The Kober Press

Bô Yin Râ:
What Needs to Be Understood

Bust of Bô Yin Râ

The following is a translation of the chapter "Was es zu fassen gilt!" from a work titled Mehr Licht (More Light) by Bô Yin Râ. It was originally published in 1921.
 
The copyright to the German original is held by Kober Verlag, Bern, Switzerland. This translation is also copyrighted. Permission is given to copy this file solely for personal use in limited quantity.

Copyright B.A. Reichenbach, 2016.


All religions of the world in one form or another call on human beings to turn around and go back, to seek and find again their timeless spiritual home, however different the concepts of this primordial home within the Spirit might be formed, however different the path that ought to be pursued.

All religions alike are guided by the insight that this primordial home within the Spirit is unlike the condition in which the human being finds itself in life on earth, and that this once more new condition can only be attained by somehow raising one's conduct to a worthier level by subordinating what are lower impulses under the higher and highest kind that are found in the human being.

In nearly all religions one can find the concept of an individuated Self-Representation of the eternal primordial Light, as a trace still reflecting profoundest knowledge of Reality.  Only in Taoism, Shintoism, and in the faith of the southern Buddhists, the Hinayana School, this insight is missing. It nonetheless would be wrong to regard these religions as inherently atheistic, merely because their concepts of the Divine are unable to rise above the unformed Sea of the divine Ground of Being.

The Buddhism of the North, on the other hand, the school of the Mahayana, the “Great Vehicle,” in contrast to the “Lesser Vehicle,” the Hinayana, presents the concept of the individuated Self-Representation of the eternal primordial Light in its purest expression as its heavenly primordial Buddha, the Adi-Buddha, even though the various opinions of teachers mostly obscure the clarity of the concept. It is possible that this concept originated in gnostic wisdom and reached Nepal and Tibet, via Persia and Turkestan, only at a much later time, and then continued to spread from these regions.   

 The concept of the Logos is rooted in gnostic wisdom.  But here, in the “Word” which is from God, and is God we encounter nothing other than the eternal, inapprehensible primordial Light giving Voice to Itself in an individuated spiritual form. This perception of  spiritual Reality found its way into the teachings of Christianity, where it was thoroughly intermingled with the dogma of the Master of Nazareth being the Son of God, although this relationship was utterly different  in kind, but as a result  the “Anointed One,” the Christ of the Gospels, has now for nearly two thousand years been understood and worshiped as the Logos in “human form.”

In truth, however, the gnostic-Alexandrian dogma of the Logos solely reveals in  perfect clarity the recognition of a reality that fully justifies all—conventionally so-called—“personified” concepts of God, provided they do not degenerate into forms of anthropomorphic spiritual emptiness, which then will lead to  dreaming about a “personal God” high above the clouds, who is nothing more than an all too earthly temporal potentate, endowed with godlike unlimited power.

Regrettably, customary Christian images of God are not too far removed from concepts of that nature.

That being the case, human beings then have only two possible ways to approach this heavenly “king.”

Either one fears not to be able to “find his ear” if one intended to stand before him in person, without intercession, and thus looks around, much in the way of good old-fashioned tradition at court, for a spiritual advocate to initiate the connection; or, being sure of one’s merit, one proudly disdains any such mediation, and deems oneself justified to make contact on one’s own, without intercessor.

Both postures rest upon an inconceivably narrow, physically constricted concept of God’s divine nature, despite the fact one believes to be conscious of God in a way that is thoroughly “spiritual.”

What is felt in this way, the “God” with whom one believes to be able to come into contact by either of these methods, is without exception a “God” born of dreams.

How paltry in scale, yet at the same time how presumptuous and arrogant is a concept of the eternal Ground of all Being that is capable of wanting to gain the favor of its God by means of middlemen, or which may mislead one to seek a personal dialogue with the primordial Light, without bearing in mind that this primordial Light,  no less than its Voice in individuated form, so utterly surpass all human powers of comprehension as the greatest of blazing suns in the physical universe surpasses a glimmering flicker in the ashes of a hearth.

Had not the eternal, all-encompassing Spirit prepared an accessible path from the primordial Light of all Being, no human spirit in truth could ever return to its  origin.

This path, however, is the same the human spirit once had descended before uniting itself with the animal creature on earth.

The human being on earth could not enter this path if all human beings in the realm of the Spirit had originally “fallen” together, without exception.

In reality, however, it is always only a small number that succumbs to this “fall,” even though billions are involved, who now must through the millennia, on this and other planets, share the life of the animal when their time has come.

Some, however, who had not “fallen” into the animal’s bodily form have since ages immemorial been living on this earth voluntarily, in invisible form, radiant in godlike mercy and love,  thus to hold  open the path back to primordial Light for their ”fallen” fellow humans. In this they are guided by one of the primordially begotten Humans of the Spirit’s innermost world, who never left the source of His origin in “the Word that is God.

Since the dawn of time these few had known how to prepare human spirits before their approaching birth in a human animal body, so that once born these were able to rise to the level that serves as the bridge allowing the human spirit to cross and reach the first of the shores that border the sublime realm beyond in the Spirit, from which the human being had long ago willfully banished itself by its “fall.”

Those among human beings on earth who thus were prepared have here become, by virtue of the Eternal revealing Itself within them, the Luminaries of primordial Light. To use a different term, seeing it is now in use, these few may also be called the elder Brothers of humankind; “elder” because they would have been born already thousands of years ago in human animal form on earth, since they, too, belonged to those human spirits who had succumbed to the “fall,” and thus  were bound to undergo life in animal form. Having offered themselves voluntarily, however, to their few Brothers untouched by the “fall,”, who live here in spiritual form, they became, as it were, lenses collecting the rays of primordial Light.

Their preparation also required, however, that for thousands of years  they had to serve their Brothers, who had not “ fallen,” but who, moved by compassion and love, abide with humans on earth in spiritual form; and thus, being part of  their redemptive plan of bringing light and liberation, they had in this way themselves  been actively helping on earth long before their birth in animal form.

Not each among them is given the same task to perform on this earth once he has found himself born in a human animal body.

But each is pledged to his particular call and follows no other; no matter whether in life on this earth it will lead him to honor, glory, and wealth, or to disdain, poverty, torture and contempt.

If he seeks to evade what life on earth is destined to bring him, his “fall” will be deeper than ever before; nor does it matter which form of temporal fate he were to reject, whether it be agreeable or unpleasant in earthly terms; for none here is able ever to meet all the demands of his call without living the kind of life he encounters, wisely chosen for him by higher guidance, so that he may follow the call uniquely intended for him.

This sublime community of helpers, endowed with life in the Spirit, is active on earth through a form of magnetic spiritual energy, which,  although physically imperceptible, reaches all who already are capable of pursuing their inner ascent; thus drawing them higher, into a spiritual state, like the one of its own members.  The only difference is that human spirits, who in this way have awakened, will rise solely to continue ascending; for they are neither obligated, nor able to take part in the task of offering help, which the spiritual community of Luminaries of primordial Light itself provides without ceasing, given that this requires, as I already mentioned, a preparation extending over thousands of years.

Those, however, whom the unseen help of spiritually sanctioned guides have awakened, will—after the death of the human animal body, joined to which they had lived here on earth—at once be able to reach the next, higher state of life in the Spirit; the level on which those who did not suffer the “fall” abide in spiritual form; they whose very own creation is the community in the realm of pure Spirit, given that its members, who live here on earth in human animal form, constantly receive from them spiritual impulses, lacking which no mortal on earth could ever reveal the Eternal that manifests Itself through his being.

Now among those who have “died” on earth in the animal body, there is a small number that, once having reached this higher level, moved by compassion and love, will invisibly remain close to human mortals on earth, like those who had not suffered the “fall,” whose redemptive plan of bringing light and liberation they assist, to the extent that additional energies of will make that possible.

Excepting those few, known in the Buddhism of the North as the Bodhisattvas of Compassion,  in the earlier Christian church as Saints, Angels, and Archangels—including also the later Fourteen Holy Helpers—nearly all others will strive from this higher level to ascend even further. And in  this way the human spirit gradually progresses, in ages that earthly concepts of time cannot measure, through each succeeding still higher level of hierarchies in the Spirit, until it reaches that highest primordial Source of all Being in the realm of the Spirit—the primordial Light giving Voice to Itself—where it thus has returned to the Word that is God. Forever united with it, the human spirit therein will find its own highest spiritual individuation for all eternity; long since united already with its human spiritual pole of opposite gender, as being male and female in the Spirit.

In this way the human spirit, once having “fallen,” will find its way from the animal state on earth back to its original home in the realm of pure Spirit, the world of celestial bliss and clarity, wherein life differs profoundly from anything known in even the most mysterious domains of physical nature, to which this planet belongs.

The realm of pure Spirit, and the ocean of energies forming the human soul, to which the human spirit owes the potential of regaining its timeless individuation, are not “far above and beyond” this universe of physical nature. Nonetheless, there is a gulf that separates all things that are part of nature’s material realm and the world of pure Spirit. A gulf that could never be crossed had not those untouched by the “fall”—who since the dawn of time had remained with the “fallen” human spirits in spiritual form—built and sustained the only “bridge” that makes the return to timeless life in the Spirit once again possible.       

Not until its return is accomplished, unified with the Word that is God, shall the human spirit behold the Godhead as it eternally is and reveals Itself “face to face,” yet not from without,  but in that spirit’s own self.

Only then will the human spirit “know,” even as it shall itself be “known.”

Yet already at the beginning of this path no concept of time can measure, its living God may become born in it, in a form human consciousness is able to apprehend.

The living God of the awakening or awakened human being on this earth is, as it were, an infinitesimal spark of the eternal radiance of the “Word” that is “God” throughout the eternities, being Itself the primordial Light giving Voice to the primordial Word—such  as It simultaneously comprehends Itself  as “Godhead” through  all Eternity.

For the sake of absolute clarity one here may permit a comparison with one of the energies of the physical universe that humans were able to turn to their use.

In the same way that electricity is able to cause a filament as thin as a hair to glow and shed light, while the power of the same energy meant to supply a large city, if used in its total force, would instantly destroy that tenuous fiber, even so would the mortal human being’s capacity of comprehension be instantly annihilated if it were able, without preparation, to approach the all-surpassing radiance of the eternal “Word,” and thus the primordial Light itself—while mortal human comprehension is able, indeed, to endure the extremely subtle spiritual current which, in the innermost of the soul’s center, generates that faint reflection of the Father—that luminous scintilla, wherein alone its living God can become apprehended by humans on earth, without destroying the earth-born mortals’ consciousness by its all-surpassing radiance.

If finally awakened the individual then enters the only path that truly leads back to the realm of the human spirit’s origin, that scintilla will be shining before it, becoming brighter and more radiant with every higher state that is attained, until at last, in the ineffable splendor of the primordial “Word”—in the eternal, self-generating primordial Light, it then will unite itself therewith forever.

This describes, as best one may in human language, the path that leads the human spirit up again to the height from which it had fallen.

It is that which needs to be understood if one would recognize the true nature of the path to the Spirit, whose essence is radiant light; the only path the human spirit is capable of ascending; the path all spiritually influenced religions on this earth intuitively fathom, and seek to have their believers find through their teachings. 

Those who think they can show different paths into the Spirit deceive themselves; and even if they acted with the best of intentions, they still would only lead themselves and all who follow them into agonizing chaos of the soul, already in this present life, and  then for aeons after death on earth; if not indeed, to total dissolution of  individuated consciousness, the one  eternal spiritual death, from which there is no resurrection.

Inexorable is the power of the laws that govern the eternal realm of  Spirit, and no might, nor wisdom of heaven or earth will ever be able to bend them; for what they manifest is nothing other than the timeless will of primordial Light itself, whose rays bestow being on all things in existence.

You stand in awe beneath the starry hosts at night and cannot conceive what power sustains them. And yet, this entire universe with all its countless galaxies is but the least creation of a force, and its inherent will, to which you are yourself indebted for your being. You, however, may behold the higher revelation of this power, even in its innermost essence, if you are willing to enter the path held open by Love and Compassion.

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard what God has prepared for those who love Him.”  Nothing earthly, purely physical, is able to grasp the Eternal.

Would that my words might teach you to love all that is God’s!

Not until you discern what is God’s, to the extent you are able in contemplation, will you knowingly love it. Before then, what you love is merely a fetish you shaped in your mind.

Once you begin, in meditation, to discern in yourself how the Godhead’s power draws you aloft, shall you also recognize eternal Love in yourself, whereby you accomplish all that shall further your spiritual liberation.

Then only will you also learn on your own to use that power without equal; this energy surpassing all others: eternal Love, disengaged from all objects.

This godlike dynamic, primordial energy from the spiritual realm, through which alone the life of human beings on this earth can be set free from all bondage.

This highest of all powers, whereby you may liberate yourself from the yoke under which the unseen rulers of nature’s physical realm you inhabit are holding you captive. Forces that rank far below you, but at this time are still mightier than you, until Love Itself will let you become the invincible lord of your life.

You then will learn to understand the meaning revealed through the word:

“God is Love, and those who abide in Love abide in God, and God abides within them.”