Nowadays one
finds in the media, almost exclusively, reports about the outer aspects of
imprisonment, torture, in concentration camps.
In the following, persons will come to word, who report on their mystical
experiences during their bondage.
Several years
ago a whole set of books was published in which the authors described their
experiences in Soviet punishment camps and prisons. Some of these first-hand
reports are today still exceptionally interesting, because in them not only the
outer lack of freedom, but also the proceedings and profound changes are
mentioned, which took place in the inner being of the people, who lived in the
terrible world of the Soviet punishment camps and prisons.
The phenomena
here described are of revolutionary importance for psychology and
psychoanalysis and for modern science, including philosophy. Here it concerns
empirical phenomena, which were registered by humans, who had frequently
nothing in common with one another, and that makes the agreement of their
experience and what they describe so important and valuable.
The following
books are most informative in this regard: The first and second volume of „The Gulag Archipelago" by
Solschenizyn, "In the fourth dimension"
by Schifrin, "Sologdins recordings"
by Panin and "A voice from the choir"
by Terz-Sinjawski.
To stress it
again, that here the outer aspects of the lack of freedom are not dealt with,
as they have been described in many similar reports of Nazi concentration
camps.
All
above-mentioned authors are united by the fact that arrest, prison and camp,
briefly the total lack of freedom was the most important and significant
experience in their lives. They also assert that they too had to endure worst
psychological and physical agonies under the conditions of bondage, at the same
time however they experienced moments of a perfect blissfulness. This would
have been completely inconceivable for humans outside of the camp walls.
They had never
before experienced love, hate and despair so strongly, never had days and
nights so interestingly filled with substantial questions of the human
existence, never felt such solidarity with the cosmos, as during their
imprisonment. Therefore lack of freedom could be defined as an extremely
concentrated intensive life. Paradoxically hardly anyone committed
suicide.
A further
paradox is confirmed also by the authors mentioned, namely the fact that only
the one can save his body, who from an
internal impulse is ready to lose his body, his physical existence. It is
therefore undisputed that deeply inside the human soul an unexplainable force
lives, which is stronger not only symbolically, but empirically stronger than
all outer forces of suppression and destruction, even if they may appear
insurmountable.
Those, who
described these procedures, were thoroughly convinced that within the soul of
each human being a powerful spiritual energy lies dormant. They confirmed that
the spiritual is not separated from the physical world and that the thoughts
and desires of human beings in the material world effects not less, but far
more than physical activity.
At the same time
the above-mentioned authors assert that there was nothing coincidental in their
life and that against all their attempts and plans to determine their fate,
everything ran in its pre-determined
course.
That seems
contradictory: On the one hand secret forces shall be given to mankind, which
in an inexplicable way in the outer world become effective, on the other hand
there shall be a kind of predestination, against which the human being is
powerless.
But the
contradiction is only an apparent one. If the human against all outer
circumstances, against its desires and
plans, despite the threatening of physical destruction and against all the
dictates of the reason - even against public opinion - follows that deep inner
and irrational voice of its soul, then
ways open from alone for this person.
This not only leads to the preservation of all which he believes to have
given up, but also its secret desires fulfil themselves.
When however a
being acts in contradiction to the command of his inner voice to its plan and
desires to save his life and escape physical destruction, then disaster occurs
and that, which should have been
achieved in accordance with the inner voice is destroyed.
But man
possesses the liberty to decide whether he wants to follow the unexplainable
and nevertheless so realistic inner voice or not, more exactly said, the
terrible, sorrowful experience of bondage makes him free. There is therefore no
contradiction. Unalterable fate and highest liberty exist next to each other.
It depends on the individual whether he delivers himself to predetermination or
chooses freedom.
If it is like
that - and the experiences described here confirm it - then the astonishing
results must shake the whole learned structure, not only of man and his soul, but
of the whole seen and unseen worlds. If at the same time there are two worlds
which are not merged together but also not separate, namely the world of fate
and the world of freedom. Then the human being can decide in which world he
should live, in the world of reason or the world of the spirit.
The perhaps most
paradoxical and most optimistic conviction of these people, who felt the
concentrated power of evil on their own body, is that the force for good is
stronger than everything else.
When the outer world obeys the internal forces of
the soul, then the fate of man will depend on himself, and there will be no
innocent suffering, then all afflictions and sufferings will be seen to be
earned and fair. In addition, then the way will be open to a free life, in
which a humane political system is only a consequence of the inner release of
the soul.
Those who follow
the inner voice and save his soul, learns empirically that the soul is not lost
so long as contact to the inner voice is not lost, and on this knowledge the
faith in the immortality of the soul is based.
To follow the
inner voice means nothing else than to define all actions in space and time -
in the here and now - in view of eternity.
It may be that
for those, who have not made the experience of lack of freedom assume, there is
a substantial difference between life in prison and life outside prison
walls.
Those however,
who have lived in bondage, begin to understand instinctively that this
difference is only shallow and temporary and that for each human the
"free" world becomes the cell of death.
"The whole
world is only a death cell", writes Solschenizyn, and continues:
"Cramped it is in the cell, but is freedom not still more cramped?"
Panin calls the whole world only a "transit camp", and Terz compares
death with the entrance into freedom.
What happens now
with those humans, who are suddenly torn out from their normal life and exposed
to pitiless powers, which only want their destruction?
Everything
important in the life of these humans, everything they possessed - freedom,
friends, work, which was loved, property, life and health - nothing can they
protect; it lies at the mercy of the power of evil. And if he tries to defend
himself with the means which belong to the same sphere, in which he lived so
far, then it is from the beginning doomed to failure. Everything that the outer
powers take from him he cannot protect with his own strength.
At the crucial
point, just before complete destruction, humans begin to understand there is
nevertheless something that diminishes the outer, apparently insurmountable
forces. And that, if even nothing else
is to be saved, at least it is possible to fight, to resist and even be victorious,
when it concerns the protection of the soul.
Who so ever
entrusts himself to the voice, i.e. who follows the inner voice of freedom has
a chance to be victorious in the fight against the evil forces. But before this
can happen he must renounce everything, which belongs to the visible world.
"Do not
cling onto life", writes Solschenizyn, and at another place: "Possess
nothing; break with everything, also with your neighbours, because they are
also your enemies". And Panin confirms that the fight requires a
separation from everything - with exception of the soul. Only he who renounces
completely, becomes free, i.e. freedom begins, where nothing more is to be
lost.
When the human
being divests himself of all ties, something very mysterious happens, when
outwardly he is bound but inwardly he is free. In the depths of his soul an
enormous power is manifested, that not only gives the completely exhausted body
unbelievable powers of resistance, but also mysterious and - by today's
consciousness - unexplainable things happen. Events start to work on the
individual which - I repeat again - the human being cannot influence, which,
however, lead to his salvation.
Therefore Panin
writes: "Who so ever saves the soul, saves also the body".
Solschenizyn repeats several times that only the spirit can save, only the
spirit retains the body, and both authors confirm that the body reacts - as
they actually observed at first hand or with
others again and again - to strong
spiritual concentration with
unbelievable tenacity, while in the reverse case, the loss of the spiritual
brings with it a physical decline. "In us lives a tremendous
strength", maintains Panin, and he continues: "The whole universe is
linked in a mysterious way with the depths of our soul". "Every one of us is the centre of the
universe", writes Solschenizyn, and it was not by abstract theory that he
came to this conclusion. He felt the effect of this unknown strengths in his
own body again and again.
Solschenizyn
writes about mysterious internal warmth, which seems to come from an world and
which protects the person from freezing to death in the glacier-ice.
Panin reports of
a mysterious, unknown strength, which aroused him to life again after forty
days, and of a prisoner, who rolled each day in cruellest frost in the snow,
without being damaged. And many more, either observed or firsthand experiences
of almost unbelievable nature were witnessed by the authors.
Whoever strips
off all outward things from him and decides to follow from now on his inner
voice, discovers with astonishment that mysterious, but completely real force
in his inner being and also in the outside world. He notices at the same time
that he is not master of this force, i. e. that he cannot at will dispose of
this power, but, the other way round, everything in his life, yes, life itself,
is completely dependent on this mysterious power, which in religion speech is
called "God".
In an effort to
provide clarity over this all-powerful mystical force, with which they made
such amazing experiences, and over the relationship of humans with this force,
the prisoners tried different spiritual methods.
Not from
abstract, theoretical or experimental-scientific consideration, but only to
meet the terrible and inevitable danger to life, they tried out the effect of
prayer, the Meditation and even simple invocation.
Not only
passages from the New Testament, recited from memory but also everything
connected with parapsychology and theosophy, was for them very important and
the most necessary practical help in the attempt to retain body and soul in a
situation in which spiritual efforts
obtained result in the outer visible
world.
Centuries old,
long-forgotten truths prove here again their validity, so e.g. the teachings
that air is also spirit and lends unexplainable energies, as Terz writes, that
humans receive from food a mysterious, life-donating energy - described by the
old Indian as "Prana" - as Panin teaches, which also reports that
humans are protected against outside harm by an astral-shield, as he himself
experienced. Even saying the name Jesus
Christ had a magical effect on those subjugated to violence, as Solschenizyn
states.
If is thus to be
seen that the mysterious force is not guided by mental methods. It is led and
guides imperceptibly and unexplainable and humans only can entrust or extract
it completely. In no case does it obey the will of humans. The instructions
come from within, and the individual can only follow them.
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Experience
therefore teaches that there is a real connection between human souls outside
time and space. Solschenizyn told about a cell comrade, who foresaw in his
sleep, what would take place in the cell the following day.
Examples of the
effectiveness of thoughts are stated by all authors. They confirm that thoughts
can be more effective than actions. If the bare thought can obtain certain
effect, then it is not to be wondered at that in totalitarian systems the
"the one who thinks differently", as Schifrin calls it, counts as the
worst criminal, or that Solschenizyn says: "The bare thought was already
punishable".
Strong inner
concentration upon a certain goal causes events, which create the condition for
the implementation of the inner goal in the outer world. Or more exactly said,
the strong inner concentration causes reaction both in the depths of the human
soul and in the outer world of an effective mysterious force. It seems then to
a human, as if someone intervene at the correct moment in his life and makes
the goal, upon which he concentrated, attainable.
It was shown
that the visible and the invisible world rest on an unexplainable common basis
and that the events in the visible world depend entirely on the events in the
invisible world and not the other way round.
If however
experience shows that in the depths of our soul there is a sphere outside of
time and space, or more exactly said that our soul belongs to such sphere, then
there is no death for the soul, because death lies within the borders of space
and time.
Actually there
exists a large difference between the suffering of a Solschenizyn who frequently experienced moments of highest bliss during his detention, and for
example that of an arrested Soviet-engineer, who does not know any
"higher" spheres, e.g. who is completely blind and deaf for the
invisible world and the inner voice. Until his arrest he grasps thoughtlessly
everything which the visible world offers him, and now he suffers intolerably
under the final loss of all that constituted his life up to then.
If a human being
was completely without sins, i.e. he would possess such inner strength that he
could follow the inner voice each moment from birth until death, and then would
there be no death for him, then would the laws of the visible world obey him?
It is without doubt that for nearly all humans, who made the terrible
experience of the threatening physical destruction the immortality of the soul
became a certain fact.
Thus suffering
allows the Spiritual Truth to rise into consciousness, including faith in the
immortality of the soul. The human realizes that he does not suffer innocently,
but that everything that happens to him - good and bad - is
"earned".
The authors mentioned
conclude from their own experience that the law of Karma exists. Schifrin writes the knowledge of the law of
karma and reincarnation changes the entire human thinking.
From experience
the prisoners learned that to follow their own worldly wishes brought them no
spiritual progress, but that they must trust their fate completely and follow
the inner voice. Everything ends well, if peace reigns in the soul, that this
is also the case, if one only suffers inactively and waits until the time of release.
And that a human, if he tries to take his fate into his own hands only
complicates and destroys his life. Solschenizyn writes: "That which they
suffer, that they see where however they are guilty, that they do not
see".
Only he becomes
free, who separates himself from the hopelessness of inner slavery? Suffering
opens humans for their inner world, for the mystical compass, with in his soul,
lets him ask for his sins.
Perhaps the
worst punishment, which can be imposed upon humans, is when the bitter
experience of suffering is denied them during their lifetimes.
Suffering points
the way to true freedom, it frees from all superficiality, from what is
unimportant, above all however from idolatry of the powerful ones on
earth. The good in the soul begins to
arise, humans become more lenient and patient, with one word, they become good.
The experience
of the lack of freedom proves that each human has the possibility to
establish for himself a condition of
extreme freedom and that it is in his power to change the world on the basis of
the mystical law.
Experience
further shows that the fate of humans is determined not by worldly powers, not
by outer physical forces, but alone by mystical strength, which throughout the
ages has been called "God". His relationship with humans depends only
on the relationship of humans to their inner voice.
The liberty,
which exists in the soul in obedience to the inner voice, cannot be taken from
humans by any external power, man can only betray himself.
The realization,
that the invisible world is a reality, must change the entire human thinking
and knowledge of our time.
Only he becomes
free, who follows his inner voice. Into the land of Promise only he comes, who
does not know, where he goes.
John of the cross.
Almost 400 years
ago the Spanish mystic John of the cross (Juan de la Cruz) 1542- 1591, a
contemporary of Theresa of Avila, had already made very similar
experiences.
When John refused
to withdraw the reforms of the Carmelites order, which he had started, he was
taken prisoner, kidnapped by representatives of the conservative branch and
taken under inhuman conditions in detention.
The imprisonment
became for him the "Night of the cleansing". By
this keyword Jon understands the purification of the "soul" and the "spirit".
Both phases turn into one another.
The attachment to
the world of the things must be given up, so that a human becomes free from
outer longings. The human’s spirit must then give up his way of recognizing, so
that God can give him His revelation. The latter cleans and illuminates the
soul for the love- meeting with God.
His way through life
is characterised by degradation, humiliation and self-denial. Mystic was for
John "Science of the Love". His goal was to lead humans to
perfect as possible love, to God.
Love it, not to be taken important and not be recognized and not noticed by others; and
never pay attention to the wealth of strangers, but also not to their
errors.
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