Chapter 2 (part 6)

2.) "If there is to be a light, there must be a fire. The fire produces the light, and the light renders the fire manifest; it receives the nature of the fire within itself and resides in the fire." ( Mysterium , xl. 2.) "Joy enters the state of desire for the purpose of producing a fiery love, a realm of happiness, which could not exist in the tranquillity." ( Signature , vi. 2.) "The majesty of God could not become revealed in power, joy, and magnificence, if it were not for the attraction caused by desire. Likewise there could be no light, if desire were not entering and overshadowing, and thereby creating a state of darkness, which grows until the ignition of the fire takes place." ( Grace , ii. 14.) Relative good cannot exist without relative evil, and evil cannot exist without good. The fire can no more exist without the light than the light without the fire. No multiplicity is possible without the unity. Each requires and therefore desires the other. "Light and darkness are opposed to each other, but there is between them a link, so that neither of them could exist without the other." ( Threefold Life , ii. 86.) "In God there are two states, eternally and without end—namely, the eternal light and eternal darkness. The light is God, and in the darkness there would be no pain if it were not for the presence of the light. The light causes the darkness to long for the light and to suffer anguish therefor." ( Three Principles , ix. 30.) "The will having issued from the state of unity (by assuming a position, as it were, against the unity in desiring its own self), enters as a state of desire, and this desire is magnetic—that is to say, indrawing; but the unity as such is outflowing; it seeks to issue outwardly, p. 69 so as to become revealed. The will having issued from the state of unity, desires to enter within itself, so as to attain sensation in the unity, and that thereby the unity may attain sensation in the will." ( Theosophical Questions , iii. 9.) "The light-life has its own motion and impulse, and likewise the fire-life; but the latter generates the former and the former is the lord of the latter. If there were no fire, there would be no light and no spirit; and if there were no spirit to breathe upon the fire, the latter would be extinguished and darkness would rule. Each of the two would be nothing without the other; both are mutually dependent upon each other." ( Forty Questions , i. 62.) There is, however, no equality between this duality, for the unity is superior to the multiplicity, freedom to nature, light to fire; the higher always rules the lower. "The will as such is an insensible life, but it finds the desire, and in willing to desire it constitutes itself in a being. The will is superior to the desire, for although the desire is an exciting cause for the will, the will is a life without a cause and it is also intelligence. It is therefore, lord over desire. It rules the life of the desire and uses it as it pleases. This eternal will-spirit we know to be God, but the active life of the desire is eternal nature." ( Inner Mystery , i. 1; iii. 2.) "God is from eternity Power and Light, and is therefore called God according to that, but not according to the fire-spirit. In regard to the latter, we speak of it not as God, but as 'the wrath of God ' and the consuming part of His power.