J. SLOWACKI

O GOD, THOU lifted me up on the cliffs over the sea that I should recognize the eternal life of my Spirit, and suddenly I became an Immortal, a son of God, the Creator of all visible things, and one of those who living on golden suns and stars voluntarily offer Thee their Love.

For before the world was created, my Spirit dwelt in the WORD, and the WORD was in Thee, and I was in the WORD.

And we, the Word Spirits, asked Thee to give us Forms and immediately Thou gavest us these forms, O Lord, permitting us to create from ourselves, from our Will and our Love, the first visible shapes, and appear before Thee in manifestation.

Let me, O Lord, whilst I rest here on this seashore, on these rocks and cliffs and bathed in the golden rays of the sun – narrate the Story of Creation, the tale hid in the memory of my past lives.

MY SELF AS A SPIRIT with my fellow-Spirits assumed the first Visible form as Light, concentrated in one Point of Space. We densified this form later into Fire, which took the shape of a gigantic fireball. So were created the first Suns, Earths and Moons.

Throughout ages and ages my Spirit worked day and night and densified new thoughts into new forms.

I created the Laws of Nature obeying them later voluntarily. Descending deeper and deeper into matter I created the first Universal Strata of the globe.

IN THE ROCKS, O Lord, lies the hidden Spirit like unto an excellent monument of beauty, still in sleep, but preparing for the human form of the future, surrounded by the six-fold rainbow of God’s thought. In the stone the Spirit developed the knowledge of mathematical form and number. This knowledge is visible in crystals and the diamond. This life endured long, death being unknown in the mineral world.

The crystals, our first physical bodies – those Egyptians of the first nature – built their forms for thousands or years, motionless, loving peace and quietude. Then, Thou, O Lord, made Thy flashes of lightning, Thy thunder, which pulverised and broke the rocks into pieces. This was the first death on the globe, the first sacrifice of form, for on these broken stones the first primitive organisms were built, and life began to appear.

The first death created the first life, and thus I, as a Spirit, began to live, together with my fellow-Spirits.

THIS FIRST SACRIFICE of the Spirit, offered with full Will and Love, created millions of forms and organisms, well known to Thee, O Lord, for no one form could be born of another without Thy Will. Thou hadst heard the prayers of the Spirit, and accordingly granted him the forms.

Ye deep and murky waters of the ancient Ocean, tell me how the first living organisms have grown up in thy depths. What was the mystery of those first living bodies, huge sponges and plant reptiles, zoophytes, touching the bottom with their hundreds of legs, snails and oysters in their stony shells, huge monstrous forms, slow, cold, living in the depths, resisting the pressure of the waters?

But in these primitive forms I see already the first indications of the brain, the eyes and the ears, which will appear millions of years later; I see all the parts of my human body, separate yet, but destined to be blended together in the far future.

Some of the plant-animals made a further sacrifice. Renouncing mobility, they adhered to the ground where they lived, and so became the first sea and land plants and trees. These primitive forms were then destroyed by cataclysms, but their remnants were preserved in the earth’s strata, to show us the ancient labours of the Creative Spirit.

The huge and monstrous plants and trees conquered the globe. Their vital forces were enormous, and piercing the ground when germinating, they broke the earth crust into pieces, heaving large blocks of stone into the air. The Spirit moulded the matter, working it up for his own aims and purposes.

Then came fire and water, the floods and volcanic outbursts, destroying the plant world. The globe burnt for aeons, and vast forests were covered with ashes and earth, and disappeared for long ages from the surface.

BUT THE LIFE of the Spirit went on in the deep sea. Some of the plant-animals developed into fishes, and later into reptiles. After aeons of evolution these reptiles emerged from the ocean and crept onto the land, breathing the air into their newly developed lungs and giving the first sounds, the hissing of the snake or reptile. In the first hiss the Spirit accepted the gift of the voice, granted him by Nature. The creatures henceforth raised their voices to Thee, O Lord, praying for help and mercy, for the Spirit suffers agonies chained to the materiel forms of the lower kingdoms – suffers, fights, and works unceasingly, day and night, through innumerable lives and deaths.

This evolutionary chain I shall not try to describe: it is the mystery and secret of Nature, which will be discovered in future centuries. The human mind is not yet ready for these stupendous evolutionary truths, and would recoil in horror before them. But I saw clearly all these transitory forms and lives, and observed how my Spirit had gone through them. In each form dwells the remembrance of the past forms, and the revelation of future forms; and in all forms together the thought and longing for the final human form, for Man was for long ages the Aim and Purpose of the Creative Spirit on this globe.

In my dreams I see the moonlight nights of the kingdom of snakes; I observe on a rocky platform the first reptile, in whose body the Spirit already contemplates the bird’s head and wings of Icarus. I smile on seeing the excavated skeleton of the ancient flying reptile, with a beak and a long wing attached to his leg. It is a forerunner of the reptilian herds, heavy monsters, which were following him, feeding on broad meadows, forests and plains. These huge herds, these antediluvian monsters, like boats built up by the Spirit front bones, conquered the earth and lived on it till they were destroyed by Thee, O Lord, in three great deluges, and covered by Thee with three layers of ashes, burying them as though in three coffins.

INTO THIS HEW WORLD PERIOD, into Noah’s Ark, these monsters were not admitted. There followed only new animals, more harmoniously developed forms, which changed then into human shapes, on which the Spirit was already brooding, moulding the animal bodies and preparing new bodies for the future. All these lost forms of long ago I cannot describe to you – nor will the sages of the future will be able to do so – only those will sea them who will be able to perceive them inwardly in their souls, where the history of the whole of Nature is preserved and depicted in the indestructible memory of humanity.

Looking inward into this memory, I see in every tree a great solution of some mathematical problems which leads from the multitude of leaves to the unity of the Plant – this is the main task and joy of the Spirit on the plant level. The colours of the leaves, the flowers, the delicate shades, are in the plant kingdom the final effects of mathematically precise mixing of hues and chemicals. I understand the meaning of each shape of the tree leaf, its colouring and the veins upon its surface – because all these subtle designs were developed by my Spirit in long labour in the past.

How beautifully, O Lord, the plant-souls designed their bodies and forms, which were later repeated and used in the organizations which became the glory of human attainment. Look at the daisy, which seems to be only a single flower, but is in fact the whole nation of flowers, gathered in one calix and governed by one pistil. It is a nation in which the central part is filled by the flower-citizens, who work and reproduce, and on the sides there are sexless white petals, like cohorts of helots, who guard and protect the whole community. Seeing this miracle of the Creative Spirit, I already see him create later the bee-hive, the kingdom of the bees and its workers, a protecting army and royal power; and repeat the same in the bird-flocks, creating finally the same institution for human beings, the plans of this institution having been first born in the vegetable kingdom of Nature.

And Thou, Athenian Republic, thy original form I see in the clover flower, which is comprised of many single but equal citizens, growing together on one stem, and Themistocles, although only one of them, is at the top and ruling the others – PRINCEPS INTER PARES.

IN THE BUILDING of the plant forms the primitive mathematical thought was the governing impulse. In the flower, however, I already see the influence of a primitive emotional vibration. I sense the sweet scent and beauty of love in some flowers, and the venom and passion of hatred in other flowers and fruits. Here the Spirit possessed the knowledge or right and wrong, the feeling of beauty and ugliness, the secret of co-operation with the Divine Plan, or the sin of disobedience.

O Thou First Book of Creation, everything in Thee is a mysterious well of Wisdom and Truth. Thou gradually revealest everything under Thy sacred veils to those human children who are endeavouring to reach the Kingdom of Heaven.

And now where is the end of the working of the soul in the plant? It organizes finally something which behaves like a living being, which moves with aim and purpose, attaining the proposed goal. I see a single pea growing front the soil, and like a green caterpillar creeping cautiously on the poles, choosing its way up and up, spreading its arms to light and sunshine, and bearing finally the flower, like a white butterfly ready to soar into the air, the Psyche in her flight to heaven.

Many and many signs of wisdom I see in the vegetable kingdom. Some of the sea-weeds are strong enough to resist the constant pressure of the waves and blasts of the wind. Some fruits protect their inner core skilfully by building a hard protective shell around it. Some mosses or highland plants know how to live almost without soil, adhering to the bare rock and resisting the fury of gales and the raging of elements. In all these terrible ordeals I feel I took part. I, the Spirit, have gone through then in my age-long creative activities.

The sense of smell is witness that I have passed also through the vegetable kingdom. The scent of the rose awakens in me the memory or those times when I was creating the beauty of the flower in the kingdom of the plants. This beautiful fragrance still affects my soul, soothing all pain and uplifting me into the realm of joy and happiness.

But enough of this period of my creative activities in the plant kingdom. I had there many forms, lived long ages, and finally changed for the animal kingdom. In this kingdom the cautiously creeping snail became the more mobile tortoise, sacrificing finally the protecting shell, developing wings, and soaring into the air in the body of a beetle.

AND THEN THE KINGDOM of snakes, which had previously attained the faculty of flying, is resigning the latter and becoming the kingdom or the insects.

In the kingdom of insects the Spirit begins to work out the first moral virtues, as in the diligence of the ant and the social organization of the bee. Those virtues are linked later in pairs, showing courage and nobleness in the horse, fidelity and humbleness in the dog. These virtues are developing – always in pairs – when, for instance, an Arabian warrior trains and teaches his horse, develops in him nobleness and courage and lifts him up, quickening his evolution. The shepherd instructing his dog develops in him the virtues of humbleness and fidelity.

Some rare and special human virtues I already see mysteriously foreshadowed in the lower kingdoms of Nature, and this seems to me to prove that it is we ourselves who have created these virtues. Industry and diligence were developed by the Spirit in the ant bodies, and in the realm of innumerable domestic animals, whereas the rare heroic virtues of nobility and strength dwell in the body of the lion and in the breast of the eagle, who likes and enjoys the storm and the thunder.

 

AND I FEEL NOW how the whole Nature calls to God in her prayers for the final shape of the human being, for through the higher attainment of one Spirit the wide Creation in its vast regions is elevated. For this sublime event, for the birth of humanity, the trees adorned themselves with the most beautiful flowers and fruits, and the vast hordes of the representatives of the animal kingdom gathered on the plains of Eden in prayer and expectation. High in the air were flying garlands of eagles, swans and cranes, like the Angelic Hosts and the court of the Angelic King, surrounded by beautiful rays of the rainbow. Deep silence lasted for a while, and then, O Lord, Thou hast evoked and uplifted to Thee this Spirit which was ready to attain to the human level of existence. Thou hast listened to his prayers, hast passed Thy judgement, and hast allowed him to take a new form on this globe, and in this form Thou hast registered all his labours and ordeals suffered in other kingdoms, before he became human. The stamp of his labours is indelibly cast on the human soul, and can be there read in quiet moments of meditation and of spiritual peace.

Hosanna to Thee, O Lord, for Thou art the Creator and my Spirit has the merits of Self-creation.

I HAVE TO WITHDRAW NOW from the lofty heights of my inspiration. Standing on the rock of Creation I observe all the things I worked for through long ages of my past as a member of Humanity. I see what human virtues and spiritual powers I developed – on which I shall speak maybe on other occasions. Now I would once more like to look at the strenuous labours and hardships of toiling Nature and to take my leave of her ere I forsake this globe.

O Spirit of mine, Thou never dreamed when Thou laboured patiently in the mineral kingdom, in the stony hard body, that through this sacrifice Thou would later gain continuous rebirth in constantly changing bodies, and the ability to procreate new bodies, new abodes, for other fellow Spirits.

Thou do not create a Spirit, Thou only prepare an abode for thine fellow Spirits, who are ready to be born, and Thou grant them the possibility of appearing in manifestation on this globe. This immortality of shape, gained through death, shows that through Sacrifice the Spirit is victorious over death, is the conqueror of matter. On the ruins of the proud Roman Empire, among the shattered and broken columns and monuments, I observed a sparrow which flew down to the broken tombstones – and it was the same sparrow which was seen there by the Roman legions twenty centuries ago, although the seashore had changed its place and the sacred city had disappeared under the twenty-foot coating of dust and sand.

GOD HAS NOT FORGOTTEN the labours, pains and victories of the Spirit. He keeps alive most or the created forms in all the kingdoms, and preserves the records of this Spirit activity and attainment in an eternal, golden Book sealed to all, but if we are worthy, He opens before our eyes the golden pages of the Book of our creative Records, those charts of the Genesis – to enable us to read in it, understand its contents and thus learn our future lessons.

Rejoice, O Spirit, if Thou art able to read some of these records, and thine conscience confirm that Thou rightly and precisely found the tenets of God’s plan and God’s thought, and built up and worked out the Great Plan of Evolution.

But the teachings and experiences of the past ages were worthless if they did not give us the right directions for the future. In these records we clearly see the laws of our next creative activity, and its name is Sacrifice. In this Sacrifice, in our Wisdom and Love, lies hidden all the treasures for our work in the near and in the far distant future of our existence.

HELP ME, O GOD, that my words, written with deep insight and intuition, may go to my country and my people, and awaken in first the hidden spiritual forces of Love and Wisdom.

I pray, O Lord, for the Wisdom in Faith, for the Knowing Faith, and for the Feeling of Immortality, born from the Faith which KNOWS, because it understands the creative power of the Spirit, in which I already behold the Fiery Angel of the future Sacrifice.

FOR EVERYTHING IS CREATED THROUGH THE SPIRIT AND FOR THE SPIRIT AND NOTHING EXISTS FOR MATERIAL PURPOSES. This will be the well-found Wisdom of my nation in the future, and in the purified Wisdom a unity of Emotions will be born, which will guide my country to her final attainment of the goal chosen for her in the creative plan of the Divine Kingdom on this globe.

 

Translated by K. Chodkiewicz, London, 1966.