The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 12 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 1 (part 12)
56 Neither is such a state attained without a hard fight against the powers of darkness.
"If any one desires to follow me, let him not be intoxicated by terrestrial thoughts and desires, but girded with the sword of the Spirit, because he will have to descend into a terrible depth, even into the midst of the kingdom of hell.
It indeed requires hard labour to fight with the devil between heaven and hell, as he is a powerful lord.
During such battles I have often made many bitter experiences, which filled my heart with sorrow.
Often the sun has disappeared from my sight, but then he rose again, and the oftener the sunset occurred, the more beautiful, clear, and magnificent was the sunrise." ( Aurora , xiii.
20.) He who desires nothing for himself, to him everything shall be given.
The infinite cannot be made to contract, to be comprehended by the finite mind of man; but let the mind of man expand by the power of the Spirit, and become conscious of its infinity, and it will then conceive of infinite truth.
"Spiritual knowledge cannot be communicated from one intellect to another, but must be sought for in the Spirit of God.
Truly theosophical writings will even to the intellect convey here and there a ray of recognition; but if the reader is found worthy by God to have the divine light kindled within his own soul, then will the inexpressible words of God be heard by him." ( Letters , lv.
8.) "He who reads these writings and cannot understand them, should not throw them aside, imagining that they can never be understood.
He should seek to change his will, and elevate his soul to God, asking Him for grace and understanding, and then read again.
He will then perceive more truth than he did before, until at last the power of God will manifest itself in him, and he will be drawn down into the depths, into the supernatural foundation— p.
57 that is to say, into the eternal unity of God.
Then will he hear actual but inexpressible words of God, which will conduct him through the divine radiation of the celestial light, even within the grossest forms of terrestrial matter, and from thence back again unto God; and the Spirit of God will search all things in and with him." ( Clavis , Preface, 5.) 1 Footnotes 47:1 At that time Boehme, like other persons, mistook his terrestrial personality for his real self, because he had not yet learned to know the God within his own heart, and therefore he felt the insignificance of the former, if compared with the grandeur of the universal power of p.
48 God manifested in nature, until at last he awoke to a realisation of the fact that the universal God and the God within his heart were one, and that his own personality was merely one of millions of similar instruments or organisms through which God is manifesting His power.
48:1 The "devil" and the "powers of darkness" are the perverted fiery will, with his evil productions, originating from Lucifer, the " Dhyan-Chohan " of evil; the greatest angel before he fell.
49:1 "Rejoice and be glad, and praise the Lord above all; for His name arises in glory above all the mountains and hills.
It grows up like a sprout and performs great miracles.
Who will hinder it?" ( Apologia .) 57:1 This may perhaps be also expressed in the following words:—It is not the mortal intellect, but the divinity in man, which is in possession of divine knowledge....
John of the Cross's stage of contemplative purgation: a felt absence and aridity of God that strips the soul of attachments to its own consolations en route to deeper union.
The author describes experiences where the sun disappeared from his sight and his heart was filled with sorrow before rising again.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
The text advises that he who desires nothing for himself shall be given everything, indicating radical letting-go.
Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.
The passage emphasizes that spiritual knowledge cannot be communicated intellectually but must be sought in the Spirit of God and kindled within the soul.
Eckhart's radical reading of Matthew 5:3 — the saint as one who wants nothing, knows nothing, and has nothing, having emptied even the will and the self with which to receive God; distinct from renunciation_of_wealth (material poverty).
The passage quotes the principle that he who desires nothing for himself shall be given everything, aligning with radical detachment.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The text claims that the divinity in man is in possession of divine knowledge and God's power manifests in him.