Symbols and Myths: A Map of the Inner Journey

Human beings have always told stories, and human beings have always listened to stories with wonder. As humans, we are expressive and want to tell a story of what is most essential to us. We find stories from the earliest cave paintings to modern cinema. In those stories, people attempt to tell something important, a tale of a hero, a story of someone overcoming all odds. It seems that the basis of all myths is probably similar, as this story is interwoven with our existence.

When we examine these myths, we can see that they are not just stories for entertainment. Myths are living metaphors, symbols, and signposts that point to a reality that lies deep inside us. A reality that is filled with the peace of an eternal presence that lives in the heart.

So why symbols. Why myths.

Symbols are worldly objects used to speak the language of the unworldly soul. This is why symbols do not speak to us like logical arguments. They do not instruct the mind with new information, but resonate with a memory within us. When we encounter them, it is as if a memory that was almost forgotten is brought to the surface.

The myths we are speaking of are universal expressions of human experience. Every culture has them, and every person carries them, depending on the openness of the soul.

We find the same narrative again and again, stories of a fall from a higher state, followed by trials and initiations, until the hero returns transformed and full of light.

This transformation follows a familiar pattern. The same pattern we also follow after physical death. It reveals the journey of the self becoming less, while the original human rises from the grave of its old being.

These stories of a fall from grace and a return to grace are not bound to one tradition. We find them in the Bhagavad Gita, the Odyssey, the Norse Edda, the life of Christ, and in the alchemical texts and knight stories of the Middle Ages. All saying the same thing in different ways.

1. The Lost Wanderer

Life is filled with dissatisfaction. We follow routines, chase desires, and do what is expected, but something feels pointless. Something within us begins to look for meaning. This can be called a holy dissatisfaction.

We see this in many great stories:

• The Prodigal Son of the Bible, empty even while indulging in worldly pleasures

• Odysseus, longing for his true kingdom of Ithaca while trapped in a world of illusion

• Dante, awakening in a dark forest, unsure how he arrived there

• Neo in The Matrix, sensing that his world is false and incomplete

• Siddhartha, drowning in wealth yet dying inwardly

• Job, shattered and questioning the silence of God

• King Solomon, declaring that all is vanity

• Arjuna, caught in the moral crisis of war

This is where the journey begins in each of us. It does not start with triumph, but with an inner sense of incompleteness.

2. The Inner Cry

When this emptiness is deeply felt, a sacred longing arises. A cry from within that asks whether there is really nothing more than this. This is a spiritual thirst for life, liberation, and meaning.

We see this longing expressed in:

• Arjuna’s plea to Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita

• Saint Augustine’s cry that the heart is restless until it rests in God

• Mary Magdalene weeping at the tomb

• Isis and Nephthys mourning the loss of Osiris

• Pistis Sophia crying for the light of the first mystery

• Parsifal’s shame at missing the Grail

• Gilgamesh mourning Enkidu and seeking immortality

• The exile of Israel crying out in Babylon

• Prometheus bound while holding the fire of inner knowledge

This longing marks the beginning of the true quest.

3. The Turning Point

In response to the inner cry, something happens. A moment, a vision, a presence. A glimpse of truth that turns the soul inward. It can arrive gently or through crisis, but it changes everything.

This turning point appears as:

• Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus

• The sudden appearance of the Holy Grail

• Moses hearing the voice from the burning bush

• Plato’s cave dweller seeing the light

• The Samaritan woman hearing of living water

• The alchemical peacock stage

• Joseph’s dream

• The Buddha’s awakening under the Bodhi tree

The soul now orients itself toward enlightenment.

4. Purification Through Truth

With this new direction comes difficulty. Illusions built by the ego must dissolve. Truth must be lived, not only seen.

This stage appears in:

• Christ’s forty days in the wilderness

• Psyche’s trials

• The descent of Inanna

• Gandalf’s death and return

• The Islamic Mi’raj

• The dark night of the soul

• Parsifal’s years of wandering

• The alchemical albedo

• The Tarot’s Tower

• Ragnarok

This phase hurts, but it is a healing pain.

5. Awakening of the Inner Eye

As illusions dissolve, the inner eye awakens. A new reality becomes visible.

We see this in:

• The transfiguration of Christ

• Blake’s vision of a world in a grain of sand

• The Eye of Horus

• Brahma’s third eye

• The Gospel of Thomas

• The single eye filled with light

• The Sufi mirror heart

• Darshan

• The cloud of unknowing

• The Grail revealed

From here on, the soul is guided by perception rather than belief.

6. The Dance of Love, Truth, and Light

With awakened sight, a new movement begins. The soul becomes a servant of the light.

This is expressed as:

• Christ healing through compassion

• Avalokiteshvara embodying infinite mercy

• The alchemical marriage

• The Sacred Heart

• Kuan Yin’s vow to remain until all are free

• Rosicrucian service to humanity

• The rainbow body of Tibetan Buddhism

• Moses returning with a shining face

• Demeter restoring life through love

• Sophia redeemed in wisdom

Death is overcome, and the soul shines.

7. The Homecoming

The soul returns, not to the same world, but as a transformed being. This is not an end, but the beginning of a new life in spirit.

We find this in:

• The resurrection of Christ

• Odysseus returning home

• The awakening of the Buddha

• The Grail knight healing the land

• The Prodigal Son welcomed home

• The Phoenix rising from ashes

• The Kingdom of Heaven realized within

• The Rosicrucian temple

• Alchemical rubedo

The soul no longer seeks the light. The soul has become light.

This archetypal story is our story. Whenever we feel lost, restless, or burdened by a world that feels too loud or too shallow, the longing we feel is sacred. Our pain is not weakness. It is the voice of the spirit calling us back to the center of our being, back to inner silence filled with light.

Symbols and myths continuously invite us to remember this path. They remind us of who we are, and of what we are becoming.

We all have experienced moments in which our life’s path clearly refuses to follow the route that we drew for it. This can be as small as a message or a “thank you” that we expected that never comes, or it can be as big as a chapter of our life collapsing beneath our feet. This can mean the end of a relationship, a friendship, the security of a house or a job. The future we trusted in seems to have betrayed us.

When this kind of disappointment hits, it is as if there is a shift in our gravity, or as if we crash down mid-flight. The image that we had loses its contour and colour and becomes dark and unpredictable.

It is natural and painful, but every loss, every disappointment we face is also an opportunity for our soul, because our I, our ego, suddenly got exposed.

If we examine the disappointments that we have experienced in our own lives, what we can see is that disappointment is not meaningless and random. If we examine how certain situations repeatedly occur in our lives, or the reactions that we notice in our attachment style, it reveals a higher intelligence, one that shows us exactly where we are holding on too tightly.

When we observe our disappointments, we can see that we often end up in situations related to our attachments and our identity, which is tied to a particular role that may have only been meant to be temporary, allowing us to move on and grow further.

When we expect something to be there for us and it doesn’t come,
then our first instinct is to deny it, after it we resist it and try to fight and when that doesn’t work we try to bargain with the outcome trying to have some form of controll in a situation that seems to spiral out of controll…

Our goal for this lecture is to find a doorway beneath every resistance, a change of perspective that will hopefully help us the next time we experience a loss. When our I loses its foothold, what is left? We may feel insecure. But what lies behind that insecurity? Being present with the pain, with the frustration that we feel.

If we manage to surrender our frustrations, our doubts and enter that bare presence,
Then inside of us inside stops clenching, and in this our ego lets go of one of its reins.

Maybe you have experienced this too…
When the noise of disappointment settles, something begins to stir in the deepest chamber of our being, a movement so subtle we rarely recognise it at first. There is a softness, a freedom, a widening.
A bare but peaceful feeling in the heart maybe even for a moment, but it means the inner grip has loosened.

This stillness, like the eye of a storm, is the beginning of an ignition of a sacred fire.

Every great tradition hints at this:
the fire does not burn on effort, but it ignites the moment the “I” stops clinging. Even if it is only for one breath. Even if it is only because we have become too tired to resist.

In that moment, the Light that has always waited in our microcosmic depths lights up as an ember receiving oxygen. And what this fire does is transform us in ways we did not believe were possible when we believed we lost everything.

This fire has a sequence, a dynamics in us. What is touched in us at first is our astral field, the energy that we carry around us that is made of emotions and impulses.

This fire clarifies and in its light we may notice:

– a peace beneath all our emotions
– a heaviness losing its grip
– a warmth in our chest without a cause
– our anger softening
– a doubt clearing
– a confusion dissolving

And we can notice a quiet honesty rising…

Our imagination does not make this; what actually happens is that the astral substances that we carry reorganise themselves around the fiery ember of the Spirit. We can observe that old reactions are loosening. Desires are calming down, and defences are relaxing. It feels as if, momentarily, the heart recalls the ambience of a different world.

While we receive peace in our heart and astral field, this fire rises into the mental field. The place of our thoughts, stories, and interpretations.

What happens is that our mind becomes more clear, it becomes transparent, less busy.

– Thoughts move through without building walls.
– Old narratives dissolve mid-sentence.
– Our need to judge or explain relaxes.
– The mind stops fighting the moment and begins to reflect it silently.

This does not mean that we get a sharper mind. It is a more that it becomes a silent one. A mind that is touched by an inner order, the order of the soul, that is not born from the personality, but from the Light that rises in our heart.

And what happens with this new mental attitude is that the centre of our gravity shifts: from the reactive self to the receptive self, from fear based reactions to openness.

We notice that:

– pain can be held without collapsing
– that we can respond instead of react
– that we don’t need to win the moment
– that we can remain present in discomfort
– that we can be honest without fearing the consequences

And this is not emotional suppression, but stability, a presence stronger than mood that follows disappointments.

This stability in us signals that the fire is beginning to radiate outward.

As the ignition of this fire deepens, the axis of our being shifts.

We stop living from the outer ring of our thoughts, emotions, and desires. We begin to live it from the quiet flame within.

It may feel like as if we are:

– standing inside ourselves for the first time
– that we perceive meaning instead of chasing it
– that neutrality becomes natural to us
– that clarity arrives unforced to us
– We can feel compassion appearing without becoming sentimental
– We don1t feel any longer that life is against us, but instructive.

This is the birth of an inner orientation, a compass that does not spin wildy around with all circumstances but that points steadily toward the Light that called it into being.

And then, as our trust in it grows, this fire in our heart becomes a bridge between our human exisitence and the eternal human within.

What began as a flicker or glowing ember becomes a quiet alignment, a steadying, a lifting. Not in ecstasy. Not in emotion. Not in belief. But in recognition.

We recognise that the disappointments of life were never meant to crush us but to open our inner grounds so that this ignition could take place.

We recognise that what we called obstacles were the cracks through which the Light entered.

We recognise that the life we thought was right for us and the life we needed were two different things.

A recognition that the Spirit had been waiting, not for our perfection, not for our worthiness, but for space. And our disappointments created that space. When this ignition receives the space to stabilise in us, something special happens:

Our soul becomes luminous.
And not symbolically, but for real.

– We receive a gentleness that is stronger than fear.
– A clarity that is deeper than thought.
– A presence that is more powerful than control.
– A love that does not depend on being returned.

This is the fulfilment of the old mysteries:
the moment when the inner fire burns not for the personality but straight through it, transforming in,
lightening it, liberating the soul.

And in this we understand:

– That every disappointment was preparation.
– That every obstacle was initiation.
– That every breakingpoint was a doorway.
– That every loss loosened a chain.
– That every silence created space.
– And that every surrender ignited the eternal flame.

And in the centre of our heart, the fire that once glowed faintly now blazes, quiet, radiant and eternal.

Resurrecting the eternal human being.

Death is a topic that occupies every one of us, but at the same time it is something we rarely take the time to really think about. We tend to turn away from the thought of death because it stirs a deep fear in us, basically a fear of the great unknown.

But this evening, we do not want to see death as an ending. We want to see it from the perspective of the soul, which does not see an end but a continuation, a new movement in the same stream of life we are already living in now. Throughout history, people have tried to understand the significant moments that follow the last breath of a human being’s life on earth.

People of the past were aware that what we call death is not a destruction or an end, but a transformation, a change in the form of consciousness. The Egyptians called this process “the way of the Ba”, the way of the soul. In The Egyptian Book of the Dead, it is described how, after leaving the body, the soul passes through different halls of trial where the heart is weighed against the feather of truth. Anything false, anything heavy, has to be reckoned with.

Only what is feather-light and in pure balance with the breath of the Eternal Spirit can continue.

The Tibetans spoke of the same mystery, but they used other imagery. They talked about bardo, the states in between. In The Tibetan Book of the Dead, it is explained that after our body has come to its final rest, our consciousness continues, moving through different layers of light.

The first lights are bright, and for most people they are too blinding to behold directly and fully, because what we see is our own Divine Nature, what we could call the spirit spark. According to the Tibetan tradition, if we recognise this light as our true home, we will merge with it at first glance and return immediately to the source of all light in one great embrace. Then no further journey is needed.

But in most cases, the soul is not able to stand the bright light of the spirit, as it shines like a thousand suns. Most souls therefore shy away from the divine brightness and turn toward the dimmer lights of the lower nature, toward the lights that feel familiar because they belong to the earthly realm. With this association, a new journey, a new incarnation, is brought into motion.

So far according to the Tibetan tradition.

The understanding that life continues after death is not only found in the East. We also find many expressions of similar journeys in our Western tradition. We could, for example, mention the Greek myths of Hades and Ulysses, but we also see this theme recurring closer to our own era.

Dante Alighieri, in The Divine Comedy, describes poetically that there is a journey that takes place through three realms, through hell, through purgatory, and through paradise.

The story of Dante is the story of the journey of the soul. Inferno shows the soul in a state of confusion. In the furnaces of inferno, the soul is trapped in its cycles of desire and the toll of their consequences.

Purgatorio is the realm where purification takes place. It shows the soul gradually letting go of what binds it. Purgatory is not a punishment, but a place of healing where the soul steps closer and closer toward clear air, while deep love gains strength as the soul rises.

In Paradiso, the soul no longer experiences the light as something far away. Paradise itself is the love-substance of all existence, with which the soul fully merges.

Dante writes poetically, “My will and my desire became one with the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.”

With these words, he shows us that the highest destiny of the soul is to be united with the divine stream from which all life comes, the eternal Love.

Goethe’s Faust echoes the same theme in a later time. Faust is a typical seeker. He looks deeply into all aspects of knowledge, power, and experience. He tries to understand the mystery of life through the brilliance of his own mind and will.

But in his seeking, he comes to meet his Mephistopheles, his darkness, the human part that emerges when it desires to control and to possess. This part channels divine light into selfish and often destructive objectives.

The experiences that arise from this attitude always result in pain and failure, so Faust finally learns that true freedom does not come from knowledge, but from surrender. Eventually, he is lifted up not by what he has come to know, but by love itself. He finds in love a grace that is even stronger than death.

So whether we look to the East or to the West, we find the same truth that the wise have always expressed, that death is not an end, but a veil. Their universal agreement has always been that the soul must pass through a cleansing process before it can carry its original light in complete fullness again.

From ancient times to this day, the same story is told in many different words, with a knowledge that lies beyond vocabulary. Our souls have never truly forgotten it, and hearing about this journey tends to make deep sense to us.

So what is this story really?

In short, the real journey does not happen outside of us, but inside of us, as we move from darkness to light, from confusion to clarity, from knowing to loving. Step by step, we return to the source we came from.

In our own inner experiences, we can relate to the same truth, which implies that the path after death is not different from the path of life. What we meet there, beyond the separating veil, is a precise mirror of what we have created here. What we harvest there is exactly what we have sown here.

When the last breath leaves the body, the passage that follows is as natural as the changing of the seasons. Our body returns to the elements, following the cycle of nature, but our consciousness continues.

What happens before and at death is that the life-body loosens and the life-force that gave life and form since gestation separates from the physical form. Soon after this separation, memories rise to the surface. They flow like a vivid film through the spaces of the soul. Our whole life unfolds once more, now moving backwards from the end to the beginning, until it arrives again at birth.

For a while, life is streamed before us. When this streaming is complete, the last bit of life-force that still sustained us is reabsorbed by the sea of nature. After this final impression of life, the mental body, which contains the magnetic world of our thoughts, begins to dissolve.

The thoughts we believed were ours, the patterns we repeated day after day, fade like fog in the morning sun. In this phase, there is great clarity. The noise of thought grows still, and the soul stands in an endless space. It witnesses life as a whole, not as a film, but as a living imprint that needs no analysis or judgment.

In this state, knowledge is no longer carried by the mind, but by the heart. When this field of thought has left its imprint, it slowly dissolves, and consciousness lets go of thinking itself. Its magnetic radiations fade, and the soul now stands clothed in feelings alone.

After the world of thought has dissipated, the astral body, filled with feelings and emotions, comes into focus. In this space, the soul meets everything it has ever sent into life. Every act of love, every anger, every joy, and every fear returns. These waves are not there to punish, but to reflect the effects of our actions.

The pain we once caused to others is experienced as our own. But the soul also experiences the full effect of every expression of love it offered. For some, this phase is short and gentle. For others, it can be long and difficult. Slowly, all feelings fall silent.

When the astral body dissolves, only a quiet presence remains. When thought and feeling have grown still, what remains cannot be spoken. There is no form, no thought, no emotion. There is only a point of living light, the Divine Spark, radiant within the microcosm.

At this point, the great choice appears. Will we return to the circle of life, or are we drawn into the field of light, into God’s stillness, where all is One in radiant Love?

This is not judged from outside, but from within. It is determined by the vibration of the soul itself. If it has become one with stillness, it will follow where stillness calls. If it still carries unrest, it will return to where that unrest can be healed.

This is why all true teachings say, die before you die.

Angelus Silesius wrote, “You must die before you die, so that when you die, you do not die.”

To die before we die means to go through this process while we are still alive. It means letting our thoughts grow still before death silences them, and letting selfishness dissolve in the balance of Love before we are forced to face its consequences later.

When we have the courage to do this, our inner death begins. This death is not a loss, but a liberation. Already while we live, we can die daily in small ways that together form a great transformation.

We die when we forgive, when we overcome jealousy and anger, when we acknowledge our wrongdoings, when we choose silence over defence, when we heal our own wounds and the wounds of others through an open heart.

In this way, we rise into the Light that never fades. When our great transition comes, we will recognise the path, because we have walked it many times while alive.

From all this, we can see that death is not an end, but a change in which the soul becomes fully naked in the Light. When we live in truth, we already live in this Light. We can already become partakers of eternity here and now.

Let us not wait for death to begin living fully. Let us turn our lives into preparation, into a living temple built on the foundation of the Light of Love.

Every thought that grows still, every feeling we release, every act done in love, is a small dying of the ego and at the same time a rebirth of the soul.

The Divine Light exists in all stillness. It teaches us to die while we are alive, so that we may truly live in the Light when our final day comes.

Many of us have, at some point in our lives, faced moments that shook us to our core.

It might have been because of a sudden loss, a betrayal, or some other unexpected change that pulled the rug from underneath our feet.

In those moments, the way we see ourselves, others, and the whole world can shift completely. Some call these moments “mental health crises,” while we recognise them as part of a greater transformation.

We see them as an inner rearrangement of life’s elements, that again and again forces us to look deeper than before.

The truth is that most of us carry some mental or emotional burden.

It may be the result of trauma, of loss, or years of accumulated stress.
It can also be something we were born with, a nervous system more sensitive, more open to both beauty and pain.

Today these experiences are often filtered through the language of psychiatry and diagnosis.

Diagnosis and its Limits

The DSM, our modern diagnostic manual, categorises vast dimensions of human inner life into boxes: bipolar disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, borderline personality disorder, and many more.

There can be value in diagnosis.

Modern mental health care has been life-saving in many cases, and the process of receiving a diagnosis and help can be part of our path.

But there also lies a risk.

Something essential may be lost: the poetry, the depth, the meaning and opportunities that ancient cultures once saw in the same psychological diversities.

Before modern psychiatry and the DSM, humanity told stories.
We used myths and symbols to understand.

We saw “symptoms” as living forces.

Myth and the Inner Forces

In ancient myths, what we now call symptoms were seen as powers within us:

• ADHD was reflected in Mercury, the wing-footed messenger, restless and inventive, brimming with ideas, embodying youthful freedom and renewal.

• Depression appeared in Persephone, taken into the underworld, still returning each spring, showing how descent precedes rebirth.

• Bipolar moods were mirrored in Dionysus, god of ecstasy and collapse, swinging between extremes, teaching balance through experience.

There are many more—Chiron, Narcissus, Prometheus, and others.

To the ancient mind, these were not pathologies, but mirrors of the hidden meaning of our suffering.

They invited transformation.

They became part of the map of the soul.

Where Spirituality Meets Mental Health

Perhaps here spirituality meets mental health: in bringing back meaning through the sacred story that lies behind our struggles.

When we strip away the myth, our living experiences risk becoming only clinical categories.
But when we restore the myth, we discover that so-called “disorders” carry a seed of transformation.

We stop asking “What is wrong with me?” and begin asking “What is life teaching me through these lessons?”

This shift is not denial of pain, nor romanticising trauma, nor ignoring our need for support.
It is openness to the possibility that our fragmentation calls us back to something forgotten:

An original wholeness that exists beneath all the noise.

And here suffering becomes spiritual.
Not in a religious sense, but in the deepest meaning of the word: a return to the breath of the Living Spirit.

The Rosebud in the Heart

True healing is not about removing symptoms, but about the cleansing and restoration of the soul.

In our Rosicrucian tradition, we speak of a rosebud in the heart.
It carries an immense tension, ready to burst into bloom.

This rosebud is the spark of the Spirit, the divine seed hidden in every heart.
It is untouched by chaos or despair.
It rests silently, like a quiet light, waiting to pierce the fog of thought and emotion.

When old structures break, this light shines.
Like a seed that needs great tension before breaking open into a tree.
Like a caterpillar dissolving to become a butterfly.

The false self dissolves, and the new Soul unfolds.

Ego Death and Renewal

This process often feels like a death, and in many ways it is: an ego death.

The ego death is the death of the false identity we created to survive.
We do not lose anything essential.
We lose only the masks.

And though disorienting, this opens a new foundation, not a better version of the old self, but an entirely different order of being.

This new being is not rooted in fear, but in peace, acceptance, and surrender.

The Inner Temple

The ancient teachings tell of limitless clarity beyond chaos, limitless peace beneath emotions, and a still foundation within us.

To live from this sanctuary, we must pass through fire. Not once, but many times.
Each time, another illusion burns away.

Through this process, we construct the inner temple of the soul:

• The temple of the head, clarity of thought.

• The temple of the heart, purity of intention.

• The temple of life, action aligned with wisdom.

These sanctuaries prepare us to receive the guidance of the Spirit.

Freedom and Transformation

On this path we learn that freedom is not found in the absence of struggle, but in discovering true purpose.

We learn that freedom is not in erasing memory, but in transforming meaning.

We stop pretending perfection.
We stop hiding our storms.
We begin to ask: What is the deeper truth in me? What do my patterns tell me to release?

Each crisis becomes a crucible.
A sacred vessel where the impure burns away, and the eternal becomes visible.

The pain we feel is the pain of ego death, yet at the same time we receive the golden panacea of rebirth.

The Alchemy of the Soul

This is not mythological fantasy.

It begins here, in this present moment.
Your wounded reactions are not shameful, they are invitations to renewal.

Through silence of the mind and fullness of the heart, the mind becomes a mirror again.

Suffering is not the end.
It is the threshold of existence, where attachments are loosened, where survival mode falls away.

Here begins a life no longer ruled by fear, but shaped by the harmonies of Love.

This is the alchemy of the soul: chaos into clarity, fragmentation into wholeness.

A New State of Being

Through this inner work, a new being arises, unhindered by storms.
Not as an idea, but as reality.

We enter a state not defined by the past, but by the present.
A state not grasping for control, but resting in trust.
Not escaping the world, but radiating another order within it: stillness, love, and the wisdom of Spirit.

This new order quenches the soul’s thirst at the inner wellspring.
It does not make us perfect, but present.

Like a rose unfolding, petal by petal, with every surrender, every insight, every step into the unknown for the sake of love and truth.

The Silent Promise

No matter where you are, in breakdown or breakthrough, in longing or in silence, know this:

You are not alone.
You are not broken.

You are on your way to your most authentic being, free from anxiety, radiant with love.

In this freedom, we do not rise above others, we become deeply human.
Fully vulnerable. Fully open. Fully awake.
A vessel of the timeless Spirit that heals the world.

This is true healing.
This is liberation.

It is not the end of chaos, but the beginning of a luminous order in harmony with Love.

And this, dear friends, is the silent promise hidden in every moment of darkness:

That every deep night can be a turning point for a new dawn within us, one that returns us to the eternal freedom in the Light.

Divine Spark, Pneuma, Seed of the Spirit, Rosebud of the Heart, Germ of the New Soul, Corn Seed of Christ, Silent Witness, Golden Flower, Hidden Pearl, Lapis Philosophorum, Light-Spark, Tao, Son of the Sun, Fiery Core, Sacred Embryo, Inner Star, Jewel of the Heart, Flame of Gnosis, Lamp of the Sanctuary, Radiant Seed, Crystal Dewdrop, Phoenix Egg, Pearl of Great Price, Golden Seed, Flame of Dawn, Quintessence, Eternal Kernel, Secret Fire, Spirit-Atom, Rose of Transfiguration, Seed of Immortality, Living Flame, Inner Sun, Key of the Kingdom, Sacred Atom, Heart’s Sun, Diamond Core, Seed of all metals, Light of the World…

We could continue for a long time, because we are talking about a universal principle that cannot be named. It can be mentioned through symbols and expressions, but the spark, or original seed unfolds in secret in this world and blooms in the kingdom that is not of this world.

The Divine Spark

In all Mystery schools of past and present, there has been mention of this eternal principle. This is the spark of life that expresses itself in a sevenfold interplay of harmonies. It is also the seed of the seven lotus flowers that turn to the kingdom that is not of this world. It leads us on a 7-fold path that unfolds in us and that brings us back to our original harmonious soul state.

This divine seed that we all are carriers of, is not part of our mortal personality but belongs to the kingdom which is the original, eternal realm that exists beyond this material world.

Our sparks were in the ancient Egyptian mysteries compared to stars that fell from heaven and that needed to return and take their rightful place in the milky way, as a brotherhood of liberated souls influencing the soul-tide of the world. For this we had to embark, still during our life, on an inner boat ride (between the polarity of two shores) that would bring us living past the portals of death.

Through all ages, we have seen teachers and groups like ours that did not bring a new religion but that pointed people to listen to the voice within, the voice of the spirit spark!

In most people’s lives, there is very little space for this spark to manifest. The spirit spark does neither automatically influence our thoughts, feelings, or actions. For it to awaken from its slumber, a process of inner transformation needs to take place.

This transformation happens automatically when our thoughts, feelings, and actions are no longer driven by the ego-personality but are brought into an alignment with the divine spark within. The spirit-spark ignites then a fire in our soul, that guides us past all the hazardous limitations of the old self to a liberated state of life and being. This is a process in which our mind, our heart and our whole physical manifestation transform.

Our Mind

We can think of our mind as a mirror that is mostly used to reflect on different types of conditionings. Our mind is often absorbed in self-centredness, and in this situation, the imprint of the truth is distorted by our brains.

With its ever varying states, it serves the ego-personality, the temporary self, which is bound to the world of polar opposites, of rise and fall, happiness, sadness, light and darkness.

However, when the spirit-spark awakens, then a new force arises, a new silent, inner awareness that sees a New Truth, beyond the limitations of personal thought. We meet what the Hermetics and the Gnostics sometimes called Nous, the aspect of the mind that harmonises all polarised thinking.

It is a different mind that comes with a new mindset.

• This new mind does not project a reality but receives the Reality.
• The new mind doesn’t cling to old patterns but is instead open to higher inspirations.
• This new mind is like a mirror of divine wisdom that allows the light of the spirit spark to guide us.

To form this mirror, our mind first has to be unified with our heart, so that the spirit spark can reflect in it during moments of intuition and inspiration. Each time this happens an impression is formed on the brain that changes its focus from selfish thoughts to an open and soulful mind.

Our dual brain tends to flip-flip and leave our heart in a divided state, but our heart is also the carrier of the unifying solution, namely the divine spirit spark. This spirit spark is the star that we have to return to its original place, and preferably with such a force that it pulls others along in its wake of light!

Our Heart

As we know that our heart is the center of our being. Most of us, when we point at ourselves to indicate ourselves, we point at our hearts. What we point at is the place where we the spirit-spark lies hidden, the place of aliveness, that can bring a new impulse of life into our blood stream that can overflow our whole being, leading it back to its paradisiacal form, dynamics and purpose.

Our heart can be stuck in hardness, or it can be overflowing with emotions, but between and behind those there is a bridge, or a portal, between the time based and eternal planes of existence. This is the invisible spot in us where the light of the spirit spark shines into our being. The spirit spark is the all powerful and divine spirit that breaks through into our being, just as it unseizingly breaks into the darkness of the material realm.

Most peoples hearts are caught in a sea of waves of personal desires, attachments, and fears. These lower emotional thought patterns often overrun or suffocate the voice of the spirit within, keeping it in a dormant state. This is why the purification of the sanctuary of the heart through a growing honesty and purity is a fundamental part of the process.

When the heart answers with honesty and purity to this calling of our inner voice, then miraculous changes happen on our paths:

• A new longing is born. Not one that aims at some material security, but one that seeks union with the divine source. This is the knocking that comes with the answer of an opening and a touch.
• In this touch, our heart receives the impulse of a new magnetic vitality that seeks to fill our whole being. This vitality carries the blueprint of our original being for our earthly being to follow.
• The heart is the altar on which the spirit spark ignites the flame when we follow the fine measure that only love can bring.

When our pure heart and silent mind connect then a new power is born in us. The spirit spark radiates a sevenfold light that alters the state of our heart and the perception of our minds in such a way that we start to see and know the light in everything everywhere. We see by the light of the spirit spark, that is the spirit of god and the spirit of the world and universe, the spirit of all life in everything.

When some of our universal awareness awakens as a consequences of following this spark, then we feel the unstoppable urge to come to action. Then the spark brings a force that reshapes our entire existence in a natural process.

Our physical manifestation.

Many spiritual seekers experience moments of deep insight and inspiration, but for most these moments slip away like sand between the fingers. The reason why this happens over and over again is because the realisations are not embodied by actions. Without conscious concrete actions, any manifestation of soul-renewal stays an inspiration that is filled with lofty ideas, but that is disconnected from real life.

For the manifestation of the inspiration of the spirit spark, the solar plexus and lower centers play an essential role. They are together with the higher chakras the gateway through which spiritual forces can be brought to action, or they can be lost in a material clinging.

• The solar plexus (Manipura), is connected to the speen and liver and governs our will and power of manifestation. When our Solar plexus is ruled by the ego, then it drives us to ambition, dominance, and self-interest. But when it is aligned with the spirit spark in the heart then it becomes a force of service and dedication to a higher purpose.
• The sacral center (Svadhisthana) governs desire and creativity. In its lower state, it seeks self-gratification and attachment, but when it is purified, it becomes a source of inspired creation, it is the place where the expressive and creative fire of the renewing soul is born.
• The root center (Muladhara) governs stability and grounding. If it is driven by fear, then it clings to security, resisting transformation. But when it is aligned with the spirit spark it becomes the foundation for living in a new way in which life is understood and approached from its living essence that is the spirit spark.

When the mind, heart, and lower chakras are aligned with the spark of the spirit, then this means that an awakening in the eternal is taking place, by which we regain our original objective.

The Path of Transfiguration

The path of transfiguration, as revealed in our teachings, is the process by which the spirit-spark becomes the governing principle of our entire being.

It is a journey where:

• Our mind no longer creates illusions but becomes receptive of the divine dimension.
• Our heart no longer clings to personal attachments but radiates in pure love and inner devotion.
• Our physical manifestation no longer serves the ego but manifests the light and life of the spirit spark in our daily lives.

This is the true alchemical solvent of the soul that reveals the inner temple, in which the three new flames of the spirit (thought, feeling, and action) are placed on three altars of head, heart and being, and brought before the divine.

In this universal process the ego-personality gradually dissolves, and a higher state of being emerges that is no longer bound to the world of opposites but that exists in the eternal reality of the spirit-soul.

This leads to a liberation and this is the true goal of the School of the Golden Rosycross: not to bring intellectual knowledge, nor mystical emotions, nor external rituals, but to encourage, to the fullest, to reconnect with the divine nucleus within.

A Call to the Seeker

When we follow the inner call of the spirit-spark then we can come to some questions:

• Are my thoughts run by the ego, or do they reflect the wisdom of the higher mind?
• Is my heart caught by personal emotions, or has it become a pure vessel that fows over with divine love?
• Are my actions still driven by the lower self, or do they manifest the light of the new soul all around?

The awakening of the spirit-spark is not something that happens in a single moment, it is a continuous process, a daily practice of inner transformation.

The School of the Golden Rosycross offers guidance to those who recognize this path within themselves, not as external teachers, but as brothers and sisters walking the same path, united in one great work: the rebirth of the divine-human being.

Together we bring through our inner work a vibration into this world that appeals to the spirit spark in the heart. Together we build a field of light in which the Great Comforter can manifest for the Good of world and mankind.

(The transcript of a webinar held in February 2024)

The word love is certainly one of the most used words worldwide, and every human being has their definition of what it is, consciously or unconsciously. And that’s the way it should be, of course. In this talk, we would like to highlight what we, as Rosicrucians, mean when we use the word love and what the universal doctrine says about it.

The word is used anywhere from “I love ice cream” to “I love God.” In many old documents, it says that “God is love”, and one of the founders of our Spiritual School, J. van Rijckenborgh, writes somewhere that the love we are talking about is not a quality but a totality, the divine itself.

The text “Tao Te King” from ancient China begins with the fact that it is impossible to talk about Tao, God or Love. As soon as we do that, we aren’t really talking about what it is.

We will return to these thoughts later because we will first try to define the word, by seeing what it is not for us.
It is common to hear or read that love is only a matter of chemistry, a consequence of certain substances being released into the blood. That this is not the kind of love we are discussing is probably apparent to you, even if the word is mainly used for the love between two persons.

Then there is the love that parents feel for their child, the love between friends, the love for their people or their country. Or simply the love of a cause or belief.

What is common to all these types of love is that they are linked to a strong emotion. Another distinguishing feature is that when people have such a strong emotion and are betrayed, let down, or abandoned, that their emotion tends to turn into its opposite. It goes without say that this is neither the kind of love we mean.

What kind of love are we talking about? We will make use of one of the most famous texts that exist that describes what love is, namely 1 Corinthians 13.

In verses 4 and 5, Paul describes what love is like:

” Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. “

Especially the words “it is not self-seeking” is for many the image of true love. The parent who is prepared to sacrifice himself for his child, the person who sacrifices his life for a friend, for his country or for his beliefs. And here too we can consider the martyrs of church history.

A concept that is close to love is goodness. For many the definition of a good person is a person filled with love who is prepared to sacrifice his own comfort, sometimes his life, for another man or for his convictions.

That this is not entirely unproblematic is clear, not least in our time in which people are prepared to sacrifice their lives in acts that lead to violence and death for others.

In conversations about goodness, the opinion is sometimes put forward that no human being is completely good and unselfish, but that what ultimately drives them is that he or she feels good about acting in this way. It’s simply a selfish perspective because they feel good about being “good”.

An objection to this is that this reasoning leads to the absurd conclusion that only actions in which the person does something for others while he or she feels miserable, can be “counted” as good.

But let us now leave these philosophical subtleties aside.

All these examples underline what the Rosicrucians and the Universal Doctrine say about love, which is the following:

The force that keeps us going through life from our birth and onward is what we call our ego. It is the force that makes us move forward in life, to quite simply survive. None of us would have made it this far in life without it.
Among people with a strong ego, we find those who are generous and those who are stingy. There are those who are caring and those who only look out for themselves, etc. But what we all have in common is that life revolves around ourselves. Paul writes of all this: “The good I want to do, I do not do, and the evil I do not want to do, I do.”

What is described in the Scriptures of the Universal Doctrine is that man must be prepared to give up his self in order to stand in love. This is how we understand the words of Christ: “only he who is prepared to give up his life for my sake shall gain eternal life.”

And this does not have to be a dramatic event at all. Paul writes elsewhere that “I die daily” to show that this can be a slow process that the disciple enters.

How to enter into this process is described in a number of documents. For example, in Buddhas Eightfold Path, while the Gnostics talk about the fivefold Gnosis, which we have talked about in previous webinars, but here is a brief summary:

1. Insight both into how this world is governed, and a self-awareness of what has been the driving force in one’s life so far.
2. This leads to a longing for something else and the discovery that there is something eternal deep within ourselves, something that is not touched by the emotional surge of the moment, and that it is this core that is the root of our longing.
3. The more we give this longing the space in us the more we surrender the guidance of our life to the God-spark within us.
4. Man is now entering a new life of new action that is entirely guided by this spark.

Man and the Gnosis are now one; he or she acts and lives out of love.

This may feel abstract, far from our everyday lives, and the road certainly looks different for different people.

For one person, it may begin with a powerful longing that drives him to search further; for another, it begins with the urge to act—the urge to do something for others, and so on. But somehow, we can’t get past these steps on our way.

Sometimes, divine love is described as a higher vibration than the one we live in now. And to some of you, it might sound as technical as the chemistry we discussed earlier. But even the most recent scientific description of our world describes everything as vibrating fields that create attraction and repulsion.

It is like the well-known scientific example of the hand and the tabletop. We are pulled towards the earth and cannot put our hand through a tabletop, which is ultimately so because our hand and the tabletop repel each other when they come into contact.

What 1 Corinthians 13 writes about is simply that love is a power and that without this power, without us living from this power, all our endeavours are in vain. But with this power, we overcome all things.

In the following lines of text, we can easily discern if an action springs out of this love or not:

” Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

And it continues:

“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails”
 
When you read further in the text, then it describes the characteristics of what this love is and is not.
So when we talk about love, it’s only this love we’re referring to. This does not mean that we now stand in this love, but it is the love to which our longing is directed, and that is the whole goal of our path.

At one point in the Bible, Jesus says that he will come with the sword and not with peace, and it also says that love is a double-edged sword.
This means that the one who stands in love is filled with this love and can, on the one hand, completely embrace anyone who seeks this love with this love.  The other edge of this love is that if someone wants to move forward, he must completely free himself from his ego in the process of being able to go into this love. This other edge of universal love helps with this, which sometimes has painful consequences.

But doesn’t what we usually call love have any value? Well, we all know that it has. For example, a child growing up in a loving home has a greater chance of living a harmonious life. Yet this is not the love we are talking about. How can we look at this love around us, which we perceive as positive and essential?

In good cases, it can be a reflection of divine love. In the example of the parent’s love for her child, it may be that a love can almost “endure everything” even if he/she is betrayed and abandoned. But, after all, it is a love directed to one person.

Divine love is universal; it is addressed to all living things and human beings. It is a force, a vibration if you will, that paves the way for those who seek. A power with which he/she can help and serve his/her fellow human beings in their quest for liberation in life.

We wish you all this power in the coming days.

We finished with some words from the Book of Mirdad:

“Love is the Law of god.
You live that you may learn to love.
You love that you may learn to live.
No other lesson is required of Man.”
 

Silence is a world of peace in which everything

The hindrance in the way of this space of silence, this inner sanctum, is that we are often caught up in our fast-paced world. 

The inner turmoil produced by our daily lives often drowns out the silent voice of our souls. We chase after things that are only short-lived while we forget about the eternal silence that waits patiently for us to return. 

This silence we are talking about is not a particular absence of sound or thought, but a living fullness entirely self-existent. It is the eternal river of life in which our soul unites with the all-harmonising spirit.

This silence, which we can only find when we let everything be, is where our heart tunes in with the harmony that drives all of creation…

But for us to come to and stay in this silence, we must embark on a sacred pilgrimage within. 

Our journey to our silence begins with the recognition that beyond all the turmoil, beyond the endless stream of thoughts and distractions, lies a temple of peace in the heart of our being. A temple not built of stone but of awareness, love, and surrender.

The journey to our inner essence of silence asks us to break things off, even if it is for the shortest possible moment. It urges us to be present in the moment. It invites us to bypass our inner noise by stepping into the now as often as possible. 

And when we arrive in the present moment, our whole life attitude changes. The temple of silence will ask us to learn to listen without responding so that we can understand, connect, and be one with the all-encompassing silence that envelops and permeates everyone and everything. 

Only in this state of silence do we start to discover our true selves that lie past the different roles we play and the titles we might carry. Only when we “drop the role” do we unite with the eternal living presence that unites us all.

In this citadel of silence, we come to clarity and insight, strength and serenity, and we realise from it that we are not separate from the Divine, but all are different expressions of the Divine. 

We start to see that we all are part of the same divine field, and we speak to that part in every one. Silence gives space to the healing and harmonising power of the spirit in and around us.

But for us to come to this silence in our daily lives, we need to cultivate it. 

We need to decide on it. And we can start doing that by trying to observe our own life situations without judgment and reaction. While we look from this broader perspective, we begin to let go of certain attachments because they hinder the silence with too much noise. 

We must seek entrance into this temple, a field that is separated from our inner chaos, and we should stay in it a little longer every day. Each day, we are more focused and seek the entrance to the temple of silence that unites us all as one temple of humanity. 

In this silent temple, we become aware of our thoughts and emotions without getting entangled. From the silence, we observe from a still point that remains unshaken by the storms of life, no matter how hard they beat on our rock of existence. In the silence, we are already in the light of the eternal life. 

And in this silence, we understand and embrace existence’s paradoxes. 

We understand that it is in the emptiness that we find fullness, that it is in letting go that we gain and that it is in solitude that we discover that our union is with all. 

So silence is not just a practice but another way of being; seeing out of the silence with a different lens, we visit the world and ourselves with greater compassion, wisdom, and a more profound love.

Because as we seek silence, then we come to silence, and when we come to silence, we don’t only come home to ourselves but also to each other and the Divine. 

And then we will find our true purpose in the world in the sacred silence. 

It is at the heart of silence that we find the peace that surpasses all understanding and find the love that knows no bounds, and it is in this love that we discover the light that guides us home.

So let us then, no matter where we stand in life and how hard we can find it, try to put things aside for the silence and commit to this journey within. When we cultivate the sacred art of silence, we will slowly but surely uncover the most glorious treasures waiting to be revealed. When we seek silence despite all turmoil and stop listening to the noise of our thoughts and pains, only when we say no to them will we hear the call of the Divine resonating in our souls. In listening to this call, we find our way back to the peace, love, and light that is our true home, that is found in the radiant temple of silence.