The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 144 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 13 (part 12)
In the place which formerly was the seat of self-will there is now nothing, and wherever there is nothing there the love of God is solely active." ( Supernatural Life , xxviii.) "A true Christian knows himself to be a servant of God, whose duty it is to attend to the works of God properly.
He is not his own property, and the terrestrial body which he inhabits is not his true home.
He may seek and plant, cultivate, strive and act as he pleases, but he is always aware that he is doing it for God, and that he will have to render account for it.
He should always remember that among these works he is a stranger, a guest, and a servant." ( Signature , xv.
44.) "He who hopes to perform something perfect and good, wherein he may rejoice eternally and enjoy it, let him come out of his egoism and self-will and enter into submission within the will of God.
Even if the terrestrial desire for selfhood clings to him in his flesh and blood, if only the soul-will is not infected by that desire for self, then will that self not be able to produce anything; for the (inner) will of the soul, resting in submission to God, continually destroys the essence of the self-assertion, and thus the wrath of God cannot reach her.
If the wrath should reach that essence, then the submitted will rises up in its power therein, and stands there in shape before God as a production of victory that will inherit the in fancy." 1 ( Calmness , xi.
1.) p.
286 It is self-evident that no terrestrial possessions of any kind will benefit the spirit, but the acquisition of such possessions will not be an obstacle for us, provided that we possess them, and do not permit ourselves to be possessed by them.
"Dear soul, if you desire the light of God, and also the light of this world, if you desire to feed your body (and mind), and (at the same time) to seek for the mysteries of God, do as God Himself does.
One of the eyes of your soul looks into eternity, the other one into nature.
The latter goes on continually seeking in desiring and creating one mirror after another.
Let that be so.
It must be so, for God wills it.
But the eye for eternity must not be turned (away from God) into desire; but by means of that eye you should seek to turn the other one towards you, and not let it turn away from you; i.e.
, not let it turn away from the eye that looks into freedom.
Put one will into that which you are doing, thinking that you are a servant in the vineyard of God; i.e.
, into the Eternal.
Sink your will every hour into humility before God; then will your image walk in humility with your will in the majesty of God, and be illumined perpetually by the triumphant light of God." ( Forty Questions , xii.
28.) All terrestrial fortunes or misfortunes with which we may possibly meet do not concern our real divine self, but merely the personality with which we are connected during our earthly life.
This personality is given us for the purpose of gaining experience, be it good or evil, and therefore we should always be satisfied and remain contented in God.
"Ultimately all things must be one and the same to man.
He is to become one with fortune and misfortune, with poverty and riches, joy and sorrow, light and darkness, p.
287 life and death.
Man is then to himself nothing, for he is dead relatively to all things in his will.
God is in all and through all, and nevertheless He is nothing in regard to all, and nothing can comprehend Him.
Everything becomes manifest through Him, and He Himself is everything.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The text describes two eyes of the soul looking into eternity and nature respectively, hinting at a structural relationship between the divine and natural realms.
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 text emphasizes not permitting oneself to be possessed by possessions and being dead in will.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
It is stated that God wills the seeking in nature and orders the works of God properly.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
Wrath cannot reach the soul if self-will is destroyed, implying evil stems from the lack of divine submission.
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.
[auto] The text explicitly states man is to himself nothing and dead relatively to all things in his will.
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
The text advises seeking mysteries and sinking the will into humility every hour.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The passage suggests the human being reflects the divine state by becoming one with all things and containing God within.
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).
[auto] Man is to himself nothing and dead relatively to all things in his will.
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 terrestrial body is described as not the true home, and the Christian is a stranger and guest.
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 illumined perpetually by the triumphant light of God and inherits the divine fancy.