The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 135 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 13 (part 3)
To accomplish this he must rise by the aid of the divine Spirit within himself above the inferior elements within his own nature, and thus surrender his whole self-will to God, an act which is expressed in the original meaning of the word "prayer." 1 p.
267 "Spiritual regeneration does not depend on learning and scientific knowledge; but there must be an intense and powerful earnest, a great hunger and thirst for the Spirit of Christ.
Mere science is not faith; the latter is the intense hunger and thirst for that which I desire, so that it becomes formed into an image within me, and by grasping it in my imagination it becomes my own property.
This hunger and desire moulds the substance of Christ, it being the celestial substantiality, into the weakened image, wherein the word of the power of God is the active life.
"If, then, the soul partakes of this celestial nutriment, she becomes kindled by the great love that dwells in the name Jesus.
Then her anguish becomes converted into great joy and a real sun arises within her, while she becomes regenerated into another will.
Then takes place the marriage of the Lamb, of which the mouth-Christians talk so much without understanding the meaning." ( Regeneration , iv.) "In the name of Jesus, God has opened a door for us to His ear, whereby we may hear God actually speak within us as in His mercy He speaks to us through this opened portal of thought.
Again, the soul speaks through this door to God within herself, and during this inspeaking she is nourished, restored, illumined, and renewed by the outspeaking of God." ( Prayer , xxxi.) "If the soul is to receive actual advantage and fruition from prayer, then must her will turn away from all creatures and terrestrial things and stand pure before God.
Let not the flesh with its desires co-operate (in prayer) so that earthly desires may not be introduced into the divine effect in the soul." ( Prayer , xxxiv.) p.
268 "Every prayer which does not find and take (what it asks) is cold and insipid, and is obstructed by temporal terrestrial things; that is to say, the soul does then not approach God in purity.
She does not want to sacrifice herself entirely to God, but clings to terrestrial loves which hold her imprisoned so that she cannot attain the kingdom of God." ( Prayer , xviii.) No man can truly pray in spirit and in truth by his own power, because only that which is divine can enter into relation with the Divine.
True prayer is not a mere wishing or desiring, but an action within the power of the omnipotent God.
Prayer is the union with God effected by the sacrifice of the personal will.
It is, therefore, the only " Yoga practice" worthy of serious attention.
1 "The will necessary to accomplish prayer is far too weak as long as it is in our own powers that we pray, but if acted upon by divine power it becomes awakened, fiery, and full of desire.
Within this desire God Himself is acting.
Thus does man speak with God in truth, and God speaks in truth with the soul of man." ( Prayer , xxix.) "He who truly prays co-operates with God internally, while externally he produces good fruit." ( Prayer , xxiv.) "Mere word-prayer without exaltation of thought and divine desire is only an external thing, a mere repeating of words.
Nothing pleases God except that which He does Himself." ( Prayer , i.
2.) Christ says (Matt.
vii.
21): "Not all who say, Lord!
Lord!
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
The text uses language of moulding substance and regeneration into a new will.
Eckhart's signature doctrine that the Father eternally begets the Son in the ground of the soul; the human interior as the actual site of the divine generative act, distinct from inner_light's static indwelling.
The word of the power of God is described as active life within the soul's image.
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.
[auto] The passage emphasizes surrendering the whole self-will to God and turning away from all creatures.
Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.
True prayer requires the sacrifice of the personal will and surrender of self to God.
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
Prayer is described as an internal action of inspeaking and outspeaking between soul and God.
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 soul must sacrifice itself entirely to God and turn away from all creatures.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The soul is imprisoned by terrestrial loves and self-will which prevent the action of the Holy Spirit.
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 soul is regenerated into another will and partakes of celestial nutriment to become kindled by divine love.