Prince Liang was sitting on the terrace of his throne hall, engrossed in the study of his books.
The old wainwright Tschen, who was busy down in the courtyard repairing the princely carriages, saw this and went up to him.
He asked, „My prince, what books are you reading?“
„It is the writings of the wise kings of antiquity and the enlightened saints that we read,“ the prince replied.
Chen asked, „Yes, are these wise kings and enlightened saints still alive, or are they already dead?“
The prince replied, „They have all been dead for a long time.“
To which the Wagner replied, „So it is only the dregs and worthless remnants of these kings and saints that you are studying there.“
The prince became a little indignant because of the speeches of his Wagner and spoke: „To criticize the study material of your prince is something that you really do not have the right to do! If you have good reasons for your speech, then it shall be good. If you do not have them, then you must die!
The wainwright Chen said: „My prince, I see it from the point of view of my own profession.
If I make a wheel and the spokes are too tight, they won’t fit in the hub of the wheel. If the spokes are too loose, the wheel is not stable and it comes apart. Only when the spokes are just the right fit does it make a good wheel. There is a trick to it. A trick or an artifice. Something that cannot be explained. I can’t teach it to my son and he can’t learn it from me. That’s why I’m still your Wagner at the age of 80.
Now the kings of antiquity and the enlightened saints, what they could not say and could not explain, have taken to the grave. And so, what is written and can be said is only the dregs and worthless remnants of the wise kings of antiquity and the enlightened saints.“
The prince said, „Good.“
Chuang Tse, 360 B.C.
Perhaps it seems strange to preface a book with a story about the worthlessness of books. Well, judging by the words of Wagner, it is apparently a well-known insight that words alone cannot help the reader to any healing or spiritual insight.
Language – of whose words texts undeniably consist – is a construction of our mind and thus – because it ultimately does not know any better – bound to the limitations of time and space. Bound to the material world.
Instructions for use for technical devices, aspects which deal with yesterday, today, tomorrow or here, there and there or the dividing and putting together of material things can be presented wonderfully polished, shining from expert knowledge, in our language. But everybody who once tried to grasp aspects like „eternity“ or „infinity“ „rationally“ will be able to confirm how difficult or even impossible this is in our linguistic thinking. We come with the attempt to explain the inexplicable with the words available to us into stumbling and into explanation trouble. We use comparisons and examples from other areas and in the end we may still have a headache. But a for our mind satisfying idea of eternity and infinity, of soulfulness and beyond we still do not have then. But if we deal with the existence of our soul and its aspects, we cannot avoid the inclusion of what we call „eternity“, „infinity“ and finally „timelessness“.
Unfortunately, we are left only with language, with all its inadequacies in expressing spiritual concerns, to communicate our inner realizations to our counterpart. Looking at the writings of mystics and founders of religions, we suddenly find ourselves in a sea of metaphors, stories, comparisons, parables and parables that have only one purpose: To express that which the author cannot say – Where he lacks words -; to illuminate that which is DA, but not in the world of space and time. To make that, what exists in the eternity and the infinity – being in the realms of our soul – to the reader in at least indirect form somehow visible, imaginable, perceptible. To help him in a roundabout way to the recognition in his inside.
It is the attempt to come close with the language of the understanding to the „trick“ of the Wagner Tschen from the introductory story; the attempt to bring the reader to the edge from which he can (or even must) make his own jump and whereupon he can then recognize the unspeakable and inexplicable on the level of his soul himself: The knowledge of his own ensoulment, the knowledge of his otherworldly existence, which unites with everything in eternity and infinity. He takes the wood and without looking, without a conscious thought – blindly – he creates the perfect wheel, because he has experienced the unspeakable and inexplicable „knack“ of Wagner Tschen inside himself. And also he, the reader, could explain him now to nobody….
This knowledge is not the learning knowledge of the mind. It is the knowledge of the soul world which cannot be expressed in words. Now it is the tragic thing since ever that the mystic can only call out to the man of understanding: „Experience it yourself or it remains only for you to believe!“ And the rational man shrugs his shoulders and says: „If you cannot show it to me and prove it, it is worth nothing. Only what my mind knows is real and true. So I choose the third possibility: I doubt it!“
Thus, also this book certainly does not go beyond the aspects of inner cognition that our Wagner Tschen harshly but nevertheless very truly calls „dregs“. More is not possible for me. In the end, your own inner cognition is entirely up to you. And there you are all alone. No text helps you with it.
So that you do not believe now to be deceived and to have bought the book in vain and make tomorrow afternoon your bookseller bitter reproaches, here nevertheless still another trick, of which our good Mr. Tschen apparently did not know yet: Do not study the contents of this book. Just read it, as you might skim the magazine articles about people you don’t know at the dentist. Try not to extract anything from the words with your mind. Just read from front to back and if on page ten you seem to have forgotten what was on page nine: wonderful! What can affect you is not the text (see Wagner Tschen). Nor is it the thought on which the text is based. It is what stands behind this thought. And that is already the unspeakable, which addresses itself directly to our soul. Because there is the place where is to be worked. Our mind can calmly forget everything or understand nothing at all. That is not bad; It is actually desired. Our mind has the upper hand all our life – and that of many generations of our ancestors. Where it has brought us that we see yes. Therefore, there is nothing against it here, if it is once clearly said: „Soul-knowledge without mind-knowledge“. This attitude also corresponds to the concept of shamanic soul-healing: „First comes the healing – then the understanding. “ In contrast to psychological approach, which presupposes understanding as the basis for healing. And in contrast to rationalistic enlightenment, which declared God non-existent. And in contrast to materialism, which considers only matter and time and space to be true. Also in my seminars I always ask the participants cordially to finally forget what I have told the whole weekend and to take with them only what – mostly unnoticed and uncontrolled by the mind – has been taken up by the soul and to let exactly that develop over time. Without goal. Without expectation. Without a „This is how it must be and this is how it must become!“ As soon as we start thinking, we hand over the helm to the mind. Try to accept and abandon analysis. Consciously observe and recognize the trust you can put in the invisible and slowly working power of your soul (and how much effort this trusting, surrendering, letting go will cost you at first – and how your mind tries to do what it does best with: Sowing doubt). Forget and wait.