Love, as we know it, has not liberated the world. Beauty brings ugliness to the surface, good brings forth evil and love brings forth hate. Love is an ember and hatred is a fire. Earthly expressions of love are attempts of the ego to maintain itself. They are an attempt of the ego to make its own state of being divine. That is why they arouse antitheses. Where you have embers you will also have fire.

So what is the "love" referred to in the Bible and other spiritual texts? Well, it means something quite different. The divine manifestation knows no antithesis, it casts no shadows, and always brings forth itself. Good is not set against evil, nor beauty against ugliness, nor love against hatred. The Gnosis does not have love. It does not radiate love. It is love. It simply is, in itself.

Jan van Rickenborgh
Lectorium Rosicrucianum

The virtue referred to here is the ultimate state of liberation, of tranquility, of not-being. What is msyterious is the way in which this liberation comes about because it cannot be grasped by our nature-born understanding.

The development of the englightened being (transfigurist) cannot be traced. There are results that can be observed with clarity, but how they came about no one can say. The way a transfigurist's life develops is not apparent to the world.

An example can be found in the life of Jacob Boehme who was a shoemaker. He cobbled shoes AND he fathomed the divine all-manifestation. His understanding of reality, of eternity, was so profound that all the experts in the world won't  be able to match him in a thousand years. Mysterious virtue, mysterious liberation, mysterious even for Jacob Boehme himself.

That is the signature. Listen to Paul's words: "Whether it is outside the body or inside the body, I know not, but it is there." The mysterious virtue.

Jan van Rickenborgh
Lectorium Rosicrucianum

Worry, fear and dread are the sisters of hate. Fear and hate are essentially one. Anyone who fears, hates and anyone who hates, fears. His existence becomes one great calamity for himself and mankind.

Once fear and dread have given rise to hate an unholy fire begins to burn in the heart and radiate outward via the sternum and eyes. It pollutes the whole of our existence. People who strive to obtain prestige and success in life are prime sources of the hate that poisons every society.

You need to detach yourself from all I-central ambitions and desires. "Do not seek after prominence, but associate with the lowly," says Paul. "Wu wei," says Lao Tzu. So do not seek favor; disclaim it. Then you cannot be touched by disfavor or be humiliated. Instead, devote yourself to liberating the treasure within and you will be following the path to freedom.

Jan van Rickenborgh
Lectorium Roscircucianum

There are many impurities of the heart that spread through our system and out into the external envrironment. True peace and genuine tranquility of the soul is impossible as long as we are controlled by these emotions that characterise our natural state of life. It is the cause of illness, death and every regretted deeds in our lives.

The way to empty your heart of impurities is by no longer desiring them, without any action of the will. This is only possible from experience, so that one is emptied of natural impulses while knowing that there is only one power that can comfort the soul. Then the rosebud, the divine remnant within, sends out a call ... the call of yearning for salvation. In response, a powerful current of the Gnosis surges into your being, and by it you are purified into peace and stillness. Then the tranquility of the soul will become a reality and the result a total purification of the blood. You will be born into omnipresence.

Jan van Rickenborgh
Lectorium Rosicrucianum

The state of utmost emptiness is the condition of the seeker who has cleansed his heart of all impurities. He has emptied the magnetic system of desires, tensions and conflicts. Such a person has become desireless, empty and can sustain an unwavering tranquility of the soul. The equilibrium of his soul can no longer be disturbed and he has attained true peace.

If the state of utmost emptiness has not yet been reached, times of soul-tranquility will always alternate with moments and periods of soul-conflict. So  one of the most important tasks is to trace the inner causes of soul-conflict. These causes are always to be found in our own self and never, under any circumstances, can they be caused by another person or by something coming from outside oneself.

If you reach the state of utmost emptiness, people in the world would of course still be able to attack and wound your body, but they could not touch your soul. The whole gamut of soul-conflicts could be going on around you, but you would no longer be tempted by them. Your entire soul-state would have entered into peace and become immune to variability.

Jan van Rickenborgh
Lectorium Rosicrucianum

Your birth in nature means that you are surrounded, firstly, by your own personal astral field, which determines your individual characteristics. Secondly, you are linked with a particular group of human beings who are of your type. The connecting characteristics may take the form of material things, desires, I-central aims, nationality, or some other attribute. Thirdly, you are linked with humanity as a whole.

So you are imprisoned in your own astral field, in that of the group to which you belong and in that of human society in general. If a revolution of your being is to succeed it will have to be threefold. You will have to dissolve your existing astral connections on three levels and link yourself completely to the original astral field of the Mother of Life. Othewise, you will only succeed in shifting the accents of your life within the framework of this nature.

Jan van Rickenborgh
Lectorium Rosicrucianum

Thoughts are living entities. For their maintenance they depend on the light-matter of the brain from which they originated. These beings will compel their creators to feed and maintain them with the same thought-power out of which they were created.

When a human being succumbs to this very natural compulsion, which occurs daily and hourly, then from these mental clouds circulating within the field of respiration certain forms arise. They eminate a paralyzing, hypnotizing influence of ever increasing force. The person in question is driven to actions to complete his slavery to his own phantoms. In this way, we have - over the course of aeons - become slaves of our delusions, of our prejudices and vices which take shape through the workings of our thoughts and finally begin to dominate us.

Only through a circulation of the light of the Gnosis, the pure Christ ethers, can the fortress of the "I" be attacked. The "I", the desire-being is expelled from our system and a new desire-being is born. Then the heavenly man will grow.

Jan van Rickenborgh
Lectorium Rosicrucianum

At present our microcosm is bound to its system of time and space, but when the Spirit, the soul and the transfigured personality are reunited, the microcosm will be fit to re-enter the divine state of omnipresence. Until then our microcosm remains broken and damaged. This is why the call resounds to accomplish this great work of salvation in and through the power of the original nature.

Awakening in the Spirit-Soul field requires an absolutely new vision, namely seeing and entering what we call the fourth dimension, the fourth measurement of space. It is the dimension that completely eliminates time, distance and past, present and future, the now and soon to be. In short, possessing the fourth dimension means having the faculty of omnipresence.

Jan van Rickenborgh
Lectorium Rosicrucianum

What is needed to make the world live in true peace and unity? What must happen within the human being so that he will do his best for the well-being of others? Is the human being who dissociates from patterns of fear, aggression and breaks free from possession-oriented thinking able to open possibilities for others? Throughout history we have seen periods during which the spiritual aspect has had the upper hand, but they were short lived.

We are currently in an era in which gradually the consciousness of many people may change social conditions and the actions of nations. However, we are unable to do this with the consciousness stemming from this nature, despite all our efforts to do what is good. Only the consciousness of unity - because the human archtype is one - enables us to see the possibility for the development of the divine man and return to the original field of life.

When the new soul consciousness develops, the human being knows he is linked with the inner being of all people through an inner spiritual principle. Every human being in whom the new soul develops is liberated from the problems, fears and selfishness of this life. The more people approach this "new" life, linked by soul consciousness, the greater the chance that others will dissociate from the patterns of thinking and behaving that have blocked society from peace and freedom.

Lectorium Rosicrucianum

Thinking is never present. It always stands outside the reality of the all-existence: of that which is. Thinking forms the appearance and appearance forms the thinking. They are one and the same. And because thinking is connected with the appearance and not with the all-existence, it creates conflict: a conflict between inside and outside, between good and evil. It is the wall that divides the one space into two separated spaces. When the wall falls away, then there is only one space. No inside, no outside, no good and no evil. One and the same space.

Thinking is creating illusion. It is born from the identification with the personality. But the person originates from the impersonal, the name from the nameless. Name and nameless are one. There is only one reality. It is, at any moment.

Lectorium Rosicrucianum

The fire of the kundalini is the fire that can be detached from its nucleus and come to flow in man. It can supposedly introduce man into the highest conditions of happiness. But they who practice this, are building a new prison instead of entering into freedom. This is an expansion of the I-consciousness, a development of the I-state. Many seekers make the tragic mistake of taking part in such developments and initiations which are based on the operation of the old kundalini fire.

Those who develop higher man in the more tenuous aspects of this world chain themselves more intensively to the fire of the counter-nature. This kundalini can lead man into the highest spheres of non-reality and appearance, but such delusion must always be dissolved, for this path always leads back to the wheel of birth and death.

A new serpent-fire has to be constructed. But this force can only be released from the primordial monad of the heart. If this begins to irradiate, the gnostic prana can start flowing in the serpent-fire of man. This is the true kundalini. Man has to turn from the aeonic fire and turn to the fire of the source of life.

Lectorium Rosicrucianum

Self-knowledge is the key that allows us to set foot on the path of liberation. What is meant by self-knoweledge? It may be easily mistaken for a psychological method of recognizing impeding properties and to get rid of them, so that we may be successful and happy in life. Such a self-knowledge, which supports the personality, is not at issue.

Self-knowledge is a means to total unmasking. Only then can self-knowledge be an active means on the liberating path. It should unmask the entire personality as the impeding factor. On this basis, a person who aims at liberation truely undestands the anchors and limitations of this world and has exhausted all earthly possibilities. He must abandon the deification of his personality. This self-knowledge is the gate to liberation.

Lectorium Rosicrucianum

There are two fields of existence. One is the static domain of the supernature and the other is the dialectic, fallen field-of-life. Dialectics consists of dense material and tenuous fields: the material sphere and reflection sphere. Man expresses himself in the material sphere by means of his material body and in the reflection sphere by means of his etheric body, astral body and thinking faculty. These forces maintain our physical body, emotions and mental activities. So man is very intimately related to the fields of matter and with the reflection sphere.

At present the reflection sphere domains are still invisible to and uncontrollable by most people. An enormous force and power emanates from the collective of human desiring, thinking and striving which are present in the reflection sphere as concentrations of astral substance. Without exception, all of us and our I-consciousness are controlled by the astral chords of the reflection sphere like puppets on a string.

The Universal Teachings do not address our material I-consciousness, but the sleeping God-man in us. It can only reveal itself if the I steps back in self-surrender. It is not a mystical directedness, neither is it rational comprehension, but an I-less opening of the entire being to the gnosis. The path of redemption begins when the God-man awakes from its sleep of death and can transfer its impressions to the consciousness.

Lectorium Rosicrucianum

The seeker on the path tries step by step to discover Tao in himself. This process will be accomplished if man daily searches to find how far his attitude-to-life is not in agreement with the spiritual path and also daily tries to link himself with Tao. In this way a link with Tao will grow and it will be passed on to the seeker. This is not only in the interest of the spiritually striving person, but also important to mankind. If a relatively small part of mankind could maintain Tao and radiate it into the world then this would affect the whole of mankind. Heaven and earth would unite.

The method to attain Tao is called Wu Wei: to abstain from doing. This is not an inactivity according to the standards of society. It means a life that deviates as little as possible from Tao. Deviations from the course would cause undesirable fluctuations in the balance of spirit, soul and body.

Buddha says we have to steer the middle course. The human being who adjusts his attitude-of-life in accordance with Tao will become equal to Tao. He who adjusts himself to virtue will become equal to virtue. The imperfect will become perfect. That which is bent will become straight.

Lectorium Rosicrucianum

There is a horizontal and vertical path open to man. The horizontal path is that of evolution within nature and the world of opposites. This path is is crossed by a vertical path. This path leads us from the world, from captivity in the world of opposites, to freedom. We are invited to go this vertical path in a consciously experienced actual now. The power to become sons of God is offered to us. Anyone who chooses the vertical path, accepts the power and enters the door of which Jesus says: "I am the door, strive to enter through the straight gate." A door connects two spaces. One is the world of opposites, of space and time. The other is the divine world of eternal life. Jesus stands on the line between the world of matter and the world of spirit, between nature and supernature. He is the door and the path between those two.

What is the significance of Jesus' words? Who is Jesus? He comes to us from eternity and is present in transitoriness, at all times and all places. He is the radiance that lends us the power to become sons of God. The preaching of Jesus is a call to go this path. A response is only possible when eternity exists within our own being. The Christ within. The force of eternity of Jesus seeks to connect with this divine principle within man, so that Christ may arise within him. This is a path, a process, which Jesus not only preached, but also lived. He gives the example and shows us how the process of liberation is to be realized. Jesus is the prototype of the man who goes the path.

Lectorium Rosicrucianum

Marriage is more than love. It is a covenant in which the creator opens up the  roads to eternity. Without a spiritual aspect marriage will only serve a limited purpose. The meaning of such a covenant is therefore that the partners assist each other to attain the lofty purpose set for them. The male and female forces manifest themselves and can compliment each other in the light of the great purpose. It is to allow the participants to leave behind the dialectical world and to return to the orginal field of life. In other words: to conquor the perishable, finite love and to gain the infinite, imperishable divine love.

Lectorium Rosicrucianum

The greatest suffering is compassion wherein one sees that it is impossible to bring about beneficial and permanent changes in the world from a captivity in non-divine nature. Consequently, one aims oneself consistently at the higher vibration, the Divine reality. He or she lives in the country where they belong and tries to alleviate suffering in their immediate environment, but everything they do is dominated by soul renewal, by a directedness at the original field of life. Their task of healing the sick is viewed with the purpose of linking man to the forces of eternity. In their daily actions they seek simplicity and an intense effort of devotion to the soul principle. They are absolutely without conflict. Behind everything they do there is the silent contemplation: what means do I have at my disposal here and now to confirm eternity in time? Drawing from the Light Power of Eternity they try to break up the structures of lower nature with actions originating from power of the new soul. Nothing they do is aimed at their own advantage. The candidate who is able to be steadfast in this Divine Love conquers the world.

Lectorium Rosicrucianum

Present-day man sees himself as an independent, autonomous being who draws power from his intellect. The cause of this way of viewing himself and the world is his I-consciousness which absorbs impressions by means of the physical senses and reacts and judges by means of the intellect and emotions. The consequence is unbridled intervention in the creative processes of all the kingdoms of nature. The disruption and poisoning of our planet have already progressed so far that science is considering a total collapse inevitable unless drastic measures are taken.

The seeking person sympathizes intensively with the planet and would like to help: to do something to prevent catastrophy. To restore damaged nature, cure the sick, feed the hungry, and prevent wars. However, all of these sincere and well-meant actions are at most weak straws in the turbulent flow of life.

The evils of this world such as injustice, hatred, disease, hunger and conflict are not the main cause of suffering in this world. Evil and the potential destruction of our planet has come into being as a result of our separation between human consciousness and the plan of creation. It will cease to exist as soon as this separation is undone. This is where we must begin. This is where we must be revolutionary. All other exertion, all other fighting against the manifestions of evil, will ultimately be in vain.

Our personal starting point for this revolution is the latent soul-nucleus in the heart. Only out of this nucleus is it possible to restore the lost synthesis with God's Spirit. The principles of the soul are integration and unity. True knowledge of the plan of creation is possible only on the basis of the soul. If the personality of the seeker is prepared to submit and bind himself to the laws of the soul he will simultaneously serve his own microcosm and the cosmos. The root causes of separation, evil and suffering in this world will be overcome in God's Love.

Lectorium Rosicrucianum

In society the phrase "knowledge is power" is confirmed daily. Such amassed knowledge is the result of activities of the I-consciousness, the thinking. Today's culture, politics, science and society have arisen from this I-conscious thinking.

It is the question whether such knowledge solves the riddle of life. Does this type of learning provide the answers to the essential questions about being human? People are experiencing more and more how limited man's knowledge is. It cannot escape certain boundaries.

But there is a knowledge, true knowledge, which can be obtained by a totally different method of learning. The learning method of "rememberance." It is not limited to the activities of the intellect, but is a gift of the soul. It is a plan of life that breaks through the frontiers of space and time and leads into eternity.

The corrupt present-day soul does not conform to this definition. The true original soul comprehends differently than the intellect and memory. In this soul the beginning already contains the end, just as the mature plant is already hidden in the seed. Time in one sense does not exist for the soul, but is only a means of making expression possible. To liberate something which already exists.

Lectorium Rosicrucianum