Franz Hartmann 4- To Keep Silent (Know, Dare, Will, Keep Silent - Occultist Motto, Kabalist Axiom)

(Note: Hartmann develops this notion at length in terms of meditative silence and mystical silence, related to the Voice of the Silence, a term that first appeared in Light on the Path, Mabel Collins, see Theosophical Basics: Sacred Sound and Mantra. By the way he explains the four points, one could be inclined to draw a parallel with the four basic paths of yoga: Jnana Yoga (To Know), Karma Yoga (To dare), Bhakti Yoga (To will, follow, obey the divine will) and Raja Yoga (To be silent), see Yoga.)

This is but natural. Whatever they be, they are men of the modern science even before they are spiritualists, and if not all, some of them at any rate would rather give up their connection with, and belief in, mediums and spirits, than certain of the great dogmas of orthodox, exact science. And they would have to give up not a few of these were they to turn Occultists and approach the threshold of THE MYSTERY in a right spirit of enquiry.

It is this difficulty that lies at the root of the recent troubles of Theosophy; and a few words upon the subject will not be out of season, the more so as the whole question lies in a nut-shell. Those Theosophists who are not Occultists cannot help the investigators, let alone the men of science. Those who are Occultists work on certain lines that they dare not trespass. Their mouth is closed; their explanations and demonstrations are limited. What can they do? Science will never be satisfied with a half-explanation.

To know, to dare, to will and to remain silent—is so well known as the motto of the Kabbalists, that to repeat it here may perhaps seem superfluous. Still it may act as a reminder. As it is, we have either said too much, or too little. I am very much afraid it is the former. If so, then we have atoned for it, for we were the first to suffer for saying too much. Even that little might have placed us in worse difficulties hardly a quarter of a century ago. (H. P. Blavatsky, Occult or Exact Science?  The Theosophist, April-May, 1886; CW 7, 77-78)

The fourth requirement to the recognition of the truth is therefore

To be silent.

This means that we must not allow any desire to speak in our heart, but only the voice of the truth; because the truth is a jealous goddess and suffers no rivals. He who selects wisdom for the bride of his soul must woo her with his whole heart and dismiss the concubines from the bridal chamber of his soul. He must clothe her in the purity of his affection and ornament her with the gold of his love, for wisdom is modest, she does not adorn herself but waits until she is adorned by her lover. She cannot be bought with money nor with promises, her love is only gained by acts of devotion. Science is only the handmaid of wisdom, and he who makes love to the servant will be rejected by the mistress; but he who sacrifices his whole being to wisdom will be united with her.

The Bhagwat Gita, says : '' He who thinketh constantly of me, his mind undiverted by any other object, will find me. I will at all times be easily found by a constant devotion to me." (8, 14)

The Christian Mystic, Jacob Boehme, an illuminated seer, expressed the same truth, in the form of a dialogue between the master and his disciple, as follows :

The disciple said to the master: 'How can I succeed in arriving at that supersensual life, in which I may see and hear the Supreme ?’

The master answered : ‘If you can only for a moment enter in thought into the formless, where no creature resides, you will hear the voice of the Supreme.’

The disciple said : ''Is this far or near  ''

The master answered : ''It is in yourself, and if you can command only for one hour the silence of your desires, you will hear the inexpressible words of the Supreme. If your own will and self are silent in you, the perception of the eternal will be manifest through you ; God will hear, and see, and talk through you ; your own hearing, desiring and seeing prevents you to see and hear the Supreme." Jacob Boehme : ' Theosophical Writings,'' book vi (The Supersensual Life, The Way to Christ (1624))

These directions are identical with those prescribed by the practice of Raja-Yoga by which the holy men of the East unite their minds with the formless and infinite. Religious services are calculated to elevate the mind into the region of the formless, and, in fact, all religious systems can have no other legitimate object than to teach methods how to attain such states. Churches are not worthy the name of church, which means, spiritual union unless they serve as schools in which the science of uniting one- self with the eternal fountain of life is practically taught.  

But it is easier to allow one's mind to revel among the multifarious forms and attractions of the material plane, and to listen to the Syren song of the Elementals inhabiting the soul, than to enter the apparently dark caves of the formless, where at first no sound is heard in the eternal stillness of night but the echo of our voice, but where alone true power resides.

 It is easier to let our minds be ruled by thoughts that come and go without our bidding than to hold fast to a thought and command it to remain and to close the doors of the soul to all thoughts that have not the seal of truth impressed upon their forms ; and this is the reason why the majority of men and women prefer the illusions of finite life to the eternal realities of the infinite — why they prefer sufferings to happiness, and ignorance to a knowledge of truth.

To be silent means to let no other language be heard within the heart but the language of God, to listen to the voice of Divine Wisdom speaking within the heart ; but this state will be arrived at only after the storm of the passions, the battle of desires, and the conflict of the intellectual forces is over.

He who has learned to know, to will, to dare, and to be silent, is upon the true path that leads to immortal life, and will know how to practice interior meditation or yog; but by those who move merely in the sensual plane, or whose minds are concentrated upon external things of the physical or intellectual plane, even the meaning of these words will not be understood.

Various instructions are given in the books of the East in regard to the practice of this interior meditation, but they all teach the same thing, namely, a concentration of man's higher consciousness to a single point within his own centre.

(Franz Hartmann, Magic White and Black. Chapter 12, 1888)

Part 1