The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 145 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 13 (part 13)
Nevertheless he has nothing (objectively), because that which is before Him is nothing in His comprehension, for it does not comprehend Him.
Likewise will this be the state of a person according to his submitted will if he entirely surrenders himself to God.
Then will his will drop back into the unfathomable will of God, wherefrom it came in the beginning, and it will then be in the form of the unfathomable will, wherein God resides and wills." ( Mysterium , lxvi.) "The will, surrendered to God, says, 'Lord, if Thou wishest me to be imprisoned or in misery, I shall willingly be so.
If Thou takest me to hell I will go with Thee, for Thou art in heaven.
If I have only Thee, what should I care for either heaven or hell?
Even if my body and soul were to perish, I shall remain in Thee and Thou in me.
In possessing Thee, I have all that I want.
Use me as Thou wilt." ( Mysterium , lxvi.) By conquering the terrestrial desire and entering into submission to Christ, we shall attain the internal power over external nature, first over our own and afterwards over "outside" nature, the latter being, after all, also within God, our own divine self.
"If you rule merely externally (by external means) over all creatures, you are then with your will in an animal quality, and your rule is of an external kind, dealing only with forms.
Your desire will then be carried into the animal essence, which will infect and capture you, and you will receive animal qualities.
But if you leave that which merely relates to forms, you will become superior to it, and able to rule over all creatures within p.
288 the foundation wherefrom they have been created." ( Supersensual Life , viii.) "If you allow nothing to enter your desire, you will then be free from all things and possess power over all.
You have then nothing within your receptivity, and are as nothing to all things, and all things will be nothing to you, in the same sense as God rules over all things and sees them all; but there is nothing that comprehends Him." ( Supersensual Life , ix.) "By your own power you cannot attain such a tranquillity that no creature can touch you.
You must give yourself completely into the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, and surrender to Him all your own willing and desiring, so that you desire nothing without Him.
Then will you be in this world and in its qualities, as far as your body is concerned.
With your will you will be at the foot of the Cross of Christ, and with your will you will walk in heaven, at the goal from whence all creatures come, and to which they all return." ( Supersensual Life , ix.) The celestial body is formed by means of the terrestrial body.
There is no regeneration after the body has died.
"The soul proper is nothing corporeal.; but the body in the tincture grows either celestial or infernal.
It is not a tangible body in an external aspect, but a power-body; the body of God; the celestial body of Christ." ( Forty Questions , vii.
18.) "After this life there is no regeneration, for the four elements with their principles have departed." ( Threefold Life , i.
1.) Footnotes 266:1 In the German language the word Gebet (prayer) originates from geben (to give), and means, therefore, a gift or sacrifice to God.
It does p.
267 not imply the offering of selfish petitions or the asking for personal favours.
However, if we give ourselves fully to God, and are accepted by Him, we then become, as it were, a part of God, and consequently a partaker of His divine powers.
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 alchemical terminology like 'tincture' to describe the growth of the body into a celestial or infernal state.
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 core instruction is to surrender the will entirely and allow nothing to enter one's desire, mirroring Eckhartian letting-go.
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.
The will drops back into God's will and the self becomes 'nothing to all things' in surrender.
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 text states that outside nature is within God and our own divine self, implying the human contains the cosmos.
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] The text repeatedly emphasizes having nothing objectively and possessing only God as the state of true fulfillment.
The Buddhist doctrine that all phenomena lack independent self-nature; emptiness as the positive recognition that things arise only in dependence on conditions — distinct from kenoma's mere deficiency.
The state of being 'nothing to all things' resonates with the concept of emptiness.
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.
[auto] The footnote states that by giving oneself fully to God, one becomes a part of God and a partaker of His divine powers.
Effortless action aligned with the spontaneous flow of the Dao; non-coercive, non-striving conduct that yields results without forcing — the sage acts without acting.
The surrender of will aligns with the concept of non-striving or effortless action.