On the front I see, brilliant and powerful, radiating light of an invisible sun above a deep blue, wavy sea.

Inside colourful paintings, executed in oil. The work touches me. It turns out to be a series of cosmic images, created between 1920 and 1922. From far back, but it looks timeless. When I get home, I take the small book The Way to God and The Realm of Art by Bô Yin Râ from my bookcase and leaf through it.
It is high time to bring his work back to  attention. In ‘The Realm of Art’, Bô Yin Râ expresses his vision on art.

He writes:

‘A true artist creates from an inner necessity and arrives at personal forms of representation. For too long, it has been thought that real art is a proof of skill. After all, art comes from ability. Yes, but it is about an ‘ability’ that flows from the soul, about a capacity for creative development and not about a learned skill.’ And he continues: ‘In human creation the eternal spirit, which flows from the Primordial Being, can reveal itself. For every true artist called is a bridge-builder who connects the realm of the sensory perceptible world with the shores of the transcendental.’

The first work in Worlds is called ‘Emanation’ (2): the outflow of Primordial Being. A radiant primordial fire sun, the active ‘innermost being’ from which world systems emerge. With this work, Bô Yin Râ tries to make visible that from which all life has been forced out. So that we too will not forget where we came from. For the further removed from the one, all-generating primordial fire sun, the more the forces flowing from it lose the resemblance to its Being. In the very outer they even become counter-being forms. But, he writes:

‘Remember also that the outer comes from the inner and all opposing still shows the last traces of its origin from the primeval light!’

 

The primeval eternal emanation of eternal love expresses itself in eternal will to become. Bô Yin Râ called this work In Principio Erat Verbum (3), in the beginning was the Word. From the Word everything is ordered according to one’s own measure, according to one’s own number. The primeval word realises itself in its innermost being to fulfilment. But his creative will to become has not yet come to an end.

That which is one in the innermost realm of the spirit, becomes twoness. Bô Yin Râ paints a cosmic workshop (4), where time and space are created. Where all polarities arise and seeds of emerging worlds reveal themselves. One small world in that big whole is me and also you.

But we wander in the labyrinth of centuries and centuries old (5). The fire, the essence of life, is buried under the forms that have arisen. “Here you are now,” writes Bô Yin Râ, “the paths that the fallen spirit man – ‘fallen’, since he turned away from his primeval homeland to experience himself at its extreme creative limits – has to travel on these outer worlds, in order to be able to wrest himself from the folly of his volition and to be able to muster the will to return to the Light of his eternal homeland.”

The booklet The Way to God connects to that return. Seven of the twenty paintings from Worlds are included in this article. From the booklet The Way to God some quotes to briefly sketch a picture of the way. Already on the first page, Bô Yin Râ deals with all the images and holy books in which we have come to believe as if that were God. That is not ‘faith’. Bô Yin Râ calls it ‘a self-created chimera’. The light of the primordial fire sun radiates within you of itself.

It is striking how Bô Yin Râ finds words to place the path very directly within yourself. So he asks you what you feel inside, when reading the following words:

‘You will meet your own life in its eternal fullness; you will see yourself rising up into the Light through the power of light. You will see that you are united with ‘God’ – the ground of Being of all being.’

Even though you can’t explain it yet, but the inner turmoil you feel, he calls the power of real faith. The way to God starts with that ‘something’ in you. This belief is justifiable for yourself. Here there is no delusion, no opinion, no suspicion. When you trust the “something” in you, it makes you believe in something deep in yourself. The mind will certainly have all kinds of objections and will try to prevent your agreement with that ‘something’ within you.

Thinking turns out to be a good instrument for penetrating into the things of the earth, but it fails as an instrument for gaining insight into what is rooted in the spirit. Bô Yin Râ makes the uselessness of thinking somewhat humorously clear with the following comparison: ‘You laugh at every workman who wants to split iron with an axe and when someone wants to cut window glass with a saw, you think it’s insane. Only when you can free yourself from thinking, will you find within you the power of faith at work.” Only then will you overcome the hell in which you live.

In his work ‘Inferno'(6) you experience a poignant longing in the colours and lines, a glimmer of light surrounded by darkness. Through that desire, the light will take you back up. According to Bô Yin Râ, it is inevitable that the power of faith grows into an inner certainty. You ‘know’ that you will achieve what faith promises you. Knowing, says Bô Yin Râ, is not the insight into some causal connection. It is feeling assured that there is no longer any doubt and is established in itself. In your innermost being you will discover the source of all wisdom. ‘You will obtain a ‘knowing’ that the outside world cannot give you.’

And you discover that on the way to God you receive all the high help as soon as you desire it yourself. You see that you need that help.

‘Adjust to it more and more,’

writes Bô Yin Râ,

‘to listen to sounds from the waking world of the mind.’

And he also advises you to always be aware of the guidance of the older human brothers and sisters from the spirit that has gone before you. There is certainly help, but without perseverance, determination and vigilance on your part, you will not get any further.

‘Every day asks its question about your ‘yes’ and ‘no’. You must resolve to live in such a way that everything that you can raise in yourself to Light and purification will be assured of your ‘yes’, while everything that can bring you down must always meet your ‘no’ with all certainty. But beware of the tendency to want to impose your own ‘yes’ and ‘no’ on others.’

By entering into the inner battle with the earthly man who lives in you, and trusting and relying on the high help and the power of the spirit, you will overcome. Bô Yin Râ paints this victory with his work ‘Victory’ (7). Beams of light seem to shoot up from rock gorges and valleys. “Whatever your eye sees shines in golden light, and every ray proclaims victory to you. Embodiment of the spirit is the ‘key’. As a ‘son of the Light’ you walk on earth: a ‘self-redeemed’ and ‘a redeemer’ of human brothers – of those who also stood by you on the path of salvation.’

You do not become ‘God’ but God’s power flows through you.
The reality of the living God flows through the innermost ground of life into one’s own ‘I’.

At the back of The Realm of Art, several books by Bô Yin Râ are described. About The Book of Happiness I read:

‘This book shows how one can find happiness in life in the middle of daily life.
Here and now, too, at the moment you read this, you are in the midst of eternity, and what you are unable to create for yourself now, no God will be able to provide you with for all eternity…
You must learn to see that all happiness is only the result of a skill which you have within you, and that you can never be happy, either now or in any other form of existence, if you do not develop this ability. Only as a creative person you can gain your happiness and keep it forever!’

About the author:

Bô Yin Râ is the spiritual name of the writer and painter Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken. He was born in 1876 in Aschaffenburg, Germany. He died in 1943 in Lugano, Switzerland. During his life, Bô Yin Râ was aware of both earthly and eternal life. It was his goal to make this experience and his knowledge about the eternal available to those who are open to it.
The main work of Bô Yin Râ consists of thirty-two books that appeared during the years 1919-1936 and that bear the collective name Hortus Conclusus (Enclosed Garden). The books have been translated into several European languages and are also published in the United States. Without proclaiming a school or a new “system of thought or belief”, Bô Yin Râ shows from different points of view the way by which man can regain consciousness of his imperishable spirituality.

Literature:

[1] Bô Yin Râ, Werelden (Worlds), Aurora Productions 2004

[2] Bô Yin Râ, Het rijk van de kunst (The realm of art), Aurora Productions 2006

[3] Bô Yin Râ, De weg tot God (The way to God), publisher Servire, Den Haag

[4] The Work by Bô Yin Râ

Beauty that the eye sees may remind the soul of something. Sometimes it is like an awakening, sometimes it can even be a cure.

Why do I think the mountain I’m looking at is sublime? I am one of those people who don’t necessarily want to climb the mountain. I would rather be the mountain. Maybe I actually am. Because the rocky triangle that arises from the plain and culminates in a point that is not only close to the sky, but that merges into it, as it were, despite the contrast between the heaviness of the rock and the lightness of the air: it resembles my own nature. It reflects that in me which looks upwards, which wants to rise up and change to another state of being; that which, having reached the summit of my earthly existence, at least wants to expose itself to „this other“, again and again. That is what touches my heart when I come face to face with a beautiful mountain.

Something from the depths of artistic beauty

Islamic artists have created patterns consisting of a few regular geometric shapes, mostly stars, which can be continued endlessly due to the perfect coordination of the shapes with each other. When you look at them, you get the impression that they fill the entire firmament. They are actually based on the idea that number, proportion and form are the key to the structure of the cosmos. These patterns connect the multitude and the One through mathematical relationships; according to this way of thinking, they open up inwardly to the infinite, to the ultimate reality, which is the source of all things.

The mathematical point, which neither spans a surface nor occupies space, represents an original spiritual principle. When this point touches our sphere, it draws a circle around itself like a drop falling into a lake. It generates vibrations and makes contact with its surroundings. In such a creation process, circles touch and penetrate each other. It is easy to imagine that in their interaction they also form star patterns as the Muslim artists have made them visible. At the same time, these patterns point to the One who emitted everything and draws it back into himself. They are a coming into being, flashing up and disappearing again – a round dance that fills the whole universe.

What Does The Soul See?

Our eyes are drawn to that which our soul seeks. When we consider shapes to be beautiful, it is not just because they are proportioned in whole-number ratios or the golden ratio. We seek – and see – more than “mathematical harmony” or “order”. We see that everything is connected. The number or proportion is an external characteristic of resonance.

The golden ratio is perhaps the clearest illustration thereof. This rule (which also produces the Fibunacci series) means that the shorter of two distances must relate to the longer as the longer to the sum of the two distances. This corresponds to a numerical ratio of 1:1.618… . Or to put it another way, more clearly: the whole is divided further and further and is reflected in the resulting parts. This numerical ratio clearly connects the smallest and the largest in nature.

Beauty or harmony is found in that which makes a complex form into a unity and in that which connects all things. We feel a sense of meaning. If beauty and connectedness are to be not just a feeling but a truth, then that which holds things together must also exist in power, in interactions, in a flow from the innermost to the outermost and back again.

The sides of a pentagram intersect each other in the golden ratio. An ideally proportioned person has the golden ratio within them. If you divide their body height accordingly, you end up at the navel. If a person stretches their hand upwards, their fingertips are twice the height of their navel. The architect Le Corbusier used these measurements, based on a person with a height of 6 feet, as the starting point for his Modulor series, which he used to proportion his buildings. The navel height, divided by the golden ratio, results in an ideal table height. Divided again, an ideal seat height. Le Corbusier also used the golden ratio to find room heights and window dimensions. Everything then bears human scale, people thus resonate – with the whole. “By means of the forms [the architect] intensely touches our senses and awakens our feeling for the design. The connections he creates resonate deeply with us, he shows us the scale for an order that is perceived as being in harmony with the world order.“[1]

Showing no modesty, this is how Le Corbusier saw it. What he writes here raises the question of whether everything is on a human scale. Or can we see here an indication of an all-connectedness in the midst of which man finds himself and which he can perceive and recognize – experience – through resonance?

Beauty isn’t just beautiful

Apart from the fact that most people like to surround themselves with beauty, partly for the reassurance that everything is fine or will be fine, beauty allows us to make contact with that which holds our cosmos together. It becomes obvious in balanced form and connective proportion. But there is more. It points to a unifying meaning that not only gives us ontological security. There can also be something awakening, stirring, enabling and sometimes challenging in it.

Rainer Maria Rilke stated in his Archaic Torso of Apollo (1908) that the beauty we see looks back: “for there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life.” Beauty is not just a feast for the eyes. It challenges us to perfect ourselves in order to become like it. Now you can tighten the screws of self-optimization. But you can also sense that something inside you is able and willing to rise up in response to the beauty you perceive.

You can also learn to perceive the spiritual space in which the many encounter each other, encounter themselves and ultimately also encounter the One, the Groundless and Creation as a real unity in which everything interacts and relates to each other. In his 1914 poem Es winkt zu Fühlung (It beckons to feel), Rilke captured the inclusion of the world in the space of the soul and the soul’s simultaneous becoming world-wide in the term Weltinnenraum, which is rightly experiencing a renaissance. Inside and outside become one for the looking soul.

[…] Durch alle Wesen reicht der eine Raum:
Weltinnenraum. Die Vögel fliegen still
durch uns hindurch. O, der ich wachsen will,
ich seh hinaus, und in mir wächst der Baum. […][2]

[…] That only space, it penetrates all beings:
World’s inner space. Silently birds are flying
right through ourselves. And I, wanting to grow,
I look outside, and inside me grows the tree. […][3]

The harmony within me nourishes creation. What I see outside turns into symbols that show my soul who it is. The things of the world can even become landmarks of spiritual processes – those that are happening and those that are possible.

“The soul is an eye in the eternal unfathomable: a likeness of eternity “[4], says Jakob Böhme. At the same time: “The whole body with all its parts signifieth heaven and earth.”[5] Anyone who studies Böhme’s mystical philosophy will notice that it describes the divine abyss and the human soul first and foremost as an eye. A duality is created here, a divine-human tool of knowledge. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit, nature and man are reflected in each other, they are parables for each other. (And parables are not explanations or stories, but signify deep congruence and enlightening knowledge). In all of this, Böhme attempts to describe an overwhelming unity that transcends all understanding, in which the great and the small behold, recognize and correspond to one another, in which they are one life. We can awaken to this realization and this co-movement. If the eternal is one, it is beautiful. Must not the fabric of the world then also be beautiful, and the human being in it?

The world with its events is our teacher. Every day it gives us the parables of the All-Being as an illustration. It also shows us when we are not in harmony with it, which also means that we are not in harmony with our own deepest being. Have you ever experienced that an awkwardness, an accident, an illness has brought about a clarity in you, an inner encounter between your realized self and the true self within you? That in the upheaval the spirit soul became free to show itself for this one illuminating, perhaps healing moment? Was there strength and beauty in this moment, despite everything?

God, world and man form one fabric, one life. Nevertheless, we also lead a kind of shadowy existence in it. Sometimes beauty is revealed and our souls rise up to return to the source. Sometimes they become afraid of true oneness. But the light of the one who wants to show himself convinces us again and again. If the soul is in the light, then everything is filled with light, even matter.

For further reading:

• Keith Chritchley: Islamic Patterns. An Analytical and Cosmological Approach, Rochester 1999
• William H. Chittick: The Sufi Path of Knowledge. Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination, New York 1989

[1]     Le Corbusier: Ausblick auf eine Architektur, Berlin – Frankfurt am Main – Wien 1963, S. 21. MY OWN TRANSLATION

[2]     Here the fourth verse of the poem

[3]     Es winkt zu Fühlung fast aus allen Dingen – Rainer Maria Rilke Diskussionforum – found on feb 21, 2025

[4]     in: Das umgewandte Auge, in: Jakob Böhmes Schriften, Leipzig 1935, S. 298: Please look up an official translation!

[5]     in: Aurora or Day-Spring, p. 70, Electronic Text Edition, 2009, in: Jacob Boehme’s Aurora – electronic text-edition : Jacob Boehme (Jakob Böhme) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The main hero of Andersen’s tale is the Chinese Emperor who lives in a beautiful, fine porcelain palace. The palace has a far extended garden full of miracles with a forest at the end, which goes right down to the seaside.

The Chinese Emperor, living in splendid circumstances, is in a higher sense representing the spiritually oriented ego of the earthly personality,  the ’spiritual’ ego. However subtle his egocentrism may be (porcelain palace), his spiritual grade is only a facade.

Every character, scene and event of the tale represents the components, characteristics and aspirations of a candidate, who has become stuck on the spiritual path. In the forest behind the emperor’s garden (in the subconscious) lives a sweet-sounding nightingale. This nightingale is the immortal soul hidden within the candidate’s being. The emperor doesn’t know this bird, he has only read about it in a book – the spiritual ego has only a secondhand knowledge. He calls for his Marshal to get this bird for him, but nobody knows about it in the palace. The Marshal starts to question the truth written in the book:

’Your Imperial Majesty could never imagine the things people write; all manner of inventions, and something which is called the Black Art.’

’But the book in which I read this’, said the Emperor, ‘was sent to me by the high and mighty Emperor of Japan, so it cannot be an untruth. I will hear the Nightingale! It must be here to-night. It has my most exalted favour, and if it does not come, the whole court shall have its stomachs stamped upon, when it has dined!’

The Marshal and the courtiers are the components and sustainer of the lower self-consciousness. The Marshal unintentionally touches upon the essence of the Japanese Emperor, who plays here the role of the tempter. As a Lucifer* he stirs up the “spiritual” desire for acquisition and possession of the lower self with his presence. The statement of the book is true, but the intention is hypocritical: to increase the egoism.

At last they find a poor little kitchen-girl in the palace, who carries leftover food to her sick mother through the forest every day. She says:

’… I hear the Nightingale sing. The tears come in my eyes with it: it feels as if my mother was kissing me.’

The natural, unselfish aspect of the earthly personality is able to lead the selfish forces of the ’spiritual’ ego (the gaudy group of courtiers) to the immortal soul lying in the depth of the soul.

‘That’s it,’ said the little girl. ‘Hark! hark! And there it sits!’ And she pointed to a little grey bird up among the branches. ‘Is it possible?’ said the Marshal. ‘I could never have imagined it would be like that! And how very shabby it looks! It must certainly have lost its colour at the sight of so many distinguished persons in its vicinity.’

The Marshal’s consideration paints a (clinical) picture of the nature of the spiritual ego.

At their request, the nightingale accompanies them to the emperor’s palace, where they prepare to listen to the song of the immortal soul among festive appearances.

‘And the Nightingale sang so beautifully that tears came into the Emperor’s eyes; the tears ran down his cheeks, and then the Nightingale sang yet more delightfully, so that it went straight to his heart; and the Emperor was greatly pleased, and said that the Nightingale should have his golden slipper to wear on its neck. But the Nightingale thanked him and said…’

The emperor wants to award the nightingale with a merit, but it rejects him:

‘I have seen tears in the Emperor’s eyes; that is to me the richest of treasures. An Emperor’s tears have a marvellous power. God knows I am well paid.’

The nightingale is kept in the palace. It is kept in a cage and only let out at night, where a string tied to one of its legs keeps it in captivity. The immortal soul revealed itself to the spiritual ego, but he put it to the service of his selfish goals. Yet – as the emperor’s tears testify – a crack opened in the crusty wall of the ego due to the wake of the pure vibrating soul.

The opposing force – the Japanese Emperor – cannot let this happen: he tempts the Chinese Emperor with another gift. This time not as Lucifer, but as Ahriman**, since he influences, creates a deceitful illusion through the cool, materialistic world of thought and technology. The gift is a masterful replica of the real nightingale: a wind-up mechanical bird, incrusted with precious stones. The spring-driven mechanism – although it could only play a one single song – ‘made as great a success as the real one, and was, besides, far prettier to look at; it glittered like a bracelet or a brooch. Three-and-thirty times over did it sing the self-same melody, and yet it was not tired. The people would have liked to hear it over again, but the Emperor said that now the live Nightingale should sing a little – but where was it? Nobody had noticed that it had flown out of the open window, away to its own green wood.’

The bandmaster – in the spirit of Ahriman – ‘praised the bird in the highest terms, and assured them that it was superior to the real Nightingale, not only as regards the plumage and the many beautiful diamonds, but also internally. (…) But the poor fisherman, who had heard the real Nightingale’ had the following opinion about the fake bird: ‘It sings pretty enough, and it’s like it too; but there’s something wanting, I don’t know what!’ The spiritually inspired aspect of the personality senses what is missing: the soul. The mechanical bird is only seemingly tireless, because suddenly ‘something went “snap” inside the bird. Whirr-rr! All the wheels whizzed round, and the music stopped.’ The bird fell silent. The earthly consciousness fails, it reaches the limits.

Years later, the Chinese Emperor became terminally ill and  ‘was hardly able to draw his breath; it seemed as if something was sitting on his chest. He opened his eyes, and then he saw that it was Death, who was sitting on his breast  (…) in the folds of the great velvet bed curtains, strange faces pushed themselves out, some quite horrible, others divinely kind. There were all the Emperor’s good and evil deeds, looking at him now…’ The emperor begged for music, for a consoling song, but the spring-driven bird was silent.

‘At that instant there was heard, close by the window, the most lovely song. It was the little live Nightingale that was sitting on the branch outside. It had heard of its Emperor’s need, and so had come to sing to him of comfort and hope…’ Death, moved to tears by the singing, withdrew ‘and the Emperor fell into a sweet sleep, a sleep that was kind and healing.’ Next morning ‘the attendants came in to see their dead Emperor, and – well, there stood they, and the Emperor said: »Good morning!«’

The Emperor’s deadly illness refers to the breakdown of the spiritual ego in the being of the candidate who attains true self-knowledge. In the pure vibrational sphere of the Soul, the ego retreats into the background, and the miracle of self-surrender takes place.

___________________

* Lucifer: the ruler of a group of hindering, tempting spirits. This counterforce strives for people to reach above their head, to phantasise, to become bigots and dreamers, passive followers of authorities, instead of mature, autonomous spirits. It can turn to enthusiastic  adorations and emotions and passions heightened to the extreme. People under this influence may think they follow the spiritual path, but it is based on a selfish desire.

** Ahriman: the leader of another group of obstructive, tempting spirits. They drive people deep into matter. Nationalism, literalism, mechanism, narrow-mindedness are some of the characteristics of people under this influence. Earthly intelligence and logical thinking are overdeveloped and science and technology are seen as tools to create an ideal world. True, eternal values are replaced by false ones.

You can read more about counterforces (“demonic” beings) in the books of Rudolf Steiner, who founded the spiritual movement of anthroposophy.

_______

English source of the quoted tale: https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/andersen-nightingale/andersen-nightingale-00-h.html

And there It was: the Absolute at rest, in ever-present unperceivable

sense: absence equal to itself, chaos self-sufficient.

When a second opened up, springing from eternity,

singularity was falling into solitude, and its sense faded away.

The wondering Thought, seeking to fulfil its part as would do any wandering seed,

sets the Fortunate Beginning for the first Idea of life,

to eternal Thought the Idea flashing through.

Here it is – intangible Thought into Itself collapsing.

Like a pulsing wound, the empty space is left behind,

alike an idea shed past the ebb tide, (in-form-ly) engraved and impelled by longing.

The void of the thought-essence in its own substance fretting,

memories in mind and idea, sacred quantic, imbedded.

Mater, bounteous and kind, germinating thoughts of Thought,

eyes through which He contemplates Her world, is now seeing sweet faces,

through which He is captured in Her thought.

But the Thought affirms Himself into the world, firmly ordering the Logos,

which then articulates the Thought conceived by the Mater-Mind,

the Logos bearing seeds of the Pater Thought.

His living World shall keep His print alive, the intelligent Idea,

to be fulfilled from this time forth.

Offspring-Thoughts shall fill the world, mirroring the equal Thought

by knowing Self and radiating to all thoughts.

Thought to Thought the world will grow, all left from Her, you see,

nothing but Him will be: Offspring – Logos – Idea in Itself.

The indefinite Thought, life giving in its Idea hidden,

now – in the world of definite forms – shall truthfully be defined,

through Self-Awareness immanent to the Idea, into ideas

germinating, in the Mind, through transcendental love.

* The drawings by Ramona Orban.

 from the beginning of time, space and form.

At first there was the vertical. The Right state of Being.

Then, when the external reality became concrete,

the definite Left stepped in.

The Left kept adding layers…overfilled,

it started pulling the Right state of Being

horizontally, to a side,

so now only together could they balance the Being.

The Right state of Being became the Being´s right,

and the one assuming the name of Having

was left with the left side.

Since then,

the state of Being keeps reclaiming its right to wholeness,

or at least to primacy, before the Having,

for the Having kept acting as supreme.

The passing of the Right vertical to the right side of the being

removed it from its centre,

from its Right Path that led the focus to the inner fire,

and gave it different angles of inclination.

Self indulging, it allowed itself to be more and more inclined

to the external reality of the left world,

with its worries of having or not

having the gifts that animate it,

with its imagined identities,

added to the state of Being,

with its poetic restless joys and sadness.

The different angles formed different frameworks

through different relationships with its source of being,

just like the Earth´s tilt gives rise to the different seasons

based on the Sun´s position relative to it.

The different beings build their own external realities

in order to experience,

with all their senses, their internal world, the right one.

It was cold and rainy. The imposing Tyrolean mountains hidden behind a veil of low-hanging clouds seemed nonexistent. How nice that a field trip on Modern Alpine Architecture included well-known architects.

We met in a small village in Vorarlberg, Austria, and discussed the concept of beauty in architecture. Opinions about what was ‘beautiful’ were broad, and one participant mentioned the Golden Ratio. In earlier times and well into Antiquity, the Golden Ratio was inextricably linked with architecture as the basic measure of the artistic value of a building. In urban planning, ground plans bore witness to a higher knowledge, indicating harmony with the soul.

Other participants objected since today buildings are no longer built this way. The concept of beauty is subjective. No sooner said than we reached the village square, the sun came out for a short time from behind dense clouds and illuminated the scenery. Beautiful historic buildings of traditional Alpine architecture lined a group of lime trees, with a small church in the middle. The square was artfully paved.

Participants were speechless at first and then unanimously commented on the beautiful, harmonious ensemble of this village square, where everything was well-proportioned and in the right place. The language of architecture had directly touched their hearts. What exactly led to this change of mood?

The group spontaneously opened up to the essence of the Golden Ratio, and a lively conversation ensued. The Golden Ratio can be described as the basic measure of ‘sacred geometry’[i] which consists of harmonious proportions that also underlie the ‘architecture’ of the human being and the ‘microcosm’, as an image of the cosmos. The Vitruvian Man is the famous drawing by Leonardo da Vinci where the average proportions of the human body differ only slightly from the Golden Ratio.

What is the Golden Ratio? It is the unique division in which the relationship between the whole and the part is preserved. The whole is in the same proportion to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part. Another term used in the past was ‘divine proportion’. This was intended to express the connection between creation, the divided, and its divine origin, the whole.

Fig. 1: Leonardo da Vinci, the Vitruvian Man

Man was also depicted in a pentagram. The five-pointed star also exhibits the geometry of the Golden Ratio. This means that man was created in accordance with divine proportions.

Fig. 2: Man depicted in a pentagram. After Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535).

This measure exists on a large scale in the geometry of the universe, e.g., in the shapes of galaxies, and on a smaller scale in the shapes of the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms.

Fig. 3: The petals of roses and other plants grow at the ‘Golden Angle’ (iStock, processed by Uwe Döpel).

Where does the Golden Ratio appear in human civilisation? This synthesis of craftsmanship and art was present in almost all cultures in the past and can still be marvelled at today in the Orient. There is no separation between the two. The word ‘architecture’ etymologically means ‘first art’ or ‘original art’. The expression ‘arts and crafts’ is already evidence of a break in the relationship between art and ‘normal’ craftsmanship; form and function became separate, with the functional coming to the foreground.

Fig. 4: A classic example of the Golden Ratio in architecture is the Parthenon in Athens (photo: iStock, processed by Uwe Döpel )

Fig. 5: Moroccan arabesques. Perfect geometry according to the Golden Ratio (photo: Uwe Döpel)

With the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century beginning in Europe and spreading worldwide, there was an ever-faster development of mental consciousness and, at the same time, increasing materialism. Applied to the relationship between body, feeling, and mind, the tendency is towards the development of a top-heavy person who is characterised by a logical-rational mind and increasingly threatens to lose touch with the heart and emotional world.

The ‘voice of the heart’ as the epitome of beauty and love is increasingly being ignored by the intelligence of the mind.  This is expressed, among other things, in a predominantly functionally oriented architecture. It is in the process of losing the connection to its origin in ‘divine art’.

Fig. 6: Functional modern architecture in contrast with traditional architecture (Photos: Uwe Döpel)

Is beauty only a question of proportions? Are there other, deeper aspects and dimensions? Think of a consciousness of simplicity which has left the self-centred perspective, a selfless simplicity which has no goal and does not want to own anything. It can refer to a created form – or not.

If we seek the beautiful to enrich ourselves and avoid the ugly, we lose an important aspect of true beauty. In the words of Jiddu Krishnamurti[ii]:

‘When we are without love, we create a civilization in which the beauty of form is sought.’ 

So addiction to external beauty can be a consequence of an inner void. On the other hand, beauty in the outer world can be an expression of inner beauty.  It can be a projection of the original divine beauty into the dual outer world.

What then is our reality? Reality is an effect of our outward-looking consciousness made up of thoughts, feelings, and will, which, only through projection outwards, can be experienced and reflected. If the ego wants to possess beauty, it creates a ‘red whirlwind’ of desire that clouds unity with the inner core and creates a duality: the ‘ugly’.

Don’t we need a contrast between the beautiful and the ugly, between light and shadow, to nurture our longing for true beauty? Is true beauty only recognisable by contrast with the ugly?

Beauty can be perceived without wanting to be devoured, possessed, and experienced again and again. If you succeed in just looking at beauty, then there is no pain or fear of losing it. Beauty has then fulfilled its mission.  It has brought the observer to silent wonder. Beauty on the outside can then be reflected in an indescribable beauty on the inside.  The soul can merge with beauty, since it is no longer on the outside. Observer and observed become one, experiencing their essence as one. The soul leaves separation and flows back into unity. There is healing, and there is love.

When one understands the deep meaning of the desire for healing and of this unfulfillable longing, an incredible joy in life can unfold: the joy of the ‘beautiful spark of the Gods’[1]. This joy lies beyond thinking. It is a quality of true love and can only be perceived in the here and now.

As Krishnamurti puts it (ibid.):

‘You cannot have love without beauty. Beauty is not something you see – a beautiful tree, a beautiful picture, a beautiful building, or a beautiful woman. Beauty only exists when your heart and mind know what love is. Without love and this feeling for beauty, there is no virtue.’

When I think back to the excursion with the architects, and the moment when we were all united in the shared feeling of beauty at the village square, there seemed to be a unifying intersection of all that is individual and subjective.  The Golden Ratio and Sacred Geometry are a signature of divine beauty like Ariadne’s thread, that leads us out of the labyrinth of the duality of good and evil, of beauty and disharmony, to the true beauty of our inner divine being. The more we turn to it, the more the labyrinth dissolves.

The point of duality is for man to recognise his true self.  It is one with the essence of God. The futility of finding undivided beauty and true contentment in a dualistic world is part of the essential self-knowledge of man.

Faust says:

‘If I will say to the moment: linger, you are so beautiful! Then you may bind me in chains, then I will gladly perish!’

Everything Faust had experienced was unable to make him truly happy. He was deeply imbued with the knowledge of the transience of earthly beauty. The tragedy with Gretchen and the encounter with Helena, with whom he wanted to unite happiness and beauty, were of particular importance in this respect. Through the fire of purification, Faust finally becomes insensitive to external sensory stimuli represented by his blindness[iii]and open to the beauty of the inner light.

‘The night seems to penetrate deeper and deeper, but within shines a bright light.’

 

[i] Cf. Kükelhaus, H. (2001): Urzahl und Gebärde. Grundzüge eines kommenden Maßbewusstseins (Foundations of an Emerging Awareness of Measure), Klett and Balmer Publ. House, Zug

[ii] Krishnamurti, Jiddu (2021): Vollkommene Freiheit (Complete Freedom), 11th edition, Fischer Taschenbuch

[iii] Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Faust, The Tragedy Part Two

The Work of the Sun

The sun is fire and light, in the physical as well as in the spiritual. Beings of the earth like us cannot live on the sun. But evolution is not yet at an end. It is guided by impulses from the sun. That which strives forward is oriented towards the sun. Its rays once awakened our eyes. With them we perceive the physical. But the impulses of the sun sow further seeds. In some, they have germinated and grown early. The pharaoh Akhenaten (14th century BC) possessed not only physical eyes but also spiritual ones. And s, he worshipped Aten, the spiritual sun. John the Seer experienced the essence of the sun in a unique way: ‘And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man […] His eyes […] were as a flame of fire […] and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.’ (Rev. 1, 12 ff.).

Some poets lead the way, intuiting and dreaming. ‘In the lonely hours of the spirit, it is beautiful to walk in the sun. Along the yellow walls of summer,’ are the words of the Austrian poet Georg Trakl (1887-1914; in: Helian), which are like a song. The lonely intuit what is coming. We are looked at, from the spiritual. Eyes are to arise that can look back. In her painting of ‘the highest and most fiery power Charitas’ (13th century AD), Hildegard von Bingen depicted the two future pairs of eyes of the human being.

Transformation through Light and Fire

But growth requires time and measure. Precious fruits ripen slowly. The spiritual knows what is possible for us. ‘For, always knowing the measure, / Only for a moment does a God gently touch the dwellings of men…’ The German poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) puts into words what is to come. They appear dark, like the coagulated outer layer, the shell of a precious fruit that needs to be uncovered. His epic Celebration of Peace tells of the transformation of man through light and fire. Hölderlin was marked by fire. The power of the sun is the ‘giver’: ‘Would that the giver did not spare, / long ago the blessing of the hearth / would have ignited / both summit and soil.’

The original germ of our existence is fire, a spark of the Spirit. It wants to break out. ‘Put on the new man who is created according to God,’ says Paul (Eph. 4:24). Everything is ‘revealed by fire’ (1 Cor. 13). ‘Mortality must put on immortality’ (1 Cor. 15:53). What the Logos creates should become its own kind. This was already expressed by Plato (in the dialogue Timaeus, no. 2.2.1). The god realizes itself in the human being, and the realization of the god becomes the realization of the human being.

The Cleansed Inner Space

It begins in the inner space of the soul. The exalted, expectant soul is the ‘womb’. It must be cleansed, ‘aired’. The vortices of thoughts, feelings, desires, and ideas must be driven out. Then the celebration can begin, the celebration of transformation, the celebration of the God of Wine. The ‘water’ of the earthly soul turns into ‘wine’. Hölderlin sees poets as priests of the wine god. Once they travelled ‘from land to land in holy night’ (In: Bread and Wine).

‘The holy, familiar hall, built long ago, / is aired, and filled with heavenly, / soft echoing, quietly modulating music.’ These are the first words of the Celebration of Peace. The ‘upper room’, the highest sphere of the human soul, was buried for consciousness, was closed, as it were. Now it opens. The powers of the heart’s longing have brought this about. Beyond the head, they extend far into the cosmos. They invite ‘loving guests’ ‘coming from far’.

The Prince of the Festival enters

‘And with half-shut eye I think I can see / the prince of the festival himself, / smiling from the day’s earnest work.’ The poet senses him and begins to recognise him, for the ‘prince of the festival’, takes on the ‘appearance of an acquaintance’. The universal, the all-consciousness, makes itself individual, ‘lowers’ its eye, appears ‘lightly shadowed’, denies its ‘foreign origin’: the Spirit dampens its firepower. Nevertheless, ‘your superiority / alone almost forces one to his knees’. All the wisdom that has been important on the way so far is undone: ‘… where / a god appears, / there is different clarity.’

The poet had boldly turned to the All, to the ‘Open’, to find in it ‘something of his own, however wide it may be’ (in: Bread and Wine). He had ‘feared neither flood nor flame’ – the high forces and fields of the universal – and now, ‘all is quiet’. The old forces in his soul lose their hold, ‘the sounds of peace’ resound, ‘days of innocence’ dawn, the God permeates the soul space, the festival of union begins. A new being shall be born: the new man, the heavenly man. God and man ‘die’ into him. For both of them, the fertilization and the pregnancy resemble a crucifixion.

Opposing Forces are Coming

‘A deadly doom’, however, overshadows the event, “terribly decisive”. The light that was so joyfully received disappears again. ‘Thus everything / from heaven passes quickly, but not in vain.’ Earthly forces, desires, wishes… are flooding again the space of the soul. ‘… something boisterous may appear, / and wildness may come to the holy place from afar’. But the place where the sacred once was has received its traces.

The poet takes stock, processes what has taken place, insights arise, like traces of light. He sums up: ‘We’ve received much from the gods. / Fire was handed to us, and the ocean’s / flood and shore.’  For a few brief moments, the divine had revealed itself to man. A ‘sea flood’ of soul power, the world soul, had entrusted itself to him. ‘Shores’ showed him the extent of his possibilities; the flame of the Spirit had entered his consciousness.

The Hour of Man

Now a new way of thinking arises in the poet, which leads to an inner experience. After the god has withdrawn, the hour of man has come. Recognition flares up: ‘The star that is before your eyes teaches you’. A ‘star’ has formed over the ‘birth grotto’, the guiding star for the poet. The God who is individualizing himself reflects in his aura, appears before his eyes, looks at him. He wants to awaken in the poet the spiritual eyes that recognise him. The divine self approaches him as a being of light, as a ‘son’. ‘Yet of the all-living ones – from whom / issue much pleasure and song, / one is a calmly powerful son. / Knowing his father, we recognise him …’

A New Impulse of the Divine

The steps of transformation take place as the light impulses are further processed. As soon as a new balance has been achieved in the ever-changing mixture of spiritual and earthly forces, the eternal takes the next initiative. ‘But a god / may once choose mundane life also, / like mortals, and share their fate. / One law of fate requires that people / should know each other, so that when / silence returns, there will also be one language.’ The divine and the human experience themselves with the help of the other. For each human, this happens differently. The fullness of earthly existence is brought into the sphere of the Spirit in the most diverse ways. And there all earthly words and contradictions merge into ‘one language’.

‘Where the Spirit is at work, we are present too, / arguing about what is best. So it seems best to me now, / when his image is complete and the master is finished / and from his workshop he steps out transfigured’. The poet senses the transfiguration, the new form that is emerging in and around him, the radiant figure. He so desires that this work be completed soon, that the newborn, the ‘silent God of Time’, in whom eternity and transience are united, may step out of his ‘workshop’. The workshop is our physical and spiritual space. When the transfigured human being steps out of it, when he, no longer earthbound, steps into the cosmic and becomes a representative of humanity, the ‘law of love, the beautifully balancing one, extends from here to heaven’.

The Union

The poet dedicates the ninth stanza of his epic, which consists of twelve stanzas, to the culmination of the union between man and God. Twelve, the number of the whole, nine, the number of the perfected human being. ‘Now they are met together as guests, / a holy number, holy in every way, / and present in choruses of song, / and their most beloved, / to whom they are attached, is here.’ The most beloved is their partner, the earthly human, of whom the poet says in the eighth verse: ‘Soon we’ll be song.’ The human being invites the immortal, the ‘Youth’, ‘to the banquet now prepared’, ‘to the evening of time’. And he reaches an ecstatic vision and proclaims: ‘And our race will not go to sleep, / until you promised ones, / all you immortals, / are here in our halls / to speak of your heaven.’

The Future of Being Human

Hölderlin tunes humanity to a future for which the seeds have been sown. ‘Lightly breathing airs / already proclaim your arrival.’ We have to look beyond ourselves, grow into the spheres of the spiritual and soul. We cannot judge the results of our lives and should not do so. Because ‘all labors, / the seasoning of life, / are prepared and completed above’, ‘the hardships are carried out’ into the divine plane of existence. ‘Each person’s work will be tested by the fire’ (1 Cor. 3:13). There in the fire, the new garment awaits the person, his garment of light. All his efforts, the fruit of his existences, are woven into it.

This robe of light has existed before. The human being had already received it in the childhood stage of his existence, but at that time without any merit of his own, without any effort of his own: ‘The golden fruit, / has fallen from ancient tree / after terrible storms, / but then is guarded, like a treasured possession, / by holy fate with gentle weapons: it is the shape of the heavenly ones’. This is how the eleventh verse of the Celebration of Peace ends.

Patience

There is still a twelfth. The poet falls back from the heavenly sphere into earthly reality. He experiences the suffering of our ‘mother’, the earthly nature. She has the task of drawing her children ‘to the light’. But she has bitter experiences in doing so. ‘Because that which you brought / to light too soon, all-powerful one, / now hates you. / But this too you recognise and accept.’ People need time to mature, need the fullness of experience, gained in ‘fearfully bustling’ activity, as we know all too well. ‘For gladly, unfeeling, it rests, / until it matures, fearfully bustling down there.’

Unearthly Beauty

The sounds of the epic echo, they want to be understood, they want to awaken sentient thinking and seeing. This takes effort. If you take it upon yourself, the lines of the poem reveal unearthly beauty. The epic resembles man himself. It entices him to fathom his secret. Every human being is faced with the question of whether he can find the courage and develop the persistence to venture into the unrecognized, into the openness of his inner self.

Those who dare to take this step into the ‘abyss’ will experience how the light becomes a new foundation for them. They will encounter the ‘First one who resurrected’ (1 Cor. 15:23), who offers them His ‘robe’, the body of light, the body of resurrection.

Origenes, one of the early church fathers, whose vision was later condemned by councils, recognized the body of light as the ‘most delicate, purest and most luminous body’ [1]. In relation to it, beauty becomes a process of recognition and growth. The words of the Holy Scriptures and also the words of an epic like the Celebration of Peace release light and become spiritual nourishment. ‘I am the light that is above all’ (Gospel of Thomas, Log. 77). ‘He who drinks from my mouth will be like me. And I myself will become him, and the secrets will be revealed to him’ (Log. 108).

The consequence is a celebration, an ever-repeating Celebration of Peace.

[1] Cit. in: Enno Edzard Popkes, Platonisches Christentum, 2019, p. 69

The Poem: Celebration of peace  last access: 15.01.20269

More than once you feel Kafkaesque – or Don Quixote-esque – when you oppose state measures and feel like you’re tilting at windmills. Inevitably, you feel the need for a change, for distance from everything.

But how can you do that? Aren’t you in the middle of a river whose current keeps sweeping you along? You could … step onto the bank and observe and study things from there in peace, to describe them with a sober eye, writing the oppressive feelings from your soul…

Franz Kafka was a lawyer in an insurance company. What is an insurance claim? Something has happened that you were worried about. You have paid money for this event, paid monthly insurance premiums. You have made an agreement with your anxiety. Certain events should not happen. The insurance is supposed to help you break out of the causal cycle of cause and effect.

The Kafkaesque world

Franz Kafka describes the underlying mechanisms of bourgeois life: social roles, the judicial system, the legal system. His main characters find themselves in situations of exaggerated absurdity that reveal the senselessness of things, the hopelessness of life in our matrix. Kafka’s stories have no happy ending; they leave the reader in a sphere of uncertainty.

The world we live in is relative. All its values are relative, all its truths, all justice. We can get used to this, but ultimately we cannot identify with it. Sometimes situations come to a head – and we experience ourselves as strangers, outsiders.

If you read Kafka from a psychological perspective, you can ask yourself: is what he describes really our reality, does it correspond to the inner realities of our world? For example, the situation that we are somewhere in our pyjamas, like K. In the novel The Castle, we stand before the teacher, incapable and prejudiced.

In the novels The Castle and The Trial[1], Kafka evokes a feeling of being oppressed. The boundary between the private and the public dissolves.[2] Inner processes – intentions, feelings – are transferred to the public sphere. Guilt and condemnation weigh on the main character. Where do they come from? Are they evoked by the inner self, which is deprived of freedom? In the spaces of the subconscious – aren’t fear and guilt stored there, isn’t the punishing God of the Old Testament still at work? Thoughts and feelings of this kind arise. We ponder them, scrutinise them – and if it is good, we take away some of the dominating power of what oppresses us from the depths. The mechanisms of the subconscious are connected with our life in the relative world, with the imperfection of our existence. What can one expect from a surveyor (the main character in The Castle) who has the task of measuring the earth, i.e. taking care of the earthly measure? Through strange circumstances, however, Kafka has him become a schoolmaster in the “school of life”.

In the novel The Trial, Josef K. reaches a point where he realises that he has to help himself; he comes to a self-confrontation. The justice system, an automatic apparatus, a dehumanised mechanism, turns Josef K. into a stranger. Experiencing the “naked” situation of existence means reaching the point of self-confrontation. From here, the next step can be taken, the step towards the “human being within us”.

In his interpretation of the process, Lukas van den Berge writes that “the law is only accessible to those who are completely liberated, fully responsible and autonomous“[3]. It is necessary to free oneself inwardly from authority and all manifestations of power.

Law in our world has to do with power and violence, it is associated with coercion. Legal norms are abstract, regulate the average, the norm-ale. They have a tendency to reduce the human to this. Norms are a mirror of life, they are necessities in the relative world. However, if we become inwardly autonomous, then we free ourselves – inwardly – from the influences of power and authority. We find right and justice on a different level, the spiritual level.

How things get their purpose

Everything takes on a purpose when we, driven by circumstances, experience ourselves as strangers on earth and, following an inner longing, turn to the divine-spiritual. The way out and the purpose of things light up in the soul, which opens itself to the spirit. The labyrinth of hopeless imprisonment, the oppressive and condemning feelings of guilt, the cycles of growing meaninglessness – paradoxically, they do have a purpose.

For at the point of greatest despair, cognition emerges, cognition of the imprisonment of our higher soul aspect in the animality of the body. For a long time we have identified with our physical existence. Now a break occurs. And with it comes the deep feeling of being a stranger on earth.

The way out lies in this feeling alone. For it makes us seek the purpose that underlies our existence. We come into contact with our transcendent, perhaps heavenly, spiritual, supernatural essence.

Being a stranger on the material earth, in the material body, means that our home is outside of all this, in a higher vibrating sphere, in the land of the transcendent Logos, in the divine universe.

Towards the end of his life, Franz Kafka professed Hasidism and also took practical life measures such as vegetarianism, abstinence from alcohol, coffee, tea and chocolate in order to realise his spiritual being more easily. It may seem that in his writings he only exposes senselessness and masterfully describes emptiness. But in doing so, he opens the door to existential questions.

Hasidism is a Jewish pietism with a characteristic piety. An absolute attachment to God gives rise to joy in the little things of everyday life; the presence of God, the Shechinah, permeates the whole world. That was the direction Kafka took. In his novels and stories, he exposes the system of alienation, he turns his gaze to the Medusa, but he does not look her directly in the eye, does not face her with the pride and arrogance of the ego, but recognises in humility and sincerity that it is “so”. And he writes it down. It is not yet the whole truth, but it is a step on the path to it, a door in its direction. Truth is something that, as Ludwig Wittgenstein says, “shows itself”. The mystical, the mystery cannot be put into words.

We can ask ourselves: do we, living in the growth curves of today’s civilisation, experience ourselves in a Kafkaesque alienation? Recognising this would be the first half of the journey. The citizen Karel K. feels lonely in shallow relationships. It is as if he is naively fleeing from himself. But then he finds himself in a situation where he has to defend himself.

Now comes the other half of the journey, the unspoken half, about which one can only remain silent, as Wittgenstein says: the mystery. What first reveals itself is: our being, disintegrated, analysed, divided, alone, with a dead God, alienated, meaningless. If it is recognised as such, the opportunity to become whole arises, the opportunity for unification, for understanding, respect, recognition, meaningfulness. The higher order draws closer, it wants to be discovered and with it the purpose of the long separation from it. This purpose only lights up after living through separation and meaninglessness. And when this happens, we must learn to integrate it into our lives.

Hesitant steps

We experience a great deal of pleasure in separation and isolation, even if we suffer under many circumstances at the same time. Even “at the cape of despair”, as an outcast “on the edge of the world”, we work on an atmosphere for our existence: pessimistic, poetic, intellectual…

After a while, however, we can no longer stand living with ourselves. The question of meaning haunts us. In the distress of loneliness, we start to communicate and ask for help. We take frantic steps towards other people – and talk about the weather so that we at least have contact and learn to get along with others and respect them. We try to reduce the resentment that has grown from alienation, pay attention to everyday things, try to distract ourselves from introspection.

But we have become strangers and remain so. Loneliness no longer leaves us. We feel compelled to confront our ego. But its edges become sharper. How can we succeed in dissolving the ego into something higher? The dynamic of the spirit that hovers over the waters can now take hold of us. We can allow ourselves to be “baptised” by it, we can allow its flashes of fire to enter us – as far as we can stand it. Our view of life continues to change. Things that are clearly meaningless suddenly take on a purpose that we previously had no idea existed. And the idea that our souls have fallen out of God’s world is also shown in a new light. Truth works its way into us, we become more and more animated by the spirit, we become “alive”. We realise how much we are connected to the whole of creation. The time of alienation and separation turns into a time of union and discovery.

And what comes next?

The guardians of the galaxies tell stories for the divine sons who do not yet remember. We receive impulses from them, far-reaching, going beyond words.

Everything rises within us once more, one last mail, before it enters the substances of wisdom, the heavenly “body” that knows no boundaries.

We were strangers and cross the border into our homeland.

In deep inner crisis we have transcended good and evil and overcome duality. Not through asceticism or arrogance, but in humility, longing and the expectation of the divine. It was a state of strange neutrality, in which one does not wish to attract or repel anything. The longing for the divine world order led to an uprooting in the material world.

And there was the tussle with the ego, which somehow managed to persist and play its game. Ultimately, it led us to full maturity, so it had its purpose. But when the lightning from above increases and opens up the vertical path further, the ego loses its meaning. The horizontal direction in which it aims loses its grip.

The search for purpose in the horizontal ceased. The inner senses opened wide and unconditionally, observing everything, living in everything, as it were. This had become possible because the living spirit filled the consciousness and the inner spaces. A certain lightness of being came in the midst of the everyday heaviness.

The path to the divine-spiritual became light-footed. How easy it was to take responsibility for one’s own life once it had been handed over to the spirit! It was important to live according to the instructions of the spirit. They were concretisations of an uncertain nothingness. By allowing them to emerge, we begin to understand.

How did we even know that there was truth in our earthly life? By living in the material, imperfect and in many respects untrue world – and becoming strangers in it, like Franz Kafka.

[1] Kafka wrote “The Trial” in German. In the first edition of the Dutch translation by Lukas van den Berge, the English term “Process” was used, expressing a gradual development. Later editions used the term “Prozess”, which refers more to the final judgement, or to condemnation and guilt when personal responsibility for one’s life is not consciously accepted.

[2] Here I present thoughts from contemporary Dutch legal philosopher Lukas van den Berge, who gave a lecture on Law and Responsibility: Kafka in the Digital Age at the Legal Ethics Conference (ILEC) in Amsterdam on 19 July 2024, on which he collaborated with Jeanne Gaakeer.

[3] Ibid, note from Van den Berge’s presentation.

Some moments in art reach beyond form or history — moments when a single figure seems to hold something universal. In Marc Chagall’s The Praying Jew, we encounter such a figure. Bent in posture, cloaked in white, surrounded by the simplicity of ritual, he offers no words, no action. He is. And in this stillness, he prays. But what is prayer?

In the tradition of the Rosycross, prayer is not a petition. It is not addressed to a distant deity, nor does it seek favour or outcome. It is a silent movement of the soul — an act of listening, alignment, and surrender to the inner flame. The School of the Rosycross does not claim a philosophy of its own. It follows the current of the Holy Language — the sacred knowledge once revealed by Christ and, before him, by the great initiates of every age. As Édouard Schuré writes in The Great Initiates, the truth of the Spirit “passes through the soul in silence.” The transmission of divine wisdom is not the property of any religion or nation but the inheritance of those who are ready to hear. In this Light, the praying figure in Chagall’s painting is more than a representation of Jewish devotion. He symbolises remembrance — the eternal moment when human beings turn inward and listen. This reflection is offered as a quiet approach to the theme of prayer. Not to define it, but to touch it — and perhaps to stand beside it, if only for a moment.

At first glance, The Praying Jew appears deceptively simple. A solitary figure kneels or sits in quiet reverence, his hands holding sacred objects, his head bowed in reverence. His white beard, pale robe, and woollen tallit (prayer shawl) evoke not only Jewish ritual but something deeper — a gesture that seems to belong to all seekers across all traditions. There is little drama in the composition; it lacks narrative and movement. And yet, the stillness radiates. The quiet colours, the closed posture, the soft folds of the cloth — all speak of a turning inward. This is not a man in performance; this is a man in remembrance. In Jewish mysticism, prayer is often considered a form of union — a devekut (from the Hebrew root d-v-k, meaning to cleave), or cleaving, to the Divine. But Chagall gives us no visible sign of ecstasy. The figure in the painting is not caught in rapture. He is grounded, embodied, and silent. His very stillness becomes the expression of what prayer might be: not asking, not even praising, but simply being present before the invisible.

In this, Chagall invites us to look again — not at the form of the prayer but at the presence that arises from within it. Just as the great initiates taught that truth is not revealed in noise or spectacle but in the soul’s innermost stillness, so does this image invite us into a space of quiet recognition. This is prayer not as language but as posture. Not in terms of performance but in terms of participation. Not the reaching outward but the turning inward toward something sacred and alive.

In the teachings of the School of the Golden Rosycross, prayer is not an act of supplication, nor is it bound by form, words, or inherited rituals. Instead, it is an orientation — a quiet alignment of the inner being with the divine nucleus, the Spirit-Spark. It is a re-tuning of the soul to its original frequency, a movement of remembrance more than expression. The soul that prays this way does not seek to persuade the Divine or direct it. It listens. It yields. And in that yielding, something higher is given space to arise — not from without, but from within. This prayer cannot be taught in the usual sense. It is not a formula but a state of being.

As described in the book The Living Word by Catharose de Petri, one of the founders of the School of the Golden Rosycross, the true invocation is not of the lips but of the heart transformed. It emerges only when the personality ceases its endless striving and enters a stillness born of surrender. In this silence, the Holy Language — the true voice of the Spirit — may begin to be heard. The Rosicrucian path describes this as the “transfiguration” of the human being — a gradual process by which the old self yields to the new, guided not by effort alone but by resonance with the Light. And it is this resonance that prayer makes possible in its truest sense. It is not a reaching up but an opening down — an inner temple prepared for the return of the divine flame. Seen in this way, the man in The Praying Jew is not only a symbol of devotion. He mirrors what every seeker must one day become: still, surrendered, listening. He is no longer performing prayer — he has become prayer.

Across centuries and cultures, the outer forms of religion have differed; yet, in every tradition, some turn inward. They are not concerned with outward observance alone but with inner awakening. Through them, the Spirit’s living stream continues — the thread Schuré calls the tradition of the great initiates. In The Great Initiates, Schuré traces a golden thread that runs from the mysteries of ancient Egypt and India, through Orpheus and Pythagoras, to Moses and the prophets and culminates in Christ. This thread is not merely historical — it is vibrational. It is the current of sacred knowledge passed from soul to soul, often in silence and always through inner transformation. Central to this tradition is a different kind of prayer — one not performed but lived.

The initiate does not ask the Divine to intervene in the world. The true initiate becomes an instrument of the Divine in the world. In this context, prayer becomes a quiet flame, a receptivity to the higher Will. It is no longer personal; it is universal. And it arises not from separation but from the recognition of inner unity. This is the prayer we glimpse in Chagall’s The Praying Jew. Though rooted in Jewish life, the figure transcends its cultural frame. The figure becomes archetypal — an image of the one who remembers. His silence is not empty; it is filled with the same energy that animates the great initiates of every age. In this Light, the painting itself becomes an icon of the path. It speaks not only to those within a tradition but also to anyone who has felt the call of the Divine within. It reminds us that the greatest truths are often not spoken — they are entered inwardly, through stillness.

We live in a time of unprecedented noise. The world is saturated with speech, images, and opinions — with voices that demand to be heard. In such an atmosphere, silence can seem empty, even threatening. Yet it is precisely in silence that something essential may reappear. The figure in The Praying Jew serves as a reminder of this. He does not argue, proclaim, or persuade. He withdraws into the inner sanctuary — not to escape, but to return. His stillness is not passivity; it is attunement. It speaks of a different kind of strength: not the strength of assertion, but the strength of alignment. This kind of inner prayer becomes more vital for the seeker on the path of Gnosis. In the teachings of the Golden Rosycross, we are reminded that transformation begins not with external reform but with an inward turning — a preparation of the inner space for the Spirit to speak again. And the voice of the Spirit is never loud. It does not compete. It waits to be invited in. This is not a call to abandon the world but to perceive it differently. To act, not from impulse or reaction, but from clarity born of silence.

In this sense, prayer becomes a posture of the soul in every moment — a quiet openness that listens before speaking and loves before judging. In this way, the act of prayer returns to its original depth — not as something we do, but as something we become. A state of being in resonance with the eternal. A willingness to receive the Word that was in the beginning.
What Chagall captured in The Praying Jew is not only a moment in Jewish life, nor a tribute to faith under duress. He gave form to something transcending time and culture: the figure of the one who remembers. This memory is not of the mind but of the soul — a remembrance of the divine origin, long veiled by the noise of the world and the identities we inherit. Such a remembrance does not come through learning alone. It comes through listening. And to listen, we must become still.
In the Rosycross, a Gnostic spiritual school dedicated to the universal wisdom regarding inner transformation, we are shown that within each human being lies a fragment of the eternal — a Spirit-Spark, placed like a seed in the heart. This spark is not activated by Will or intellect but by a quiet and conscious surrender. It is drawn toward the Light that never left us — though we left it. And it is prayer, in its truest form, that allows us to turn once again toward that Light.

In this context, prayer becomes inseparable from transfiguration. It is the threshold, the opening through which the new soul may emerge. Not because of what is spoken but because of what is offered — a life laid down, a heart made still, a silence held long enough for the Holy Language to be heard once more.
Perhaps this is why Chagall’s The Praying Jew moves us. He speaks without words. And points without gesture. He draws us into his stillness, and something within us stirs in that stillness. Something half-remembered. Something that calls not from above but from within — and waits to be answered, quietly, with our entire being.

References

Chagall, Marc. My Life. Translated by Elisabeth Abbott, Peter Owen Publishers, 1965.

De Petri, Catharose. The Living Word. Rozenkruis Pers, n.d.

Schuré, Édouard. The Great Initiates: A Study of the Secret History of Religions. Translated by Fred Rothwell, Kessinger Publishing, 1999.

Van Rijckenborgh, Jan. The Egyptian Arch Gnosis. Rozenkruis Pers, n.d.

Van Rijckenborgh, Jan, and Catharose de Petri. The Gnostic Mysteries of the Pistis Sophia. Rozenkruis Pers, n.d.

A few days of space for contemplation and to take a deep breath. The sound of the waves during a rousing wind, of the surf in the days after the summer storm, of the gentle lapping when there is no wind, they wash away restless thoughts and my head seems to become clearer.

A century ago, the sea was only just being discovered as a place of relaxation, and only for the rich. Until the end of the 19th century, the sea was seen as dangerous, a body of water that could turn into a devouring monster at any moment. But in some ancient cultures, the sea was revered as the primordial mother, from which all life on earth was created. For me, Claude Debussy’s beautiful piece of music “La mer” unites both points of view in an undulating melody that sounds calming, then rousing, then threatening. A synthesis of trust, fear, care and calmness, sadness and comfort. But the sea is no longer that ancient sea.

There is a dreamy Dutch song by Boudewijn de Groot and Lennart Nijgh, from the mid-1960s, which struck me at the time with its simple, melancholic tone. “De waterdrager” (The Water Carrier) is about an old man who carries water to the sea every day because he is afraid that the sun will evaporate and dry up the sea. Even then, it was a completely nonsensical idea, and now, with the threat of rising sea levels, it is even more so. But the title and lyrics contain a reference to the expression “carrying water to the sea”: doing unnecessary or pointless work. The water carrier is busy with this all day long, and at night he rests contentedly, knowing that he has persevered another day and “saved the sea from the sun.”

Now, however, I think I recognize a deeper layer in it, a reference to the divinity of the sea.

The great primordial sea that we call God wants to be nourished. It craves our love, our attention. It waits with boundless patience for the moment when we turn around in our restless search for deep, lasting peace, enduring love, eternal unity. Which we will never find as long as we search outside ourselves. Only when we turn to our deepest inner self, when we begin to nourish the thirsty rose within us with the water of our daily attentive love, only then do we begin the journey toward lasting unity and peace. Then the water bearer of this age, Aquarius, comes to help us with the living water, to refresh us in a very direct way.

The 21st-century industrialized human being is primarily concerned with the pursuit of comfort and pleasure. In addition, practical solutions must be found for the daily problems and issues that earthly life presents us with. Unnoticed, we as humanity have strayed miles away from our destination. We have increasingly bent natural creation to our will, even resorting to atomic fission and genetic manipulation. And now, with Artificial Intelligence, we have created a juggernaut that may end up hindering us more than helping us. With every new invention, we are confronted with the opposite of help. With major, often unforeseeable disadvantages and obstacles. For which, in turn, a new solution must be devised, and so we forge an enormous chain that binds us ever more to the earthly.

Did Nijgh and De Groot have a visionary moment when they wrote this text? I hear a hyperbole here that outlines the thinking and behaviour of the industrialized world—every invention seems to be a reason for greater hubris. “Technology stands for nothing,” I often heard in the past; it seemed like a slogan. But the text also shows the loner who thinks he can act against this way of thinking. Nijgh and De Groot saw childish arrogance in the person who thinks he must control the earth and its largest living organism. And also save it from the sun, when the sea and sun normally work together optimally. But aren’t we all, in fact, that anxious water carrier? Don’t we all have the tendency to want to control life? To which sea do we carry our water every day?

It is a quiet morning by the sea. I walk barefoot through the low waves of the ebbing tide. Small children play with buckets and spades near a dilapidated sandcastle from the previous day. They rush to keep the water flowing out of the moat at the right level now that the tide is going out. Perhaps the song was simply written for a child who experienced this phenomenon for the first time and thought it had to replenish the receding seawater. Even so, it has produced a beautiful song.

Water Carrier

 

The sea falls, the sea descends,

and the sun rises, burning brightly.

The fearful water carrier fetches more water,

for the sea is drying up.

 

The sea rises, the sea ascends,

and slowly the sun descends.

The water carrier toils and pants,

perhaps he will make it today.

For the sea must be saved from the sun.

For the sea must be saved from the sun.

 

Water carrier, carry the water to the sea.

Water carrier, carry the water to the sea.

 

The sea kisses, the sea extinguishes

and quenches the hot evening sun.

The water carrier sleeps and rests,

satisfied that he made it

and saved the sea from the sun.

And saved the sea from the sun.

 

Water carrier, carry the water to the sea.

Water carrier, carry the water to the sea.

 

The sea blazes, the sea burns,

the water carrier scorches his back.

The sun rises in the rear,

the water carrier hurries back.

For the sea must be saved from the sun.

For the sea must be saved from the sun.

 

Water carrier, carry the water to the sea.

Water carrier, carry the water to the sea.

 

Carry the water to the sea.

Carry the water to the sea.

Lennaert Nijgh / Boudewijn de Groot

Boudewijn de Groot – Waterdrager