Richard C. Cook comments: Today we are continuing our series of articles by and about Bô Yin Râ (Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, 1876-1943) with Part 4 of 6 from Words of Life.

To the best of our knowledge, Three Sages is the only website that is regularly publishing this material from the individual that we consider the most important spiritual teacher of our era. We are also grateful to Global Research for reposting these articles. We are doing this work in bringing the writings of Bô Yin Râ to English-speaking audiences through the help and cooperation of Books to Light, the publishing house that holds the copyright to the Standard Translation. Excellent English translations of some of Bô Yin Râ’s writings are also available from Kober Press.

We are also in close touch with individuals and organizations in Germany who are engaged in the study and propagation of the master’s works, including the Bô Yin Râ Foundation. As Bô Yin Râ was a prolific visual artist as well as an author, we are hoping to publish material relating to that aspect of his teachings in the near future.

It is extremely fortunate for the future of humanity that Bô Yin Râ’s complete works—both written and visual—are available for seekers to appreciate. It is now time that English-speakers begin to avail themselves of more of the material than they have been able to do thus far.

Now on to Words of Life. This book is unique even with the context of Bô Yin Râ’s entire 32-volume compendium, entitled Hortus Conclusus (Gated Garden), in that it consists of a direct representation of God speaking to the spiritual seeker. We can only say in addition that each of the 32 books contains a complete account of the teaching in differing formats.

Now for Words of Life Part 4 of 6:

Appeal

‘I’

Retreat

Love

Deed

Struggle

Peace

Power

Life

Light

Trust

Enlightenment

Vow

Your soul seeks peace, – that peace the world cannot give!

But only after the struggle has been fearlessly fought will you attain this peace which you seek in vain as long as you shun to enter the struggle. – – –

But if you return as victor to yourself, truly nothing will disrupt your peace any longer! – – – – –

Many imagine that once their struggle has ended they will have obtained peace.

Such imagining is foolish, for the end of the struggle can become your ruination, if you have not yet recognized that no struggle can be ended for the sake of obtaining peace! – –

No one has ever fought for true peace if they have not carried within themselves the will to finish the struggle only as the victor!

Yearning for peace is a great temptation; woe to them who succumb to such temptation!

It makes them into defenseless prey for their invisible enemies and, unprotected, they become the victim of their capriciousness when even resistance without victory would have forced the foes’ weapons into their own service . . .

Therefore, if you want peace, do not be robbed of the courage to fight, and do not cease the struggle until your inner foes offer you peace themselves! – – –

Only then will you truly be joyful in your peace! –

Beforehand, your weariness in struggle will only lead to apparent peace, and what you thought you had achieved will only leave you with the choice: either to be the permanent slave of your enemies, or to seek a new struggle in which you can perhaps fight in a way that you gain the victor’s laurels . . .

You have often been badly counselled and told that any who would come to me must only seek peace. – –

But I want vigilant fighters; a peace which does not fall as the ripe fruit of struggle from the tree of destiny is contemptible to me and truly only folly to me; I could save you sooner if you were facing defeat in the struggle than if your lack of courage caused you to abandon the battlefield. – – –

The heroes of the great struggle for whom I became eternal peace could fight until the last drop of blood still flowed in their veins; truly: they have gained victory even if it might often have seemed as if they were only victims of their struggles. – – – – –

But I want to see you just as victorious one day!

I want you likewise to find eternal peace within me! – – –

Peace for me means the certainty of those who have struggled and won the certainty that nothing can call them any longer to struggle!

Peace is simply that calmness in itself which is both the prize and the inspiring goal of all inner battles!

Peace is freedom from all dire compulsion to struggle anew!

Freedom to me is the power attained over everything which once was called foe and opponent!

Only those who have found this peace in themselves can find their eternal peace in me! – – –

To them I want to be the stronghold of their peace! – – – –

They will have the peace in me that ‘the world’ cannot give, – the peace which only those can win who, victorious in themselves, finally win me! – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Vainly you are still seeking far outside yourself the power which could help you to victory in the struggle and to eternal peace.

Here too you walk upon false paths and waste yourself in wavering deception!

You could vainly search the cosmos for eternities if you do not resolve today to turn to yourself in contemplation! –

Only within yourself will you encounter me; I alone am the one who can give himself to you as the power for victory! – – –

I am the power which masters all powers, for from me alone comes the effective force of all powers!

Do not be deceived and do not lose faith in me when you have to recognize that these powers oppose each other as adversaries!

In endlessly varied forms I send out from me endlessly varied powers to all phenomenal worlds, which can only be effective because of their opposition . . .

Eternally dead, cold and rigid would be the worlds which eternally I position in outermost opposition to my own being, if the powers which flow from me through these worlds were not to remain as eternal opposites! – – –

But I am in myself power and life to all these mutually opposed powers, and in me they find their unity, however much they are compelled to strive against each other in their manifestation . . .

Is it not foolish for you to try to befriend individual powers through your hard efforts, or to seek through cunning and resistance to achieve mastery over others, for you could become lord and master of all powers if you were only to find yourself in me! – – – – –

Indeed, you would mock those who you saw acting in the daily activity of the external world around you in the way you are found to be acting in invisible realms! –

But nothing binds you, and you can extract yourself already today from this folly as soon as you create the will in yourself which wants nothing other than to lead you in me, in your innermost being, to your perfection! – – –

In yourself you will then possess all power to triumph as victor over all the powers in every world! – – –

In yourself you will find all opposites united!

You yourself will banish all that resists within you in a continuous interaction so that, although powers will remain in their opposites, they will form a holy unity . . .

Only when you have found yourself in me can this sublime miracle succeed!

Then you will no longer be on one side or the other, but within the innermost of the power which creates the effect of all powers from itself!

Only in me can you gain the certainty which will surely bring victory to your will to win! –

Once you have found yourself in me, within your innermost self, at one with my being, no power in all the worlds will be able to frighten you any longer. – –

No power of hell will any longer tear from you the victor’s crown, for what you speak of in this way is merely resistance of powers you will then master! – – –

Words of Life is Book 27 of the Hortus Conclusus: the Standard-Translation© of the Hortus Conclusus (The Enclosed Garden), encompassing the spiritual teachings in 32 books by Bô Yin Râ. (Bô Yin Râ is the spiritual name of Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken 1876-1943.)

Published by Books to Light, February 2025. Edited by: Posthumus Projects (the Netherlands) Books to Light (the United States), Detlef Janssen (Germany). All rights, copyrights included, reserved by Books to Light. Posthumus Projects and Books to Light are responsible for this Standard-Translation©.

Hardcover bilingual edition of Words of Life available here.

Words of Life -- Part 1 of 6

Words of Life -- Part 2 of 6

Words of Life -- Part 3 of 6