The Three Sages Substack continues its presentation of works by the German Luminary Bô Yin Râ in cooperation with Books to Light, publisher and copyright holder of the complete English translation of the Luminary’s masterwork: the 32-volume compendium of his spiritual guidance under the general title of Hortus Conclusus (“The Enclosed Garden”).

Bô Yin Râ was the spiritual name of Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, who was born in Aschaffenburg, Germany, in 1876 and who passed away in Lugano, Switzerland, in 1943. In his explanations of spiritual realities and the inner path thereto, Bô Yin Râ openly identified himself as part of the same society of Luminaries of the First Light (Leuchtenden des Urlichts) to which Jesus Christ himself belonged.

The Luminaries consist of those human individuals with ultimate responsibility for the spiritual destiny of all humanity on planet earth. Their terrestrial headquarters are located in the heart of Asia, and they have been providing their guidance for millennia.

It is extremely rare for a Luminary to work openly and in public as Jesus and Bô Yin Râ have done. The existence of the Luminaries is hinted at in the Bible by references to the Order of Melchizedek of which Jesus was a priest.

Bô Yin Râ wrote that the work of the Luminaries is still at an early stage. This idea is supported by the realization that in both cultural and ethical terms humanity is not far removed from a primitive state of savage barbarism. Events in the world today show this clearly.

At the same time, humanity’s spiritual hunger is shown by the proliferation of sects and cults claiming to show the way, along with the historic religions. But it is not necessary that vast numbers of people embrace the teachings of the Luminaries for the world to change. At present the number of people with spiritual hunger is large and growing. During Bô Yin Râ’s lifetime over a million people in the German-speaking world purchased and read his books until they were banned by the Third Reich. More and more people are reading the books in Germany today, and they are now being widely translated and read in other languages, including English. Bô Yin Râ predicted that a time would come when everyone on earth who was interested in the spiritual life would read and study his works. So we at Three Sages are trying to do our own small part in making them better known and more available in the U.S. and among other English-speaking people.

One of the key facts about Bô Yin Râ’s teachings is that he clearly expressed the necessity of answering the fundamental question: What is a human being? If we are honest, we must face the fact that we really don’t know the answer to that question. Not that there is a shortage of people attempting to provide an answer, many of these being quite fantastic. Rather the problem often is that these answers are incomplete and mutually contradictory. In the absence of a satisfactory answer, we lack the inner assurance and self-confidence needed to resist the negative forces that would enslave and exploit us during our brief sojourn on earth. On the other hand, true self-knowledge as defined by Bô Yin Râ, and previously by Jesus, has the potential to assist us in becoming truly happy, joyful, and free, both in this world and in the world we all must enter at death. How to accomplish this? Bô Yin Râ’s teachings constitute what is always most rare: authentic guidance.

Bô Yin Râ’s Hortus Conclusus is a comprehensive work but is broken down into 32 separate books, each of which approaches spirituality from a different angle. But the core is the trilogy consisting of 1) The Book on the Living God; 2) The Book on the Beyond; and 3) The Book on Man.

The first of these three volumes, The Book on the Living God, may be read in translation in an on-line version published by the Kober Press of Berkeley, CA, which is available HERE. The second volume, The Book on the Beyond, is available in the Books to Light translation published by Books to Light and available in the series presented by Three Sages HERE. What you are now about to read is the Books to Light translation of The Book on Man. We can promise that if you read these books attentively you will not view your life and purpose in the same light as you did before you began. We wish you well on this most important and personal of all journeys.

The standard-translation© of Hortus Conclusus (“The Enclosed Garden”) encompasses Bô Yin Râ’s spiritual teachings in 32 books. Bô Yin Râ is the spiritual name of Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken. Published by Posthumus Projects Amsterdam, Inc. in The Netherlands under number: 33079516, www.bo-yin-ra.org. All rights, copyrights included, reserved by Posthumus Projects Amsterdam, 2014. Copyright now held by Books to Light—USA. Posthumus Projects Amsterdam and Books to Light—USA are responsible for this standard-translation©. Posted by Three Sages with permission of Books to Light.

For the Books to Light website with ordering information for Bô Yin Râ’s books, click HERE. For the Books to Light YouTube channel, click HERE.

For the first 100 purchases, Books to Light is offering the ONLY single-volume English translation of Bô Yin Râ’s Hortus Conclusus—his complete spiritual teachings—at a special discount to Three Sages subscribers at 40 percent off the usual retail purchase price. Order HERE.

For the Three Sages Subscribers’ offer of 40% off on Hortus Conclusus (32 Books in one large volume—1193 pages plus selected spiritual paintings by Bô Yin Râ) please utilize the CODE TO ENTER AT CHECKOUT: THREE SAGES 40% OFF.

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Introduction

The Mystery: ‘Man and Woman’

The Path of the Woman

The Path of the Man

Marriage

The child

New mankind

Epilogue

Final teaching!

In the eternal ground of being: in the eternal spirit propagating itself and in itself all that exists, – deeply hidden within the source of all being and revelation, – resides the mystery of ‘man and woman’…

To build a bridge for earthly knowledge to cross, one speaks of the ‘pure spirit’ as ‘absolute being’; such ‘absolute being’, however, eternally at rest and existing only for itself in itself, has never existed, does not exist, nor could it ever exist.

Anyone equating such notions with reality has put too much trust in his own thinking and is far from the knowledge that revelation through thinking never goes beyond the boundaries of those notions subordinate to the laws thinking must obey. –

The reality of the pure spirit, however, is law only unto itself; it remains beyond the reach of all logical conclusions! – –

Encompassing itself within itself, ‘pure spirit’ is from eternity to eternity included in its self-creation, – propagating and begetting itself, – for pure spirit is: ‘man and woman’. –

Yet, from the original self-manifestation, ‘man and woman’ in the spirit continue to propagate and beget – without beginning – without end – the man of pure spirit; and they propagate and beget him after their own ‘image and likeness’, – as ‘man and woman’, at one in the original unity of bipolar being…

Everything which ever became phenomenon: – all the suns and worlds belonging to the spiritual cosmos as well as those belonging to the physically-sensory perceptible cosmos, everything, indeed everything, inasmuch as it is ‘phenomenon’, is the ‘creation’ of this purely spiritual ‘man’, propagated from the spirit, – and this creation is therefore also testimony to ‘man and woman’ in the eternal spirit. –

In endlessly varying number, – in endlessly varying individualizations, – this first ‘man’ of the pure spirit is propagated and begotten from man and woman in the spirit, and each one of them is eternally creating: – eternally propagating and begetting within himself, – for he ‘is’ only inasmuch as he manifests himself in eternal propagation and begetting as ‘man and woman’: – as the polarized power of male-female.

What he propagates and begets is ‘himself’, is being from his being, albeit in, as it were, a ‘more solid’, light-deprived form, until finally by continuous propagation, already far removed from the original given being, he propagates himself in a certain spiritual ‘solidity’ as ‘phenomenon’, begetting from himself all worlds revealing themselves as phenomenon.

Endlessly varied too is the ‘phenomenon’ of the man of eternity in his phenomenal creation; every individual phenomenal manifestation emanating from him further propagates and begets the next, lower ranking kind of phenomena.

There are rungs of ‘man’ in the spiritual cosmos, and even in the cosmos of physical worlds of phenomena, which would appear to phenomenal man on this earth – if capable of that perception – as beyond the divine…

One of the lowest levels of the phenomenon of ‘man’ is represented by earthly man himself.In him originally begotten man of pure spirit has attached himself to one of the least free beings of his phenomenal creation: – the phenomenon of the animal.

Here within the animal of this earth, spiritual man has lost consciousness of himself and now experiences himself only through oscillations caused by the earthly movement of cells within the consciousness of the more refined animal.

This consciousness only receives, through a few weak radiations from true spiritual humanity, that illumination which raises the experience of the man on the earth of himself above the consciousness of other earthly animals. ‘Man’ would be lost in the animal if his inheritance from the original propagation had not been carried behind him down to earth so that he can receive once more the power to absorb the radiant crystal of pure spirit, formed completely of light, which he finds then within himself as ‘his God’.

Just as someone constructing a well does not climb deep down into the shaft without the rope to bring him back to the light being firmly secured, so too spiritual man did not descend into his phenomenal creation without the enduring guarantee of continuous propagation through the ‘silver thread’ of radiant powers from his first propagation in the pure spirit.

Only through the powers which also reach him here on earth from the exalted heights as a result of this connection can earthly man unite himself with his God in himself and strive upwards within him from darkness and night to light and illumination. –

Conscious of this sublime guarantee, once his God has been ‘born’ within him, he can now, freed from danger, venture forth into whatever abyss his earthly fate may send him…

Yet most earthly men continue to live in the human earthly animal without God, even if worshipping an otherworldly god of their own imagination.

They continue to seek their primeval ancestors on this planet and know not that the whole universe belongs to man. They do not know that ‘primeval man’ whose traces can still be found on earth are but their ‘maternal’ earthly ancestors, whilst their ‘paternal’ ancestors – the impregnating element – can only be found within spiritual realms.

The liberation of spiritual man from the fetters by which he, as earthly man, has tethered himself can only occur when he finally recognizes himself oncemore as only one of the thousand-fold expressions of ‘man’, abandoning the delusion that he exclusively is, in the form he finds himself on this small earth, – true ‘man’ – the only expression of man. –

The words of sacred books from time immemorial bring ruin to those who believe in them as long as man of the earth refers everything said about ‘man’ in these testimonies of the men of wisdom, to himself alone: exclusively to man’s phenomenal form on this earth. –

He must look upwards – but not to a god he imagines outside this world high above the clouds; rather he must look ‘upwards’ to himself in his higher phenomenal form, – ‘upwards’ to his origin, to the pure spirit which itself seeks once more to crystallize within himself as ‘his God’! –

Yet it is hard for earthly man to find even his true ‘living’ God, – for he has got used to imagining just ‘man’ in his God, whereas his ‘living’ God is: – ‘man and woman’. –

Earthly man will only gain redemption when the ‘woman’ within his God also speaks once more to his consciousness…

“The eternally feminine draws us upwards.” – –

Only seeing ‘male’ in his imagined God is guilt, is renunciation of the powers of the originally willed being: – involvement in the feminine-desire-to-receive side of his being – abandonment of the masculine-active side in himself. –

Disharmony must result wherever the ‘masculine’ and the ‘feminine’ fail to work in union within the cosmos.

Feel free to call ‘man and woman’ by other names! They will always be the two opposite poles bringing forth life through their union!

Positive and negative, active and passive, propagating and begetting, giving and receiving, rejecting and accepting, moving and being moved…All these are held within the eternal cycle, just as the woman on earth is: the mother of the man, and the man is: the father of the woman. –

And there is no form or being in the spiritual and physical-sensory cosmos: – not even what appears to be ‘pure masculine’ or ‘pure feminine’ – in which simultaneously ‘man and woman’ cannot be found, albeit in an amalgamation of a thousand variations.

Every ‘atom’ would perforce ‘disintegrate into nothingness’ if ‘man and woman’ were not working within them, continually propagating and begetting.

Whatever name investigating man gives to the potentialities he discovers in the smallest particles of ‘matter’: – we are always dealing with forms of the original powers ‘man and woman’. –

You can, however, only hope to find your ‘living’ God within you when you seek him within yourself in the way he can only be found: – as ‘man and woman’. – Only when you ‘seek’ him through feeling in this way will he be able to create himself from masculinity and femininity within you as that ‘crystal’ consisting solely of light which then unites the two poles of our own being into his bipolar entity. –

Exalted help from your spiritual homeland is offered to you when you endeavor to seek in this way…

Invisibly lives one on earth who is as he was: – one from paternal original propagation – from maternal begetting in pure spirit, – a pure spiritual man of supreme being in the eternal headspring of divine spiritual life. One of those who ‘man and woman’ in the spirit propagate and beget as their ‘image and likeness’! –

Yet on this planet other invisible ‘men’ also live: ‘men’ who are the continued propagation of the originally propagated, – and, though ‘attached’ to their own phenomenal creation in the invisible realm, they nevertheless remain within ‘exalted radiance’ – not ‘fallen’ from light and radiance like the visible phenomenal man.

Recognizing the deep crisis of man in his earthly phenomenal form they seek to save him, as soon as he truly wants to be saved. They themselves work under the spiritual guidance of that invisible originally propagated one who guides all that is spiritual on this planet.

Again and again this invisible spiritual circle of helpers, under the highest spiritual human guidance, has found new men living on earth whom it could perfect into tools of its own passionate will to help, – into effective masters of supreme earthly-spiritual knowledge: – into fellow helpers of its work, as they had offered themselves up for such assistance even before their incarnation in an earthly body.

Across this ‘bridge’, which is absolutely essential for reaching those groping in darkness on this earth, has walked, and walks at all times again the eternally true ‘man’ of the original propagation in the spirit, towards his fallen spiritual continuous-self-propagation onto the form which is farthest from the light: – onto earthly man, – and seeks for those he can raise and guide back to the light. – –

The reason why there are so many seekers among earthly men and yet so few finders is that almost all those who seek do so in the wrong direction and thereby stumble ever more deeply into darkness…

Every power moves in the direction it has been sent. Earthly man, however, in whom the ‘animal’ which bears man has won the upper hand, to the extent that he regards what is grounded in earthly animal existence as his inherent essence, indeed, as himself, now seeks outside himself those things he would be able to find in himself alone. It is there that the connection with the higher levels of his man- being continues to exist through the ‘silver thread’ of radiant powers which keeps attached what is genuine ‘man’ in the earthly man, to all spiritual mankind.

Furthermore, no helper from spiritual regions and none of those living as ‘masters’ of spiritual knowledge in the visible earthly realm whose purpose it is to build the ‘bridge’ for the true ‘man’ of eternity can reach earthly man in the core of his consciousness other than from within where alone the truly human is found.

Only through preparation can the truly human in earthly man be, as it were, ‘addressed’ from the invisible outside, so that it might be awakened to inner teaching and illumination.

All searching must therefore be directed inwards if it is to lead to finding!

Not in Tibetan monasteries, not in the holy sites of the Indians, nor in the secret circles of supposed ‘initiates’ is that ‘great illumination’, that ‘becoming Buddha’, to be attained, but only within the deepest solitude with oneself, – with the true ‘man’ in one’s own heart…

None of the very few here on earth who have been perfected as masters of spiritual knowledge in order to bring help to their fellow men can reach you, even if standing right next to you, unless your consciousness was awake where you alone can become aware of your being man.

Now I want to speak further to you as to one who has willingly received into himself the things I have said thus far.

Are you seeking now to reach within yourself ‘man’ in his higher phenomenal form through the truly human hidden within you? –

Do you want to rise step by step and find your way back to your own origins in the pure spirit? –

Do you want to hear my words not simply like someone hearing a wonderful legend but wanting to act honestly and with all your strength according to my words? – –

Then listen further to what I have to say to you: ‘Man’ propagated from the spirit, – propagated and born from ‘man and woman’ in the spirit – is ‘man and woman’, as you have already heard.

On all his steps descending to earthly man, spiritual man of eternity will only be able to encounter you as ‘man and woman’; only in this bipolar union will you find him as soon as you have yourself been found in the spirit as one capable of finding.

Even the master of purest spiritual knowledge sent to you to become your spiritual guide and helper, though you know him not, see him not and only know of him through a new feeling, is: – ‘man and woman’ because what can reach you from him alone is the eternal man who in him, in the man of the earth, rose from the grave. –

If you seek the light, know that your path is guarded by masters of the eternal day to whom all darkness in you must yield!

Yet you should also know who these masters truly are and where you can reach them; for not in the external world and not from without is accessible to you what lives in them to help you. –

Their outer manifestation in the world of sensory perception cannot offer the help you need!

Do not seek them in the benighted realm of ignorance, where the more refined animal serving man here as a ‘vehicle’ is erring around, confusing appearance and reality, – despairing and plagued with doubts!

Until now this is where you have always sought and not found…

You will now have to seek elsewhere, in places you do not yet know…

As long as you live on this earth clothed in the body of the earth, you will never attain true clarity about yourself until you find the ‘man’ of original and eternal propagation within yourself. –

Yet you cannot find him without climbing, step by step, the ‘Jacob’s ladder’ whose lowest rungs are earthly men, in whom, however, pure spiritual man is already lord and king. – –

You will vainly seek ultimate clarity in ‘sacred books’ for these books were once written for those who had long ago attained that ultimate clarity and were only meant as guidance on their life’s further course.

In such books the master speaks to the pupil who is already bound to him in his innermost being and to whom he can reveal himself in most intimate words full of symbolic meaning.

But when you have found in your innermost, – your eternal-humanity, – what today you are still seeking, then many ancient texts will start speaking to you in understandable, clear language. Only then will the ‘sacred books’ really be of use to you. –

But for now you should only seek within yourself! Above all you must begin, when you say ‘I’ to yourself, by not calling upon the subtler animal alone, but upon eternal ‘man’! – –You must seek ‘man and woman’ in everything in and above you! –

Whether you are male or female, always know that you yourself have eternally determined your polarity and that this polar determination can never change through all eternity, – though it always wants within itself the opposite pole to itself. –

Your spiritual masculinity must not seek to suppress the spiritually feminine within you, just as your spiritual femininity must not negate the spiritually masculine in you!

Only in this way will you one day be spiritually united with your original opposite pole in that same spiritual union which bound you and it as one, before the separation had to occur through the ‘fall’ from exalted illumination…

Seek correctly, in the way I teach you here, and one day you will find yourself as the ‘man of eternity’!

In him, – in you, – you will rise above all intermediate rungs united with your ‘living’ God to the original state of your original propagated being, which is only abandoned for your consciousness bythe choice of your will, : – being propagated from the spirit, born in the spirit, – ‘from man and woman’ eternally alive in the spirit! – – –

Not every man on earth attains consciousness in the world of pure substantial spirit during his life bound to the animal on earth.

Only very few are ever woken into consciousness in the spiritual region of the earth during their lives on earth.

But all can find their eternal life within themselves here during their earthly days!

All must one day learn to find this eternal life within themselves, even if they have not yet found it when they leave the external earthly world. – –

You cannot become conscious in the pure spirit until you live within yourself your eternal life!

Only in your eternal life can you experience yourself as man of eternity! –

Thus the sacred word of the exalted Master will also apply to you when he says: “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect!”

But nothing earthly that is a part of you can ever attain the ‘perfection’ meant here. –

Only when you have found your eternal life within yourself and you live in it will you be ‘perfect’ like the ‘Father’ who is in ‘heaven’ as eternal propagator in the womb of eternal begetting: – original power in the first being, – at once ‘man’ and ‘woman’! – – –

Before you have achieved what is here possible let not a day pass which at least witnessed your striving towards this goal!