This is one of the most famous books written by Huberto Rohden (1893-1981), a Brazilian philosopher, educator, theologian, polymath and polyglot, first published in 1972.
Tens of thousands of copies have been sold, and the work continues to arouse great interest in Portuguese-speaking readers. This edition is the first attempt to present and invite English readers to know to some degree more about this enlightened human figure who revolutionized the sciences of the twentieth century.
One of the positive factors of this interest is the fact that Rohden experienced a certain conviviality with Einstein during 1945 and 1946 at Princeton University, USA. And so, in the book, Rohden tackles one of the most intriguing aspects of the scientist's personality: cosmic intuition and the processes used to reveal his revolutionary laws of the Universe.
The book presents a philosophical-mystical approach to Einstein's life and creative processes, and not exactly a scientific one. In fact, countless pages have been written about his personality and studies - of this brilliant visionary, mystic-scientist, humanist, universal, mathematician, physicist, public figure, politician, pacifist, anti-militarist, philosopher, profoundly religious and talented musician - and almost all of his profile to this day, as more letters, memories and testimonies of those who lived with him were recently made public.
Here, the scientist and the philosopher harmonize. The result of this collective effort and interaction is a humanistic vision of the world, for Rohden had a deep philosophical identification with Einstein, and he knew very well how to comprehend the scientist's intuition.
The particularity of this book is that Rohden was concerned to present a profile of the creativity of the great genius. That is, showing the parallel between Einstein's worldview and Universal Philosophy, whose philosophical foundations were elaborated when Rohden was studying at Princeton.
The talented man is nothing more than the result of the manifestation of his ego. The man of genius is the man invaded by the soul of the Universe. And so was Einstein... the Cosmo-thought, and not just one more of the many human figures who have wandered on Earth, but a brilliant genius, mystic, infinite, eternal!
The reader will discover in this book the strange affinity between Mathematics, Metaphysics, Mysticism, Medicine, Music. It will know how the Infinite and eternal Unity permeates the ephemeral finitude revealed in man.
It is an almost universal illusion of millions of readers that Einstein's greatness consists in the Theory of Relativity alone or his claims about the properties of light; just as it is a myth to think that Einstein was a mediocre student during his time as a student at Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich. In fact, the recent files made public of his school grades show excellent results, including in Latin and Greek, since from an early age, when he was offered a compass, he was intrigued by wanting to know why the arrows always pointed to the same direction, whichever way he moved the compass.
Einstein's true genius has nothing to do with this; his genius lies in the fact that he has overcome the barriers of intellectual analysis and entered the zone of rational intuition. In physics, there may be analytical talents. Still, there are intuitive geniuses in mathematics, so readers are invited to delve into the immense difference between the analytical talent of the mental ego and the intuitive genius of the rational Self. 1
In this same area is the greatness of all geniuses, among many others, Mahatma Gandhi, Mozart, Albert Schweitzer, and even Viktor Frankl, who explicitly says in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” that he, despite being a specialist in neurology and psychotherapy, he did not practice Logotherapy (which is healing through the sum of mental, emotional and spiritual emanations in human beings) because of his analytical talent, but that all his power lies in the affirmation of the power of the non-defeated spirit. It is in this affirmation of the omnipotence of the spirit (Logos) that Frankl's greatness and genius reside.
Einstein was a lover of good music and, when he heard or played Mozart, he once said that: “Mozart’s music is so pure and beautiful, that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the Universe itself”, making this reflection, an exact profile from where his thoughts came.
Anyone who has read and comprehended Einstein's books “Mein Weltbild” and “Aus Meinen Spaeten Jahren”, on which Rohden based his book and his conviviality with the scientist, knows that no interpretation of the Theory of Relativity or the speed of light reaches the magnitude of Einstein. They are storms in a teacup.
In fact, Einstein never intended to claim that the Theory of Relativity was analytically verifiable, but he always claimed that it was intuitively correct. Intuitive certainty is prior to any analytic proof, nor can it be proved. The mistake of certain scientists is in attributing to Einstein an analytical truth for relativity instead of an intuitive certainty. It happens that these scientists graduated from most Universities whose basis is analysis, so it is not surprising that they radically ignore what Einstein means by an intuitive certainty, independently of any scientific analysis.
In the famous phrase “I think 99 times and I don’t discover the truth; I stop thinking and diving into great silence – and behold, the truth is revealed to me”, Einstein does not make certainty depend on being a thinking ego 99 times, but on the only time to be Cosmo-thought. But that statement must be a square circle for many!
Anyone who has never left the horizontal of intellectual analysis cannot imagine what the vertical of rational intuition is.
Towards the end of his life, a year before his death, Einstein explicitly stated: “There is no logical path to the discovery of elementary laws - the only path is that of intuition.”
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1)– In the sphere of intuitive genius, one can consider the famous Hindu mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan, who, although having little formal training in pure mathematics, made immense contributions to this science and crediting his abilities and intuition to his goddess Namagiri Thayar stating that: “An equation to me is meaningless unless it expresses the thought of God.”
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