Pekka
ErvastPekka
ErvastPekka Ervast was a writer, occultist, and Christian mystic, born in 1875 in Finland. Since early childhood, Ervast searched honestly for truth, often beset by conflict between ideals and reality that prevailed in all walks of life. He sought the real purpose of our existence and how we should honestly live, but he found no answers within his own cultural circle of religion.
During his university years, Ervast became acquainted with theosophy, and soon after, with the aid of the great Russian writer Lev Tolstoy, he discovered esoteric Christianity. Ervast has testified that when he followed Jesus' teachings to the best of his ability, he entered an occultist path where totally new worlds opened for him. Within this spirituality, he saw Christ's love clearly as the true law of life, and within this light he strove to solve both individual and social problems. Like Tolstoy, he regarded the fourth commandment of the Sermon on the Mount, "Do not resist one who is evil," as the cornerstone on which the whole new covenant is built. Were it realized on earth, it would change society's entire structure.
Pekka Ervast's life was not long--he died at 5--but his life's work was all the more significant. During the course of his theosophical and Rosicrucian activities, he delivered over 800 public lectures, most of them freely without written notes, and often as if answering unuttered questions of his audience. A large part of Ervast's literary works, comprising over a hundred volumes, include his lecture series.
Ervast could speak clearly and intelligibly to the most profound questions related to philosophy, theosophy, and various religions. His message reached searchers of truth equally in all strata of population, and his works have spread to hundreds of thousands of Finnish homes. Through his life's work, he has been and still is a most important inspirer and instructor to his nation--its spiritual teacher.
It is unfortunate for all of humankind that Ervast lived and worked in such a restricted linguistic area and within such a small, isolated country, for he was well versed in all great religions and in several different cultures. As a universal humanist living in truth and love, in basic meditation, he should have been recognized world-wide, spreading light and blessing.