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.

Let us talk about love. About personal love, and about Divine Love.

You know personal love. You have lived it. You have laughed in it. You have wept because of it. You have rejoiced in it. Your heart has probably opened and closed many times in it. You expanded and contracted in it, often trying to hold on to what felt precious as it slipped away.

This is the way of human love. It is the way of most lives.

It can be tender. It can be sincere. It can be fierce. It can be loud and it can be soft. Or it trembles. Or it even turns into terror.

So what is love?

There is an ancient wisdom that says: “The world is run by Love.”

We can observe this everywhere in nature. We can see that there is a law of love and mercy that directs everything in existence forward. There is a sacred order of harmony that is even observed by science.

So love is everywhere and in everything, but now we want to specifically focus on human love and divine love and their role on our path.

We tend to make things complex. So let’s say it simply first.

Love is Love.

There is an ultimate goal in love, no matter where it happens. Love is not just a feeling. Love is in itself a correcting power that overthrows all falsehood. So Love is a strict, but righteous teacher.

We can also see that when there is real affection, a heart begins to soften and to open, because love begins to flow. When there is real care, then it is love that takes care, and in this real love an ego always loses a little of its grip.

Human love teaches us to look beyond ourselves, to find this greater Love.

It is like coming over a false mountain top, beyond which, to our surprise, the real mountain top — a much higher one, appears, and we suddenly see the whole of the mountain we have been on all along.

Divine Love does not negotiate. It does not tremble. It does not waver. It does not depend on others.

This is the Love of the Divine that breathes in the secret chamber of our heart.

When we speak of Divine Love, we speak about something beyond our mental understanding. It is almost like a fragrance without a flower, or like a light without a source, or like an image without a picture. It is an impression that is at the same time not an impression; at the same time an eternal river, while also a shoreless ocean.

We can see it, but we don’t.

We cannot grasp Divine Love, while it still lies in everything as the greatest secret mystery of all life.

Divine Love is never transactional nor emotional. Divine Love is entirely different. Divine Love is a Presence. It is a state. Divine Love is like a temple that comes with us wherever we walk, and we see this temple wherever we look.

Divine Love is a gift that we both receive and give at the same time.

When we learn not to reach out to this love, but to reach out from this love, then through this love a divine radiance descends like a healing dew upon our heart, bringing us peace in which our minds can be still. It even silences the fight-or-flight of our body.

And when we follow this Love, it remains in us, around us, above us, and below us, like a mantle of Love, in which we are at the same time at home, in the temple of Love.

Love is simple. Love is as spacious as the universe, so it never shouts or argues.

In our human loving, we often run after love, often with our arms stretched out so far in our longing that we miss the treasure we carried in our pocket all along.

Human love is often the one who calls, while Divine Love comes to the door.

Human love will always say, “I need you.” While Divine Love will always say, “I am inside of you.”

Human love will exclaim, “Stay with me.” While Divine Love says, “I’ve always been here.”

Human love shoots up like a burst of fire that dies out later. Divine Love glows like a steady central sun that lights up the whole soul.

If we can recognise even a little of this Love, the smallest hem of it, then our human love begins to change. It becomes caring. It becomes giving. It becomes lighter. It becomes kinder. It becomes free.

It stops seeking its own comfort and begins to reflect the comforting Love of the Divine.

This is how love transforms us, and how we are transformed by it, not by rejecting the human that we are, with all our opposing sides, but by letting the Divine enter into our human and allowing it to create a new inner order.

As Divine Love rises in us, the trembling of personal love fades like ice melting from within, uncovering a whole new reality.

This reality does not need proof. It does not fade when things change. This reality of love lies behind everything like a Divine door that is always accessible.

As we step through this door, we step onto the trail that this love spreads directly in front of us.

Then Love will lead us, help us, steady us, ground us, transform us, and attract what is light and full of Love, in the Light of Love.

We only need to turn towards this Love each time personal love gives us the chance. Then we can make this new Love, this real Love, this Divine Love, our new way.

In this Love we are free. In this Love we live for real. In this Love we are, just as this Love is. As you, in your essence, are this Love.

To conclude our contemplation, we would like to read a poem about love:

The Lord is in me, the Lord is in you, as life is in every seed.
O servant, put false pride away and seek the Lord within.

You wander from temple to temple with your mouth full of questions,
but the God you seek is within yourself.

Like the musk deer who searches the world for the scent that comes from its own body,
you live in illusion.

The Lord is the breath inside the breath.
The heart opens and blooms at His touch.
Love streams through the heart of the seeker like a river of light.

And when that Love comes,
the body becomes all flame,
and the soul becomes a song.

He is the deepest silence inside us,
the still point of turning worlds.
When love of the Divine rises up,
all desires dissolve like smoke.

This is the Love that does not waver.
This is the Love that has no opposite.
The Love that burns the veil and reveals
the One who is both seen and unseen.

Look within: your Beloved is already searching for you.
Meet Him in the temple of your heart.

We all expect things; it’s totally natural. We expect people to understand us; that plans go smoothly; that days unfold in the way we pictured them. Expectations make life feel predictable; they give us patterns to hold onto; a sense that we know where we’re headed. And often that helps. Expectation builds structure; it fuels hope; it also gives us the courage to act. But then life can suddenly remind us that it is much larger than our plans. Something shifts; someone leaves; a promise is broken; our life’s path takes a sudden turn we didn’t see coming. We feel lost. We feel wronged. We think: “This wasn’t supposed to happen.” But maybe it was supposed to happen. Maybe what’s happening isn’t a mistake, but life freeing us from the narrow space we tried to live in. It’s not wrong to expect. It’s simply that the expectation is too small for the magnitude of the powers that are found behind all life.

Think of the last time something didn’t go your way. At first it stung. Then, maybe later, you felt a quiet relief; a deeper truth; a perspective you didn’t have before. That’s how new life enters into us: it shows itself through what breaks. The light breaks in when our shell of control cracks open. It doesn’t arrive with fanfare. It slips in quietly; like a breath of peace returning after a long exhale. We can safely state that all plans are made from the past; from what we already know. But life speaks a different language: the language of the present moment.

Life moves like water; it is always new; it never repeats itself. And when we stop demanding that our new life matches our old patterns, we begin to see it. So how do we live, when nothing stays as we hoped?

We can find three steps in it. First, honesty is needed; acknowledging what we wanted; naming it and seeing it in the light of reality; loosens the grip it has on us. Secondly, we need to sit quietly with what follows; the quiet, uncomfortable space that appears when our plan dissolves. When we don’t rush to fill it, that’s where our new seeing begins. And thirdly, we learn to trust; not the kind that pretends everything is fine, but the kind that stays open even in the uncertainty of not knowing what’s coming next. This is a trust that follows the same rhythm that turns the tides. It is also guiding and unfolding us.

When our expectations fail, it is like standing in a river. We can fight the current; but we can also let it take us. The first brings exhaustion. The second takes courage; but the result is peace. Something happens when we stop fighting. In surrender, we start to see; we really see with clarity; and we notice how alive we are.

We feel alive because we inhabit the present moment, instead of waiting for the future to prove something to us. Expectation ties us to what we believe should happen; while presence opens us to what is happening. And in that space of presence, we no longer expect life to perform for us; instead, we allow life to unfold. We become less the actor of our self-made play; and more a witness to all the plays we are caught in. Not by being withdrawn, but by being quietly aware; by being a watcher in the middle of the motion.

And from that still centre, life moves us effortlessly along all experiences that enrich our soul.

We stop trying to fix a story. We start to trust the rhythm of life. We begin to understand that every difficult moment works to open us. Expectation says, “This is how it should be.” Life says, “This is how it is.” And then we can look. And when we do, when we really look, the cracks in our plans begin to show. The cracks through which the light falls in; and something in us glows back from our silent centre.

This is not the old light we tried to create, but a new one; a light that doesn’t belong to effort, but to the space of awareness. To live without expectations doesn’t mean to stop caring; it means to care differently; to care from presence instead of control. It’s to meet life with open hands; ready to see what’s real. And in that openness, peace begins to grow as a new consciousness. Not the peace of satisfaction, in which we get what we want, but the peace of being fully awake and present in the middle of it all. So when plans crumble, as they will, why not take a pause? Why rush to rebuild, reposition, replan, refortify? This is an opportunity to see the light radiating in front of us; allowing it to be seen and trusted.

This light that touches and heals everything is life, loving you. It is the light making you whole in ways you can’t yet name. May we all learn to see this light in the stillness of life’s broken expectations.

May we learn to live from this light — so that it may shine more and more clearly each time an expectation falls away. May this light fill our seeing; our feeling; our thinking; our breathing; our being; until we walk through each moment as the watcher; solid; steady; fully open; and fully free. And when the unexpected comes, and it surely will, may we remember that the light is finding its way into us.

During our the previous orientations we have followed the journey of the soul: from the first awakening of the heart, through the struggle of mind and desire, into the light of transfiguration. We have seen how the rose of the heart opens, how a new consciousness is born, and how the microcosm begins to regenerate.

Now we turn to the question: 

“what does it mean to live as a soul in the world?

What is the life of the new human being?”

The New Soul Takes the Lead

In the old state, the personality sits at the center, directing thought, feeling, and action toward self-preservation and self-fulfilment. But as the New Soul awakens, this order is reversed. The personality becomes transparent, a servant, while the soul takes the lead.

The New Soul lives from a higher law. It no longer reacts from fear or desire, but responds from Love. It no longer seeks to possess, but to give. The New Soul doesn’t clings to form, but rests in essence.

Living as a Soul means to not act out of compulsion, but out of inner necessity of Love.

A Life in Two Worlds

The new human being lives in two worlds. The outer life continues with its duties, its joys and sorrows, but inwardly another life shines.

The Gospel says: “Be in the world, but not of it.”

To live as a soul in the world means to allow the eternal to shine through the temporal, to let every thought, word, and deed become transparent to the Spirit. Work, family, society, all remain, but they are no longer goals in themselves. They become fields of service, places where the radiance of Gnosis can touch others.

Service as Natural Expression

The new human being does not serve out of obligation, but because it is its deepest nature. Just as a flower cannot help but spread its fragrance, so the awakened soul cannot help but bring the radiance of peace and love.

This is why transfiguration is not an escape from the world, but a return into it, with new eyes and a new heart. The new human being becomes a co-worker in the great plan of creation, helping to weave harmony where there was discord, light where there was shadow.

The Communion of Souls

When many souls awaken, a great mystery unfolds: the communion of souls.

Separated personalities may struggle to find unity, but awakened souls recognize one another immediately. Beyond differences of language, culture, or history, there is one vibration, one life.

This communion forms the living body of the new humanity. It is the seed of a new culture, founded not on power or possession, but on the radiance of the Spirit.

Living in the Eternal Now

At the heart of this new life is a different experience of time. The old human being is always pulled between past and future, regret and expectation. The new human being lives from the eternal present. 

This does not mean neglecting responsibility, but seeing everything in the light of eternity. Every moment is filled with meaning, because every moment is a doorway where time and eternity meet.

The Goal and the Path Are One

Finally, the great paradox is revealed: the path that we first believed to lead to a distant goal turns out to be the goal itself.

To walk as a New oul in the world is already to live in the New Kingdom. To act in harmony with the Spirit is already to partake in Eternal Life.

The new human being does not wait for some future salvation; they live it here and now.

Conclusion

The path of the Rosycross is the path of becoming this new human being. A being who is no longer fragmented or bound by the wheel of time, but who stands as a bridge between earth and heaven, radiating the harmony of the eternal Sun.

This is not reserved for a few.
The Spirit-spark
is in every human heart.

The call resounds in every heart.

If you can hear it,
and turn to it with longing and surrender, you will alread begin, 
to live as a New Soul in the midst of the old world…

Thank you for being with us.

When we turn to the rose in the heart, we become apprentices of the Rosycross. This means that while we live in this world, we direct ourselves to the light of Gnosis. Through an open life-attitude we receive this light, and at the same time radiate it into the world.

The cross is the symbol of this move-ment: the vertical beam for the in-streaming light, the horizontal for the out-streaming light.

Thus we link our earthly reality with the light of Gnosis and surrender ourselves to its working. In this way, we begin to answer the call of the essential human existence.

Self-Surrender

But this light of Gnosis must find a ground of work within us. It must become embodied in us, and this is a process.

At first, when we feel the touch of the light, we feel a joy and wonder. We recognize that another force is working in us, different from the impulses of ordinary life. But if nothing further follows, daily existence takes over, and the voice of the rose-heart fall silent again.

The ego tends to construct its own image of the path of liberation and then tries to live according to that image. 

But answering the call of our true being means surrendering to the archetype of God’s plan, which lies hidden deep within us all.

Self-surrender means allowing the new ensouling to take root in the heart. This quiets the will of the ego and inspires us to clear away everything that blocks the process. It is all the work of the new force, the Christ force, the radiant power of divine love.

J. van Rijckenborgh once wrote:

“Self-surrender is the most difficult thing a natural human being can be asked. It can only begin through an immense love for the liberating life, and through the insight that the key to the new life lies hidden in ourselves.”

When this insight leads to the birth of the new soul in the heart, and when that soul-breath can reach the sanctuary of the head, then Spirit unites with soul. The whole vibration of the personality is changed. The garment of light is transfigured into a Golden Wedding Garment. This is the foundation of a new personality.

Those who go forward in the twofold process of the Gnostic light soon discover a golden radiance in and around their auric field, bringing a breath of new life that streams from the Living Body. The Bible speaks of this as the Golden Wedding Garment as: a living testimony that the forces of the Spirit are entering the whole system of heart, blood, head, and body, renewing it from within.

The School as a Living Power Field

The School of the Golden Rosycross is not simply an outer organization. Its essence is the living power field in which pupils may receive the forces necessary to walk the path of liberation.

It is called a school because it offers stages of development. Orientation, pupilship and initiation unfold as the seeker responds inwardly to the call. Conferences, temple services, and gatherings are not ends in themselves but occasions where the power field of Gnosis becomes accessible.

But what is this school really? It is a place of worship of the Highest Good, which is in its essence also our own deepest essence. It is dedicated to the unnamable divine within. The physical vehicle of the school exists to serve anyone who can hear the call of their innermost being, and to provide opportunities to reconnect with it.

In this way the school functions as  a bridge. When we speak in our meetings, then words are more than words, they become formulas of light, designed to bring harmony to the soul so it may remember its source.

 In these precious moments, a bridge is lit between this field of time and the realm of eternity. Everyone present is touched by the divine radiation that lives in the power field.

This power field arises when a collective of souls attune themselves together to the source of the All-Good. 

Through the harmonizing action of Gnosis, the school itself is always transforming, breaking down what no longer serves, building up what radiates the soul. This happens in the organization, in its pupils, in its members, and in all who listen with an open heart.

When we say “school,” we mean an initiation school, as has existed in all ages. It is not a spiritual escape from life but a help for life, a place where seekers can serve and follow the light, while daily existence continues with its challenges, but also with its new opportunities.

Bread and Wine

The Gnostic path is a path for all who long to discover the deeper meaning of life. It is not a recipe, not a series of steps that can be imposed from outside. It is a living reality that takes hold of our being and expresses itself in every aspect of our daily life, especially in our relationships with one another.

The positive light of the new soul is a force before which the negative, dialectical self must yield. Its radiation is the true bread and wine of life, the nourishment for the birth, growth, and realization of the inner, spiritual human being.

We are called to be co-workers in the great plan of creation. Knowledge of this plan, Gnosis, is not a luxury, nor an exclusivity. It is a necessity for anyone who wishes to live consciously.

For this reason the School speaks clearly, not out of worldly motives but out of love for humanity. A love that flows from the Christ-centered field of Gnosis.

The Rose and the Cross

Let us return to the image of the Rose Cross itself.

A golden cross, reaching upward and outward, radiant with light and peace. At its center, the golden rose, opening in quiet majesty. This is not a cross of suffering but of transformation. It is a paradox of radiant surrender.

The story of Christ can be understood as the example of the perfect human being, not only on a wooden cross long ago, but crucified within every human heart, at the intersection of two worlds: light and darkness, God and man.

At that point of crossing, the rose blooms. And the invitation resounds again: to open our hearts, to clothe ourselves in the Golden Wedding Garment, and to walk in the light of the Rose.

In the previous orientation we were invited to walk the Gnostic path. The invitation to the Alchemical Wedding, as presented to Christian Rosenkreuz, was shown to be the doorway to a fundamental inner transformation.

Endura: The Attitude of Surrender

This path of renewal requires a life-orientation known in the Gnostic tradition as endura. Endura, which has the same root as “to endure” is a consciously practiced process of neutralizing the old, unholy nature of the microcosm, while simultaneously preparing and sanctifying the original microcosmic system.

When we inwardly experience the deep longing for wholeness, we become ready to release the countless ties binding us to the old nature. Only then can the true, original self awaken and gradually unfold, free from interference.

It is not I, but the Other-in-me, greater than I, who must increase. And I, the ego-self, must decrease, until I fade into that Other who dwells in the spirit-spark.

This is an inner schooling in which the role of the personality-self is diminished. This is necessary, for the ego always tends to assert itself, to strengthen its own image. The personality must learn to step back, so that the new soul can come forward.

This is the meaning of John’s words:

“After me comes one who has surpassed me, for he was before me.” (John 1:30)

Only then is the human system made ready to assimilate the voice of silence. For to experience even a glimpse of the divine Light, we must become inwardly still.

As Hermes teaches:

“You will see her only when you cease speaking of her, for Gnosis of the Good is both divine silence and the stilling of all the senses.”

This does not mean meditation techniques or concentration exercises, but an inner stillness that embraces the whole being, even in daily activity. Inner stillness and a pure heart prepare the way for the divine reality. In this stillness, the image of our true life-purpose becomes ever clearer.

The Awakening of the Soul

When the new soul begins to awaken, new faculties appear within the microcosm, beyond the dialectical personality. A new center of consciousness is freed.

This upheaval is the occasion for awakening. The ego can’t grasp this mystery, but it may sense that something is unfolding within. At first it observes, reflects, even philosophizes about it.

Meanwhile, in the microcosm new forces enter. They make use of the personality as long as it is willing, and they begin to form a new life-substance. Out of this arises the subtle garment of light—the new vesture of the soul.

It is Gnosis itself, streaming in as seven rays, the primal powers of liberation. Through this divine force, the awakening of the new soul becomes possible.

The Temple as Focal Point of Light

The new soul requires nourishment: the light-force that sustains the birth of the new human being.

Rosicrucians find this nourishment especially during service both online as wel in the temple. Just as a magnifying glass gathers sunlight into a single burning point, so the temple gathers and concentrates the divine light. In this focused stream the spirit atom can respond, releasing life from light.

For the Word of God is radiation. Within this radiation is the absolute life, the perfect light for all humanity. This is the light that leads to liberation of the soul. It shines in the darkness, yet the darkness does not perceive it. Therefore, the Word comes to us in many forms, to make the unseen visible, to make the abstract concrete.

The Temple as a Place of Work

Participation in temple service is therefore essential. Outer qualities, status, learning, social standing, have no weight here. What matters is only a sincere longing for Gnosis.

Whatever the seeker brings of themselves, in honesty and simplicity, is the only material needed for the new work of transfiguration to begin.

The temple has its own atmosphere, its own radiance. It is part of the Living Body of the spiritual school. The temple-field is an astral source of nourishment. It offers forces that bypass ordinary consciousness and give direct support to the inner process. It strengthens us to apply the new insight and walk the path in practice.

The Microcosm as Temple

The Apostle Paul reminds us:

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16)

Our microcosmic system is meant to be precisely this: a living temple. It must be cleansed by the divine light, by the living waters, so that the new soul can rise within it.

The building of the new temple, and the breaking down of the old, require both sobriety and joy, a clear mind and a longing heart. Above all, they require openness to a total reform of life.

Cleansing the Temple

The Greek myth of King Augeas tells how his royal stables had gone uncleansed for years. The task seemed impossible, until Hercules, advised by Athena, diverted two mighty rivers through the stables, cleansing them in a single sweep.

This myth is a striking image for our own condition. Do we also postpone the cleansing of our temple, year after year?

The seeker who truly opens to the divine receives access to a new electromagnetic force, not explainable by natural laws. The true faith is awakened in the heart, and the seeker is filled with a magnetic hope that draws countless powers from another nature into the microcosm.

Just as the natural human aligns with the fields of this world, so the pupil aligns with the new field of life, where the soul is reborn. This field holds the seeker firmly, not as a prison, but as a sanctuary of trust in God, safe in the hands of Gnosis.

In our earlier orientations we spoke about how every human being who seeks renewal of life must undergo a unique process of transformation.

The foundation of this process is the central principle in the human being: the rose of the heart. This principle is of a totally different nature than the nature we know so well, which swings between the poles of life and death. It belongs to another order, the divine nature.

Anyone who begins the path of renewal comes into contact with this other vibration, the vibration of the imperishable, divine life. It is a higher nature we need make space for, in ourselves and in our lives.

As J. van Rijckenborgh explains:

On one side stands the nature of life, on the other the nature of death. The candidate who chooses life departs from the nature of death. Between these two there opens a third state, neither one nor the other. This third state is the way itself. The path is not simply there, waiting. It must be awakened. It must be made.

The moment you decide to walk the way that bridges the two extremes, death and life, you begin to form this third nature in yourself. It is your own way, and on this path no one else can walk for you. It begins when you begin.

True Knowledge and the New Soul

In our time there is an abundance of information about human development. We understand a lot about how the personality works, and the internet offers endless streams of so-called spiritual teachings.

But we must not forget: true seeking is not about the personality knowing many things. True knowledge is to live in accordance with the light of insight.

We must be clear: the Gnostic path is not about the development of the ego-self, but about the awakening of the new soul. Only the new soul can restore the link with the Spirit.

Catharose de Petri writes:

When a seeker has found the key that opens the liberating path of the soul, but does not yet know how to use it, confusion arises at once. For this reason spirit, soul, and body must be led toward unity, through transmutation of matter and through transfiguration of the soul. It is about the Other in the human being. The Other must grow, and the ego, the “John-being,” must decrease. Not the physical person is destroyed, but the old self makes way for the soul, who alone can connect with the Spirit.

The Invitation of the Alchemical Wedding

In the story of The Alchemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz, the seeker receives a mysterious invitation.

One evening before Easter, as he sat at his table, a radiant figure appeared and laid a letter before him. It was the long-awaited invitation to a wedding.

And though Christian Rosenkreuz had longed for it with all his heart, when he finally received it he was overcome with trembling. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, for he knew his own imperfection. “I found in myself nothing but ignorance and blindness. I saw that my outer life and even my brotherly love were not as pure as I had imagined.”

The invitation to the wedding between spirit and soul is written in every human heart. When it reaches us, it can shake our lives to the core. To receive it is to be called to the real life.

Choosing the Path

When Christian Rosenkreuz accepts the invitation and sets out, he soon comes to a crossroads. Which way should he choose? He sits down, shaxres his bread with a white dove, only to see a raven snatch it away. He instinctively chases after the raven, to protect the dove.

And in that moment, without knowing it, he steps onto the right path. For once the true decision is made in the heart, one cannot turn back. A new consciousness has been born.

To accept the invitation of the light means to see that we ourselves have always placed our ego at the center, rather than God’s plan. To accept the invitation is to choose: to walk toward the new soul-spirit nature, instead of continuing in the old, familiar nature. It is a fundamental change.

Clearing the Way

The human being who has recognized the Gnostic path feels a deep and strong longing for freedom and renewal. They may not yet understand it in detail, but they are drawn to it.

True freedom is found only in harmony with the eternal laws of the divine creation. These laws lie hidden in the seed of every human being, as the plan of the plant lies hidden in the seed. To open to the light is to cooperate with this great plan.

This light is called the Christ force: the love-power of the divine nature, breaking into this world of time to seek and redeem what was lost.

As the Gospel says:

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

“Without me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

When we walk the path of renewal in practice, united with the light, we receive a new judgment, a new insight, an expanded consciousness. We begin to live with awareness.

Walking the Path

In the radiant field of universal truth there is finally only one choice left: to walk our way in the light and power of Gnosis, and to let that One liberating life shine through our daily practice.

We may wish for a full overview of the path from beginning to end, but it cannot be given that way. The path unfolds step by step, in a continual process of purification and attunement. It is not enough to understand it intellectually. The point is to become conscious of it inwardly, to live it.

This is the great task of a spiritual school: to bring the message of the living healing that lies in Gnosis, to all who are ready to rise from the natural soul to the spirit-soul.

As Johann Valentin Andreae’s Alchemical Wedding reminds us, this invitation is addressed to all who long for the living knowledge of liberation, and who are willing to dedicate themselves to it.

The realisation we spoke of in the other orientations unfolds as a gradual inner process. It is a path of self-realisation, born of a new orientation of life that places the growth of the new soul at its center. This means: doing what serves this process, and refraining from what hinders it.

From this, a few conclusions can be drawn:

The human being dwells in a microcosm, in a little world.

In the mortal human, an immortal soul can be awakened.

This is the beginning of a way that leads to complete renewal of spirit, soul, and body.

This way has been known in all times and among many people. It has been taught and practiced in the mystery schools of the Egyptians, the Indians, the Chinese, the Christians, and many others. And it is this same initiatory path that the Rosicrucians practice.

The Rose in the Heart

In Rosicrucian philosophy, the rose, the spirit spark, has a central role. It is the eternal principle in the microcosm. On the basis of this spark, the renewal of the soul can begin.

And once this renewal begins, it reaches down even into the very structures of the body. The process of transfiguration is not a vague image, but a real transformation, unfolding in the visible body and in the subtler bodies alike.

Magnetic Influences in the Natural Human

We know the ordinary chemical processes of the body: we take in food, we breathe oxygen, and these sustain our lives. But alongside food and air, we also live from subtle ethers that sustain our vitality and our ensouling.

These etheric forces feed our system,  as we attract them according to our state of consciousness, our desires, our orientation of life. Whatever we nourish ourselvess with, it grows.

The same applies not only to the microcosm, but to the cosmos and the macrocosm. The entire life-atmosphere is woven of ethers and astral vibrations, currents of light and magnetic powers. These constantly influence us, and we in turn radiate them outward again. We are never isolated. We are always in exchange with the world around us.

But we can only hold on to what resonates with our own inner condition. Whatever is not in harmony with our consciousness passes by us. In this way, our inner orientation determines what we attract and what we do not.

So we may ask ourselves:

From what am I nourished?

Which reality sustains my consciousness?

The Magnetic Call of the Original Human

J. van Rijckenborgh describes this beautifully:
Even though we dwell in a corrupted temple, it is still our task to care for it, because it is the only ground we have for now. And in and through this old temple, a new one must be built.

From the spirit spark in the heart, one in nature with the field of Gnosis, radiation goes forth. It awakens in us the memory of the original human being, the divine human within. Countless people sense this inner call. It disturbs them, moves them, and sets them searching for answers to life’s fundamental questions.

This is the beginning. For the Gnostic Light does not only awaken us mentally. It also begins to work physically. The heart and the blood are touched by the light. The thymus gland directs this new vitality into the bloodstream, raising it toward the head. And thus, even our brain centers begin to be nourished by the light of the Spirit.

This is not just the birth of new ideas. It is the beginning of a transformed consciousness, the dawning of soul-renewal.

State of Consciousness is State of Life

An old saying tells us: 

“state of consciousness is state of life.”

This does not mean we can force life to change by imagining it. It means that our consciousness is always fed by a magnetic field. When we connect with the Gnostic field, the change of life is no longer just a possibility, it becomes a necessity.

Our ordinary consciousness is shaped by desires and cravings. As long as our astral body is tied to the self, it colors our entire perception. But life itself is the school. Again and again it brings us to the choice:

Will I live for myself,
or for the Other-in-me, the new soul?

In the Bible, this process is portrayed in the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus. John is the forerunner, the herald of the soul. He represents the human being who dedicates their life to preparing the way for the inner Christ.

What is Transfiguration?

Transfiguration is the process by which the mortal human being gives itself entirely to the resurrection of the immortal human. Just as the earthly person has a mortal soul and body, so the new person arises with an immortal soul and an immortal body.

This new body is not constructed according to the laws of this nature. It belongs to another order altogether.

The transformation from old to new involves the whole human being. Only by a deep dedication, by surrendering the entire self, can this magnificent renewal of spirit, soul, and body take place.

The Bible describes this symbolically as the building of a new temple. In spiritual language it is the creation of gold, the divine alchemy.

A New Soul and a New Body

Our material body is accompanied by an etheric double, the life body. This body is formed of the four ethers, and its state is determined by the condition of the soul.

When the spirit-atom in the heart awakens longing for sanctification, for light, for unity, a new consciousness begins to take shape. The new soul awakens.

But this new soul cannot fully use the old life-body and the old personality. They are unfit for the assimilation of divine forces. So a new ether-body needs to be developed, with a new structure.

Once the fundamental radiations of Gnosis can be assimilated, then the hidden prismatic atom unfolds into seven aspects, revealing the holy Seven-Spirit in our soul. From the new soul arises a new life-body, which in turn leads to a new instrument of manifestation, not born of this nature, but of a finer and nobler construction.

This is the mystery of transfiguration: the mortal gives way to the immortal, and the human being becomes a conscious participant in divine life.