Book Review… Teachings of a Mystic

Sep 27, 2020 Book Review…, News

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Book: In the Light of Truth – Message from the Holy Grail (Complete Edition)
Author: Abd-Ru-Shin
Critic: Glenville Ashby, PhD

Oskar Ernst Bernhardt’s seminal work ‘In the Light of Truth – Message from the Holy Grail,’ answers key religious and philosophical questions. Bernhardt who uses the nome de plume, Abd-Ru-Shin, writes with conviction, with the authority reserved for biblical prophets. Interestingly, Abdruschin was referred to as ‘The Messiah of the Tyrol’ and ‘The Prophet of Vomperberg,’ so awe-inspiring and didactic were his commentaries.
Abd-Ru-Shin personalizes God, but not in an anthropological way. God, he views as an inexorable energy, a pulse that permeates every fiber of the universe. God is natural law, the supreme law that governs life, the law to which we are all bound, and for which we must answer for every transgression, no exceptions. He writes, “There is but one Creator, one God, and thus one Power only that permeates, animates and develops all Being. This pure, creative, divine Power pulses through the whole of Creation continually, and forms an integral part which cannot be severed from it. It is to be found everywhere, in the air, in every drop of water, in the growing rock, the struggling plant, in animals, and natural things.”
God, thus, is our shadow and “the wish of man can in no wise bring about a deviation in this respect, and “the law that what a man sows, that he will reap remains adamant.”
Karmically bound to our thoughts and deeds, we are the creators of our own hell and heaven, for as “the harvest brings the manifoldness of the seed, man receives back with interest what he has awakened in his own sensations and sent out in his thoughts…Man bears spiritually the responsibility for all that he does.”
A veritable mystic, Abd-Ru-Shin refers not to existence in binary terms. He argues that Heaven and Hell exist, and so does God and the Devil, but Christianity is in doctrinal error by holding “that there are two Gods, a good one and an evil one.”
There is but a single divine, creative, unified, all-pervasive energy, not two competing energies. He advances his case, “The structure of man resembles that of a lens. Just as a lens collects the sun’s rays as they pass through it, and sends them on in a concentrated form, so that the heat-giving rays, united on a given spot, singe it and set it on fire, so man, owing to his intrinsic qualities, gathers the divine creative force pulsing through him together in his soul and directs it on in a concentrated form by his thoughts.” He posits that, “energy sent out into Creation attracts and is attracted by all that is of the same nature as itself. As such, “the quality of his inner feeling and its accompanying thoughts man guides the Divine creative power which works unconsciously for good or for evil.” This, according to Abd-Ru-Shin explains fate of which we are the authors. “Down to the minutest details,” fate or the consequences of our deeds are strictly just.
Man, he argues, creates his angels and devils. Clearly, it is the quality of our thoughts that determines our lot in life. Renunciation, self-abnegation and other hardships upon the body, such as self-flagellation, will not bring us closer to the divine.
“Cease wasting your time,” Abd-Ru-Shin writes. “This toying has often developed into a painful torment and means no less than the practices in convents of scourging and mortifying the flesh. It is only another form of the same thing and can bring as little gain.” He adds, “the so-called occult masters and pupils are modern Pharisees, in the truest sense of the word. They are indeed a resuscitation of the Pharisees at the time of Jesus of Nazareth. He later counsels, “You need make no effort, you need not cling to any so-called occult practices in order that you may attain, through all possible and impossible mental and physical contortions, to some step utterly worthless for your real spiritual advancement.
“Reflect joyfully that merely by your good inner feeling and thoughts you are able to guide the one mighty, creative force. It works exactly corresponding to the quality of your inner feelings and thoughts. The force is constantly present. You need only to guide it, and this without any art or subtlety. No scholarship is required, not even the art of reading and writing. It is given to each one of you in the same degree. In this no difference exists.”
He advocates a balanced lifestyle, one of reason and right measure. God, he avers, speaks to the vegetarian and the meat eater alike, and that the former should boast not of his superiority for “the plant also has a soul.” The secrets of Creation will prove that much, he concludes.
On the subject of prayer, Abd-Ru-Shin calls for single-mindedness and fervency. Ambiguity works against the potential efficacy of our orations. “By far the best way is to send forth but one thought, to express but one wish at a time, that there be no confusion,” he states. He expounds on the Lord’s Prayer, his reverence unmistakable.
“For a man who can enter into and grasp its deep meaning, the Lord’s Prayer alone is sufficient in every way. He needs nothing else; in it he will find the whole Gospel in a concentrated form. The Lord’s Prayer is the key to the realms of Light for him who can live according to its precepts, everyone who wishes to advance and to rise will find it a staff in his hand and a lantern to his feet – so immeasurable is its power.”
And of Christ, Abd-Ru-Shin, expectedly swerving from the established narrative, has much to say. “If the Crucifixion were necessary,” he pens, “then Judas Iscariot was but a tool, and his act of betrayal necessary, and, therefore, spiritually speaking, he was guiltless. But when the truth as to what really happened is made known, those misinterpretations and errors will be cleared up and the current belief proved to be wrong.”
Regarding death, he cautions against the noisy grieving of egotistical mourners – their wailings and elegies so weighty that, like magnet, they keep the soul away from its natural journey, only to be trapped in the maya of the physical realm. We must, for the sake of love for the departed exercise restraint, our detachment trumping all else.
He details, “Those who are present at a death-bed should take warning that they do not break out into loud lamentations. When the grief at parting is too extravagantly expressed, the ethereal body, in the process of detaching itself, or which has already detached itself and is standing by the physical body, can hear and feel and be so touched by the lamentations that a feeling of pity arises within him. He wishes now to say a few words of consolation to his friends, but to make himself understood to them he needs his physical brain. The effort to reconnect his ethereal body with his physical body, stops the process of disconnection which had already set in, or was, indeed, perhaps already accomplished; and the result of being drawn back into his physical body is, that he again must suffer the pangs that were already past.
“When the process of detachment begins afresh, it is much harder and more painful and even takes some days to accomplish. This is what is called the long fight for life, which is, indeed, painful. It is unnecessary suffering for the dying man and an utter want of consideration on the part of the bystanders.”
On this matter, Abd-Ru-Shin is palpably unequivocal. “Absolute peace should reign in the chamber of death — a gravity suitable to the importance of the hour. Those people who cannot control themselves should be forcibly removed even if they be the nearest relations.”
Divers subjects abound, subjects that beguile the most disengaged among us. ‘Astrology,’ ‘Occultism,’ ‘Intuition,’ ‘The AntiChrist,’ ‘The Holy Grail,’ ‘Sex,’ ‘Marriage,’ and even Christ’s last words, ‘Father, Forgive them, for they know not what they do,’ are insightfully explored.
Abd-Ru-Shin’s heterodoxy was strongly challenged during his lifetime. Today, his precepts are embraced by the New Age Movement, and others outside the religious fold. His work invites reflection and stirs debate not unlike the early days of Christianity when Gnosticism and Manichaeism held sway only to be bedeviled. Fortunately, followers of Abd-Ru-Shin do not risk meeting a similar fate.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
Feedback: [email protected] or follow him on Twitter@glenvilleashby
Email: glenvilleashby.com
Publisher: New World Herald Publishing
Copyright 2020
Available at Amazon
Ratings: Highly recommended

Contains the original translation of the Great Edition of the Grail Message (“Im Lichte der Wahrheit“) of Abdruschin, which was initially published in Germany in 1931 by “Der Ruf Verlag”. This translation from German into English was authorized by Abdruschin himself and was first published in 1934. The format and the layout in this book follow the German original of 1931, which is why the pagination differs from the 1934 translation.

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