| Home | Books | News | About |
Saint Solicitous
Tale of the Brothers Grimm [1815] translated by Undine
Interpretation by Undine & Jens in green [2024]
Once upon a time there was a pious maiden who vowed to God that she would not marry, but she was so beautiful that her father would not allow it and wanted to force her to marry. In this distress she begged God to let her grow a beard, which happened immediately. But the king was furious and had her nailed to the cross, and she became a saint.
Now that we have looked at the king’s daughter’s path to the holy marriage of man and woman, or the wholeness of spirit and nature, in the last fairy tale of “King Thrushbeard”, this short fairy tale jumps in here almost by itself. For here we find not only the king’s daughter as a holy virgin or pure spirit-soul, as she had reached her perfection in the last fairy tale, but also a king, a beggar or musician, even a beard and a violin instead of a thrush. And this time she even asks God for the beard and voluntarily accepts the thrushbeard, whom she had once mocked and rejected.
Why does the pure spirit-soul embody herself again in this world of imperfection? Why not? She is pure consciousness that does not cling to any form and can therefore take on any form. And our physical world cannot of course be outside of perfect wholeness. That is why she comes to us, just as Jesus Christ embodied himself as a human being, or Krishna or Buddha in India. And because she is already holistic and perfect, she does not have to follow King Thrushbeard’s path again to unite with the pure spirit. The Christian seer Jacob Boehme speaks in this regard of a “male virgin” as a perfect being, as God originally created it as a whole according to his own example, and writes around 1620:
St. Paul says: “Our transformation is in heaven. (Phil. 3.20)” That is, the transformation of the virgin when she is in marriage with her spouse Christ, because then Christ and the virgin Sophia are only One person, namely the true male virgin of God, whom Adam was before his Eve, when he was man and woman and yet neither, but a virgin of God. (Mysterium Magnum, 50.48)
She does not have to marry again, just as Jesus and Buddha did not lead a domestic married life on earth, because she is already united with everything, and with a one-sided commitment to a certain form her purity would be lost. Similarly, Krishna was not married to a specific woman, but symbolically to many women, supposedly over 16,000, and with each of them he had many children, which practically refers to all beings in the world. In this way he also shows himself to be a holistic being, as for example in the famous Bhagavad Gita:
Behold my hundreds and thousands of forms, diverse and divine in various colours and forms. Behold the Adityas, Vasus, Rudras, Aswins and the Maruts. Behold, O Bharata, innumerable wonders that you have never seen before. Behold, O Arjuna, the entire universe with all animate and inanimate things united in my body, and also everything else that you wish to see. But you are not able to do so with your eyes. Thus, I give you the heavenly sight. With this, behold my divine power! (Mahabharata 6.35)
But the worldly king does not recognize this pure spirit-soul. That is, he is not yet the holistic reason as king, but the conceptual ego-mind, which wants to force her according to his own ideas and thus nails her to the cross of this world. The cause is the egoistic attachment, and the effect is personal suffering with lack, transience and death. In this way he creates his own suffering, and the pure spirit-soul becomes a saint or healer in the world as a solicitous.
I can only crucify myself. - Everything I do, I do to myself. When I attack, I suffer. But when I forgive, I am given redemption. - I am not a body. I am free. Because I am still the way God created me. (Course in Miracles, Exercise 216)
Now it happened that a very poor musician came into the church where her image stood and knelt down before it. The saint was pleased that he was the first to acknowledge her innocence, and the image, which was wearing golden slippers, let one of them fall down so that it could benefit the pilgrim. He bowed gratefully and accepted the gift.
Here we meet a similarly poor musician, who also played his role as King Thrushbeard and recognized the pure and innocent soul in her external form. But how can an image come to life and let a slipper fall off? Is this only meant symbolically?
The man made of wood starts to sing,
The woman made of stone starts to dance,
Rational knowledge cannot bring this about.
Such miracles have certainly been credibly witnessed thousands of times, for which our rational minds cannot find a tangible explanation. That is why we tend to doubt them and ignore such miracles. But interestingly, something like this also happens to famous scientists, such as the theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, in whose presence scientific equipment regularly failed. This gave rise to the term “Pauli effect”. But even then, most physicists did not recognize the deeper message and preferred to ban him from the laboratory. The great discoveries of quantum physics were therefore channeled more into technical devices than into the spiritual development of holistic reason, and atom bombs were built rather than a healthy worldview was established. Werner Heisenberg, the father of quantum physics, complained similarly in his advanced years:
“Most people think that atomic technology is the most important consequence (of quantum physics). I have always been of a different opinion. I believed that the philosophical consequences of physics would probably change things more in the long term than the technical consequences... (Video: Werner Heisenberg and the question of reality from 1:21:20)
How can an image have a holy and healing soul? Well, the perfect spirit-soul is of course a holistic being, that lives in wholeness and is therefore present everywhere in this world. It is just a question of becoming aware, and this process is of course easier with an image of a saint in a sanctified church. And so, it is the active spirit of the musician that sees through the image, recognizes the pure soul, brings her to life and reunites with her. Just as King Thrushbeard recognized the pure soul in the king’s daughter and, as a poor musician, walked with her on the path to the mystical wedding. In a similar way, here too the musician is given a golden slipper as a symbol of the path of truth that he can now walk as a pilgrim, if we consider the gold as truth and the shoe as help on the way. And in this sense, it is also the saint herself who rejoices in the recognition of her innocence and helps the spirit.
What does innocence mean? Guilt arises when you take something that belongs to others and have to return it accordingly. What is meant here is primarily the egoistic property that one acquires through attachment. And the great path to innocence would then be complete forgiveness, which the poor musician probably sought and lived as pure “poverty of spirit”. For only in this way can he recognize the innocence of the pure soul and thus also his own as an active spirit.
“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
Soon, however, the golden shoe was discovered missing from the church, and the question arose everywhere, until at last it was found with the poor little fiddler, and he was condemned as a wicked thief and led away to be hanged.
Here one could first think about the worldly role of the Christian church, which likes to see the path to truth as its own property. Many who had received and revealed the path to truth from the pure spirit soul or God himself have been condemned, hanged and burned as evil thieves of the church’s property.
Internally one could think of the conceptual ego mind, which feels robbed of its ownership of truth and would like to contain, capture and attach the awakening holistic reason in order to remain king itself. This also closes the circle with the king above, who crucifies the pure spirit soul and causes suffering.
In another version of the story, there is a goldsmith to whom the beggar foolishly wants to sell the golden slipper. In this goldsmith, too, we can recognize the mind, which, so to speak, forces the pure gold of truth into external forms in order to trade it in the world. And it is the mind that then accuses the beggar of being a thief, holds him and wants to hang him. Therefore, one should never hand over the golden path of truth to the ego-mind, so that it can make something formal out of it in order to feed on it.
“You shall not give what is holy to dogs, nor throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces. (Matt. 7.6)”
This is where our inner doubts and feelings of guilt arise from, so that we soon realize that one shoe is not particularly safe to walk with. Because, if we only worship one side, we become guilty on the other side and become thieves. If we worship only the male spirit, then we become guilty thieves of the physicality or soul of nature. If we worship only the female nature, then we become guilty thieves of the spirituality of everything.
On the way, however, the procession passed the church where the statue stood. Then the musician asked to be allowed to go in, so that he could say goodbye with his little fiddle at last and tell his benefactor of his heart’s troubles. This was now permitted. But he had hardly made the first stroke when, behold, the statue let the other golden slipper fall down as well, showing that he was innocent of theft. Thus, the fiddler was freed from the irons and bonds, and went on his way happily. The holy virgin was called Solicitous.
What should one do when the conceptual mind wants to lead holistic reason to death? Who should argue with mind about innocence if not mind itself, which only consolidates its dominion in this way? Reason only humbly asks for one last wish before leaving, leads mind into the church of wholeness and lets its violin sound there so that it recognizes its innocence: no long speeches, no concepts, no arguments and no judgments, but only a harmonious sound as a cry for help from the heart for truth, which everyone around hears, which penetrates into the deepest matter and can move everything.
We have already thought about a similar fiddler with his violin in the fairy tale “The Wonderful Musician”. Here too, the violin appears to us as an instrument of reason for the echo of heavenly music on earth. It is not for nothing that people say that “heaven is full of violins” when you feel blissful. So, you don’t have to give long speeches to address the holy spirit soul. An Amen or Om that comes from the heart with pure love is completely sufficient. One could also speak here of a wave of sound on the eternal sea of causes, in pure consciousness that animates everything, gives life and can take on any form.
In this way, holistic reason also helps us to find the second golden slipper on the path to truth, which is given to us by the pure spirit soul or the Holy Spirit, not as property, but as a healing from egoistic attachment to property and thus also from all guilt. This confirms our innocence, and free from all attachment we can now walk the path of truth full of joy and overcome the misery and suffering of this world, thus not only fighting the effects, but dissolving the cause. And that is probably also the holy task of suffering in this world, in order to find and walk the healing path of truth, just as Buddha placed suffering at the centre of his teachings. It is not for nothing that the name “Buddha” comes from “Buddhi”, which in turn means “reason”. And this reason also teaches us the “four noble truths”:
The noble truth about suffering;
The noble truth about the cause of suffering;
The noble truth about ending suffering;
And the noble truth about the path that leads to the end of suffering.
The two shoes can also symbolize the two principles of male and female, or spirit and nature, both of which are needed on the path to truth. Sometimes the spirit leads and nature pushes, sometimes nature leads and the spirit pushes, until you reach the wedding dance of spirit and nature, where all opposites unite in the perfection of harmony and rhythm. This is the eternal wave of growth and decay, which recognizes itself as the eternal sea itself, the whole and perfect that has always (“all-ways”) been there, is and will be. That is why we find both types among the many fairy tales, sometimes the female side leads, sometimes the male, and at the end there is usually the big wedding as a happy ending.
The play of male and female as
Yang and Yin in the circle of wholeness
May our hearts also call for pure reason, and may we also receive these two golden shoes from the benevolent spirit-soul in order to walk the holistic path of truth, end suffering and attain perfection. Amen - OM
Further background to the story
We can find a lot of information about the historical background on the Internet, for example on German Wikipedia under “Kümmernis”. In the notes by Bolte and Polivka on this fairy tale it says:
The legend of St. Kümmernis or Comeria (also called Wilgefortis, Ontkomer, Liberata, Hülpe, etc.) arose in the 15th century from a misunderstanding of the old Romanesque images of Christ clothed and wearing a crown, which depict the Saviour as the living King of Heaven on the cross; the depiction of the naked, pain-tormented Crucifixus with the crown of thorns did not appear in the West until the 13th century. The people saw in those old images a crucified king’s daughter who, like St. Paula (Acta Sanctorum Febr. 3, 174) and Galla had grown bearded to protect their virginity, although, for example, the Saalfeld stone statue of 1516 bore the clear inscription ‘Salvator mundi’ (‘Savior of the World’). The cult of this saint, never recognized by the Church, reported in the Acta Sanctorum under July 20 (Julii t. 5, 50: Liberata), extends over Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, England, France, Spain and Portugal. (see also English Wikipedia: Wilgefortis)
This also shows us again how difficult it was and is for the Christian church to accept a holistic view of male and female, or spirit and nature, not to mention the spiritual unity in the diversity of all religions and worldviews. Yet it is obvious everywhere that spirit and nature, subject and object, wave and particle, or even antimatter and matter always belong together and that a separation only arises through our perception. And then we try to put one above the other. Then either the spirit rules over nature, as spiritual science preaches, or nature rules over the spirit, as natural science claims. It is somehow difficult for us to unite the two on an equal level and even seems impossible to our conceptual minds.
Meister Eckhart writes about this:
A woman and a man are not equal to each other; but in love they are completely equal. Therefore, the Scripture is quite right in saying that God took the woman from the man’s rib and side, not from the head or the feet; for where there are two, there is imperfection. Why? - Because one is not the other, for this “not” that creates difference is nothing other than bitterness, precisely because there is no peace. (Meister Eckhart, Sermon 50)
Similar to the above comments, which say that the legend arose from a stupid misunderstanding because “the people saw a crucified king’s daughter in those old pictures...”, we can still read on Wikipedia today:
Because the meaning of the tunic as a male garment was no longer known to everyone at that time, this led to confusion and iconographic mixing with depictions of St. Kümmernis, in which the minstrel legend also became an integral part.
Oh yes, the stupid people who have never seen a monk in a cowl or a clergyman in a long robe, let alone heard a sermon about the crucified Jesus Christ! And then the people tell such fairy tales and ask stupid questions: How can a man or a woman be holy and whole as long as they are separated? How can a father give birth to a son without a mother? Why should a man worship a man in order to find his perfection again? Why should one worship the terrible suffering of separation and not the holy and whole? Behind monastery walls it is possible to think that, but it is difficult to live out in the world.
In Hinduism, too, the gods are often in the foreground, but all great gods also have their Shakti or goddess. And there are many stories about Shiva and his Shakti Sati in particular, how the two apparently separate as Purusha and Prakriti or spirit and nature and always find each other again. This is also stated in Shiva Purana Chapter 4.25:
There are certainly many scholars who talk about the separation of Shiva and Sati, but how can there be a true separation between the two? Who can recognize the essence of Shiva and Sati and understand their actions in the world? They move of their own free will and exist eternally. Shiva and Sati are inseparably connected to each other like words with their meaning, and only when they wish they appear to us as separate.
Accordingly, in chapter 10.19 you will find a schematic representation of how spirit, soul and nature in the boundless sea of causes are equal among the highest principles of the Sankhya theory, which penetrate and include all other principles. There are also corresponding images of how spirit and nature unite as Shiva, such as the representation of Ardhanarishvara:
Such images full of symbolism are often used in meditation to understand why spirit and nature apparently had to separate, similar to Adam and Eve, in order to bring about the diversity of creation through man and woman (see also Shiva Purana 8.3), and how one can then rediscover unity in diversity and oneself in the whole. Ultimately, all gods are also seen as a whole or deity that appears in many different forms:
Whoever sees Shiva separately from the other gods will not be successful. Only those who see and worship the deity in everything will have fruitful devotion. (Shiva Purana 3.4)
Similarly, symbolic images can also be found for the “holy virgin Kümmernis”, for example in a small chapel on the Ötscher in Lower Austria (see also sagen.at):
So let us now try to meditate on the symbolism of this holy image for a few days and see what it wants to tell us, which of course everyone will perceive somewhat differently:
First, we notice the plump musician, who does not remind us of physical hunger, so that it is probably more of a spiritual need that leads him to worship the holy image. In this we already find the subject-object relationship between the viewer and the image. He looks up at the image full of longing, and the image comes to life and looks down full of compassion. The strikingly large nose could also indicate a good sense of the spiritual world, which would probably have mocked the proud princess in a similar way to King Thrushbeard’s protruding chin with the beard. His two hands appear calm, not cramped by the desire of the conceptual mind, and with them he plays the violin, the sound of which brings the image to life. And it would probably be even more alive if it were not nailed to the cross of this world. So, it is above all our conceptual mind that, through its attachment, prevents images from coming to life. Children can still do this very well with their dolls, bears and other toys, but as they grow up, their minds also grow and solidify more and more into a dead, earthly world. Therefore, it is not for nothing that Christ says:
“Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 18.2)”
The hands on the cross appear less relaxed and show the “three-finger-salute”. In this, the middle finger could be seen as the Holy Spirit, which was meant to reunite the other two pairs: the thumb and index finger as father and son, with the ring finger and little finger as the soul and body of nature. In other words, male and female are reunited into a whole that can be seen in the palm of the hand, in which all the fingers are rooted. But here the female side has been bent off, and right through the wholeness the conceptual mind has driven nails into the cross of the material world of space and time, so that the image can no longer move freely, but only partially, as far as the mind wants and can allow. At least the feet are still free, with the toes lined up harmoniously and standing on a hexagonal foundation or cornerstone. This stone could remind us of the famous “philosopher’s stone”, and thus also of the pure consciousness that can be found everywhere as an eternal foundation. The six corners are created when the two triangular symbols of male and female are combined to form a harmonious star or hexagon. A similar symbolism is also used in the Indian Yantras.
We also find such symbolic triangles in the cloak and dress. The upward-pointing triangle in the lower dress is reminiscent of the male spirit or the fire that strives upwards. And the downward-pointing triangle in the upper dress is reminiscent of the female nature or soul of nature, like water that strives and flows downwards. Both principles meet in the abdomen, man and woman fertilize each other, procreate and give birth to new life forms and then separate again. And above both of them we find the large triangle of the Holy Spirit as a gold-decorated cloak with the royal crown of wholeness on top. The golden crown with the symbol of the Trinity sits on a head that shines in holy light and looks at the minstrel full of compassion, but does not wear the usual gloriole, because to this day the official certificate from the church leadership as a “recognized saint” is still missing. Around the head, a female triangle appears again from the arms on the crossbeam, the tip of which points to the blue jewel of the heart. If the pure love of the holy spirit soul shines there, then the suffering on the cross is transformed into pure joy in the Holy Spirit. However, if the egoistic self-love of attachment dwells in the heart, then this love leaves the Holy Spirit and goes outwards to the cross of desire and hatred to transform into passion. It would be better to release the hands from this attachment and place them together 🙏 towards a pure heart of love. This heart triangle also reminds us of the heart symbol ♡, as a flow from the inner source through the world of opposites to the basis of unity.
In addition, the painter also plays with a perspective trick here, so that the saint seems to be releasing her arms from the cross and is literally coming towards us, which is particularly useful for a saint’s image and is also our task in life.
In the hair, around the neck and in the lower garment we find the spiritual pearls that one should not “cast before swine”, i.e., not give to the conceptual mind, but to the holistic reason, which can then shine under the crown of the Holy Spirit full of compassion and pure love for all beings.
Now one could say that in this play of triangles the male spirit again predominates over the female nature, and that should probably be the case in a saint’s image at first glance. It would of course be simpler to divide the image vertically into a male and female side, as is done above in the Yin-Yang symbol and in the Shiva image. This separation is at least indicated here by the incidence of light from the right, so that the minstrel on the right, male and bright side of the spirit kneels down only with his right leg, over which his dark cloak lies, and first receives the right shoe of the spiritual side.
At second glance, this spiritual predominance is put into perspective. Firstly, because he is kneeling on a green meadow between the grass and herbs of a growing nature, which can no longer be seen in the above image section. Secondly, if we consider the radiant head under the crown of wholeness as the seat of holistic reason compared to the pink body garment of nature. This feminine garment then appears to us like a symbolic hourglass as a sign of transience, in which thoughts, actions and forms flow from the attachment to the cross of opposites like sand through the feminine triangle of nature into the masculine triangle of the spirit, until the time of physicality has expired, the hourglass is turned over again in a new birth or embodiment, and the game of attachment and movement begins again. This then also means: “Built on sand!” This is brilliantly represented in the image, between the attachment of the hands to the cross of the world and the mobility of the feet on the foundation stone. Here we can think about how time itself appears in the world of opposites through attachment to thoughts, actions and forms, because without attachment everything would arise and pass away at the same time, because nothing would be held in time and space and everything could flow unhindered. This is roughly how we could imagine eternity beyond time and space. Science today also knows a similar game of opposing triangles and says that all matter arises from a game of matter and antimatter, which should actually cancel each other out immediately. And to this day they are still puzzling over why our visible matter was left over from the Big Bang and appears so stable in time and space.
This brings us to the “crucial point” of the image and the story, namely the neck between the head and the body, where the saint receives her beard from God and the minstrel plays the violin beneath his beard. What could the beard mean? Just as the hair on the head is usually interpreted as thoughts that reach out into the world and grow more or less wildly or trimmed, ordered, tied or braided, one could think about the meaning of the beard hair in a similar way and say: Just as the beard is a physical sign of male maturity for sexual union, one could also see it symbolically as a sign of spiritual maturity for holistic reason, up to the white beard of wisdom. Then the beard hair around the mouth is like the words of God, which are spoken in the world by an “ancient white-bearded man”.
Godfather, Paolo Veronese (1570)
But should we not become like children? Yes, just as the conceptual mind should become young again, so reason should become old and mature like the wise. That is, just as the soul of nature returns to her formless source in nothingness, so to speak, to the eternal virgin at the fountain of youth, as the soul’s bond is unwound from the tangle of our life story, so the reason grows and matures to his goal in the eternal sea of everything, where everything and nothing meet and unite again. This is probably why the upper body of the virgin lacks the obvious breasts as a physical sign of female maturity. And in this way one can become a “male virgin” when the conceptual ego-mind decreases and holistic reason increases. This is probably why human development also means not becoming more and more entangled and enveloped, but developing.
Here we can now also find the king’s daughter, who, together with King Thrushbeard as a minstrel under the guidance of his violin, symbolically speaking, goes from the hands of attachment on the cross of the world on the path of humility through the female triangle down to the top in nothingness, to the kitchen maid in the king’s castle at the bottom of everything, to pure “poverty in spirit”. This is then also the heart’s path ♡ from the source through the transient world of opposites to the basis of unity. In the process, her proud heart of egoistic desire and attachment is transformed again into a humble heart of pure love, which becomes everything again through the male triangle, until her feet stand on the hexagonal foundation and cornerstone of everything, where male and female as well as everything and nothing are harmoniously united again.
“He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3.30)”
Accordingly, we now find two beards in this picture. Firstly, the beard of the “male virgin”, which was given to her by God as a sign of her spiritual perfection and covers the entire throat below the mouth. Secondly, the narrower and growing beard on the chin of the musician between mouth and throat or larynx as a sign of his growing spiritual maturity. This also reminds us of “King Thrushbeard”, who as an active spirit separated from the soul of nature naturally became a poor beggar because he had to beg for the forms of nature. But in the same process as the soul gives up her egoism of separation, the beggar also becomes a king again, reunites with his queen and receives the golden crown of the Holy Spirit and with it certainly also the “full beard” of spiritual perfection between head and body. Thus, the fiddler as subject becomes one again with the picture as an object that he “looks at”. How does this happen between head and body?
What does the larynx mean? Here we can think about the physical and spiritual source of the sounds and tones that can be produced by choking the breath in order to sing or speak. In this respect, the violin could also be just a symbolic replacement for the larynx, because sound is difficult to represent in images. At least the connection between the violin with its strings and the larynx with its vocal cords is not only clear in the image in terms of location, but also in terms of function. And it is also important in the story that the musician does not speak to the holy image with many words, but with the sound of his violin. Therefore, one could also say: Just as conceptual words serve the intellectual mind, so the general sound serves holistic reason, because it is also contained in all words.
Sada-Shiva with the OM throat
So, we finally come to the big question: How can sound move an image? Or why does the maiden dance to the minstrel’s violin? Well, sound or waves in general are the basis of all communication. And the connection between spirit and nature or subject and object naturally always requires some kind of communication. But the more limited this communication is, the greater the separation between the two appears to us. Modern quantum physics has also proven that this communication is not a one-way street, but that the observer helps determine what is observed, just as we naturally move our bodies every day with the power of our spirit. We also find an ingeniously drawn triangle in the image, how on the one hand the external image flows into the eyes of the spiritual observer via eye contact and on the other hand the sound flows into the external image via the violin, which is directed at the spiritual base or ground of the image, and thus moves and enlivens the physical image.
In this diagram, one can clearly see how the triangle between subject and object opens up towards nature, how the unity of the spirit is connected to the diversity of nature, and how the soul has its sphere of influence to spin the threads of cause and effect. It is also interesting that the movement caused by the sound of the violin takes place at the feet, at the bottom of the picture and not at the top, where the hands are nailed to the cross of opposites, just as quantum physics has found this influence of the observer on the observed at the very bottom of nature. Similarly, we also find two opposing waves on the violin, which have their beginning and end within themselves.
And with regard to this mobility, one can even go a step further towards unity, as it is also said in Zen Buddhism:
Two monks were arguing. One said: “The flag is moving.” The other said: “No, the wind is moving.” Huineng heard this and said: “Neither the wind nor the flag is moving. What is moving is your spirit.”
Then one can ask oneself: What moves the spirit? Who plays the violin? Who speaks the words? Who fits the golden shoe? Who walks the path with it? What kind of force is it that moves everything, makes it live and dance, that makes us wake up every morning, that moves our thoughts and bodies, that makes our organs work and cells function, that makes all atoms, planets and stars circle in space and time, that moves all the waves on the sea, which then play with each other, overlap, reinforce or cancel each other out in the eternal dance of opposites? This ultimately brings us back to pure consciousness, the light of the world and the holistic or divine word that shapes and moves everything. Or as the famous quantum physicist and Nobel Prize winner Anton Zeilinger puts it in more modern terms: “Information is the primary substance of the universe.” This is why software can also move the hardware of a machine, because hardware basically consists only of information.
The Bible also says something similar:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through the same, and without the same was not anything made that was made. In it was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (John 1:1)”
We can see the darkness inside the cloak that opens before us, so that in the light of pure consciousness the perfect image of the “male virgin” appears. This cloak of the Holy Spirit stands symbolically as a triangle or cone on the hexagonal foundation stone as a base. And that is what connects and unites everything. So that the golden crown at the top is also in the centre of the cross, where all opposites meet and unite again.
“Therefore, says the Lord: Behold, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He who believes will not flee. (Isaiah 28:16)”
Why a motionless stone? Well, the Zen story mentioned above goes even further:
When the two quarrelling monks had realized that only their spirit was moving, a nun came along and revealed to them: “Neither the wind nor the flag nor the spirit moves in the ground of truth.”
We now find in this foundation stone the goal where the golden shoes want to lead us on the path of truth, namely back to where they came from, to the foundation and cornerstone of everything, to pure consciousness, which is itself formless and motionless, but can take on any form and move everything. For just as the violin aims at the foot to find the way, the violin bow aims directly at the radiant jewel heart of pure love in order to bring all opposites back into the silent centre, which were pulled apart in space and time by attachment to the cross of the world. And this happens symbolically in this foundation and cornerstone, where all forms of male and female, crown, head and heart, hands and feet, fire and water, body and soul, spirit and nature, subject and object, mine and yours, birth and death, past and future, good and evil, heaven and hell, light and darkness, yang and yin are harmoniously united again in a whole or deity.
This is also the foundation and cornerstone that the “builders rejected (Matt. 21.42)” because it has no external boundaries that the conceptual mind can understand in order to build the mental Tower of Babel of its worldly ideas. But if it is given external boundaries, then the symbolic hexagon appears as the “old witch” (German: Hexe) between inside and outside or spirit and nature and becomes a separating ego consciousness between subject and object and thus a “stone of stumbling and rock of offense (Isa. 8.14)”. In the above image of the saint is also brilliantly shown as she comes to meet us as far as possible on the foundation stone. And now it is our spiritual task to dissolve this supposed boundary, which we perceive here as a separate observer who believes he is standing or kneeling on the ground of an external nature and playing his own violin.
The “Waterstone of the Wise”, an old alchemy book from 1619, which deals primarily with the spiritual significance of alchemy, says the same thing:
Especially since God, yes, God’s heart, his eternal son, is the true, eternal, precious and proven cornerstone and foundation stone, which the builders rejected and despised. He is the true old, yes, ancient one, who existed before the foundation of the world and has existed since eternity. He is the true hidden and known God, supernatural and incomprehensible, heavenly, blessed, highly praised and the only one who saves, yes, a God of all gods. He is the true truthful one, who cannot lie, the most certain of all, to do and create what he wants, or the only powerful one. He is the most secret and eternal one, in whom all secrets and treasures of wisdom are hidden, the only divine power and omnipotence, which is hidden from the fools or scholars of this world. He is the First and the Last in heaven and on earth. He is the truly one and perfect comparison of all the elements, from whom, through whom, and in whom all things are and come. He is an indestructible Being who cannot be separated or divided by any element.
Now the pure spirit-soul has become a living image after the mystical wedding, and thus she speaks as a holistic spirit-nature both in this holy image, as well as in the painter of the image and in the minstrel who, as a pilgrim, looks at the holy image and receives the golden shoes in order to walk the path of truth to the mystical wedding of spirit and nature. And if we ask for it and listen carefully, then this spirit-soul will certainly also speak in us as the “holy virgin of solicitous” and would like to give us the golden shoes in order to walk the path of truth, to recognize and resolve the cause of suffering and thus fulfil the healing meaning of suffering.
So here you can marvel at a holy image and its story, how the Holy Spirit opens the outer cloak, which is adorned with the golden waves on the dark sea of causes that we see in the play of the external world in its coming and going. And in doing so, he grants the viewer, who bows and lets his violin of reason sound, a profound insight into the work of spirit and nature as man and woman in the earthly world.
With this we have tried to write down as much as possible the stream of thoughts that has flowed to us in the past few days from this mystical image of the “Holy Virgin Solicitous”. It is difficult to say whether this makes much sense, but somehow it wanted to be written down. May the violin of love sound everywhere. Thank you!
• ... Table of contents of all fairy tale interpretations ...
• The Drummer - (topic: Mind and path to salvation)
• Swan Prince - (topic: soul, spirit and salvation)
• The Six Swans - (topic: senses, thoughts and expansion)
• The poor Girl and the Star-Money - (topic: poverty in spirit)
• Death and the Goose Herder - (topic: geese and wholeness)
• The Fox and the Geese - (topic: mind and wholeness)
• The Goose-Girl at the Well - (topic: spirit, soul and nature)
• The Golden Goose - (topic: recognize true wholeness)
• The Goose-Girl and Falada - (topic: unity and diversity)
• King Thrushbeard - (topic: holy and healthy marriage)
• Saint Solicitous (topic: beard and violin)
 |
[1815] Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm: Kinder- und Hausmärchen, 1. Auflage, 1815 |