DREAMS AND THE INNER LIFE. [From the German of J. Kernning. (1)]
The first spiritual evidences to which a certain student was referred were the phenomena of dreams. Here the reader will be as astonished as was that student, for he cannot comprehend how such common manifestations can serve as foundation for the greatest of teachings, the doctrine of Immortality. But just in this respect we must admire the loving care of the primeval Creative Power, inasmuch as it has laid its first proof so close at hand, thereby blessing us with an unceasing call to enter into its school and learn its lessons.
Dreams, it will be said, are illusions; therefore they are no proof of the truth of any doctrine. Dreams are illusions; this cannot be gainsaid. But they nevertheless present pictures whose existence can be denied by no one, therefore they form a more substantial substructure than the ordinary inferences put together with doctrinal correctness, with which the head is filled, but which leave the emotions unaffected.
Dreams have no value for the ordinary scholar because they are without objectivity; or, in common speech, because the object of the dream does not come into contact with the senses. For instance, when a person appears to us in a dream that person knows nothing about it, and from this it is concluded that evidences resting upon such a phenomenon are inadmissible. But, since the spirit sees all things in its own light, in pictures of its own creation, this objection loses its force, for it is just in this way that the independence of spiritual activity is shown, in that it has the power to create everything out of itself.
I do not know whether I express myself plainly enough here, or whether subterfuges may not yet be made to attack this first degree in the process of recognition of a life in the spirit. I maintain that the case is as clear as the sun. Therefore we will leave each one to think for himself which view is the better founded, and content ourselves with challenging those who declare the creations of our dreams to be nothing, to name a similar power which works and creates with such ease and vividness and which, as in the case of our dreams, comprehends within itself everything belonging to life.
The phenomena of dreams have, to be sure, no positive lesson for the ordinary uses of life, since they are not expressions of our free will. They come and go without our consent, and no one can say, I will now dream this or that. We are limited in this respect, and we must submit to whatever occurrences within us that the aroused powers may be pleased to permit. This fact, however, does not diminish the peculiar value of the phenomenon; on the contrary, it shows us that there exists a power beyond us which does not trouble itself about our apparent will.
The functions of the inner life are unceasingly active; they need no rest, no relaxation. When the man, at his own pleasure, can establish an equilibrium with these functions, enabling himself to see, hear and feel their manifestations whenever he may choose to perceive them, then those manifestations become our own possessions, giving us that which we demand, and then for the first time attaining truth and significance in our estimation.
Dreams and voluntary seership are the two poles of spiritual activity, and upon these are founded the teachings of immortality held by all religions.
FOOTNOTE:
1. These selections are translated from a work of Kernning's called "Paths to the Immortal" (Wege zur Unsterblichkeit). Kernning's works, giving practical hints for the attainment of the ends which are the aim of all true Theosophists, were written thirty years ago and more, and show that the spirit of the Rosicrucians, though the world has heard little of its activity in the land where the brotherhood was most prominent in the middle ages, is today by no means dead. (return to text)