Book excerpt: This PDF is multilingual, where the German original text has been presented alongside the Standard-translation© in English, so that any one being sufficiently conversant in German is able to ascertain the correctness of the translation and also benefit (as hinted by the Author) from the exposure to the German language the book has originally been written in. Also the emphases (in bold text) on words/phrases used in original German is reflected in this new edition (emphases match the original writings). Any remarks or amendments are invited at [email protected]. File Preview available. For a hardcopy edition please see below*. ___________________________________________________________________ Spirit and Form / Geist und Form (Standard-translation©) is part of the Hortus Conclusus monumental series of spiritual teachings by German poet, writer and painter, Bô Yin Râ (Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken) (1876-1943). The Hortus Conclusus consists of 32 books as well as spiritual paintings. This edition also includes the original emphases (of font) as intended by the Author. Bô Yin Râ lived in Germany (Frankfurt, Görlitz, Berlin, Munich, Königsberg), Austria (Vienna), France (Paris), and Switzerland (Horgen, Massagno). (He) expressed his insights into the metaphysical structures of the eternal spiritual reality through art and writings. – GERMAN BÔ YIN RÂ FOUNDATION (to learn more about Bô Yin Râ, his life and work, visit www.bo-yin-ra-stiftung.de) 'Let those on the path to the spirit know that nothing unformed can ever reveal itself to them! Even the spirit needs form if you are to become aware of it within you! – – Just as nothing in the external world can exist without taking on form, so too nothing can be perceived in the inner world unless it has become form… You speak of ‘empty’ form! But consider, even the empty form is still the revelation of a will which once expressed itself through it, just as the empty shell of a snail still tells you of the animal which once inhabited it! – – Whatever has become form in this external world is the expression of an inner essence belonging to this external world which could never reveal itself to you in any other way… So too, every form of the inner world is always an expression of the innermost essence which you would never perceive as existing, if you did not recognise it as form within you… Seek here, in the external world, to comprehend the inner essence expressed in every form! This will be the best way to prepare yourself – also for the time when you will be in the world of the spirit, to see shining from any form you may encounter, the innermost essence whose expression it is!' - SPIRIT AND FORM CONTENTS The question. Outside and Inside. Home and Work. The Form of Joy. The Form of Suffering. The Art of Living. What I have to say is beyond belief and disbelief! I'm not a prophet who needs "confessors" – nor a fighter, who is looking for "followers" behind him, but only a mediator of spiritual insights about the real home of mankind. My writings shouldn't be "believed" but taken up objectively, to awaken innermost experience. – ABOUT MY WRITINGS Countless people – and in truth not just those whose souls are the most frigid – continually await an immense experience to shake their innermost depths. Since all their longing is incapable of summoning up this experience, they rush restlessly searching from experience to experience, caught up in the delusion that the hoped for experience is bound to be attained, if they could only locate the powerful phenomenon capable of overpowering their souls with its immensity. – SHOWING THE WAY A yearning is passing through the world, – a consuming desire, – and every soul not yet completely hardened and incapable of awakening feels gripped by it. (...) One ‘may’ once again believe in things which cannot been proven by 'experiments’, and one is no longer mocked for recognising that we are surrounded and influenced by the invisible, even if we cannot solve its mystery… The ‘miraculous’ would again become reality; the realm of faith extends its borders. – THE BOOK ON THE LIVING GOD The design of pages, emphases placed on particular words, use of spaces, long hyphens, exclamation marks etc. — included in this English translation enables ‘heart-Readers’ to meditate, to breathe-in while willingly absorbing the text as a ‘spiritual sustenance’. – Sarah Havah Theebaum, historian of ideas, painter, poet. ___________________________________________________________________________ * Currently the hardcopy/hardcover edition of this book is published on the Amazon sites via the Kindle Direct Publishing - and is now available through all major Amazon country sites (including UK, Canadian and Australian sites). This is the U.S. Amazon link (on other Amazon sites you can look up available publications by searching for Books to Light or Posthumus Projects): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CR86FKCY for Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CR86FKCY