidance. Now Ima will
take you to the neophyte school and give you everything you need for
the beginning. If you want to speak to me during your training, you
can arrange to see me any evening. May God guide your further
steps.'
After Ptahhotep's benediction, I bow and follow Ima
to the school of neophytes.
Ima takes me to a little cell, one of many built in
the temple wall. He gives me a plain white linen robe and a pair of
plain sandals, saying that this cell belongs to me.
When I come out—having exchanged my silken robe and
golden sandals for the simple clothing—I am a neophyte exactly like
Ima. He leads me on through a long colonnade, and through the great
door we step out into the temple garden. The garden is magnificent:
a large rectangular plot of green grass bordered by palms makes an
excellent place for exercise. As we go on, I see the neophytes at
work behind the park-like part of the garden, near the vegetable
plots and the orchards. All the neophytes wear the same kind of
clothing as mine, but none of them is as young as I.
Ima takes me to Mentuptah, the head of the school of
neophytes. He is a friendly person with soft, loving eyes. He
explains my daily duties to me. The neophytes are divided up in
groups. All groups are under Mentuptah's guidance, but each
individual group also works under the leadership of an advanced
neophyte, a candidate for priesthood. Ima leads the group to which I
am assigned. He is a tall, slender but very powerful young man. I
noticed his crystal-pure radiance when he first took me to
Ptahhotep. He has passed most of his preparatory tests and the time
is close at hand for him to be initiated. Ima is a candidate for the
priesthood. In his appearance he doesn't give the impression of a
man so much as of an androgynous being standing above and beyond
sex. As much above and beyond it as an archangel. He radiates all
the keenness of a sharp sword. His angelically beautiful face bears
the signs of supreme intelligence and powers of concentration. Above
his eyebrows there are two well developed mounds, the signs of
wisdom. His mouth is well formed, beautiful, full of energy, but
with soft corners, delicately chiselled, revealing his tender love
for every living creature. I love him from the very first moment,
feeling complete confidence in him as I would in a dearly beloved
brother. I am happy that he is the one who is to prepare me for my
tests!
Ima introduces me to the other neophytes. They have
all chosen the priesthood as their calling in life, but only those
who pass all their tests and receive initiation will become priests
or priestesses. There are many who never make it. Nevertheless, if
they wish to do so, they can spend the rest of their lives in the
service of the temple, working in the garden and tending the
animals. The neophytes who pass their preparatory examinations
receive ever new and progressively more difficult tasks and
assignments parallel with their degree of advancement.
The group under Ima's guidance is one made up
entirely of spiritually well-developed neophytes. On their father's
side, most of them are descended from the Sons of God, just as I am,
and they can be recognized even from a distance by the elongated
shape of their heads. I am assigned to this group and feel good in
their pure atmosphere.
Every morning at sunrise we have to assemble in the
garden. We begin with physical exercises. The exercises involve
strong concentration. We assume various body postures and, while
doing breathing exercises, must guide our consciousness into
different parts of the body. Through long and patient practice in
this way we can make the entire body completely conscious, move at
will, control and guide the smallest parts of the body and all
internal organs. Patiently and persistently we thus develop the body
into an excellent instrument.
When we have finished these exercises, we go into
the great room of the temple for training of mind and soul. In these
exercises, Mentuptah dictates to us various inter-related dream
pictures which we must experience as intensively as if they were
real. With these dream pictures we intentionally produce different
emotional states within ourselves and learn how to control them.
With these exercises Mentuptah takes us through all the different
spheres of the underworld and overworld, through the seven Hells and
the seven Heavens, teaching us to keep our presence of mind no
matter what may happen so that even in the most difficult situations
we can instantly decide what to do.
As soon as we have completely mastered this kind of
exercise, we go a step further. We have to experience different
emotional states on command, without dream pictures, but with
the same intensity as if we really had a reason. We begin
these exercises at the lowest negative condition, moving up step by
step until we reach the highest positive condition. To take an
example, we begin by experiencing the deepest state of dejection,
moving up gradually through indifference, then on higher and higher,
through joy and on up to the highest state of happiness.
When after long practice we get proficient at this
exercise, we are obliged to practise faster changeovers from one
emotional state to another until we can experience them all, one
after the other, as easily and positively as a musician draws forth
a whole gamut of tone from his instrument, from the lowest to the
highest. When we achieve proficiency at running quickly through the
whole scale of human emotions—from darkest desperation to the
highest bliss—we take the next step. This consists of experiencing
opposite emotional states, one after the other, with no time lost
for transition, shifting from deep sadness immediately to the
highest hilarity. Or, to take another example, from fear immediately
to self-assured courage.
We are only permitted to do these exercises under
the direction of our teacher. They represent a great strain for our
nerves. It takes us a long time to reach the point of being able,
with the aid of the dream pictures, to experience the emotional
states as vividly as if they were external events in our lives. It
takes us still longer to be able to experience the full scale of
emotional states from the lowest to the highest. Only when we can
bring our nerves to complete rest after these exercises, keeping
them in a well-rested condition throughout the day, are we permitted
to practise the most difficult exercises of experiencing
diametrically opposite emotions without a time of transition. The
aim of these exercises is to make us independent of both external
events and our own personal moods, thus enabling us to determine our
own moods ourselves and maintain our emotional equilibrium no matter
what happens. We are taught constant inner watchfulness and presence
of mind.
People believe that there always has to be a reason
for their being joyous or happy. Through the exercises with the
dream pictures we first imagine we have a reason for being in one
mood or another. Thus we learn to control the reasons themselves!
As we do not actually have a reason, however, we have to imagine
one ourselves.
Then comes the next step of experiencing an
emotional state by itself, without a reason, without having
previously imagined a situation such as would call forth the mood to
be experienced.
After long practice, when we have become quite
skilful at these exercises, we discover we have always imagined
we had a reason for being 'sad' or 'joyous', 'depressed' or
'exuberant' etc. Through these exercises we thus become convinced
that events and occurrences in our lives must not have any effect
on us. We discover that every state of consciousness arises—and can
only arise—within ourselves. One and the same event can provoke
one person to laughter, another to tears, while a third remains
completely indifferent; all because each is merely projecting
outwardly his own inward attitude, and it is only this inward
attitude which provokes our response, not the external events
themselves.
As a final result, the pupil must attain the ability
to keep his emotional composure imperturbable and unshakeable at all
times, never losing it under any circumstances. These exercises also
teach us that whatever happens on earth is only a transitory
dream picture projected in time and space by ourselves. We only need
to take it seriously in so far as it adds to our experience.
But it takes a long, long time to reach this degree
of ability! We have to keep ourselves under the strictest
observation, must never forget ourselves for a moment, must always
be conscious and aware, always analysing every feeling, every
thought, to determine in what stratum of the self it has originated.
And all this is not something one can learn to do from one day to
the next!
In addition to this long spiritual training, we also
have to practise purely mental concentration exercises. These are
assigned to me by Ima. After the group exercises he takes me to a
quiet corner of the garden and explains what concentration means. I
must not allow my thoughts to roam around aimlessly. On the
contrary, I must command myself to concentrate only on one
prescribed concept. I must pull my thoughts together into a
single point, giving them a centripetal rather than centrifugal
direction. Ima gives me a sentence on which to concentrate. When I
have succeeded in concentrating on it, I am to go and tell him. Then
he leaves me alone.
The sentence is 'I always manifest divinity'.
I sit down and start to concentrate on this
sentence. I repeat mentally: 'I always manifest divinity,' once,
twice, ten times, a hundred times ... I think of nothing else: 'I
always manifest divinity ... I always manifest divinity ... I always
manifest divinity ...'
After an hour I go to Ima and tell him, 'I can't
concentrate on that sentence. It's impossible.'
'Impossible?' he asks, 'Why should it be
impossible?'
'You told me that concentration means directing all
forces, all thoughts to a single point, drawing and holding together
all the forces of the intellect and of consciousness. But when I
concentrate on a sentence, I cannot draw together all the
forces of my intellect into one single point. A sentence
consists of several words. These words follow each other both in
time and space. That means I can't simultaneously think these
words in a given point but only one after another in time
and space! And when I have thought the sentence through to the end,
I have to jump back again to the beginning and think it through to
the end again. That's why concentration in this way is impossible.
Either I have to jump back from the end to the beginning after each
sentence, like this
or, if I imagine a sentence in a circular form, my
concentration results in running around in a circle,
'But that is not concentration!'
Ima listens attentively. Then, quite pleased, he
says, 'You have practised right! You've discovered it's impossible
to concentrate on words. The fact that you finally imagined
the words to be in the form of a circle shows that you were making a
real effort at concentration. But no matter how close you pull the
words together, they still form a circle and you can never get them
into the centre. You have found out that no matter how much force
you exert on them in the direction of the centre, the words resist
this force so you cannot draw them into the centre. This principle
of resistance towards being drawn into the centre is one we use in
building bridges. We build an arch of stones, just as you have built
a circle out of words, and the bridge doesn't fall into the water
because the stones exert pressure on each other and the stones do
not yield to the pressure. Because of the power of their resistance,
the stones hold the whole bridge together. But if your concentration
aims to get to the centre, it is prevented from doing so by the
resistance of the words, and the concentration is impossible. The
same happens if you try to concentrate on one word. A word consists
of letters which can never be drawn together completely in a single
point.'
'So what must I do?'
'For your next exercise try to concentrate on a
single letter. Take the letter "o", for example,' says Ima, and
leaves me alone.
I try it. Sitting in the grass again, I concentrate
on the 'o' ... mentally I repeat the letter 'o', saying 'o', 'o',
'o', 'o', 'o' ... and still thinking of nothing but 'o', 'o', V, 'o'
'o' 'o' 'o' 'o' ... until all of a sudden I make a new discovery. I
go back to Ima and tell him laughingly, 'I've already finished'.
'Well,' he asks, 'what have you found out?'
'That the "o" I was concentrating on all of a sudden
turned into a pipe. A long "o"-shaped tunnel in which I was
constantly moving forward. But that isn't perfect concentration
either!'
'Good,' says Ima. 'That means you've already reached
the fourth dimension. Now try again with a sentence "I always
manifest divinity" and try again to concentrate on that. How would
you solve the problem now?'
'What should I do?' I ask.
'What would you do?' asks Ima in his turn.
I consider the problem for a while and then say,
'The words are the clothing, the material manifestation of the
meaning. If I want to get into the centre, I must give up the words
that hinder me and concentrate only on the meaning of the sentence,
without words, without form. Is that right?'
Ima smiles and says, 'Let's see how you succeed. Go
and try. Then come back.'
I go back and concentrate on the meaning of the
sentence 'I always manifest divinity ...' ... only on the meaning
...
Then I go back to Ima. He is just finishing a
discussion with another neophyte. Seeing that I am waiting for him,
he gives me a roguish glance as if he already knew how I had got on
with my concentration exercise. 'Well?' he asks.
'Ima, it's so strange! As I tried to concentrate
only on the meaning of the sentence, I couldn't think of it any
more, and the whole inner process moved out of my head into my
breast, so that I wasn't thinking it any more, but feeling and
experiencing it! The moment I concentrated on the meaning of this
sentence, without words, I myself became this meaning! But
then the sentence has to read differently, not "I always manifest
divinity", but much more accurately, "I am divinity which is
always manifesting itself!" '
As I speak, Ima looks at me with a growing smile and
growing pleasure. 'You have concentrated very well,' he says. 'Very
well! You've discovered that concentration cannot be a permanent
condition, but only a transition between the projected world and
being. When you concentrate your thoughts on something, you
can't stop with just thinking, because concentration leads you
back to yourself, and you become the very thing you're
concentrating on. From thinking you progress through
concentration into a state of being! Thinking ceases completely
and the thinker becomes identical with what he is thinking. To
think something means to project a thought outwardly by means of
the intellect, as if by means of a mirror, hence to step out of
oneself. Through concentration we draw the projection back
again, and what is thought becomes identical again with the
thinker, with the person himself. The two factors are
joined in a perfect unity. That which is created goes back into
the creator!
'Go on practising and you will experience this
process with ever greater clarity. Here's a new exercise. You like
to sit under this palm tree. Concentrate on it.' And with that Ima
leaves.
I sit down again and look at the palm tree, keeping
my thoughts centred on this tree, nothing else ... Hours go by and
evening conies. I have to go home. Menu is waiting for me outside
and we go home together.
The next morning I am back in the temple garden, and
after our group exercises I take my place again under the palm tree,
concentrating on it.
When I began this exercise, all kinds of extraneous
thoughts disturbed me. I suddenly remembered what Menu had told me
the evening before—I noticed a bird up in the fronds—then a gnat was
humming about my ears—then I remembered Chancellor Roo-Kha's
impertinences and felt angry. But I chased away all foreign thoughts
as they arose in me and concentrated only on the palm tree.
Now I am getting along better. Thoughts can no
longer reach me and really disturb me. Previously I was still in
the world of thoughts—among the thoughts. My thoughts were able
to push me to and fro. But I did not let myself be pushed around. I
stayed put just where I was, with the palm tree, gliding slowly and
almost imperceptibly further and further into myself where thoughts
could no longer follow and disturb me. Now and again a thought bobs
up, creeping through my intellect like a tired traveller. From my
secure position I observe this stray, straggling, tired thought, but
I don't bother about it ... I think of the palm tree ... slowly the
palm tree fills my entire being.
Days go by, perhaps weeks too, I don't know. I don't
know anything more that's going on in my outer world, as I am
concentrating on the palm tree with all my attention. Then all of a
sudden I have the odd feeling that I am no longer looking at the
tree from the outside, but from the inside. To be sure I
still perceive its outward form with my eyes, but I begin, to an
ever-increasing extent, to see and experience the inner being,
the animating creative principle of the palm ... to see it,
to experience it, TO BE IT!
And finally there comes a moment in which I am
suddenly conscious of the fact that the palm is no longer outside
myself—no!—it never was outside—it was only a false conception on my
part—the palm tree is in me and I in it—I my self am the palm
tree!
I do not know how long I have been thus absorbed
within myself. I don't even know what time means. 'There' in
the condition I am in the concept of time is unknown. Neither can I
explain what this 'there' is. But all at once some power draws me
back, slowly, into my personal consciousness, and I notice that Ima
is standing before me. My eyes meet his gentle glance. He sits down
near me in the soft grass, waits patiently till I come back to my
senses, then looks at me questioningly.
I make one or two attempts to speak, but I don't
succeed right away. Speech seems to have become completely
superfluous.
Finally my activity reawakens and my will functions
again. The nerves of my larynx set my vocal chords in motion, and I
can produce sounds again.
'Oh Ima,' I say earnestly, softly, and surprised at
the sound of my own voice, "I have become the palm tree—or
better, I've discovered that the palm tree was always I! Only
I didn't realize it!'
Ima nods his angelically beautiful head and beams
with joy. 'You're making wonderful progress! I'm so glad—so glad!
You're making faster progress than anyone has ever made in so short
a time. If you pass all your other preparatory tests just as fast,
you'll soon be ready for initiation!'
Joyously we look at each other in silence. As I look
into his eyes, I feel even more deeply how pure a being Ima is and
what tremendous strength he radiates. The air is purer wherever he
is.
Then he offers me his hand and we get up. It's time
for me to go home. After I have retired for the night and am already
lying on my bed, Menu kneels beside me on the floor and asks, 'What
are you doing now in the temple?' 'We do exercises.' 'Tell me what
kind of exercises?'
In all seriousness I answer, 'Well, my last exercise
was to think so long about a palm tree that I finally discovered I
myself am the palm tree!'
Menu looks at me in amazement. 'What have you
discovered?—What are you?' she asks. 'The palm tree,' I repeat.
'You, the palm tree?' she asks wide-eyed.
'Yes, yes, Menu, but leave me in peace, I want to go
to sleep.' Then Menu begins to laugh so hard that she rolls around
on the floor and tears stream down her cheeks:
'Ha ha ha, so you're a palm tree? Where is your
trunk, and where are your leaves? Ha ha ha, so you're not a young
girl any more! Ha ha ha!'
At that I sit up in bed, offended in my pride, and
answer with all the dignity at my command: 'Please take note I'm not
a young girl, but the representative of the Queen. I am the wife of
the Pharaoh, do you understand? And if you're going to make fun of
my exercises, I won't tell you anything more.'
At that Menu begins to cry. Covering my hands with
kisses, she says through her tears: 'Didn't I tell you it would be
dangerous to be initiated? Who knows but what they may really cast a
spell on you and turn you into a palm tree. You talk so strangely
now. Watch out, please watch out! It would be good if the Pharaoh
knew what's happening!' Drying her tears, Menu leaves my room with a
worried look on her face.
I remain alone with a very unpleasant feeling that I
should not have talked to Menu about my deepest, most sacred
experiences. The next day, Ptahhotep sends for me. I am to see him
in the evening. He sits at his accustomed place in his little
reception room. His glance is as deep as the sky is high. He knows
everything. 'Come here, my little daughter,' he says with a smile. I
step up to him confidently. He takes my hands in his, smiles and
asks, 'Do you know what your next task is to be?' 'Yes, Father, I
know,' I reply. 'And what is it?'
'To keep silence,' I reply, smiling back at him
confidently, despite my guilty feeling, because I know he does not
condemn me. He nods. We understand each other. I don't need to
apologize. He knows me better than I know myself, and he knows with
absolute certainty that I wasn't acting malevolently when I spoke to
Menu about sacred things far beyond her level of comprehension. I
look into Ptahhotep's eyes. He sees me with all my imperfections,
but he also sees my determination to learn to keep silence in the
future.
Then he gently strokes my hair. I bow and leave.
Oh! How often am I to stand before him and have to
confess that my tongue ran away from my brain ... that I had failed
again to be able to offer enough resistance to the basic urge for
communication that has been planted in every human breast.
But nevertheless in time I do learn to be on guard
against this power too. I learn to keep my urge for communication as
carefully and thoroughly under control as my favourite lion, and
through this constant self-observation, I gradually form the habit
of listening inwardly, whenever I want to say something, to be sure
I have authority to say it. Gradually I learn to keep my mouth shut
except when I really have something to say. And I come to recognize
two beings in my self: a personal ego which is often inclined to
chatter, without Control, purely for the sake of communicating
and attracting attention to my person —and in the background of
my consciousness a higher self which restrains my personal ego,
telling it when and what it is to speak or do, and when it is to
remain silent or passive. The important thing is to pay attention
and obey the orders of this higher self. Merely to hear its
commands is not enough; everybody does that!
During this period of time, Ima gives me further
exercises in concentration to do after the group exercises in the
temple are over.
We sit together in my favourite corner in the temple
garden and Ima explains: 'You know now from experience what
concentration is. But if you observe yourself during concentration,
you will notice that in doing it you go through three phases,
intellectual, emotional, and spiritual.
'All concentration begins with the intellectual
phase. You direct your thoughts to the object of your concentration
and consider what this object actually is. In this stage you are
using your intellect because you want to clarify your thoughts and
seek a completely satisfactory definition expressing fully and
clearly the object of your concentration. As soon as you have found
such a definition, your intellectual work is done, for you know
now what this thing is. You don't need to reflect on it any
more, for when you know what something is, you don't
cogitate about it any more. Thinking is the bridge between
ignorance and knowledge. When we know everything—like God—we
will have no further need for thinking. God is omniscient.
He himself is knowledge, and his knowledge is as perfect as a
circle. What should he think about when he knows every
thingl Only the person who is obliged to expand his knowledge
needs to think. This work of expanding knowledge consists of
thinking.
'When your knowledge concerning the object of your
concentration is complete, you make the transition from thinking
to feeling. This is the second phase of concentration. Your
consciousness projects outwardly through your nervous system all the
characteristics of the object of your concentration, impressing them
on your organs of sense; so you have the sensation of experiencing
them. With every nerve and every drop of your blood you feel the
object of your concentration and what it is like. When you have
thoroughly experienced the object of your concentration in terms of
thinking and feeling, you go on to the third phase, spiritual
concentration. This means that in your consciousness you
become identical with the object of concentration. You are no
longer thinking about it, or feeling what and how it is, you are
it! We call this a state of being. In this state you
don't need to think about this thing any more, nor to feel it,
because you have become it yourself. In this condition, all your
thoughts, all your feelings, all your words, all your deeds become
manifestations of the object of your concentration.
'You experienced this with the palm tree, but you
hadn't yet had any exercise in observing yourself during these three
phases. To take another example, let's say you're sitting on the
bank of a river and concentrating on the water. At first you reflect
on what water is. You recall that water is a liquid made through the
union of two gases. You know that it can be warm or cold, that if it
gets cold enough it turns into a solid, that it has colour and
numerous other properties. And you think along these lines until
your intellect has completely grasped what water is and means.
That is all intellectual concentration.
Then you get up and walk out into the water. Now you
feel what water is and what it is like. You feel through direct
sensation that water is liquid, that it flows about your body, and
you feel its temperature without measuring it. You can splash about
in the water, make little ripples or even big waves with your hands
and arms. That is concentration in terms of feeling.
In complete concentration, however, there comes the
moment when you cease to be a being separated from water, you merge
and coalesce with the water, you no longer have a human body—you
have become water. Now you no longer need to think about
water and its various properties. Neither do you need to feel
what water is and what it is like. On the contrary, you are
now water yourself. Complete concentration means becoming
identical with the object of concentration, being it! In the two
previous phases of concentration you are separated, whereas in this
third and last phase—the condition of being—you. experience
complete unity, then as a consequence, complete understanding and
complete recognition from within. Of course your body hasn't
turned into water, but in your consciousness you experience this
state.
'Watch the people around you. You'll notice some are
constantly talking about love and goodness, wearing sweet smiles of
smugness, and trying to show others on all possible occasions that
they are "loving" and "good". But only on the outside! They wear the
mask of love and goodness; but when it comes to deeds, they reveal
their selfishness—because they are selfishness.
'Another person may never talk about goodness and
never think that he wants to be "good"; yet everything he thinks,
says and does comes forth out of goodness, because he himself is
goodness! A PERSON DOESN'T THINK ABOUT WHAT HE IS; NOR DOES HE
FEEL IT; SIMPLY BECAUSE HE IS WHAT HE IS! He doesn't need to speak
about it; everything he thinks, says and does is the expression of
what he is, the manifestation of his own being!
'Now comes the most difficult task of all:
concentrate on yourself. First reflect and consider
what you are, then feel what you are, and finally you must
be what you are!
'For you to have become conscious here on earth, you
have had to leave your true self and enter into your intellect and
feelings. So far you have only been able to think and feel
what you are, but you have never yet been able to be what
you are! Observe the people around you and you will see that they
are not their real selves. On the contrary, they are always
identifying themselves with thoughts, feelings and roles they are
playing here on earth. They have "fallen out" of their real selves
and become pretenders, people living in a world of make-believe.
Only in the eyes of very small children can you still see the
sparkle, the light of real being. As its intellect awakens,
the child begins to identify itself with its outward person, getting
more and more removed from its divine, true self. And all the while
the person, as we think about him, is only a mask through which the
true self—the great invisible one—looks out at the
world. The person cannot be more than an instrument for the
manifestation of the self. But people get so attached to
their mask that they cannot free themselves from it any more. The
true self is king and master, the person is only his servant.
But the sons of men abandoned their self and, descending from
the throne, identified themselves with their mask, with their
person. They make a king out of the servant and separate themselves
from their true being. They force their higher self into
exile, into the unconscious. The intellect causes this
separation, and by means of concentration exercises and a purposeful
effort to become conscious and aware, the intellect can be an
instrument by which we get out of this separation and back to our
true self.
'In the past you have concentrated on various
things. From now on, your one and only task is to concentrate on
yourself, progressing through the three phases of concentration
until you achieve complete identification with your own true
self, until you really are your self. It is your
task to reach the state of being which can only be described, in the
first person, as "I am that I am". But watch out! It's not
enough for you to think what you are, nor to feel what
you are; you must be what you are in your own true inner self!
'That is your concentration task until your
initiation.'
And so I enter the long period of my life in which I
devote myself to these two tasks: Learning to be my own true
self, and learning to keep silence.
26
THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL
When I have progressed to the point where I have
pretty well mastered the art of keeping silence, I stand before
Ptahhotep again one evening, and he asks me, 'What have you learned
during your struggles to keep silent? Have you only learned
the art of keeping silence?'
'No, Father, that was simply impossible. While I was
struggling with silence, I simultaneously had to struggle
with speech. To the same extent that I have mastered silence,
I have also mastered speech. This is because silence means
not talking, and talking means not keeping silent.
I wasn't able to separate these two things. I've discovered that
silence and speech are two different sides of the same unit, like
the two sides of a coin.'
'Right,' says Ptahhotep. Then he gets up and leads
me to one of the great white stone blocks of which the walls of the
room are made. Pointing to the smooth, white surface of the stone,
he asks, 'What do you see on this white surface?'
'Nothing,' I reply.
'And what could I draw on it?'
'Everything.'
'Now,' says Ptahhotep, This Nothing therefore
contains Everything. In this condition both together form a
perfect unity. Within this unity something can only become
recognizable if it becomes separate and distinct from unity.
'Now watch as I draw, with green paint, the form of
a leaf on this surface. The form of the leaf was already there on
this stone surface before I drew it, but you weren't able to
recognize it, because the positive form of the leaf and the
negative nature of the background were still at rest within each
other. They were completely identical. The form of the leaf was
not yet separated from the Everything that is contained in
this Nothing. When the leaf appeared on the wall, it became
separated from the Everything, and therefore recognizable.
'And remember something very important: the fact
that this leaf appears in green colour means that it has left behind
in the Everything its form in the complementary colour, in
this case red, as its invisible, negative picture.
Whatever you see as you look about you is only recognizable because
it has separated itself from its complementary half and the latter
has remained behind in the invisible, unmanifested state.
'You can achieve knowledge only through
comparing the two sides, positive and negative, which have become
separated from each other. As long as these two sides are together,
resting hi each other, you can't perceive or recognize anything.
'Observe the visible world. It is only recognizable
because it has separated itself from the unity in which the
Nothing and the Everything are still at rest within each
other. In other words, it has separated itself from the absolute
unity we call God. The things in the world about us are only
recognizable because the positive appears separately from the
negative and we can compare the two together. There can be no
perception unless unity is split into two halves—one of them
manifested and the other, its reflection and complementary half,
unmanifested —so that both become recognizable through
comparison! Now follow me.'
Ptahhotep leads me into another room where he places
a little figurine on a large table before a white wall. Then he puts
two little lamps behind the figurine, one to the right and the other
to the left, in such a way that two shadows of the little statue
appear on the wall. Then Ptahhotep picks up a transparent red disc
and holds it in front of the lamp on the right. To my great surprise
I see the shadow to the right on the wall is red, while the
one to the left is green.
'How is that, Father of my Soul?' I ask in
amazement.
'Think for a moment and you will find the
explanation yourself,' says Ptahhotep.
I keep silent for a while and concentrate until I
experience the solution. Then I explain: 'The statuette keeps back
the red colour as the red light is projected towards the wall, and
allows only the complementary green colour to appear on the wall.
That's why the green shadow appears on the other side. On the
other hand, the statuette holds back all the light from the
other lamp, and so the shadow on this side of the wall appears to
have turned red.'
'Quite right,' says Ptahhotep. 'You see the two
complementary colours cannot exist without each other, any more than
keeping silent can exist without talking. Whatever you
make manifest in the world of things about you, the complementary
opposite stays behind in the unmanifested state.
When you talk, the negative side of talking,
keeping silent, stays behind, unmanifested. And when you keep
silent, the positive side of keeping silent, talking, stays
unmanifested. When a mountain is formed, its complementary half, a
valley, must also be formed. How could a mountain be possible
without a valley, or a valley without a mountain? Nothing can
ever be manifested and made recognizable, unless its opposite—its
complementary half—is simultaneously present unmanifested! When
something positive is manifested, the negative remains unmanifested,
and vice versa, when something negative is manifested, the positive
is unmanifested. Wherever the one appears, its complementary half
must also be present even though in an unmanifested state. The
two are bound together for all time and eternity.
'And so you see the separation is really one in
appearance only, because the two complementary halves, even when
they are separated and have fallen out of the all-unity can
never get away from each other. Inseparable divine unity
therefore manifests itself always and everywhere; for even in
this seeming separation, it continues to be active everywhere as the
ever-present attractive force between positive and negative.
Both positive and negative tend to return to their original state,
divine unity. Even though something appears in the visible
world, it cannot split itself off permanently from divine unity;
sometime, sooner or later, it will unite with its complementary half
and return to divine unity. The inherent force dwelling in
everything that exists and drawing every created form back into the
original unity is what we call God.
'All creation—the visible world about us—is like a
tree. On the right side it bears positive-good fruit, and the left,
negative-bad fruit. But both sides belong to the same tree and come
from the same unity.
'Both good and evil have arisen only through
separation from unity which itself is neither good nor evil but
divine. Only through separation is it possible to achieve
recognition and knowledge. Consequently the recognizable world must
consist of good and evil. If this were not so, it would not be
recognizable and could not exist at all.
'The entire creation is the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil! But the creator—God—is not a half which
has fallen out of unity, become separated from it and consequently
recognizable; on the contrary, God is unity itself. He stands
above all created forms which have fallen out of unity. Right
within himself, he has perfect unity. He is the
Nothing out of which Everything arises and manifests
itself, but in him the nothing and everything
make up non-separated, divine unity.
'Creation always means a half of the whole ... the
half which has fallen out of unity and which has become recognizable
through comparisons, while its complementary half has remained
behind, unmanifested. That's why you can never find and never
recognize God—the creator—in the world of creation, simply
because God has no complementary half with which he could be
compared. There is absolutely no possibility of comparing
him, and so there is no possibility of recognizing him.—You
can only BE God!
'Listen, my child: There is only one eternal
being—only one God. In everything alive there lives
this one single being, there lives this one single God.
God is the indivisible unity, he is present everywhere,
he fills the entire universe. The whole universe lives
because God animates it with his own eternal being! Hence
God is like a tree of life giving its own being to the created,
recognizable world that has become separated from its complementary
half, in other words, giving life to the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. This tree of the knowledge of good and evil—our
created world—is only alive because the tree of life—God— instills
his own life in its veins—lives in it!
'The material world is like a tree of death: The
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the God dwelling
within it is the tree of life living in everything that is created.
God is one and only one. This one single God is the
self, the innermost being within all creatures. God is
everywhere present, and since two things can't occupy the same space
at the same time and nothing can displace God from any place
in the universe, only one and the same God can be present
everywhere as the self in every created form. God is
indivisible unity. All creatures, all plants, animals, man
himself, all are fruits on the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil; all are alive because the vital flow from the tree of life
streams through their veins, that is, because the tree of life
lives within them. And that means in you too, little
daughter!—Your body is also a fruit on the tree of death, on the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and has no life of its own.
But within you there lives the tree of life, because your self is
also a little branch on God's great tree of life, and you
are only alive because God is living as your self
within you and your body, keeping your person alive.
'By virtue of having been born into your body, you
have become a recognizable being. You have separated your
consciousness from the great all and nothing—from God, from
your own true self. You have fallen out of the divine,
paradisiacal, original state—in which all possibilities of
manifestation including all plants, all animals and man himself, are
still within the all-embracing unity —into the world of many
forms and differentiations. You have become a manifestation, a
created form. Consequently everything you are here on the earthly
plane is only the recognizable half of unity, made up of good and
evil. And since your consciousness has been placed in your body, you
have awakened in this body, that is, your consciousness has become
identical with the body.
'To eat of something is to become identical with it;
for what you eat is what you will consist of, what you will be.
Through identifying itself with your body, your consciousness
has—symbolically—eaten of the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil and by the same token become subject to the kingdom of
death.
'But now listen to the good news: Your body is the
result of separation; it is only the visible half of your own true
self. The other half has remained in the unmanifested,
unconscious part of your being. By uniting these two complementary
halves with each other, you can return to divine unity! It is
impossible to experience this unity physically, that is, to
make your invisible unconscious visible and physical also,
and unite the two halves together. For one consciousness
cannot animate two bodies. To try to experience unity in this
way would mean death. By virtue of the very fact that the body
has become visible and recognizable because it has separated
itself from its complementary half, the reunion in this way would
have to involve the death of the body. Nevertheless you still can
experience, in the body, this divine reunion with your complementary
half: In a state of consciousness! You can expand your
consciousness until you make the unconscious part of you completely
conscious, until you consciously experience the unmanifested,
invisible half of yourself, and in this way achieve divine unity
in your consciousness. Even while your body remains in the
visible world of the created, you can merge your consciousness with
your own true self, out of which you have fallen, thus
forming the perfect unity. In this way, right here in this earthly
existence, you can experience bliss— experience God—be God.
'This striving for reunion is in everything that has
been created. Every creature seeks its complementary half in order
to re-unite with it. The positive-male forms seek the
negative-female forms and vice versa. This tendency on the part of
positive and negative force even makes up the basic structure of
matter. In actual fact, there couldn't be any matter at all
without this tendency; for this striving towards unity—towards
the state of being God—makes up the attractive power between
positive and negative forces, and the whole world is built on this
striving to attain the divine, primordial state. This striving
itself is the source of all power in the manifested world. Nature
uses it and, projected into the body, it is the basis of sexual
power.
'As long as a creature seeks its complementary half
outside itself, in the created, recognizable world, it will never
find unity, simply because its complementary half isn't outside
itself, manifested, separate from itself, but on the contrary,
unseparated from itself, in its own unmanifested part, in its
unconscious] No creature could exist if it did not have its
other half in the unmanifested. Take yourself for example, little
daughter. The opposite of everything you are and manifest in your
conscious part is contained in your unconscious part which
nevertheless belongs to you, and which you are just as much as you
are your conscious, manifested part. You don't find your
complementary part outside yourself—in a man of flesh and blood, for
example, but in the unconscious part of your true self. When you
unite in your consciousness two halves of yourself, you've found
your way back into the infinite all and nothing, you've
become identical with God again!
'Through this union which takes place in your
consciousness, the eternal longing of your manifested being ceases
because it has found its complementary half and merged into unity
with it; and for this reason the sexual desire of your body also
ceases once and for all. You become complete within yourself. Right
here in this physical existence, you experience the divine state:
Immortality, bliss—fulfilment! And inasmuch as the same one,
individual being lives in all creatures, you simultaneously
become identical with the true self of every creature when
you awaken within your own true self. You will achieve unity with
God and simultaneously unity with the entire universe. You will lift
your consciousness out of your body, out of your personal being, and
experience all-inclusive cosmic consciousness. You will feel
yourself as the "I"—the self— in every creature, in the entire
universe, in God. This means you will again be eating of
the fruit of the tree of life! Then you will have moved out of
the world of effects into the world of causes, out of the realm of
the transitory into the realm of the eternal, out of the created
into the creative, out of the realm of death into the realm of life.
In short, you will have achieved your resurrection in eternal
being. And that is initiation!'
Ptahhotep ceases speaking. But I see this divine
unity manifested in the impenetrable depths of his heavenly eyes.
Endless happiness, calm and peace radiate forth from his eyes into
my soul. In his glance I see the fulfilment of truth.
He blesses me and I leave.
27
THE TWELVE SETS OF TWIN CHARACTERISTICS
The next evening I find myself standing before
Ptahhotep again.
'The time has come,' says he, 'for you to study and
practise the twelve sets of opposites as your next exercise. In your
initiation you will be examined concerning them. So listen carefully
and make a point of remembering what I'm telling you now:
'Just as keeping silent and talking
are the two complementary manifestations of the same force, in the
same way there are twelve sets of opposites which you must learn to
control. From now on you will spend only your mornings in the temple
and then go back to the palace. And you must seize every opportunity
to be among people as much as possible, because it is far easier to
master each of these sets of opposites when you are in the temple
than it is in the palace. Here you only meet people like yourself,
neophytes, striving to attain divine unity, as well as priests and
priestesses already living in divine unity. But in the everyday
world you are subject to all kinds of temptations. You meet people
who are slaves of their bodies, and such people try to influence you
too. The danger of falling is much greater. If you can master all
the characteristics and properties applicable throughout the world,
you will also be able to pass the initiation examinations.
'These twelve sets of opposite characteristics are:
keeping silent — talking
receptivity — resistance to influence
obeying — ruling
humility — self confidence
lightning-like speed — circumspection
to accept everything — to be able to differentiate
ability to fight — peace
caution — courage
to possess nothing — to command everything
to have no ties — loyalty
contempt for death — regard for life
indifference — love
'The earth is now going through a long period in
which body-dominated and self-seeking people will gradually take
over the ruling power. But you already know that wherever negative
forces are manifest, positive forces must also be present, although
in the unmanifested state. During this dark period of the earth, the
Sons of God who manifest the divine laws of selflessness will
gradually abandon the earthly plane, withdrawing to the spiritual
plane of the unmanifested. Nevertheless, they will continue to work
in the human subconscious, as they actually will be the unconscious
of humanity and will manifest themselves in the souls of maturing
people as yearning for liberation and salvation. 'On earth, the
megalomania of certain individuals, together with the growing
dissatisfaction of the enslaved masses will lead to bitter and ever
bitterer struggles throughout thousands of years. Many millennia of
constant struggling and bickering and the supremacy of avarice,
vanity, envy, vengefulness, hate and other animal characteristics
would eradicate from the face of the earth everything that is good
and true and beautiful were it not for divine providence and a group
of spiritually united people—under the guidance of the Sons of God
working on the spiritual plane—who will save our secret knowledge
from sliding into oblivion. The earth—like every other planet—is
under the guidance of a high spiritual power, and this power
manifests itself through the Sons of God in a manner appropriate for
the people concerned. It is manifested through a group of initiated
people who through their development have become peers of the Sons
of God. They are all co-workers in the great divine plan of saving
the earth from darkness, isolation, and the rule of material and
diabolic forces. Every initiate takes part in this work, and as you
are to be initiated, this means you too.
'In order to be a useful co-worker in this great
plan, one must first master the whole scale of the sets of
opposites. And you too, for your initiation, will have to pass an
examination in them.
'Mastering these attributes means that you use them
at the right time and in the right place. The same
attribute that is divine at the right time and in the
right place is satanically evil at the wrong time
and in the wrong place. This is because God creates only what
is good, beautiful and true. There are no bad characteristics as
such, and no bad forces, but only wrongly used characteristics and
wrongly applied forces!
'You've already found out what it means to speak or
to keep silent at the right time and in the right place. To keep
silent is perfectly divine and brings blessings on all concerned, if
we do so where and when we should. But on the other
hand, if we keep silent in a place or at a time when we should speak
up— as for example when we might save a person from a great danger
with just a word—our keeping silence becomes satanic.
'And if we talk in the wrong place and at the wrong
time, the divine gift of speech is turned into satanic chatter and
gossip.
'In the next twin pair of opposites, receptivity is
divine if we are receptive and open to everything that is high and
beautiful, good and true, that is, if we are receptive to God's will
and let Him work in us. On the other hand, the receptivity, or
impressionability, is disastrous if it becomes a spineless lack of
character and capitulation to influence.
'Ability to resist influence means the
ability to put an unflinching resistance to all low influences. But
if we also put up resistance against higher forces, we immediately
turn our divine attribute of resistance to influence into a satanic
kind of self-isolation.
'It is the duty of every co-worker in the great
divine plan to give absolute obedience to God's will. The
latter can manifest itself directly through you or through other
people. You can recognize God's will when you thoroughly examine
everything that is asked of you to be sure that it is in agreement
with your innermost conviction. God speaks to us through our
innermost conviction, and we must give him absolute obedience. On
the contrary, to obey someone against our own conviction, purely for
reasons of cowardice, fear, material advantage, or merely wanting to
"be good"—that is for low, personal reasons, this is servility
and is satanical.
'Ruling means giving ignorant and weak people
some of the ruler's own willpower. Universal love, uniting all the
forces active within the people, should lead the people towards a
general well-being, without infringing on their right of
self-determination. Any ruler who, without love, and for selfish
motives, imposes his will on others and violates their right of
self-determination makes the divine activity of ruling into
satanical tyranny.
'Humility is what we must feel towards the
divine, towards the higher self which animates us. You must
realize that all the good, beautiful, and true attributes belong to
him, that your person is an instrument for manifesting
divinity, but by itself and without divinity it represents merely an
empty husk. You should recognize within yourself the same divinity,
the same eternal being which manifests itself throughout the
universe, and you must subject yourself humbly to this divinity. But
you must never subordinate yourself to earthly or sub-earthly powers
or bow before earthly forms; for this would mean turning divine
humility into weak, cowardly, satanic self-humiliation, and by doing
this you would violate the divinity which animates you with
its own eternal being.
'If you want to be a good servant within the divine
plan for salvation of the world, you must never forget that you do
not live and work on your own strength. All power comes from God,
and all powers you manifest come to you from your higher self—from
God. Constantly remember that your person as such is an imaginary
being. Your true being—the only, eternal reality within you—is
God! That's why self-confidence means having confidence in the
God dwelling within your heart, but not in the phantom being
of your person as such. Divine self-confidence is indispensable
for every creative activity and represents an inner union with
God. But when a person imagines his qualities and powers are
his own and not God's, he turns divine self-confidence into satanic
false pride and presumption.
'To be a co-worker within the great divine plan you
must also be able to make decisions with lightning-like speed. You
must learn, instantaneously, without hesitation, to choose the best
of a number of different possibilities. Situations can arise in
which only a moment's delay can mean missing the unique,
never-recurring opportunity. When you can act in a moment, with
complete concentration and with a presence of mind that stands above
and beyond all concept of time, your power to decide instantly is
divine. But acting quick as a flash without concentration and
presence of mind turns divine lightning-like speed into
satanic haste.
'And that's why you must also learn divine
circumspection. Before acting, you must control your temper and
with lots of patience allow the decision to ripen within you. In
order to recognize the will of God you must often allow yourself
time to reach the right decision. That's what it means to act with
prudence. But if you carry prudence and circumspection to the point
of never reaching any decision at all, you're turning divine
circumspection into satanic, doubting indecision.
'As a useful co-worker in the divine plan you must
learn to accept everything that fate brings you. Your worth is not
determined by external circumstances but by the degree in which you
manifest God. Worldly degradations or humiliations cannot
destroy, or even reduce, your inner values. By the same token,
praise or glorification cannot make them greater either. For this
reason, you must never be affected by the way ignorant people treat
you. You remain what you are whether people vilify you or glorify
you. Learn to be contented in any and all conditions and to accept
the circumstances fate gives you with complete imperturbability.
Whether your work within the great divine plan requires you to live
in abject poverty or to hold a high position and command a great
fortune, you must regard either of these merely as means to a
great end. Neither of them must change your inner attitude.
Learning to accept everything in this way is divine. On the
other hand you must always be able to decide when you, as a
representative of divine guidance, must defend yourself against
humiliation or calumny. In the same way, there are times when you
must be able to decide that it's the right thing to do to withdraw
modestly from glorification by the crowds and masses. To accept
everything must never be allowed to degenerate into apathetic
indifference or cowardly lack of character.
Always choose the best and don't be satisfied with
what's inferior. You must be able to differentiate and distinguish
what's beautiful from what's ugly, the good
from the bad, the true from the false, the
divine from the satanic. Without a completely developed
power to differentiate and distinguish, one can't be a useful
co-worker in the great plan.
'If you want to be useful, you must also be able
to fight with all your energy. With the sword of truth you must
be able to fight the shadow of error in order to help bring about
the victory of divinity on earth. But your noble and courageous
willingness to fight must never be allowed to degenerate into
stupid quarrelsomeness.
'And even though you must often fight bravely, you
must not forget that you have to fight with spiritual weapons in
order to bring peace to the earth. You must fight to restore
unity to what has been torn apart, to restore peace to those who are
fighting. But your love of peace must never be allowed to turn into
a cowardly or comfortable kind of not wanting to fight.
'In order to be a useful co-worker you also have to
learn caution, at the same time being able to decide the
right time and right place to use this divine gift. You can save
yourself and others from great dangers, harm and useless sacrifices
through the proper exercise of caution. But the divine gift
of caution slips over into satanic cowardice when one doesn't
dare to do something because of fear or lack of self-confidence.
'You must possess unflinching courage, and
you must not fear any danger. You must stride forth courageously to
face any difficulty, valiantly fending off any attack against the
divine when the great goal you're working for requires it of you.
But divine courage must never be allowed to deteriorate into
daredevil recklessness.
'As a co-worker within the great plan you must also
understand what it means to possess nothing. Whether your task
demands abject poverty of you or gives you the greatest wealth, you
must always remember that nothing, absolutely nothing, ever or
anywhere really belongs to you. On the contrary, everything is God's
property, and from his property you receive something only for your
actual needs, corresponding to your task. Just as it's a matter
of indifference to a canal whether more or less water flows through
it, because the water doesn't belong to it, you too must regard
everything fate gives you as something that comes to you from
God, and something you must pass on. What you will have to live
on is something you don't need to worry about. You will always
receive as much as you need. And no matter how rich you might be,
you must always remember the fact that you really possess nothing.
But this divinely positive attitude must never slide down into
not caring about anything or contempt of things material. You
must never expect the people about you to maintain you without work
on your part!
'Matter too is a manifestation of God, and so you
must respect matter as something divine. But at the same time, you
must be master over it. You must master the art of being able to
acquire as many material things as you need for your earthly task.
And remember well that as long as you are on earth, you'll have to
be dealing with matter, not without it, and certainly
not against it. It's necessary for you to be able to acquire
and hold matter, to master it and use it wisely; for otherwise
you're completely at the mercy of earthly powers and, under their
control, unable to carry out your earthly task independently and
freely. But take care lest the divine ability to master matter
deteriorate into a selfish, satanic craving for possessions.
'As a co-worker in the great divine plan you can't
allow yourself to be attached to anyone. Learn to recognize the
divine, the earthly, and the demonic characteristics in everyone.
Don't love the person, but love the divine within the person,
tolerate the earthly, and go around the demonic. Whenever your task
demands it of you, you must be able to leave without delay the
person you love the most, because you must always remember that the
lovable characteristics in him are God, not the person himself.
The person is only an instrument for the manifestation of
God. You can find and love the same manifestations in other
people too. Love God in everyone; then you will not be
attached to anyone. This not having ties must never be
allowed to turn into general indifference and apathy concerning the
people around you.
'You should be loyal, in life and in death, toward
the people in whom you have recognized God's manifestations. You
love your master and your coworkers in the great divine plan because
you have recognized God in them. You are loyal to God
in them, because you love their person only as an instrument of God.
In this way the esteem and loyalty you show towards your master and
co-workers can never turn into a cult of persons or personal
glorification.
'To play a useful role in the great divine plan, you
must be able to use your own person, like an obedient instrument, in
front of the public. You must be able, in front of groups of other
people, to animate your talents and abilities with your spiritual
forces, raise them to a climax of brilliance in such a way that you
manifest your spirit in the highest degree through your person,
through the posture of your body, through the movements of your
hands, through the glance of your eyes and through the persuasive
power of your oratory, all so that you can bring people under your
influence and carry them upward with you to a higher spiritual
level. In other words you must be able to appear before the public
without inhibitions and without being bashful. But the art of
"appearing in public" must never be allowed to awaken the devil of
vanity in you; it must never be allowed to degenerate into
self-complacency and the base desire to "show off" with your
God-given talents. When crowds of people enthusiastically cheer and
applaud you, you must constantly carry in your consciousness the
awareness that the people are not enthusiastic about your person
—which is only an empty garment—but about God who has manifested
himself through your earthly instrument.
'If in your application of the art of "appearing in
public" you avoid the beguiling temptations of the devil of vanity,
you won't be the least disturbed when, in fulfilling other tasks, it
becomes your duty to remain completely unknown and unnoticed by
other people. In such a case you must not display your talents, but
rather disappear in the crowd as it were, without wanting to stand
out or be noticed. However, this modest "remaining unnoticed" must
never be allowed to degenerate into personal self-underestimation or
self-destruction. In your heart you must always carry your worth as
a human being. 'If you want to be a useful co-worker in the great
divine plan, you must be able to achieve complete disregard for
death. You must have the unshakeable conviction that there is no
death at all. When your body has ceased to be usable, your
self casts it off just as you cast off a worn-out piece of
clothing. The self however is a branch on the tree of life,
therefore life itself, and life is immortal. When
you've become identical in your consciousness with life, you
won't shrink back in fear of death whenever your task brings you
into mortal danger. On the contrary, with complete equanimity and
absolute contempt for death, you will be able to face the greatest
danger. But never let contempt for death turn into disrespect
for life.
'You must appreciate life above everything
else. Life is God himself. The eternal being manifests
itself in everything that lives. You must never carelessly or
wantonly expose yourself to danger. Appreciate life in your
body too and live joyously. But the joy in living must never become
an end in itself and turn into sensuality.
'And last but not least you must be able to pass the
most difficult test of all: The test of love and cruel
love: Indifference. This last pair of twin characteristics makes
up an inseparable unit right here on the earthly plane. Whenever you
manifest one half of it, the other manifests itself automatically.
'You must completely give up your personal
viewpoint, your personal inclinations and feelings, learning to
love everything and everyone without distinction or discrimination,
just as God himself loves everything and everyone! Just as the
sun shines—sends its loving radiations—with perfect impartiality on
the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the evil, the true and the
false, you must learn to love the beautiful and the ugly, the good
and the evil, the true and the false, without discrimination and
with perfect impartiality. The highest kind of love of all, divine
love, is the perfectly impartial love! It must be a matter of
complete indifference to you whether a thing or a person is
beautiful or ugly, good or bad, true or false, you must love them
all with the same love. You must learn that the beautiful wouldn't
even exist without the ugly. You must learn that the good wouldn't
even exist without the evil, nor the true without the false. And
that's why you must love them all equally. You must learn that the
beautiful and the ugly, the good and the evil, the true and the
false are only reflected pictures of the ineffable which we
for convenience' sake call God.
'When absolutely constant and completely impartial
love radiates from you to all creatures, your love will never again
be mixed with personal inclinations or antipathies. You will
consider everything from the standpoint of the whole, and when the
interests of the whole community are at variance with those of
individual persons, you will unhesitatingly defend the cause of the
group with ruthless disregard for the interests of individuals. But
this ruthlessness must always be rooted in universal, divine love;
it must never spring from personal antipathy.
'And you must also be able to manifest your
impersonal, cruelly impartial love for your fellow beings in those
cases when their soul can perhaps only be saved at the expense of
their earthly well-being, even when such people are very, very near
to you personally. You must even be able to look on dispassionately
when those nearest and dearest to you get themselves into great
danger, and if they don't react to ordinary measures, you must not
try to hold them back by spiritual force, hypnosis, or magic powers
when the salvation of their soul is at stake. It's better for a
person to suffer material or physical ruin, even death, than to lose
his soul. Under all circumstances you must endeavour to save his
soul. Just as God doesn't meddle in the affairs of men, but
rather leaves them their free will, you too must let your fellow
human beings apply their free will, and you must never compel them
to do anything by force. In your helpfulness, you must always
consider everything from the standpoint of spiritual well-being, not
from the standpoint of the earthly and physical. But this divinely
impartial love must never degenerate into indifference and apathy
and you must never refuse to help a person because of personal
antipathy when you can save him with earthly measures.
'These are the hardest tests of all because you must
give up your personal feelings, simply turning them off as it were.
Only when you have completely mastered the preceding eleven sets of
opposite characteristics will you be able to recognize the voice of
God so clearly as to be able to feel, even in the most difficult
cases, what you should do in perfect divine love, and what
you should not do!
'Then you will no longer be able to err, because you
will BE love itself! And love can only act in love. You will
only need to radiate your self, to be your self, and
the whole universe will be able to draw from your warmth,
from your light, and from your strength. Then you will
have become divine yourself, and your consciousness will have become
identical with God himself! You will have returned from out
of the world of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that is,
from out of the realm of the tree of death, where everything is
visible in the state of separation, into the realm of divine unity.
You will then be eating again of the fruit of the tree of life. And
of this fruit you will also give to eat to those who come after you
so that all may return to the unity of the immortal, eternal
life, to the eternal being, to God.'
Oh you representative of God! I shall never,
never forget your words. They have engraved themselves so deeply in
my soul that I have become identical with the meaning of these
words. They've even gone into my blood, into the marrow of my bones,
and I find myself a different person after this instruction from the
one I was before.
But my task is to make all this come true.
PHARAOH BEFORE AMON Pharaoh with the staff of life
Cairo Museum
THE FOUR FACES OF BRAHMA
Angkor-Thom, Bayon, Cambodia
THE LIONS
The next day is a great festival.
As usual Menu dresses me, puts on my gilt sandals,
and then I go over into my reception room where the ladies of the
court and Roo-Kha, the Chancellor, are waiting with two jewel
bearers. Very ceremoniously Roo-Kha steps over to the jewel bearers
and opens the coffer. Then the senior lady of the court, my former
chief governess, takes out the magnificent golden collar, comes over
to me with much pomp and ceremony, and places the golden collar on
my shoulders. Then, just as ceremoniously, she fastens on my head
ornament with the golden serpent, and finally my bracelets and
anklets. I stand like a statue, motionless and dignified. Although I
behave myself with all befitting decorum, I'd really like to give
Roo-Kha's beard a healthy yank because he's looking at me in such a
saucy, impertinent way again.
Roo-Kha isn't really bad, and he too has some of the
blood of the Sons of God in his veins. He is very intelligent and
crafty, and although he too can see into people's hearts and minds,
he doesn't exploit this ability to an excessive extent. When he bows
before me, it's not the bowing of a Chancellor before his Queen. On
the contrary, he is bowing as a 'man' before my feminine beauty and
looking at me with a covetous eye. Impudent fellow! He knows all the
while that I can read his thoughts and all his feelings.
But then I think of Ptahhotep's words:
'In every living creature there is the striving
towards divine unity. The male seeks the female, and the female
seeks the male. That is the attraction between the two forms of
manifestation of creative forces ...'
In this light I can understand Roo-Kha too. This
power is working within him, and it's not his fault that he finds me
pleasing. That's the reason for his impertinence. If it weren't for
this force working within him he wouldn't bother about me. And in my
secret heart of hearts I'm really not angry at all that he admires
my beauty ...
After the dressing ceremonies, the ladies of the
court and Roo-Kha accompany me to the Pharaoh. How beautiful—how
very beautiful my father is in his festive robe! Just like a god
incarnate! Then we all leave the palace, going out to the waiting
chariots. Some building or other is going to be dedicated today with
an inaugural ceremony.
Father and I step into the golden chariot—the
chariot with the lions!— and father takes the reins from the
attendant's hands.
When I was still quite a little girl, father was
already taking me for rides in his chariot. I had to stand behind
him, and he explained to me how to keep my balance by elastic body
movements during the joggling, bumpy ride. I had to learn to keep my
entire body quite relaxed in order to be able instantly to follow
the movements of the chariot. When the floor beneath me was rocking
to and fro and bouncing up and down, I had to be able to stand on my
toes, keeping my feet, my knees and the rest of my body flexible and
quickly able to make the necessary counter-moves.
These chariot rides were always very funny, and at
first we had plenty of occasions to laugh at my awkwardness. At the
start, father let the lions walk slowly, gradually quickening their
pace to a trot, but the moment they began to run, the chariot threw
me back and forth and I was naturally afraid. Instead of keeping
myself relaxed, I grabbed frantically at father's hands, robe and
belt. Father laughed heartily, and with unending patience he showed
me again and again how to stand upright. Finally I learned how to
make the right corrective movements and was able to stand upright
without hanging on to father or the edge of the chariot.
It was wonderful to be able to stand as securely and
as apparently motionless as father while the chariot raced over the
ground! Often our rides were quite long. It was a thrilling feeling
to be speeding along behind the galloping lions. The lions also
enjoyed being able to get in a good run, and not only we—father and
I—but the lions too would laugh with joy. Through these chariot
rides my body became muscular, powerful and as resilient as if I had
practised wrestling every day. Every single muscle was used, forced
to coordinate and react instantly with every movement of the
chariot. It was a constant dance, although invisible, as it was the
floor underneath, not we ourselves that was really dancing on and
on.
When I was fifteen father taught me how to drive the
lions. What a wonderful feeling it was to have these magnificent,
gigantic animals in my power! They responded to the slightest
impulse of my will, so supremely sensitive that they immediately did
everything I wanted them to without my having to move the reins. But
father never let me drive them alone—not even my favourite lion, a
real personal pet to the point of being jealous—because the lions
were always highly independent and only initiates could control
them. I hope when I'm initiated I'll be allowed to drive the lions
alone!
Now en route to a public festival, father drives his
lions with all due dignity, and I stand beside him as his wife. I am
proud of father. He is still very young, strong and magnificently
beautiful. His body and his handsome face radiate tremendous power
and concentration, especially now when he is driving the lions.
Standing and balancing on his toes, his body absorbs every movement
of the chariot, and he seems to stand motionless, as securely as if
he were the sun god himself.
We reach our destination and the boring ceremonies
begin.
I don't like these public festivals. They are always
the same. Huge crowds, marching soldiers, people of rank!—And for a
time that seems interminable I have to sit still, practically
motionless, watching the ceremonies until everything is over. Then I
have to exchange friendly greetings with the people of rank, while
reading the many stupid and treacherous thoughts behind all the
humility and flattery they wear on their faces. How lucky that among
all the many hypocrites in the court, who seek only the satisfaction
of their vanity and desire for power, there are a few truly upright
and loyal co-workers for father and Ptahhotep. There's an officer,
for example, whose radiance is so bright it seems almost golden.
'Who is he?' I ask father in a whisper.
'His name is Thiss-Tha,' father whispers back. 'He
was recently made an officer, but he has such splendid qualities—as
you can see from his radiance— that I want to make him a commander.'
The ceremonies are always the same, the only
difference being that we sometimes have to sit on the palace
terrace, sometimes on a great dais, and at other times on the temple
terrace. Sometimes the ceremonies are for the dedication of a new
building, sometimes to celebrate an expedition returning from barter
trade with neighbouring countries and bringing back the wares
obtained abroad. Then at other times we take part in a harvest
festival or various temple festivals, and these I don't like for the
simple reason that the great crowds haven't the slightest idea about
the meaning of the ceremony. Instead of worshipping God in the
various forms in which he manifests himself, as represented in
symbolic pictures, the ignorant masses worship the symbols
themselves.
But in time even the most boring ceremony is ended.
At last we can go home and be ourselves again.
No, I wouldn't like to be the Pharaoh! The affairs
of the country don't interest me at all. Legally I should be the
successor to the throne, but father never talks about this and pays
very little attention to preparing me for the tasks of a Pharaoh. I
know that Ptahhotep and father are able to raise themselves up above
the plane of time. They can see and experience the past and
the future as present. I too am beginning to develop this
ability, and often I can see parts of the future, but whenever I'd
like to see my own future, only a dense mist appears before
my eyes, hiding everything. But father knows my future, and since he
is not yet treating me as a co-regent, I imagine I may never become
a Pharaoh. I have already had this presentiment on my own. It
doesn't worry me in any way as I'd rather be a priestess in the
temple. But curiously enough I don't see any pictures in the future
which would show me as a priestess in the temple either. I see only
mist ...
After such celebrations, I am always happy when I
can get back to the temple the next day. I always feel comfortable
in the pure spiritual atmosphere of the temple.
29
TELEPATHIC EXERCISES
One day Ptahhotep sends me a message saying I should
come to see him that evening. As I stand before him, he says:
'You've passed your preparatory tests so far quite successfully, and
now you may try to establish psychic contact with another person.
You will find you get better results with these exercises after
sundown. That's because the sun's rays have a stimulating effect on
those nerve centres and glands which serve the physical
manifestations of the spirit and thus tie the consciousness to
the material plane.
'The sun's rays have a contrary effect on spiritual
manifestations. After sunset, this effect ceases, the consciousness
can free itself from certain nerve centres and withdraw into the
spiritual plane. Living creatures go to sleep. Going to sleep means
that the consciousness withdraws from the body into the spirit. And
since most people are not able consciously to reach the
deeper levels of the spirit, they lose consciousness—they fall
asleep. With practice one can develop the resistance of his nerves
to such a degree that he can remain conscious even at the deepest
level. In this way the nerve centres and brain centres which are at
rest during the daytime become active, receiving and conducting the
vibrations of the spirit, the self. In this way you can
establish contact with someone at a distance, that is telepathic
contact. It's better for a beginner to practise after sunset so that
he doesn't have the effect of the sunshine working against him.
Later on he develops the ability to make a telepathic contact any
time.
'In this exercise, just as in every exercise in
concentration, you begin by fixing your entire attention on one
single thought. Concentrate your thoughts completely on the person
with whom you want to establish contact, allowing your imagination
to help along. With your eyes closed, you imagine the person you
want to reach, seeing him with your inward eye, his body, his face,
his eyes, and imagining you are he and he is you,
until you actually get the feeling that his hands are your hands
and your body his, until you achieve complete identity with the
person you are trying to reach. When you've reached this point,
think the thought you want to transmit clearly and concentratedly.
Think it with intent awareness that you are the person
concerned and that this person in you is thinking this thought.
'This exercise has three phases: first you practise
in the presence of the per son whom you want to reach
telepathically, and during your practice the person concerned
tries to receive your thought.
'Later you repeat the same exercise at a distance
and at a time agreed upon in advance, with both of you
knowing that the other is going to concentrate on him.
'Finally you will transmit a message through
telepathic contact without your partner's knowing about it in
advance. These three phases make up the positive half of
telepathic exercises. In this work you are the one who wants to send
a message. The negative half of the exercise consists in your
developing the ability to receive and understand telepathic
messages. This exercise too consists of three phases. At first
you make yourself receptive and "empty" in the presence of the
person from whom you want to receive a message, then alone at
a time agreed upon in advance such that you know who is
going to concentrate on you and when. Finally you must
be able to receive any telepathic message without knowing in
advance who is going to concentrate on you and when.
'In time you develop to such a point that you
respond immediately to every message from a distance, at any time
and from any person. No matter what you're doing, you'll feel that
someone is concentrating on you, and you will hear his voice within
you. Later on you will not only be able to hear the person's
voice; you will even be able to see the person you're in
contact with. His form, his face and especially his eyes will appear
before you just like a picture in a dream. When you reach this level
in your progress, you won't feel the fetters of matter—of your
body—in such an oppressive fashion, for by then the isolation you
felt by virtue of being imprisoned within your body will be greatly
reduced. You will be able to enjoy the freedom of the spirit while
you're still living in the body.
'When you want to create a telepathic connection,
you'll find you will succeed better at night. Then the consciousness
is not so strongly occupied with one's own thoughts. The person
concerned is less isolated. He is passive, and your telepathic
message will be better able to reach his nerve centres. Most
people's nerve centres are in such a latent state, so poorly
developed, that it takes a very powerful effort on your part for
them to be able to receive a message at all. When they're asleep,
you can get them to dream about you and pick up your message in
their dream. Practice will reveal all the laws of telepathy to you,
including how to know immediately whether someone is busy and how to
isolate yourself when you are busy concentrating on something. Only
beginners disturb each other!
'Every evening you are to practise these exercises
according to my instructions. And now let's do a bit of practice
right away. Seat yourself opposite me, close your eyes, and try to
communicate a thought to me.'
I sit down opposite Ptahhotep and concentrate on
him. I imagine that I am Ptahhotep, and I induce within myself
the feeling that my hands and feet, my entire body, are his hands,
his feet, his body. Then with utmost concentration I think this
thought: 'I, Ptahhotep, get up, step over and stroke the hair of
this young person (myself).' For Ptahhotep's hands radiate wonderful
strength, and I am always happy when he lays his hand upon my head.
Almost instantly Ptahhotep stands up, lays his
blessed hand upon my head, and strokes my hair. So my concentration
was successful. Or was it? After all Ptahhotep can read my thoughts
even when I'm not trying to transmit a thought to him
telepathically.
'Good,' he says with a smile. 'I was able to read
your thought not simply because I can read your thoughts anyway, but
because you were really concentrating very well. Your lion would
have felt too what you wanted.'
'My lion, Father of my Soul? I can believe that. But
a person?'
'Patience, my child. In time everything is possible.
Now let's try it the other way around. I'll transmit a thought to
you. Make yourself empty and receptive.'
Ptahhotep sits down and I do as he asks. A moment
later I hear his voice from within me, as if coming out of my own
heart: 'As soon as you've achieved sufficient self control in
all the twin characteristics, it will be time for me to reveal the
last secrets to you before your initiation.'
I open my eyes and ask with joyous expectation,
'Does this mean I'm drawing near to my initiation?'
Ptahhotep smiles: 'Since you heard my message, you
are ready to receive it, except that you still need to perfect
yourself in self control.'
I jump up, throw my arms about his neck, and kiss
his cheeks with resounding smacks. Ptahhotep embraces me and says
with a loud laugh: 'You see, you see how you can't control yourself!
You haven't been able to resist the effect of spiritual unity.
You've experienced the union of our spirit, the sources of this
unity flowed into your body, and now your body wants to participate
in the joy of union. But don't forget that what is divine on the
spiritual level because it corresponds to the laws of the spirit
becomes satanic on the material level because it runs counter to the
laws of matter. Union in the spirit is possible, but union in the
body is not; two bodies cannot occupy the same space. Because of the
longing for unity, people try to unite their bodies, and therefore
slide down into sexuality. Nature exploits the longing for union,
the yearning for the long lost paradisiacal state in order to beget
new generations of people. The great disappointment is only that
sexuality cannot create union. What's impossible is simply
impossible. And all creatures in addition to being tired through the
drain on their energies, are sad after sexual intercourse, simply
because the soul remains unsatisfied. The longing for the
paradisiacal unity continues, and nature goes on using this
unfulfilled yearning to produce new generations of offspring. For
you it would be very, very desirable not to let the yearning for
union flow unhindered into your body. I am protected enough to
be able to resist your entrancing beauty, but you may meet younger,
inexperienced men who can't resist you when you throw your arms
around their neck! Naturally my advice is wasted,' says Ptahhotep
with a smile. 'What you really lack is experience. And it's this
lack of experience I can now thank for your vehement expressions of
love.'
'Father of my Soul,' I say, 'you're not angry at
me?'
Ptahhotep smiles: 'No, no, my little child, I'm not
angry at all. As long as you only throw your arms around my neck,
everything's all right. But be very, very cautious with other men!
The higher you rise in spirit, the more irresistible your radiations
become. You don't need to get nearly so close to a person for your
power of attraction to be effective. Be careful that you don't lead
men to their downfall.'
'Father,' I asked amazed, 'do you mean I'm not
spiritual enough? You know how successful I am in my exercises. And
Mentuptah is very satisfied with me too. I already know how to
control my body and my nerve centres to a very high degree. I've
passed all my preliminary tests.'
'Yes,' said Ptahhotep. 'Spiritually you are already
very awake and in control of your body. But at the same time you are
very free and lacking in caution on the physical plane. You are
neglecting to bolt this door, not because you are not able to, but
because you don't always want to. You're not protecting your body
sufficiently against the high frequencies of spiritual vibrations,
and that is a constant danger for your nerve centres. When your
spiritual forces enter your body, you conduct these high
frequencies, untransformed, into your lower nerve centres and this
means there's a danger of your higher, finer nerve centres being
burnt out and destroyed. That would be too bad for this fine
instrument. You have enough self-control when you want it,
but you often relax your grip on the reins out of pure enthusiasm.
Sometimes you simply don't want to exercise self-control, Be
on the lookout, dear child, and always alert!'
Oh Ptahhotep, my dear, dear master! How early you
saw what was unavoidably coming and how much you wanted to save me!
But the best advice can't change inexperience into experience, and
my inner lack of balance and self-control had to be brought back
into equilibrium through painful experience.
30
THE FUTURE AND SUNRISE
A long new period begins in my life. I examine my
every thought, my every word, my every deed. I reflect and watch to
see whether, at the right time and in the right place, I am really
giving expression to the divine, and not to the satanic. And in this
constant watchfulness, this continuous self-observation, I discover
how undisciplined and unbridled and sensual—in a word how personal—I
still am. How much longer is it going to take me to reach the point
where I don't allow myself to be overpowered by passions, where I no
longer identify myself with my external impressions, but always
remain master of all my physical, spiritual and mental forces?
During this period of my preparation for initiation
I spend only my mornings in the temple, coming back to the palace
after my physical and spiritual exercises. In the afternoon I take
part in public life. Excursions by ship and chariot alternate with
travel and inspection trips to various settlements.
But these excursions and the conversations centring
around them really bore me stiff. It isn't that I don't like
company, oh no! I enjoy very much being with people, but with people
who are my kin and who have something to say. But these people are
so different from us who have our lineage from the Sons of God. Of
course we too have human blood and our race too is no longer pure,
but we consciously live in the spirit and are not so materialistic
as the sons of men. It's almost as if they had completely forgotten
that they, in their selves, are free spirits and that their body is
only an instrument for the manifestation of their spirit.
These people are so identified with their body that
they live in the illusion they are only body. When their body
needs food, they believe they want to eat, they are
hungry, and instead of taking in food under the watchful supervision
of the spirit, they act as if they themselves were eating,
rather than merely being observers and governors of their body.
They eat just as greedily as animals. I watch them during
'feeding time' and often feel like turning my head away so as not to
see their beastly behaviour. I too let my body eat with good
appetite; I too supply my stomach and digestive organs with pure
forces, getting all the taste of the food I eat so that my body can
absorb all the precious forces in the food— but how could I identify
myself with this? My self can't be hungry, since the self is
not matter but the master of matter. It's true my consciousness
receives a message from the body to the effect that it needs
nourishment, and I'm aware of this message in the form of a feeling
of hunger. But the self in me neither eats nor drinks. How
could I forget even for a moment that these functions are only
necessary in order to maintain the body in health? The only thing my
self really has to do with all of this is to observe watchfully
and control what enters the body and see to it that teeth
and tongue do their work properly.
I can never understand how people, after eating like
beasts, can say something like, 'My, but that tasted good to me!'
To whom did it taste good? Don't such people know that it tasted
good to their palates? These poor people are such slaves of
their physical desires ... We simply don't understand each other.
But father and Ptahhotep say it's our duty to remain among them and
awaken higher desires and aims within them. And all the while father
knows that the people of rank within his court are mostly only
interested in how and where they can get a well-paid
position, so they can get rich as quickly as possible and satisfy
their hunger for power.
And another thing—these sons of men go hunting for
wild animals, using their intelligence to kill innocent animals—and
they're even proud about it! They should be ashamed! These people
are worse than the animals they hunt. Animals only kill because of
hunger! But people kill for passion's sake, because killing—war and
hunting give them pleasure. But father says that people are still
undeveloped and we mustn't judge them by our own standards.
Another thing—these people attach endless importance
to their family tree. When a person has one ancestor more from the
lineage of the Sons of God than someone else has, he mentions it as
often as possible, and shows contempt for others with less
brilliance in their ancestry. That's why they pay so much attention
to the family a daughter is descended from, and the family of the
young man she marries. How ridiculous! As if they didn't really know
that earthly life is only a journey between being born into the body
and leaving it at death, whereas the self is the same in
every living creature. Only the body can have a 'lineage'. The level
on which a person stands is determined only by the level of his own
intelligence. Often enough, a person with several ancestors from the
lineage of the Sons of God still has a lower degree of intelligence
than someone else with far fewer forefathers in the divine race.
When I'm among these people, I feel as if I were
among the dead. They seem to move, speak, eat, drink and carry out
functions of the living merely because natural forces are at work
within them. But where is the conscious spirit that controls and
guides these natural forces, not only in the body, but also outside
in the universe? They don't know they have the ability to guide
these creative forces. They're so blind they see only the
external form of people, and they haven't the faintest idea that
I can read their thoughts, their feelings, see their whole soul,
their inner being. They lie to my very face for the simple
reason that, not being able to read my thoughts, they believe
that I can't see theirs either, and that I don't know their
thoughts are very different from what they say. They don't realize
that a lie creates a kind of insulation around them and develops a
dark shadow, like smoke, in their radiation, and this dark blotch is
not only ugly, but even smells bad. My pet lions are quick to smell
the foul scent of these liars. Whenever one of them comes near, they
start to wrinkle their nose, then get up, give the person concerned
a contemptuous glance, and stalk off majestically. But with no such
easy way to defend myself, I have to keep on talking with such
people just as if I didn't clearly see their hypocrisy—and even
smell it!
It's much more pleasant to be alone with father.
He's had a charming house built for the two of us, in a shady garden
by the seashore. Whenever he has some free time, we go there by boat
on the Nile, taking only a minimum of servants. This gives us a
magnificent rest, coupled with deep enjoyment of the endless sea and
the peace of each other's company.
Father and I both love the sea—that great mother of
the earth—with childlike devotion. We're both of us so very happy in
our little house by the seashore, and our life there is closely
linked in many ways to the sea itself. Here we experience perfect
liberty, immortality, eternity ...
We take advantage of every opportunity to be close
to the sea. We go for walks together along the seashore. We go
looking for mussels together, and sometimes we take a little boat
and row out quite far, all by ourselves. There's an immensity about
the beauty of the sea when the air is calm and the water beneath us
is as smooth as a mirror. But there's something just as grand about
being out among all the waves when the wind's blowing them up high,
and we feel all the exhilaration of being hoisted skyward by the
crest of one wave, then sliding down into the trough of the next. We
strip off our clothes, jump into the cool water, and swim about our
boat.
Once, after such an invigorating swim, as we were
sitting on the beach, I asked father: 'How is it possible that
people can be so blind to spiritual truth? What's going to happen to
the world when the government gets into the hands of the sons of
men, as Ptahhotep once told me it would? I'm frightened even to
think of the consequences of the dominion's passing into the hands
of self-seeking people obsessed with a craving for power. I'm
beginning to be able to sense what's coming in the future. My
exercises in the temple are awakening my inner sight, and my powers
of clairvoyance are growing from day to day, but still I don't see
everything as clearly as Ptahhotep and you.'
For a long time father sits looking out over the
water. Finally he says: 'Yes, the earth must go through a very
difficult period for many thousands of years. As you already know,
the pure-blooded Sons of God all departed from this earthly plane
long ago. And their sons who have been born as a cross between the
two races but who still carry within themselves the possibility of
perfectly divine manifestation, are also gradually disappearing from
the face of the earth. 'In order for the higher powers to be
propagated through hereditary channels when the pure-blooded Sons of
God had already departed from the earth, their sons, who had
inherited their abilities from their fathers and who had achieved
initiation, again took daughters of men as their wives, and this
went on and on for generations until this intermarrying had
penetrated into all levels of life in both races. 'But as long as
the waves of creative force are moving in the direction of further
materialization, the earthly element always plays the dominant role
in heredity. For this reason, less and less descendants of the Sons
of God—with their original elongated cranial form and their capacity
for manifesting higher abilities—are being born on earth.
Nevertheless, in accordance with the laws of heredity, this
continual intermarrying has made it possible for a pure-blooded Son
of God to reincarnate himself at any time—even in the darkest, most
materialistic period in human development. For the time is coming
when only people with short heads will be born and will move into
positions of ruling power all over the earth, even here in Egypt!
They won't have the spiritual vision and wisdom of the present
dynasty that has come down from the higher race, and instead of
governing their people with selfless love, they will rule only with
the intellect, with blind, crude craving for power, and with
unmitigated selfishness.
'As you know, the continual intermarriages between
the Sons of God and the daughters of men have gradually led to the
development of a hybrid race which is passing on the inherited
characteristics of both races. There are numerous individuals who,
although they have human blood, still have the elongated cranial
form, and thus have inherited all the spiritual and psychic powers
of their paternal forebears. But according to the laws of heredity,
this continual intermarrying will result in more variations of
different individuals even in the same family, but less and less
individuals with inherited characteristics from the divine lineage.
Even today there are cases where, among several sons in a given
family, one is still quite divinely spiritual, another already quite
physically human, and a third can easily be a mixture of both. The
relationship between those with higher and those with lower
characteristics is shifting constantly towards those with the lower
characteristics. No wonder men orientated towards the physical very
often nurse a bitter hatred towards their brothers who have
inherited divinely spiritual characteristics. All too often, this
hatred leads to tragic clashes.
'Nevertheless, as a result of still further
intermarrying and in accordance with the laws of heredity, the high
knowledge of the initiates will penetrate deeper and deeper into the
people and wider and wider throughout the entire population. As ever
more variations and differentiations arise, the time will come when
every human being will have the possibility of reaching the
highest degree of knowledge and initiation. This intermarrying,
going on for many thousands of years, will eventually obliterate the
differences we now feel to be so tremendous between the omniscient
members of the ruling family and the completely ignorant and
undeveloped masses. Thus in time, the people and their rulers will
become equal as people. In their pure form both of these two
races, the Sons of God and primitive man, will gradually disappear
completely, but there will always be some individual born on
different levels of development. In some of them the inherited
characteristics of their divine ancestors will be manifested to a
greater degree, while in others the primitive human characteristics
will be dominant.
'In this way everyone will have characteristics
inherited from both sides, and the races will be so thoroughly
blended that people can no longer be distinguished by racial
characteristics but only on the basis of traits of character and
abilities. Generally speaking, people with higher abilities will
have exactly the same cranial form as other people but still stand
out above the masses as great scientists or artists, philosophers or
mystics. Both the elongated head form of the Sons of God and the
short, ape-like head form of primitive man will have disappeared
completely. In the hybrid race the brain and nerve centres serving
for the manifestation of higher spiritual and psychic abilities will
be in an undeveloped, latent state for many thousands of years.
Accordingly, people's heads will be roundish in form. On the other
hand people in this hybrid race will develop extensively the brain
centres serving the intellect, and their future generations will
thus have high, arched foreheads.
'Just as the waves of spiritual force emanating from
the higher race will reach larger and larger numbers of people as a
result of this intermarrying until they reach people of the lowest
level and make it possible for them too to have knowledge, in the
same way worldly dominion will pass into the hands of people on
lower and lower levels. In their ignorance, of course, they will
first destroy the great divine cultures which the Sons of God have
built up in various parts of the earth. Only a few remnants and
ruins of the great buildings and monuments we have today will be
left as silent witnesses to tell of the knowledge, wisdom, goodness
and beauty that once reigned on earth. As time goes on people will
only know through their legends about the omnipotence and
omniscience of the great "white magicians" and "initiates"; but
since these people will be ignorant themselves, they'll go along for
thousands of years believing, in their pride and arrogance, that
these legends are only fairy tales.
'The continual hybridization process going on
between the two races has created a kind of "ladder of development"
on which even the lowest level of primitive man can climb upward.
Animal-like people themselves are nothing else but pure spirits
which have fallen far down into matter and which, having lost their
divine consciousness in matter, are no longer aware of their high
parentage. In order to give them the possibility of regaining
their consciousness on the highest plane, the Sons of God made the
great sacrifice of putting their strength into marriages with the
daughters of men. With these marriages, however, they've anchored
themselves in the material world and are obliged to go through the
whole developmental process up to the complete spiritualization of
the earth in the capacity of helpers, some of them in human
reincarnations and some of them in the bodiless spiritual state.
'The level of the ruling class will sink lower and
lower, and the dominant power will shift from one country to
another. Continual wars raging on earth will lead to ignorance,
poverty and misery.
'The last initiates will refuse to turn over to
these people the devices and equipment through which they control
the forces of nature and the tremendous creative forces that operate
in secret. Before they leave the earthly plane for thousands of
years they will destroy all their instruments. One of the last
initiates, who will come forth out of a different people from ours
but who will nevertheless grow up here in Egypt and receive
initiation, will salvage one such instrument, taking it with him out
of Egypt, and for a time the priests of his people will be able to
keep the secret. But the time will come when the last initiate will
have to leave the earth, and he will destroy the last instruments.
He will have to do it to keep the ignorant sons of men from
destroying each other, themselves and—through chain reactions—whole
Continents again, purely as a result of their passion for power and
possessions. The destruction which once overtook the home of the
Sons of God must never be repeated.
'After all the initiates' instruments are destroyed
and their high knowledge has passed from the earth, people will have
to till the soil with their own physical force, and they'll even
have to cut stones with their own hands, just as primitive man did!
They'll also have to suffer the tyranny of fellow human beings from
within their own race. However, since everything that manifests
itself on the earthly plane arises through forces originating in the
indivisible unity and striving for equilibrium, the tyranny of
self-seeking rulers will awaken people out of their unconscious
state. Through pain and suffering their attention will be guided to
higher, spiritual truth.
'Spiritual leaders of the earth must leave humanity
apparently alone because people are to discover divine truth in
themselves and in nature, standing on their own feet, using their
own will, independent of outside help. If this were not so they
would never have the opportunity of climbing up to the highest
level. But just as a good mother helps her child to learn to walk
alone so that it can develop independence, while all the time she
watches from a distance, ready to help it up again after a fall, in
the same way the spiritual powers guiding the earth are ready to
intervene whenever necessary to help humanity out of difficult
situations. They are active on the spiritual plane, guiding and
leading humanity from there. Whenever, instead of knowledge,
ignorance and error and superstition gain control on earth—whenever
spiritual darkness is so great that it threatens to get completely
out of hand, there will always be some of the Sons of God ready to
make the great sacrifice of descending to earth, being reborn in a
human body, and in this way bringing divine light and consolation to
humanity.
'Through the intermarriages between the divine race
and the human, the inheritable divine characteristics will be
propagated among the people. In this way it will always be possible
for a Son of God, through a pure woman, to receive a body with all
the organs he needs to manifest himself completely. In every epoch
throughout the development of the earth through many thousands of
years the Sons of God will incarnate themselves in order to teach
people the laws of the spirit, love and selflessness, and in order
to carry out the most varied tasks. Even though dominion will rest
in human hands all over the earth, there will still be some rulers
who will reign with wisdom and justice and build up high
civilizations on earth, or at least in parts of the earth. Others,
coming as scientists, artists and mystics, will bring humanity the
highest art, music and literature. They will bring the world
new ideas and new discoveries in order to guide the earth's
development in new directions. For the most part, these Sons of God
will live a very lonely life, often in the most abj ect poverty and
abandoned by their fellows, for there will only be very few people
who can understand them. Nevertheless, their spiritual light will
reach out in ever-greater waves, into ever-wider circles. The names
of these spiritual giants will be known for thousands of years, and
people will study their works hi the highest schools of the sons of
men.
'Then, too, there will be reincarnated Sons of God
working secretly within humanity. They'll find places to live in the
high mountains, in caves, or in other remote regions where,
undisturbed in their retreats, they can send forth extremely high
forces into the atmosphere of the earth. People who have already
developed to such a point that they can receive these spiritual
waves will automatically establish spiritual links with these
Sons of God, and work together with them. Often they will not
even be aware of this spiritual link. On the contrary, for all
they'll know, they will merely be acting on the basis of their own
"inner conviction", not knowing that this "inner conviction" is
divine power transmitted from the Sons of God. In this way some
highly developed people will transmit and proclaim to all humanity
the teachings which the Sons of God will bring to earth from time to
time. Although the masses won't be able right away to understand
these high truths, they'll feel the love and power inherent within
them, and for this reason they'll believe in them. That is
how religions will come into being from the divine teachings
of the Sons of God.
'All the Sons of God have always brought and always
will bring the same truth into different parts of the earth,
but people will interpret it differently depending on the
characteristics of their race and their degree of development.
These different interpretations, as they get passed on to later
generations, will give rise to different religions all springing
from the same truths. One and the same Son of God will
reincarnate himself at different times and in different places of
the earth in order to proclaim the highest truth to humanity. And
from the same truth proclaimed by the same spirit,
people in different parts of the earth will develop different
religions. Because of such differences arising merely from human
ignorance, people will make war upon each other, trying to send each
other to hell "in the name of God".
'The degree of development reached by people in
different nations at any given time will vary greatly, and the
reincarnated Sons of God will consequently receive widely varying
kinds of treatment. In some countries, where people are most
interested in divine truth, the Sons of God will be recognized,
heard and honoured.
'But the waves of force keep radiating outward till
they reach their utmost material limits. There will also be times in
the darkest periods of earthly life, when materialism, hate, envy,
fear and terror reign, and in such times too the Sons of God will
have to return to earth and be very badly treated. Ignorant people
obsessed by a passion for power will torture and kill the Son of
God. Nevertheless he will go through with this sacrifice, thus
radiating tremendous spiritual force. The spirit in people will
awaken and vanquish the darkness in their soul. Little by little the
face of the earth will be completely changed.
'From the utmost material limits, the waves of
creative force will then flow back again, ushering in a new period
of upward development. People will have more and more opportunity to
co-operate with the Sons of God in the great divine plan for the
salvation of the earth, and as time goes on they will manifest more
and more spirituality. Then masses of individuals will be
reincarnated who once were incarnate in the divine race, but
who either could not pass their tests for initiation, and died
during initiation, or later fell after having become
initiates. They will again be conscious of the knowledge they once
had, and while people will still be killing each other in some parts
of the earth, there will be a constantly growing group of people
receiving and transmitting the radiations of the Sons of God, and
preparing the new life of the spirit.
'The people descended from the lower race will also
gradually climb to higher levels. At first they will only be able to
grasp with their intellect that they are capable of better things
and that they could live much more happily on earth without killing
and enslaving each other. The higher humanity climbs, the more
materialism and passion for possessions will lose their grip on
people's lives. Little by little the passion for conquest and power
will decline, and instead of using their strength to fight each
other, people will use their abilities to harness the forces of
nature. In this way they will discover step by step that they don't
need to earn their bread through dull, difficult drudgery, that they
don't need to water the earth with the sweat of their brow, and that
by activating their higher nerve centres they can command the forces
of nature. Thus the earth will gradually come back under the
dominion of higher waves of force, and people will not only be able
to understand with their intellect, but also to experience
and realize the highest divine truths. In this way high
civilizations will develop again.
'As long as a person identifies himself with
matter—with the earth—his consciousness is linked with the earth in
a state of identity: He is earth. Consequently, when his body
loses its usefulness and dies, he dies too, that is, his
consciousness ceases and falls into a latent state. That's what
people call
death.
'But the situation is just the opposite with a
spiritually re-awakened person who stands above matter during his
physical life. For him the fact of being born into a body is death,
whereas the death of the body means his awakening, resurrection,
life!
'When people cease to identify themselves with their
body—or to express the matter symbolically—when they cease to eat of
the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
manifesting only the right half of the tree of knowledge and
leaving the left half of the tree in the unmanifested state, they
will live in a paradisiacal state, in themselves and as children of
the earth. This is the stage of development humanity must reach.
'It will be a long struggle until the earth reaches
this plane of existence, but spiritual forces gradually penetrate
even into the most isolated heart, and in the course of further
thousands of years the earth will again be transformed into the
promised land. Sometime, in the far distant future, the salvation of
the earth will be accomplished!'
Father stops talking and looks out over the sea for
a long time as if he had been reading the future there.
'Father,' I ask, 'will you and Ptahhotep take part
in this great work? Will you too be born again for tasks on earth
during the aeons and aeons to come? And how about me, father? What's
going to happen to me? I often see other people's future very
clearly, but when I try to see my own, there's only a curtain of
mist before my eyes, and I can't see into it or through it.'
Father shoots me a very strange glance at this
question. Then, putting his arm about my shoulders and drawing me
close, he gives me his answer: 'I'll be reincarnated a number of
times in earthly lives because, through my marriage with your
mother, I've put my roots down in the plane of matter, deeper than
would normally be appropriate for one of our spirit. But Ptahhotep
has never departed from his spirituality and never identified
himself with his body. When he gets through with his present task,
he'll not be born again for more than ten thousand years. Together
with a number of other Sons of God he will continue to guide the
development of the earth, working on the spiritual plane and
projecting his influence on earthly life from there.
'Many highly developed people will be in spiritual
contact with him and cooperate with him in the great divine plan for
the salvation of the earth. They must carry out the tasks that
Ptahhotep assigns them and quite independently. As soon as they have
carried out one task properly, they'll receive new ones and,
gradually, more and more difficult ones. Through many thousands of
years people who reach spiritual maturity will also receive
initiation. They won't be initiated in the pyramids as candidates
are now, but will simply be assigned tasks to accomplish as part of
their life and work, and these tasks will make up their initiation
tests. In this way they will gradually develop into full-fledged
co-workers with the Sons of God. And working with Ptahhotep there
will also be those fallen Sons of God who identified themselves to
an excessive extent with matter, burnt out their brain and nervous
centres by transmitting excessively powerful vibrations into them,
and consequently had to be born again on even lower levels of
matter.
'Only through the experiences to be gained through
several reincarnations can these fallen Sons of God climb back to
their original level of divinity. Through lots of pain and sorrow
they will have to awaken their higher brain and nerve centres within
their body on a lower level, and it will cost them great effort and
long practice to reactivate these organs and be able, once again, to
manifest spiritual and magical powers. They will never feel quite at
home among people, as their way of thinking will be quite different
from that of the mass of human beings around them, and they will
never be completely able to understand human earthly life and adapt
themselves to it. They will be strangers, travelling through life
alone and misunderstood, always regarded as somewhat queer. For the
most part, as I already told you, they will have the task of
teaching people science, art and literature, and bringing new ideas
to earth. By some people who understand them, they will be respected
and revered, while by others who are forced to recognize their high
gifts, they will be objects of envy and hate.
'Through long suffering and many sorrows these
fallen sons—and daughters —of God will be awakened from their
material dream, rediscover their relationship with their lost
brothers, and re-acquire their lost cosmic consciousness.
Then they too will work together with their brothers within the
great divine plan, and proclaim divine truths on earth.'
I ask father: 'You said that the Sons of God will
gradually disappear from the face of the earth and that the people,
even though not yet awakened on the spiritual plane and consequently
self-centred entirely in the physical plane, will get control and
dominion over the affairs of the world. In that case how will the
people be able to control the lions? These marvellous animals are so
extremely sensitive that they don't tolerate the selfish sons of men
in their vicinity, even now. On their animal level they are a
manifestation of the highest power—the sun power—and live and move
in harmony with the sun's vibrations. They respond to courage,
honesty, love and have such fine nerves that they simply can't
tolerate low-level radiations. Whenever anyone approaches them, they
know immediately whether he's coming towards them in a spirit of
love, or in a low attitude of fear and passion for power. That's why
they hate the selfish, power-hungry sons of men. If what you say is
going to happen how will lions ever be able to serve the sons of
men? I just can't imagine, Father.'
'Your imagination is absolutely right if it doesn't
show you a future picture of lions serving mankind. It's quite true
people won't be able to keep the friendship of these wonderful
animals. With lies and pretty words, selfish and ignorant people
can—and often will—deceive each other, but never the lions! Animals
pay no attention to appearances; they see only the truth, because
they themselves are true! Lions will cease to be domestic
animals, withdrawing into the wilderness, far away from people, and
living a wild life of their own.'
'But Father, what animals will people use to pull
their chariots? Oxen and asses are much too slow!'
Father smiles: 'There are places in the world, even
now, where a splendid animal related to the zebra and the donkey is
working in the service of the people. What's more, the time will
soon be at hand when this same animal will begin to be used in our
country in place of the lion. Remember our government means peace.
We keep order and prosperity throughout the country by means of
wisdom and love. So for the present, we have no reason to fight each
other. But when my day of governing is over, a ruler from a
different family will come and found a new dynasty. With a much
higher proportion of human blood in his veins, he will not be
satisfied merely to rule with wisdom, but will also set out to
conquer neighbouring countries. The time is coming when the power of
our country will no longer be based on knowledge and selfless love,
but on cold, crude, brute force—and the good, the true and the
beautiful will be shoved into the background. Then this zebra-like
animal will play a great role in the life of the world. It is an
obedient animal, and even if it isn't as strong as the lion, it has
the advantage of willingly participating with people in their wars,
something no other animal would do without becoming wild and
dangerous itself.
'But in the course of some more thousands of years
people will progress to the point of discovering how to make their
chariots go without animals. All the secrets of creation were known
to the high race of the Sons of God. They knew how to liberate their
vehicles from the gravitational force of the earth and guide them
with the power of thought. They left many sketches and drawings of
these vehicles which were able to fly because of their lack of
weight, and some of the Sons of God preserved these sketches on
specially treated palm leaves, taking them away to another part of
the earth when their original homeland was destroyed. Some initiates
are still guarding them there today, and they will continue to be
guarded for some six to eight thousand years to come. By that time
people will have discovered quite different methods for moving their
vehicles on the earth and in the air. To be sure, not with the power
of thought, and for this reason their systems of locomotion will not
be as certain and free of danger as those of the Sons of God. Still
later, people will discover all the secrets of the Sons of God, even
the last secrets of
life. Then this period of development will have gone
through a full cycle.'
'Father, now please tell me about my future.'
Once again father looks at me with such a strange,
sad glance. Then he draws me closer to himself, and with a voice
which clearly betrays his controlled sadness, he says: 'My dear
child, I have already talked about your future, but you just didn't
recognize it as your future. This together with the fact that
you can only see a curtain of mist when you try to see your future
is proof that the world self—God—does not want to show you
your future for good reasons. How could I go against the will of
God? Be satisfied that it's better for you not to know your future.
If you knew it, you couldn't carry out your present tasks and duties
properly. One thing I can tell you is that we'll both go through
these coming events together, although not in each other's
physical presence. From time to time we'll have to reincarnate
ourselves, but not simultaneously and not at the same place. There
will also be a time during which you will have to live and work on
earth while I'll be living in the world of spiritual energy, working
in the atmosphere of the earth in the same way as Ptahhotep and many
other Sons of God. But in your dreams you'll often meet us ... the
details are really not so important, because no matter what happens
in your future, through the unity of the higher self you'll always
be in touch with us.'
I put my arms about him and repeat contentedly:
'Yes, Father, I belong to you, and I know you'll never leave me.'
'We'll never leave you!' father repeats slowly and
seriously.
When evening comes father and I sit out on our
terrace, enjoying the magnificent sunset over the sea. While the sun
sinks lower and lower in the west, father points to the broad
estuary of the river and says: 'You see far out there where the
waves of the sea are rolling in—some day—thousands of years from
now, there'll be solid land there covered with cities and houses and
all the comings and goings of people. The Nile is always sweeping a
lot of earth along with it, so the shore line is gradually moving
out further and further into the sea. Thousands of years ago there
was only water where we are now, and some thousands of years from
now there will be land right out to where you see that boat with its
sail to the wind. The face of the earth is not only changed by
catastrophe and upheavals, but also by the slow working of water.'
While he is talking, the sun slowly goes down. The
sky is alight with all the colours of the rainbow, changing with
every moment. Then the sun disappears below the horizon, and soon
we're surrounded by pitch darkness. Only the stars shine like big
diamonds.
For a long time we stay out on the terrace, and I
tell father that I can now make telepathic contacts. Father wants to
try me out to see whether I have my higher brain centres under
control. He tries to communicate a thought to me through becoming
identical with me in spirit. Both of us are proud and pleased that I
am able to repeat aloud his silent messages. I have progressed to
the point—at least after sundown—of being able to make contact with
Ptahhotep too. I now concentrate on him, and his body, his
noble face, and especially his eyes rise up before my inward sight.
Then I hear his communications like an echo within myself. I hear
his familiar and dearly beloved voice as if it were my own inner
voice. Then the picture of him within me slowly fades, and I realize
that he is isolating himself from me. He is concentrating on
something else.
Suddenly I feel in the mood to try and contact Ima
too. As I concentrate on him for a few moments, a picture of him
appears in my consciousness. I see him, his angelically beautiful
face, and watch him smile and tell me without words that he
understands me and is very happy about my progress. Dear Ima! I
always feel his brotherly help and love within me.
Early the following morning we are out on the
terrace again; for sunrise, if anything, is even more beautiful than
sunset. It is still dark, and the sky is a deep blue, almost black.
Suddenly, almost without warning, the upper rim of the sun appears,
and with it a magnificent reddish purple colour, suffusing the whole
vault of the sky until all is aglow. This is followed by a gorgeous
interplay of colours, all kinds and shades and tints—from the
brightest flame-yellow all the way to deep dark blue. Seeing the
firmament alight with the handiwork of God fills my soul with
ineffable joy, and a feeling of infinite peace and well-being fills
my body with new vital force. How often I admire the sunrise from
the terrace of our little house! Pure joy and delight feed the very
depths of my soul. And my joy is all the greater because when we're
here father belongs to me alone. Here he is not the Pharaoh, only my
father, my best friend and companion.
31
BO-GHAR AND THE STAFF OF LIFE
One afternoon after a storm that has lasted for
several days, when the wind has abated but the waves are still
running high, father and I row out some distance from shore to enjoy
the waves that rock our little boat to and fro.
Suddenly I notice something being battered about by
the waves. It appears and disappears, rises up and sinks out of
sight again.
'Father,' I cry out. 'Look! What's that over there?'
Father glances off to where I am pointing. 'Let's
row over there!' he answers and starts pulling with might and main.
As we approach, we can see that what we've spotted is probably the
wrecked hulk of a sailing vessel. We see broken planks still
clinging together, the snapped-off mast with its sail in shreds.
Then I spy a human form clinging to the wreckage.
'Look, a child,' father shouts, starting to row even
faster! It seems as if we'll never get there, but finally we do. A
haggard boy of about ten years of age clings desperately to the
broken planks. He's already half dead, his legs hang down limply,
and the waves pound his body to and fro. His eyes are quite
expressionless and his hands, which seem to be glued to the planks,
are all that keep him from sliding off into the water.
Father tries to manoeuvre our boat quite close, but
the waves keep beating us back, until finally he is able to seize a
piece of wreckage and pull us up close. As he does so, I loosen the
child's cramped hands, then together we draw him into our boat. He
seems to be unconscious. Father starts to row for shore as fast as
possible. Our servants have noticed what has happened and set out in
several boats to meet us. Father carries the child into the house.
Then the servants hold up the boy by his feet so that his head is
hanging down. Then with powerful, rhythmic steady strokes father
squeezes the boy's abdomen and ribs together in order to force out
any water the boy may have swallowed. Finally father has the
servants lay out the boy on his own bed, then sends them all out.
Now I witness something very strange: father goes to
a little casket which I have always seen in his room at home and
which he has always taken on his travels wherever he went. He takes
out a little staff resembling a cross with a circle on top f. He
holds the staff with this ring firmly in his hand and begins to make
passes with it over the boy's body, moving it in one direction after
another. I can see that father is concentrating very intently,
directing all his attention to the boy. First he holds the staff at
the top of the boy's head for a little while, then draws it slowly
over his face down to his heart, stopping there for a moment. Then
moving forward from the region of heart, father draws imaginary
lines over the boy's trunk to his genitals, then repeating the same
movements starting out from the top of his head, he moves the staff
along the boy's arms and out to his hands, then finally over his
legs and down to his feet.
Father has scarcely touched the boy's head with the
little staff when the child draws a deep breath. Then, as father
moves the staff over different parts of the boy's body, he goes on
breathing regularly, and his body twitches and quivers. Gradually he
comes to, and by the time father is making his last passes, the boy
suddenly opens his eyes, sits bolt upright, to all appearances in
perfect health. Then without warning, he falls to his knees before
father, flings his arms around father's legs, lays his forehead on
father's feet, and cries and sobs bitterly. Father helps him up,
takes him on to his lap and dries his tears with tender loving care.
The boy speaks a language I can only understand
through spiritual contact.
My telepathic exercises have developed my finer
organs of sense to the point that I can understand the gist
of his story without having to understand his words. The boy tells
us that his father, who was a merchant in a distant land, set out to
bring a shipload of goods to Egypt in order to sell them there. He
took his wife and son along with him so they would be able to see
what Egypt was like. After several weeks of travel, they were
overtaken by a terrible storm. After days of struggle with the
raging elements, the ship broke up and sank. His mother and several
sailors disappeared in the waves right away, while he, his father
and some of the sailors clung to a few pieces of wreckage. Then he
saw his father, too, slip off into the water and go down. He clung
tightly to whatever he could lay his hands on ... and that was all
he could remember.
'Father,' I say when the child has finished his
story and begins to calm down, while I see in his spiritual
radiation the gaping emptiness of stark panic and desperation, 'the
boy doesn't belong to anybody now. Let me take him and have him
brought up and educated. Menu will teach him the language and
everything he needs to know as far as behaviour is concerned. He can
get schooling and training in the temple. You see what a pure soul
he has and how intelligent he is. I'll take him to the temple so he
can develop his abilities. We'll see how he develops there and what
he shows a talent for. Maybe he'll become a priest. Please let me
take care of him.'
'Good,' father answers. 'You may keep him. The fact
that you saw him and found him in the waves is a part of the
fate that has linked you and him together for aeons and ages.
According to the inner laws of fate, he belongs to y0u.'
While we are yet talking about him, the boy looks at
us. Then, as if he had understood, he falls to his knees before me,
throws his arms around my knees, and gives every indication of
gratitude and confidence. I take the boy's hand and turn him over to
a servant who gets him clothes and food. He eats with such a healthy
appetite that it's hard to imagine he was completely exhausted-only
a few minutes earlier. As soon as a bed is made up for him in a
corner of my room, he drops off to sleep instantly.
Father and I go out on to the terrace. The surface
of the sea is gradually quieting down, and we enjoy the play of
colours at sunset.
'Father,' I ask, 'what kind of force is there in
this little staff of yours? What was it made of and how? It affected
that boy like magic. He was half dead, yet after your treatment with
the staff, he was filled with new vital energy.'
After some moments' silence, father replies; 'Yes,
the youngster really was filled with new vital energy. The secret of
this staff is one of the secrets of initiation. We have to keep it
secret because the staff can not only transmit vital force, but also
can kill. If the secret of the staff were to fall into the hands of
ignorant and self-seeking people, they would immediately use it
wrongly.
The time is already very near at hand when you'll
receive your initiation, and you've learned to keep silence. That's
why I let you look on while I treated the boy with the staff.
Ptahhotep will give you a thorough explanation of the secret of the
staff, and after you're initiated he'll teach you how to use it too.
Tomorrow we'll go back to the city, and you will report to him
again. You've made great progress in self control. Your initiation
is near at hand. After your final instructions, you'll get it.'
I am silent with inward emotion. My initiation is
near at hand! The long years of preparatory exercises will at last
be over, and I am to be admitted into the secret sanctuary of the
temple. Initiated!
In silence—and in a deep spiritual stillness—father
and I watch the glorious, ever-changing drama of the sunset.
Our few happy days of freedom are over so soon!
Again, we are in the city, in the palace. I take the child—the poor
little bird that has lost its nest—into my chambers and tell Menu
what has happened. Menu's good, kindly heart goes out to the boy,
and she treats him as if he were her own child. He points to himself
and says, 'Bo-Ghar', and when we call him this, he rewards us with a
happy smile. He has a fine soul. His body is slender, full of life
and fire, resilient, limber and strong. He picks up everything
easily. He learns new words and expressions in our language after
hearing them only once.
In the evening I go to Ptahhotep for some more
instruction.
As I walk there with Menu along the route that has
become so familiar to me, I reflect that Ima no longer needs to wait
at the door to guide me to Ptahhotep's reception room. I know the
way—yes even my feet know the way to Ptahhotep. Yet at the temple
door, I see Ima's magnificent figure appear out of the darkness. His
pure radiance fills the air all around him. I cast a stolen glance
at his handsome body and check myself to see whether I could feel a
physical attraction for him. No! I could never love him physically!
I feel the loving tie that binds us is so deep it makes us
completely one. How could a person love and desire himself
physically? Ima too is descended from the race of the Sons of God;
he too has the elongated cranial form. He is pure, lofty, like an
angel—spirituality personified. No, he could never love me
physically, nor I him! Joyously I ask him, 'How did you know I was
coming? Did Ptahhotep perhaps send you to meet me?'
Ima smiles, 'Haven't you got used to the fact that a
spiritually-awakened person doesn't need external sources of
information in order to know what a kindred spirit is doing and
where he is? I concentrated on you in order to find out whether you
had already returned to the city with the Pharaoh, so I could
prepare your next tasks for you. As I did so I found you were on
your way here. Ptahhotep is expecting you. Come in. Tomorrow we'll
be working together again.'
Ima goes and I enter Ptahhotep's reception room.
Through my long exercises in self observation and
self control, and through my long efforts to master the twelve sets
of twin characteristics I have learned not to transmit my joy into
my body; so instead of throwing my arms about Ptahhotep's neck, I
radiate all my love and joy through nerve centres that carry my
consciousness—especially through my eyes.
I bow low before him.
He understands and sees my conscious control over my
expressions of love, that is, over the forces working within me. I
understand and see that he understands and sees ... and we
are united in spirit. Oh! This unity is a thousandfold greater
happiness than a physical embrace! I am blissfully happy in this
perfect unity and wait to learn what he has to tell me. For a
while, his eyes rest upon me, full of love and joy. His glance goes
through and through me, unhindered. Finally he says, 'The time has
come for you to learn the secret of the staff and the use of our
other instruments. Your father knew that you were ready to learn
these secrets; that's why he took the opportunity to show you the
life-giving aspect of the staff. From now on you are to come to me
each evening so that I can transmit the last secret revelations to
you.'
The next day I am in the temple early, and we are
all happy about seeing each other again. I love all the neophytes,
and the master of the neophyte school too—this noble, loving person
who never makes an unnecessary movement and never allows us to
indulge in any lost motion either. Through his methods we develop
wonderful control of the body. Through these exercises I have
learned to transmit creative force corresponding to my degree of
development—the power of my consciousness—into all the various parts
and organs of my body. This has made my body so conscious and so
vitalized that I can feel every part of it as distinctly as I can
the inside of my mouth.
Little by little I have learned, not only to feel
all my organs exactly, but also to control them consciously. For
example, I can now control my heart beat. To do this I have to
concentrate on a particular point in my body, namely the seat of the
force that compels me to inhale. When we exhale all the air in our
lungs and then don't inhale again, something forces us to
inhale—forces us until we absolutely must inhale again.
What it is that forces us to inhale is harder to discover than
what it is not. Certainly it isn't the nose, which doesn't
actually breathe at all, but is merely an opening through which we
can breathe. It isn't our lungs either, for we can clearly feel they
were merely working instruments in the breathing process.
Finally we discover that a certain force, located in
the region of the heart, causes us to inhale and controls our
breathing. When I think myself into this point, I can speed up or
slow down my heart beat at will, through the power of imagination.
Similarly, I have learned, step by step, to bring all the organs of
my body under the control of my will. It's wonderful to have so much
control over the body. Mentuptah is very satisfied with my progress.
He nods and gives me a warm and friendly smile when he notices me
again among the neophytes this morning. After our group exercises, I
ask Ima: 'Ima, you've promised me a new concentration exercise.'
'Yes, listen,' says Ima. 'Up to now you've practised
your concentration exercises combined with slow, regular breathing
in which you have inhaled the air and then you have
exhaled it again. From now on when you sit down to your
concentration exercises, you ought to practise them differently. As
long as you inhale and exhale, you're identifying yourself
with your body. But the truth of the matter is that your body
is really doing the inhaling and exhaling, not you. The body
lives because the higher self—God—breathes his own breath
into it. We're all alive because our physical being inhales the
breath of God. You know ) that God is the self in
you. Thus your body inhales your self— you—and that gives
the body life. As long as you believe that you are the one
that's breathing, you're identical in your consciousness with
your body instead of with yourself. On the other hand when you
experience in your consciousness that your body is j inhaling
yourself and then again in breathing out, giving your self freedom,
you can experience the marvellous transition out of the person—the
animated body you have been up to the present—into your true self.
'From now on as you practise try to realize that not
you are inhaling and exhaling, but you are being inhaled
and exhaled by your body. With every breath you'll have the
feeling, during inhaling, that you are filling your body with
life-giving power and your body is inhaling you; and in
exhaling, that you are withdrawing yourself from the body and
remaining separate from it within yourself until the next
breath. When you succeed in doing this, you'll experience something
similar to the death of the body when you withdraw yourself from it
and your body exhales you for the last time. Practise this a while
and tell me how you get on.'
As Ima is about to go, I ask him to stay a moment,
and I tell him how, with father's help, I found little Bo-Ghar and
saved him.
'Ima,' I tell him, 'I'd like to bring the boy to the
temple for his training and education. Would you be willing to spend
some time with him to see what he is particularly talented for?'
'Yes, indeed. I'll be glad to speak to Mentuptah,
and he will take him in. He can live in the temple and get his
training with the other children.'
'No, Ima,' I answer. 'I want to keep the boy with
me. He has something infinitely loving and pure about him. I'll
bring him to the temple every day and take him back in the evening.
I'll bring him along tomorrow.'
The next day Bo-Ghar comes to the temple with me. He
doesn't know where I'm taking him, because he doesn't yet understand
what we say to him, but he comes along anyway, obedient, with
touching confidence and a radiant face. He is happy to be able to
come along with Menu and me. I loved Bo-Ghar from the very moment I
first saw him half-drowned in the water. He is fond of me too, and
it's easy to see he is only really happy when he is allowed to sit
at my feet.
In the temple I take him through the long colonnade
into the school of neophytes where talented children are getting
their training. At first he doesn't want to let go of my hand. I
understand that he's afraid I want to leave him here. I embrace him
warmly and tell him it's perfectly all right for him to stay here,
for I'll come and take him back to the palace with me in the
evening. He doesn't understand my words and looks at me anxiously
with big questioning eyes. As he sees that I'm not taking leave of
him, he apparently quiets his fears somewhat and stays behind.
When evening comes and I go to get him, I find
Bo-Ghar is getting along famously with the other children. Making
ample use of hands and feet, he is telling them something while they
listen to his tale with the greatest interest, as if they understood
him. When Bo-Ghar sees me, his eyes light up joyously, he runs to
meet me, and throws his arms around my neck. I am delighted to see
that he feels already so much at home.
From this point on, every morning finds the three of
us going to the temple: Menu, Bo-Ghar and I. As the weeks and months
go by, little Bo-Ghar learns our language so well that he rapidly
gains ability and fluency in expressing himself.
He takes part in the early morning physical
exercises under the direction of Mentuptah. His body is alive to a
surprising degree and the conductivity of his nerves is
extraordinarily great. He does the exercises with tremendous
concentration, revealing a great and innate control over the body.
Ima loves him and devotes as much attention to him as possible. And
the lonely little lad who has lost his relatives takes to Ima like a
brother, with all his heart. He is grateful for every kind word. In
the temple the heads of the school have found out that Bo-Ghar shows
little inclination towards the sciences but lots of talent for
drawing and modelling. That's why Imhotep, the great artist, has
taken him into his studio as his youngest apprentice. Imhotep
predicts a great future for him.
Every evening Bo-Ghar waits at the temple gate for
me, and on the way back to the palace he tells me what's happened,
what he has learned and what he has done with the other children. If
Bo-Ghar hadn't found his way so deeply into Menu's good heart, she
would feel offended that he is allowed to talk to me on our way back
to the palace because I never used to allow her the same privilege.
When there were only the two of us, I made her keep silent so she
would not disturb my train of thought. But she seems to take it as a
matter of course that I allow him privileges I denied her.
32
PTAHHOTEP'S INSTRUCTION: THE SEVEN OCTAVES OF
VIBRATION AND THE ARK OF THE COVENANT
I stand before Ptahhotep and listen devoutly to his
words: Today, I shall explain to you the laws on which the staff's
miraculous effect is based. These are, of course, simple laws of
nature. God is everywhere present and the emanation of His
omnipresence is manifest in the visible, material world as natural
law. Therefore, nothing can happen outside natural laws. Yet these
laws differ from one stage of development to another.
'Different laws apply to the spiritual, the mental,
and the material world. And in the material world we find different
laws at work in one and the same form of matter, depending on the
magnitudes involved. For example, it is a law of nature for the
surface of a body of water at rest to be horizontal. But this law is
valid only within certain magnitudes. A drop of water in the calyx
of a flower has a spherical shape, and a microscopic being living in
this miniature world would come to the conclusion that water always
has a spherical shape. Why? Because the relation between the surface
tension of water and the power which forces water into the
horizontal is very different in a drop—that is, in a small
quantity—from what it is in a large body of water. And yet, the same
laws are at work.
'People know very little about the laws of nature,
with the exception of those they have experienced in daily life.
They have become accustomed to these and call them "laws of nature".
And having found names for them they believe they know the true
essence of the laws of nature. They accept these laws and their
effects as a matter of course. But when they are suddenly confronted
by some phenomenon they know nothing about, they immediately speak
of "miracles" or "magic".
'People do not realize that these forces are no less
laws of nature than those to which they have become accustomed and
think they know, even though they haven't the vaguest notion about
their true character. For man doesn't know why a plant will grow
from a seed or why a new being will evolve from an impregnated cell.
Neither do people know what "insemination" really means and why,
after insemination, the cell will divide and subdivide. They have no
idea why this subdividing process is repeated again and again, not
even stopping at birth, going on and on until a full-grown
individual has developed out of that one single first cell ... then
still going on until this chain reaction slows down by itself and
gradually gives way to a decline. But since people experience this
daily, they take it for granted and aren't the least bit surprised
at it. Still, this growth of a plant out of a seed, the birth of a
child, death, the different effects of the winds blowing from
different directions, and many other experiences of everyday life
are just as "miraculous" as the effect and the secret of this staff
and the other "miracles" and the "magic power" of the initiated.
'For you truly to understand the forces used by the
initiated and applied through this staff of life you will first have
to learn a number of things.
'When we spoke about the tree of knowledge of good
and evil you learned that everything which has taken on material
form is visible and perceivable Only because it has fallen out of
perfect unity and perfect equilibrium. But from this state of
disjunction, everything tends eternally to return to unison and
balance. "Equilibrium" means complete repose, motionlessness. On the
other hand, "to have become something"—that is, to have taken on
visible, tangible form—is identical with loss of balance and with
the constant urge to regain this equilibrium. It means incessant
unrest, with continual movement. Should this constant motion cease,
even for only a moment, all creation would suddenly be transformed
into spiritual energy, that is, materially destroyed.
'All energy, all the forces of the universe, are
movements which emanate from one point—their own centre—and radiate
in circular waves in all directions, manifesting themselves as
vibrations or oscillations. These manifestations of force cease only
when the forces that have got out of balance regain their primordial
state of equilibrium, the divine unity. Hence when we speak of the
"primordial state" we mean the state in which all material phenomena
have ceased to exist. In its true essence, matter, too, is motion,
and if this motion comes to a stop, matter must necessarily cease to
exist. As long as the three-dimensional, material world exists its
immutable law is that of unrest, of movement.
'The fact that the creative force manifests itself
on each and every level of innumerable possibilities means there are
countless different wave lengths, wave forms, and frequencies. And
as long as we are in the body, with its limited perceptive ability,
we can perceive only a certain number of these wave forms because
our organs of sense are limited. Whether some form of vibration
appears to us as "immaterial energy" or as solid "matter" depends
upon our own idea and the impression of something which is basically
nothing but "movement", "vibration", or "frequency".
'The shorter the waves in which a form of energy
manifests itself the less our consciousness records a sensation of
matter. To the vibrations that are transmitted directly to our
consciousness by our organs of sense we give names according to the
sensations we feel: matter, sound, electricity, heat, taste, smell,
light. The still higher, immaterial energies and radiations,
perceptible only by means of our brain and nerve centres, we call
thought waves, idea waves. Beyond them there are still higher, more
penetrating rays and frequencies, all the way up to the very
highest all-pervading frequencies of the divine-creative power: life
itself! We can only perceive these frequencies as a state of
consciousness.
'So, throughout the universe, countless varieties of
vibrations are at work, ranging from the shortest to the longest
wave length. Every form of creation, beginning with the celestial
bodies and ranging all the way down to the tiniest monocellular
creature—all the myriad manifestations of creation are the effects
of various forms of these rays. We live in these various rays
whether we know it or not; even more, these forms of energy have
built and formed us human beings and are constantly at work in
our body, our mind, and our entire being. The whole universe
consists of these various vibrations. The source of these creative
vibrations we call God.
'God himself stands above all manifestations of life
and rests in himself in absolute equilibrium without time and
without space. But he is constantly radiating himself out into
material forms in order to give these forms life. As God is
omnipresent and fills the entire universe, everything that is in the
universe is penetrated and filled by God. Nothing can exist without
being in God and without God's penetrating it, as God is everywhere
present and nothing can displace or dislodge him from his own
presence. Consequently, every point offers a possibility that God
may manifest himself through it, and everything that exists in our
perceptible world carries this point as its own centre within
itself. From this point, there began its first manifestation, its
creation, its fall from equilibrium.
'This aspect of God who creates the material world
and gives it life by penetrating it, that is, the actual life hi us
and in all creatures, we call the "higher self". Expressions
like "God", "creator", "universal self", "higher self" or the
"creative principle" all mean one and the same divinity
in its various aspects.
'The energies radiating from the centre are still
highly spiritual in the centre and of the highest frequencies. But
the farther out they radiate from the centre, the more material they
become ... until these radiating energies are gradually
changed into matter. In this way the radiating power
limits itself, and at the edge of manifestation farthest removed
from the centre it becomes a hard, material rind or crust. For this
reason, the picture—the "name"—of God who manifests himself in the
visible world is a circle, an inner circle of higher powers
surrounded by a hard, material rind or crust.
![]()
'Expressed in letters, the symbol is OM.
'All creatures, from the central suns down to
monocellular beings, are built according to this principle. Look at
a cross-section of our earth. In the centre, the mighty forces are
still in the evolutionary stage of the fire circle. Next come the
gaseous regions, then those of the molten or liquid circles, and the
outer-form is the rind of hard matter. But I want to tell you too
that another opposing force—centripetal force—is also active at the
same time, drawing all material
manifestations inward towards itself. And if hard
matter were not sufficiently resistant, all manifestations of life
would be drawn into their own centres and disappear. Even our earth,
with all the forms of life upon it, would suffer this fate. The
resistance of matter prevents this from happening, and only for this
reason is it possible at all for creation to exist and life to have
come forth here on this hard, material crust of the earth. Don't
forget the resistance of matter, because we shall talk about it
again.
'Here is another example to illustrate the inner
structure of material forms: a section through the spinal column of
any vertebrate shows the same construction, the extremely fine
substance of the marrow of the back bone carrying the creative power
of life, developed and protected by the hard crust of bone. Whatever
bone you cut—be it skull, vertebra or leg bone—you will find the
same cross section.
'If you cut the stem of a plant, you will come upon
the same pattern. Have you ever looked at trees after they have been
felled? The inner structure of the tree is exactly the same:
radiating from the centre are circles of vital energy, fed by the
finer matter of the tree's innermost substance. The annual rings
reflect the yearly radiation of life in the tree that takes place
very spring, surrounded and protected by the outer ring of hard
bark.
'Growth always starts from the centre and
radiates outward. The innermost source of all powers and
manifestations is God.
'This aspect of God, who is clothed in matter and
makes living beings out of created forms and which we call the
higher self (Logos) is what draws us back into our own
centre, since we have fallen from the divine unity, from the state
of paradise. It is the heavenly bridegroom for whom the human soul
longs. One should never mistake this divine self for the personal
"I" which hi itself has no true existence and is merely an imaginary
being.
'The vital source behind every form of
manifestation, be it a sun, planet, human being, animal, plant life
or inorganic matter is one and the same God, the same divine
self.
'Although the same God is everywhere present
in every creature, he is manifest in countless different variations,
because God reveals himself on every single level on which
manifestation is possible and the created forms manifested on these
various levels reveal only as much of God as each form can
consciously experience and bear of the divine creative force,
corresponding to its own level. To consciously experience force
means being this force and simultaneously radiating it hi all
directions, including into one's own body. For this reason, the body
too must have adequate power of resistance; otherwise the
radiations of the self would burn and destroy it.
'Hence the bodies of the various manifestations of
life are not made hi the same way. On the contrary the matter
composing them is of different degrees of resistance, corresponding
hi each case to the level of consciousness of the manifestation of
life concerned. You know that the chemical composition of matter
determines which vibrations a body can support. When a body is
subjected to a radiation in excess of its resistance, this harms its
entire nerve system, and can lead to a nervous breakdown and even to
mental derangement. When the number of vibrations of this force
exceeds the scope of an octave the force even becomes lethal. This
is why, when we want to initiate a person into a higher degree of
divine power, we must first prepare his body, subjecting it among
other things to a chemical process, in order that the difference
will not be more than one octave at the most. Otherwise he dies.
'In the material world there are four levels of
manifestation which we call matter, vegetable life, animal life, and
human life, depending on the outward appearance and the degree of
consciousness attained. Compared with the human being, we can hardly
speak at all of the "consciousness" of matter, and yet a crystal may
serve to show that matter too has a sort of consciousness. Each
level of manifestation of life is characterized by its own degree of
consciousness which is one octave removed from the next. Only man
has the power to manifest several degrees of consciousness, all the
way up to the divine level. If We keep in mind the
intervals—octaves—by which we classify levels of evolution, we find
that man, as a category, occupies four steps of the great ladder of
evolution reaching from earth up to heaven; furthermore we see that
each step corresponds to one octave on the scale of vibrations. Man
knows about these four steps or degrees and has given them names:
man characterized by his intellect; genius, characterized
by intuition; prophet, characterized by his wisdom and
universal love; and the last and highest degree, that of the God
man, characterized by his omniscience and omnipotence.
'Thus, in the material world, we find four
manifestations which together reveal seven octaves of vibration.
'Every creature emits the vibrations of which it is
made, that is, those which it consciously supports.
Matter, the very lowest degree of consciousness, manifests
itself only through contraction, cooling off, and hardening.
'The plant manifests itself on two levels;
the material level and the level of force—vegetative force—that
gives life to it. The plant manifests material vibrations
unconsciously; it carries its body like a dress, but its level of
consciousness is the vegetative level of force giving life to
matter. Force manifested on this level has three distinctive aspects
by which it can be recognized wherever it appears: the search for
food, the taking in of food, and the assimilation or digestion of
food.
'The animal manifests three forces, the
material, the vegetative and animal. It has a body, it seeks out its
food, eats and digests and is conscious on the animal level: it has
emotions, instincts, urges, feelings, sympathy, antipathy and
desires. The animal is conscious in the third developmental stage,
only one degree lower than man.
'The average man stands one octave of
vibrations higher: he is conscious on the mental level. He has
intellect and the ability to think. But at the same time he
manifests the three other levels. On the material, he has a body; on
the vegetative, he seeks out his food, eats it and digests it; on
the animal, he has emotions, drives, sympathy, antipathy and
desires. But his most outstanding characteristic is his intellect.
Man thinks consciously.
With the next degree of development, man makes a
great jump: he lifts his consciousness out of the world of
effects into the plane of causes. He draws on the divine
source of the causal plan and manifests this force that appears in
his consciousness as intuition. With the help of his intellect and
spiritual power* he is able to express his experiences on a higher
plane in words and transmit them to his fellow men. He can also
prove the existence of his intuition in other arts: without
dimensions, in music, as a composer; in two dimensions with lines
and colours, as a painter; in three dimensional forms as a sculptor
or as a dancer. People call the creative person a genius. He
manifests the five octaves of vibration of the material, vegetative
animal, mental and causal forces.
'The degree of consciousness of the next higher
octave of vibrations, in the language of human beings, is called
that of a prophet. The prophet manifests all the forces that
work on the previously mentioned planes of consciousness, but he is
also conscious on the next higher level too, the plane of divine
wisdom and universal love. We must be careful never to confuse this
universal love, which is manifested on the sixth plane and is a
completely spiritual power, with the "love" of the third, animal
plane which is the manifestation of animal instincts. This latter
"love" is a vibration operating three levels lower at the source of
which is the urge to propagate the species. Such "love" is desire
for possession and always only seeks the body. It forces a person to
come close to the loved one, and embrace, kiss, and hug him or
her—in a word—to possess.
'Whoever is subject to this kind of love is still
living in his consciousness in the condition of dividedness and
separation and seeks a complementary physical partner in order to
find satisfaction. This love always seeks to take, to have
something, to possess. Love in the sixth plane of
manifestation, the love of the prophet, does not come from a
condition of division, but from the primordial condition of divine
unity I Hence, this love is universal, always giving,
never taking, needs no supplement, no physical manifestation, but
always radiates from the consciousness of divine all-unity.
People who are conscious on this plane do not want to possess
anybody; they feel themselves one with the infinite all.
'The seventh and most perfect manifestation of
God is the completely conscious man: the God-man. All other forms of
revelation manifest only transformed vibrations, only part of God. A
God-man is a person who manifests God— his own divine
self—completely and perfectly through a perfect consciousness; one
who experiences and radiates the divine creative forces in their
primordial untransformed vibrations and frequencies. He is supremely
conscious; no part of him is unconscious.
'Only man has the ability to master and to radiate
all seven octaves of vibration, as the nervous centres corresponding
to the seven octaves of transformed and untransformed creative power
exist in his nervous system. On the other hand, he is only able to
radiate vibrations on the levels on which he has become conscious,
because until he becomes conscious on a given level, the
corresponding nerve centres remain in a latent condition. Thus the
average human being will radiate vibrations up to the fourth plane,
the genius up to the fifth, the prophet up to the sixth, and only
the God-man is able consciously to radiate all seven octaves and to
radiate the divine creative power, according to his own will, in its
untransformed form or to transform it, to change it, and transmit it
in lower (transformed) frequencies.
'Your father's staff that you have seen consists of
a material—a kind of brass —that has the power of transmitting the
radiation corresponding to every plane. It is so constructed
that, according to the will of the user, it can transmit
untransformed radiations, either diminished or amplified as desired
by the user.
'The staff can be a blessing or a curse. This
depends on who uses it. An initiated person is able to radiate, in
any desired degree, all forces of creation— from the highest divine
forces to the lowest ultra-material forces with this staff, because
within his own being he possesses all these forces and can
consciously transmit them to the staff. Out of the whole gamut of
these vibrations, the human being with his organs of sense, can
perceive only a part. Vibrations either above or below this part are
ones he can only experience as an emotional condition. Thus for
example, he experiences the very highest divine frequencies as
universal love. On the other hand, the very lowest frequencies,
those of ultra-matter, are lower than the frequencies which
our eyes and sensory nerves perceive as matter. As they are outside
our scale of sensory perception, we experience them in our emotions
as hate. An initiated person will always use the staff properly and
always radiate the force needed to create something good ... a
blessing. The ultra material vibration he will use when necessary as
an invisible, insulating, impenetrable protective wall. With the
staff the initiated can dominate all forces of nature, amplify them
or neutralize them.
'Every creature on earth possesses these powers, but
only hi a form corresponding to his degree of development. He
utilizes these powers too, but is not conscious of them. Or have you
ever seen a person who gave thought to how it is possible to raise
his feet or his arms? Or that he could—even though for only a short
time—remove his whole body from the earth ... by jumping? Lift your
arm and observe how you do it. Isn't it true that you contract your
muscles and they lift your arm? Every movement of your body is
brought about with a contraction of your muscles. But what contracts
your muscles? Think a minute, my daughter, what?'
'My will, Father.'
'Right. Your will. But if I ask you what your will
is, can you give me an answer?'
'Father, I have often observed what happens when I
want something. But I have only been able to notice that when
I want something, I can send out a force and give this force
direction. For example, as you just said, if I want to raise my arm
from its relaxed hanging position—it hangs because the earth is
attracting it—then this force which flows out of me through my will
flows into my arm and forces my muscles to contract and through this
to raise my arm.'
'Very true,' says Ptahhotep, 'By virtue of the fact
that your will power has flowed into your arm and muscles, you have
conquered the enormous gravitational power of the earth on
your arm. This is true when you jump too, but only for a short time,
because your will power is only greater than the earth's
gravitational pull for a short time. So you see time consumes your
will power transformed into physical power. Time does that! And
space? You've used your power to raise your arm, or your body, in
altitude, to remove it from the earth, hence to move it
further in space. Thus you see that your power is consumed by
two great factors: time and space. If you could
amplify your will power and store it within your body, you could
conquer the earth's gravitational pull for a longer time and remain
at a greater distance from the earth. You could glide through the
air I You can't do that now because you haven't yet developed
consciousness on this divine plane. The initiated, on the other
hand, who are conscious on the divine plane, can draw directly on
this infinite eternal source of power, without transforming it, and
when they wish, float through the air just as long as they direct
their will power against the gravitational pull of the earth.
'The initiated person knows all vibrations and
possesses consciously developed organs with which to use these
powers. You know, for example, the power of thought with which we
communicate telepathically. These powers too we control through a
corresponding higher organ of our brain. Human beings don't even
know they have such organs. The initiated is able to radiate the
very highest of all powers, the divine, creative power. This is the
power and radiation of life, of eternal being. The
entire universe is alive and continues to exist by virtue of this
power. To make conscious use of it lies only within the capabilities
of the God-man, the only creature that is, in his
consciousness, identical with God and radiates this power
from his God-consciousness, his cosmic all-consciousness. No other
creature could endure this power consciously.
'Every force has its materialization on earth, and
we therefore find that corresponding to all forces and vibrations
there is a form of matter that has the resistive strength to endure
it and transmit it, or even has the ability to store it and
subsequently radiate it during a given length of time. What people
call this matter is of no significance. Out of it are made the
bodies of creatures and forms of manifestation corresponding to the
various levels of consciousness. But this is true not only of the
matter corresponding to their own level of consciousness, but also
of the matter that conducts the vibrations below this specific plane
of consciousness concerned. The matter of plants, for example,
possesses a necessary resistive force for the vibrations of the
vegetative life force, and at the same time for the vibrations of
the matter, as the plant has a material body. The nerves and the
bodies of animals carry within themselves the animal power
corresponding to the animal level, and at the same time the
vibrations of the vegetative level an octave lower, as well as the
vibrations of the material plane a further octave lower.
'The nerves of the average human being, for example,
have sufficient resistance to carry the vibrations of the mental
plane as well as the transformed vibrations on each of the planes
below—animal, vegetative and material. With the mental energies he
thinks and is conscious on this level; with the animal
energies he feels and experiences all emotional states; the
vegetative streams of force give life to his body, and finally his
body is built of material forces. And so it goes higher and higher
up to the God-man who consciously uses all his brain and nervous
centres and is able to direct the very highest vibrations of life,
which has its central seat in his spinal column, without
transforming them, into his nervous centres and into his body. The
material of his body possesses the resistance to carry the very
highest, divine force as well as—naturally enough— the transformed
vibration of the other six planes of manifestation.
'Thus the bodies of people in the various planes
of development, only appear to consist of the same matter. Actually
they are composed of different chemical elements whose resistance
always corresponds to the level of consciousness of the spirit
dwelling within.
'The fact that the body of the God-man is able not
only to bear the highest frequencies but also the transformed
vibrations of all other octaves, means that there must be a form of
matter with the resistive force necessary to withstand and to
conduct the divine-creative force as well as all the other
transformed frequencies of the lower octaves, without being
dematerialized. Hence, the sons of God, in their homeland,
invented a material, a kind of brass, of which they constructed
devices for storing or radiating, either amplified or diminished,
the very highest creative frequencies, either in their original or
in transformed manifestation. These devices are so constructed that
they keep the creative force in pure unchanged form. Consequently,
over a long period, they act as a source of divine power—like
life itself. Because the very highest of these devices which
carries and radiates the creative force represents a perfect
union—as perfect as a marriage—between the divine and the material
frequencies— between God and the earth—we call this
incredibly powerful conductor of force that is charged with the
frequency of the divine self the 'Ark of the covenant'.
'Now you know why we keep these devices so secret.
The God-man who has developed his highest abilities can use these
devices with impunity, as the ark of the covenant contains and
radiates the same force as he himself, the force which he himself
is. A person on a lower level, however, if he were merely to
touch the ark, would fall over dead momentarily as if struck by
lightning. The divine frequencies would instantly burn out his
nerves and he would suffer a "shock". The same thing happens when
this frequency is liberated from its state of isolation in the
spinal column and strikes one's nerves untransformed. The person
or animal or even a plant concerned dies immediately. People call
this kind of death "a stroke". They sense that some unknown power
has struck the person like lightning. This power is the river of
life itself which normally is isolated within the spinal column—or
within the innermost channel in the case of plants—and normally only
flows into the body in suitably transformed condition. This force
only breaks out in case of sickness and causes the "stroke".
'For the same reason uninitiated people cannot be
allowed in the vicinity of our devices. And even more! As these
devices radiate the most powerful energy, we must keep them
carefully hidden behind massive walls of rock providing the greatest
insulation. Life energy itself has a lethal effect when it strikes a
form of matter which doesn't have the necessary resistance. The
matter is dematerialized, dissolved.
'The ark and still other tools thus consist of a
material which—without being dematerialized—can be charged with the
divine-creative energy. The ark radiates untransformed creative
energy and has the effect of giving life or destroying it
depending on the dosage. This force has the same character of
vibration as that of the human will which is capable of conquering
everything, including the gravitational pull of the earth even
though for only a short time. The ark of the covenant radiates this
power magnified a thousand times. And just as the earth through its
gravitational pull affects matter and attracts it, we can work
against the gravitational pull of the earth in every form of matter
without exception and consequently overcome its weight and render it
weightless for a shorter or longer period of time. When necessary,
we can even do the opposite, i.e. work with the gravitational
pull of the earth and increase the weight of an object as much as we
want through the ultramaterial rays. In this way even the greatest
blocks of stone are rendered weightless for a period of time so that
the largest buildings you can think of can be built with the
greatest of ease, or the weight of the stones can be increased to
such an extent that they sink into the earth. For example, when we
want to dig a well, we don't have to dig out the earth. We simply
take a stone of suitable size and increase its weight so that it
sinks into the earth until it reaches the desired depth.
'With the help of the ark of the covenant, this
enormous source of power, we can also transform energies devoid of
matter, as for example, the rays of light, into matter. And,
inversely, we can dissolve this matter and convert it to energies
active during aeons of time.
'Look at this lamp. Just as the sun itself for
billions of years has been sending out rays, some of which are
converted to rays of light in our atmosphere through transformations
of energy, in the same way through the matter being dissolved
—dematerialized—in this lamp, energies are created which are
converted to rays of light in the air.
'This process could continue in this lamp for ages
and ages and consequently it would go on giving light for aeons of
time were it not written in the history of the earth that we shall
have to leave the earth for thousands of years and destroy all our
equipment. Were this not the case, the ignorant sons of men would
again cause unspeakable destruction.
'There will be a lot in the remains of our culture
which coming generations will not understand. For example, the way
we get such a mirror-smooth surface on even the hardest stones. The
joints between them fit so accurately there isn't even a crack the
size of the thickness of a hair between them. They will be greatly
puzzled at how our "slaves", working only "by hand", have been able
to cut stones so precisely. Because the sons of men make slaves of
their fellow-men, they will believe that we too have put slaves to
work. For thousands of years it won't dawn on them that we simply
dematerialize the superfluous stone on the surface and are thus able
to get hairline accuracy on the edges and faces of even the hardest
stones without the slightest human effort. We adjust our instruments
to the desired width and depth of the stone and everything beyond
the dimensions we want is merely dematerialized. This is very simple
as soon as you know the true nature of the different energies
including that of matter. But this knowledge is a blessing only in
the hands of a knowing person. He knows too that love means life,
and hate means death. Only initiates of the highest
degree can be architects. As a matter of fact, to build with slaves
we wouldn't need to be initiates! We don't work with slaves but with
the forces of nature.
'Thanks to these instruments of ours we are able to
create every form of manifestation. The manifestation depends only
on how long and from what distance we put the creative energy to
work. The sons of men take it for granted they can come into the
temple with their sicknesses and we make them well again.
Sickness means that the vibrations of the body have got out of
harmony. We restore the inharmonious part of the body to its own
proper vibration and the person gets well. Every organ has its own
characteristic vibration. This means that every organ is as it is
because it has a certain characteristic vibration, and this
vibration is constantly acting within it and maintaining it. When
this vibration changes, the organ concerned becomes diseased.
'We can also regulate the weather on earth, making
clear blue sky or, when necessary, clouds and rain. The sons of men
see the lightning, hear the thunder of the pyramid and are happy
because they know this means the blessing of rain. They live in the
secure knowledge that the temple will take care of all their needs:
their health, the rain that blesses them, and even their spiritual
well-being.'
'Father of my Soul,' I now ask, 'how do you charge
this ark of the covenant with creative energy?'
Ptahhotep looks at me with a penetrating glance and
says:
'I can see you already know how we charge the ark of
the covenant. I already told you: there is only one source on
earth that is able to radiate this power and that is the God-man
himself. It is the duty of the high priest to charge the ark with
divine-creative power. He either drives his own high power directly
into the ark or he achieves the same result with the help of the
staff of life through converting an absolutely positive flow
of power flowing from his hand at a lower vibration, conducting it
through the staff and there converting it into divine-creative
power. For in his daily life, even the perfect God-man only radiates
creative power in a transformed state. Only when his spiritual
forces are concentrated and in his consciousness he is identical
with God, only then does the divine force radiate in its
primordial vibration. He must therefore be in a condition of cosmic
all-consciousness when he wants to radiate the creative force.
If the uninitiated sons of men were to see him in
this condition they would run away terrified as at such times the
God-man radiates such celestial, divine light that ordinary people
can't stand the sight of him. If uninitiated people were to touch an
initiate in this divine condition of being, they would momentarily
fall over dead, just as if they had touched the ark of the covenant.
'Thus when an initiate radiates his rays of life for
healing purposes, he withdraws into a state of concentration such
that his radiation can be borne by people without harm; that is the
power he directs to the- appropriate nerve centres he raises up to
the level of creative power with the help of the staff. For the
staff is so constructed that it can not only conduct the rays but
also transmit them in a transformed state, amplified or diminished,
at will. Hence, an initiate doesn't need to enter the divine state
of being in order to conduct the highest radiation of life into the
ark of the covenant; on the contrary, he can enter a lower state of
concentration and then direct the power corresponding to this level
into the ark of the covenant, after raising it with the help of the
staff up to the level of creative energy. When the ark is charged in
this manner, it radiates for a long time this highest and strongest
energy, as a source of all other forces on earth.
'An initiate can produce and control even the most
varied frequencies with the staff, as the staff is an ark of the
covenant in miniature form, except for the fact that creative energy
is not stored in it as in the case of the ark of the covenant. With
the help of the staff, a human being could even convert his lower
powers into creative force if he could radiate in a pure,
positive and completely selfless manner power that is
several octaves lower. This is because the staff always radiates the
power that a human being puts into it. If a primitive and selfish
person were to get possession of the staff, he would transmit his
own negative radiations arising from his selfishness—possibly even
in amplified form—and thus cause sicknesses, epidemics, earthquakes
or even greater destruction as the necromancers and practitioners of
black magic once did in the home of the divine race.
'Do you understand now why the initiates keep their
science so secret from the uninitiated.'
'I understand, Father. And it is now quite clear to
me how my father revived the half-dead boy. In his state of high
concentration, father directed his radiation, in magnified state,
into the child. It worked like a miracle. The child was charged with
vital energy, and his exhaustion disappeared immediately. But,
Father of my Soul, what is going to happen when the sons of men take
over the government? Are you going to destroy the magic staff, as
father said, when he told me the initiates are going to destroy all
their instruments? What a shame that people won't be able to enjoy
the blessing of these powers!'
'My child,' says Ptahhotep, 'every creature lives
in conditions that are exactly adapted to its state of development.
If we were to betray the secret of the staff to the sons of men,
they would immediately use it to do harm to each other and to
themselves. The sons of men aren't ready for this knowledge and
won't be for a long time to come. The staff we are now using will be
taken out of Egypt by the last initiate in possession of the secret
knowledge, along with the ark of the covenant. He will have no
possibility to build a pyramid. On the contrary, he will make a
small cover for the ark to insulate it as well as possible. He will
charge the ark to a much lesser degree and will cause it to be
carried during his migrations by means of long wooden poles as
handles. When this last initiate feels he is approaching death, he
will destroy his staff. For a time the ark will continue to radiate
the energy with which it has been charged, and the uninitiated will
continue to carry it about in various countries for a long time
until little by little they notice that it no longer has any power.
Then even the last remains of the ark will be destroyed.
'In times to come people will learn about the "magic
staff" and the "ark of the covenant" only through records of earlier
times. They will consider all this as a fairy tale and continue to
tell it from one generation to another. But they will still vaguely
remember that once there was an "ark of the covenant" in which there
dwelt the power of the living God. And they'll also remember there
was once a "magic staff" or as we call it a "staff of life" with
which the initiates, the "magicians", performed miracles. From
records from earlier times people will know or dimly sense that "the
staff" represented power over all forces of nature.
'In later times when people want to symbolize the
greatest power, they will place a staff—a sceptre—in their hand as a
token of power. In those times to come, however, their staff—their
sceptre—will only be an empty symbol of power. The true
power said force of the staff will no longer be known to them.
Only after thousands of years will a descendant from the tribe of
the Sons of God be reincarnated; he will discover these truths for
the people of his time and will make a new "magic staff". Until
then, however, for thousands of years, there will be a strange kind
of people who, either to entertain or to cheat, will call themselves
"magicians" and will pretend they are performing their magic tricks
with the help of a "magic wand". They will thus be imitating
what once actually existed.
'They will hold a "magic wand" in their hand and go
through the motions of drawing magic powers from this wand. They
will also use "magic words", imitating our magic formulas. But
people will only learn the true gigantic power of the word centuries
later when the fallen members of the divine race are
reincarnated—those who are now living here—and will
remember in their subconscious the truths which in that time
will represent ancient records.
'They will prove that their memories are correct.
The time will come when the sons of men rediscover and repossess all
knowledge, even the very highest. Even then, of course, this
knowledge will remain an unintelligible secret for the ignorant
masses, and in uninitiated hands these rediscovered truths will be a
curse. But after all, this is the path of mankind, through many
troubles and sorrows, which people make for themselves. Little by
little they will learn they must not play with divine power. They'll
come to know that these powers should be used in full seriousness
with dignity and dedication. For God gives mankind all, even
himself, as a blessing; only people, in their ignorance, make a
curse out of everything!'
'Father of my Soul,' I ask, 'you said that the
pyramids were made of thick blocks of stone in order to insulate the
equipment by means of which the penetrating frequencies are
radiated. But how then can you conduct the radiations to the
outside?'
'The thick walls of the pyramids all contain shafts
and tunnels through which we conduct out the force of the ark of the
covenant and the other supplementary equipment which radiates
energy. With the aid of these shafts and tunnels we also control
weather. The positive and negative tunnels are built in different
directions; when the positive and negative forces flow through them,
they cause clouds to form and bring about the desired rain. The
equalization of these tensions causes flashes of lightning
accompanied by great noise. That is why people hear thunder coming
from the pyramid. The other pyramids have been built for various
other installations.'
'What's going to happen to the pyramids when the
sons of men come into power in our country and the ark of the
covenant and all other instruments are destroyed? Will the pyramids
stand empty? And what's to become of the high priest and the other
priests and initiates?' I ask.
'All except for the largest pyramid where the ark of
the covenant is now kept and where initiation is given, the pyramids
won't remain empty. When all our instruments for the radiation of
divine creative energy are removed, the last initiated Pharaohs will
have themselves entombed in one of these pyramids. Their bodies,
permeated through and through by divinely creative force will
continue—as the force will not be consumed—to radiate the supreme
power just as the ark of the covenant does. Thus their bodies will
continue in secret to act as tremendous sources of power, protecting
this continent from evil influences. The radiation of well preserved
and holy bodies will help our country keep its power for thousands
of years. But in the course of time most of these tombs will be
destroyed by ignorant people.'
'And what's going to happen to the great pyramid,
Father?'
Ptahhotep looks off in the distance for a while as
if he were observing things there. Then his heavenly glance sweeps
back to me and he says: 'When the time has come for all secret
instruments to be destroyed, and when the priest and initiates still
serving in the temple at that time take their pilgrim's staff and
set out for far-away places, the high priest and his deputy will
close the rock entrance of the great pyramid from the inside so that
no son of man can find it. Then, after fulfilling their last duties,
they will dematerialize their own bodies in just the way you've
often seen the offering on the altar in the temple court
dematerialized. Just a flash, then a little white cloud that soon
disappears —not a trace of ash or anything else remains behind. Thus
the interior of the great pyramid will be closed off from human
sight for thousands of years. Nevertheless, our initiations will not
cease. Mature souls will continue to be initiated here—not
physically, of course, but on the higher spiritual plane. These
people will experience their initiation as a dream or a vision.'
Ptahhotep ceases speaking, and for a long time we
look into each other's eyes. I understand a lot that he doesn't want
to say ... but I still have another question: 'Father of my soul, is
there a special reason why all pyramids are built in the same form?
Why aren't they built in a cubic shape, for example, like other
buildings?'
Ptahhotep smiles: 'Not in cubic form? But the
pyramids are built in cubic form! But I'll have to explain
that to you next time. You've had enough today.'
I see that Ptahhotep has ended his instruction, but
I still remain. I'd like to have him show me the use of the staff
and the ark of the covenant. He looks at me with a smile and says:
'The time will come when you'll be permitted to know about the
construction of the ark of the covenant and the staff of life. That
will come after you've been initiated. But the use of these
instruments is restricted to those who've reached the seventh degree
after initiation through their own efforts. These secrets must not
come into dangerous hands. Be patient. Time exists only in our
thinking, but still everything takes time to mature.'
He blesses me, and I leave.
33
THE FORM OF THE PYRAMIDS: SATAN
Once again I stand before Ptahhotep in his
laboratory.
'I've already explained to you,' he says, 'that
behind all the manifestations of the visible world there is a
primordial force, a striving to return to the state of unity, and
this force is apparent as the attraction between the two
complementary halves, the positive and the negative. You are now
standing before me because the earth's gravitational force is
holding your body here. If it weren't for this force, you and
everything that is not rooted to the earth would have spun off into
space long ago. Even the whole gigantic body of the earth would have
broken apart long ago. The force which holds together the earth and
all the matter within its atmosphere doesn't belong to the earth
itself, but merely affects the earth operating outward from its
centre. If matter had no resistance and merely yielded to this
force, the tremendous mass of the earth and everything that's living
on it would disappear into its centre. But where would it go? Think
for a moment.
'Come closer, my child. I'll show you. If I put
various things on the top of this table, tie a string on to each,
draw the strings through the hole in the middle of the table top,
and then pull all the strings from below, all the objects are drawn
towards the centre of the table top; and all those that are smaller
than the hole disappear. Where do they go? Aren't they drawn towards
the point from which the force is acting? But where does the force
in the centre of the earth come from ... the force that draws
everything towards it? Can you answer that, my child?'
I reflect for a moment and answer: 'The earth is
recognizable. If everything that is recognizable is so only because
it has separated itself from the "all and nothingness",
leaving its complementary half behind in the unmanifested state,
then the earth too must have its complementary half in the
unmanifested state, and the force of gravitation it exerts on all
the creatures and objects living on it is the striving for
reunification between the earth and its unmanifested complementary
half which has been left behind in the void as its negative
reflection. The earth's gravitational pull thus draws all the earth
towards the void which stands beyond time and space, in order
to bring about this reunion. If the earth were to yield, all the
earth and everything on it would disappear into the centre, into the
void. But that would be a return to the paradisiacal unity—to
God—to bliss! Why can't that happen, Father?'
'My child,' answers Ptahhotep, 'the obstacle is
the resistance of matter! Without resistance no creation
is possible! It's the resistance of matter that keeps the earth and
all creation from disappearing and being annihilated. Everything
that has appeared in this recognizable world has fallen out of a
point in the universe, and this point has then become its own
centre. Through the fall it became matter. Now it can't return to
divine unity because its own resistance as matter doesn't let it. A
return to the paradisiacal divine unity—to God—is only possible
through the spiritualization of the matter, that is, through the
transformation of matter into spirit! But matter, all by itself,
could never become spirit without spiritual help. That's why one
aspect of God comes down into matter, clothes itself in
matter, assumes material characteristics, and animates it as the
self in order to make possible its spiritualization, its
salvation.
'The effect which this self in the centre of every
creature has constantly exerted on the innermost structure of matter
throughout aeons and aeons of time has led to the development of the
forms of life existing on each rung of the ladder of creation. Thus
each creature has come into being, from the simple protozoa up to
the highest manifestation.
'The highest creature on earth is man. It is his
task to carry out the completion of the spiritualization of the
earth, a task at which all living creatures are at work, each within
the limits of its own particular stage of development. And every
human being who transforms himself from a being identical with the
body into a being reawakened in spirit, a divine being— identifying
his consciousness with the divine self—has fulfilled his duty.
He has spiritualized a bit of the earth. He has advanced by one step
the salvation of the earth. Then he can co-operate as a helper in
the salvation of other beings.
'And now you know why you're standing here before
me. It's because the self of the earth, which at the same
time is our own self, loves the earth and all its creatures,
drawing the earth towards itself, into divine unity, just as a
bridegroom draws his bride to himself. This striving towards union,
characteristic of all love, expresses itself in everything—including
our bodies— as weight!
'This force which we call weight is at work in every
form of nature, and when we build we must reckon and work with
this force, never against it. When we take proper account of it,
it helps us preserve our buildings for a long time. If we were to
try to build against the laws of these forces, all our structures
would collapse in practically no time at all.
'It's enough for you to understand that in the
pyramidal form the resultant of forces is the most favourable one
possible for the preservation of buildings for many thousands of
years against the ravages of nature.
'The pyramids—particularly the great pyramid—have
been built according to various mathematical and astronomical laws
in order to serve the people as clock and calendar. You will learn
these laws another time. Moreover, the fact that the lateral faces
stand at an angle of 51° to their base enables the pyramid to
reflect the sun's rays far out to sea and far into the desert. Thus
our pyramids also serve as lighthouses. All the laws on which they
are based, together with the history of those who have built them,
are inscribed on the ceramic tiles with which they are covered. When
the sons of men some day discover the secret of our writing, they
will be able for a long time to read right from the pyramids
themselves the knowledge and information I am giving you now, the
mathematical and astronomical laws we have applied, the secrets of
the pyramids and all our scientific knowledge. In the darkest ages
of the earth, however, these written records will also disappear, so
the sons of men will later have to discover all truth for
themselves.
'You must learn the law of the three-dimensional
world which is based on the law of the spirit and could not exist
without it.
'The first source of all truth and of all
manifestation is the eternal being— God. But God is in
the unmanifested state beyond time and space, and only his
manifestations appear as projections in the three-dimensional world.
Therefore in order to understand these laws correctly, we must begin
with God. In order to talk about God, however, we
always have to cope with the fact that God stands above the
recognizable world. For this reason every living creature can only
understand God to the extent to which it itself is able consciously
to experience, manifest and realize God; that is, to the extent to
which it itself can be God! In everything God is
living, and everything is living in God. Nevertheless, God
in his own complete, perfect being can be understood only by one
who has himself become God—or who has never fallen out of
God. God can be understood only by God!
'The fact that even the most primitive man has a
concept of God shows that divine consciousness is dwelling
within him, even though only very dimly and to the lowest degree. On
the other hand, to become conscious in God, to understand God
completely, and to be God means to become completely one with
one's own divine self, with the God dwelling within.
That is easy to say but very hard to do! Because man has fallen out
of his divine consciousness, he can only imagine God in
accordance with his own personal power of understanding. How can he
know what the real, living divinity is like in its perfection
when his power of imagination only corresponds to the level he
personally stands on, separated as he is from unity, and having
fallen as he has from divinity? How can the finite understand the
infinite, the mortal the immortal, the temporal the eternal? ... How
can an imaginary being understand, experience and become identical
with the eternal, true being— God?
'And still man must reach him! His eternal
desire, his unquenchable longing helps him and propels him forward
in the direction of his divine self. Man's intellect—the
greatest but most dangerous gift he has received from God-builds a
bridge across the seemingly unconquerable chasm between that which
is personal and mortal and that which is impersonal and eternal.
Through man's intellect he succumbed to the temptation to fall out
of divine unity with his consciousness. But by the same token, his
intellect gives him the possibility of bringing back his
consciousness into full union with divinity. By means of his
intellect, man is able to understand truth, and when he has
understood, he will seek and keep on seeking and trying until he
some day succeeds in finding the only path to the realization of his
self.
'Realization means being something. For as long as
we think about something or talk about it, we aren't being
it. You can think about a cat, or about a lion, but that doesn't
mean by any manner of means that you have achieved realization, that
you have become a cat or a lion. Likewise, you can think
about yourself without being your divine, creative self!
To think something is to be separated from it. For if you send out a
single thought, you—the thinker—are connected only by thinking with
the object of your thought. You are connected with it, but
not identical with it. You are not yet that which is in your
intellect. Your intellect belongs to you; it is a wonderful tool, a
mirror into which you can project everything and in which you can
recognize everything, but your intellect is not you! The intellect
is outside your self. Consequently what you can do with your
intellect is not you yourself, is not achievement of realization.
'When man seeks God outside himself, he can often be
"thinking" about God, he can be "praying" to God, he
can be "loving" God with his whole being, but all this
doesn't mean he has become identical with God. For man can
never find God by seeking outside himself!
'The creator in man is man's own self whose
last manifestation, farthest from his own centre, is his little "I",
his personal "I-consciousness". The personal "I" within him is the
image of God mirrored by matter—in the body. Thus when man seeks to
return to God and re-establish his identity with him he must
follow the same path with his consciousness: he must draw
his consciousness more and more from his own little personal
"I"—deeper and deeper into himself—turning to his own true self, to
his creator, until he consciously recognizes himself in Him. But
this doesn't mean that the creature—the person—recognizes itself in
this condition. As an imaginary being, it has no true existence and
cannot really achieve self-knowledge. On the contrary, the
creator recognizes himself in the created, in the person. This
is the only possibility for overcoming the state of
separation and bringing back the consciousness into the state of
unity: the individual stops thinking about himself and instead
becomes himself, recognizes himself. In this condition, the
recognizer, the recognized and the recognition are one and the same.
The self—the creator—recognizes its self in itself!
![]()
'Man can only experience God in this way.
This is resurrection! In this state
he recognizes that his own self has created
him and is constantly creating him, hence that his own self is
his creator. He likewise realizes that the one and only self
is the creator of the entire universe! As a result of this
divine self-recognition he simultaneously experiences the creative
cosmic all-consciousness. At the same time as he achieves
self-recognition, he achieves recognition of everything,
omniscience!
'This divine state in which the creator
recognizes himself may also be expressed symbolically by
numbers: 'God in his state of resting within himself is 1 in 3
and 3 in 1, 1 and 3 are still an unseparated unity.
'In the field of geometry, the form of the
equilateral triangle Is the symbolic image of God in which the
recognizer, the recognized and the recognition are one and the same:
1 in 3 and 3 in 1.
'Every form is the manifestation of the force that
has built it. Thus every form is the image of the creative force
that builds it and dwells within it. Divinity in its primordial
state of resting within itself, always manifests itself in
the form of a triangle. The triangle represents perfect harmony and
perfect equilibrium as its three corner points all lie exactly the
same distance from each other. On the other hand, when the aspect of
God to which we refer as "resting within itself" moves out of
the dimensionless state, beyond time and space and into the three
dimensions, it becomes the creative aspect of God and
always manifests itself in the number 4. As long as the
numbers 1 and 3 form a unity in divinity, they
remain 3 in 1 and 1 in 3. But when they
emerge from the divine condition of unity, they separate, and
out of the "1 in 3" there emerges "1 and 3", and that
makes 4. The equilateral triangle contains, hidden within
itself, 4 smaller equilateral triangles.
![]()
'This law also contains the secret of the key number
of the three-dimensional world: the number 7.
'Now try to imagine how the first energy of
manifestation emerges out of the dimensionless state into the three
dimensions. Close your eyes and I'll project this truth into your
consciousness.'
I do as Ptahhotep tells me, closing my eyes and
turning my attention inward. All of a sudden I see a point,
and I hear Ptahhotep's voice:
'In order for a force to emerge from the
dimensionless state and manifest itself, it needs a point of
departure. A point is dimensionless, has not yet emerged from
unity, but is necessary for manifestation. Because a point consists
of only one single factor, it bears within itself the number of
unity, the number 1.
'When the force whose first manifestation was a
point emerges from the dimensionless state and is effective for a
period of time, the point moves and forms a line.'
With my inward eye I see how the point gradually
becomes a line, and I hear Ptahhotep's voice.
'The first dimension, length, is born. In its
essence, the line is endless and thus, as a first manifestation,
also represents the number 1. But in the world of
manifestations, the world where everything always has a beginning
and an end, a line is always bound to involve three factors, its
starting point, its end point, and the intervening space between the
two. Thus the line represents the number 3, the key number
for the 1-dimensional world.
'Now you must have noticed that there is no
possibility of manifesting or of finding the number 2 in a
unity. As a matter of fact after the first manifestation of the
point, which represents only 1 single factor, we immediately
jumped to three factors—without the number 2. When a point
moves, no matter how little, to form even the tiniest, shortest
line, we're already dealing with the 3 factors not 2.
A line in infinity of course, represents the number 1;
but when it has a beginning and an end, it automatically represents
the number 3.
'In order for the number 2 to arise, there
has to be a splitting of unity. The number 2 can only
be born when two units are set beside each other. But inasmuch as
nothing has any real existence outside unity, unity must project
a reflection outside itself. Thus there arises a fission, a
separation, which means the death of unity. That's why the word for
"doubt"—which represents a kind of cleavage within one's mind and
soul—is so closely related to the word for 2. This is true in
every language.
'Let us now watch how the second dimension arises
from the first. A line consists of a series of points. Assuming the
creative energy is active in each of these points with the same
force and for the same period of time, each of these points moves
outward from itself into the second dimension; each of them becomes
a line, and out of the totality of these lines a plane is created:
An equilateral rectangle.
![]()
'The second dimension—width—is born.
'The rectangle is four in one and
one in four and thus consists of five factors: the four
manifested lines: Line of departure, terminal line, right and
left lateral lines, and the fifth factor: the non-manifested
area enclosed by these lines. And so the key number of the two
dimensional world is the number five. 'But creative forces
continue to work. The plane also consists of points, and if the same
force works outward from each of these points in the same direction
and for the same period of time, all these points move into the
third dimension, and a cube has been created from the plane.
The third dimension is born—height. 'The cube is
six in one and one in six and it consists
of seven factors: the six manifested limiting planes
and the seventh, unmanifested factor, its cubic contents. The key
number of the three-dimensional world is the number seven.
'As you see, the basic form of matter is the cube. The various
crystals are built in conformity with this law, and in them you can
find either the cubic shape itself—as in the case of salt for
example—or the basic elements of the cube in various aspects and
variations. If we now investigate the characteristics of the cube,
you will also understand the laws of the variants.
'Starting from one of the corner points of the cube,
try to find a plane in which all three dimensions of the cube are
contained. If you merely cut straight through, you get a plane
containing only two dimensions of the cube. In order to find a plane
containing all three, we must begin at one corner and cut through
obliquely to the opposite corner points. Thus one corner of the cube
is cut off.
'If we continue in the same manner, we cut off all
four corners of the cube, and what's left in a very different shape:
a tetrahedron, the faces of which are bounded by four equilateral
triangles.
'So now you see that hidden within the cube in a
shape with quite different laws, for the shape consists, not of
rectangles, but of four triangles. If we were to flatten out these
four triangles into a plane, they would form a single, equilateral
triangle, the symbolic representation of God.
'Just like the equilateral triangle which makes up
its mantle, the tetrahedron is the very incarnation of harmony and
equilibrium. Since each of its corner points is equally distant from
each of the others, there is no strain or tension in a tetrahedron,
but rather a condition of rest in equilibrium. By way of contrast,
the corner points of the cube, just like those of the square, lie at
different distances from each other, and this means that both in the
square and the cube there is a condition of everlasting stress. The
matter in our three-dimensional world is built up in cubic form, but
hidden within itself it contains the form of the tetrahedron based
on divine equilibrium. Matter cannot exist without the divine
content.
'The whole three-dimensional world is built up on
this same law, quite Irrespective of whether the form concerned is
considered to be inanimate matter or a living creature. Whether a
given form is that of a plant, an animal or a human, the body of
each of these is subject to the laws of the three dimensional world.
Hidden and invisible within this body, however, is the higher,
divine self—life—eternal being! Only man is able to manifest
his higher self-—that is God—through his thoughts,
words and deeds, when he identifies his consciousness, not with his
body, but with its spiritual content, with his self. As long
as a person identifies himself only with his body, he is like an
opaque cube in that he reveals only the characteristics of
matter, crowding the divine creative principle into a latent,
unmanifested state. No one suspects that the tetrahedron —the divine
self—so different from the outward cubic shape, is dwelling within!
'On the other hand a person who uses his body, his
thoughts, words and deeds only to manifest the divine
creative principle, while leaving the characteristics of his
physical existence—his person—in the unmanifested state— such a
person, to continue using the same figure of speech, is like a cut
cube whose corners and inner content are turned outward so
that its inner triangles— the equilateral triangles of the divine
tetrahedron—are visible.
'Such a person uses the material, square shape only
as a secure base in the three-dimensional world, allowing his weight
to rest on this base.
'But the shape of the cut cube turned inside out is
the pyramid. Thus we see the pyramid is the symbolic form of the
God-man, who reveals his divine, selfless nature and completely
manifests God on earth. The salvation of the earth, the
spiritualization of matter is completed in the person of the
God-man. The divine self—the creator—is seated in
complete majesty on its throne and rules over matter, over the body.
'By way of contrast, the symbolic representation of
materialistic man who uses his intellect for the service of his
material being is the cross—or a "T"— formed out of the four squares
making up the surface of the cube. On this cross, or "T" the secret,
indwelling, divine self is crucified.
'In such persons, divinity is robbed of its power.
It cannot manifest itself and is subject to the laws of the material
world. It is crucified on the two great beams of the
three-dimensional world—on time and space—and dies on this cross of
matter. Its death, however, is not final! Even in the consciousness
that has sunk down to the lowest level, the divine creative self
sometime undergoes resurrection and saves the suffering human
being. Materialistic man, in his Ignorance through crucifying his
own higher self—God within himself— creates ceaseless
tortures and sufferings for himself; he becomes the criminal who is
also crucified beside the divine one. The pains awaken him; his
higher consciousness is aroused, and with the resurrection of his
divine self, he experiences his own salvation because
he recognizes himself in him!
The members of the divine race who fled to the far
corners of the earth carried these symbols with them wherever they
went, proclaiming to humanity the secret, hidden truth within them.
In every part of the earth people will find these symbols in stone,
in metal, or baked clay, in various sizes, large or small. Most
people will believe that they represent a person who has been
crucified, and only a few will recognize that the representation
symbolizes the divine creative principle crucified on the two beams
of time and space.
The pyramids will continue to stand for thousands of
years, proclaiming to humanity the highest truths which have been
built into them. People with eyes and ears will find and recognize
these elements of truth, even though they may not be able to fathom
all the mathematical and astronomical laws of the pyramids, and some
few highly developed persons will even be able to attain the truth
proclaimed. On the other hand, for primitive minds the pyramid will
always be a puzzle—just like the Sphinx—until they reach the point
of being able to solve their own puzzle.
'But now let's return to our consideration of the
cube! A few minutes ago you started at one corner of the cube and
cut it in such a way that a plane contained all three dimensions. In
this way you cut off a corner of the cube; then three more corners.
But by starting at the other corner points of the cube you could
make four more cuts and you would find the cube doesn't contain just
one tetrahedron, but two of them, one within the other, each an
exact reflection of the other. These two tetrahedrons represent the
innermost law of the recognizable world: the inseparable
relationship between the two complementary halves—the positive and
the negative—which, self-contained each within the other, form a
perfect equilibrium and sit, as creative spirits, on the right hand
and on the left hand of divinity. In creation they rule as two
opposite laws: the law of spirit and the law of matter.
'Spirit is life, matter is resistance. The law of
the spirit is radiation, giving, selflessness. The law of matter is
drawing inward, cooling off, paralysis.
'There is only one single creature that is able
consciously to combine the two laws: man. He is the connecting link
between the world of the spirit and that of matter. He is able to
live at one and the same time by the laws of both worlds. His
thoughts, words and deeds can be an act of giving, radiating
selflessness and universal love. On the other hand, his body belongs
to the material world and lives by the laws of matter. At its
right place and in its right time, every law is divine, but the
opposite is satanic.
'Without the resistance of matter creation would be
impossible. In unmanifested divinity all creative forces are
still at rest in unity, in complete repose and equilibrium,
representing merely potential, only power possibilities.
Creation begins in that one force separates itself from unity and
sets itself up opposite the creator as resistance. That is the
"first born son" of God, the spirit of resistance which the
father sends out to act throughout aeons and aeons of time as a
negative and opposite pole to himself, to bear the frequencies of
creation, and by resisting them make it possible for creation to
take place. This spirit of resistance is the opposite pole to the
manifesting aspect of God. By virtue of its centripetal, chilling
and coagulating characteristics, it is the cause of the creation of
matter.
Tick up a stone for example. The power that makes it
a stone and holds it together as matter is the very self-same law of
resistance tending to chill, harden and hold everything together. As
long as this law manifests itself in matter and as
matter, the law is operating in its place and consequently in a
divine manner. But inert matter becomes living matter when the
divine spirit, the self, clothes itself in matter and becomes
flesh. The self, life, penetrates the inert matter, and out
of the law of matter there arises a living spirit: the reflected
image which has only been able to become spirit by virtue of the
fact that God, as the self of the living creatures,
has breathed his own life into matter, is satan. Thus you can see
that satan is the law of matter come alive through the divine
spirit. Satan lies dead in matter, as its law, until with
its own life the divine spirit makes him come alive.
'Whenever man's consciousness identifies itself with
the law of matter so that his thinking, words and deeds, instead of
serving the divine law, serve the law of matter, man is bringing
satan to life, man is becoming satanic himself. Without man
satan cannot exist; for without the self of man, satan is
only an unconscious force, a necessary natural law of matter.
'Satan can come to life only in the consciousness of
a person who manifests the law of matter, the law of the flesh, in
his spirit; who identifies his consciousness with his person, with
his lower nature, with the drives and urges dwelling in his flesh,
with the urge of self-preservation and propagation of the species.
Such a person manifests the centripetal, coagulating power of matter
as spiritual characteristics such as avarice, envy, vanity,
bardheartedness and selfishness. No living creature has ever met
satan by himself, for without man satan has no existence
at all. Without man satan is only the law of matter. We can meet
the living satan only in the human being; only in a human face can
we recognize satan as the expression of this face.
'When after the death of the body of such a person
the self separates itself, satan remains behind in the corpse
as the law of matter, lie became satan through the vitalizing power
of the self in the consciousness. But the consciousness of a
person who has identified himself with the law of matter and thus
become satanic himself dies with satan and becomes unconscious
after death. Satan draws him, his slave, into inert matter, into
the darkness, into loss of consciousness, into himself.
'On the other hand, the consciousness of a person
who has identified himself with the law of the divine spirit and
served this law remains awake and alert after the body has been put
off; liberated from its chains, freed of the isolation of matter, it
merges into eternal light, into God.
'The two tetrahedrons contained within each other
represent the two poles of creation in complete equilibrium. All
creation—the world of unrest and motion—is based on this divine
equilibrium. It is the inner law operating through all forms and
therefore in the crystallizations of matter also. As you've been
able to see for yourself, the primordial form of matter, the cube,
is built up around the divine tetrahedron. The triangles making up
the faces of the tetrahedron arc identical with the planes
connecting the corner points of the cube. Man too, in his inner
being, has a plane of contact with the divine self. And
that's why he can only find his own divine being within himself,
never by directing his attention towards the outside
world.
'When man directs his attention towards the outside
world, he is forced in accordance with divine law into more and more
spiritual prisons, until after many pains and tortures, he finds
divinity.
'But now let's examine the different kinds of forms
of crystals based on the shape of the cube.
Take six geometric forms which have the shape of a
house roof and a base area exactly equal to that of the face of the
cube, then place these six forms on the faces of this cube in such a
way that their different edges are adjacent to each other.
'In this way you form a geometric body which we call
a pentagonal dodecahedron consisting of twelve equilateral
pentagons. The pentagonal dodecahedron reveals further laws of the
long path of the consciousness. But now we want to look at the
result manifested by the last crystal form in this series: the
icosahedron made up of twenty equilateral triangles.
'Thus starting with the tetrahedron we can develop a
total of four regular crystal forms with equal areas: the
tetrahedron, the cube, the pentagonal dodecahedron and the
icosahedron.
'It is only possible to form regular crystal shapes
from triangles, rectangles and pentagons: from triangles, the
tetrahedron, the octahedron and the icosahedron: from squares only
the cube; from pentagons only the pentagonal dodecahedron.
'Except for the octahedron you are already
acquainted with all these geometrical bodies. You can construct an
octahedron by drawing three equally long lines, one in each of the
three dimensions—length, breadth and height— at an angle of 45° in
such a way that the middle of the three lines is identical. When you
join the endpoints of the three lines, you form the eight triangles
which go to make up the octahedron. Thus you see the octahedron
consists of two pyramids joined at their base, one standing
normally, the other upside down.
'And now pay very close attention. If we cut the
octahedron with planes at equal distances from each other and pass
through in each of the three dimensions, we create innumerable
little octahedrons. But these octahedrons do not fill the space
in the big octahedron. On the contrary, the spaces between the
little octahedrons form little tetrahedrons just as you observed in
the space within the cube. You can divide up the space in an
endless number of larger or smaller octahedrons, and the little
tetrahedrons in between will always be there. Thus you can see that
in every one of its points three-dimensional space is based on the
divine tetrahedron representing absolute harmony and absolute
equilibrium.
'In just the same manner all of visible creation
rests in every one of its points on the divinity which stands
above all manifestation, reposing
unmanifested Within itself. God is
omnipresent!
'But now let's come back to the various geometric
bodies contained within each other or superimposed on each other:
tetrahedron, cube, pentagonal dodecahedron and icosahedron. Here are
some further laws revealed by their relationships.
'If we take half the number of faces of each of the
geometric bodies we've talked about—the tetrahedron, cube,
pentagonal dodecahedron, and icosahedron, we get the numbers 2,3,6
and 10. If we multiply these numbers together, we get the number
360, the number of degrees in the circle. And if we add these
numbers together, we get 21, the number of possible connections
between the seven factors of the key number of the three-dimensional
world, the number 7!'
Ptahhotep stops speaking, and I stand before him in
silence and awe.
'Now you may go, my child,' says Ptahhotep, 'you've
had enough for today. Next time we'll talk about the four sides of
the pyramid. They contain further truths. If you want to attain
complete self-recognition, they're very important for you.'
I bow and leave.
-
And, looking, I saw a storm-wind coming out of the
north, a great cloud with flames of fire coming after one another,
and a bright light shining round about it and in the heart of it
was something coloured like electrum.
-
And in the heart of it were the forms of four
living beings. And this was what they were like; they had the form
of a man.
6. And every one had four faces, and every one of
them had four wings.
10. As for the form of their faces, they had the
face of a man, and the four of them had the face of a lion on the
right side, and the four of them had the face of an ox on the left
side, and the four of them had the face of an eagle.
12. Every one of them went straight forward;
wherever the spirit was to go they went; they went on without
turning.
-
And the living beings went out and came back as
quickly as a thunder-flame.
-
Now while I was looking at the four living beings,
I saw one wheel on the earth, by the side of the living beings,
for the four of them.
-
The form of the wheels and their work was like a
beryl; the four of them had the same form and design, and they
were like a wheel inside a wheel.
17. The four of them went straight forward without
turning to one side.
18. And I saw that they had edges, and their edges,
even of the four, were full of eyes round about.
20. Wherever the spirit was to go they went; and the
wheels were lifted up by their side: for the spirit of the living
beings was in the wheels.
22. And over the heads of the living beings
there was the form of an arch, looking like ice, stretched out over
their heads on high.
-
And on top of the arch which was over their heads
was the form of a king's seat, like a sapphire stone; and on the
form of the scat was the form of a man seated on it on high.
-
And I saw it coloured like electrum, with the look
of fire in it and round it, going up from what seemed to be the
middle of his body; and going down from what seemed to be the
middle of his body I saw what was like fire, and there was a
bright light shining round him.
-
Like the bow in the cloud on a day of rain, so was
the light shining round him. And this is what the glory of the
Lord was like. And when I saw it I went down on my face, and the
voice of one talking came to my ears.
Ezekiel, I
34
THE FOUR FACES OF GOD
Again I stand before Ptahhotep.
'My child,' he begins, 'today you'll learn what the
four faces of God are.
'It will help you very, very much to recognize them
in you. The four faces of God are in everything that has been
created. All of creation—including yourself —has been built
up on his four faces.
'Life in the visible world, beginning with the
gigantic central suns of the world systems and running all the way
down to the tiniest protozoa is merely a rotation around the
four faces and in the four faces of God.
'You know why we always represent divinity in its
primordial state of resting within itself as an equilateral
triangle. God in his three aspects is one in three and
three in one. But this condition—just like the equilateral
triangle—carries within itself the possibility of the number
four. When the three aspects of the basic number one
separate from each other—and this happens when they move from the
unmanifested into the manifested state— the "one in three"
becomes "one and three". In this way the number four
is born.
'Cast a glance at the equilateral triangle: in it
you see only one unit which has three sides, three aspects.
But it contains, hidden and unmanifested, the number four,
because the equilateral triangle can be divided up into four smaller
equilateral triangles.
'When the triangle moves out of the unmanifested
into the manifested state in the three dimensional world, a
tetrahedron is formed.
'As you have already seen, the first primordial form
of material manifestation—the cube—contains the tetrahedron hidden
and unmanifested within itself.
'The four triangles which make up the faces of the
tetrahedron are the areas of contact between the divine and the
material, as they are identical with the inner areas of the
truncated corners of the cube.
'When we turn the triangles of the tetrahedron
outward with the help of the corners of the cube, thus
manifesting the triangles of the tetrahedron, we produce the
four-sided shape of the pyramid whose four sides, at one and the
same time, are the four triangles of the tetrahedron turned
outward and the truncated corners of the cube turned outward.
'The four sides of the pyramid symbolize the four
faces of God, each of which taken alone and by itself manifests the
three aspects of the first source, the divinity at rest within
itself and standing above all creation. The pyramid reveals a
living reality, the living law, in which God always and
absolutely manifests himself in the material world, and because he
does so he is indwelling in everything that has been created.
'From every point of the universe God
manifests himself four-fold. In each of the four directions of the
earth and the sky he radiates with a different effect. And because
these streams of force, which originate at one point and yet arc so
very different, all come forth from the paradisiacal unity, we can
speak of them figuratively as four great rivers springing up in the
centre of paradise, where the tree of life and the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil are rooted, and flowing out into the
external world in four different directions.
'You will find this four-fold manifestation in
everything that has been created, most noticeably in the four
characteristics of the great currents of air, the winds. Even the
dullest person knows that the winds coming from the four different
directions have completely different effects.
'The north wind is dry, cool, with a quieting and
paralysing effect. In many parts of the world it even makes water
hard as stone.
'The south wind always brings heat and has an
arousing, vitalizing effect.
'The east wind is cool, refreshing.
'The west wind brings warmth and dampness—in many
places rain. Its effect is fatiguing and soporific.
'This is something you already know, because every
child notices the different effects of the four major winds. But
have you ever thought about how this is possible? Have you ever
wondered how it comes about that currents of air can start at the
selfsame spot on the surface of the earth and have different effects
depending on the direction in which they flow? If, for
example, a wind arises right where we are now, where we feel the air
to be pleasant and mildly warm, and if it blows southward, it is
obviously coming from the north for people living in countries to
the south of us. It brings them cool weather and has a calming
effect on all living creatures. But when a wind starts up from where
we are and blows northward, it's a south wind for people
living to the north of us. It brings them warm weather and has a
stimulating effect on the organs of reproduction of all living
creatures. How is it possible for both a cold and a warm wind to
originate at one and the same point on the surface of the earth—a
tranquilizing and a stimulating wind—bringing dampness and rain to
people on one side and dry weather to people on the other? It all
depends on the direction in which the air is flowing.
'You see, that is the law of space we call
the four faces of God.
'The first face—the north face—is fiery and
has a vitalizing effect. That's why the south wind brings heat and
stimulates living creatures to conceive new life.
'The second—the west face—is airy and cool.
It makes everything movable, and that's why the east wind is
refreshing.
'The third face of God—his eastern face—is damp,
wet and lukewarm. It brings heaviness, inertia, warmth, dampness
and precipitation, making all living creatures sleepy. Their
consciousness withdraws into their bodies.
'And lastly the fourth face—the south face of God—is
cold. It has a contracting, astringent, crystallizing, materializing
effect. It brings cold and calms the nerves.
'The first and most important manifestation of the
four faces of God is the fiery one, because the
effects of the other manifestations—the other faces— depend on this
one. The kind of fire determines whether the weather gets hot, warm,
cool or cold. That's why the fiery face of God is the father of
the others. As a result of its radiation, the various specific
states arise: the warm and dry together produce the gaseous airy
condition: the cool and damp the aqueous', while the cold
produces the hard, earthly condition.
'You find this law operating everywhere here on
earth, in every tree, in every plant. Take any house, for example.
The south side which receives the currents from the north face of
God is warm and plants grow best on this side. The north side is
cold, the east side is dry and the west side is always damp.
Whenever we make rain in the pyramid, the precipitation hits all
buildings from the west.
'This fourfold aspect is not only to be found in the
major winds, but in everything that has been created. Look at the
trees. The northern side— exposed to the radiation from the cool
southern face of God—is always covered with moss. Have you ever
wondered why the human being has only one face,
and that towards the front? In the direction in
which we face we are fiery, giving, whereas when we turn our back on
something we are cool towards it, Our limbs, too, are all directed
forward, and we can radiate our willpower only in the direction in
which we are facing. And why do we sleep best when lying in a north
to south direction? Why do all animals lie down this way? Why are
even birds' nests and ant hills built in a north to south
direction,? Animals have no intellect to understand the reasons why,
but they feel the effect of quieting radiations coming from the
north and vitalizing currents from the south. Instinctively they
feel it's best for the circulation of their own current of life when
they build their nests in a north to south direction and when they
sleep this way.
'That's the secret of why a person who is seeking
connection with God and praying should face north or east, but
never south or west. In the north and in the east he can find
forces that lead him towards spiritualization, whereas in the south
and in the west he finds stimulation which leads his consciousness
to identify itself with his sensual instincts.
'The effects of God's fourfold radiation are always
the same throughout the entire universe. Every point in the
universe—and this includes of course every point on the face of the
earth—always receives exactly the same radiation from any given
direction. The four faces of God can never turn or shift. They
always Stand unchanged, immutable, facing in their original
direction.
'Wherever members of the divine race went, they
taught the sons of men this profound truth in various ways depending
on the characteristics of the people around them. Here where people
understand geometric forms and can grasp truth intellectually, we
expressed the truth about the four faces of God in the form of the
pyramid. But there are other races of people more inclined to grasp
divine truths as spiritual experiences. The members of our race who
fled to such countries have built gigantic figures of stone to
represent divinity in the form of a human figure sitting like
a triangle and having a head with four faces, one looking in each
direction.
'Both representations reveal the same fact: whenever
the divine creative principle leaves its timeless spaceless
condition in the unmanifested state to come out into the
three-dimensional world and become matter, it manifests itself—-even
while keeping its three aspects—in the number four. The
shape of the pyramid shows this clearly in that each of its four
sides, standing on the square base, forms a triangle
representing the three aspects of God. Thus the pyramid manifests
four times three: the number twelve.
'And that brings us to another truth.
'As you can see from the symbolic representation in
the form of the pyramid, each of the four faces of God
contains the three divine aspects. This results in a twelve-fold
manifestation which is present at every point of the universe
and is acting in everything that exists, beginning with the
individual creatures living on the planets and running throughout
the planets to the suns and the systems of suns, throughout the
universe, just like little circles in larger ones and larger circles
in still larger ones, on and on to infinity. So if you understand
one of these circles, you will understand the inner structure of the
entire universe and of every single creature in it; for the
entire visible universe is based on this twelve-fold manifestation
of God,
'But before we go on, you must realise that
everything we human beings can perceive with our organs of sense
from our personal point of view—that is from the outside—is the
exact opposite of what exists in the divine state of being.
Everything you can see when looking at it from the outside—whether
from above or below, from front or back, from the right or the
left—turns into its exact opposite as soon as you stop looking at
it and start being it. When you look at something,
you're in a dualistic relationship to it. You, the observer,
and what you see are two different poles. But when you are
something, you're in a monistic condition, in divine unity.
'To show you an example, let's take a letter, say a
letter "E". In what direction does this letter run?'
'It runs from left to right, Father,' I answer.
'Good,' says Ptahhotep, 'now when I draw the same
letter on your breast so that you are this letter, you're in
a condition of unity with it, in a state of being with it. In what
direction is it running now?'
'From right to left, Father,' I answer.
'Yes, just the opposite. Come with me now and I'll
show you something more.' Ptahhotep leads me under two large
circular plates that hang from the ceiling and serve as lamps. They
both have the same twelve pictures but running in opposite sequence
and facing in opposite directions. On the first plate the pictures
all have their heads towards the centre, while on the second their
heads are all toward the circumference. And the sequence from right
to left on one is just the opposite of the sequence of the other.
Ptahhotep leads me to the first circle and asks,
'When do you see the pictures in the circle right side up?'
'Always, from any point along the side, Father.'
Then Ptahhotep leads me to the second circle and
asks, 'How do you sec these pictures?'
'All of them have their heads down, just the
opposite of the pictures in the other circle, and they're all in the
opposite sequence,' I answer.
'Now try to find the spot from which you can see all
of these pictures right side up and in the right sequence.'
I look at the figures and as I want to see
them right—with their heads up— I involuntarily step over to a point
precisely under, and consequently precisely in the centre
of the disc ... and all of a sudden all the figures seem to
change their positions! Now they're all standing right side up and
in the correct sequence. I turn around slowly, continuing to stand
in the centre ... Each and every one of the figures is right side
up. But when I move only a single step to the side, they're all the
wrong way round again! I step back into the centre. Consciously and
deeply moved, I experience the state of being ... I
understand what it means ... the excitement of the discovery almost
makes me dizzy.
Seeing how thrilled and moved I am, Ptahhotep
smiles. 'Do you understand now,' he asks, 'why the personal is
always the exact opposite of the divine? Do you understand
why human script runs from left to right while the divine runs
from right to left?'.
'Yes, Father of my Soul,' I stammer, trembling with
excitement. 'I do understand.'
Ptahhotep takes my hand in his—oh, how quickly the
mighty power of this blessed hand calms me—and leads me to a large
blackboard where I see various geometric figures.
'The earth,' he continues, 'receives the twelve-fold
radiation of force of the four faces of God from the direction of
various constellations of stars. Taken together, these
constellations surround us like a wheel. We call this huge wheel the
"zodiac".
'It's owing to the effect of the radiations of the
zodiac that the earth can exist at all. Their vibrations met in a
point in cosmic space, causing an interference in the waves of
energy and leading to condensation ... materialization. Little by
little our earth came into being through this process of
materialization. As the sun played a great role in this process, the
earth grew in the field of force of the sun and became its
satellite. It receives its life energy from the sun, but it also is
constantly receiving radiations from the zodiac and from its sister
planets of our solar system.
'Just like all the celestial bodies, the earth
represents the materialization of all these various radiations, and
that's why for each step of earthly creation there is a form of
materialization which primarily manifests the specific energy of the
great cosmic wheel appropriate for the form of materialization
concerned. That is to say that in rock formations, minerals,
plants, animals and human beings here on earth there are the
materialized radiations of each individual constellation of the
zodiac, as well as of each individual planet. The names of the signs
of the zodiac characterize the earthly forms that are the
materialized manifestations of the constellations concerned. When
you see a lion, for example, you should remember that on the animal
plane he is the materialized radiation of the particular zodiacal
sign we call "Leo" or "Lion". But at the same time
there are minerals, plants and people made up of the same energy,
but on the mineral, plant or human plane.
'Since the name of each individual sign of the
zodiac is also the name of the form created by the materialized
radiation from this zodiacal sign, this name is obviously the most
appropriate single word with which to characterize perfectly
the radiation from this constellation.
The four faces of God—that is the four cardinal
points—in the vault of stars, in the divine condition of being,
are:
'Each face of God, each cardinal point of the vault
of heaven, contains within itself the three aspects of the
unmanifested divinity, and so the twelve signs of the
zodiac come into being:
'The three fiery aspects of the first face
of God, of the first group, are revealed in three constellations
called Aries, Leo and Sagittarius.
'The Lion is the first manifestation of
God and consequently the great father of the entire zodiac.
That's why all three manifestations of the first face of God
have a fatherly, life-giving character.
'The Ram—Aries—radiates the fire of youth,
the procreative power of the young father who penetrates the bosom
of nature, awakens new life, and sets it in motion. The Ram
is the power of spring which in its effect is just as wild
and heedless, just as rammish as the ram itself.
'The Lion is the fire of the perfectly
developed, dignified and respectable man, the mature father who
radiates his creative power, his love and warmth towards all his
children as he brings them up in affectionate care. The Lion
is the power of summer.
The Centaur (Sagittarius) is a being that has
grown beyond its animal nature, overcome its physical desires and
aimed its consciousness towards the high goal.
The four faces of God in the divine state of
being.
Its radiation is the fire of the spirit, of the wise
and mellow father who goes on helping his mature children with his
spirituality, good thoughts and sage advice. The Centaur or
Sagittarius is the spiritual fire of thought, the power of
age, of winter.
'The three aspects of the second group, of the
earthly-material face of God are: Taurus, Virgo
and Capricornus, or the Bull, the Virgin and
the Goat. All three manifestations of this face of God reveal
a motherly character.
'In the springtime the bull stands in a green
meadow, and all of nature is decked out in the beautiful clothing of
a bride on her wedding day, ready to receive all the procreative
power of her bridegroom. The radiation of the zodiacal sign of the
Bull enables the earth to receive the fiery power of
life and let it take root. Thus the divine seed is able to
incarnate itself in an earthly body. The Bull radiation makes
it possible for the divine self, the creative principle, the
logos, to become flesh. The Bull awakens the power of
conception in matter— in the female of the species—calling the
bride to readiness. The Bull represents that aspect of
incipient maternity in which the mother-to-be is ready to conceive.
'Virgo—the Virgin—is the spotless queen of
heaven, the mother goddess of nature who has never been touched by a
male and yet is pregnant with myriad creatures that are born from
her divine body. The power of the sign of the Virgin is the
fertility of nature, and that's why she is shown holding in her hand
a spike of grain with five kernels. In the mystic world the
Virgin is the human soul which, purged of all earthly dross, has
become spotless and has received the divine seed from the spirit of
God. Thus she is expecting the divine child in which both
principles—the divine and the material are blended
into perfect unity. Thus Virgo is the pregnant, expectant
aspect of maternity.
'The third aspect of the earthly face of God is
Capricorn, the Goat. Thin animal lives in the region of the
hardest matter on earth, stones, rocks and boulders. The
centripetal force of the law of matter causes matter to reach
the highest degree of hardness and consequently crystallise.
In the crystal, matter overcomes itself, losing its original
characteristic of opacity and becoming perfectly transparent. In the
crystal, matter reveals the original geometric forms of the creative
power. A child, too, is the solidified, crystallized form of the
divine creative power of life. Through the law of matter, through
the centripetal, compressive power of concentration, the
achievement of the divine self, the divine
child—consciousness—is born in the soul of man.
'As long as man identifies his consciousness with
his animal instincts, he is like a stable in which animals are
living. In this stable and surrounded by animals, the divine
child—the divine consciousness—must be born. This takes place
through the concentrating effect of the sign of Capricornus.
The only path which can lead man back to unity, back into the lost
paradise, is that of concentration. That's why the birth of the
divine child is celebrated in the month when the sun stands in the
sign of the Goat. The radiation of this centre of force helps
man fully to manifest and achieve the divine in and
through matter—in the body. Capricornus is the parturient
aspect of the maternal.
'The three aspects of the third group, the
vaporous face of God, are Gemini, Libra and
Aquarius, or the Twins, the Balance and the
Water Bearer. The vaporous combination state arising through
this radiation gives movement. That's why these three constellations
are favourable for the manifestation of forces which require free
and unhindered movement. They are spiritual in character.
'The sign of the Twins carries within itself
the two halves of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Its radiation takes effect in two directions. It causes man to look
to the left and to the right in order to gather knowledge and
experience. It causes man's pathway through life to branch out like
the limbs of a tree. Man goes forth to seek knowledge on the most
devious paths that lead off in various directions. Seeking
experience, people want to see everything, hear everything, learn
everything. The radiated power of Gemini manifests itself as
the urge to learn.
'The radiation of the Libra constellation
forces everything into equilibrium. All the experiences man has
collected are laid in the scales of the balance and weighed. What's
valuable is kept; what's worthless is thrown away. The effect of the
balance is one of harmony, developing man's powers of
discrimination, and bringing the two-sided forces of Gemini
into equilibrium. The sign of the Balance radiates the law of
equilibrium and justice into the three-dimensional world. It is the
manifestation of law-giving knowledge.
'The constellation Aquarius radiates the
knowledge that has been gathered under the sign of the Twins,
weighed in the Balance, found worthwhile and codified into
laws. The radiated energy of this sign brooks no let or hindrance
and knows no bounds. The Water Bearer gives, passes on
treasures to others, untiringly pours the water of life out of his
vessel, letting its waves flow on to the remotest worlds. These
waves are the all-vitalizing high-frequencies of the spirit. The
Water Bearer is the manifestation of the unhindered spirit freed
of all bonds.
'The three aspects of the fourth group, the aqueous
face of God, are: the Crab, the Eagle (Scorpion)
and Fishes, or Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces.
The three manifestations of this face of God have an
emotional character which manifests itself in feelings.
'The Zodiacal sign Crab symbolizes the little
water of the hole in which the crab lives. After it has caught its
prey outside, it withdraws into its hole to digest it. The
consciousness which was directed towards the outside in order to
find spiritual nourishment withdraws to digest and transform its
prey—the impressions it has collected—into clarified and organized
experiences. The radiated power of the zodiacal sign of the Crab
manifests itself as the introspective, self-analysing
consciousness of the truth-seeking individual.
'The sign of the Scorpion-Eagle represents
the great turning point when the crawling worm is transformed into a
high-flying eagle, redeemed, a being that has awakened and become
conscious in the divine self. The worm— Scorpion— must
kill itself in order to become an eagle. That's why this
constellation has a double name. In its unredeemed condition it is
called Scorpion after the animal that can kill itself with
its own sting; in its redeemed condition it is called Eagle,
symbolizing the free soul flying high above the material world like
the divine falcon Horus.
'The radiation of this constellation is the driving
force, the fire of life, which manifests itself in this form through
water—through the fluids of the body. This force enables the spirit
to clothe itself in matter in order to be born anew in the body.
This energy is the original serpent of temptation, enticing the
spirit into matter and causing its fall from paradisiacal unity.
When, however, instead of operating in the material plane, this
force is transformed and transmuted, becoming purely spiritual,
sexual desire is transformed into an uplifting force which helps the
fallen consciousness return into paradisiacal unity. Without this
force no consciousness that has fallen from unity can find its way
back into God! The water of this constellation is like a swamp
in which hidden fermentation is going on and over which, without
actually burning, little fiery will-of-the-wisps are dancing.
'The Fishes dwell in the endless ocean.
Although they sometimes come to the surface, they submerge again and
disappear in the immeasurable depths. The true nature of man is
similar to the ocean. His consciousness is on the surface, but by
far the greater and deeper part of him lies in the unconscious where
the reasons and the roots of his thoughts, words and deeds
originate.
'On the other hand, the person who has achieved
redemption and attained complete and perfect recognition of self,
whose consciousness has been initiated in his divine self and
achieved realization in his self, no longer has a
subconscious and a super-conscious. That is to say, there is no
longer a part of him that is unconscious. Figuratively speaking, he
swims, completely conscious, in the depths of the limitless ocean of
the divine all-consciousness. With the unredeemed person
recognizes—or often enough, does not recognize—as the "unconscious"
has become his home and element in which he is perfectly conscious.
The two manifestations of sex—the male and female—are as happy as
two carefree fish in the ocean of perfect harmony. The effect of the
sign of the Fishes is redemption, dissolving away the
personal in the impersonal, in the depth of the limitless self,
in the divine and indivisible unity of all one being'.
The great work of redemption is completed by the radiation of this
power, the spiritualization of matter is achieved.
'You see, the three aspects of each triangle are
related; starting on the material plane, they progress upward in the
direction of spiritualization.
'But there's not only a relationship between the
three aspects of each of the, faces of God, the four
triangles are actually so related that their centres are identical.
In this way they make up the zodiacal circle of twelve revelations,
much that the various aspects of the four triangles form an
inter-related series of steps in development and progress. Then
there is still a third relationship between the individual
constellations, namely the one between opposite constellations,
each of which is a complementary half of the other.
'First, let's discuss the relationship of the steps
hi development.
'The series naturally begins with the constellations
of the Ram, as the beginning of all expressions of life—and
hence the beginning of springtime— lies in the Ram. But you
should take note of the fact that there are two "beginnings of
springtime", one absolute and one relative. Every
manifestation of life—including the earth and all the creatures
living on it—
carries within itself "the absolute beginning of
spring" or "springtime point". This absolute springtime point is
independent of the outside world. On the other hand, the relative
springtime point depends on the position of the stars at any given
moment. Thus because of the various movements of the earth, it
doesn't stay at the someplace but is constantly changing its
position. We'll go into all this more thoroughly later.
'The signs of the zodiac run in this sequence:
Ram, Bull, Twins, Crab, Lion, Virgin, Balance, Scorpion-Eagle,
Centaur, Goat, Water-bearer, Fishes.
'Everything that condenses into matter is manifested
on the material plane and runs hi its own lifetime through the full
circle of the zodiac. The life of the individual human being is one
great period that is divided up into smaller periods—childhood,
youth, maturity and senility; these in turn break down into still
smaller periods: years, seasons, months, weeks and lastly days.
'All the shorter periods of man's life too—days,
years and so on—also run through the full circle of the zodiac. His
birth corresponds to the Ram. Then one after the other, he
runs through all the signs of the zodiac, reaching maturity in the
Lion and dying under the sign of the Fishes when he
disappears from the material plane. In just the same way our days
begin with our awakening from sleep and appearing in the world. The
day develops, reaches maturity and its culmination point at midday
and then starts to decline. After further changes we come to the
evening when we put away our bodies to rest and sleep, withdrawing
our consciousness into the self and falling asleep—just as we
do at the end of our earthly lives when we put away our bodies for
the last time. Every period has its beginning, development,
culmination, decline and dissolution.
'The individual signs of the Zodiac have the
following main characteristics:
'The Ram sees to it that something appears
or is born in this world in the first place, and this is equally
true when the actual time of birth doesn't fall under the sign of
the Ram! That's because every birth, irrespective of the
outside world and of course irrespective of the various
constellations, carries within itself the power of the beginning,
and this power we call the Ram both outside in the vault of
the stars and inside each individual being. That's the absolute
side of the Ram in every created form. And the
relationship is just the same with all the other constellations,
with all manifestations of life, and with all the aspects of the
four faces of God. There is always an inner, absolute
manifestation and an outer, relative manifestation.
'After birth, every new creature must get its roots
down wherever it is. This it does with the help of the Bull.
The new creature takes in food and assimilates it. This gives it a
material connecting link with the outer world and creates a line of
supply for its body.
'Under the influence of the sign of the Twins,
the new creature begins to gather experience, and his pathways
begin to diverge, going into all kinds of ramifications like the
branches of a tree. The creature develops in different directions
and gains extensive knowledge.
'In the Crab it draws back into its home
again to digest its spiritual gains— the experiences it has
gathered. Its inner core begins to develop.
'Through the life-giving, fiery effect of the
Lion, the creature matures and gains dignity. It develops its
powers and abilities and fulfils its earthly duty of begetting a new
generation. It becomes father of a family.
'The Virgin brings the harvest. Man brings
the fruits of his labours into his barn. In the depths of his soul
the divine child—universal love—develops.
'In the Balance his deeds are weighed, the
positive and negative credited and debited against each other. His
attention is directed towards both sides, on the one hand the
worldly and on the other the spiritual. Within himself he brings
these two worlds into a perfect equilibrium, putting into effect,
the inner, divine law which stands above and beyond everything
that's relative.
'The sign of the Scorpion brings the
solstice, the great turning point. Man must spiritualize the divine
creative power which so far has manifested itself within him as a
driving instinct and urge. He must now utilize this divine creative
power in the service of others. This means he must completely
overcome his person. He experiences the mystic death of his person,
then resurrection and immortality in spirit. From now on he ceases
to serve materialism.
High up above the earth, in perfect spiritual
freedom, he flies like an eagle, like the sacred falcon
Horus.
Through the effect of the Centaur he becomes
a great teacher like the Centaur itself, a being which has
grown beyond the animal level, a being which now uses its animal
body only in order the sooner to reach the great goal it clearly
ices ahead. Its thoughts cut like lightning through the heavy clouds
of darkness and ignorance. It passes its experience on to the next
generation.
'In the sign of the Goat the divine
child—universal love—is born in man's heart. It becomes identical
with divine self and conscious in it. As the divine child
that has been born in his heart becomes visible, man becomes clear
as crystal. In his words and deeds, he reveals universal love.
'In the Water-bearer the creature pours out
and scatters its treasures. It has become the shining, resplendent
child of God standing above and beyond sexuality. Radiating
itself, it is the source of the highest divinely spiritual power,
The process of transformation and de-materialization begins.
'In the sign of the Fishes the living
creature experiences a re-unification with its hidden complementary
half. This means, of course, that matter is disintegrated. The
creature returns to its heavenly home, to universal unity, to
God. Its consciousness glides over into cosmic
consciousness, it casts off its body, and ends its earthly life.
'That's the path that every individual follows, even
though he may not yet have reached the highest levels of
consciousness. The steps of development may be different, but the
circle of development is always the same.
'Now let's look at how the opposite signs of the
Zodiac supplement each other:
The powerful, impulsive strength of the Ram
is regulated by the Law of the Balance which tames the
Ram's blind forces and guides them into the right channels.
'The bridal power of the sign of the Bull
supplements and satisfies the instinctive procreative urge of the
Scorpion.
'The maternal power of the Crab, retiring to
the shelter of its own hearth and home, is the complementary "other
half" of the crystallizing, parturient radiation of the Goat.
The newly born child belongs to mother.
'The paternal radiation of the Lion finds its
"other half" in the childlike power of the Water-bearer. The
father supports, protects and educates the child.
'The youth in the sign of the Twins with his
eagerness to learn, receives the knowledge he is thirsting for from
the great teacher, Centaur.
'The heavenly Virgin, bearing the divine
child in her holy womb, receives nourishment from the mystic world
of the two Fishes.
'Now you understand the radiations of the four faces
of God in the varying effects of the different
constellations. But in order to understand the life of the universe
and the lives of the myriads of living creatures—including your own—
you need to know that the circle of revelation, with its twelve
centres of power, affects every point of the universe independently
of the constellations. And because the four faces of God can
never turn around, each constellation emits different radiations of
power in the various directions of the sky. Thus the radiation is
determined by the everlasting, never-changing direction of
the four faces.
'Let's take the constellation of the Lion for
example. In the direction of the south it emits the radiation
characteristic for the lion, while towards the opposite side, to the
north, it sends out the power of the Water-bearer, in a
westerly direction, that of the Eagle, towards the east, that
of the Bull, in the north-northwesterly direction, that of
the Virgin, towards west-north-west, that of the Balance,
and so on, a different radiation in each direction.
'Now you understand that these radiations are not
dependent on displace of the group of stars, but rather on
the direction from which they come. Just like the wind has
different effects, depending only on the direction in which it
blows, not on the place in which it starts.
'And now here's another very important fact: because
everything manifests itself outwardly from its own centre,
and because the four faces of God radiate absolutely equally
and unchangeably from every point, everything— whether it's a
central sun, a sun, a planet, plant, animal, protozoon or human
being—is always in the centre of two wheels: in the centre of
the great cosmic wheel and— since this centre is identical
with the centre of the individual being concerned —also in the
centre of one's unmanifested being, one's own inner wheel.
'We receive the radiations of the great
cosmic wheel from the outside while those of our own wheel are
emitted from the inside.
'We are identical with the situation of the earth
which has fallen out of the divine being. The earth is not in a
central spot in the universe, but rather a satellite of the sun,
orbiting around the sun and rotating about its own axis. That's why
we see everything in the universe as the exact opposite of what it
is in reality, in the divine state of being. Seen from our position
on the earth, the whole vault of stars—with all its cosmic systems,
solar systems and planets— appears to rotate around us. But in
reality the opposite is happening. It's not the vault of stars
that's rotating around us, but rathei our earth that is orbiting
around the sun, our sun with our entire solar system moving in a
larger orbit around a cosmic sun, and the latter—with all of its
cosmic system—moving around a central sun, and so on in ever-greater
orbits and ever-greater cosmic systems, on and on into infinity.
'And even the life of celestial bodies in cosmic
systems is nothing other than movement and development in the great
cycles of the four faces of Go d, in the Zodiac. But just
remember that every manifestation, every created form, regardless of
where it is in the universe, carries within itself both the great
cosmic wheel and its own little wheel, irrespective of whether it's
a protozoon, a plant, an animal, a human being or celestial body.
You'll consider this quite a matter of course when you
understand that every point of the universe radiates the same
twelve-fold manifestation of the four faces of God—without
these latter being able to change their position.
'The radiations of energy which we receive from the
great cosmic wheel come to us from the outside; that's why we see
the circle wrong side to, just like a mirrored reflection of the
divine condition of being (see illustration, page 244).
'Because the vault of stars, as seen from our
standpoint on the earth, is always in motion, there is a
corresponding change going on constantly in the composition of
radiations reaching the earth from all the countless stars moving
along their individual paths in the gigantic cosmic wheel. Every
created form— including every human being—has its own
individually composed structure of forces made up of the same
creative forces that radiate from the stars in the universe. At the
moment of birth the structure of forces in the individual's own
little zodiac wheel is identical with that of the forces in the
great cosmic zodiacal wheel. And this leads us to something else
that you should know, namely, that a living creature can be born
only when these two structures of forces coincide with each other
completely.
The position of the earth in the four faces of
God which can never turn around
'Until the end of his life on this earth, man is
constantly subjected to new impressions, new experiences and all
kinds of other influences. As he gathers experience, his own inner
constellation is modified to a great extent. Many forces are
developed, many others get pushed into the background, depending on
the individual's reactions to his deeds and his experiences. The
inner constellation a creature has at the moment of its death is
stamped indelibly upon its soul, and the latter cannot be
reincarnated until the vault of stars, in its constant movement,
comes into the same constellation. This is why some people are
reincarnated again after only a very short time while others may
even have to wait thousands of years until the stellar
constellations match those they carry in their souls.
'All the creatures that are being born into the
three-dimensional world every moment throughout all eternity ended
their previous incarnation under the same constellation as the one
which existed at the moment of their birth in this incarnation.
The death constellation in one incarnation and the birth
constellation in the next are always absolutely identical. On the
other hand, the birth constellation and the death constellation for
any given incarnation are never identical, because the individual
living creature concerned is changed through the experiences it has.
But every creature—including man— carries within itself
the imprint of the constellation reigning at the moment of its
birth, and it carries this imprint through its entire life. This
constellation contains the creature's own individual wheel in which
its subsequent development and character changes are hidden.
'So if you want to know the inner birth
constellation of the forces that have built a living creature and
are working in its soul, in its body, in its entire being—and
consequently also in its fate—you have to figure out the
constellation the stars had at the moment of its birth.
'Because of the steady movement of the stars in the
sky, the relationships within the two wheels—the cosmic and the
individual—are constantly shifting. The centres of energy in the
cosmic wheel—the constellations, the fixed stars and the planets—and
the hidden centres of power of the individual wheel move away from
the identical patterns they had at the moment of birth. After a time
these patterns of power within these two wheels can approach each
other again. That's why in the life of each individual there are
favourable and harmonious relationships at certain times and
unfavourable disharmonious relationships at others. As a result, the
creatures concerned sometimes reveal harmonious-positive
characteristics and disharmonious-negative characteristics at other
times. And because fate is the mirrored reflection of character and
the result of the individual's deeds, its life takes favourable
turns sometimes and unfavourable ones at others.
'All forms of life are subject to these forces,
and only one creature has the possibility of ruling over all these
energies and forces at work throughout the universe, within its own
being and within its own destiny. This creature which has the
ability to control these forces at will is man. But he can control
them only when he is conscious of them, recognizes them in himself
and overcomes them!
'As long as man does not recognize these
forces in himself, he is just as much (it their mercy as all the
unconscious forms of life which are directly in contact with all
these creative forces and willy-nilly controlled by them. Only the
human being who has attained the ability of self-recognition is able
to rise in his consciousness above these forces. Instead of being at
their mercy in an unconscious way, he is able to control them or
transmit them in a transmuted and completely changed form. When man
is able to transmute the creative forces within himself, he is also
able to transmute the forces operating within his destiny: thus
controlling his own fate.
'Now you understand why it is necessary and
important to know about the twelve-fold radiation of power of the
four faces of God within yourself, and why it is essential to
learn to control it. When you realize that only your body and the
material part of your being is built up out of these forces, whereas
your divine self stands above them and is able to control them—you
yourself can regain control over these tremendous creative powers,
the same control you lost when you were born into the material
world. When you realize this, you can liberate your self
which in your body has been crucified on two great beams of the
material, three-dimensional world—time, and space.
Your self which has been repressed and forced into your
subconscious is liberated, resurrected from its apparent death and
reinstated on its throne. This mystery of life is symbolized by the
cross with the divine form crucified upon it, representing the
second aspect of God. The creative principle clothes itself
in matter and for aeons of time makes the supreme sacrifice of
taking upon itself the characteristics of the material world in
order to animate it and fulfil its great task of spiritualizing
matter by completely revealing the spirit in matter.'
35
THE EPOCHS OF THE WORLD
I stand before Him. He begins: 'The earth and
its inhabitants are not yet conscious of the forces which reach the
earth from out of the cosmos and maintain it. Consequently the
inhabitants of the earth aren't able to control these forces and
transform them at will. The earth receives these radiations from out
of the cosmos and is immersed and bathing in these waves of energy.
Everything that happens on earth is a direct reaction to the action
of these radiations ... a kind of resonance resulting from their
inter-action.
'The sun magnifies to a tremendous extent the
radiations of the particular constellation in which it stands at any
given moment as it radiates its force to the earth simultaneously
with the radiations of the constellations concerned. This fact
has a bearing on the way in which the four seasons have come into
being.
'The movements of the earth give us the impression
not only that the vault of stars is rotating about us, but also that
other movements are taking place. One of the most important
movements the earth makes is that its axis describes the surface of
a cone. Whereas one of the end points of the earth's axis remains
relatively fixed, the other describes a circle. Because of this
movement, the vernal point in the cosmic wheel is slowly displaced.
Seen
from the earth, it appears to be moving backward.
'The time it takes for the axis of the earth to
complete one full conical movement—moving from the vernal point in
the zodiacal circle right round to its starting point
again—corresponds to 25,920 terrestrial years. We call this a cosmic
year. Divided by twelve, this number gives us a cosmic month, mainly
2,160 terrestrial years, the time it takes for the vernal point to
move through one zodiacal sign.
'The vibrations from the cosmos have such a great
effect on the earth that they even influence world history. The
leading ideas in religion, science and art are the result of the
radiation of the particular constellation in which the vernal point
is moving throughout the course of a cosmic month. The incarnated
spirits on earth—that is to say humanity—must always achieve a new
epoch by reaching a new milestone in human development and
establishing themselves in the ideas of the time.
'A nation is a group of spirits, the incarnation of
certain concentrations of energy. Each epoch brings to the earth a
different group of spirits, a different race, and when this race has
fulfilled its task of carrying out the new ideas and developing a
new civilization for the space of a cosmic month, it leaves the
earth in order to develop further on another planet. In every race,
of course, there are always individuals who don't quite "make the
grade" before the end of the epoch. These remain behind, like the
dregs in a drink, and must continue to develop on earth. That's the
reason why a nation experiences a sudden decline after achieving a
high point in civilization. The highly developed fathers of the
nation are followed by degenerate and weak-willed descendants, and
the nation which was once greatly esteemed gradually falls into
debility and disrepute. These descendants are the dross of the
nation which has reached the highest degree of earthly development,
become spiritualized, and departed from the earth.
'The material world has come into being because
interferences have occurred in the divine creative radiations
traversing cosmic space, and these interferences have caused
condensations, solidifications, materializations. If the celestial
bodies were to receive pure, untransformed vibrations of the divine
creative force, this would result in the immediate annihilation of
all matter. The fixed stars—the suns—are the great transformers
which convert the creative vibrations from all celestial bodies and
transmit them in wavelengths and frequencies that are tolerable for
the earth. The transformed rays reach us from the fixed stars which
form the constellations of the zodiac. Thus when we want to
represent the highest divine radiation of energy, we choose the
symbolic form of the constellation with the strongest effect on the
earth, and this is always the "epoch-making constellation" through
which the vernal point is moving at the time.
'We are now living in an epoch in which the vernal
point is moving into the constellation of the Bull. God (Ptah)
reveals himself to us in the radiation of this constellation,
and that's why the divinity manifesting itself in the atmosphere of
the earth is represented in the form of a bull, in the form
of the divine bull Apis. The complementary constellation of
Scorpion-Eagle is represented as I he temptress—a serpent
crawling upon the earth—or in the form of the divine falcon
Horus. You know that this energy, as long as it is earthly and
expresses itself on the low plane binding spirit to matter, is the
serpent luring man back Into further incarnations. On the other hand
when this force is spiritualized, It helps man to experience, while
still in the body, the highest degree of spirituality.
'We use the serpent standing erect as the
symbol of initiation, as the mistress of the tree of recognition and
knowledge. The initiate is a high-flying eagle who has
spiritualized the serpent—the power of the instinctive urge— and
manifests it as spiritual power through his intellect. The initiate
is thus an instrument of the divinity which reveals itself
through the zodiacal sign of the Bull. That's why in our
epoch these animals are regarded as "holy animals" throughout the
entire world. Now you understand why the initiates change their
representations of God to accord with the constellation in
which the vernal point falls at any given time. Above and behind all
these symbols, of course, there always stands the unmanifested First
Cause—divinity resting within itself.
'The constellation of the Bull belongs to the
threefold manifestation in which the face of God has an
earthly-material effect—contracting, drawing together and hardening.
This means that at the present time the forces that build up matter
and operate within it are the easiest and most immediately available
forces for the inhabitants of the earth to use. Our task is one
of conquering matter with matter, that means conquering
matter with the energies making up the essence of matter. We use
the frequencies of matter, these unseen and immeasurably powerful
forces—in other words, the spirit of matter—in order to
conquer matter itself. We charge the matter of the ark of the
covenant with the entire octave of these energies and thus control
the laws of matter—the forces of construction and destruction,
materialization and dematerialization—as well as the weight of
matter which we can either overcome or increase at will.
'In time our truths will come to flower. But then as
celestial movements and changes continue, the earth will gradually
move out of these regions in the cosmos in which certain specific
energies are working together to produce our present epoch. Little
by little certain of these energies will diminish, while new ones
come into the picture, and thus the total pattern of vibrations
affecting the earth will gradually shift. This means of course that
the people being born into life on the earth will be gradually
changing. The time will come when they won't understand our truths
any more. The symbols and words we use to express the mysteries of
the laws of creation will lose their content, becoming empty husks
for thousands of years. Mankind will have to learn through new tasks
and surmount new obstacles in their accomplishment.
'You already know what is going to happen when the
last high priest has initiated the last candidate worthy of our
knowledge. After giving this new initiate the ark of the covenant
and a staff of life, the last high priest will lock himself and his
assistant inside the great pyramid, block the entrance from the
inside with a stone fitting into the opening ... then the two of
them will dematerialize all our equipment and apparatus and lastly
themselves in order to save our secrets from falling into unworthy
hands. Meanwhile the last initiate, who will come forth out of a
nation destined to create a new epoch in the history of the earth,
will salvage the ark of the covenant and his staff of life and have
them carried out of this country. He will proclaim to his people the
ideas of the new epoch in which the vernal point will move through a
constellation of the Ram. The two complementary
constellations of the Ram and the Balance will exert
the strongest effect during that period.
'Come, my little daughter,' says Ptahhotep, 'Now
I'll lay my hand on your head and you will see pictures of times to
come.'
Ptahhotep leads me to a couch on which the
neophytes, under his guidance, practise the ability of moving their
consciousness freely throughout time, intentionally seeking out the
past and the future in order to experience them as the present.
Ptahhotep bids me lie down, and no sooner has he
laid his hand upon my brow than I get the well-known buzzing and
prickly feeling in my head. The very next moment I see pictures
which, in the symbolic language of dreams, shows me the
significance of events in the distant future.
I see the reception room of the Pharaoh—a strange
hall and an unknown Pharaoh who is not an initiate like my father
but who has a radiation of a very low degree. Before him are two
handsome, dignified men—two brothers with noble, magnificent
features. From their radiations I recognize that one is an initiate
while the other is only a quick-witted able speaker. The initiate is
silent while his brother uses his powers of oratory. He is trying to
convince the Pharaoh that he should free their people who are
working as slaves in the service of the Pharaoh and let them leave
the country under the guidance of these two men. The Pharaoh is hard
of heart and refuses. He demands a miracle. Then the brother who is
doing the talking takes his staff and casts it on to the ground In
front of the Pharaoh. Instantly the staff turns into a serpent
crawling over the ground. The Pharaoh calls his magicians to give
the men an answer. They too cast their staffs upon the ground and
these also turn into serpents. But the first serpent devours all the
serpents of the magicians.
I interpret the vision. The staff represents the
intellect, a powerful instrument. But when the intellect is bound to
the earth and made to serve purely material ends, it becomes a
serpent crawling on the ground, a wily temptress enticing man to
selfishness. The two noble brothers struggle unselfishly for their
people. In their hands guile turns into wisdom which destroys all
the selfish arguments of the cowardly magicians.
Now the vision changes. The godlessness and
selfishness of the Egyptians causes new plagues and afflictions of
growing severity. But still Pharaoh does not yield. He still refuses
to liberate the people from their bondage. Finally the gravest
scourge of all descends upon him. All the first-born of the people
and I heir animals, and even of Pharaoh's own household, are killed
by the angels of God in a single night. Only those who have eaten
of the flesh of the lamb and have written their names with lamb's
blood on their doorposts are not killed by the angels.
What does the symbol mean? In the new epoch just
coming, the complementary constellations of the Ram and the
Balance will be dominant. During the lime when the effect of
the Ram constellation has not yet reached full strength, the
effect is that of a young ram, in other words a lamb. In
their blood, the people following this initiate have forces
corresponding to the radiation of the ram constellation. They
are the forerunners of the new epoch, the 'chosen people', able to
proclaim to humanity the old truths in a new form.
Those who have fulfilled their destiny in the old
epoch must now go. Their task is over. The angels of God call them
home.
Then I see a new vision. The mighty initiate leads
his people out of Egypt. And because the Ram is a fiery
sign, a pillar of fire moves ahead of him to show him the way.
He leads his people out of the spiritual darkness prevailing in
Egypt at the end of this epoch. But Pharaoh's heart hardens again.
He regrets that he has allowed these people to leave his country in
freedom. With his entire army, he starts out in hot pursuit of the
refugees. But the great initiate, in order to protect his people,
uses his staff of life. He directs against Pharaoh's army the
frequencies of ultra-matter which greatly intensify the earth's
gravitational force. Suddenly, Pharaoh with all his warriors,
chariots, and animals become as heavy as if rooted to the spot where
they stand. Their tremendously intensified weight pulls them
irresistibly down into the earth. And as all of this takes place on
the seashore, the great waves of the sea finally roll over Pharaoh
and his entire army.
I am amazed! Not about the effect of the staff of
life, but about the animals! I have seen such strange and remarkable
animals in Pharaoh's army. Some of them were pulling the warriors'
chariots, while others carried warriors on their backs. The animals
looked like zebras but were bigger and different in colour—brown,
white, grey and even black! I've never seen such animals! Could
these be the animals father once spoke about? Magnificent animals
they are too!
But the vision changes. The initiate wanders with
his people through the 'desert', in the always difficult
transitional period between two epochs. Two different ages are never
sharply separated from each other but rather flow into each other
gradually. Hence there is a transitional period in which the effects
of the two constellations—the old and the new—appear to be weakened
because of their mutual interference. The old ideas don't satisfy
the new generation any longer, while the old generations are unable
to accept and assimilate the new ideas. The greater portion of the
people turn back to their old, ossified ideas, that is, to the ideas
of the constellation of the Bull. But these ideas no longer
have the power of a full size bull. On the contrary, greatly
weakened, their strength is only that of a little bull, a calf. In
the symbolic language of dreams, spirit is always gold, and
so in my vision of the future I see the people of the initiate
dancing about a golden calf and worshipping it.
In the meantime the great initiate is 'on the
mountain' and speaking 'face to face with God'. He is in the
very highest state of consciousness, identical with God. He is the
bearer of the will of God. It is God's will that he proclaim the new
ideas to his people through two religious symbols, the sacrificial
lamb, symbol of the constellation of the Ram, and the two
tablets with God's ten commandments, symbol of the constellation of
the Balance.
The sacrificial lamb is the divine self
which, clothed in matter, allows itself to be crucified on the two
great beams of the three-dimensional world, time and
space, thus giving up its own life in order to save the earth
through spiritualizing it.
The two tablets of commandments, like the ones in
our temple, on the head of the sacred falcon Horus, symbol of
the divine self, the creative principle traversing space, stand as
symbols for the inner structure of the self manifesting
itself in the soul as moral laws.
For more than two thousand years these divine truths
will be the guiding ideas and the religious symbols of the people.
These divine truths will be the challenge of the new epoch.
When the initiate brings the finished tablets of
commandments and sees his people worshipping the golden calf, he
bursts out in such a fit of rage that he dashes the tablets to the
ground and smashes them in pieces while he asks God to punish
the disobedient people.
Then came venomous serpents, symbols of the
temptress, the snake, the driving force of the constellation
Scorpion. The serpents fall down out of the sky and bite the
people that have worshipped the golden calf. They suffer
terribly from the poisonous bites. The initiate takes pity on the
hapless people. In the middle of their camp he sets up two beams in
the form of a 'T' and he places a brass snake perpendicular to it,
with its head up. This is the symbolic representation of the
tree of recognition and knowledge, the tree of the serpent. No
longer creeping along the ground, but with its head upward, the
serpent ceases to be the great temptress enticing people into the
body and becomes a symbol of the highest wisdom leading men back
into unity, to God. All the sick people who look upon this
brass serpent quickly become well again.
Interpreting the vision, I understand that people
who cannot or will not accept the ideas of the new era fall ill
spiritually. They no longer find their place among people and fall
into deep spiritual conflict. They can only be healed by being
guided back into the mid-point of their own being where the tree of
the serpent stands. When they look upon this tree—without eating
of its fruits— they recognize the divine truths without
exploiting them for their own selfish purposes, and they are healed.
Wisdom and selfless omniscience heal every disease of the soul.
The visions of the future go on. The great initiate
leads his people up to the threshold of the new epoch, up to the
borders of the promised land. Then he goes up into a mountain
and disappears. No one ever finds his body. I know that he has
dematerialized himself just like the last initiated high priests
have de-materialized themselves with their secret instruments and
apparatus in the great pyramid.
The chosen people who are called to proclaim and
carry out the ideas of the new epoch wander onward, guarding the
wisdom and the secret teaching of their great master. But little by
little the ark of the covenant loses its magical power, and there is
no initiate left to recharge it with his staff of life ...
A cosmic month goes by, and the axis of the earth
moves a twelfth of the way around the surface of its conic orbit.
Slowly the vernal point passes over into the sign of the Fishes.
Once again people are unsettled. They can no longer find truth
in the worn out, conventionalized ideas of the previous age. They
resemble a herd of sheep without a shepherd. In this transitional
period an avatar—-a son of God—the great teacher of the
coming epoch, is born with the supreme task of revealing the
greatest mystery of creation by enabling God to walk
incarnate upon the earth.
This son of God is the earthly image of the
heavenly sacrificial lamb. Just as the divine cosmic self
sacrifices itself, taking upon itself the matter of the
three-dimensional world and the everlasting crucifixion of the two
great beams of time and space, in this same manner
this Son of God who manifests fully the divine self in
his human body, must accept the vengeance of the spirit of matter as
he undergoes death at the hands of ignorant people.
A person who in his consciousness identifies himself
with his body lies in inner darkness and resembles a stable with
animals—the animal-physical instincts—living in it. In this stable
and in this darkness—just as in the darkness of night—the divine
child is born, the consciousness of the self. Two kinds of
people recognize the divine child and bow low before him: The plain,
simple, unlettered and unlearned who do not yet know the doubting of
the intellect and who live in unison with nature, like shepherds for
example; and the knowing ones and initiates who have already
travelled the long path of the intellect, have overcome their
earlier propensity towards intellectual cleverness, and have learned
to look at things with their inner sight after the manner of the
wise men and mystics in the East.
The religious symbols of the new era are Fishes
and the Virgin, the two complementary signs. The son
of God chooses his co-workers from other 'fishermen'. He
pays the tax he owes to the earth with a golden coin which he takes
from the mouth of a 'fish'. He draws forth for humanity the
nourishment of his teaching from these two complementary signs. But
his teachings are heard by people of varying degrees of development.
To those who have already awakened in spirit and have therefore
attained the fifth level—the spiritual plane—to these 'five
thousand' people he gives all his teachings, the two fishes
and the five loaves, the five grains of wheat on the ear in
the hand of the virgin in her symbolic representation. But
even these 'five thousand' people who are already awakened in spirit
cannot completely receive his highest ideas, not even in an entire
epoch! Of the nourishment he has given there remain twelve
baskets full of remnants. This means that humanity must learn the
mysteries of the self in each manifestation of the twelve signs of
the zodiac. In order to understand and attain these high truths,
humanity needs twelve epochs, twelve ages, that is a full cosmic
year—25,000 terrestrial years.
To all of those who have only been able to rise in
their consciousness up to the fourth plane—the 'four thousand'
people—the son of God does not distribute all the truths of
the two signs of the zodiac as nourishment but only 'some' fishes
and five loaves. But even this 'some' of his ideas is too much for
them to eat, and there remain seven baskets of remnants.
Materialistic people must first learn the mysteries of the seven
planes before they are ready for the cosmic truths of the self.
The sign of the Fishes belongs to the aqueous
triangle. Hence in this epoch humanity must stand up to the
challenge of water. It must conquer water with
water. And before my astonished eyes I see a machine by means of
which people make use of the power of water transformed into steam.
And I see great ships— like cities!—crossing the sea with enormous
speed. They too are driven by the power of water transformed into
steam. Mankind passes the test: it conquers water with
water.
In medical science too water dominates the picture
as a therapeutic agent.
Everywhere I see bathing establishments, spas and
medicinal baths making use of water for all kinds of cures and
treatments: Salt water baths, marsh baths, hot and cold baths,
compresses, and many many other applications of water for the curing
of physical ills. People even take advantage of the healing power in
dew by walking about barefoot in the wet grass.
Then towards the end of this era when the vernal
point approaches the next constellation—that of the Water Bearer—people
make technical discoveries and inventions based on wave energies.
This is one of the early effects of the budding Water Bearer
era, an age of technical achievement. The radiation of the Water
Bearer constellation, which knows no limitations and sweeps all
obstacles out of its path, reveals itself in the ideas and social
concepts of humanity. At the end of the era of the Fishes,
these new energies cause great revolutions in the places where
people react most powerfully to them. I see thousands of people of
the ruling class sitting in prison, while a spirit with the
characteristics of the new coming era decapitates or otherwise kills
countless people of the upper class.
A vision from the time when the energies of the
Water Bearer are working with full power shows me that the great
teacher of this epoch abolishes all the boundaries between the three
dominant religions. With his own person he proves that the inner
core of all religions is one and the same truth, one and the same
God. The boundary between religion and science disappears too,
as people discover that everything, even matter, is a wave movement.
They learn that the only differences between manifestations of the
spirit and those of matter are differences of frequency, while in
its essence everything is only the manifestation of the one,
single, prime source of all forces, God. Everything is a
wave, just as the symbolic representation of the Water Bearer
constellation shows: a supernal being pouring waves out of his
pitcher.
The spiritual movements on the earth show this
effect. Science discovers the 'wave' theory, and I see countless
inventions based on waves. I see pictures of people, landscapes and
objects—pictures made by the effect of light waves. I see different
kinds of devices which send out waves. Waves penetrate matter and
reveal its solidity. There are waves that show what elements are
present in the matter of the planets and fixed stars, electric
waves, waves of sound, light and smell. Medical science has stopped
giving treatments with water in favour of treatments based on
waves. All kinds of waves, from infra-red to ultra-violet, short
waves and still shorter waves, even more penetrating waves and
frequencies ... all in use by science!
The constellation of the Water Bearer belongs
to the airy face of God. And mankind conquers the air with
air, with energies won from matter in the airy state. I see
people moved onward from the steam engine to other machines operated
by gas. And then my astonished eyes follow huge locusts high up in
the air, made by human hands and carrying people in their bellies!
These machines are powered by gas: Air conquers air
...
Through the complementary sign of the Lion
people again recognize the strongest manifestation of God on earth.
The sun, the great Ra, is again acknowledged as the prime
source of all manifestation of earthly energy. Once more people have
become sun worshippers, even though not in a religious sense. The
influence of the Lion shows itself in another plane too. The
effect of the Water Bearer is to abolish all boundaries, all
limitations. But the absence of boundaries without a concentrating
mid-point means mental disease, spiritual death. The boundlessness
of the Water Bearer would affect the unconscious masses as a
mental illness running throughout all humanity, causing anarchy and
chaos, and destroying everything. Through the complementary sign of
the Lion, however, dominion is concentrated in individual
persons—dictators —who group the people about themselves and guide
them.
In this epoch people discover traffic and
intercourse with other planets. Boundaries and obstacles disappear,
and with them the isolated state of the earth in cosmic space. And
as the boundaries between countries disappear too, all humanity is
governed from one centre. 'One stable, one shepherd.'
The eternal wheels roll on, and the earth moves into
a new epoch, under the sign of the Goat and its complementary
constellation, the Crab.
People direct their attention to the earth again,
noticing that although their knowledge may be very great, they still
know very little about their own marvellous mother, mother earth. In
this epoch they solve the problem of conquering earth. The
sign of the Goat belongs to the earthly face of God.
People design a special machine based on the same principle as that
of our ark of the covenant. With it, they control the weight of
matter. That is, they can overcome the earth's gravitational pull,
or through ultra-material radiations, they can vastly increase it.
People communicate with each other directly through the earth—in the
depths of the mountains—in short straight lines, instead of taking
the long way around the earth. This new machine of theirs radiates
an energy which dematerializes everything in front of it, thus
moving forward quickly, freely, without let or hindrance. At the
same time it spews out condensing and solidifying radiations behind
it restoring the matter of the earth to its original condition.
People have conquered matter with matter, with the energy of
ultra-matter. This enables them to penetrate into the depths of the
earth and harness for the service of mankind the enormous forces and
energies raging there like primordial volcanoes.
The combination of the two zodiacal signs of the
Goat and the Crab has a strong influence on the spiritual
life of mankind. The great teacher of this epoch reveals unto man
the mystery of the immeasurable sources of power hidden in the
depths of the human soul. Those who hold the key to these sources of
power possess abilities which the ignorant call 'supernatural'. All
over the earth I see public schools where even little children are
taught to attain these higher abilities through the kind of
exercises which only candidates for the priesthood are permitted to
practise in our temples. This high and wonderful knowledge spreads
into ever greater circles, reaching ever greater numbers of people.
The visions suddenly pale as I come back to normal
consciousness. Still lying on the couch, I'm almost dizzy from the
tremendous experiences of the future. Ptahhotep stands in front of
me and helps me get up. He ends his instructions for today:
'As you see, my child, the inhabitants of the earth
receive their initiation in small groups and then in larger and
larger ones, all inter-related one with the other. A person can be
initiated individually within his own lifetime, and a
nation can receive initiation if it works its way up to the
highest level of development and fulfils its task here on earth.
Eventually the whole world will receive initiation by completing the
full circle of the four faces of God, experiencing step by
step all stages of initiation in a systematic development, and
finally achieving complete spiritualization—salvation from matter.
Measured according to earthly time standards, it will take ages and
ages for this development to be achieved. For countless times the
earth will have to go through the zodiacal circle, both in
terrestrial and cosmic years. I've shown you only the tiniest part
of this exceedingly long path of development. The history of mankind
on earth is not a matter of accident or happenstance. It's important
for you to know that every step of development takes place according
to divine providence, following a divine plan. A person can cover
this infinitely long way in a single lifetime if he concentrates his
will exclusively on this goal.'
As he gives me his benediction, Ptahhotep says,
'Come back again tomorrow; I have important things to tell you.'
36
FINAL PREPARATIONS
The next day I can hardly wait till evening to
report to Ptahhotep. On the other hand, I've made enough progress in
self-control for me not to let the reins slip out of my hand
regardless of any amount of pressure external things may be exerting
upon me. Fully conscious, I observe how external events affect my
nerve centres, and I simply refuse to let my nerves get stirred up
when I don't want them to. The moment their natural reaction begins,
I move in with my consciousness between them and the action they
have begun to take, and I consciously command my entire nervous
system to become as calm and cool as a piece of steel.
But now, after Ptahhotep has told me he has
something important to say, I can scarcely keep my heart from
beating faster every time I think about it, and I think about it
often.
Evening comes at last, and I walk through the long
colonnade to his little reception room. Fully composed, I stand
before him again.
Ptahhotep receives me as he always does. His noble
face radiates something indescribably exalted, and so I have no way
of knowing whether he has something special in mind.
'My little daughter,' he begins, 'you've progressed
to the point that the ability of your mind to control all the
natural forces in your body has been made completely conscious. From
now on, it depends on your own will whether you give expression to a
force or not. Neither in your mind nor in your soul nor in your body
are you any longer a slave of nature. But I must point out to you
that there still exists the possibility of your becoming a slave
again. If you consciously apply your will, nobody and nothing
can keep you from preserving your freedom ... or from allowing
yourself to be enslaved again by the forces arising from your own
self. It is God's will—and therefore a law—that every spirit has
complete freedom of will. No one may violate this freedom. That's
why you should never stop exercising constant self-control and
self-analysis.
'You are now ripe for initiation. But remember that
the omniscience and the omnipotence conferred upon you by initiation
includes commensurate responsibility. Carefully and thoughtfully,
you must now finally decide whether you want to be initiated and,
through initiation, take tremendous responsibility upon yourself.
'Stay home for three days and practise complete
silence. If you are still determined to go through with initiation,
your father will accompany you here on the fourth day, the day of
the new moon, so that you can make your final preparations.'
I would like to tell Him that I am already
determined, but I notice that He is perfectly aware of my
determination. Nevertheless, the regulations must be observed, so I
bow again and leave.
I use the three days first and foremost to take
leave of everything to which I am personally attached. I know I'll
be a completely different person when I come home from the temple as
an initiate.
I wander about the garden again where once I walked
with my mother among the flowers. I seek out all the favourite spots
of my childhood where I used to play and later dreamed about life
and what it would be like. In all these places I stand for a time in
silence, taking leave of each tree and each flower, and
simultaneously taking leave of the little girl who once was so happy
here. Then I visit the gold-fishes in the great pond. I used to feed
them when I was so small I could hardly walk, and a slender,
delicate person dressed in white took me by the hand to keep me from
falling into the water. Today again, I feel this fine, white,
ethereal being near me. We are still closely attached, and I know
that according to the laws of incarnation, just as she, like a door
between the other world and this, helped me to be born, she will
help me on again from this world over into the next. At last I come
to the court of lions where I take leave of my favourite lions.
Until I am initiated, I am only permitted into the court in the
presence of the keeper. Today he accompanies me for the last time;
as an initiate I too will have power over all animals and will no
longer need his protection.
Only the lions used by the ruling family are kept
here. One of them is the magnificent animal that always sits beside
my father during his audiences as a symbol of his superhuman power.
Then there are the lions that pull our chariot, and finally my own
two animals, Shu-Ghaar and Shima. Both of them were sired by the
lion my father has with him in his audiences. They're both equally
intelligent, hypersensitive, wonderful examples of their race. Both
of them love me just as if I were a lioness rather than a woman.
Shu-Ghaar in particular is crazy about me and gets excited and
jealous whenever I stroke Shima. I have to watch out that his love
doesn't turn into blind and jealous rage. This would be dangerous!
As I enter the court, Shu-Ghaar runs over to meet me and pokes his
mighty head under my arm as an invitation for me to scratch his neck
and ears and stroke his mane, Then, as usual, he tries to lick my
face while I dodge as deftly as possible so as not to offend him and
make him angry. I hand him a piece of warm meat, and while he
devours it I get a moment to pat Shima and give him a piece of meat
too.
On the third and last day father and I go out before
sundown for a chariot ride with our lions. We race about with
tremendous pleasure. In accordance with Ptahhotep's instructions, I
am not allowed to speak, but even without this commandment, we
wouldn't be talking anyway. We understand each other without words.
Truth is like an invisible man. He can only make himself visible by
putting on clothes. If he puts on a lot of clothes that fit loosely,
we get only a very imperfect picture of him. The less he wears, the
thinner and tighter his clothing is, the more exact the impression
we get of him. But regardless of how well his clothing may reveal
his shape, it still covers him, and we see only the
clothing but never the invisible person himself.
It's exactly the same way with truth! The less
words we use to express truth —that is, to cover it and make it
visible—the better we can recognize it. But by the mere fact of
expressing truth in words, covering it with words, we simultaneously
keep ourselves from seeing truth itself in its immediacy, its
nakedness, its true being. For people who cannot sec Into each
other's minds, words are the only means of communication they
possess. But they never see what the other is thinking and would
like to say ... only words about it. But we, father and I, see each
other! Why should we cover our thoughts and our souls with words? We
are here for each other and enjoy the unity of existence!
The lions race ahead ... we ride in silence ... we
both know what these last days mean.
Early in the morning of the great day I take leave
of Menu and Bo-Ghar. Menu cries as hopelessly as if I were going to
my own funeral. She has baleful forebodings of something terrible to
come. There's simply no way I can console her. Little Bo-Ghar has no
idea what's happening, but he cries bitterly too because he sees me
going away and because Menu is crying. As I start to embrace him, he
throws himself on his knees before me and puts his arms about my
feet. From the very deepest depths of his soul, he cries out: 'O
Queen, my dear Queen, don't forget what I swear unto you now: Any
time, any place you are in danger, I'll save you! Even if I am at
the other end of the earth, I'll come to you! Remember, as God is my
witness, I'll save you!'
Dear little Bo-Ghar! He'll save me! But what from?
If Ptahhotep finds me prepared and ready for initiation, how could I
get into danger? And why is the boy saying that he would even come
from the other end of the earth to save me? He's here with me
now; how could he possibly go so far away? But I can't think about
his words, for the time has come. I embrace them both, then walk
over to my father's chambers.
Father receives me with a sad and earnest
expression, and I see that he is withdrawn and deep within himself.
Does he too see something baleful and forbidding in my future? He
embraces me, lovingly places his right hand upon my head, and
blesses me. Then we go.
Ptahhotep awaits us in his little reception room.
Before we enter, Ima appears for a moment in the long colonnade. His
angelic face is beaming, his eyes smile at me with encouragement,
and then he's gone again. I know that his love too will be
accompanying me in the difficult challenging hours ahead. Father
takes me up to Ptahhotep. He takes my hand and puts it into
Ptahhotep's hand. Once again he gives me a loving look and then
leaves the room.
'My dear daughter,' says Ptahhotep, 'a great circle
of the law in which your destiny manifests itself in the world of
time and space is closing today. This circle—your earthly career—was
already determined and set the very moment you fell out of divine
unity for the first time, just as a boomerang, at the moment it's
thrown, has within itself the forces that determine the kind of
circle it will make, how high it will rise, how much time its flight
will consume, and when it will return to its starting point.
'Your present character and your destiny were built
up by the same forces. Both of them are the result of cause and
effect, actions and reactions, deeds and experiences through
countless lives in which the self has manifested itself
throughout ages and ages of time. All these actions and reactions,
deeds and experiences have crystallized out in your present person
and character. Your character determines your destiny and
consequently your future. The self radiates its creative
forces through the sieve of the character into the incarnation, and
through picture-making forces in the depths of the soul, these
energies create dream pictures. These latter project
themselves outwardly into the material world where they manifest
themselves as your "person" and your "destiny".
'The self radiates into every human being the
same creative forces. The fact that so many different dream pictures
and so many different persons and destinies arise from these same
creative forces is the result of the different influences to which
people have been exposed since their fall from paradisiacal unity.
'Whether the future projections of the self
which have not yet materialized but are still waiting for
materialization in the depths of the soul—in the subconscious—become
"realities" on the material plane or whether they merely remain
"dream pictures" depends on the plane with which man identifies
his consciousness. A "dream" is also "reality", only in the
immaterial, picture-making energy world, while what happens on earth
and what people call "reality" is also only a "dream", a projection
of the self, the only difference being that it is a lower
projection, working into the material plane, and visualized into the
atmosphere of the earth. Destiny is thus an incarnated
projection of the future, a materialized dream.
'As long as a person allows the will of his self—the
will of God—to rule, what happens on the material plane, in
the so-called "reality", is what he himself consciously wants.
Consequently he is also in control of his destiny. This is
because a person's self has the power to take those dreams of
his which are waiting in his subconscious for materialization and
transform them into spiritual energy. On the other hand, the moment
a person identifies himself with extraneous forces which are rising,
not from within his self, but from within his lower nature,
his body, and the moment he recognizes these forces as his own will,
what happens is no longer what he himself wants but what his
body wants, even though he may be fully convinced that this is his
"own" will. In this way he loses control over his destiny and is
completely at the mercy of the blind forces of fate. In this case,
the "dream pictures" and projections lying latent in his
subconscious unavoidably and with absolute certainty turn into
"real" events on the earthly plane.
"In your initiation, before you re-awaken out of
your physical consciousness into the divine
cosmic-self-consciousness, the energies which you have created
through your deeds and their reactions throughout ages and ages of
time and which are now waiting in your subconscious for the time of
their materialization—like seeds of future events—will appear in
your consciousness as dreams. You can't destroy them because they
come forth out of creative forces. But you can prevent these
energies from coming down and turning into reality on the level of
the material world. You can do this if you yourself, with your
consciousness, go down into the depths of your soul, where these
forces are hiding in a latent state, and if you awaken them to life
in your consciousness and experience these dreams yourself as full
reality, "To experience" means that you draw the forces that have
been sent out back into your consciousness and live them as states
of consciousness. In this way the inner tension within the forces is
dissolved away. The energies then fade away, lose their power, and
are destroyed.
'In your initiation you will experience your whole
future destiny as a series of different states of consciousness—as
dream pictures—without being conscious of either time or space. In
this way you will become liberated from your "person" and thus from
your own personal fate. You will continue to use your body as an
absolutely impersonal instrument of God. This is because every
initiate has the duty of continuing to work on earth in order to
help other people out of the fetters of matter, out of the fetters
of the body, out of the claws of blind fate, back into the divinely
spiritual state of unity. Everything and everyone that has fallen
into separation and into matter by virtue of becoming incarnated
must find its way back home to the lost paradise, back to the divine
state of unity.
'But when an initiate works in the opposite
direction, that is, when he uses his high spiritual energies to
create personal realities for himself by directing the supreme,
creative, all-penetrating forces from his divine consciousness into
his body, he falls lower than an ordinary person who does the very
same thing with his consciousness that has fallen out of the
paradisiacal unity. The ordinary person directs into matter only
the forces arising from his material being. He experiences physical
forces in his body, and for him this doesn't represent a fall. He
manifests forces on the level from which they come. Material
forces remain on the material level.
'The initiate, on the other hand, isn't just working
with physical forces, and when he directs his high spiritual
energies into the body, he falls from his high state and falls down
low. The higher the energy the lower he falls.
'That's why you have to remember that as an
initiate—it you want to become one—you can't do things that ordinary
people can do with "impunity", because as an initiate you radiate
and set in motion divine forces, not human ones. If you direct these
forces into your body, you burn out your nerve centres and plunge
into the lowest depths like a falling comet.
'Your preparatory exercises have developed you to
the point that you can understand these truths. So now, in full
consciousness, you can give me your answer. Have you the courage to
take upon yourself these laws, the danger and the great
responsibility; do you desire to receive initiation, or do you wish
rather to withdraw and live out your earthly life according to the
laws of human existence?'
For a time I keep silent. Then, earnest and
determined, I reply, 'Father of my Soul, throughout the years I've
been preparing I've had enough time to decide whether I wanted to
choose the temple or a worldly life. And during these last three
days I've concentrated again on this question and on nothing else.
My only longing is for the divine, primordial state. I am absolutely
determined. I beg you to initiate me!'
'So be it,' says Ptahhotep, 'and may God be with
you! Now follow me.'
He takes me to another wing of the temple where the
neophytes live. There he turns me over to a young priest, a chief
among the boarders, who is awaiting us. I have seen him before.
Turning to me Ptahhotep says, 'You will now prepare your body and
your soul for initiation. On the day when the moon reaches its
fullness, come to me at sundown.'
We both of us bow, and He departs.
The priest leads me to a cell where I spend the next
few days alone, devoting myself exclusively to my exercises. The
purpose of these exercises is to bring the purity of my thoughts, my
soul, blood and body up to as high a point as possible. Even during
the years when I was going to the neophyte school, I had to follow a
very strict dietary regimen, in order for the new cells constantly
being produced in the body to be chemically purer than those they
replaced, and in order for my body tissues to develop resistance
enough to be able to bear the highest vibrations. This is because
any chemical change in matter alters its resistance to the forces
conducted into it. Now the process reaches completion. I am
permitted to eat only certain special roots and herbs. I have to
chew them thoroughly, and I am permitted only to swallow the juice I
can chew out of them. These herbs and roots are so chosen that some
of them tend to strengthen and stimulate the organs of excretion,
while others have a similar effect on the heart and nerves, so that
my whole organism is not weakened.
As a result of this new dietary discipline, I feel
lighter and lighter with each passing day. Within a few days' time,
I even feel as if I didn't have a body at all. On the other hand, my
mental lucidity and ability to concentrate increase to a degree I
have never known before. In all my life I have never been able to
think so clearly ... never been able to perceive spiritual truth
with such pristine crystal clarity as now. By mere fasting alone,
without the use of strengthening herbs, one can also reach a high
degree of mental clarity. But the nerves can suffer damage in the
process. Although they become hypersensitive during fasting, they
are greatly weakened at the same time.
Through the use of these herbs, all the
disadvantages of fasting are eliminated.
One by one the days go by ... until the day of the
full moon comes. Withdrawn deeply inside myself, I go forth to
report to Ptahhotep. I enter just as the sun is disappearing below
the horizon.
'Follow me,' says Ptahhotep, and leads the way out.
Ptahhotep takes me through the temple around the
sacrificial table and on over to the great stone wall. The gigantic
stone blocks fit together with hairline precision. Now I know why.
Ptahhotep steps over to the middle one which slowly swings outward,
revealing an opening in the wall. Beyond it lies a broad stone
staircase leading downward. We go down to the bottom of the steps,
then follow a long passageway. My sense of direction and a certain
feeling in my lungs tell me we are walking under the ground.
Surprisingly enough, however, there is no mould or mildew, and the
air is fresh and pure, with even a scent of ozone in it. At the end
of this subterranean passageway, we reach another staircase, leading
upward. After we've climbed it, Ptahhotep leads me through more
passageways, some wide, some narrow. We walk through rooms of
various sizes containing strange and incomprehensible apparatus,
then climb up more steps. Finally we enter a large room.
All these passageways and rooms—including this
one—are brightly illuminated just as if by daylight, yet nowhere can
I see a source of light. It seems as if the light were coming from
the stones themselves. The equpiment in this room is so mysterious
that it immediately captures my full attention. The room is
radiantly bright. I see a large, strange, prismatic something that
gives me the the impression it's made, not of solid matter, but of
light ... of some kind of concentrated, solidified light. This
concentrated light mass radiates ordinary light too. That's why the
room is so bright.
Once while I was visiting a potter, I had a chance
to look through the peephole in his fiery kiln. In it several clay
vessels were standing in a row, all glowing white with the heat and
all completely transparent. I could see them all, one right through
the other. They were all radiating light too. And this great
mysterious prismatic form is radiating light in just the same way.
Yes, light— but no heat!
But there are still other incomprehensible objects
in this room. They are made of such a strange material and in such
remarkable shapes that I can't begin to imagine what purpose they
could serve. But there's no time to study them, for I am completely
engrossed with the question of my initiation, how it will take place
and what I will experience.
Ptahhotep leads me into the farthest corner of the
room where I discover an empty stone sarcophagus. 'Up to now,'
remarks my guide and mentor, 'you've always heard what
initiation is, but you don't know how it takes place.
'During initiation, the candidate's body is
subjected to a higher frequency than that which corresponds to his
degree of consciousness. Thus he becomes conscious on this higher
level!
'Only a person prepared through long and strict
training can be initiated in this way into a higher power, into a
higher level of consciousness, without suffering harm. Only such a
person is able to control his body with the help of his intellect,
understanding and will-power, and to attune his nerves to higher
frequencies.
'As you already know, animals are not able to alter
either their mode of living or the condition under which they live.
That's why they are not able to bear higher frequencies than their
own. To take an example, if a monkey were subjected to a current of
the same frequency as man's, it would die within a few minutes of a
"stroke", undergoing unspeakable nervous cramps while dying.
'Man, however, can adapt himself, up to the range of
an octave, to different vibrations and bear these vibrations without
death. In this way, an average person, after adequate physical
preparation and training, could be subjected without damage to the
current of a genius, in other words, the current of the fifth
degree. He would feel a heavenly bliss. That's because every higher
vibration, so long as it's bearable, induces an exhilarating feeling
of happiness. Then, however, the vibration becomes a torture because
the nerves are unable to bear up under the excessive current. Lower
vibrations than those of the individual concerned induce dejection,
fear and dismay. If an average person, because of longing for the
blissful state once experienced, could later reach the state of
initiation into the fifth degree and reach it often through patient
and persistent practice, the nerves and cells of his body would
gradually become so inured and transformed that he could really
raise himself by one step upward and actually become a genius. He
would go on experiencing a steady flow of intuitive knowledge.
'The feeling of bliss connected with a higher state
of consciousness is known to every person who is gifted with
intuition, and everyone who drinks wine or uses other stimulants is
seeking the same blissful feeling associated with a greater flow of
current through the nerves. But the artificial stimulation is always
followed by a depression which throws the person farther down than
he was before.
'In the great initiation, all the currents of
force corresponding to the seven levels of consciousness are
conducted into the body, beginning with the lowest and moving
progressively upward to the very highest divine creative currents.
The candidate is initiated in all these forces and becomes
conscious on all levels. For a candidate to be ready to go
through this initiation and come out alive, his consciousness—and
with it his power of resistance—must previously have reached the
sixth level. For any creature whose consciousness had not attained
this plane, the act of initiation would certainly mean death.
'In this way, with the help of the current of force,
a candidate attains the seventh, divine degree which he never would
have been able to reach alone. No one can attain initiation on the
divine-creative plane through his own unaided efforts. Here he goes
through the great transition from his previous— negative-taking
attitude to a positive attitude of giving. Regardless of how much he
may strive to do so, no human being can go through this transition
alone and unaided, although many are able through their own efforts
to develop to the point where they are perfectly prepared for
initiation on the seventh plane. In such cases, the laying on of
hands is all that is needed to initiate them into the divine
cosmic-self-consciousness. Never again do such initiates fall out of
divine consciousness, as they have moved through the entire cycle of
total consciousness, acquiring all necessary experience as they did
so, and only the reunion of their two complementary halves, each of
which has become perfectly conscious—remains to be accomplished.
Only this last help has to be given from the outside. From then on
they live in a state of continual God-consciousness.
'Through Initiation in our temple, however, it's
possible for candidates to be initiated into the divine seventh
degree even though they may not have developed all the way up to the
seventh degree in readiness for it. As a prerequisite for such
initiation, they must have become conscious at least on the sixth
plane, and they must have adequately prepared their body. Through
this external aid of initiation, their path to the true self
is opened, and in the act of initiation, their consciousness is
linked up with the divine flow of power.
'These candidates are not able, after initiation, to
continue living in the divine state of consciousness, They fall back
to their previous state. But they remember the bliss they
experienced in initiation, and as their path to God has been opened
for them, they enjoy the possibility of attaining the seventh plane
of development faster and easier than by merely following the long
path of earthly experience and human development of consciousness.
Initiation hi the temple is thus able to bring back many more people
to the bliss of union with the divine self than would be possible
without this aid.
'On the other hand there is a danger that a person
initiated in this way, after his initiation and before he is able to
become a God-man through his own efforts may not be able to resist
earthly temptations and thus falls lower than in his first fall.
This danger does not exist for the uninitiated. If, without
initiation, a person completes his cycle of living along the long
path of mortals all the way to the end, to the great goal,
until he returns home to the Garden of Eden, there remains nothing
in experience, nothing unknown in him. He achieves the divine plane
after having gained experience on all levels, in this way gradually
effacing his person. To achieve this, however, it takes a living
creature an entire age of creation.
'It is God's will for the great initiation in the
temple to continue to be available to mankind for some time to come
in spite of this danger. Countless people have already been redeemed
in this way and brought back to God, and many more will be.
And the few who relapse after their initiation will reincarnate
themselves in later times when mankind is left to its own resources.
They will remember the great truths they experienced through their
initiation and will proclaim these-truths to their fellow men in
their words, writings and actions.
'The secret of the great initiation will be guarded
hi the temple for some time yet. But when more and more earth-minded
people come into power in times to come, we will close the
initiation pyramid with blocks of stone from the inside and will
dematerialize everything in the initiation chamber. The secret of
divine creative energy will not fall into uninitiated hands.
Thousands of years later when people break into the pyramids, they
will find nothing— absolutely nothing—not even human skeletons.
'There are many souls on earth today who fulfil the
prerequisites for the great initiation. It is our duty to initiate
all of these candidates if, despite our warning, they repeat
three times their wish to be initiated.
'In initiation the candidate becomes conscious on
every plane of creation. All unconscious portions of his soul become
conscious; he has no "subconscious" and no "superconscious". During
his initiation, the consciousness of the initiate becomes whole,
total all-consciousness. The circle which began with his
becoming conscious in matter—in the body—the moment he fell from
unity, is closed. The candidate consciously unites with his own
complementary half which previously was always present as an
unconscious portion of his soul, like a negative image, a strange
being, and which because of its power of attraction manifested
itself as longings, powerful urges and unrest in his body. The
consciousness returns to unity, and there is no longer a
complementary half, for the complementary half has also been made
conscious. This reunion we call "mystic marriage".
' "Marriage" always means a union of positive and
negative. On earth, however, "marriage" means the vain attempt to
achieve union with another being in the body. But the mystic union
of the spirit takes place in the consciousness and brings
complete, never-ending fulfilment; for the union with one's own
complementary half means union with God. The circle is closed
again!
'The human body is so constructed that it contains a
special nerve centre for each octave of vibration, On the one hand,
these nerve centres are distributors, sending out through the
nervous system the vibrations they receive from higher centres. On
the other hand, they act as transformers when they pass on
vibrations to the next nerve centre below.
'In the ordinary human being, these transformers in
nerve centres work separately from his consciousness. That's why he
can't control them. The laws of nature control him without his
knowing what is taking place in his body and in his soul, in his
subconscious.
'In his initiation, the candidate must consciously
experience the high flow of current in all seven major nerve centres
and the powers corresponding to them. With his consciousness he
first descends to the lowest sphere of creation. He must experience
the forces ruling there and become master of them. This is his
first test. When he passes it successfully, he moves up one
degree into the second octave of vibration, recognizing and
experiencing it in order to master it. This is the second test.
Then he climbs on into the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and
finally into the seventh octave of vibration. When he has passed all
these tests and succeeded in consciously remaining master in
all these spheres—then he has become an initiate.
'Consciousness is light, unconsciousness is
darkness. When we see light above us on earth, we say it's day.
Thus each state of consciousness is a "day" of God; for in
each consciousness, from the lowest plane of matter up to the
God-man's consciousness of self, God recognizes himself on
the different levels. On all these "days"—on all the levels
of consciousness, there is activity, unrest, motion except on the
seventh "day" of God when there is no activity, no motion, no
work! On the seventh "day" creation ceases because on this
day there is complete unity and perfect equilibrium. Then God
rests within himself!
'When, after his initiation, an initiate succeeds in
becoming conscious again in the eternal being and experiences
this divine state again during his meditation, and when he succeeds
often enough in thus raising himself by his own power from his
normal sixth plane up to the seventh divine plane, in time he
consolidates his position definitively on this level of
consciousness, and the divine creative plane is the one he liven on
day in and day out. Then and then only does he become a God-man,
Only a person who, in his consciousness, is peace and calm
itself, so that everything he does, thinks and feels flows forth
naturally out of this divine state, manifesting God's will always
and under all circumstances, always radiating only positive giving
forces of divine love— only such a person is truly a Son of
God, a God-man, Ptah-Hotep!
'The God-man consciously manifests and controls all
seven levels of creation. But his consciousness identifies itself
only with the seventh, divine plane, not with the lower ones. He
knows them, masters them, uses them— but does not eat of
these fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and evil! He
consciously remains in God, in the paradisiacal state, He
unites within himself all seven planes in divine unity: he is
matter, has a body, is a plant: animates, nourishes and cares for
his body as for a good instrument; he is animal: he has instincts
and feelings; he is a man: he has intellect and the power of logical
thought; he is a genius: he has intuition and works out of the plane
of causes; he is a prophet: he stands above time and space, seeing
the future and the past, loving the entire universe with selfless,
all inclusive love, helping all creatures towards redemption from
the fetters of the world; and he is a God-man: he is omniscient and
omnipotent; he is what he is, the eternal
being, life itself, God!
'Initiates, as you can see, are not all of the same
degree. Most of them only reach the seventh degree after further
development. That's why there are different degrees in the
priesthood. The duties of a high priest can only be fulfilled by one
who has reached the seventh degree of the God-man with his own
power, no longer expecting and receiving the highest
divine power—the way the candidate expects and receives it during
his initiation. On the contrary) the high priest radiates and
gives out this highest divine power himself.
'Six of the seven degrees of consciousness receive
their creative vibrations, the power of life, from the seventh
degree, from God. Even the initiate who has been able to
reach the seventh divine degree only during his initiation, still
expects and receives the creative power of life from the seventh
degree, from God. Only God and those who have become
identical with God are truly and exclusively munificent in
their radiations.
'Matter, on the other hand, as a negative reflected
image of God, only receives.
'All beings on the other levels receive from above
and transmit to the levels below.
The plant has a vitalizing effect on matter, while
on the other hand it receives five-fold from the levels of
intelligence above it. The animal gives off two-fold to the levels
below it, while receiving three-fold from those above. Man gives
three-fold towards the levels below him and receives three-fold from
those above, as his consciousness stands in the middle of the seven
planes. As the consciousness of the genius is on the fifth plane,
the plane of causes, he radiates his creative powers out over the
four levels below, while he receives power only from the two
highest. The prophet—the initiate— transmits his beneficent
vibrations to the beings on the five lower levels of consciousness
and receives his power from the divine level. He still lives in a
dualistic relationship with God. Only a person, who has
attained perfect cosmic consciousness by his own efforts
emits positive radiation, and only positive, in all directions,
life-giving and munificent towards the entire universe. He lives in
God, in monistic consciousness of self.
'You have already learned that giving—radiating—is
the law of God, of the spirit, while taking—contraction—is
the law of matter.
'Every frequency has a powerful and penetrating
effect on the levels below it, whereas it has no effect on those
above. If you take two people on different levels of development,
the person on the lower level, although he may be a "bad" person in
the view of people about him, can only harm the person on the higher
level through deeds, but never through his radiation, as his powers
have no effect on the levels above his. On the other hand, his
radiation, especially his "evil eye" can do harm on the levels below
his level of consciousness. An initiate, on the other hand, can
transmit his high magic power to every living being without
exception.
'During initiation, the divine creative power will
flow through your spinal column, reaching each of your seven major
nerve centres in turn, and you will experience this power as a state
of consciousness on each level. But remember very carefully what I'm
telling you now: When you become conscious in one octave and
vibration, you are in tune with this frequency, and its whole sphere
represents absolute "reality" for you. When you have passed the test
in one degree, you will waken in the next sphere and realize that
you were only dreaming on the level below. But if you don't pass the
test, that is, if you identify yourself with the events and don't
succeed in remaining master of them, all of these dream pictures
remain real for you, and you'll have to experience all of them to
the very end as real events in the world of time and space. That
would mean that your body would die here in this coffin and you
would have to go on dreaming your own dream pictures in countless
reincarnations, on the long path of mortal existence, for many
thousands of years while you gradually struggled upward from this
lower level to which you would have fallen.
'The difference between dream and reality is only
that what you accept on one level of consciousness as reality
immediately turns into a dream when you awaken on a higher level of
consciousness and realize that it wasn't reality at all, but merely
a projection of the self, in other words a dream. Every dream
is reality as long as you believe it to be real. The one and only
reality, the only objective reality there is, is the
self: God!
'When you pass all the tests, you experience all the
lives that you would have to experience as a fallen soul on earth.
Free of time and space, you experience them as dreams, awakening on
the next level of consciousness. Finally you awaken on the seventh
level, in the cosmic consciousness of the self. In this
divine state, you become one with the last unit highest and only
reality, with yourself, with God. This is no
longer an awakening, but a resurrection!
'Then you have been liberated from your
"person"—which also is only a projection—liberated from your
personal fate. You are redeemed. After that you will fulfil the
duties of a priestess in the temple. Then, if through further
practice you succeed in raising yourself up to the seventh level
through your own efforts, keeping yourself his level as a permanent
state of consciousness, you will have attained the divinity of a
God-person. Then you will be worthy to become a high priestess in
the temple.'
'Father of my Soul,' I ask Ptahhotep, 'you've told
me that it's possible for a person to fall from the higher
consciousness even after he has been initiated. You've also told me
that the initiate, when he identifies himself with his body and thus
channels his higher energies into his body, falls lower than an
ordinary person living in physical reality. Another thing you've
told me is that a candidate, during his initiation, experiences
his whole future destiny, just as it has been provided for from
the moment of his first fall all the way back up to his return home
into divine unity. So how is it possible for an initiate, who has
dreamed all the events and trials and temptations of his destiny and
who has, during his initiation, successfully passed all the tests
that might later cause him to fall again—how is it possible for such
an initiate to fall later in the three-dimensional world of time and
space? If he has seen his entire destiny all the way to the end as a
dream, why hasn't he also dreamed about his fall as part of his
future destiny?'
'When a boomerang is thrown out,' answers Ptahhotep,
'how it will fly and how long it will take to complete its circuit
are factors that are already known the moment it's thrown. So it
carries within itself its entire career as an immutable future fate.
It would be possible however, for an external force to catch it in
the middle of its orbit and bring it back to its starting point and
goal in shorter time and by a shorter path. The boomerang would thus
have returned home. But because it maintains its original form and
weight, it still carries within itself the possibility of being
thrown out again and making another circuit, because this
possibility is given by virtue of its form and weight.
'An initiate who has attained initiation by means of
external aid resembles this boomerang. He has dreamed his entire
future destiny out to the end, to his return into divine unity, but
he has experienced these conditions only in his consciousness.
His person and his personal circumstances, which arise from his
character and fate, still remain in the material world. With his
initiation, he has not ended his present life, just as you,
after your initiation, will still be the daughter of the Pharaoh and
the representative of the Queen. And if an initiate has not gathered
all the necessary earthly experience before his initiation, if he
has not got acquainted with all the creative forces within himself
and learned to control them, he is to some extent still
inexperienced when he returns home into the divine state of
unity. This means that he is not yet completely liberated from
the personal composition of his powers and his personality is not
yet completely annihilated.
'During the intervening time until such an initiate
is able to reach the seventh degree by his own efforts and maintain
himself in it as a perpetual state of consciousness, he carries
within himself the possibility and the danger of falling again from
his high stale of consciousness and starting on a completely new
wheel of destiny. Because he has become conscious in the
divine creative power, however, even though with external aid,
this tremendous power throws him out again, and then he must go
through a much larger cycle than was the case after his first fall
before he became conscious in the divine power. The black
magicians, for example, who destroyed the home of the sons of God
have fallen to the lowest plane of creation. They now lie as
mountains, rocks and stones on the earth and must work their way up
through ages and ages along the path of consciousness from inert
matter through the realms of plant and animal life, up to the human
level again. Some of them fell only as far as the plant or animal
level, while others fell only to one of the other levels of human
existence. The course a creature runs through in the material world
takes a definite amount of time, but individual creatures can
always run through the circle in a shorter time and reach their
goal thousands or even millions of years earlier. This, however, is
only possible for man. Only man, thanks to his conscious use of
intellect, can experience states of consciousness without
reference to time. Animals and plants are not able to do this.
Now you can understand why animals too must suffer! Like everything
else on earth, they are limited manifestations of consciousness of
fallen spirits that once lived on a high plane.
'In the initiation all the negative forces that were
made manifest in the fall from a higher level of consciousness are
offset by positive forces. The "debts" are thus paid. After you have
successfully passed your initiation, you'll enter a condition
without fate. As long as you manifest God's will, you will have
no person of your own and consequently no fate of your own. You will
be free of the law of action and reaction. But if you identify
yourself in your consciousness with your person, with your body,
you'll create a new wheel of fate for yourself and again be subject
to innumerable reincarnations.
'Now you know all the consequences of initiation.
And I'm asking you again one last time, do you have the courage to
go through with initiation?'
With perfect self-assurance, I answer, 'Yes!'
A tall, dignified man then enters the room. I know
him. He is a priest of the highest degree, a high priest too,
Ptahhotep's representative. He steps over towards us. Then Ptahhotep
motions to me to get into the sarcophagus and lie down in it.
I do as he commands.
As I lie in the sarcophagus, Ptahhotep casts a last
glance at me, full of infinite love, and then the two priests lift
the stone cover and lay it over me. In pitch darkness I lie there
enclosed in the stone coffin.
37
THE INITIATION
As usual, I watch what happens.
Nothing happens.
I lie in the stone coffin and peer into the
darkness.
Darkness? It's not really darkness, for in the
middle of my field of vision I observe a greenish phosphorescent
light. Around it points of light seem to flash up and then
disappear. I watch these points of light and try to guess where they
come from and where they are going.
Suddenly I notice that the points of light, when
they appear aren't as close together as they were. On the contrary,
right in the middle, where the greenish phosphorescent light was
before, there's an empty space that none of the points of light
approaches. They leave more and more space around this spot which,
because of the complete absence of light in it, is a pitch black
hole through which I peer into nothingness …
Then I notice two points of light that appear in
this total, dead darkness. Slowly they come closer and stare at me
like two eyes. I don't see the eyes; they have neither light nor
colour, and yet I'm obliged to see them. I know that two eyes
are staring at me. These two eyes do not belong to a body. They are
centres of force of streams of energy which take effect invisibly.
These dim, black energies attack the points of light. The points of
light are sucked up by this force, destroyed. A contour appears,
creating a boundary around this empty, dark hole that radiates this
invisible force. Before my horrified eyes, there gradually appears a
face, the eerie features of a monster, a silhouette that is only
recognizable because where it is there is absolute nothingness—a
negative image.
I know, I just know this disembodied monster is
Evil itself. I know it. I've seen its horrible grimaces
occasionally glowering through human faces as the expression
of those faces. Now the cause of that expression, the being
itself, without a human face, without a body, is here!
Or was it always present and I just didn't notice it
...?
This bodiless face resembles the head of a goat. The
silhouette clearly shows the form of horns over a long, pinched face
that ends with a little goatee. Or perhaps, are all these shapes
only radiations of invisible forces?
The being's eyes, set so close together, have a
terrifying effect, like bottomless maelstroms that irresistibly pull
everything down, down, down to complete annihilation.
Through these two baleful eyes, the monster now
radiates all his fearful powers upon me and into me. These awful
eyes bore into me, and through me, through my entire being,
swallowing me irresistibly into themselves as if I were being sucked
into a gigantic maelstrom.
Absolute panic seizes my heart. I feel myself
turning limp and lifeless out of sheer terror. Coming closer and
closer, his horrible eyes get more and more penetrating. I can feel
how this satanic being—is it Satan himself?—is forcing me
into his power. The monster spreads out over me, swallows me, and in
a moment I feel I am no longer myself. I am It! I feel its
horrible features in my face, its immaterial body in my body, its
devilish streams of current flowing like blood in my veins. This
hellish, fiendish sensation turns my whole being cold and stiff. My
body curls up in horrible cramps.
And deep within me IT talks to me, without words,
through the power which produces words, through the meaning
of words: 'Now I've got you! Now you're in my power! Now you see you
haven't been able to crowd me out of your consciousness. In spite of
your efforts to do so, you belong to me anyway now! You and I are
one. There's nothing to separate us anymore. I am the "I" in you,
and you are the "I" in me. You are subject to my law of cooling,
contraction and solidification. Do you feel how your body is curling
up, how you're drawing your knees up all the way to your chest?
They're crossed now and your feet are pressed close to your body, as
close as if the soles of your feet were joined to your body. Your
arms are crossed in front of your breast. Your hands are curled up
into fists pressed against your body as tightly as if they were
joined to it. Now your head is dropping down on to your chest,
pushing itself close between your fists—closer—still closer! Just as
if you were in your mother's womb! That's right, and now you've
shrunk and shrivelled into just one piece. You're getting colder and
harder until you become a little oval piece of stone! A piece of
stone—rigid, hard and dead! But you still have your consciousness
and know that you're dead, that you've solidified into this
piece of stone, that you are this piece of stone; you're walled up
in it—dead for endless time ... for timeless eternity ...
'Look around and see the mountains reaching up to
the sky. Do you see all these rocks and stones and boulders? Don't
just look at them, look into them. Look into their
being. Can you see that all these stones are petrified but
conscious beings like yourself, exposed to burning sunshine,
raging storms and splitting frost? ... Every creature, every animal,
every human being walks on you and all these other stones. Spring
torrents drag you into wild waters, and you rub and scour each other
in these whirling rapids ... endless time ... timeless eternity ...'
Horrified, I experience everything the evil one
says. This is hell indeed. Alive and conscious, yet locked up
and immovable, grown into this tomb, with no possibility of giving
so much as a sign of life ... to be a heavy, dead stone! ... To
be?
No! I am not that! I am only
imprisoned, entombed in this stone, but I am not the stone.
My self is not matter! I am the dimensionless self, a
spirit beyond any concept of time and space!
And with the inner strength of the spirit, just as I
learned to speak with it in my telepathic exercises, without body,
without mouth, speaking in spirit, I soundlessly scream at the
monster: 'No! I am not you, and you are not "I"! We are forever
separated in our beings, for you are death, and "I" am
life! We can never be identical with each other! You with your
law of contraction and solidification, you're the negative, the
reflected image—the caricature—of the eternal source of all life,
of divinity resting within itself! You're not a horrible
phantom. You're not a monster. You're not "the evil one". You
have no independent existence. The divine self created you
and goes on eternally creating you whenever it clothes itself in a
material envelope, in a body. You are the inner being of matter, you
are the law that maintains matter; so you have power over my
body, because you had to construct it on the command of my self
when I was born into this material world and became a
person. But you have no power over me, over my creative self;
for you're nothing else but the law of matter come to life
through my spirit. Not I am you, but I am that I am and
you are also what I am! Your essence is contraction, and on the
spiritual plane, in consciousness, contraction manifests itself as
fear. And you must disappear, because I don't fear!
The effect of my unspoken, soundless words is
terrifying! It gets pitch dark around me, and the mountains cave in
with a deafening thunderous roar. Rocks and boulders fall, the earth
opens, complete chaos rages about me ... only I stand firmly
on my feet in this cataclysm ...
As things become quiet again and I slowly return to
my senses, I realize I've just had a horrible dream. How good It is
to awaken from such a nightmare ...
My first sensation is one of extraordinary hunger
and thirst, but I don't want to waste time with eating and drinking,
for my goal is God. I want to get on as fast as possible.
I look about me. I am in a spacious room illuminated
by soft reddish light. Pleasant, well-mannered people offer me
tempting delicacies in beautiful dishes and heavenly drinks in
magnificent golden vessels. They try to persuade me to eat and drink
with them. I smile. The pleasures of the palate were never a
temptation for me. Why should I permit myself to be delayed by
hunger and thirst on my path to God?
I thank them for their friendly invitation and go
on. Singularly enough I no longer have any sensation of hunger or
thirst, but I still can't quite make out where I am and what's going
on around me. It is apparent, however, that everyone around me is in
constant, chaotic motion. Another one of my first impressions of
this place is the strange smell in the air ... the smell of
overheated human bodies ... not exactly unpleasant, but nevertheless
repugnant to me.
Little by little my eyes grow accustomed to the
subdued light. I am in some kind of an underground cave where great
numbers of men and women are lounging about pell-mell on sofas or
rocking and careening about, holding each other in tight embraces,
dancing together and making extremely odd movements. I watch them
with growing amazement. Are they drunk? Or mentally deranged? To be
sure I have seen animals during mating season when nature is
creating a new generation. But even when they are so keyed up that
their whole bodies tingle and tremble with passion, they never lose
their dignity ... they never carry on like these people here. And
the priestesses, too, who serve in the temple of love, fulfil their
duties with a noble attitude of spiritual dedication because they
know in doing so they are laying an offering upon the altar of
divine love. How can people fall so low that they debase the
supremely divine act of love and make it an end in itself? After
all, these are respected, reputable people—made in the image and
likeness of God!—and yet they act as if they've lost their reason. I
recognize some of them as people of rank, statesmen and ladies of
the court, but they don't see me. They have neither eyes nor ears
for anything or anyone beside themselves. The outside world has
ceased to exist for them. They're completely enclosed ... locked
up in their own imagination!
They talk with each other too, but it seems as if
these men and women have forgotten that speech is a spiritual
manifestation of man. They use speech to say the most impossible,
completely illogical things. For example, I hear one man, as he
dances with his partner in a tight embrace, ask her again and again,
'Are you mine?'
'Yes, darling, all yours!' the woman answers, and
they go on dancing. A little while later the same couple dances past
me and I hear the man, with his eyes half closed, asking the woman
again—perhaps for the hundredth time— 'Are you mine?'
'Yes, darling, I am,' the woman answers just as
untiringly. What's the matter with them? Isn't it enough to ask a
question once and get an answer. Why do they have to repeat it a
hundred times? And how senseless it is to ask a person such a
question! A person belongs only to himself. He is a free
being with an inalienable right of self determination. So how does
this man come to think he can. possess a woman? It's scarcely
possible to possess a lion. If even these regal animals don't give
up their independence, how can this man get the idea the woman
'belongs to him', and why is he asking her a hundred times? Is he
mentally ill? And perhaps the woman, who goes on answering his
nonsense, too? And perhaps all these other men and women who are
behaving in just as impossible a manner?
At this juncture a tall, broad-shouldered man steps
up to me. Seemingly he can read my thoughts, for he replies to my
inner questions: 'Beautiful lady, don't you know that this is love?'
'Love? I certainly do know love! It is a beautiful,
noble sacrament when two living creatures love each other with
absolute devotion, but not with mere passionate desire for
possession! But in the hearts of these people I see no love! I see
only that they've lost their senses ... that passion, this fever
which dulls and deadens those finest, most sensitive nerve centres
created for transmitting spiritual revelations, holds them
completely in its power. These people should be saved and awakened
from their semi-conscious condition! I step up to a very young
woman, seize her arm and shout into her ear, 'Wake up! Don't let
your consciousness be dulled and darkened by passion! You are spirit
and not body! Don't allow your body to debase you! Don't let
yourself be dragged down lower than an animal. Wake up, do you hear?
Wake up and get out of here! Save yourself before it's too late!'
The young woman peers at me as if through a
veil—like a sleepwalker. 'Leave me alone,' she says, 'I want to be
happy!' And with that she goes on dancing.
Oh how blind! How could she possibly hope to find
happiness through a physical embrace without spiritual content?
Happiness is something one experiences in consciousness;
happiness is in the self. How could she possibly hope to find
happiness through mere trifling play of the body?
'Now just forget your intellect a while,' says the
man, 'you're not qualified to judge because you've never tried it.
Dance with me and you'll see for yourself.' So saying, he embraces
me and drags me out into the whirling mass of people, acting just as
foolishly as all the other people ...
I dance with him and observe myself with great
curiosity ... Will I too become as intoxicated, as carried away by
the close contact as these poor demented people about me? Hut the
only thing I notice is how extremely unpleasant I find the close
proximity of this man. His breath is hot, and I find it very
revolting for him to be breathing into my face and down my neck.
Exhaled air is used up air! Why should I be inhaling air he has
already used up? Then too, I find the odour of his body and his
perspiration most unpleasant. I want fresh air. I want to get away
from this repugnant place.
As I try to get away from him, the man suddenly
changes. In a trice he turns into a gigantic, fiery flaming spirit.
He no longer has a body. He is only a mighty flame, trying to force
me into subjection. He surrounds me, trying to force himself into my
mouth ... into my body. But the power I radiate, the power of my
clear and sober consciousness keeps him away. He cannot reach me. He
reacts by growing hotter, greater, more eager. He takes on
tremendous proportions, spreading throughout the whole room,
devouring all these passion-drunk people in his consuming fire.
Nobody is left ... Nothing more ... only a sea of flames, devouring
and consuming everything ...
But I stand untouched, unscathed, and I am that I
am!
Then I hear a thunderous voice from out of the
flames: 'You have won ... you have passed your test, but watch out!
You haven't won because you're stronger than I. You can't be
stronger, because I'm the fire of your own self. You just
didn't come alight because your purity and your lack of
experience stand between you and me. Your body and its senses
are still sleeping. That's what protected you. But watch out, we'll
meet again ... we'll meet again! ...' And with that
everything disappears—fire, room, smoke—everything ... and I find
myself alone again ...
'We'll meet again?' I repeat these last words. 'I'm
not afraid of you! Even if my body had burst into flaming passion,
this would not have touched my self. I stand above everything
physical ...'
But what was that? Didn't it sound like a scornful
laugh?
I look around to see where this voice may have come
from. So doing, I notice that I'm in a meadow as green as emerald,
and a strange form is approaching. It's the form of a handsome,
well-built man, half concealed by a veil of mist. I'd like to see
through the mist ... I'd like to see the splendid form it hides ...
I'd like to chase the mist away ... but I can't. But the man
interests me and so I ask, 'Who are you?'
Then the handsome man comes close, and with a voice
that makes a deep impression on me he whispers into my ear: 'O my
sweet beloved! I've been looking for you for a long, long time, for
an eternity, ever since we fell out of the Garden of Eden and became
separated from each other. At last I've found you I Come into my
arms! Come, lay your sweet little head upon my breast! Come and let
us unite in divine unity, let us merge our beings in heavenly bliss!
How wonderful that you haven't yielded to the animal urge of the
body! How glorious that you've kept yourself pure and untouched for
me! You belong to me and I belong to you. We supplement each other
completely! Do you feel the irresistible power of attraction that
links us and draws us closer and closer together? Come, let us unite
in love, you dearest of creatures, my one and only heavenly bride. I
love you!'
I hear his voice, I see his manly stride, I feel a
tremendous force radiating from him to me ... And yet he's strange.
I don't know him! How could he be my complementary half? No! One
never finds the complementary half outside oneself. Ptahhotep says
our complementary half is always behind the manifested form as a
mirrored image in the unmanifested state. No! No human being
can be my complementary half. And why is this man veiled in a dense
mist?
'I don't know who you are,' I answer him, 'but
whoever you are, you're mistaken! You're not my complementary
half. And you'll have to look elsewhere for yours if you think
you'll find it anywhere in the outside world. No one can find his
complementary half anywhere except within himself. In the world
around us it's only possible to find projected pictures similar
to one's true complementary half. But neither you nor I can
become complete by virtue of a picture, a projection. Only the
divine unity of the self can bring blissful happiness! I'll
find my complementary half within my self!'
'To find your complementary half within your
self,' says the handsome man, 'would mean that you, in your
consciousness, were already identical with the divine self. How do
you expect to experience the consequence before the cause. The
divine self is the paradisiacal state of unity through which you can
only return through becoming one with your complementary half. How
do you expect to achieve this without me, without your complementary
half? You're forgetting that you are half of a unit and I am the
other half.
'We are the living reflected images of each other,
and we belong together. You carry me about in your subconscious,
just as I carry you in mine, and even without wanting to we seek
each other with the irresistible attractive force that comes from
our belonging together in the paradisiacal state. Throughout ages
and ages of time, our fate brings us together again and again until
we make each other conscious within ourselves and experience each
other completely in body as well as in soul. Only in this divine
identity can we really be the total consciousness of the whole—of
the higher self! How do you expect to be able to return to
paradisiacal unity without me? How do you think you could escape
from facing the fact that we also belong to each other on the
earthly plane? How do you expect to get the experience you
absolutely need, without me?'
But I refuse to allow myself to be influenced. 'No
matter how much you try to convince me, I still don't want you! As
far as I'm concerned it's enough to know that you're present in the
unconscious part of my self, and I only want to get
acquainted with you within myself, but not in the outer world. Get
on your way and let me get on mine!'
At these words of mine, the handsome man recedes and
begins to evaporate like a morning mist in the sunshine. And from
farther and farther away his voice comes back to me - this voice
that has made such a deep impression on my heart: 'I'll go on
looking for you on the earthly plane ... looking ... looking ...'
His voice fades away in the distance, and suddenly all is quiet.
But there's still something I want to know, so I
shout after him, 'Why is there such a heavy mist about you, so heavy
it keeps me from seeing you face to face?'
From far away in the distance I hear a voice fading
out as if it were the echo of my own heart beat: 'The heavy mist is
covering your eyes, not me! It's your lack of experience ...
that's what's protecting you from me. It has helped you resist me.
But we'll meet again.,, meet again ...'
There's still a lot I'd like to ask and I run
towards the spot where he's disappeared. But I see him no more. 1
turn around to go back to the beautiful meadow, but I can't find the
way. There is a dense mist covering everything wherever I look. No
matter how hard I try, I just can't see through it. Yet I know I'm
no longer alone. I hear voices of people around me, and I know that
there is some kind of a relationship between these people and
myself. Various events follow each other in which I play an
important part. I hear voices speaking to me, and again and again I
recognize the voice that spoke to me from out of the misty figure
and made such a deep impression on me. I realize that this being, in
various different forms, belongs to me again and again, but how and
where? ... what are these voices all saying? And what am I
answering?
I can't quite fathom it. It's as if the mist were
covering my ears as well as my eyes. Now and again I see something,
but before I can recognize what it is, it disappears again in the
mist. Once I see a tower, and I know that someone is living within
it as a prisoner—he has the same voice as that of the misty figure—
and I hurry to try to smuggle in something to eat. I am the daughter
of the gatekeeper, and I have to watch out that no one notices me.
But an overpowering force draws me towards the prisoner. I know I
must help him ...
Then everything disappears again in the mists about
me. As' I try to get my bearings again, I suddenly see large,
coloured stone tiles just in front of my face. I wash and scrub them
until they're clean. Then again in the mist I hear a voice that
sounds like my own, asking over and over, 'Have you found my child?'
I get the impression that an old, decrepit body, which somehow or
other is related to myself, is very, very tired. Then this strange
feeling disappears, and suddenly—to my great joy—the mist disappears
too ...
Once again I am standing in the green meadow. Now
I'm ready to go on. The air is fresh. The sun is shining, but still
it's not unbearably hot. How strange! Never before have I noticed
that it wasn't hot at midday, and now there's even a gentle pleasant
breeze. There's something more that's strange too. As the mists
disappear and I see the ground below my feet again, I notice that my
feet as well as the ground they stand on arc much farther down
than they ever have been before. That means I've grown much
taller! How peculiar! At my age a person doesn't grow any more.
So how is it possible for me to have grown taller? And what a
remarkable dress I have on! It's really funny! And where are my
sandals? And my hands? How very much they've changed! Everything is
so peculiar, as surprising as if I were not myself, as if I were
dreaming!
But my consciousness is clear. I'm awake. I'm not
dreaming! I look around. Not far away I see a forest, and as I
approach it, a house becomes visible among the trees. But what a
strange house! The place seems familiar to me, and yet I know that
I've never seen such trees in all my life, nor such a house. No!
These trees are not even remotely similar to our palms ...
The house stands on a hill, and as I go up the steps
through the forest leading to it, I know the house belongs to me.
But how? I've never seen such a house, and yet it is familiar to me.
It's not made of stone, and its roof is slanting instead of flat. As
I enter the house, I know every room is familiar so I walk straight
into 'my room'. As I step into the little room with its whitewashed
walls, I stop before the window for a few moments to enjoy the
magnificent view. I see that both the little house and the beautiful
green meadow are high up on a mountainside offering a view into the
wide plain below. At the foot of the mountain a broad river flows
majestically past with big ships navigating on its surface.
Singularly enough, they have no sails and no oars, yet move along
very fast, much faster than our ships. Another thing I don't
understand is why they all have a big, black pipe sticking up and
spewing out thick black smoke.
The sun has gone down, and twilight is spreading out
over the valley below me. Off in the distance where—I have a strange
feeling I have often looked out before—there are many little
villages, and between them and over them I see little flashes of
lightning. Again and again ... and after each flash there is a clap
of thunder, just the way the thunder booms out of the great pyramid.
I observe these flashes of light and this thundering for a while
until suddenly a shrill bell rings behind me. I turn to the little
apparatus that is emitting this ringing sound, lift up an odd-shaped
part of this apparatus and press part of it to my ear. All of this
seems just as much a matter of course as if I had been accustomed to
doing it for a long long time; yet I know precisely that I've never
seen such a thing in my life before. As I hold the little round
black part of this apparatus to my ear, I again hear the voice ...
the voice that spoke from out of the misty figure: 'I kiss your
hands, darling, how are you?'
'Thanks, fine,' I reply, 'but I'd like to come back
home. Could you perhaps come and fetch me tomorrow. The enemy is
already quite close. Every evening I see the hits. They're coming
closer and closer with frightening speed. I'd like to be home with
all of you.'
'All right,' answers the voice of the man again,
'I'll come tomorrow to get you. But wouldn't it be more sensible if
you were to stay in the forest? Here in the city we're getting
bombarded day and night, and it's getting worse.'
'No,' I answer, 'I want to be back home with all the
rest of you. I've taken care of the house and property here, but
when danger is near, I want to be with the rest of you. Please take
me home!'
'Good,' I hear again out of the apparatus. 'I can
see you have courage enough. Tomorrow afternoon I'll come and pick
you up. Get all your things packed before then. Goodbye, my darling.
I kiss you again and again. Good night.'
'I kiss you too. Good night.' I answer and put the
apparatus back where it was before.
Who was that? How do I come to hear his voice
speaking to me through an odd-shaped piece of apparatus? ... How
come I hear him with my physical ear instead of through an
inner link of spirit? A thought flashes through my brain: Is perhaps
everything I am experiencing now only a vision? Perhaps it's only a
dream? Only a test of my courage?
No, unfortunately it's not a dream -- however much I
might like to wake up out of this reality, just as I woke up before
out of a dream and found myself in the midst of a beautiful green
meadow. Yes, that was a dream, but now I'm wide awake and have to
deal with all kinds of things ... unavoidably. The air is heavy with
fear and terror ... so heavy people can hardly breathe. The enemy is
approaching from every side. If this goes on for a few days more the
city will be surrounded. And we keep hearing such unbelievably
horrible stories from the refugees who have succeeded in escaping
from the occupied areas. But we are in the hand of God, and I calm
my anxious heart and nerves with the thought that everything that
happens is for the good, because nothing can happen without God's
will. And God's will is always good—absolutely always!
I start to pack my things quickly.
The next afternoon, I look up at the window and see
our dog running down the mountainside like a streak of greased
lightning. That's how I know my husband is coming. A few minutes
later, they arrive, my husband and our dog. Our dog is so happy. He
jumps up to greet my husband again and again, up to shoulder height
out of pure enthusiasm and excitement. I run out to meet him too and
we embrace each other with tender affection. We've been living
together for nearly twenty years and are just as much in love as the
day we married.
My husband's bearing and manner, his voice and the
warm touch of his hand are all so reassuring. He is courage, safety,
dependability itself.
'I hope you're not afraid?' he asks me with a smile.
'No,' I answer as I lace my arms around his muscular
back. 'God will be with us!' I snuggle up close to him for a
moment, leaning my head on his broad shoulder.
As we start to pack the luggage in the car, I stand
still for a moment. What kind of a car, carriage or chariot is this?
I suddenly remember that I'm accustomed to travelling in quite a
different kind, but then I smile again because this is one I know
very well too. Of course it's my husband's car, but how strange that
it runs by itself, with no lions harnessed up in front of it
...
I stroke my forehead with my hand. Have I gone
completely mad? Lions! Lions in front of a motor car? And here in
this country? Yes indeed, there were some beautiful lions in the
zoo, but they were long ago put to death because of the bombings. It
would have been dangerous if one of the wild beasts had been freed
because of bomb damage to its cage. I can't understand where I get
ideas like these about lions and other impossible things ... the
pyramids of Egypt which I certainly only know from photographs! Have
I perhaps become a victim of too much excitement?
We drive home. I run into our apartment. Just as I
am about to open the door, it opens all by itself, and there,
beaming with joy—O how in the world did you get here?—is little
Bo-Ghar! But he isn't little any more. He's grown up, even though
quite young. He smiles as sweetly as ever, bows before me and kisses
my hand.
'How good, how very good to see you come home again,
my queen!' he says quietly.
But I stand there looking at him in sheer
astonishment: 'Bo-Ghar, you're here? How did you get here?' I ask.
Now it's his turn to be surprised: 'But you know
that I've been living here for the last three years ... in your
house. Why do you ask?'
I just can't understand it ... he isn't exactly as
I've known him. He's already grown up, yet I know that he's really
still a child ... or should be still a child! But why? Since he's
come from his faraway homeland, I just don't know him. And even then
he was already a grown-up young man. Why do I have a strange feeling
that he's only a boy of ten or twelve? Why do I feel again as if I
were dreaming?
And here's my husband. The whole apartment is full
of flowers ... how sweet of him to welcome me home after all these
years of our being married, in the same sweet way he did during the
first few days of our honeymoon.
After supper we sit near a strange, fairly large
wooden box in which a human voice is speaking. The voice tells us
the latest news of the war, along with rules and regulations for us
to follow. How strange! ... this is another materialization of a
mental process, like the telepathic apparatus up there in the little
forest house. Ptahhotep, my dear master, also emits high energy
radiations through the atmosphere of the country every evening. All
the people, while they sleep, are aided and strengthened by his
powers and his love. But his radiations reach into the very depths
of people's beings, not just to the outer ears like the low
frequency vibrations coming from this odd little wooden box here.
Then we all go to bed.
And in many of the nights that follow we are
suddenly awakened by a horrible sound: sirens howl throughout the
whole city! We jump out of bed, slip into our shoes, warm underwear,
a house-dress, a fur, a warm kerchief around our head ... we snatch
up the little suitcase with jewellery and money and the old album
with the symbolic mystic drawings. We rush downstairs, my husband
and I, down into the cellar. On the stairway we meet my younger
sister with her new-born babe-in-arms, her three-year-old boy and
two-yearold girl. Other doors open up into the stairway, and other
people come out— blanched and drawn and silent—to join us on our
downward march. As we reach the ground floor, a door opens and an
old man with snow-white hair and beard comes out. Those eyes! Where
have I seen these eyes before? And like a flash of lightning, I
suddenly see again the handsome figure of my father's general—the
one who made such a fine career for himself— Thiss-Tha! His
eyes! And how has he come here? And how old he is! And how do I come
to be whispering to him now, "Father dear, are you dressed warm
enough?' He smiles and gives me it reassuring wave of the hand:
'Yes, yes don't worry!' And we all go on to find our place in the
cellar.
The enemy comes closer and closer; the ring of steel
he's forged around our city gets tighter and tighter.
One afternoon the door opens and Ima walks in. How
does he come to be here? ... And dressed in this clothing? I embrace
him and ask, 'What kind of a suit is that?'
He looks at me with equal surprise, 'What a
question, Mother!' he says. 'What kind of a suit? Why Mother, you
act as if you were seeing me in it for the first time! An air force
uniform! But you've known that for a long time!'
I stand there just as confused as if I were about to
woken from another dream. Yes, of course, an air force uniform. And
he is my darling, my only child! And yet I know that he's Ima. Of
course I know him! Ima! Is he really my son? I can still see him
clearly in his priestly robe. He gave me lessons in
concentration. Even then his radiation was as strong and clean as
steel ... I know him ... but he doesn't know me and acts as if he
had never had anything to do with the temple. 'Mother,' he says, 'my
outfit is moving on to another place, because our planes can't
operate any more from this airfield. If we stayed here any longer,
we'd all be destroyed with our aircraft. We're moving on somewhere
into the countryside. I don't know when I'll see you again.'
My heart turns cold in panic. I've already got used
to knowing my son was in constant danger. When he went into the air
force, I felt as if I'd been struck dead. I walked around lifelessly
in the apartment, feeling as if I were dreaming a horrible dream.
How could that be reality? How could mothers really be sending their
sons, their healthy, young, vigorous sons out into this mass murder?
It's certainly only a bad dream in which people have become so
depraved and so degraded as to be killing each other with the most
gruesome weapons imaginable ... and killing off precisely the
healthiest, strongest, fittest young men ... young men who should be
begetting a new, strong, healthy generation of people. These young
men are the first to get killed simply because they are considered
'fit' for service. The weak and sickly ones stay home, and because
they do they are the very ones who can become fathers. The majority
of healthy young people are killed off in the fighting. This is the
fastest road to the complete degeneration of the entire human race.
And people have already sunk so low they don't even recognize this
fact! For no other reason than blind hate and fear of each other,
people kill off the best and healthiest generation!
Dream! Nightmare!
Then, little by little, my sense of reality came
back, and I turned my child over to God! Nothing can happen
without God's will, and whatever happens is good because God
wants it so. Compensation! Everything that happens is only a
searching and striving to return to equilibrium ... back to
paradise! These words of my dear master, Ptahhotep, and all the
other things He taught me in the great pyramid made such a
deep impression on me that this gave me courage to go on living, to
go on doing my daily duties, despite the terrible realization that
my child and millions of others were using each other as targets in
this mass butchery.
But now I knew that we would be separated when he
left the city, for the enemy had us almost completely surrounded.
And whether he or we would come out of this mass
murder alive, or whether we would see each other again in this
life—these were all just big question marks ...
And still I cannot, I must not feel pain, because I
am not permitted to link myself with anyone in such a way that my
happiness is dependent on him! In this young man whom I carried
under my heart in order that he might be born again, in this young
man who is now my son, I do not love the body. It is not his
physical manifestation I love, but God within him! His divine
self has built up this body—just like the bodies of all
people, animals, plants and even inert matter—in order to be able to
express itself. So it's the manifestation of the impersonal divinity
I love in my son's person, in his beautiful body. All of creation is
the manifestation of the one and only God; so why should I
now tremble about the possibility of 'losing' this particular
manifestation of God? Why should I shudder at the thought of
not seeing it again? Perhaps because his flesh and his blood are
from my flesh and my blood? But my self and his self
are the same self—and not flesh and blood at all.
I must go into my own self and become fully
conscious in it; then I am identical with the self of my son—and at
the same time with the self of the entire universe and
so I cannot lose anything or anyone! It cannot make any difference
to me whether those who die are of my own flesh and blood or total
strangers, because the same self of God is changing one of
its many bodies whenever a living creature dies, whether it's the
body of my one and only child or someone I don't know at all. I
must completely conquer my flesh and blood which now feels such
terrible pain ... O God, give me the strength to pass this test!
Even though I haven't yet attained cosmic consciousness, give me
the strength to act as if I were living every moment in this divine
state of consciousness!
My knees tremble as I go to my son, embrace him and
say: 'My dear little boy, my one and only child, farewell! I put you
in God's hands ... He won't leave either you or us. Just
remember that everything passes away except true love. Even now we
love each other because we are one in God. This spiritual
unity—this true love—has brought us together here on earth. We can't
lose each other! We will find each other and meet again ... if not
in this life, then in the next, or in another form of life. Wherever
we may go, our love for each other will bring us together again.
Farewell, my darling. In difficult times to come hold on to this
invisible power that stands behind us and never leaves us. The power
we call God!'
Neither of us cries. We hold each other in a long,
warm, loving embrace. I kiss his smooth, young forehead. He holds me
to his heart, then leaves. I wave to him from the window. He waves
back, then disappears.
Tonight we celebrate Christmas. The cannons are
thundering continually, but still we make all the preparations we
can to celebrate the day as beautifully as possible. It doesn't
matter much to me, for in eternity there are no Christmases, no
holidays, and no weekdays. Every day is a holiday—a holy day—
because in God eternity is an everlasting, holy day. But my
husband likes to celebrate Christmas Eve. He is happy when he can
give me pleasant surprises, and he likes to be surprised himself. He
is already decorating the tree in the parlour, and Bo-Ghar is
helping him.
For the last several weeks, Bo-Ghar has been living
with us. Even if he wanted to go home evenings, he would not have
been able to do so recently because of the heavy bombings. He lives
in the room my son has vacated.
Several years ago Bo-Ghar left his homeland far away
in the Orient. He came to the West to teach people in this part of
the world the ancient science of his ancestors which enables people
to bring the body under the dominion of the spirit. After wartime
shortages made it impossible to obtain stone or bronze for
sculpturing purposes, my studio was empty and I turned it over to
Bo-Ghar as a room in which to give his lessons. From the beginning
of our acquaintanceship, he acted as if he were our own child, and
now he and my husband are decorating the Christmas tree in the
greatest of harmony.
I am with the cook trying to think up ways and means
to prepare a 'festive' menu with the food supplies we've succeeded
in obtaining with so much difficulty. Today we've been invited with
the whole family for Christmas Eve supper at father's, and tomorrow
we'll need to be able to serve a Christmas meal ourselves.
Then the door bell rings. My young cousin rushes in,
all white and shaken. 'Esther,' he says, 'the enemy has completely
surrounded the city, and their troops are making a surprise move.
They're not coming from the other side of the city where we expected
them, but straight in ... straight towards us ... I was in the city
with father and we telephoned mother. She told us the enemy troops
have already reached our villa. Their heavy tanks and men are moving
towards the centre of the city. Lucky thing the telephone lines
weren't cut. Enemy tanks and troops will probably be here any
minute. Get ready. Now I've got to run. Goodbye.' And with that he
goes.
I run to my husband to tell him the news, then on
through all the house spreading the alarm, so that my sisters,
brother, father, and the caretaker's family all know what we're up
against,
Our villa stands on a hillside. From our windows we
can see far down the street in the direction from which the enemy
troops are coming. Everything is quiet for the moment. My husband
says it may be hours before the enemy reaches our vicinity. So he
suggests we celebrate Christmas immediately, then go downstairs to
father's where we've been invited to join all the rest of the family
for supper. That way, we'll all be together at father's and can wait
and watch for further developments.
My husband lights the candles on the Christmas tree.
I think of my son who at this very moment may be obliged to take
part in an air raid. I commend him to God's care. We all shake
hands, exchange presents, leave everything lying where it happens to
be, and hurry down to father's flat.
'Children,' says father, 'let's eat quickly, for we
may soon have to take refuge in the cellar.'
We sit down. As has been the custom since my mother
died, her chair stands at one end of the table, empty, and a candle
is burning at her place. Thoughtfully, quietly and calmly we eat our
supper. We all feel that a solemn, sombre time is coming soon when
we will be face to face with our destiny. While supper is still in
progress, a bomb goes off with a mighty blast right near our
windows. We all look at each other.
'Let's go right on eating,' says father, 'maybe we
can finish supper.'
We eat as fast as possible, but the explosions come
closer and closer and get more and more frequent.
The door bell rings. Officers of the federal army
are standing in front of the door. 'We're going to set up our cannon
in the garden,' one of them says, 'and we're going to billet our
troops in your house. Give us the keys to all the flats in the
house.' My husband gets up to show the officers around. We hear a
particularly loud explosion. The whole house is shaken as if by an
earthquake.
A few minutes later my husband comes back. 'Father,'
he says, 'we'd better get down to the cellar. The garage has been
hit. Our central heating plant has been damaged. We've got to turn
it off immediately and drain out the water. Get below, all of you,
your lives aren't safe any more in the flat. The enemy troops must
be very near now. The officers are saying the enemy has already
reached the other side of the street. The fighting won't last long
but still we must expect to spend the next few days in the cellar.'
Thoughtfully and with perfect calm, father says,
'Let the women and children all go below. I'm going to finish eating
my supper. Please bring the coffee.'
We know there is no arguing with father. My younger
sister gets up and takes her baby into her arms. I take her little
boy by the hand, and my other sister takes the little girl. Together
we go downstairs to the underground shelter. My brother, my husband
and Bo-Ghar stay with father for coffee.
The explosions keep getting louder and stronger.
Sitting in the cellar, we feel the house shaking in its foundations
every time. After a while, the heavy iron door opens, and the men
come in. Stepping over to me, my husband whispers in a low voice so
that no one else can hear, 'They're putting up cannon in our garden,
and they intend to defend our house to the very last. They refuse to
give up the city. Our house is in a key spot for them. If the enemy
troops take it, there will be no way to stop them from here right
down to the river. We can expect they'll fight to the very last man.
I only hope it won't last long. The city is completely surrounded,
and any further resistance will simply entail senseless destruction.
I'm going to get the janitor to help me bring down all our
mattresses so that we can get some sleep.' And with that he leaves.
Even the longest night is followed by dawn, and so
this night conies to an end too. The iron door opens and closes
continually, as our menfolk come and go. Soldiers come in too
occasionally and try to warm up a little. Outside a blizzard is
raging and the thermometer stands at 15° below zero. It's cold in
our cellar too. We sit there in all the clothes we can put on
underneath our fur coats. There's no heat anywhere in the house now.
The soldiers are mere boys. Pale and trembling with cold and fright,
they get ordered out into battle with brutal unconcern by the older
officers. Poor children! They're not older than sixteen or eighteen
and have already been dragged away from home ... into this mass
murder!
We try to rest, but the little baby yells so loud
and long not one of us can sleep a wink.
The next morning my father comes in looking
surprisingly pale. 'Children,' he says, 'the water main has been
hit. Go easy on what you use. There isn't any more water in the
house.' With that he goes out. We hear the men outside talking about
the possibility of bringing in water from somewhere else. All the
water in the water pipes throughout the house is drained out into
basins and bath tubs. Down here in our air raid shelter, we have a
big wooden barrel full of water for fire-fighting purposes. Are we
going to have to drink this old, stale, smelly water? My younger
sister looks at me enquiringly. I know she's thinking about her
babe-in-arms! Ever since her husband disappeared, her own milk
ceased flowing. From that time on, her babe was fed cooked food. But
for that we have to have water! And the baby's bottle has to be
thoroughly washed between feeds. I try to calm her fears by
whispering, 'It's snowing, we'll melt snow to make water.' My
husband hears me and calls me out into the room outside the shelter.
'Do you realize how little water you can get out of snow? The
soldiers are taking all our water away. Unless we want to die of
thirst, we'll have to get water from somewhere. We could go a long
time without food, but without water the heart is affected. We have
to have water. There arc twenty-six adults in the house, and we
can't even cook beans if we don't have water. I'm going out to try
to find water somewhere in the neighbourhood,' he says, and leaves.
A short while later he comes back and reports, 'The
houses all along the street haven't any water either. We'll have to
go with buckets and carry water from the next through street.'
'Please don't go,' I answer him, 'The machine-gun
fire is too terrible, and cannon and airplanes arc shooting
continually too. You might get hit. Stay here and wait.'
My husband smiles: 'Don't be a child. The First
World War wasn't fought with cap pistols, and I still came through
all right. God will not forsake us. Whatever is going to
happen will happen anyway.'
I embrace him and he disappears behind the cellar
door.
I go back into the shelter and sit down. And wait.
Quiet and cold—I wait. If it's God's will for my husband to come
back, no bullet will hit him. If not, then it had to be that
way.
'Things are never bad; it's how you think about
them.' I heard a voice in my heart. I tell myself that hundreds and
thousands, even millions of wives are sitting somewhere, just as I
am, praying for their husbands. These husbands are men like mine.
The fact that my person loves his person so deeply is a
manifestation of the self which is the same in every person. When
two people love each other it means they are experiencing the
unity of the self in their consciousness. They feel they belong
together because they are one in the self.
I quiet my trembling heart but it still goes on
trembling. 'Keep calm,' I tell it. 'Steady does it ... just beat
slowly and calmly. Now let's breathe slowly and deeply—still
deeper—and still deeper ... keep calm! We all of us have to put away
the body some day. A hundred years from now it won't matter a bit
who went first.
'Time and space are inventions of the
intellect. But the spirit, the self, stands above the
intellect, above all thoughts, above any concept of time and space.
Breathe calmly and regularly and think of nothing ... just be ...'
I don't know how long I've been sitting there when
the door opens again, and there is my husband with ten quarts of
water. Water! Wonderful water 1 All of us, twenty-six people have
enough of it to last a day! I don't stand up, and I don't throw
myself about his neck. No, the great moments are always very
simple! No sobbing, no tears, and no big words. From where he
stands, portioning out the water, my husband glances over at me. Our
eyes meet and we understand each other perfectly. I think to myself,
reprieve! How long?
We sit in the cellar, in darkness. Outside the
thunderous fire continues unremittingly. The earth trembles beneath,
and we have to hold on to the bench below so that we are not thrown
bodily to the floor. Cannon and tanks put up a steady barrage of
fire. Airplanes roar past overhead. Bombs scream down
and burst! The barrage of fire goes on and on! How
long have we been sitting here in the cellar? By now I've lost all
feeling for time. There is no day or night in the cellar. It's
always dark. A dim little light is all we are allowed. We've
had no electricity for a long time, and we have to
husband our supply of oil. Whenever the barrage of fire stops for a
half hour, we step out into the other cellar room and have something
to eat. We are lucky to have laid in a supply of emergency rations.
But all too often we have to stop eating suddenly and rush back into
the shelter, for our house is now getting shot at from the other
side too. After every hit, we hear tiles and beams from the roof and
upper walls falling down on the ceiling above us. We never know
whether or not the next blast will cause the ceiling to cave in and
bury us all alive.
One day a deafening blast blows a huge hole in the
wall of the next room in the cellar. Fortunately, it's not in our
shelter. Later during a lull in the barrage of fire outside, my
husband goes out to see what's happened. A gigantic hole gapes in
the cellar wall. The bright sunshine streaming through it makes us
both blink. Tile and bricks lie all about us. Splinters of wood,
bits of glass ... everything covered by a heavy layer of dust ...
and on one end of a beam that sticks up out of the general mess and
confusion, a hen, also covered with a heavy layer of dust, stands
there on one leg, just as calmly as if nothing had happened. She's
one of father's chickens, the only one left. Poor animal! What an
awful opinion It must have of us human beings! A few days later the
cook's art has turned the hen into a delicious soup. While we're
eating it, we discover how badly injured it was. Its leg bone had
been shot through, and part of the leg was missing. That's why it
stood there on one leg. With what stoic patience and indifference it
bore up under its injury, not letting out so much as a squawk or a
cackle to tell how much it was suffering.
Hour after hour we go on sitting in the shelter.
Will the barrage of fire outside never stop? I hold my sister's
little boy on my lap. My body is cold with fright, for even though a
human being may face death with calm and quiet in his spirit, the
body revolts. We don't know whether we may be hit by a bomb, buried
alive, or die of thirst. The little boy begs me, 'Tell me a story,
Aunt Esther, tell me a story.' And I tell him stories by the hour to
keep him quiet. He holds a toy automobile in his hand, and it's my
job to wind it up again and again. While he plays, he sings a little
song. It sounds so familiar ... what's the name of it? Now I
remember. It's the song the little pig sings, 'Who's afraid of the
big bad wolf?' in one of Walt Disney's films ... Oh! how lucky I am
that it's dark here in the cellar. Nobody can see that I've lost
control of myself, and big soggy tears roll down over my cheeks.
God! Oh God! You are present with us here! Your sacred
message tells us all we mustn't be afraid! 'Aunt Esther, tell me
some more, tell me what happened then! Why have you stopped telling
the story?' asks little Peter. I hold the dear boy close to my heart
and go on with the story: 'And the little goat's mother came back
and ...'
After seemingly endless hours the barrage of fire
stops. Just as he's been doing day after day, my husband goes out to
get water. When he comes back, he waves to me. 'Esther,' he says all
shaken and in a voice trembling with emotion, 'I've just been
upstairs in our flat. The beautiful furniture you carved yourself,
and all your lovely sculptured figures are a total wreck. The floor
of one room is gone and so are the walls of the other rooms. We
haven't a home any more ...' And the poor dear boy drops his head on
my shoulder, crying and sobbing like a baby.
I embrace him in his heavy winter coat: 'Don't cry!
What really matters is that we're alive! We're still alive and
uninjured in the midst of all this destruction. I can always make
new figures. Don't worry about material things. Life stands over
everything!'
He tries hard to control himself: 'I loved all your
carvings ... the whole apartment ... so very very much! And now
everything's gone ... all gone ...'
'No matter, even this hell will come to an end some
day.' I lay my head for a moment on his broad shoulder. We embrace
each other tenderly, then go back into the dark shelter. This is no
time to be sentimental.
Bo-Ghar comes and whispers, 'What's happened? We
heard the roof and walls falling in up where your apartment is.' I
tell him what my husband has just told me. Bo-Ghar, the ever-calm,
ever-smiling, gets all excited: 'I'm going up there! I have to
salvage my slides and film on Yoga. My life's work will be ruined if
they're destroyed. I'm going up.'
'Bo-Ghar, you mustn't. Enemy sharpshooters will pick
you off in a minute. I won't let you go up.'
My brother hears our conversation. 'I'll go up there
with Bo-Ghar,' he says. 'I'll help him.' Together they leave the
cellar ... we wait anxiously. Minute after minute goes by ... a
quarter hour ... an hour ... we're still waiting.
Finally the door opens, and Bo-Ghar and my brother
come in, dusty and dirty but beaming with success. In their hands
they hold the precious boxes of slides and reels of film. My brother
tells us, 'The walls have all caved in, but the cupboard was still
standing in the corner on a little piece of floor. We had to get
over to the cupboard, but there wasn't any floor left to walk on.
Only an iron beam. And we had to watch out that the sharpshooters
across the street didn't see us. So both of us lay down and crawled
across the beam. Bo-Ghar dug out all the boxes from the cupboard and
handed them over to me, one after the other. Now we've got
everything!'
We're all of us happy that the two men have come
back to us. Bo-Ghar hides his treasures in a corner so no one can
find them. The very next moment we're blasted almost off our feet. A
deafening blast shakes what's left of the house. Another attack! We
hear the airplanes roar past overhead, bombs, mines, shells and
shrapnel of all sizes beat the ground and the walls around and over
us. The explosions come closer and closer, and after each of them we
hear tiles and bricks and rubble tumbling down overhead. The barrage
of fire is so continuous it sounds as if it might be some gigantic,
cosmic sewing machine. Any moment the next shell may burst through
the ceiling overhead, our last protection, and blow us all to
kingdom come. We sit there mute and cold in this horrible anxiety,
in deathly fright and fear of death. How long can the walls hold?
Then, a gigantic blast, so powerful the whole cellar floor dances
beneath us ... and my father's chambermaid suddenly starts to scream
with the nervous shock. The other women servants start screaming
too. I jump up and yell at the top of my lungs, 'Quiet! Quiet!
God is here! God is here!'
Explosion follows explosion, so loud they can hardly
hear my voice, but I keep on shouting. I just have to shout at the
top of my lungs, 'God is here! Let all of us, every one, think
only of God, nothing else, only of God! God be with us! God!—God!—God!'
And one by one the others join me as we repeat
together, 'God is here ... God ... God
... God ...'
None of us knows how long this has gone on. Little
by little the pandemonium outside has lessened. The blasts have
become less frequent, and at last it's quiet outside. We can hear
soldiers dragging something heavy. I go out to have a look. On the
stairs arc bodies lying motionless. On the floor is blood. I
recognize several of the young soldiers. Only an hour ago they were
seeking warmth with us in the shelter, telling us about their homes
and families far away. Their poor parents! Waiting in vain for their
children to come home! My son! Where can the poor boy be now? In
what department of Hell?
Then we grab a bite to eat. We know we have to take
advantage of every moment of calm. We have to strengthen our bodies'
resistance ... as long as we have anything to eat ... two men go out
to get water ...
How long have we been sitting here in this shelter?
Weeks have gone by while we've been in this barrage of hellfire. My
husband reminisces: 'In Doberdo, in the First World War, we were
caught in a barrage of fire too. But every forty-eight hours we were
relieved. People thought a person's nerves couldn't stand any more
than that. I never dreamed I would one day be sitting through an
unending barrage, together with women and children, for several
weeks, and without any relief!'
We all sit there in furs and heavy winter coats.
None of us has been able to take off a stitch of clothing ever since
we came down to this dungeon. Little Peter is lying in my arms. With
one hand I hang on to the little suitcase containing money, my
jewellery, and a box of cakes by way of food supply for the
babe-in-arms in case we have to flee. We are all of us ready to
jump. The villa next to ours was burnt out with flame throwers. My
husband has given orders to everyone to be ready to flee at a
moment's notice. We don't know when the enemy may set fire to our
house and drive us out with flame throwers. But flee where? We
haven't the vaguest idea. Only out and away from here. Our neighbour
and his son were both picked off with sharpshooters while they were
trying to escape from their burning house. Only his wife came out
alive. She crawled and wriggled on her stomach all the way to the
fourth house down the street, where people took her in.
We wait in readiness, my younger sister with her
babe-in-arms ... my snowy haired father wrapped in his big black fur
coat, my elder sister's family, my brother, our servants—all
tense—all holding our most precious possessions-all ready to jump
and run.
Then for a little while it's quiet outside again.
We'd like to get some sleep. My nerves are burning and my head feels
ready to split. I close my eyes and try to withdraw my consciousness
and fall asleep. But then the baby starts to scream with its shrill
penetrating voice. My sister tries to quiet it, but it keeps on
crying and screaming without a moment's intermission. I take over
the child from my sister and try everything I can think of, but it
keeps on crying .., crying desperately. I hand the child back to my
sister, and it still goes on crying ... crying ...
In the darkness, Bo-Ghar stumbles over to my sister,
picks up the child, holds it gently in his arms and starts humming a
tune from his faraway homeland. It's a tune his countrymen use to
control snakes. The child quiets down instantly. As calm returns to
our cellar, we all of us fall asleep, sitting there just as we are.
Only Bo-Ghar is awake, holding the baby in his arms and humming his
exotic little tune.
More days go by—or are they weeks? We don't even
bother to ask any more. Behind a protective wall in the garden, my
husband scrapes together some snow, brings the pail downstairs and
shaves in the next room in the cellar. He refused to give up his
habits. All the other men have bushy beards. Only my husband and
Bo-Ghar keep on shaving day by day in the midst of this hell.
Then my husband sits down beside us. A new attack
begins and we endure the torture for hours on end. My sister brings
her baby's bottle and gives him his meal. Four times a day she goes
upstairs to her flat and cooks for her baby, despite the hail of
bullets flying around. After her child has had its fill, she comes
to me and asks, just as she asks every day, 'Do you think it's over
yet?'
'No,' I whisper back. 'I just feel it isn't over
yet'. A moment later a mini bursts directly over our head. Once
again we hear tiles and bricks and mortal and wood falling. The
shelter ceiling has held up under the blast. But how much longer? We
sit there quietly, and I ask God within me: 'Shall I get
ready to die? My horoscope says I'm going to die in the crash of a
building. Is it now? Am I going to die, or shall I go on fighting to
live?'
Then suddenly amidst the darkness I behold a vision:
a tiny little hill, and on it a candle, a tiny one like a Christmas
tree candle, burning with a tiny flame. Then before my very eyes,
the little hill begins to grow, turning into big hill covered with
emerald green grass. And the tiny candle grows into torch, burning
with a bright strong flame.
The vision disappears, but I know I am not going to
die yet. I'm going to have to be this torch. I'm going to have to
bring people light—light—light, light!
At night the baby cries incessantly until Bo-Ghar
picks it up and lulls it to sleep. While we're trying to sleep a
mine explodes near by, and afterwards I feel ice-cold air come into
our shelter. The men jump up to see what's happened.
'The cellar wall has caved in, leaving a gaping
hole. We all think of the coming attack. We wait. I whisper to my
younger sister, 'Now it's the end. In the morning our villa will be
taken.'
'Yes,' she answers, 'I think so too, or else we'll
all die.'
My husband whispers, 'It's seven weeks to the day
that we've been sitting here in the shelter ...'
Strangely enough, the enemy cannon have ceased
firing. No bombs are falling either. We hear only continuous machine
gun fire. Sitting next to me, my husband whispers into my ear, 'That
means the infantry is quite near us. They've stopped using field
guns in order not to hit their own troops. Enemy soldiers may walk
in any minute.'
In the afternoon I go out to see where father is. As
I step out of the shelter and look out through the door of the
house, I see foreign soldiers running towards us from the burnt-down
villa next door. 'Father, Father, and all the rest of you,' I scream
as I run back, 'the enemy is here!' We all rush back into the
shelter just as enemy soldiers lunge through the door, their rifles
at the ready.
Deathly silence! We and they look at each other for
a seemingly endless moment. It's as if time itself were standing
still ...
All the soldiers are dressed in broad white coats.
Outside everything is covered with snow. The soldiers look like
children playing in a Christmas pageant.
Then with a word we cannot understand, their leader
points to the women. We understand we must move to the right, and we
do so. Then with another incomprehensible word, he points to the
men, who all have to leave immediately with one of the soldiers. No
time for fond farewells! the men are gone, and we women remain alone
with the foreign soldiers. With their submachine guns in readiness,
they poke into every corner of the cellar, looking for any of our
troops who might be hiding there. One young soldier steps over to
the pram where the baby is sleeping. Even as he looks at it, tears
come into his eyes. With infinite tenderness, he says a strange word
in a foreign language. Nevertheless we understand: 'Little baby ...'
Then he looks at us and points in the direction of his homeland,
telling us hi sign language that he too has a 'little baby' at home
...
I feel somewhat consoled as I note that these
soldiers are loving, kindhearted human beings too.
Now an officer comes, sits down on a chair, and
tells us in a European language: 'We won't harm you. We are storm
troops ... sons of people who now belong to an exterminated class.
But watch out, we have to go on. Behind us there'll come soldiers of
another kind. They're not like us. Watch out!'
Late in the afternoon the shooting begins again. But
now the fire is coming from our country's own soldiers. They want to
recapture our house. Again we sit still in the dark cellar and
listen to horrible fighting going on at close quarters in the street
outside. All of a sudden there is another deafening explosion,
followed by a stream of cold air coming in on us. The explosion has
blasted open the heavy iron shutter of the cellar window. Through
the open window bullets rain in on us like hailstones. We all jump
to one side, flattening ourselves against the walls but this way we
are unable to move. In this situation every one of our lives is in
danger. A single step can mean death. The heavy iron window shutter
must be closed!
I look about me. All the women and children seek
refuge by flattening themselves against the wall near the window.
For the moment any one of us shows herself in front of the window, a
shower of bullets rains in upon us. This situation is untenable. The
shutter must be closed!
I feel a strange chill within me. My every nerve is
cold, frozen so cold I can't feel myself at all. 'Afraid?' I ask
myself. No! Who is there to be afraid within me when I feel as if I
didn't even exist? I only know that I am the one who must
close the iron shutter! Nevertheless I observe myself curiously.
What does it feel like to be in such a position? What does a person
experience? How does nature react within the human being when we
involuntarily have to be a hero ...?
Standing in one corner of the cellar is a heavy
walking stick with a curved handle. Lying flat on the floor, I crawl
slowly and cautiously over to the cane. Then, grasping its lower
end, I crawl back towards the window. While I am executing this
manoeuvre, a weird thought flashes through my head: The
candidates in the pyramid had to pass a test of 'defying death'!
Maybe I'm now passing this same test here in the shelter? Maybe this
is all only a dream during my initiation in the pyramid?
While I crawl back cautiously to the window, my
intellect replies: 'Yes, the candidates in the pyramid had it easy!
They knew they were only undergoing a test in their initiation. But
these bullets aren't dreams! They really kill! How many poor young
soldiers have already lost their lives right here!
Nevertheless the window shutter must be closed,
and for that very reason!'
Kneeling beneath the window and holding the cane in
readiness, I suddenly jump up and poke out my arm and the cane
through the window. Then, noting that the iron shutter has been
blasted wide open, I find I must extend my head and shoulder through
the window in order to reach the edge of the shutter with the cane's
curved handle. I have to reach out and stretch until I feel as if my
whole body were getting longer. Finally I have the shutter and draw
it slowly, surely, inward. Now my sisters jump up to help, pull the
heavy, iron shutter into place and bolt it firmly closed.
Well done! All very simple. No excitement, no
theatrics, no histrionics. And yet how strange! Up till now the
sharpshooters across the street poured a hail of fire into our
window at the slightest sign of life. And yet throughout my whole
manoeuvre to close the iron shutter, they didn't fire a single shot.
Maybe they were being prevented from shooting, or simply didn't want
to shoot, because they saw I was a woman? 'Aunt Esther,' begs little
Peter, 'tell me another story ...'
And so I go on telling stories by the hour ...
The next day we women had to flee from our
bombed-out house. The intervening night was one of indescribable
horror. I can hardly believe that such things can really happen. The
conquest of a country is like the meeting of male and female power
in a violent marriage. One country conquers another, forces
its way into the body of the other. Blood flows. Individual
inhabitants die like the cells of the ravished body, and yet new
life comes forth from this meeting ... a new world, a new creation.
The meeting is cruel and violent, just as the creation of new life
always is. But nature only looks forward into the future, willingly
sacrificing countless individual cells and beings in order to reach
its goal of bringing forth new life. And new life does come forth,
both on the spiritual and on the material level, from the intimate
meeting of two countries, that of the conqueror and that of the
conquered. Out of the marriage of two countries, a new civilization
arises. The cells of the bodies of these two countries meet and
mingle, bringing forth children with some of the characteristics of
both races. Nature creates hybrid races and individuals who
represent a transition, softening and bridging over the hard
boundaries between races and nations.
It was my fate to learn this fact that night in the
air raid shelter of that bombed-out house. I was forced to look on
and see that the violent marriage of two nations is very cruel and
causes many individual tragedies. It was Ima who saved me
from the fate that overtook almost all the women in that house that
night. When one of the soldiers started to drag me from my seat in
the corner of the shelter, forcing me to follow him, I told him in a
pidgin version of his language: 'I—mother, son in war—you have
mother at home too, please go away ...'
In the half drunk eyes of the poor young man whose
body had been poisoned with 'storm pills' there flashed an
expression of understanding. I saw that he was forced to
think of his own mother. Then with a gesture of frustration and
rage, he pushed me back under the bench and stormed out of the
cellar.
The next morning we felt an inner command to flee
from the bombed-out house. We felt the guidance of a higher power.
For reasons beyond our comprehension, it saved us from the fate
awaiting all women—without exception—in the ruins of our house.
Everything happened as if in a chaotic dream.
After five weeks in darkness, we step out suddenly
into bright sunshine, so bright our eyes can hardly stand it. I cast
a backward glance at our big beautiful villa ... a pile of rubble
... topped off by broken beams pointing their splintered ends
skyward! Then we run across the street, picking our way between
corpses and rubble, over to the steps. My sister carries her
babe-inarms. As I watch, I see her plunge down the steps in the deep
snow. I run to her side, help her up, then fall over myself with the
little boy I am holding by the hand. Under the snow are wire
obstacles! While we are trying to climb over with the children, an
elderly soldier of the enemy army lifts the little boy over the wire
barrier, then helps all the rest of us over, the women and the
children, one after the other. I am the last. We cannot talk to the
soldier. We wouldn't understand each other. But we look into each
other's eyes, and I give him a hearty handshake in sincere
appreciation. He reciprocates the handshake. Then we run on,
zig-zagging back and forth in search of cover from the mines which
are still exploding and from the bullets falling about us. The
children yell at the top of their lungs. The snow is too deep for
little Peter; so with all my might and main I drag him along
stretched out flat behind me because he isn't able to walk. From
time to time we stop under a terrace to catch our breath and to warm
the children's hands by blowing on them. Then we run on, scarcely
knowing which way we're going, driven onwards ... or led on ... by
an inner power.
And it's like a dream to be taken into a house at
long last where a good-natured officer of the enemy army protects us
from violence at the hands of his own comrades. As we get to be good
friends, he tells me, 'Mama, watch out! One good soldier,
ten bad soldiers! Not all the men in our army would give you
protection the way I'm doing. Watch out when I get orders to move
on!'
Yes, we know all enemy soldiers are not so humane!
We have the experiences of our first night behind us, and will never
forget them!
And the men have disappeared ... all except father
whom we have soon found again. Calmly, without excitement, paying no
attention to the cannonade going on around him, the old gentleman
walked through this scene of mass murder and while everyone else was
being robbed of everything he possessed—fur, coat, gloves, money,
watch, fountain pen, and everything else one can carry on his
person—my father arrived safe and sound in the home of an old friend
without a single soldier's having so much as touched him. His
powerful radiation even affected the enemy soldiers and kept them
away from him.
Then a few days later there is a knock on the door
of this strange room in a strange house where fourteen people,
soldiers, refugees and we women and children are living. A knock on
the door, and Bo-Ghar stands before us, in tattered clothes, with
bleeding feet, After all he has been through, it's a miracle he's
still alive. Neighbours told him the direction in which they saw us
flee. He has found us again ...
A few days later my brother comes back, also in
tatters. He too has had to travel several hundred kilometres.
Somewhere he found himself two shoes, both of them for the left
foot, and wears them both with his accustomed dignity. He's alive,
that's all that matters ...!
As the days go by I still have no news from my
husband. I can't seem to get the thought out of my head that I've
seen him one day, in a vision, lying helpless in the snow beside the
road ... What could have happened to him?
After long weeks of waiting in vain, I finally find
my husband, gravely injured, in the house of a good-hearted farmer.
My vision wasn't wrong ...
Weeks go by, months go by. We're hungry and don't
know where our next meal is coming from. But one day, at long last,
the war is over!
We try to make some rooms in the ruins of our house
inhabitable. Bo-Ghar and I work day and night to get something to
eat in this time of terrible famine. My husband is forced to lie
flat on his back for many long months until he recovers sufficiently
to be able to walk about cautiously with two canes. How fortunate I
am a sculptress! I do bricklaying, take doors out of the remnants of
walls, and move them to where we need them. We put together window
frames. Having no glass, we cover them with heavy wrapping paper.
Digging in the rubble with our ten finger nails, we bring out a few
usable pots and pans, plus some bent and beaten silverware.
Bo-Ghar and I manage to borrow a cart and use it to
bring home several hundredweight of coal, pulling all the way like
two strong horses. Downhill, we find it hard to keep the cart from
running away from us; uphill, it takes all our pushing and pulling
to get it up to the top where we reach a level street again and can
trot along lightly and gaily. Then we clean up the remnants of our
furniture, using miscellaneous odd bits to make new pieces.
We keep on hammering and nailing things together
until at last we are able to reopen our 'Yoga school' in the ruins
of our old home. Bo-Ghar gives lessons in the physical exercises he
learnt from Mentuptah, while I teach what I learned in Egypt from
Ptahhotep.
Months go by again, and little by little the problem
of finding food becomes somewhat less acute. Our pupils who have
relatives living in the country bring us an occasional handful of
flour, a few potatoes, eggs, and once in a while even a bit of
butter. But I still have no news from my son ...
Then one day, after a year and a half of waiting,
someone rings our doorbell. I open the door—and Ima stands before
me!
I would have thought that in such cases mother and
son would fall about each other's necks with loud cries and sobs.
But no! I look at him in surprise, then we embrace each other
quietly and earnestly. I draw a deep breath of relief. He is alive
and not crippled. Only a scar on his beautiful, high forehead shows
that he has been through an airplane crash.
But still I am deeply dismayed! I know Ima well
enough to know there is no room for him in this country where
vulgarity, brutality, stupidity and utter chaos are the order of the
day. And without jeopardizing life and limb excessively, a person
can experience such conditions only if he preserves his inner peace,
his perfect trust in God and—keeps silent! But Ima won't keep
silent! He doesn't understand that we're not in the temple now where
love and truth and unselfishness prevail and where everyone may
speak his opinion freely without risk of being misunderstood.
Ima won't be able to get along in this world. He
won't tolerate injustice, and he'll want to fight against the
infernal spirit prevailing here now! Apparently he has forgotten
who he is, and yet he has retained his highmindedness, honesty
and courage and expects the sons of men to display these same
virtues. He insists on believing in people, and he has
crowded off into the unconscious part of his being his indomitable
faith in God.
Poor Ima has to experience one disappointment after
another. Why does he repress his faith in God? Why does he refuse
to believe in God? That's the reason why he's lost his
self-confidence! I can see that he must have experienced a serious
mental crack-up, but when and where? And why do I have the strange
and oppressing feeling that I have been the cause of this
mental rupture—a horrible disappointment—?
I know that somewhere, some time, he has lost his
faith because of me, but in vain I seek the reason. One thing
I know with absolute certainty is that it is up to me to lead
him back to God, and that's why he has become my son. I
must awaken his self-confidence, which is identical with
confidence in God, and make him conscious again of this
confidence, because I was to blame for his having lost it. I
must realize that the deep love and confidence he has in me
is only a projection of the profound confidence in God he has in the
unconscious part of his soul. He must come to realize that he has to
learn to recognize and love God in every person. The person
is only an outer cover, a mask, through which God manifests
himself.
Ima must learn that what he loves in any
person, and what he finds good, beautiful and true in anyone is
God and not the person. And that applies to me too whom he
loves—I know it—more than anyone else here on earth. It's up tome to
lead this love in him back to God. He must come to realize that he
loves God in me too, and my person is only an instrument
through which God manifests himself in the form of maternal
love. Ima has yet to learn that in every person who loves him it is
really God who loves him and not the person. When he realizes these
things he will understand me and everyone else and even himself
better. Then he won't experience any more disappointments!
And there comes a night in which my one and only
child, the person I love most here on earth, is living in an
unheated room during an unusually cold winter when the thermometer
has been dragging along at 20° below zero for week after week. My
one and only child doesn't even have a warm blanket and has scarcely
anything to eat. I could easily provide a heated room for him, I
could give him food and everything else he needs. But I know I must
not! I know it's more important for him not to lose his soul than
his body! Out of love for him I must be cruel!
I kneel in the darkness in my bed and speak to my
God:' You be with him, oh God, and let him find
himself and you again. Let him find the way that leads to
you, and let him never deviate from it! Awaken him, awaken
yourself in him, oh God, for you are also dwelling
in him and you must awaken in him so that he may awaken, for
my strength is inadequate. He must become conscious. Unless he does
so he's lost, and you know the one and only path for him to
follow in order to recognize you, oh Lord my God, in
himself. You know why he feels he has been forsaken by
everyone ... why he's convinced that even I have forsaken
him.
'He has to feel disappointed in everyone, he has to
give up hope in everyone in order to find you ... in order to
become conscious in you—conscious of himself! You know, oh
God that I don't see any other possibility of saving him. I
cannot and must not show my love for him any more. He must find
you by his own efforts. I am only a weak human being, my Lord,
but you are God, Love itself. You love him more
than I can love him. You, oh God, are always with him.
Love him now with your divine love ... now when I must be cruel!
'Take care of him and keep him from losing his
health during this present struggle of his ... while he's going
through this school. You know that he's sinning against his
health because he has no confidence in himself any more.. because in
his unconscious he would like to die ... to kill himself. Take care
of him, open his spiritual eyes and don't forsake him, don't
forsake him, don't forsake him ...'
And so I go on night after night ...
One night as I'm kneeling in my bed in the darkness
again, preparing to speak to God about my child, something
strange happens: To my great amazement, it begins to get light about
me. It gets lighter and lighter, and in the growing brightness I see
a remarkable landscape. A high mountain with a steep, stony, narrow
path leading up to it. I know this path leads to the goal— to
God. Without hesitating I start to follow it.
The path leads through friendly countryside, higher
and higher. I climb untiringly until the charming green landscape
lies behind me and I gradually reach the inhospitable region of the
high mountains.
The pathway gets ever steeper, narrower and stonier,
but I climb with astonishing ease, so light as if I were gliding.
The inhabited territory lies behind me. My horizon
widens, and I see everything far below me. But there is no time to
look around, and I go on. After many curves, the narrow pathway ends
in front of a short stairway with seven steps. Each step is twice as
high as the one before.
Under a crystal blue sky I stand there all alone in
front of these seven steps and know that I must climb them.
With a deep sigh and with faith in the power the
Creator has given each of his children—the power which in my case
has miraculously gone on undiminished and even increased as I have
climbed this long path—I walk up to the steps.
The first step is low. I must conquer the weight
of my body in order to lift myself up on to it. I succeed
easily.
The second step is somewhat higher and awakens the
resistance of my body. I have long ago conquered the forces of
the body, and so this step too causes me no trouble.
The third is noticeably higher. In order to
conquer this one I have to conquer my feelings. As I become
master of my feelings, I am on the third step.
As I face the fourth step, which is surprisingly
high, thoughts of doubt overcome me; 'How will I be able to
climb it? Have I enough strength?' Then I realize that my doubts
are weakening me, paralysing me. But doubt is a thought! So I
must conquer my thoughts in order to master doubt. Thanks to
my long training and my exercises in the temple, I know what I have
to do; I gather all the strength of my soul, I am absolute
faith in God, and think of absolutely nothing. And behold—as my
thoughts disappear, my doubts disappear too. And I am on the fourth
step.
Curiously, I feel I have grown much larger while I
have been climbing these steps. Each time I've gone up a step, I've
grown some more, and now I'm much much larger than I was at the
beginning. Now I face the fifth step which, even though I've grown a
great deal, is so high that I can only get up by using both hands
and both feet. As I pull myself up with great difficulty, I suddenly
find to my great surprise that I have no body any more. Everything
in me or about me that was material has disappeared, and I am
invisible spirit.
The sixth step is very, very high, and a new
difficulty awaits me. I have no body, no hands with which to hang on
and no feet with which to push myself up. How am I supposed to get
up there?
I look about me for some way to do it, and as I turn
around, I suddenly see the whole world spread out below me! Country
after country ... city after city looking like little toys ... and
houses with countless people living in them. Infinite love for them
all seizes me and I am pained to think of all the people who would
have to travel the long, laborious pathway of recognition ... of all
the innumerable people feeling their way forward in the darkness,
imprisoned in their own selfishness just as I was once ...
And, wonder of wonders!—the moment universal love
floods my heart, I am raised up and find myself on the sixth
step.
Now I stand before the last and highest step of all.
It is just as high as I am. I long so much to get up there and this
wish fills my whole being. In vain. I just don't know what to do. I
have no hands, no feet nor muscular strength of body with which to
pull myself up. But I must get up there at any price. Up on top I'll
find God, and I am determined to see him face to face.
I stand, waiting, but nothing happens.
As I look around me, I find to my great surprise
that I'm not alone. At this very moment a being similar to myself
reaches the sixth step and begs me to help him up to the seventh. I
understand his tremendous desire, and— forgetting my own longing to
reach the seventh step—I try to help him reach his goal.
But the very moment I forget my own wish, I suddenly
find that I am up on top of the seventh step—I don't know
how—and my companion is no longer there. He has disappeared without
leaving a trace. He was an illusion who helped me forget my
last self-centred wish. As long as I wanted to raise up my own
person, I would never be able to conquer the step that was as
high as I myself.
I have arrived! Quicker than a flash of lightning I
see the form of a heavenly being woven of dazzling light. My
complementary half! His irresistible attraction draws me to him,
and—full of delight and fulfilment—I melt into complete union with
him in his heart. I realize that He was always I and I always He,
the dualistic projected image of my divine, true self. In
this dualistic state I always faced God as a being separate
from myself, and I felt Him as 'You'. Now in paradisiacal
unity, I feel that this invisible power I have so far always called
'God' will become myself in the next moment. A disc
woven of fire begins to rotate about me. And in its immovable
axis—in my spinal column—my true self—I—am dwelling.
And I feel my spinal column burning like a white hot
bow, like a bridge made up of the current of life, radiating
brilliant light through seven centres of force—vitalizing my body.
Then, beyond all concept of time, I simultaneously
see the endlessly long chain of the different forms of life in which
I have been incarnated throughout ages and aeons of time as I
travelled the long pathways of development from my first fall out of
paradisiacal unity up to the present moment. I see that my countless
lives have been, are, and will be inseparably linked with the lives
of the same spirits. From the events of past lives new relationships
emerge, new ties, new developments, all supplementing each other and
fitting together perfectly like the little stones in a big mosaic.
I recognize the threads linking me with my
complementary half, with Ptahhotep, with Atothis, with Ima and
Bo-Ghar and many, many other people. I see clearly how these threads
have bound us all together for ages of time, how souls more advanced
than we are have helped us, how we have helped each other and those
less advanced in the great task of the spiritualization of the
earth, in developing our consciousness in matter, in the body. The
experiences we bring each other in all these lives help expand and
deepen the consciousness in the body, while the bodies we inhabit
get progressively more spiritual, more beautiful. The matter
composing our various forms of manifestation becomes ever more
elastic, more responsible to the will and the radiations of the
spirit, until finally the body becomes an obedient servant of the
self, no longer isolating or obscuring a single ray of light
from the spirit. I understand the secret of the pyramid, for now I
have become a pyramid myself, only using matter—the body—as a firm
footing, but constantly manifesting divinity!
Then everything about me, the earth, sky, the entire
universe—all merge in a single gigantic sea of fire. Huge flames
encompass me. For a moment I feel as if I, with the entire cosmos,
were being destroyed. Flashes of lightning crack and snap through my
veins, through my entire being, as the fire burns me. And then,
suddenly everything changes: the fire is no longer consuming me but
I myself am this heavenly fire, penetrating everything, animating
everything, consuming everything! A flood of light surrounds me,
but this flood of light is arising within myself. I am the
source of this light and of everything else that is. The
earth has no effect on me any more. Its attraction which held me in
fetters ceases. I am floating in nothingness. My being has no
limitations any more. 7 am now the one who attracts
everything, but nothing ties me down any more— nothing
attracts me any more ...
I seek those whom I have loved, for I know they
couldn't be destroyed, but I seek them in vain, in the
nothingness about me. In the emptiness there is nothing but
myself, so I have to turn my attention inward.
Behold, even as I do so I realize that every one
and everything is living in me! The universe is in me,
for everything that is is living in me. Everything that is,
I am. In everything that I love, I love myself. And
suddenly I realize that everything I have always believed I
didn't love was what I had not yet recognized within myself!
Now that I recognize myself perfectly, I love everything and
every one equally, for I am one with them, I am 'I'
in everything, in all!
I am fulfilment, life—radiant, eternal, immortal
being ... there is no longer any struggle, any regret, any
suffering—no decay, no end, no death! In all that is born I—the
immortal—begin a new form of life, and in all that dies I—the
immortal—withdraw into myself, back into the eternal,
creative, divine self.
I realize that time and space exist
only on the periphery of the created world which is like a disc
rotating with dizzying speed. But I, within myself, am timeless,
spaceless eternity. And while I am resting within myself
my eternal being fills space and everything living in
it:
I AM THE ONLY REALITY, I AM LIFE, I AM THAT I AM!
I rest within myself and feel infinite peace
... but in this peace a call reaches me and compels me to return to
my deserted body. I turn the searchlight of my consciousness on to
it and recognize the voice speaking to my being, the well-known,
dearly beloved voice of my master Ptahhotep. He is calling me
back ...
And I step out of my heavenly self and put on
the garment of my personal 'ego' again. But I bring with me the
consciousness of who I am ...
I am a human being again, but in my heart I carry
the divine self that has become conscious in me—God—and from
now on this divine self will be acting through my person ...
and slowly I open my eyes.
My glance meets the deep blue, heavenly eyes of my
master Ptahhotep. His eyes radiate the same light, the same
love and the same peace I have just experienced during the blissful
state in my initiation ... the same light, the same love, and the
same peace I now carry in my own heart.
I can't bring my lips to utter a sound. I am still
unable to find the connection between myself and my body.
But I don't need to speak, for I know my master's
every thought and wish. We are in spiritual unity, in God.
All one!
He lays his right hand upon my heart, and gradually
I feel life returning to my body. I draw a deep breath, and the
renewed regenerated stream of life flows through my numb limbs. My
heart beats vigorously again. Gradually I regain control of my body.
Ptahhotep and his deputy help me sit up and slowly
get out of the coffin. I stand insecurely on my feet. Ptahhotep and
the other high priest take me by the hands and lead me out of the
niche where the initiation coffin stands. Then I see that all the
initiates of the temple, priests and priestesses, are assembled in
the great hall where the Ark of the Covenant is kept. Expectantly
they are all waiting for me. And as I come out, led by the two high
priests, they greet me with the sacred word and secret greeting of
the initiates:
'OM' ...
In this circle of the resurrected, I stand there
like a new-born babe. I have the same body as before. And yet I am a
new being. I find myself in a new world: I no longer see everything
from the outside, but simultaneously the inner being, the core about
which the external form is built up, the centre for which the
external form merely serves as a manifestation.
I stand in the circle of the resurrected. My inner
being vibrates in the tone of the sacred word—the divine mantram.
And with the aid of this indescribable vibration, in this magic
tone, I experience in my own physical consciousness the divine
unity of the self with all these initiates and with the entire
universe. They have all come, priests and priestesses, to
greet me after my resurrection and to express divine infinite love.
My father, Atothis, is here too, wearing the plain white robe of the
initiates. Then there is the soft-spoken master Mentuptah, and my
dear brother Ima. The moment I see his noble countenance, his eyes
light up with a smile, and I remember all my dream pictures, the
most difficult tests of the initiation, the test of renunciation—
giving up everything—and the test of cruel love! Ima, you dearly
beloved, do you know that in my initiation vision you were the
reason for my passing the most difficult test of all?
The majestic figure of an elderly priestess now
moves forward from the circle of initiates. She hands Ptahhotep a
robe, and together they invest me with my priestly clothing. Then
she hands Ptahhotep the headdress, the sign of initiates, and He
sets the band of gold upon my head. In front, the circlet of
gold bears the head of a serpent, symbol of the procreative energy
of life, transformed and spiritualized. Now, at last, I can wear
this insignia, not only as a queen, but also as an initiate!
Now I am a priestess, in the lowest degree of the
priesthood. It's up to me to reach the higher degrees step by step
until I am worthy to be permitted to use the staff of life.
Ptahhotep steps over to my side, lays his hand upon
my head and blesses me. Then He takes me by the hand and
leads me to the initiates. First, of course, to the second high
priest. He too lays his hand upon me and blesses me. Then I step
before my dear father and feel him, through his hand, pouring out
all the love in his heart upon me. And so one by one, according to
their rank, I step before each of the initiates and receive his
blessing. At last I stand in front of Ima who received his
initiation shortly before me. He blesses me too, but I feel his hand
tremble ...
Then Ptahhotep leads me to the Ark of the Covenant.
I kneel before it. For the first time in my life I am permitted to
lay my hands upon it. In every drop of my blood I feel the fiery
power flowing out of the Ark of the Covenant into my body. I breathe
deeply—into my innermost being—and now with my consciousness awake,
in my body, I experience the fulfilment of paradisiacal
unity—the omnipotence and omniscience in God ... I understand
and experience the meaning of being. Wherever I turn the
searchlight of my consciousness there is clarity and light. In
radiant brilliance the last and highest truths of life stand before
my eyes. I experience the absolute, omnipotence that comes through
the guidance of divine creative power in my self.
Ptahhotep again takes me by the hand and leads me
back through the rooms through which we came here ... back through
the passageways, through the stone door, back into the temple. The
initiates come after us. In the temple all the neophytes are
waiting, and it's my turn to officiate as priestess for the first
time. I stand before the altar with Ptahhotep, while all the
neophytes come, one after the other, to receive my blessing. Upon
each I place my right hand, and each accepts my blessing in deep
silence. Finally the children of the neophyte school approach, among
them my little adopted son, Bo-Ghar. He kneels before me, looks at
me devotedly, then bows his head and receives my blessing.
Oh Bo-Ghar, my little Bo-Ghar, what a strange role
you played in my initiation vision! ...
This ends my first priestly office in the temple. In
the little cell I used during my preparations for initiation,
Ptahhotep leaves me alone. After the prescribed time of complete
rest, I am again allowed to eat light foods and beverages.
For a long time I sit on my couch unable to shake
off the effect of the strange visions experienced during my
initiation. What horrible pictures! How lucky I am to wake up and
find these dreams are not real! How was it possible for me to carry
such pictures within myself and thus come to dream them? They just
can't be real! It's absolutely impossible for people to become so
depraved and degraded as to kill each other with such cruelty and
with such hellish instruments! The cellar, the horrible shelter of
my dream! And still I know the eternal law that a creature can only
imagine pictures which could actually exist in reality! Whatever
a person can imagine can materialize! If this were not so he
wouldn't be able to imagine it!
But these horrible pictures! These gigantic birds
piloted by the sons of men, flying overhead with a fearful roar,
often climbing so high one can't see them any more, and throwing
down evil eggs upon the earth! I saw with my own eyes how these eggs
destroyed everything within a wide radius of where they hit the
ground. With deafening blasts, they brought down whole houses ...
how was that possible?
And why should the sons of men put their intellect
in the service of fiendish senselessness?
And what strange apparatus I saw and used in my
initiation visions! I heard human voices speaking from tremendous
distances, and others heard my voice in the same way. How Ima would
laugh if I were to tell him that people could communicate over long
distances by means of such devices instead of using the much simpler
method of mental telepathy. He would surely want me to give him a
thorough explanation of the construction of such a device. And that
I couldn't do! Just as I couldn't give a description of the inner
construction of the staff of life or the Ark of the Covenant in a
way that would enable anyone to make such devices. Yet nevertheless
they do exist! And in the same way I know this telephone device can
exist! And Ima! You pure, true servant of God, in my
initiation dream you too had to pilot such a big iron bird! You and
all the handsome, healthy young men—you had to go out in great
numbers, as if bewitched, to kill others and allow yourself to be
killed ... how could you go along with this madness? How could you
obey such inhuman orders?
And who was the burning man who was 'my husband' in
my initiation dream? ... how close he was to my heart. He was my
best friend! And still he didn't know who I am, and I don't know who
he is.
And so I experience each individual picture of my
initiation dreams again. I recognize all the people who were my
parents, brothers and sisters, friends and enemies in my present
life here in Egypt. And often I really have to smile about the
curious relationships ...
Evening comes, and the day ends with a feast in
which all the priests, priestesses and neophytes take part. The
Pharaoh is present too, and since the relatives of the new initiate
are permitted to attend an initiation feast, my dear old Menu is
there with the rest of us! As I step into the garden, she runs
towards me as fast as her heavy body will carry her. Beaming with
joy, she embraces me and sobs with the relief of her pent-up
anxiety: 'Oh how good it is to see you alive again! Tell me, will
you still love me, now that you're a priestess, will you still love
me? Can I go on living with you?'
I stroke her dear old head and calm her fears:
'Menu, Menu, naturally I love you. Of course you can stay with me.
Now even greater love binds me to you.'
38
AS A PRIESTESS
The priestesses in the temple have different tasks
corresponding to their different abilities. Some teach the temple
dancers. Some help the restless souls of departed dead who wander
about aimlessly in the earth's atmosphere. In holy sleep, the
priestesses help them on their path towards further spiritual
development.
Without help they would stagnate for hundreds,
perhaps even thousands of years because, without organs of sense,
they have no opportunity to gather experience or to contact other
beings. They are introverted and find no path on which to progress.
The priestesses seek out these restless souls, penetrate their
beings with the power of love, and thanks to their inner identity
they irradiate their consciousness with ideas that help them find a
solution and a way out of their condition. These priestesses thus
perform a two-fold duty. They help wandering souls forward and
simultaneously purify the earth's atmosphere.
There are priestesses who work towards developing
healthier, more beautiful and more spiritual young people through
initiating them in the mysteries of physical love. They teach young
men to transmute their physical urge through the power of the spirit
and to aim for a higher spiritual union—a sacrament. They also teach
young men who are on the point of marrying about this sacred power,
so they can transmit this energy to their wives after marriage and
thus beget noble children.
Lastly, certain priestesses perform the same tasks
as the priests. They teach groups of neophytes, give instructions
for exercises in concentration, and receive people who need advice
regarding special problems. As soon as these priestesses reach an
advanced degree of priesthood, they are permitted to use the staff
of life in healing the sick. In this way a priestess can become a
high priestess. I have been assigned to this group.
I am truly delighted with my task! It's nothing less
than wonderful to observe the minds and souls of my pupils as they
develop step by step and manifest more and more of divinity. For me
it's like watching a bit of opaque material gradually become
transparent, allowing the divine creative principle to shine
through. Every day I experience this with my dear neophytes. I also
enjoy taking care of people who come to the temple seeking advice in
affairs of the spirit or matters of the body. I receive them in my
little cell, the same one Ima assigned to me when I first came to
the temple.
At such times people show me their 'other' face, the
face that nobody else sees ... a face they often do not know
themselves. I see this inner face in every creature, and it's very
instructive to hear about all the different events and experiences
that have shaped this inner countenance in accordance with the law
of action and reaction. Oh, if only everybody could see their own
and other people's inner countenances. They would never hate each
other, and they would never be afraid of each other! There are no
bad people! They often harm each other, doing evil things, even
cruel things, to others because they believe others are going to do
evil to them and they try to defend themselves in advance out of
pure fear. In this way they .give others a real reason to believe
they are acting with bad intentions.
But if one could only convince both parties to such
'evil actions' that neither is acting malevolently and that both are
merely afraid of each other, they would both breathe a sigh of
relief and shake hands. People are ignorant and blind. They don't
see each other, and this is the reason for all the enmity and
hostility on earth. There's nothing more beautiful than being able
to open blind eyes and watch the brilliant look of understanding and
knowledge begin to shine.
In addition to this work I am permitted to be
present when Ptahhotep or his deputy uses the staff of life to heal
the sick. In the early morning they arrive, coming by themselves or
with the aid of friends or relatives who bring them to the temple.
Ptahhotep then conducts new vital force into their sick bodies. I
often watch how the staff of life completely heals broken bones or
horrible wounds in just a few moments' time, leaving behind only a
thick spot in the bone or a tiny scar to show where the wound or the
break was. Just as two pieces of metal can be welded together into
one piece through heat, broken bones are mended by the staff of
life, and deep wounds in muscles, ligaments, blood vessels, nerves
and skin grow together again. With equal speed this staff of life
can heal the most serious inflammations of the lungs, kidneys or
other organs. Great indeed is the mercy and grace of God for
the gift he has made to mankind of this means for the recovery of
health.
Beside my work in the temple I continue to fulfil
the duties of the wife of the Pharaoh. Just as I used to do in the
past, I sit beside my father at festive receptions and other public
events. At such times I have plenty of opportunity to observe the
people of the court and all the others who attend these high feasts.
Sometimes we receive messengers and emissaries from strange
countries. They are quite different from these sons of men among us.
The colour of their skin, their physical stature and the shape of
their heads are all different, and they radiate different forces.
They sometimes bring us wonderful things as gifts, things that are
quite unknown in our country. Animals I have never seen before,
precious gems, cloth, beautifully painted pottery. Father has
arranged for artists to come from some of these far countries to
teach our young people of the temple. On the other hand, some of our
artists and wise men have travelled far abroad to teach our arts and
sciences. Father has told me that we will some day visit these great
countries.
Ever since my initiation I have also been permitted
to go for chariot rides alone with the lions. Through my initiation
I received the ability to guide my will-power into the nervous
centres of other living creatures, thus bringing them completely
under my power. I now control in my own body the activated nerve
centres which are still latent and undeveloped in the sons of men,
and I can send out penetrating radiations of will-power that other
such living creatures are turned into unconscious tools of my will.
I never forget, however, that God's highest
gift to man is the right of self-determination, and I know this
right must never be infringed. That would be black magic! That's why
I never use my will-power against a person. Often enough it would be
so easy to help a person solve a difficult problem if I were merely
to fill him with my will! But this would mean that I would be taking
on the responsibility myself, and the solution of the problem would
be mine not his. In this way I would be robbing him of an
opportunity to pass a test. Every person must solve his own
problems, for only in this way can he gather experience, develop his
will power and widen the horizon of his consciousness.
Animals are directly subject to natural forces. They
automatically and instinctively carry out the will of nature and
possess no self-determination. So I can completely subject my lions
to my will. It's wonderful how these magnificent animals immediately
carry out my thoughts. They react to the slightest impulse of my
will, and I often have the feeling that they belong just as much to
my self as my hands and feet do. The same divine self
is the life of every living creature, and the 'love' animals feel is
nothing but the unconscious striving to achieve the unity of the
self on the lowest, physical plane of consciousness.
A child going through the phase of awakening
consciousness also tries involuntarily to achieve this same unity
and identity by putting into its mouth everything it can get its
little hands on. Animals have the same instinct. The unity and the
love between me and my lions is so great that they like to taKe my
hand or even my head between their jaws as if they were going to eat
me. Naturally they don't bite, and their play is not to be taken
seriously. I can understand that when they eat a gazelle for example
they are only following out their instinctive striving for unity.
The instinct for self-preservation has the same source as the
instinct for the preservation of the species: striving for the
divine state of unity.
That's why the manifestations of both instincts are
so close together and often overlap. Nature exploits this primordial
tendency towards unity in order to create progeny through the
instinct for procreation and propagation of the species and in order
to preserve the body through the satisfaction of hunger. This is the
reason why the meat lions get from their keepers never tastes as
good as the flesh they tear from the body of fresh-killed prey; for
in this latter act they are unconsciously experiencing a form of
union with the living—with life itself. With dead flesh they can
satisfy only their hunger but not their subconscious striving toward
union.
I get a great deal of pleasure out of spending time
with my lions. It's thrilling to observe how these majestic animals
manifest all the characteristics of the divine Ra—the
sun—transformed to the animal level. Little Bo-Ghar, too, shares my
pleasure in the lions, just as he is in harmony with me in
everything I do or say. How well I remember the endless patience my
father exhibited when he taught me how to stand up in a chariot
speeding over uneven ground. It's my turn now to teach the same
techniques to Bo-Ghar. He's very skilful, instinctively making the
right movements, and after a short time he is able to accompany me
even on long rides.
During quieter periods father and I withdraw to our
little holiday house on the seashore. Bo-Ghar comes with us, and the
three of us enjoy the pleasures of sun and sand and water. Father
too likes to spend time with the little boy, and we find it
thrilling to watch his pure soul develop like a magnificent flower.
Once, after watching Bo-Ghar for quite a while, father calls and
asks him to come over close. As soon as Bo-Ghar is near enough for
quiet conversation, father asks him, 'Well, Bo-Ghar, would you like
to work with me?'
Bo-Ghar prostrates himself before father, and with
his hands together as a sign of profoundest respect, he replies,
'Master, I'll devote my whole life to the task you give me in order
to be worthy of it.'
Father pats the boy's head. 'Stand up, Bo-Ghar,' he
says, 'you will work with us in the great task of redeeming the
earth. Just do what your teachers in the temple tell you, and one
day you will be a co-worker with us. Stand up ... you don't need to
throw yourself on the ground before me.'
Bo-Ghar can't contain his joy. And he jumps around
like a little monkey. Then he tries to be dignified like a grown-up
worthy of father's confidence. Finally he runs down to the seashore
to look for mussels. When I'm alone with father I ask him: 'Father,
now that I've been initiated, when I raise myself above the level of
time, I can look into the past and the future the same as you, but I
still can't recognize anything in my own future. Why is that? The
only importance I attach to the future is the development it will
bring me in my progress up to the last, highest, divine degree. But
please explain to me why I can see everybody else's future but my
own: I see only mist before my eyes when I turn my consciousness
towards my own future.'
Father looks at me, smiles and waits.
I smile back and answer him in thought. We
understand each other. His look tells me: 'What are you asking for?
If you don't see your future, it simply means that's the way it's
meant to be so you can fulfil your task properly. Don't bother about
it, but do everything to attain by your own efforts the highest
degree you reached with Ptahhotep's help during your initiation.'
When our tasks call us back to the city, the days go
by as in the past, and I spend some of my time in the temple and
some in the palace. I love my work. It satisfies me completely.
Nevertheless, all day long I go about with the joyful anticipation
of being able to withdraw into myself—into God—when my day's duties
are over. Every time I turn inward with the determination to reach
the highest degree by my own efforts, and I actually do come nearer
and nearer to perfect fulfilment. Yet every time I return to my
personal consciousness, I get up disappointed. Once again I realize
I have failed to achieve the last and highest reality which I
experienced in my initiation and which burns in my memory like an
unquenchable flame. My only consolation in such moments is that of
looking forward to participating in vesper prayers and meditations
with Ptahhotep.
Ptahhotep, his deputy, the priests and
priestesses—initiates all—meet in the temple at sunset. We sit in a
circle, with Ptahhotep and his deputy sitting diametrically opposite
each other and thus forming two poles. All the rest of us form two
semicircles on either side. It takes us a while to free our
spiritual body from impurities which we have unavoidably absorbed
during our contacts with the sons of men. Then Ptahhotep extends his
blessed hands to his neighbours on either side. All the rest of us
join hands too, thus forming a circuit through which Ptahhotep and
his deputy conduct a current of the highest, supreme, divine degree
into our bodies. This helps us experience the supreme state of
divine unity. In this way our nerves develop resistance much faster
than they would if we were dependent only on our own energies. These
moments of bliss, experienced daily during our evening prayers, give
meaning and content to my whole life.
Oh God! Give me the strength to reach you
with my consciousness by my own efforts!
PHARAOH CHEPHREN
Cairo Museum
The Pharaoh is the image of God to whom the creative
principle, Horus, symbolized as a falcon, whispers Divine Truth. One
who is initiated hears its voice and obeys
WE WILL MEET AGAIN
One day the court is making ready to celebrate a
great reception. Some time ago father sent his commander, Thiss-Tha,
together with many notables, a large number of troops, and ships
full of presents and goods for barter, as an emissary to a far
country. The ruler there received our dignitaries very cordially and
soon thereafter sent his own troops bearing presents and goods for
barter to our country. Today we are going to celebrate the arrival
of these foreign troops.
Menu decks me out in my most beautiful dress, and
with the usual ceremonies, Roo-Kha brings me the queen's jewels.
Then the two elders escort me to father, and we walk through the
long colonnades accompanied by the whole court. In this manner we
walk out in a column on to the terrace before the palace. In his
full dignity and great beauty, the Pharaoh takes his place on his
golden throne in the middle of the terrace. To his right is his
audience lion, while I take my seat to his left and a bit out in
front, almost at the edge of the terrace. The people of rank take
their proper places to our right and left according to their degree
and station.
Then the great reception begins. The troops of the
foreign power march up in a long festive procession. Their leader
and his retinue step up before the terrace and bow down before us
with outstretched arms. Then their leader makes a fine speech in our
language to tell us how eager his ruler is to reach a long-term
alliance with us. Then he calls his porters forward to bring us our
gifts.
I observe the changing scene from above and look at
the men in the leader's retinue. All of splendid physique, they wear
their ceremonial robes and military armour. The strangers are big,
strong, broad-shouldered and very muscular men. In our country only
the descendants of the race of the Sons of God are as tall and
strong as these strange soldiers, but much more slender, nimble and
resilient. Ptahhotep, father and some of the other descendants of
the Sons of God like Ima, Mentuptah, Imhotep and some priestesses
have beautiful and powerful bodies, but they are majestic,
dignified, full of spirituality. Less robust, they don't look so
much like splendid animals.
Never before in my life have I seen people like
these strangers. They don't please me at all! In our country I am
accustomed to seeing finely-chiselled facial features that reflect
spirituality, especially among the descendants of the race of the
Sons of God, and even among the hybrid race. These strangers have
irregular features that make them look like animals! Especially
their ears!
Our ears are small, narrow and finely-chiselled with
the lobe separate from the side of the neck. These strangers have
big, broad ears, their lobes joined to their necks like those of
monkeys. And what strikes us all as particularly strange is their
red hair! Their faces, hands, arms and feet are covered with an
abundance of hair, shining like golden threads in the sunshine. They
are self-assured, and when they talk or laugh they reveal rows of
beautiful, white, glistening, strong teeth. But this feature too
makes me think of animals! They radiate great strength, but not
spiritual strength. No! I don't like their looks!
I can see our guests from abroad find us just as
strange as we think they are. They don't like our looks either. I
see their eyes have not yet been opened to the spirit. They are
unable to appreciate, or even to perceive any fine, delicate,
spiritualized shapes. They see only the people of our country are
smaller than they. Reading their thoughts I can see they hold us in
contempt.
I am accustomed to seeing the fire of admiration
kindled in the eyes of men when, they look at me. These strangers
admire my robe and my jewels without noticing at all that I
am beautiful! I can see very well that they're curious about me, the
queen of this country, and they stare at me at every opportunity
without noticing that I am beautiful! Yes, I know I inherited my
mother's small stature, but a woman's beauty does not depend on her
size! But these men, these strange warriors from a far-off country
think a woman has to be big and fleshy to be beautiful. I observe
myself as I always do. Have feelings of vanity sprung up within me?
No! Far from it! I am merely displeased because they are so
ignorant, immature and crude, like people in the lowest class of the
sons of men in our country.
All these people are so lacking in culture and
polish, including their leaders and the people of rank accompanying
them. One of them is standing in front of the terrace, right in
front of me. He must be a high officer because he has come forward
in the closest proximity to their commander. Now he's standing
amidst a group of soldiers and staring at me incessantly. The
corners of his mouth show a disrespectful attitude. The way he acts
really doesn't befit a person of rank. How can a man stare at a
woman so impertinently? In all our court only Roo-Kha is as
impertinent as this fellow, and even he can't conceal his admiration
for my beauty. But this stranger merely stares insolently without
the slightest admiration! Nevertheless, I fight down any and all
feelings of vanity within myself. I watch out and keep myself under
constant control!
I turn away to watch the ceremonies again.
Fascinated by the military games these soldiers are playing, I must
admit they possess physical strength unknown in our country. Their
race is descended from a half-blooded Son of God who manifested his
father's high divine power in his blood, instead of his spirit, and
so became a giant. His descendants intermarried with primitive
people and developed a big-boned race with enormous muscular
strength. They're not nearly so agile and adroit as our warriors,
but they can perform feats of strength that would be beyond the
ability of our soldiers. During these military games I glance down
once in a while at the insolent foreigner in front of me. He is
still staring at me untiringly. Actually, it would be a truly
inspiring task to guide such an uncultured, red-headed stranger into
the mysteries of the spirit ... to help him step by step to open his
inner eyes ... to enable him to see the beauty of a woman's
spirituality instead of only her flesh.
For several days I am so preoccupied with our guests
from abroad that I have no time to go to the temple. Feasts and
ceremonies follow each other in rapid succession. Exhibitions,
excursions and banquets ... and at all of these events it is my duty
to take my place beside my father in officiating as host and
hostess. Menu is in her element, clothing me in ever more beautiful,
ever more magnificent robes. Bo-Ghar, however, is embittered and
saddened because I have no time for him. Roo-Kha comes frequently
with his jewel bearers to bring me new creations of the jeweller's
art.
I go through with all this because it's my duty to
do so. Nevertheless I look at my image in my great silver mirror
with eager curiosity, wondering what the foreigner from abroad will
have to say about my new robe or my new jewels. Especially when
father and I and all the court once dress up after the fashion of
our guests from abroad in order to show our friendly attitude
towards them. I really have to laugh to see how odd father looks in
this strange costume! And I? Won't our red-headed guests from abroad
find me beautiful even in these clothes?
For by this time I have got acquainted with him!
Father introduced me to his commander and all the ranking officers,
including 'him', and now I find myself in the company of these
emissaries from abroad every day. Their country's ruler, in
preparing for this expedition, selected only men who had succeeded
in learning our language in a very short time. Thus we are able to
converse very pleasantly with our guests and exchange ideas with
them. But I find myself ill at case in the presence of this
strange guest from abroad who stared at me so insolently throughout
all the reception ceremony. And my heart beats faster when I realize
he has exactly the same voice as the man who turned into a
flaming spirit in my initiation dream! How strange!
These strangers are peculiar people, lacking in
culture and learning but not stupid at all! They live very close to
nature, and even though they don't intellectually know the
inner, creative laws and the essence of things, they know a lot as a
result of their own direct experiences. It is remarkable to observe
how a truth, which we clearly see and know in our spirit through
inner contemplation, appears in these people as mere belief and
superstition!
When they don't know the source and cause of a
force, they imagine that it comes from an invisible being, and they
then give the name God to their own imaginings. And they
stubbornly insist on calling these imaginary, fairy-talc creatures
'gods'. They think they know everything better. When one tries to
tell them the truth and explain real facts to them, they merely
shake their head and laugh condescendingly. Of course I am not
permitted to tell them any of the secrets of the temple, but still I
have tried to explain to our foreign guest the forces which cause
lightning and thunder in a storm. I knew I wouldn't be permitted to
tell him how the high priest uses the Ark of the Covenant in the
pyramid to create lightning and rain ... the blessed rain that keeps
our country from becoming absolutely barren. But I did try to
explain to him that lightning comes from a meeting of two opposite
forces and that he can cause the same phenomenon himself by striking
two pieces of stone together.
At this he gave me a supercilious look, saying he
knew very well that lightning was the arrow of the 'chief god', and
that 'little demons' live in certain stones and become angry and
shoot out little flashes of lightning whenever they're disturbed.
When I tried to give him the true explanation of this phenomenon, I
found his mind closed up tight. In one sense it doesn't make any
difference whether we consider lightning to be the 'arrow of the
chief god' or the 'meeting of positive and negative forces'. But if
these people continue to believe in their superstitions and all
their various imaginary gods, they'll never learn to control the
forces of nature and always remain slaves of their superstition.
Anyway I have succeeded in getting our strange red-headed officer
guest interested enough in my explanations of various natural
phenomena so that he's always eager to hear more. He said he would
like to have me teach him; so he's going to come to the temple every
day, and I will initiate him into the lowest degree of knowledge.
After sunset Menu helps me into my priestess robes.
Then, heavily veiled, we both walk over to the temple. A neophyte
has accompanied our officer guest to my little cell in the temple
wall where he is awaiting me. Menu stays behind in the temple court,
and I enter my cell. The stranger is already there! Standing there,
leaning against the wall of my cell, he greets me with his usual
smile of superiority. This smile annoys me! How does he dare to look
at me this way? He's not my superior in any respect. Just because
he's physically bigger and stronger, he ignorantly assumes himself
to be superior in every way. He doesn't have the faintest idea that
the power of mind stands over everything. But I'm going to show him!
With the power of my mind I'm going to conquer this insolent,
red-headed giant. Despite all his physical power he'll be
vanquished, and through my spiritual power I'll come out victorious!
The stranger bows deeply, but I see clearly he's
doing it without conviction. Here in our country the people
practically worship me. They know I am an initiated priestess, a
servant of God. The stranger also knows I am a priestess in
the temple, but he doesn't know what 'initiation' means. He doesn't
know that our knowledge is not a system of beliefs based
merely on human imaginings, but rather the direct recognition of
truth ... divine omniscience! But I'll open his eyes! I'll
explain the mystery of man and the universe to him. I'll guide him
into the mystery of all creation.
'If you want to achieve true knowledge,' I tell him,
'you must first learn to know yourself. You have to know what you
yourself are. When you come to know yourself, you will discover
that all the truths of the universe are concealed within your own
being. Thus through this self-recognition you will get to know all
the secrets of the world. First solve the great puzzle of our
sphinx, that of man himself! You must recognize what
you are!'
The stranger looks at me attentively at first, but
then begins to smile. 'I'm supposed to learn what I am? I've known
that for a long time! Why is that supposed to be such a great
mystery? But it seems to me, oh queen, that you don't know
what I am, and so I am telling you: I am a man!' And with
that he lets out a hearty laugh, showing all his big white teeth. Oh
my! What a child he is! His laugh is so infectious that I can't help
laughing myself.
'I know very well that you're a man ...' I answer
him. But I can't even finish my sentence because the red haired
giant interrupts me impolitely: 'It seems to me, queen, that you not
only don't know I'm a man, but that you don't even know what a
man is. I'm not a priest and can't read people's thoughts the
way you can, but I know women, and I can see something you don't
know at all— or else you've forgotten it—and that is what you are!
You don't know you're a woman! How do you think you can try to teach
me the inner secrets of man and the universe if you don't even know
this simple fact that everybody else can see?'
'I know very well that I'm a woman,' I reply with
dignity. The stranger smiles insolently, but I continue undisturbed:
'The outer form is only the mantle of the inner being. When one
knows the inner being and when one is the inner being, he
uses the outer form only as an instrument but does not identify
himself with it! The body is only the robe of the self.
You wear clothing too, and yet you are not the clothing. In the very
same way you wear a body which can be either male or female, but
your self stands above the sexes and is neither man nor
woman. The self is the creator. The person, the physical,
material manifestation is only one half of the true being. The other
half has remained behind in the unconscious, unmanifested state. And
whether a manifestation is male or female depends merely on which
half has incarnated itself. When a person has made both halves of
his being conscious and experienced them consciously, he has become
identical with his self, and then he carries within himself
both the male and female principles in complete equilibrium.'
'But still his body is either male or female, isn't
it?' he asks.
'Yes, indeed,' I answer. 'The material phenomenon
can only be one-sided, for whenever the two sides merge into unity
there is nothing physical. The union of the two complementary
halves, the merging of the two sides would mean complete
annihilation of matter, complete dematerialization of the body. One
can only be androgynous in spirit.'
'Queen,' answers the guest from abroad, 'there's
only one thing in all your pretty words that I can really understand
quite clearly ... a point on which I'm in complete agreement with
your "secrets", namely that my physical manifestation, as you
express it so neatly, is only one half of a unit. In the past I have
often sought—and found—a complementary half, but I was never
annihilated in doing so! Perhaps because I never found the real
unity? But even if it were to mean annihilation I would go on
seeking my true, complementary half. I am a man, and my other
half can only be a woman who gives me complete and perfect
happiness. For such a woman I would gladly lay down my life!'
I feel in my body a warm rush of blood that reaches
my head. In the face of such a way of thinking I am completely
powerless. How can I explain to him that the earthly happiness he is
seeking in a woman is only transitory and unable to satisfy his
immortal soul?
We end our discussion for today. He must have time
to digest the new truths I have given him.
And there follow many evenings in which I do battle
with his ignorance. I am determined to help him make progress, and I
take all kinds of care to say the right words to him in order to fan
the divine spark into flame and awaken his higher self. When I wake
up in the morning he is already in my thoughts. I remember
everything we spoke about the previous evening and concentrate my
thinking throughout the day on the lesson I am going to give him in
the evening. Often during these days I race through the countryside
with my lions but now it's without Bo-Ghar. Bo-Ghar hangs his head
as he goes to his master Ima for lessons, Ima tries to console him
with all kinds of presents and everything else a boy's heart could
wish for. I'm sorry to see Bo-Ghar so sad, but I need time to be
alone with my own thoughts.
After one of my chariot rides, while I am taking
leave of my lions in the lions' court, I pat their heads and run my
fingers through their manes. As I'm doing this, it suddenly occurs
to me that our officer guest from abroad has exactly the same colour
hair as the lions! If I were to stroke his head, the same thick
locks of red hair would be slipping through my ringers! Oh, how I
love these lions!
That evening I tell our guest my observation about
his having the same colour hair as the lions.
'Queen,' he says, 'may I go for a chariot ride with
you sometime? If I could see that you could control real live lions
with your will-power, I'd begin to believe in your superhuman
powers!' And he laughs tauntingly.
'Where have you heard that I have superhuman
powers?'
'Everybody I talk to adores you like a goddess.
Everybody believes you're a supernal being. But I don't!'
I feel injured: 'What do you think about me?' I ask,
noticing with some annoyance that my heart is pounding while I await
his answer. In the very same moment, quick as a flash, Ptahhotep's
image pops up before my inward eye, with a warning expression on his
noble face.
'No! No! Leave me alone,' I answer the inward image.
'I'm in no danger!'
And outwardly I go on listening to what the stranger
says: 'So you want to know what I think about you? Why do you want
to hear that from me? If you're so high up above everything earthly
why should you be interested in what goes on in a poor earthly head
like mine? And after all, you can read people's thoughts, can't
you?'
'Yes, I can read your thoughts, but I want to see
whether you're being frank with me,' I answer. But as I do so I am
aware of an uneasy feeling. There's no time to try to find out what
this feeling means, because the stranger asks me again: 'So you want
to know whether I'm being frank with you? Why don't you ask yourself
first whether you're being frank with your self?'
I am speechless. I just don't know what to answer.
For years I've made a habit of self observation in order to seek out
the motives of all my thoughts and deeds. I am convinced I am frank
with myself and therefore frank with the rest of the world including
him. Nevertheless his words bring an embarrassing surprise. Could he
be right? Have I really lacked the courage frankly to face all my
thoughts and feelings? I resolve to examine myself even more
thoroughly, but in any case I'm going to concentrate all my efforts
in order not to be defeated in the struggle with him. I must come
out victorious. I mustn't allow an uncouth stranger to think I'm
weaker than he is! I mustn't allow him to think he stands above me!
The next day we go for a chariot ride together.
Before we get in, the stranger stands beside the lions and holds out
his shaggy red head towards me. 'Want to try and see if my hair
really feels like the lions'? If they don't mind your stroking their
hair, I may be able to stand it too,' he says with a hearty laugh
that erupts from between two perfect rows of white teeth.
He really is a big child. He's not behaving this way
out of lack of respect, and I can't be angry at him. I have to laugh
too, and if the keeper of my lions were not standing near, I really
would feel like tousling his hair.
And so it goes, day after day. And the time quickly
draws near when the stranger will have to return to his homeland. In
many respects I could be satisfied. As a 'woman' I could even gloat
in triumph at the way his attitude has changed. He has put away his
superior airs and waits all day long every day for the evening to
come so that we can be together. I realize he never really felt
superior, and that his overbearing manner was actually a kind of
self-defence to save him from complete capitulation. He didn't want
to give up his masculine arrogance.
He admired me from the very first moment he saw me,
and my vanity, which first drove me to spend time in his company
could now be completely satisfied. And yet I am not
satisfied. On the contrary I am plagued by persistent anxiety. But
every time I analyse my feelings, this anxiety gives me the
reassurance that my interest for him is not coming from the feminine
instinct of my lower nature. For I am constantly watching and
checking on myself! Menu says I show all the unmistakable symptoms
of being in love and she's overjoyed that I am 'blooming' at last.
But she's wrong! She's in no position to judge because she considers
everything from her earthly standpoint. She can't begin to
understand that I cannot and must never fall in love ... and that
I'm not in love now!
How could I ever fall in love with this uncouth,
unkempt, red-headed giant? He's not my type. Physically, he seems
strange, even repulsive to me. In my moments of self-examination, I
have often asked myself whether I could want to have a child by him.
Heaven forbid! A child with such ears and such an ungainly,
raw-boned body? Never! In any case I know absolutely I would never
want to have a child by him! So I know I'm not in love. I only want
him to find God. I am keenly interested in each of my pupils,
and for this very reason I think of him so often and with such a
concentration of all my attention. But he hasn't found God
yet. In this point I haven't yet succeeded! That's why I feel so sad
and anxious when I realize he is soon going to have to leave our
country, and I may never see him again in this life ...
Then everything happens faster than a flash of
lightning ...
On our last evening together I go to the temple to
see him and take leave of him. As usual, he's leaning against the
wall. But now he doesn't try to seem so superior the way he did when
he waited here for me the first time. Now he doesn't even look at
me, but stands there staring off into space.
'What's the matter?' I ask him.
'I'm just trying to think what kind of sense it
makes for me to have been coming here to see you every evening. What
did you want of me, you beautiful queen with no heart? What use have
I had out of all the things you've told me if they've only served to
make me unhappy? You've talked on and on about my having to find
myself, but with every one of your words and deeds you've helped to
make me lose myself completely. I was a brave, courageous fighter,
afraid of no one, and now I've become a slave. The slave of a tiny
woman who hardly comes up to my shoulders! And now I'm afraid of the
future. How am I going to be able to live without you?'
A hot wave of joy floods through my being. I try to
imagine it's only my vanity. But I feel a shock! In the beginning I
really did want him to recognize my feminine beauty and power, and
as soon as I had achieved that I wanted to use my power over him to
help him on the inner path. I took all kinds of pains to awaken the
self within him. But instead, he's fallen in love with me. I
didn't want to go that far! I don't want earthly love. I've wanted
to create with him a far higher unity, the unity of the self.
I wanted to lead him to God! But it's done no good at all for
me to bring forth the deepest truths from out of my inner being ...
He sees me only as a woman. He cannot or will not rise above the
sensual. He doesn't see me. He doesn't realize that he does
not love me. I don't really exist for him. He merely loves my
body, the outer cloak which is merely a manifestation of my true
self! How horrible! How debasing!
'Look,' I say, trembling, 'it hasn't made any sense
at all for you to come here to see me, because we just don't
understand each other. We just can't get together. I want to help
you rise to the spiritual plane, and you want to drag me down to the
level of the body. It hasn't made any sense at all to go through all
this trouble. Go back to your homeland in peace, and we'll never
meet again!'
At these words, the blood rushes to his head. His
face, his neck ... the whole man becomes dark red, so dark his hair
seems lighter than his skin. His eyes flash like glowing embers, and
with a shock I see his whole spiritual body turning into a powerful
flame. Then, without my having time to defend myself, he seizes my
arm, holding it as if in iron tongs, pulls me to his mighty breast,
embraces me, pushes my head backward, presses his mouth to my lips
with such force that I lose my breath. Then he kisses my face, my
neck and my lips again, and in between his burning kisses, he
whispers hoarsely: 'So you don't want to see me any more? But I
want to see you, and we'll meet again ... we'll meet again.'
As I saw his wild face coming close, I felt a wave
of deathly panic. I wanted to push him back and get away, but as he
locked me in his mighty arms and pressed his burning hot mouth upon
my lips, all my inner being caught his fire. I lost control over
myself, and without resistance I gave in to the overpowering feeling
of pleasure and delight that sprang up out of my fright and swept
through me. Now I realize I love him ... have loved him from the
first moment ... with all my body and soul ... with my whole being I
love him passionately and I always will!
The fire overwhelms me as if coming forth from a
gigantic volcano. Hot flames sweep through me ... devour me ... my
backbone feels like a bridge of glowing embers, holding seven
burning torches. But now I'm no longer in the immovable axis of my
spinal column, no longer in the midpoint from which my true self
radiates the fire of life. On the contrary, my consciousness has
fallen into my burning body, and sparkling, crackling, flashes of
lightning race through my veins ... through my whole being. All my
nerves are aglow, all my thoughts blotted out. They're burning out
my consciousness ... annihilating me ... Then I black out and
everything disappears ...
Little by little I come to again ... slowly I open
my eyes ... see stone walls around me. I am lying on the floor of my
little cell.
I am alone ... surrounded by the silence of a tomb.
I have no thoughts. I haven't anything I could think
about any more ...
Dejected and broken, I get up, cover my weary head
with my veil and leave the cell.
The long colonnade is dark and seemingly empty.
After a few steps I see a dark form leaning against the opposite
wall: Ima! He stands there as if made of stone, staring at me with
an indescribably wild look in his eyes. Even in the darkness I can
see it ... have to see it. He looks right into me ... right through
me. Then he turns and walks away softly in the opposite direction.
Without a thought in my head I go back to the
palace. Menu, who had fallen asleep in a corner of the temple court,
accompanies me, as usual in silence, except for an occasional loud
yawn.
4O
THE LION
I lie on my knees before Ptahhotep.
I do not speak. He understands my unspoken words,
even when I am silent ...
'Father of my Soul, save me! Take this fire out of
my body, give me back my freedom! I cannot and will not go on living
this way ...
'I lost myself, I am destroyed, I no longer have any
control over myself, I can't think any more what I'm doing; my
thoughts control me and split my head apart.
'Help me, Father of my Soul, help me back to the
heavenly heights where spiritual clarity, purity and freedom reign.
Give me back my wings so that I may fly again with you on high like
the creative power of God, the divine hawk Horus, who flies through
the universe creating new worlds.
'Open up heaven for me again, Father of my Soul, let
me hear the music of the spheres again ... the music that now lives
on only in my memory, while within me there reigns only the silence
of the tomb because my ears are deaf.
'Open my spiritual eyes again, Father of my Soul,
for they are burned out; I see the light of heaven and the
brilliance of God only in my memory, while within me there is only
darkness as my inner eyes have become blind.
'Open for me the gate of my heavenly home where I
once possessed all the treasures of the spirit that now live only in
my memory, Father of my Soul, because I have fallen and have become
a poor earthly beggar.
'Open up again for me the happiness and the peace in
the divine unity of those who have found salvation, Father of my
Soul ... the unity which now is mine only in memory as I have fallen
into the wilderness, into the desert, haunted and plagued
unceasingly by the burning unrest of being torn in two.
'Lay your blessed hand upon my head and permit me to
be freed from the dungeon of time ... permit me to become again in
the eternal present the person I was ... the person I really am ...
the person I can no longer be in the elusive world of
appearances.
'Father of my Soul, save me, save my soul! Permit me
to hear your voice again, like the voice of God within me, for I no
longer hear your answers. I am blind and deaf, I have lost my
heavenly wings, I have become as one expelled, one driven out in
exile. Take me back, Father of my Soul, take me back into the unity
of the blessed, because I can't go on living this way! Save me,
Father of my Soul, save me, you man of God, do not leave me, do not
leave me ... do not leave me ...'
But I hear no answer.
I have lost everything. My intellect that has always
been there to help me onward is foggy; only hazy thoughts creep
through my mind like tired travellers.
On my bed in the palace I lie with one and only one
thought in my head: to die! I can't go on living, I won't go on
living! I am only the shadow of myself. Through the mists in my
mind, hazy faces rise up to harass me: Menu, crying hopelessly, and
Bo-Ghar ... the despairing eyes of Bo-Ghar ...
I want to die! ... To die!
I used to be master of my body and could leave it
intentionally at will. Now I try it—but without success! I cannot
leave my body. It's as if I were nailed into it, I can't leave it.
I've become a prisoner in the dungeon of matter.
I want to go to the Ark of the Covenant! It will
burn up my body just as its radiation burns up the dead sacrificial
animals in the temple ... so completely that not even a trace of ash
is left.
I put on my veil and hasten to the temple, through
the great hall, on to the door that opens into the underground
passage to the great pyramid. But I can't get through. Before the
stone door I run up against an invisible wall. It begins to dawn in
my hazy brain: the lowest frequency of the Ark of Covenant, ultra
matter! Materialized hate! Although completely invisible, it
protects the forbidden area better than the strongest wall. I try
again to break through the invisible barrier, but the unbelievably
hard wall of ultra matter stops me unmercifully.
There is no mercy for me ... no mercy ...
Slowly I go back through the long temple passage,
past my own little cell.
Without thinking, I go in and sit down on the stone
bench. I sink back into memories ... the room expands, from every
side I hear the echo of infinity, and within me pictures emerge: a
figure, wrapped in hazy fog, approaches ine ... I recognize it: the
hazy figure I saw in my vision when I was being initiated. It comes
quite close to me; then a flame spurts out of it, the whole figure
begins to burn and becomes a fiery being who irresistibly embraces
me, encircles me and penetrates me so that I too catch fire and
begin to burn. Then I hear his voice whispering to me: 'I told you
we would meet again. You belong to me, you will never again be free
of me, we will meet again ... in endless time and in timeless
infinity we will meet again, again ...' And the echo of his voice
goes on repeating thousands and thousands of times: 'meet again ...
meet again ... meet again ...'
'No!' I cry, 'I will not, I hate you!'
The figure of fire laughs: 'As long as you hate me,
you love me and I have power over you! You can't get free as easy as
that ... we will meet again,' the echo goes on calling ...
As I hear this voice echoing back thousands of times
from every direction in the empty room, so powerfully that the air
itself literally vibrates with it, I know the hazy figure of fire is
whispering and looking at me with voice and eyes I can no longer
resist. In all the endless lives I was able to remember in the
vision I had during my initiation, I was always seeking the same
voice and the same eyes in all the voices that spoke to me and in
all the eyes that looked at me and in all the countless men I met in
all those countless lives. In all these men I was seeking the
man whom I love with love eternal and with every drop of my blood,
the only man, 'my' man: the image and likeness of my complementary
half ...
Then another picture flashes upon my mind, the
picture of the man whom I do not love as my complementary half, but
as myself: Ima! I could not love him with earthly love
because I was always one with him in God. We are bound
together by the eternal love of heavenly unity. I will go to
him now, I will tell him everything, he will understand me! The
unity that binds me to him will lead me like a light in my further
travels; this unity will illuminate my darkened path so that I can
find my way back into the heavenly home I have lost, to God.
I rush madly out of my cell. I look for him in the
neophytes' school where he prepares candidates for initiation; I
look for him everywhere, peering into every room. But I find him
nowhere. Suddenly the young priest appears who helped me with my
last preparations before initiation.
'Are you looking for Ima?' he asks.
'Yes, where can I find him?'
'You won't find Ima here any more. He left the
temple in absolute desperation. He completely lost control of
himself, for his faith was not in God above everything, but
in a woman! He rushed away from here in a terrible state.
None of us could stop him. He said he'd rather live with negro
tribes than go on living here in the temple because the savages
would not disappoint him. "The savages do not lie; they don't
pretend to be different from what they really are!" were his last
words before he ran away. You'll never find Ima again.'
I stand stiff and silent with horror. Oh Ima! I have
brought misfortune and despair on you too! The hell within me
suddenly becomes a hundred times more horrible because of this news.
And still I know the young priest is wrong. I will find Ima
again! If not in this life, then in a future one! Everything
passes away; only true love never dies, and this wonderful love that
stands above and beyond all differences of sex, this love of
spiritual unity, will with absolute certainty lead us, Ima and me,
back together again!
I return to the palace knowing only one thing for
sure—that I must die. Even if I were not a priestess, even if
I were not initiated, I would not be able to go on living; but now
that I know I have pulled down my best friend into hell with me, my
mental torture becomes unbearable. All my thoughts and all my
feelings balk at the thought of going on living. I want to destroy
myself, and again and again I make a supreme effort to leave my
body.
But I can't! I can't die! I must go on carrying
within me the fire that's burning me up and destroying my nerves. I
can't flee from myself. When I lie down completely exhausted to seek
relief and rest a bit, I feel as if a mountain were weighing down
upon my breast. I can scarcely breathe. Before my closed eyes I see
blinding fire and flames, red flickering flames like the hair of the
strange man ... like the shabby mane of the lions ...
The lions!—Yes, the lions, I will go to them.
And I'll dress myself as if preparing for a chariot
ride.
The keeper lets me go to the lions, because he knows
that ever since my initiation my father has allowed me to go out
riding with the lions alone.
I go to my lions. They greet me with lowered head
and with wrinkled nostrils. They smell a strange scent about me;
they notice a strange and foreign emanation clinging to me. I go to
Shima and stroke his head. Shu-Ghar lets out a loud growl, slowly
drawing himself up ready to leap. Rage and jealousy blaze in his
eyes, and the instinct of self-preservation awakens within me. I
hurl my will against Shu-Gahr just as I used to guide him with my
willpower during our chariot rides. But with a shiver of horror I
realize I can't hurl my will any more. My will is lame and dead, and
the lion leaps. As I turn to run, in a flash I see three
horror-struck people running toward me: Thiss-Tha, Bo-Ghar and the
keeper. With all my might I run out of the court of lions. I feel
the hot breath of the lion upon my neck; I feel its muzzle touching
me ... and then a blow upon my head—but I keep on running; I see a
door through which I must run into an area where the lion will have
no more power over me; and in the door I see the fine, pale figure
of my mother! 'Mother!' I cry and run on breathless because I
know I'll be safe in her arms. Mother awaits me with her sweet smile
and with open arms. Making an extreme effort, I run to her ... and
fall in her arms. The lion disappears—I am saved ...
Then everything is dark and I know only one thing: I
am in the arms of my mother who helped me over the threshold. I feel
good ... I rest ... I revel in the love of my mother whom I haven't
seen for so long, I revel in the peace of love ...
Suddenly a great indefinable power draws my
consciousness in some direction and I awaken. I'm lying on a
sarcophagus and don't feel my body. My consciousness is hazy; I only
know that I want to get up but can't. Then I see Ptahhotep and his
deputy standing near me, and it is Ptahhotep who softly, gently
holds me back. I must remain prone. I am in my spiritual body which
is still connected by the magic thread to my material body of flesh
and blood and bone. My body lies embalmed in the sarcophagus, and
I'm lying on it, in the same position, in my spiritual body.
Ptahhotep and his deputy are near me; I see them in their spiritual
body ... see the glowing centres of power which their eyes have
built up in their material bodies and with which they look out into
the material world. Ptahhotep's two centres of power now emit a
bluish phosphorescent light upon me, into me, penetrating my entire
being, and sleep overcomes me.
The hall and the two high priests disappear. Again I
rest in my mother's arms. Now I realize I'm not resting in her arms,
but in two streams of power which once had built up her arms as well
as her whole body and radiated out of her body as love; these forces
are carrying me and filling my tortured soul with love, peace and a
feeling of security.
Suddenly an unpleasant sound yanks me out of this
... a sharp report which my spiritual ears first perceive as a blow.
Seeking the cause, I notice it's a snapping sound as a slave driver
cracks his whip at regular intervals. He's doing it to keep slaves
in step as they pull my sarcophagus which slowly slides along on
rails like a sled. I must have just left the palace.
I want to jump up but I can't. I can't move my legs
at all. From my neck to the tips of my feet I am bound tightly. I
lie there as if I were chiselled out of a single block of stone, my
hands crossed over my breast, my legs stretched out straight,
parallel to each other. In this position I can only look upward and
forward. In the direction of my feet I see the shiny, sweaty backs
of men, bent over forward, as they pull me on with rhythmic steps.
Over their backs in the distance, I see a building of white stone,
in its side a dark black spot like an open door. With its glistening
white walls, the building contrasts sharply with the dark blue sky.
As the men pull me onward, it slowly comes nearer, and the dark spot
gets larger. I look up to the sky that is so dark blue it almost
seems black. Two big birds circle silently over me—Storks? Or
cranes?
Now the stone building is very near, and the dark
spot is very big ... yes ... it really is an opening. Oh, now I know
... We're in the City of the Dead! I'm being hauled into a tomb! The
men step into the opening and disappear in the darkness ... Now the
black opening slides over my head ... And after the blinding
sunshine, the world around me is suddenly dark; everything
disappears ; absolute, inky darkness covers me! Unspeakable horror
grips me, and in my heart I suddenly call out to Ptahhotep: 'How
long? ... How long must I lie imprisoned here?' And now I clearly
hear his voice—the voice of Ptahhotep —telling me the inexorable,
immutable sentence: 'Three ... thousand ... years ...'
Monstrous horror, despair and fear seize me, holding
me as in a vice, and out of this fear there suddenly appears again
the monster that is the expression of the law of matter. I see his
deathly, satiric ugly face grinning at me, his trenchant glance
boring deep down into me and tying me to the mummy that once was
I.
Then the monster speaks to me: 'So now you are in my
power! You see, the highest and the lowest are always reflections of
each other. Perfection resting within itself and eternal rigidity
are two sides of the same divinity. You wanted to become
conscious in the perfection resting within itself, and now
you have fallen into rigidity!
'Yes, the mortal remains of the initiates are
embalmed by the priests in the temple so that the divine power
radiated by their bodies can continue to be active, like a battery,
for a long time. Their spirit is free; in their consciousness they
aren't attached to the earth. But you have bound yourself to your
body. By carnal love, you guided the divine power within you into
your lower nerve centres and burned yourself up. In this way, your
consciousness together with your spiritual body are bound to your
material body: you are my prisoner forever! Whereas the spiritual
body of the initiate, through the act of embalming, is attached to
his mummy, his consciousness is in eternity. But you are
exiled in infinity!
'Eternity is the eternal present; infinity is the
eternal future which can never be reached and never becomes
present.
'Eternity never had a beginning and
thus will never have an end. Eternity is timeless present
which has no past nor future. Infinity, however, means a
falling out of eternity into the future, without a present!
'You wanted to take part in the spiritualization of
the earth. Now, spiritualize this little lump of earth that was your
body if you can! Ha, ha, ha!
The priestess is lying here, and her consciousness
isn't more than a piece of stone!
'Now you're undergoing the first test of the
initiation: in the condition of consciousness of matter with a
human consciousness! Just try to get free if you can! You're my
prisoner! You can't get away from me because you have become
I. In your initiation you conquered me because
I had to recognize in the face of your divinely spiritual
consciousness that I would not exist without the self.
Thus I had to admit that I am you. But now it's the
other way round: You in your consciousness have become
matter. You have identified yourself with your body and are
nevertheless spirit like I am, namely, the spirit of matter.
Therefore, you have become I!
'You're my prisoner in infinity ... in darkness ...
imprisoned in this corpse which you were and which because of the
embalming can't decay to allow you to go free. It will be your
punishment to watch how this mummy—that now preserves your beauty
because of the embalming process—will gradually shrink and become
the image and likeness of me. You wanted to be immortal in the
spirit of eternity, and you have become imperishable in
this mummy into all infinity, into infinity, ... infinity ...'
I am powerless. I must listen. I lie there with my
spiritual body indissolubly bound to my mummy. In desperation, I
attempt to escape into unconsciousness, but I cannot! I must
lie there completely conscious, without having the vaguest idea
about time as it flows on past me.
Time! What are you, oh time! You exist only to the
extent that we human beings are unhappy! In happiness there is no
time: our consciousness stands still; the concept of time
disappears. Only when happiness is over do we suddenly realize that
while our consciousness was hovering tunelessly in the eternal
present, time was rushing onward. Time begins with our fall from
happiness, from paradise. But unhappiness too knows no time, for the
more unhappy we feel, the slower time goes by; minutes seem hours,
and in our moments of deepest despair, when sufferings and torture
are unbearable, every moment becomes an infinity; time freezes!
Oh, how right Satan is! The highest and the lowest are as alike
as two twins, just like reality and its reflection, appearance.
Happiness is timeless eternity, and the opposite,
unhappiness, is endless time—infinity.
I lie there and have nothing, absolutely nothing,
with which to compare or measure time! Oh, tree of knowledge of good
and evil! Now I understand your truth that recognition is only
possible when we can compare!
How can I know how much time has passed when I can't
see the sun, this divine timepiece ... when I have no idea what kind
of an experience of time a day represents in this darkness? What is
there to show me time when nothing happens, when only solidified
darkness reigns around me? How can I know anything about time when I
no longer have a heart which once measured the rhythm of life in my
breast and now with its pulse could give me an idea of time? Have I
been lying here for a few minutes and does it already seem an
eternity? Or weeks ... years ... or centuries ... millennia? What is
a minute and what is a millennium? How could I possibly know the
difference?
The feeling of horror and fear refuses to leave me
for a single moment. I no longer have lungs with which to draw a
deep breath, with which to draw fresh power from the eternal source
... with which to measure time by their breathing. I cannot look in
any direction for help for my tortured soul ... The tortures and
sufferings know no end ... no end ... no end ...
MIST AND RE-AWAKENING
Time ran across the face of the great cosmic clock,
along the circumference of the gigantic wheel of creation ... ever
onward even though I had not the faintest idea it was passing ...
It seemed to me I had been lying there for aeons and
aeons, stiff and rigid ... as if the tortures of hell would never
end ... when finally a moment did come in which I felt a force
approaching me ... a force greater and stronger than the bond which
held my consciousness to my mummy, and which, now completely dried
and shrivelled, had become the horrible image of the spirit of
matter. This new force was drawing me irresistibly in some
direction. After all the sufferings and tortures of hell I lost
consciousness.
Two people, related to me in their souls, united and
gave me the opportunity to inherit a body corresponding to the
nature and degree of my far-fallen consciousness.
Because I had fallen as a woman, I had to be born
again and again as a woman until I re-attained the level from which
I had fallen. I came into surroundings where I met only
semi-conscious people ... where my deeds and those of the people
around me were ruled by passions and animal instincts ... where I
found only brutality, crude selfishness and an absence of any kind
of love.
I lived several insignificant lives one after the
other, all in a hazy, semi-animal state of consciousness, and all of
them serving only to awaken my emotional life. Misery and incessant
work woke and polished my dulled and feelingless nerves. Men always
played a great role. Men from whose bodies the same passionate fire
of physical instincts always came forth to burn me. Again and again
I met the fiery eyes and the whispering voice of the spirit woven of
fire whom I had first met in my third trial. And again and again I
was forced to dance with the spirit in the cavern of sensuality and
passions where people turned the sacrament of procreation into a
self-seeking end in itself ... and I had to dance on with this
spirit until I could scarcely stand on my weary feet. I wanted to be
'happy' and I kept on seeking love ... kept on seeking the one and
only man whom I could have loved and who could have loved me, the
image of my complementary half. But I found only whipped-up
sensuality and heartless passions that never could have satisfied
me. I went on and on, seeking happiness again and again in the arms
of men, trying to find the one I loved ... the one with whom
I could experience true love ...
These lives were a series of never-ending
disappointments. Fate whipped and drove me onward, and my soul
suffered so many blows that the fires of my tortures burned through
the layer of indifference about my nerves and gradually awakened my
comatose consciousness. The incessant excitement enabled me to
develop my nervous system step by step and bring it upward by at
least one degree in each of these lives. Thus through my sufferings,
eternal love enabled me to purify and refine my nerves and
increase their resistance again.
In each of these lives, however, there was within me
an incessant striving to find again those people whom I consciously
sought with every drop of my blood even though I could no longer
remember them ... people like myself! People with whom I would feel
'at home' ... people to whom I really belonged with every fibre of
my being: Ptahhotep, Atothis, Ima and Bo-Ghar ... but I didn't find
them! Now and again I believed I was meeting one or the other of
them. Love and memory flamed up within me, but then mists covered
the clear picture, and I lost them again. Sometimes I heard a
servant of God speak about a great teacher, a 'Son of God',
and I had a vague recollection of having once somewhere, somehow in
the dim past been close to this high being ... having heard his
teachings in living words, and within my poor benighted soul there
arose a force tending to draw me away to where such high beings are
'at home'. But these moments never lasted long; for fate always gave
me another shove forward, brutal blows drove back the dawning
memories, and I forgot everything again.
The physical and spiritual privations I was forced
to endure purified my limited senses until my nerves were again able
to support the highest vibrations of unselfish love. Then,
gradually, a heavenly ray of divine love began to shine through the
brute passions of physical instinct. And in my next life this
wonderful love banished forever the mists which had been clouding my
spiritual sight.
Then when I was born as the neglected servant child,
I was already carrying unselfish, divine love in my heart. But now
my higher brain and nerve centres had to be awakened in order for me
to be able to learn to express and use spiritual abilities. Again I
met the man with the fiery eyes and the well-known voice ... the man
who had once been the red-haired foreigner. On his own pathway
through numerous lives he had gone on developing himself. I loved
him, I had to love him in order to gather the last experiences of
love between man and woman. In my love for him, however, I conducted
only physical forces into the body and this did not represent a
fall. Finally our common fate brought us together again as beggars,
and the tremendous shock of remembering prodded my still dull spirit
into further activity. My spiritual eyes opened. But the shock was
so great that my body collapsed and I died the same instant.
In accordance with the law of heredity I was drawn,
a few centuries later, to two pure people filled with love whose
lives had been involved with mine for ages and ages.
And once again I opened my two human eyes in this
life on earth and looked at the world around me with all my previous
experience ...
The same frequencies of vibration build up the same
outward forms. And as I have, with my present spiritual
constellation in this life, again reached the level of the erstwhile
Pharaoh's daughter, I also resemble her outwardly. But as I have
become stronger in spirit and will-power, I have larger, stronger
bones than I had in that previous life in Egypt. On the other hand,
the shape, colour and appearance—the expression—of my eyes have
remained the same.
When I survey my whole present life back to the time
of my birth, everything is clear to me! During that previous life of
mine in Egypt I was conscious of my self, and now in my
re-awakened state in which I am again conscious of my self
memories come alive for me from that last significant life in which
my consciousness was on the same level.
My last experience from that life—the experience of
being imprisoned in a coffin—was my very last impression. The horror
I felt then impressed itself so deeply on my soul that it was the
first thing I remembered again in this life.
But even much earlier, during my childhood,
unconscious or semiconscious memories came back to me.
The terrible disappointment I experienced when I
began to realize that my 'father' was not the greatest man in the
country ... my conviction that my dearly beloved parents were not my
true parents—such were my first, semiconscious memories of my
earlier life.
The blobs of fat on my soup and my incessant search
for unity in my circle of friends—that was my longing for bliss in
the unity of the self—as I had come to experience it in the
temple.
The strange body postures I practised as a little
girl at home without ever having had the opportunity to see such
exercises, the postures our friend returning from the Far East
called 'Hatha Yoga exercises', these were memories of the exercises
I had practised in the temple with Mentuptah. This system of
exercises was part of the secret knowledge saved by 'Sons of God'
when they fled to India where it has been guarded and preserved by
great masters until our own times.
The horrible dream I had again and again for many
years, in which a lion was chasing me so close I could feel its hot
breath on my neck ... the dream that filled my childhood with fear
and terror was my first memory of my last impressions of that life
in Egypt ... the impressions of the death I died then.
And the 'giants', the 'titans', and the 'demigods',
who with their tremendous abilities stand far above the sons of men
and about whom father—my dear father of this present life—knows
nothing because he doesn't remember: Ptahhotep, Atothis ... Sons of
God ... where are you? ... Where are you?
And I cry out silently in my soul, the way I once
learned to do in the temple before my dearly beloved and highly
honoured master, the high priest Ptahhotep ... and turn my attention
inward to listen for an answer ...
At first I suddenly find myself in dark emptiness.
But I am fully conscious in this darkness and know that the
searchlight of consciousness is the greatest light, and the only
light capable of penetrating any darkness. And I set the light of my
consciousness to work at its task with even greater concentration!
Where are you, you beings to whom I belong,
beings whom I resemble ... beings permeated through and through with
universal love, beings who understand me. You who have never left
me, who have never abandoned me, even in the time of my deepest
fall, where are you? Where are you?
Then in the darkness I begin to see a greenish
phosphorescent light. It becomes clearer and clearer as it appears
to come ever closer, and soon I see this light taking on the
magnificent shape of my dear master Ptahhotep. I realize that
my self is now projecting itself into the little room of our
forest house, in the person in which I experienced, in my vision
during my initiation,. the creative self which stands above
all created forms. In the time of the three-dimensional world only a
moment has passed. And in this moment I have seen all the phenomena
which have been latent in myself as possibilities of
manifestation and which have manifested themselves on the
material plane, from the lowest, unconscious step of matter up to
the highest step of the self manifested in matter.
Ptahhotep still stands before me, looking at me with
eyes full of heavenly love. This look ... the irresistible flow of
power which is this look melts away the last remaining mists
before my eyes and enables me to experience again as eternity,
as timeless present, everything that exists in my present
consciousness as past ...
I look long and deeply into the eyes of my master,
into those two wellsprings of life, and with a feeling of infinite
joy I discover I understand his unspoken words. I have
re-acquired the ability of the spirit! We understand each other
again just as we once did in Egypt!
I feel like jumping up and throwing myself at his
breast, but He raises his right hand and holds me back. His
eyes tell me: 'Don't touch me! You know I'm not in the earthly plane
and you can see me only because you have adjusted your consciousness
to the spiritual vibrations in which I live and move and have my
being. If you wanted to touch me, you would force your consciousness
down to the level of your tactile nerves, down to the level of
matter, and my image would immediately disappear from your view. But
from now on you will be able to direct your consciousness to the
higher frequencies and find me just as you were able to do during
that former projection of your self which you call your
incarnation, or your life in Egypt.'
I stand still and very much in control of myself
because I don't want under any circumstances to lose this present
state in which I can perceive Ptahhotep with my spiritual eye. But
my soul is so full of joy I doubt whether my heart and nerves can
stand the strain. Once again Ptahhotep raises his right hand and
lets the flow of power stream into my heart. Instantly my heart
begins to beat normally again, and I am able to speak with him
without words.
'Father of my Soul, now I understand that my present
life is the resultant of all my deeds in previous lives. I
understand the relationships between people and events. But there
are still a few unanswered questions. I know, for example, that my
one and only child is Ima. And I also understand what it was he
wanted to forgive me for when he was sick, feverish and delirious as
a little boy. But how does he come to believe that he was once a
negro?'
Through Ptahhotep's gaze the answer appears as a
series of pictures. In Ima's soul a great tragedy occurred. The
moment he noticed what had occurred between the red-haired foreigner
and myself, he was terribly disappointed. Whipped onward by a
burning restlessness, he ran away from the temple, into the wilds of
Africa to the negro tribes. Suddenly I see a picture: Ima as I had
known him in Egypt, but now in a tropical region, surrounded by many
negroes. He radiates divine love among these primitive children of
men, and they feel and instinctively understand his love, just as
animals do. Ima teaches them, heals their sick, helps them in every
respect while the natives repay his love and care with childlike
worship. In his utter desperation he finally takes a negro woman to
wife and allows himself to be carried away by physical love. Little
by little his consciousness sinks deeper and deeper into the body,
and the daily struggle for existence in the jungle draws him farther
and farther into life on the human level. He dies with a
consciousness directed towards human problems and human worries, and
inasmuch as he had occupied himself with the dearly beloved members
of his negro tribe, identifying himself with them in his thoughts,
he was reincarnated in his next life as a negro in accordance with
the law of attraction. Into this next life he brought along the same
chaotic low consciousness into which he had sunk as a result of his
desperation and the extent to which he had been living on the level
of animal urges. Nevertheless, his intelligence radiated through his
physical body, and he became a well-liked and highly respected
member of his tribe. He also had a wife and children. In his
incarnation as a member of this negro tribe I can recognize him only
by the look of his eyes. I see him as he goes hunting in the jungle,
climbs trees to watch and wait for passing animals, then kills them
and takes them home. One day when he is hunting again in the jungle,
he is attacked by a tiger, struggles heroically, but finally is
killed. I see his wife, alarmed by his screams and the noise of the
terrible struggle, plunging into the jungle to help her husband ...
then the vision pales, and I perceive only Ima's condition after his
death. His incessant longing for me leads him unconsciously—in his
disembodied state—nearer and nearer to me. Both of us, Ima and I,
have come a long way since we were together in Egypt, but so far we
haven't been mature enough to be ready to find each other again.
Now we finally reach the level on which we can find
each other again without the danger of physical love. The will to
preserve the purity of our love at all cost and in the face of any
temptation, together with the law of physical heredity, caused Ima
to be born as my child. In this life he must also reacquire the
clear spiritual vision he once had. And since I was immediately to
blame for his having lost his faith, I have to be the one to lead
him back on the path to God. But it's not yet time for this.
He is still a child.
'Father of my Soul,' I ask Ptahhotep again, 'where
is Atothis, your brother and my father in Egypt? I long to
communicate with him again, and I'm also certain he has never
abandoned me.'
Instantly before my spiritual eyes there appears the
image of a splendid man, one who has been, in recent times, the
greatest teacher and expounder of the highest, profoundest truths.
I've read books published by his disciples on the basis of his
lectures. In reading these books I was deeply moved because every
sentence I read made me feel absolutely positive that I knew the man
who had made the statement, that I was in profound communication
with him, that I knew all his thoughts and that I belonged to him! I
knew I would never have a chance to meet him as he had died in a
far-off country when I was still a little girl.
Often I gazed long and intently at the picture of
this marvellous person who had possessed superhuman powers in every
respect. I felt positive that somewhere, somehow I had seen his eyes
before ... somewhere, somehow I had felt their heavenly gaze resting
upon me. I didn't know why I often ran to him in my dreams, ran so
fast my hair and my dress trailed out behind me in the wind, and why
I threw myself into his arms, on to his big broad chest, crying,
'Father!—Father!' for the sheer joy of seeing him again. Neither did
I know, when I had wakened why I had called him 'Father' in
my dream, nor why I had cried so much my pillow was wet ...
Ptahhotep smiles: 'Now do you remember?'
'Yes, Father of my Soul, now I remember. He once
told me when we were at the seashore in Egypt: "There'll be a time
when I'll be on earth while you are not living in a body, and there
will also be a time when you'll be living in a body on earth while I
am working only on the spiritual plane to do my share in the great
task of spiritualization ... "
'Where is he now, Father of my Soul? Where is he
now?'
And I understand Ptahhotep's spiritual answer: 'When
he was still on earth, he promised he wouldn't abandon his disciples
after his death. He promised he would go on with the great work of
initiating humanity in the ancient truths. You and Bo-Ghar are both
his—our—co-workers, even without your being conscious of it. Later
you will be conscious co-workers.'
'Bo-Ghar? Is he living on earth again? Where is he?
Do I already know him in this life? Have I perhaps met him without
recognizing him?'
'Wait,' answers Ptahhotep, 'he is living in a
far-off country where Atothis too was reincarnated. Remember he
promised to come to you from the other end of the world and save you
if you got into danger. He will come to you just at the right time.'
'Danger, Father?' I ask, 'what kind of danger?'
'Do you remember what I told you in Egypt just
before your initiation: If you fall, you have to experience all your
initiation dreams in reality on earth, for dreams are nothing other
than realities in the non-material, vision-forming energy world of
mankind. And what you call "reality" is also only a "dream" ... only
a projection of the self which has been dreamed into the material
plane, Into the atmosphere of the earth. And all the tests you
failed to pass once, or even several times, come again and again in
your life so that you can again become an initiate, a useful
co-worker in the great plan. An old friend will help you through the
mystic door. The young priest who helped you prepare for your
initiation in Egypt is again living on earth. When the time comes he
will appear, to help you on your path to the goal.'
'And how did Thiss-Tha, Atothis' General, come to be
my dearly beloved father in this present life of mine?'
'It would take too long to tell you all the reasons
that played a role in this end result. But here are the main ones:
You know the greatest power in the human soul is longing.
Wherever a person's consciousness is drawn by his longing—that's
where he is reincarnated. When you were attacked by your lion back
in Egypt, three people who saw the attack wanted to save you:
ThissTha, Bo-Ghar and the lion-keeper. Bo-Ghar ran after you when he
noticed that you had left the palace, and in desperation he ran into
the court of lions to save you.
'At that moment Thiss-Tha was in the act of having
his lion harnessed. When he saw your lion turning on you, he ran
towards you to try to protect you. But the lion reached you first
and felled you with a terrible blow. By the time the three men were
able to free you from the lion's claws, your body was so injured
that resuscitation was impossible. Thiss-Tha picked up your
lacerated body in his arms and carried you into the palace while
Bo-Ghar tagged along crying bitterly.
'Thiss-Tha was an honest, upright man who loved the
Pharaoh and you faithfully and without any ulterior motives. As he
was carrying your dying body in his arms, his heart was wrung with
infinite pity ... he carried you like a poor little child, just as
if you had been his child. He felt for you as a father would feel
love and pity for his own daughter. Then your last experience in
that life was when you saw Thiss-Tha and ran to him seeking his
help. And these feelings you both had for each other were the
deepest reason for your having experienced in a later life the
relationship of father and child. But along with many other
incidental reasons, there is still one important reason why you
became his child; for you to be able to go through the initiation
again in this life you absolutely had to inherit highly developed
nerve and brain centres open and accessible to spiritual revelation.
'If you could follow back the long chain of
successive generations descended from the Thiss-Tha who once lived
in Egypt, you'd see that the chain of live cells passed on from
generation to generation from the man who once was Thiss-Tha—your
present father—has been unbroken right down to the present! In other
words, the bodies of each of Thiss-Tha's children developed from a
living cell from Thiss-Tha's body, and the bodies of their children
each developed from a living cell. And so it went for generation
after generation until your present father's father and mother were
born and once more a living, fertilized cell was available as a
vehicle for the spirit that once was Thiss-Tha in order for him to
be reincarnated in the same hereditary chain.
'There are many deeper relationships between
children and parents—ones that go back to the earliest times—than
the present-day scientists studying these laws have even begun to
dream of. They see only the body. But over and above the physical,
there are laws of heredity reaching up into higher, spiritual
relationships, Like attracts like! Along with all the other
reasons involved, you could really only be born again as Thiss-Tha's
child because your characters are so very similar. There's a very
good reason why everybody notices the great similarity in character
between your father and you. But you don't resemble him because
you're his child; you have become his child because you were
similar to him! Naturally you also resemble him physically in
build, posture, bone structure and features of face. Forces that
are similar build up shapes that are similar!
'If you understand the hereditary change of living
cells, you also understand why your father has the same black hair
and eyes he had in that life long ago in Egypt. Colours and shapes
are also manifestations of the spirit! It was a distant descendant
of Thiss-Tha, a seaman who travelled to countries far away from
Egypt, who brought to this country the ability to hand down
physically these colours and shapes. Even after centuries have
passed, a long forgotten, long lost colour or shape can come out
again in the hereditary chain. That's why parents, even though both
of them may be light complexioned, can unexpectedly have a
dark-haired, dark-skinned child.
'The spirits themselves who are born into these
strangely incongruous bodies could tell how they come by such an
inheritance if they were conscious. In most cases, however, they
only come to understand their origin and their task in life at a
much later time. And it's good that this is so, for if a child
nowadays remembers its earlier life and talks about this to others,
people immediately consider it mentally deranged, or at best a
dreamer or liar.
'But you've had enough today, my child, now return
to your physical consciousness. After the great shock of
remembering, your nerves need complete rest in order not to become
ill.'
Little by little the vision of Ptahhotep pales. For
a few moments I still see the divine glance of his radiant eyes.
Then He disappears from my view, and once again all is
darkness around me. I turn the light of my consciousness on to the
question: Where am I?
As if in answer to my question, white walls appear
out of the darkness, then the contours of various objects. The
colours and shapes become stronger and clearer, until everything is
changed back and I realize I am in the little room of our forest
lodge.
Yes! I am in the little room of our forest lodge!
That is reality. But when I was initiated in Egypt and my body lay
in the stone coffin, when my consciousness experienced as dreams all
the lives which were slumbering in a latent state in my self,
those dreams were just as much realities for me as the present fact
that I am in our little forest lodge is a complete 'reality' for me.
Who can tell me what is truth: Have I just been dreaming here,
here in the forest lodge, that I once lived thousands of years ago
in Egypt and was initiated there, or am I perhaps dreaming now,
during my initiation in the pyramid, that I am in our little forest
lodge, and is my whole life that I consider reality nothing but a
chain of dream pictures in my consciousness giving me the
opportunity to succeed in the face of one challenge after another?
My son now—and Ima in Egypt? Which of them is reality? In the
dreams I had during initiation I saw such chaotic,
horrible pictures that I can't really remember right. Nevertheless,
all these impossible things in my initiation dreams were complete
reality. I still see pictures from these dreams now. I saw Ima as a
grown-up in an air force uniform—then other pictures of us sitting
together with a lot of other people for seemingly endless lengths of
time in air-raid shelters, and I remember seeing foreign soldiers as
if we had been invaded ... then our house all in ruins ... then
other chaotic, quite senseless, impossible dreams. How horrible!
Probably I dreamed all these things because the newspapers are
always writing about the possibility of a second world war.
And so I try to put my thoughts in order ...
For a long tune I sit motionless in my room until my
housekeeper, a dear girl, comes in and asks:
'What shall I fix you for supper?'
'Nothing, thanks, Betty. I want to go straight to
bed. I'm a little bit tired today,' I reply.
'Yes! That comes from thinking so much. You really
should stop all this reading and thinking. I do hope you won't be
sick, you look so pale.'
She pulls back the covers on my bed, says good night
and leaves.
And as I prepare for a good night's rest, I realize
my master Ptahhotep was right when he told me in my vision
that my nerves need complete rest. They really do.
42
ROO-KHA AND THE TWELVE PILLS
All that happened next came so fast that it seems
like a dream in my memory. I began to pass on to the people around
me the truth that I had learned from Ptahhotep in the temple. More
and more people came to my lectures, like thirsty wanderers in the
wilderness, seeking to draw living waters and to quench their thirst
with the deep secrets of initiation into the divine self.
From that time on my work has been the same: I stand at the
beginning of an infinitely long pathway, while at the other end
there stands the radiant form woven of light—the creative cosmic
self—awaiting each and every traveller with open arms. I stand
there and point the way to the countless sheep who seek the light
and wander on side by side, slowly forward ... ever onward
towards the form of light ... just the way I had seen it all in my
vision in the Dolomites. Outside in the three-dimensional world my
Karma— which had created my character and my fate— ran onward
according to the laws of time and space. I was alone with my task,
without a guide from whom I might have received advice, just like
everyone has to be alone who wants to develop into an independent,
resourceful, reliable co-worker in the great plan. Only at rare
intervals, when I had reached a great turning point in my life, did
I again receive help and directions from the higher powers which
guide the course of the earth. Even then I still had to solve all my
problems. As the years went by, however, things happened now and
again to remind me of my experiences in Egypt.
Once when I was in a far country for the first time
to take part in a big international conference I met someone I had
known in Egypt. After my arrival I entered a room in which a number
of the convention participants had already gathered. I was really
thinking of anything else but memories from my life in Egypt, but in
this room I saw a man whom I recognized instantly, and for sheer
surprise my heart began to beat faster. It was Roo-Kha! The man
stood up, and although I refrained from expressing surprise by even
so much as a twitch of a muscle, he showed his surprise as he looked
at me. Then he bowed and introduced himself: 'Ewalt Klimke.' We
shook hands. We stood there for a moment in silence, then he said
with much embarrassment: 'Strange! Who are you really? I have the
oddest feeling ... just as if I should bow before you with
outstretched arms, right down to the floor! Very strange!' He looked
at me enquiringly: 'Why do I have this odd feeling?'
I answered: 'You were finance minister in the
government of my father in Egypt,' and smiled. Those around us
laughed heartily. They thought I was joking. But Mr. Ewalt Klimke
didn't laugh. He kept on looking at me in a quizzical, embarrassed
way, and all throughout the convention which lasted for several days
he always called me 'Queen'. Again and again as he looked at me so
searchingly, he would mutter, 'Strange ... very strange!' And in all
our meetings during the convention we talked together like two old
friends.
Another event of about the same period in my life
stands out very sharply in my memory: one autumn evening I went to
bed as usual. I was dreaming something quite inconsequential when
all of a sudden I seemed to be surrounded by bright light. Then in
my dream an automobile came speeding up and stopped right in front
of me. Two men, dressed in white and looking like doctors, got out.
One of them stepped up to me, pulled a spoon-like instrument out of
his pocket and used it to scoop my defective eye out of its socket.
The other man pulled out a little phial, opened it and took out a
big, round white disc that looked like a pill. Holding the pill up
close for me to see, he said: 'Don't be afraid. I'm now going to
insert this disc in your eye socket. Twelve of these must be
consumed and then you'll get your eye back. So don't be frightened
at the idea that you will now apparently be blind in this eye.' Then
he inserted the pill in my empty eye socket, closed my eyelid and
bandaged my right eye with a white cloth.
I awoke early in the morning and wanted to get up.
Then I noticed that I couldn't see a thing with my defective right
eye. It was just as if a board had been placed in front of it. I ran
to a mirror to look at my eye. With my other eye which was still
good, I could see that the pupil of my right eye had turned grey in
colour and was completely opaque. I knew it was a cataract. For
several years one had been developing slowly in my right eye, but
its progress was slow and unnoticeable, and even yesterday I could
still see pretty clearly. It was completely invisible from the
outside. And yet, now in the space of only one night, the lens in my
right eye had crystallized into a cataract!
'Don't be afraid ...' My dream visitor's voice
echoed in my memory. No, I won't be afraid! I'll just have to begin
again a series of pilgrimages from one professor to another, and
sooner or later one of them will operate on my eye. Long ago I
learned that it doesn't do any good to be afraid, but what is the
meaning of these white pills? ... And what is meant by the idea that
twelve of them are going to have to be used up in order for me to
get my sight back again. How can that be?
I went to various famous professors. In their
unanimous opinion, my right eye was operable immediately, but they
all said there was a danger I would always have to wear dark glasses
afterwards. This was because they were going to have to cut out a
bit of the iris which would give the pupil the shape of a keyhole,
and because I was already thirty-five years old they thought my eye
would not be able to stand the exposure to more light through the
enlarged pupil. So they advised me to wait with the operation, and I
followed their advice. I kept on working but I couldn't get used to
working with one blind eye. The cataract bothered me greatly.
Summer came, and as usual we went to spend our
holidays at our family villa on the lake. There I met a Catholic
bishop who told me I should certainly go to Vienna and have my eye
examined by a world-famous professor whom he personally knew. 'He
uses different techniques from other doctors,' said the bishop. 'Go
to him and ask him for his advice. I am a servant of God, and
perhaps God is giving you this advice through my mouth.' By this
time I had heard so much advice about my eye that I was nearly
immune. But the bishop's words 'Perhaps God is giving you this
advice through my mouth' made a deep impression on me.
When autumn came, my father accompanied me to the
professor in Vienna. He recommended an immediate operation: 'You
should get this ugly, bothersome cataract out of your eye as fast as
possible. Without any doubt, it's psychologically bad for you not
to.'
'Won't my eye suffer greatly from the fact that
you're going to have to cut out a bit of the iris?' I asked.
He looked at me long and searchingly, then tested my
reflexes and began to talk about my sculpturing work, asking all
kinds of things that had no connection with my eye. Then he suddenly
said: 'I won't cut out any of the iris. You can be assured your eye
won't be sensitive to light.'
'In that case, let's get the operation over as fast
as possible,' I answered.
A week later I was in the sanatorium, preparing for
the operation which was to take place the following day.
It was a glorious autumn evening, and before going
to bed, I stepped over to the window to look out over the beautiful
city below. As I drew the curtain to one side to look out of the
window, I saw the great round white disc of the full moon climbing
slowly into the sky to the east. Instantly I recognized the great
white pill the doctor had given me in my dream. It was a full
moon! The doctor had told me: 'Twelve will have to be used up
...' With my heart pounding in excitement, I started counting the
time that had elapsed since that odd dream. Sure enough—twelve full
moons had gone since that time! I knew the operation would give me
back the sight of my eye!
The next morning I lay on the operating table, and
in an amazingly short time the operation was over. A light flashed
in my blinded eye, and a moment later I saw a hand in front of it.
'What do you see?' I heard the professor ask.
'Your blessed hand, professor,' I answered, and a
moment later both of my eyes were bandaged. As I was being wheeled
out of the operating room, I heard doors opening and closing and the
soft voice of my father: 'How was it, Esther?'
'Good, Father,' I answered, 'I can see again ...'
The eye operation brought me many very interesting
experiences, the most revealing of which was learning something more
about those vibrations we call 'light': namely, that these
vibrations are only 'light' for our eyes, and healthy eyes at that.
In other respects light is a tremendous force, big enough to kill a
person, or even stronger beings. It all depends on the
relationship between the skin sensitivity of a living creature and
the intensity of the light. This is what happened: A few hours
after the operation the professor came in and said:
'Don't be alarmed when I take off the bandage from
your eye. I have to see how it reacts to the light of a burning
candle.'
I thought, 'Why should I be alarmed?' The doctor
took off the bandage and said, 'Now please open your eye.'
I was expecting to see a burning candle when I
opened my eye. Instead, I saw only darkness, but I felt a terrible
blow on my newly operated eye. Jerking my head back, I closed my eye
again. I couldn't understand what had happened. My doctor laughed
reassuringly: 'Didn't I tell you not to be alarmed? The retina of
your eye is so sensitive right now that it doesn't pick up light
rays as light, but reacts as if it were being hit a sharp blow. Just
go on resting. I'll come back in a few hours to examine your eye
again. So far everything's going just fine,' he said and left.
I remained alone in my darkness, with plenty of time
to think, What is light? How is it the same light I perceive with my
healthy eye as the flickering flame of a candle can cause me as much
pain as if I were being hit by a fist? I didn't see any 'light' at
all, but I did feel the wallop so strong it knocked my head back.
From this I was forced to conclude that if there were beings whose
skin had the same sensitivity to light as the retina of my freshly
operated eye, they could be struck from a great distance, perhaps
even killed, by turning the light of a searchlight on them.
Conversely, it is certainly conceivable that there
could be some kind of light— for simplicity's sake we can call it
'ultra light'—that is so much stronger in its effect than the
'light' we are accustomed to seeing with our human eyes, that,
depending on the sensitivity of our skin, it could strike us down in
the same way ordinary light would affect a being with a skin as
sensitive as the retina of my freshly operated eye.
I realized that everything is relative, a question
of the relationship existing between an operating force and the
resistance it meets. This fitted in with the realization that there
can be infinitely varied kinds of life existing on the different
planets and heavenly bodies throughout the universe. A creature
similar to man living on Uranus or Neptune, because of the much
greater distance between those planets and the sun as compared to
the distance between the earth and the sun, might conceivably have a
skin as infinitely sensitive to light as my freshly operated eye;
and if such a being on one of these distant planets were to 'see' in
sunlight in the same way we see here on earth, his eyes would
certainly have to be immeasurably more sensitive to light than ours
are. But do we need to go so far away? The myriad creatures living
in the depths of the ocean have such eyes—and capabilities we cannot
even begin to understand—because we simply couldn't begin to exist
in such dense darkness.
In this vein I went on meditating on the unlimited
possibilities of worlds without end and of the different forms of
life they can contain. And the more I thought on these things, the
more my heart filled with deep humility in the face of the power of
the eternal being we call God ...
This eye operation brought me another very
interesting and valuable experience. Through it I learned that
the eyes take in light not only for themselves but for the entire
body, just as the lungs do with air and oxygen. Light is force!
On the third day after my operation, the professor
came in with the nurse, and said, 'Now it's time for you to get up
and come over and sit in this armchair. Just put on your slippers,
and the nurse and I will help you.'
I was offended: 'Doctor,' I said, 'I'm not sick! And
lying in bed for three days certainly hasn't made me so weak I can't
sit up and move about myself. You don't need to help me'
'Good,' the doctor said, 'Go ahead and get up by
yourself—if you can.' I started to get out of bed. But I was in for
a big surprise! My feet and legs were so weak, so powerless, that I
would have sunk to the floor if strong hands had not seized me from
both sides and held me up. My legs hung down like two limp rags and
my back was just as limp and powerless. So, quite the opposite of
what I expected, I was really glad for help in getting out of bed
and over into the armchair. How was this?
Then I heard the professor laugh: 'You see you
couldn't get up alone? It's just because you were in complete
darkness for three days. When a person is suddenly shut off from
light, he loses strength so fast he soon can't stand up alone any
more. You'll shortly be able to open your eyes again, and when you
do you'll find your strength returning quickly. One of our greatest
problems during the war was how to help blinded soldiers, not so
much because of their mental condition, but because of the complete
debility which always and unavoidably accompanied their sudden
blindness. The human soul is so wonderfully fashioned that a person
always finds ways and means to survive even such a tremendous
catastrophe as sudden blindness, and he can even go on and discover
new joys in life or new aspects of old pleasures. But our greatest
problems arose from the fact that these poor young men weren't even
able to stand on their own feet for a long time. It was not possible
for us to give them back the blessing of light. But thank God for
the elasticity and resiliency of the body; in time a blind person's
skin takes over the whole job of providing light throughout his
body. The problem of blindness is always most acute right after it
hits its victim, simply because of the weakness caused by the sudden
absence of light.'
I was silent. Ever since my eye had become diseased
I had begun to understand the significance of blindness much, much
better than one ever could when he has two healthy eyes. Now,
through my own experience, I came to understand the Biblical
passage:
'The light of the body is the eye; if then your eye
is true, all your body will be full of light. But if your eye is
evil, all your body will be dark. If then the light which is in you
is dark, how dark it will be!' (Matthew 6:22,23).
And my heart bled the more at the thought that
mankind isn't even satisfied with the blindness which occurs in
nature. Quite the contrary, he goes out himself to wage wars in
which countless otherwise healthy people are blinded,
maimed and crippled! When will humanity be mature
enough to refuse to obey the tyranny of politicians who
unconscionably sign declarations of war?
Two weeks later the professor took me into a dark
room to examine both my eyes. With a very strong lens before the eye
he had operated on I was able to read everything he put before me,
even to the tiniest letters. Then to my amazement, this dignified
old professor jumped up, seized me with both hands and hoisted me
high above his head. He was such a charming old fellow that I really
couldn't understand what had got into him and why he was acting so
strangely. As he gently set me back on the floor, his face was
beaming as he said: 'The technique I used on operating on your eye
has so far only be used for children and young people up to the age
of twenty. Beyond that age there's a danger of inflammation of the
iris, leading to total loss of vision in the eye. As you may
remember, in our first consultation, I observed you closely, noting
your extraordinary vitality and resilience. Your reflexes, too, were
quite good, and as I always do, I followed my intuition. With the
courage of my convictions, I operated on you as if you were still a
child. So now you know why I'm so happy. The operation was a
complete success. Your tissues were still young enough to come
through this difficult operation in splendid form. So now you can go
home with two healthy eyes—and with my heartiest congratulations!'
I thanked him for his kindness, and we took leave of
each other. As I travelled homeward, I reflected on the twelve
'pills' which had to be consumed before light would return to my
blinded eye. And now it had.
43
THE YOUNG PRIEST APPEARS
Several years went by in which my husband and I
lived pleasantly and happily, our love for each other unchanged. I
continued my work as a sculptress, with lots of assignments, and in
my free time more and more people came to me for psychological
consultations. Several times a week I gave lectures on
self-recognition and understanding, based on the secret knowledge
Ptahhotep had given me in Egypt. And whenever I felt like resting
from my exertions, there was always my beloved piano.
Every day I practised spiritual yoga and even
attained the ability to go into deep trances, but the last, highest
door on my pathway remained closed and locked before me. Having
attained a certain degree of spiritual development, I found the
pathway towards the complete realization of my self was
blocked by an obstacle like a wall I couldn't break through with my
consciousness. Every year I spent several months living alone in our
forest lodge and practising yoga. The young fruit trees I had
planted years before were now big, strong, well developed trees—and
still I practised with unabated diligence; yet the guardians of the
secret gateway refused me admission ...
It was autumn once again, and I left our little
house in the forest to spend a day in the city celebrating my
father's seventieth birthday with the whole family, our relatives
and our many friends.
The following morning as I was preparing to start
the trip back to the forest lodge, our telephone rang. An elderly
friend asked me what I was doing that afternoon. I told her I was
free.
'The famous writer with whom I studied in India
under Maharishi has arrived and is staying at my house. If you're
interested, come around this afternoon and you can talk with him,'
my friend said.
That afternoon I rang my friend's front doorbell.
Stepping into the parlour, I caught my first glimpse of the man who
had attained world renown through his books about yoga and the great
yogis in India. At my first glimpse, I was taken aback. There, in
front of me, sat—the young priest who had helped me with my last
preparations for my initiation in my long-ago life in Egypt!
We exchanged a few comments in which I mentioned
that I had read his books and that I had been practising yoga for a
long time but still was unable to reach the highest goal. Other
guests dropped in and we were all soon involved in a general
conversation which lasted far into the evening. There was no further
opportunity to talk with him alone. In leaving I thought, 'So
nothing happened ...' Secretly I had hoped the famous 'white yogi'
would help me ahead on my mystic pathway.
The next morning my friend rang me up again to tell
me the writer wanted to speak to me alone. 'If you have time, come
around again this afternoon,' she invited me.
Entering her parlour I found the famous writer
sitting in the lotus posture on the sofa. As I too sat down he asked
me, 'What do you wish of me?'
'I have no wishes,' I replied. 'I'm living quite
contentedly in absolute inner peace.'
'Then why have you come to me? What do you expect of
me?'
'I want reality,' I said.
After a moment's silence the writer looked at me and
asked, 'And your absolute inner peace—isn't that reality?'
'Yes, indeed, it is reality, but I'm looking for
more. I feel like Moses who saw the promised land but never got
there. I believe I can see it too, but I'd like to get in. I'm not
satisfied just seeing it from the outside and seeing what's inside;
I want to get in myself.'
He smiled. 'Yes,' he said, 'you're standing hi front
of the great door with your hand already on the door knob. It's
extremely rare that anyone can progress up to the point you've
reached all alone and without the help of a master. You have
probably been initiated in some previous life, and now you only need
to make the last step through the gate that separates you from the
great goal.'
I looked at the yogi. Doesn't he remember he was a
priest in ancient Egypt and knew me there?—I thought. Or is it just
that he would prefer not to talk about it? From his impenetrable
gaze I couldn't tell.
'I know that already,' I answered, 'and I want to
get through the door even if I have to break it down with my fist.'
'And do you believe I can help you?' he asked.
'If I am ready for it, yes, you can certainly help
me.'
'And if you're ready for it, you believe I can help
you?' he asked again.
'Yes,' I answered firmly.
Then, as if waiting for this reply, he pointed to
the chair opposite from where he was sitting and said, 'Sit down
over there, close your eyes and think yourself intently into your
heart.'
I did as he said, closed my eyes and concentrated
intently on my heart. Then with my eyes closed, I saw a strong
yellow current of bright light flowing out of the yogi's solar
plexus encompassing me like a circle, then encircling him again like
a big figure eight.
Simultaneously I felt I was coming in my
concentration to the point I had so often been able to attain in the
past without being able to go forward. And now I felt a great power,
foreign to myself, reaching into my consciousness and carrying me
forward, as if through a door, into an infinite depth beyond ...
Every concept of time disappeared, and I hadn't the
faintest idea how much time had passed when I heard the voice of the
white yogi again: 'Now you may open your eyes.'
In doing so, I realized how far away I had been from
earthly physical consciousness. I didn't feel like talking because
it seemed superfluous to say anything at all.
'I have set up a contact between your personal self
and the overself,' the writer said, 'because you're ready for it.
From now on, whenever you have a question, concentrate on me, and
you'll get your answer the same day.'
'On your person or on the higher self?'
He smiled and said nothing. I understood perfectly.
It was completely useless to waste a single word talking about the
'person'.
From that day on I found myself one of a group of
people meeting at my friend's house and meditating under the
leadership of the yogi.
A few weeks later he left us to continue his
travels. Once again I was alone and found myself living outwardly
just as I had before.
About a half a year later I was sitting with a
number of friends, listening to one of the group talking about black
magic. He said black magicians chose a few disciples whom they use
as blind tools to carry out their will without resistance. These
disciples are possessed by the black magician, lose their
independence completely, and are finally destroyed.
The next morning as I remembered these words, I
began to wonder whether I had been lacking in caution in my meeting
with the famous 'white yogi'. I was still convinced that he was a
'white magician' if we wanted to call him anything, but I had
nevertheless put myself completely in his hands with a blissfully
innocent trust. Was he after all a black magician?—or really a white
one? How can I know? How can anyone know whether he's dealing with a
'white' or with a 'black' magician? This question really bothered me
...
That afternoon we were visiting one of my husband's
old school friends. While we were chatting, he told us how that very
day he had been leafing through the pages of an old book, and how in
doing so he had come across a highly interesting chapter about the
difference between white and black magicians:
'The white magician, when he wants to help one of
his pupils onward, binds the pupil to himself in the form of an
eight. In this way, he leaves his pupil his full independence,
because both teacher and pupil form the mid-points, each of his
own individual circle. On the contrary, the black magician takes
away his pupil's independence by taking him into a circle with
himself in such a way that the black magician is in the centre
of the circle and the pupil just inside the circumference in the
same way a satellite's orbit forms a ring around the sun.'
I listened to this story with the keenest
excitement. Our friend didn't have the vaguest idea he was giving me
an answer I was seeking. I had not mentioned the matter to anyone.
And yet I got my answer the very day my question came up!
The higher self—God—always finds a human
mouth when he has a message for us. For the self there is no
such thing as an obstacle.
44
IMA AND BO-GHAR
Then the great war came.
Both of the men who belonged to me put on uniforms.
My husband was mobilized for service in one of the largest
government industrial plants to come under military control. He had
to carry the heavy responsibilities of a commander.
One day we were sitting together at table. The door
opened and in walked our son—in an air force uniform.
I felt as if the earth had disappeared beneath our
feet and I were falling into an abyss. Within our circle of friends
every one of the fine young men who had gone into the air force had
very soon after been carried into the cemetery. Strangely enough,
the moment he walked in wearing his air force uniform, I had the odd
feeling I had already seen him in such a uniform. But there was no
time to puzzle over when and where I could have seen
him—I was simply horrified at the thought he had gone into the air
force. The countries we were fighting against had much better
aircraft than ours. They had shot down our very best boys—for
only the very best were able to pass the exacting physical and
mental entrance exams—like so many toy balloons. At the very moment
I was working on a big composition for a tombstone for a young flyer
killed in action, one of my son's boyhood chums. And there I was
looking at my very own son in an air force uniform.
'How did you come by this uniform?' I asked him.
'Government issue,' he answered proudly, 'I've
passed the entrance exams for the air force.'
'We thought we'd arranged for you to get into the
engineers corps. How come you're in the air force now? No young man
can get into the air force without his parents' consent.'
'Mother, with the war on, they've done away with the
requirement of parental consent—as you can see for yourself.'
I was speechless. There was nothing I could do. And
there came days when I wandered around in our apartment like a
sleepwalker, talking to God. My power over my child was at an
end. I had to turn him over to God, and I did so consciously.
I was forced to realize that God loves my son more—must love
him more for the simple reason that he is God—than I,
an imperfect human being, have it in my power to love him.
No matter what might happen, I told myself, it was
certainly for the best, even if it might seem like a catastrophe to
me in my human- shortsightedness.
I was forced to act on the strength of my faith
in the reality of God! I couldn't allow my heart to tremble, and
I had to control my nerves with absolute calm, because I was forced
to consider the fate of my one and only child from the standpoint of
the great divine plan, beyond time and space, instead from my
little human standpoint. And considering it this way I was also
forced to act accordingly. Other mothers were praying day and night
for their sons. How could I have done that? God doesn't allow
himself to be persuaded by humans, and according to the law of
character and destiny I knew that whatever happened to my son—no
matter what—was certain to be the very best experience for the
development of his consciousness. Yes, God loves him! Even
more than I do! —this realization gave me the strength to go on
living.
As the war dragged on life became a kind of
uninterrupted waiting for the end of this mass murder. Outwardly
things went on pretty much as they had before. We worked, and we
went to concerts, operas, theatrical performances and to social
gatherings among our friends, but all of this seemed to flow past
us, for at the back of all these external events in our lives, there
was always the same incessant waiting ... waiting for the end of the
war.
A few years went by in this way, and with increasing
clarity I could see with my inward eye the gigantic military
steam-roller closing in on us from the east.
One day a friend rang me up to say she wanted to
introduce me to a very interesting person. He was an Indian, a
genuine yogi, she added. Often before that she had wanted to
introduce me to 'genuine yogis', but I had always found them out
very quickly to be perfectly ordinary and average people. Despite
all these experiences, she continued to act as if she were convinced
that every Indian must somehow be a very highly developed yogi.
Reason enough why I wasn't exactly excited about her new
'discovery'. Refusing to take no for an answer, she insisted on
coming to see me. And she did come, and told me a long story about
having seen a picture of a young Indian yogi in the newspaper,
having looked for him all over town without success, until by a very
remarkable 'coincidence' she had discovered that the Indian she was
seeking in vain all over the city with more than a million
inhabitants, was living in another part of the very same building
she was lodged in herself! It was a huge, modern block of flats; so
it was no wonder the tenants didn't all know each other.
After listening to her patiently for a while, I
tried to cut her long, long story short: 'And now, what do you want
of me?'
'You just must meet him,' she said. 'Let me
bring him here and introduce him to you. He never goes out,
preferring to live a very retiring life. But when I told him about
your weekly lectures on yoga philosophy, he immediately expressed
his willingness to come and see you. Look at some of these
photographs of him.'
With only casual interest I took the photographs she
held out to me, glanced at them—and caught my breath: Bo-Ghar! With
my heart beating excitedly, I looked at all the pictures. Not the
faintest doubt! I recognized the look of these big black eyes. The
unbelievable purity and the childlike expression of the entire
face—it was he! But he wasn't a little boy any more, as I had known
him and carried the remembrance of him deep in my soul. Now he was a
grown-up young man.
'Helen,' I said to my friend, 'tomorrow evening I
have time. You may bring him.'
The next day Helen came with Bo-Ghar. We drank tea
and chatted about all kinds of things, but all the time we did so my
inward eye was seeing pictures of a great palace made with huge
stone blocks, with a room in it—my room— with magnificent furniture
inlaid with gold, a low couch covered with beautiful skins of
animals, and on these skins a human form sitting, with legs, arms,
hands and shoulders I can see—only the head I don't see because I
am this human form, sitting on the animal skins, and at my feet
a child, a sweet vivacious child who now looks at me with the eyes
of this young man from India.
And why does he call me 'queen'?
I ask him.
'Because you are a queen,' he replies with
conviction.
'Yes! You're right!' my husband says. 'She certainly
can give orders, especially to me!' With that he laughs heartily,
and we all join in.
My son enters, sees the Indian guest and stands
stiff and rigid out of sheer surprise. Then he pulls himself
together and I introduce him. Both he and Bo-Ghar look at each other
long and searchingly. I succeed in bridging over the momentary
embarrassment by offering my son a cup of tea. He sits down and
joins us but is quite unable to take his eyes off the young Indian.
That's how Bo-Ghar first came to us. In a very short
time he had captured the hearts of every one in the family. My
parents and my brother and sister took him in as if he were a new
brother among us. He opened his yoga school and since he didn't know
our language, he asked me to give a weekly lecture on yoga for his
pupils. Thus we began our work together.
The war dragged on. In the winter we all went on
with our work as we had before, and in the summer we moved into our
little house in the forest. Bo-Ghar came with us, living in the
forest according to the laws of yoga he had learned from his master.
My son, by this time, had one plane crash behind
him. Miraculously he had survived it with only a concussion of the
brain. In due time he was well again with only a scar on his high
good-looking forehead to remind him of his mishap.
One hot summer day, when the great steam-roller from
the east was already near our borders, my dear, wonderful mother
suddenly fell to the floor. When we tried to help her up again, she
said very clearly, 'Stroke—it's a stroke ...'
Then she lay in bed for a long time, struggling
painfully to bring forth one word after another as she told us she
felt one side of her body was already dead.
'And do you know,' she added, 'it's so interesting
to be half here and half on the other side already. I still see each
of you half from the outside and half as if from within. And I can
also see your future destiny. As soon as I'm better I'll tell you
all about it. Right now it's very difficult to talk.'
She was already living very close to the world of
the spirit. Whenever any one of her friends, at home in some part of
the city, spoke about her, she would say to us, 'Now my friend Mrs X
is here with me, and this is what she's saying ...'
And mother would tell us exactly, word for word,
what her friend was saying in the same moment several miles away, as
could later be proved in minute detail. And it also often happened
that mother was sitting in her flat talking to her nurse and I was
up on the second floor talking about her with my husband. Then she
would say to her nurse, 'My daughter Esther is now here and this is
what she's saying about me ...' And she would repeat word for word
what I was saying about her in another part of the house and well
out of her hearing.
One day her nurse called me to come immediately.
Mother had suffered a second stroke.
I rushed downstairs. Mother lay there, still and
pale as death, unable to say a thing. With her right hand she
pointed at her tongue, giving me to understand she couldn't move it
any more.
She lay there thus for several hours, without being
able to speak. Suddenly the door opened and Bo-Ghar came in. With
her poor, twisted, half paralysed face, mother looked at Bo-Ghar,
her eyes beaming with joy. Bo-Ghar sat down beside her and enclosed
her wrist in his hand. After a couple of minutes mother opened her
mouth and said very slowly, syllable by syllable, but quite clearly:
'From Bo-Ghar's hand a force is flowing into me, and this force has
now reached the part of my head where I feel pressure that prevents
me from speaking. Thanks to this force that's flowing into me from
Bo-Ghar's hand, the pressure has abated and I can talk again.' Then
she went on to tell us a number of important things, all part of her
last wish.
Bo-Ghar went away after a while, and for an hour and
a half mother was still able to talk. Then all at once she said:
'Now the force our dear Bo-Ghar caused to flow into
me is ebbing away. It's getting harder and harder to talk and use my
tongue. The connection between me and my body is dissolving. God
be with us ...' These were her last words.
And two days later her coffin was carried out of the
house. Her place at the head of our family table was empty. From
then on we marked it with a burning candle when we gathered round.
45
THE CHALLENGES ARE REPEATED
It was the last winter before the end of the war.
Our gardener who had taken care of our orchard had
long since been called up for military service. The orchard was
forsaken, and I moved into our little forest house to save whatever
I could. One night I was awakened by a horrible noise. Sirens! In
the city!
I jumped out of bed. From the dining-room I could
see the city in the distance. Dozens and dozens of airplanes roared
over my head in the darkness. The air trembled with the noise of
their engines. Suddenly a hellish drama began to be enacted in the
air over the city as row after row of airplanes dropped their bombs
into the masses of humanity living below. The sky came alight with
the bursting of bombs and the fires they started throughout the
city. The noise became deafening as, added to the roar of the
engines and the bursting of bombs, the city's anti-aircraft cannon
began picking out targets overhead as best they could. Seen from the
distance, their fire looked like tiny red lanterns climbing up into
the sky. From time to time I could see what looked like a huge
burning torch plunging downward, and I knew that somewhere a mother
would be waiting in vain for her son to come home ...
This breathtaking show of fireworks continued for
about an hour and a half. It seemed to me I had been standing at my
window for an eternity of time. Down there in front of me, where
this interplay of lightning and thunder meant death and destruction
for thousands of people, all my dear ones were living. All except my
son who at that very moment could perhaps be flying through the air
as a target for other poor young men flying in much better aircraft,
forced to shoot at him against all their human instincts, just as he
was being forced to shoot at them.
All at once I felt a force from a near-by tree
calling for my attention. Looking towards the tree, I saw two green
eyes staring at me. An owl! It sat there as immovable as a statue.
Never before had I seen an owl in this whole area. How did it come
here? Almost unconsciously I spoke to it in spirit: 'You dear bird,
it's not your fault that superstitious people think of you as a
harbinger of death. Still, do you perhaps want to tell me that all
my dear ones
down there in the city are no longer living on this
earth?'
Immediately the owl danced a bit closer to me on the
branch, suddenly spread his wings and flew off into the forest.
Instantly I knew that a great power which controls
and guides everything was telling me, through the disappearance of
the 'death bird', that all my dear ones were still alive ...
Yes all my dear ones! But all the thousands
of people who were killed that night in the city, and all the others
who have been killed during this terrible war—each such person was
somebody's dear one! Why have these people had to die? Why do people
kill each other senselessly? The hellish drama was repeated night
after night. In the summertime several of us moved into our little
house in the forest. Bo-Ghar came with us. During the nights of
terror we all stood together at the window, watching the bombardment
of the city below. Shortly after the sirens gave the all-clear
signal, my husband would telephone with the reassuring news that he
and the others with him in our city house were all safe and sound
... When autumn came I stayed behind alone in our forest house,
continuing my work in the orchard and garden. Each evening I was
able to observe how much closer to us the enemy artillery—oh, these
poor young men who are forced into being our 'enemies'—had moved up
during the course of the day.
One evening I decided I was going back to the city.
Come what might, I was determined to go through at the side of my
loved ones the difficult hours of siege and bombardment that lay
ahead.
Then my telephone rang. How strange! I suddenly felt
positive I had already experienced this same situation some time
before! I knew in advance that my husband was just now going to call
me, and I knew word for word what we were going to say to each
other. And all the while I felt as if I were dreaming.
And this same strange feeling was to continue
throughout all the difficult days to come, until the days turned
into weeks, the weeks into months and the months into years! Again
and again I found I knew exactly what was going to happen. The next
moment, just as if I had already experienced all these terrible
things. Everything was simply repeated—I knew it!—but I couldn't
understand where and how I could have experienced these situations
before.
After I had returned to the city and the sirens
howling in the night forced me to join all the others in the house
in a pell-mell flight into the cellar, and as we sat there, all of
us calm, passive, earnest and worried about what was going to happen
next—all the while I knew that somehow, somewhere I had experienced
all this before. And so it was to be with me throughout all the
nights, the horrible nights of bombardments and air raids.
I experienced this feeling of re-living past events
even more strongly one day in late autumn when the door opened and
my son came in. Why was I surprised to see him in an air force
uniform? Yes! I still remembered him as Ima, the young priest in
Egypt, and I also knew all the relationships that linked us
together. But in my memory of him in Egypt he wore quite different
clothing. How do I come to feel that even in my life in Egypt I
already saw him in this air force uniform? Why do I have the feeling
that everything I experience is not 'reality', that I'm merely
dreaming all these pictures, and that I'm experiencing these
dreams in my initiation sleep in the great pyramid?
I clearly remember all the relationships of my life
in Egypt, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot remember the events
nor my initiation dreams.
How strange? How can one remember that one
doesn't remember? If I can't remember something, then I cannot
know that it has existed. But I know I experienced my whole future
destiny in visions during my initiation in the pyramid, and that
these visions—or dream pictures—were the occasion for my passing
various tests and meeting certain challenges. It's true my master
Ptahhotep warned me that if I were to fall after my initiation, all
the tests I had to go through during my initiation would be repeated
on the earthly plane! Yes! Continually I have the certain feeling
that these events are repeating themselves!
For a number of years I made a habit of writing down
every morning, as I was waking up, the dreams I had had during the
night. I had not reviewed these records for a whole year. Now I
began to read them. And to my great surprise I found that most of
these dreams I had recorded were dreams I had of events to come,
events which I actually experienced later, sometimes as much as six
months or a year later. In the meantime I had completely forgotten
the dreams themselves, and if I had not been able to see and
recognize my own handwriting, I would not have believed that I
had dreamed these dreams and recorded them. How was it possible that
when these things actually happened I couldn't remember any more
that I dreamt them in advance, and in many cases even in amazingly
accurate detail? I found this discovery to be literally amazing!
What kind of a force is there within us that knows our future in
advance with such precision and tells us about it beforehand? And
what kind of imperfect creatures are we who understand so little
about the language of dreams that we can't remember having dreamed
in advance about a certain event or situation, even when the dream
is repeating itself on the earthly plane in our outward life? Truly
we don't deserve the care and attention this force bestows upon us
as, with infinite patience, it reveals new truth and knowledge to us
...
How could I explain remembering from an earlier life
in Egypt that I had seen my son in an air force uniform and that
when he came in I knew exactly he was going to take leave of me
because his unit was going to be transferred to an airfield less
exposed to enemy bombing than the one near our city? As he spoke and
as I answered I knew within me that I had experienced all this once
before ... again I had the feeling I was only dreaming ...
I didn't dare tell anyone of this experience. I was
afraid that even my son— Ima himself—would believe my mind had
suffered from all the excitement. It seemed much better to keep
silent about the whole matter.
And so we lived through the siege of our city. For
seven weeks we sat in our cellar, enduring incessant bombings. After
the house above us had been bombed and shelled into a heap of
rubble, we were forced to flee. Our destiny tossed us about like a
leaf in the wind, and after many trials and tribulations we began to
rebuild our lives. We were all reduced to the state of beggars. My
husband had been seriously injured, and it was a long time before he
could work again. By dint of days and nights of effort with no more
equipment than primitive man had in the first primaeval jungle,
Bo-Ghar and I fashioned a new home out of the ruins of our family
house, and in it we re-opened our Yoga school ...
Months went by as we worked hard and long. Those
were times when we learned what hunger is. Week by week we gradually
wasted away, shrinking from human beings of flesh and blood to
living skeletons covered with skin. Even good friends would fail to
recognize each other when they met by chance on the street. Fear—a
baleful new fear—spread throughout the population, augmenting the
feelings of fright already present in thousands of tortured souls:
What will we eat tomorrow? How long will we be able to go on working
so hard without even once getting enough to eat? How long can we go
on like this and still maintain our health?
Our country's fertile soil had brought forth plenty
of everything we needed, but we were forced to look on while
countless freight trains snaked their way through the countryside,
carrying off our rich harvest to another country ... Then after long
and difficult months, even the famine began to abate. More and more
frequently we got something nourishing to eat, and gradually we
began to put on weight. Once again, good friends and acquaintances
failed to recognize each other on the street. We had all got
accustomed to seeing each other so thin and emaciated, and every so
often in passing someone on the street, the thought would flash
across our mind that this well-fed person bore a striking
resemblance to some very thin friend. Both of us would have the same
thought, then turn around, recognize each other, and break out in
peals of laughter at the happy reunion ... But months went by before
we became really re-acquainted with all our friends ...
re-accustomed to their normal dimensions.
I still had the feeling that I had already
experienced all of this! It was a feeling that stayed with me
wherever I went and whatever I did. It was not that I could foretell
the future. On the contrary, it was merely the persistent feeling
that everything had already happened just that same way once before.
And not being able to foresee the future, I did not know what had
become of my son. Since the time he suddenly took leave of us he had
not been heard of.
A year and a half later our doorbell rang. I opened
the door, and who should I see before me but my son! And once again
I had that strange feeling known by psychologists as the 'deja
vu'. I knew it was a repetition. All these events were
repetitions! But how could that be? And one night everything became
clear!
Once when I was forced to pass the test of 'cruel
love' towards the person I love most dearly here on earth, my son, I
kneeled in my bed in the dark of the night and talked about him with
God, asking Him to show my son the way he should go. I
followed the pathway which, within us, leads to God,
withdrawing my consciousness from my outer person into my inner
being. Finally I fell into a trance and suddenly found myself in
front of the seven steps I have told about earlier.
And I jump up, from one to the next, easily,
happily, and joyously ... I know the way ... I remember ... Oh God!
... I remember! All these events I've been experiencing as 'reality'
in my life on the material, earthly plane are things I experienced
several thousand years ago in my initiation in the pyramid. At that
time all these events were lying in the depths of my soul as
unconscious, still latent energies, still pure cause. This is
because everything that happens here on earth is the materialization
of a complete, accomplished cause waiting on the spiritual
plane for materialization. When one achieves the ability consciously
to reach the depths of the self where those energies are
awaiting their realization, one experiences cause
simultaneously with the effect—the future—as a complete and
perfect present! And the present, our life, everything that
happens to us is merely an opportunity to meet the tests and trials
and challenges of initiation. An opportunity to relax the tensions
and dissolve away the stresses we have stored up within ourselves,
for aeons and aeons of time, by our thoughts and words and deeds ...
the tensions and stresses that are the cause of our destiny, our
future. To the extent that we are able to become conscious of these
tensions and overcome them, we free our human consciousness which is
tied down by these energies and limited because it is tied down, and
we identify our consciousness with the true divine self waiting
behind every personal feeling of ego ... we identify ourselves with
God ... and that is
INITIATION!
46
CONCLUSION
After the experience of that night I knew the
tensions and stresses had been erased from my soul ... everything
personal would have to be discarded. I had overcome myself! There
was nothing more within me to bind me to my 'person'. Everything
personal had to disappear.
It began with a very strange feeling which followed
me wherever I went— at home or outdoors—that I wasn't really
'there'. Not there? But where? I really didn't know! But I suddenly
became aware of the fact that my self was never where my
person, my body, was located. On the contrary, my self projected
itself out of spacelessness into my person, and now my self
was beginning to project itself somewhere else than where my
physical being was. But where? Into another country!
I knew I was going to go away, that I was going to
have to go away! Whenever the spirit, the cause, ceases to be
present, the appearance, the effect, must follow it wherever it is
projected by the cause. There it can go on living. Otherwise, the
appearance would disappear, that is, die. But how am I supposed to
leave this country? No one can get a passport!
The time for my departure had not yet come. Other
events had to take place first.
One night I awakened quite suddenly. I saw my father
standing before me, taking leave of me with a smile on his dear
sweet face. I understood: It was time for him to go ... I wanted to
jump up and ask him why he wanted to go away and where he was going,
but he disappeared, and I realized that I was just awakening.
Father was eighty years old, but hale and hearty in
body and mind. With ever fresh and undiminished energy he was still
going on with his very responsible government job. Nevertheless I
knew his spirit had come to me to take leave. His time had run out
on the great cosmic clock, and he was going to leave his body
behind.
The next day he was already in the hospital, and all
the rest of us gathered round to say goodbye. He either could not or
would not speak. With long, deep and tender glances he looked each
of us in the eye in turn. Then he closed his eyes and didn't open
them any more. And we accompanied the second coffin out of our
family. My son tried everything he could to get work. In vain. He
kept on trying, again and again, but always in vain. Finally he came
to the realization that there was no room for him any more in our
country. And the day came when he took his guitar—a dear old
travelling companion he had never neglected even in the grimmest
days of the war—and went away in search of a country where a free
man who wanted to work could find a home. Again we took leave of
each other, not knowing whether we would meet again in this life.
But in the depths of my self I knew I would see him again. I
knew we would still be working together in God's garden .,.
Then came the last act.
Bo-Ghar had just given a public lecture. As usual
the audience was so big the police had to keep order.
After the lecture, he found himself surrounded by
people plying him with questions, begging for autographs, and
refusing to let him go home. While all this was going on, my husband
and I were standing a bit apart from the crowd, waiting. Suddenly an
officer of the secret police appeared and asked to speak with me.
When we had stepped to one side, he said, 'I practise yoga, and my
whole family with me, so I know it's a wonderful system.
Nevertheless, both you and the Indian are dangerous, because so many
people listen to you and do as you say. The party doesn't like that.
So now you're going to have to decide either to work with the
party and for it, or to get out of the country. We'll let you
both go without hindrance. But if you refuse to go, we'll be forced
to take other measures. Think over this proposition my superiors
have asked me to bring you, and act accordingly. I'll come back to
hear your decision.'
Bo-Ghar could have left the country freely with his
passport. But I was obliged to seek permission and apply for an
entry permit to another country. Soon I was involved in an endless
chase for an exit permit and for entry permits ... Finally I was
forced to realize that it was an absolute impossibility for me to
get a passport. I was shunted back and forth from one office to
another until at long last I received a final and definite refusal.
But that meant the secret police would soon be having recourse to
'other methods'. And we all knew what that meant. Many of our
friends had already disappeared for good and all, while others,
after suffering horrible tortures in prison, had been released,
broken in mind and body, only to die a miserable death shortly
thereafter.
Then Bo-Ghar said to my husband, 'The only
possibility of saving your wife is for you to divorce her and let me
take her out of the country as my wife. In this way she'll have the
same passport as mine, and we can leave the country legally. And
you'll come later.'
My husband seized Bo-Ghar's hand but was unable to
say a word. Big tears of gratitude welled up in his tortured eyes
...
So the day came when I took leave of all the people
near and dear to me, and set out into the unknown world, to make my
home wherever God should lead us.
Bo-Ghar kept his word: He came from the other end
of the world to save me!
We found Ima again, and together we are travelling
on in the footsteps of the Titans who have shown us the pathway to
initiation, to redemption, to the lost paradise ...
And when I seek those whom I love, I turn the
searchlight of my consciousness inward, for everything and everyone
is living within me!
The self—at one and the same time the self
of all living creatures, and therefore my self—knows no
bounds; so the entire universe is within me, and my self
fills all the universe. Everything that is—I am! In
everything I love, I love my self, for the only things we
think we don't love are what we haven't yet come to recognize
within ourselves!
THE SELF IS LIFE AND THE ONLY REALITY, AND
WHOEVER IS INITIATED INTO THE SELF—AND IN THIS WA Y HAS COME TO KNOW
HIMSELF COMPLETELY—LOVES EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE EQUALLY, FOR HE IS
ONE WITH THEM.
|
