ON MY OWN BEHALF 

Bô Yin Râ


On my own behalf



I have little to complain about a lack of understanding amongst those who have long been attached to my works of spiritual teaching. However, I have much greater cause for complaint against the view, still prevalent amongst others, that I entertained the foolish intention of preparing the way for a new religious practice, or of securing a credulous circle of adherents lacking all critical inhibitions in their willingness to believe in subjectively coloured fantasies and speculations about things inaccessible to our earthly, animal organs of perception. If I really have to explicitly reiterate the point, let me do so here in the most unambiguous manner possible: –

Both of these are as far as they can be from my intentions!
So far, that I am at a loss to understand the short–sightedness of the soul which can be the cause of attributing these kinds of intentions to me, even after only a proper reading of one of my books.
I must also defend myself most vehemently against being indiscriminately lumped together with certain authors who are only all too happy with the urge of the uncritical masses to find an explanation for things which are inexplicable to them, simply to make a name for themselves. Based on frivolous speculations which come nowhere near to detecting what is truly a mystery, they seek to create the aura of a seer or – using obscure pseudo–science for prophetic effect – an initiate in secret cosmic laws.

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My books, wherever they appear, make happy men and women of resigned and tortured souls.
This natural and necessary result of a life lived consistently according to the conclusions derived from my teachings is the only “proof” I give for the correspondence with reality of my accounts, – and it is the only fully valid one. I seek no other! Far be it for me to produce “proofs” for that which the lives of those living according to my words can always prove.
Every attempt to integrate my revelations, teachings and explanations into the systems of thought and perception found in the mysticism of an ancient oriental and later Christian orientation – simply because I make use of the linguistic and conceptual heritage these systems possess and they offer me a form which is currently without substitute if I am to make myself understood –, must lead with all certainty to a confused misinterpretation of my books.
Even the most ingenious and well–read mind will fail to get nearer to what I have written if he approaches my teachings using measures he has brought with him, or derived from beliefs or philosophical “systems” close to his heart which explain the spiritual in the world. Least of all will one attain what could be found if the urge to make a hasty judgement leads one into counting me amongst the modern “Theosophists” or “Occultists”, or whatever other name they like to call themselves. For here too I have not anxiously avoided using the terminology current in these circles where it has offered me an aid to understanding. 
We are really not very well endowed in the European parts of the world with concepts and terminology which lend themselves to a description of life in the realm of eternal spiritual substance. This means that the writer is not allowed to reject even one single word he has found, if it seems to him to facilitate understanding and is to some extent free of subjective misinterpretation. Rarely enough are such words to be found! 
All ancient oriental and later Christian mysticism was only possible in humanity because that of which I give an account was uninterruptedly present on earth from the first awakening of the eternal spiritual spark in the souls of a few earthly men in remote primeval times, – and a true understanding of the development of religious ideas presupposes a knowledge of this continual presence, in the same way one knows the law of gravity.
“Mysticism” is nothing other than a subjective misinterpretation of that inner experience which becomes possible on occasions to individual, particularly predisposed or prepared people according to the given structure of substantial spiritual life. The same experience with a marked predisposition to purely observed knowledge and therefore without the misinterpretation of the mystic, is at the beginning of all spiritually based religions in which eternal truths are expressed in “a dramatic form”.
“Dogma”: the creed which imposes an obligation on adherents, is simply the definitive formulation of the inner experience gained by the religion’s founder expressed in an external form. It is only logical that every religious system demands consent for such forms of expression.
It is not by attempting to unite all these obligating forms of expression, as found in the dogmas of the very few religions based on the spiritual experience of individuals, that you reach the underlying cause of all higher religions, – it is only knowledge of the structure of life in the eternal substantial spirit which leads you there.
It is unavoidable that only such men can know of this structure, primarily from their own experience, who according to their eternal spiritual nature have been living in this eternal life of the substantial spirit for eternity, and are therefore able to consciously perceive it in themselves, in all its layers.
But they were at any time so unimaginably few that they seemed to disappear among the millions inhabiting the earth like a few milligrams of radium would disappear in the ocean sand without the radiation emitted by them having in fact vanished...
All other earthly men can only gain knowledge of the structure of spiritual life from these few.
The criterion of the truth of this communication is the gradual awakening of the soul in that realm of spiritual life which corresponds to the capabilities and spiritual devotion of the pupil, and the certainty thereby gained of the individual’s integration into intransient, spiritually substantial life which is individually conscious on all its levels. 

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The word “spirit” comprises a multitude of meanings in everyday usage.
The activity of the human brain: thinking, deducing, conceptualising, is described as “spiritual” functioning, and in this sense one speaks of the human spirit. 
What the human spirit can achieve is naively intensified into infinity and thereby becomes the concept of the divine spirit.
But within Christian dogma one speaks of the “Holy Spirit” as a “person”: a self–representation in God, although the word “spirit” is no longer derived from an activity but describes a distinct certainty within the divine substance.
The word “spirit” is used by me everywhere in my books in this purely substantial sense. 
I do not “fall back” in any way upon the Christian dogma of the trinity, but have only drawn on it for the purpose of understanding because I only speak of eternal divine spirit when I seek to make comprehensible the structure of spiritual life in which I live in the highest state of consciousness that can be experienced by an earthly man.
At the same time I most vehemently reject any supposition that I somehow seek to promote “belief” in my words.
What I teach is not confirmed by faithful consent but only through the personal experience of those who act consistently according to my teachings, and I must in every instance reject out of hand every judgement made on my teachings where the judge cannot bring himself to live according to their instructions over a long period of time.

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Basically you can call every book I’ve written a secret book, for in each one spiritual truths are set out, which can be recognised only by the few readers who have already begun to question in areas where my books provide the answer.
In these books truths are expressed which from the first sounds of human language until my own earthly days have never been revealed in such a way communicated through words. What is said in them was always a secret belonging to a few initiates and will continue to be a secret to all who are not born for this knowledge. These books will only be a cause of contradiction to them, and the mysteries which bring redemption to the called will remain insoluble to those not destined for redemption.
Books have been created here which open or close themselves according to the spiritual condition of the person questioning their pages. These books could not be better concealed in any cave amongst impassable mountains or any hiding place in the Asian deserts than they are on the tables of booksellers and in the hands of uninitiated readers!
Secrets which could be revealed to those for whom they should remain secret are badly protected. What, however, is expressed publicly in my books protects itself from all those for whom it should remain a secret.

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It is distressing and of concern to me that I have to mention other erroneous views facing them. I find it hard to accept that they originate from honest “good faith”.
Alongside other fanciful assertions, rumours would have it that in my dogma–free teachings I am serving the cause of the “Jesuits”, whilst another rumour would have me, in all seriousness, in the camp of “freemasons” – indeed, “world freemasonry”. Of course always: – for money’s sake!
May I explicitly say here, once and for all, in the face of this foolish whispering and murmuring, that I have never, at any point in my life, had any allegiance or even belonged to these or similar corporations (for this too has been claimed!); likewise I have never shown any allegiance, directly or indirectly, to any political party in any country.
I have also never belonged to a “theosophical” or “occult” association and was never even a “pupil” of a member or associate of these societies and communities, nor of anyone who was well disposed to such assemblies. It has also never occurred to me to “establish” any such association, even though I willingly offer the advice and help I alone could give to all who honestly seek spiritual growth. And never have I appeared – not even in the most intimate circles – “as a speaker”.
And this must also be clearly stated since there are people who have never set eyes on me in their lives who blatantly tell of the “impressions” they claim to have received after “speeches” I never gave, in “meetings” of societies which are completely unknown to me, in cities in which to this day I have never set foot. –
Certainly this irresponsible dissemination of all the untruths about me has no effect or impact on my own self, but it would not surprise me for a moment if people for whom my life’s work brings spiritual help might become deeply unsure as to whether they should put their trust in this help. 
Since I have, from the very first word of my public teaching, given an account of myself and have left no room for any doubt regarding my spiritual right and duty to teach what I teach, those who have become uncertain because of untrue reports about me are not without responsibility themselves as they prefer to believe some fanciful informant instead of my own conscious end responsible confession.

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I know, and can understand that my confession – I would almost like to say here ironically: unfortunately! – has something disconcerting about it for today’s Western cultural circles.
If one would only also understand that this awareness of the disconcerting in every confession I have given of myself and my spiritual origins has, from the start, weighed heavily on my soul, when ever bitter necessity demanded that I gave such a confession of myself!
No one who hears this confession of what I have hitherto been beholden to tell about my spiritual essence, grounded in eternity and returning to eternity, can have an idea of what I have, nonetheless, had to withhold because earthly – and particularly Western – thought lacks the concepts through which one could reach real understanding.
Recently, aware of the most pressing physical signs of the possibility of a sudden departure from this life, I have found myself radically moved to deepen the unique confession I have to leave behind, yet even here the limits to communication are firmly established, and it was in no way my earthly human desire to cross them in any way.
What I am beholden to tell about the characteristics of my reverberating, weaving and diversely woven spiritually–born life from the core of absolute eternal spirit to earthly, human animal–nature, is determined by necessity to lead those I address to the solid, immutable spiritual primary rock: – to a location which could never give way under their feet, from which every individual can, from a position of unthreatened security, gain an insight into the eternal structure of divine–spiritual, universal life which is the origin of existence of every earthly man.

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If I have only been able to create the whole of my work of revelation in a continual struggle against an unprecedented, innate reluctance to reveal my own inner experience: – to speak at all about purely spiritual things, – it is the case that to this very day the obligation to tell of those things pertaining to my spiritual, eternal nature has remained an earthly torture almost impossible to bear. I would certainly not subject myself to this torture if I were not unconditionally obliged, – I would almost be tempted to say: – condemned – by the spirit to do so.
And hardly a single reader among the thousands for whom my books are written might suspect what a self–torture is involved in narrowing the familiar horizon corresponding only to eternity, whose span is inaccessible to earthly imagination, in such a way that one can move in concepts and word formations available to general earthly comprehension whose scope is, of course, not dependent on the degree of learning of the individual but is determined solely by the level of his spiritual consciousness.
But the discussion of all these things runs the considerable risk of being seen as an expression of incredible pride, indeed, possibly also as a sign of rampant megalomania, for nobody knows where he is if he himself lacks the faculty of judgement.
Being capable of judging in things which pertain to the eternal life of the spirit means, however: – knowing the structure of this utterly substantial spirit, – and my books have no other purpose than to teach how to see into the deepest recesses of this structure filled with secrets. Thus it is that an unprejudiced reception of my teachings will bring about the surest criterion for the meaning of its contents and for the justification of the author to be allowed to teach what I teach.

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Internal and external certainty in the eternal substantial spirit communicated by my writings is objectively ranked above every historical formulation of religious faith, but is in truth indispensable in providing a secure position for every teaching relating to the divine in every community of belief which places the highest value on the “confessing the truth” of the articles of belief it has set up.
Religious communities of belief are nations of souls, regardless of whether they are administered as republics or monarchies, – regardless whether their distribution covers one political state or the sphere of their influence stretches over all the political structures on earth.
The individual soul who feels attracted to such a nation of souls and sees presented, the elevating powers which he needs in a particularly effective form, should truly be in awe of what he receives, but he will be in no greater awe of what he continually receives in such a community of souls than he is able to secure in the eternal in a way that neither other confessions of truth nor doubt can threaten his belief.
I do not advise an individual to withdraw from a religious community to which he is vividly attached, nor do I deny any religious organisation which sees its task as the promotion of the soul’s development, for diversity is a characteristic of the divine–spiritual life, and diversity of soulful, religious forms and views is also a part of the eternal divine order.
The truth of the one eternal reality can be expressed in the most diverse formulations of belief, for this one eternal reality is not only itself infinitely diverse, but can as well be seen from countless aspects.
For this very reason, however, – and evidently this needs the clearest emphasis – my books are aimed at all people and not just those who are members of a nation of souls. Indeed, once again I must be quite definite in pointing out that I primarily direct my works at those of my fellow men who for whatever reason have left the religious community of their birth and, now taken on responsibility onto themselves, seek to attain the peace–giving destinations of the soul they have intuited. 
I believe that the insights they receive from my books are most needed by them, for they are seekers out of free will and admit to no knowledge of the path leading to their destination.

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So, from the very start and obedient to the true purpose of my mission, I have stepped gently past the doors of religiously committed ones and those bound to the opinions of their traditional teaching lest I awaken prematurely anyone for whom the hour of his awakening has not yet struck.
There are enough awake and alert for whom what I have to offer is a balm and comforting refreshment. 
I am in awe of the truth of eternal, spiritual origin which is essentially the same as mine, even if I find it bound up like a mummy in the byssus bands of hieratic arrogance.
But I have not come to render help to this earthly human self–elevation.
Truly I respect all things I do not have to despise, but there are spiritually ordained limits to my earthly human urge to tolerate all earthly human things.
In these times I am the only one, numbered among those who are the same as me in the eternal spirit, from whom the world can learn about all those things which endure beyond thought.
Fragile earthly man, subjected in his laborious, garish days to all sorts of physical pain, – I truly do not belong to those who in their physical comfort are induced to imagine that they are elevated above the living realms of other earthly man.
Not a single spiritual experience in the eternal reached my earthly consciousness before being pressed through the bony sieve of earthly suffering.
No other way is possible, for eternal substantial spirituality can only appear in the earthly sphere if what is now earthly, which once – before the earth begot it’s life – had offered itself up in the eternal, is also prepared in the earthly to bear all physical suffering; suffering which for the sake of the preparation in the spirit must be endured so that it can be made worthless for the soul.
No saying is as erroneous as that crudely materialistic proverb, alien to all that pertains to the soul, which in its ignorance states that a healthy soul can only live in a healthy, animal body.
One can almost say the opposite is the truth, and it is certain that there are healthy bodies with “sick” souls or souls “killed” long ago in their millions against a single sick body which, as an organism, is the expression of a sick soul. One should rather ask: how is it possible that a healthy soul can nevertheless live in a physically healthy body?
Let what has been stated here quite unambiguously be aimed at all those who are disturbed by my earthly existence because it does not correspond to their fanciful imaginings, according to which anyone living consciously in the eternal substantial spirit must be elevated far above all earthly suffering.
Just as behind the very dubious proverb quoted there is, however, the truth that the brain must be healthy if the soul is to entrust itself to it without being distorted in its expression, so too is there also a truth behind those fanciful imaginings, for truly, no earthly suffering of one conscious in his eternal spirituality can ever reach him in his spiritual consciousness, however much his earthly, brain–conditioned consciousness suffers pains of the soul and of the body.
Although it is possible for the individual who is conscious of himself in the eternal spirit to significantly dampen the perception the brain’s consciousness has for every signal of pain sent by the body’s nervous system, the implementation of this practice of diversionary concentration – which, by way of a footnote, is taught in Asiatic countries by very many people, who by no means are conscious in the eternal spirit, to the point of virtuosity – would of necessity immediately obliterate consciousness of experiencing itself simultaneously in the body, in the soul and in the spirit, and this, as a matter of evident necessity, would make it impossible for me to fulfil the spiritual duties imposed on me in the earthly sphere.

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Finally I must use something of reality to counter much error in relation to the manner of my spiritual experience. 
It is not my intention to defeat error, but I find myself duty–bound to say as much as is needed to avoid blame if erroneous views persist.
Although I consider that I have long given enough indications of this matter, I continue to see from statements made by many a reader of my books that they are unable to rid themselves of the thought that my path to knowledge must also have started with earthly questioning and an earthly desire for knowledge in order to find my way to the eternal. 
The opposite is the truth!
My spiritual path led from the innermost eternal to the realm of the soul and lastly to the earthly. 
On this path the only concern was gradually to prepare experience of the soul and earthly, brain–conditioned knowledge to receive and be capable of comprehending my spiritual being. 
In my earthly sphere I was never a seeker in the sense of my brain having an urge to gain insight in things closed off to thinking.
It is true to say I was once very thirsty for instruction in the earthly sphere until my brain–conditioned , external understanding was able to recognise what it was willing to receive from it.
Even today I have not stopped being thirsty for instruction in this way, and if I were to live another hundred years on earth, I would unquestionably have the same thirst on my last day.
But of course, we are talking here of a very different thirst for instruction; common to it is, however, that it can only be satisfied by the eternal substantial spirit and only by my own original spirit, even if help of this nature had to be given me from the beginning of the awakening of my earthly reason. Even today there would always be the same help, if I could not do without.
One might well say that every intuition and enlightenment is experienced by the recipient as coming from the spiritual realm and presupposes receptivity in the soul or brain. In my case, however, there are other factors at play.
The person who is blessed with an intuition, in the same way as one who is enlightened, is in the earthly sphere only partially aware of the sphere of the soul. What he receives is offered to him by another essence, however he chooses to experience and call this offering essence.
But I was aware of myself in the eternal spirit, an unimaginably long time ago, before the body was born to me in the earthly which was to be conscious of myself also here in the earthly realm.
This earthly brain was not permitted to know seeking and urging beyond itself and had to be receptive to the eternal if I was to become conscious in it in the way I am conscious of m in it today. However, I can only become conscious in it insofar as it can consciously receive me without destroying its powers.
But apart from this, I am aware of myself without any limitation in the sphere of my soul and – foremost – in my eternal spiritual sphere.
The earthly imperfections, known to me in the smallest detail, found in the words forming my teachings mainly originate from the limitations within the powers of my brain to which my consciousness must adapt on the one hand, and on the other hand, from the different colouring of the temporal periods of expression. They must be accepted as they are, unless one is to dismiss unceremoniously everything I bring from the eternal spirit to the earthly realm.
My work would not be genuine were it not to show, alongside the signs of the eternal, also the traces of earthly, human imperfection!
The things which truly originate from the innermost core of eternal spiritual life in its cosmos–transcending perfection never need fear the errors implicit in earthly capacity of expression.
“God wanted it so” –: was the answer Fra Angelico gave to other painters of his time when they suggested alterations to his pictures in order that they should be rendered more perfect. –

 

IN ORDER TO ADHERE TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF COPYRIGHT LAW, NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT I GO BY THE NAME OF JOSEPH ANTON SCHNEIDERFRANKEN IN MY TEMPORAL LIFE, AND IN MY ETERNAL SPIRITUAL BEING I AM UNCONDITIONALLY IN THE THREE SYLLABLES:

BÔ YIN RÂ