Two D I A L O G U E S between a Scholar or Disciple and his Master.
D I A L O G U E I.
Disciple.
HE Disciple said to his Master: Sir, How may I come to the Supersensual Life, so that I may see God, and may hear God speak?
Master.
The Master answered and said: Son, when thou canst throw thyself into THAT, where no Creature dwelleth, though it be but for a Moment, then thou hearest what God speaketh.
Disciple.
Is that where no Creature dwelleth near at hand; or is it afar off?
Master.
It is in thee. And if thou canst, my Son, for a while but cease from all thy thinking and willing, then thou shalt hear the unspeakable Words of God.
Disciple.
How can hear him speak, when I stand still from thinking and willing?
Master.
When thou standest still from the thinking of Self, and the willing of Self; “When both thy Intellect and Will are quiet and passive to the Impressions of the Eternal Word and Spirit; when thy Soul is winged up, and above that which is temporal, the outward Senses, and the Imagination being locked up by Holy Abstraction,” then the Eternal Hearing, Seeing, and Speaking will be revealed in thee; and so God heareth “and seeth through thee,” being now the Organ of his Spirit; and so God speaketh in thee, and whispereth to thy Spirit, and thy Spirit heareth his Voice. Blessed art thou therefore if that thou canst stand still from Self-thinking and Self-willing, and canst stop the Wheel of thy Imagination and Senses; forasmuch as hereby thou mayest arrive at length to see the great Salvation of God, being made capable of all Manner of Divine Sensations and Heavenly Communications. Since it is nought indeed but thine own Hearing and Willing that do hinder thee, so that thou dost not see and hear God.
Disciple.
But wherewith shall I hear and see God, for as much as he is above Nature and Creature?
Master.
Son, when thou art quiet and silent, then art thou as God was before Nature and Creature; thou art that which God then was; thou art that whereof he made thy Nature and Creature: Then thou hearest and seest even with that wherewith God himself saw and heard in thee, before ever thine own Willing or thine own Seeing began.
Disciple.
What now hinders or keeps me back, so that I cannot come to that, wherewith God is to be seen and heard?
Master.
Nothing truly but thine own Willing, Hearing, and Seeing do keep thee back from it, and do hinder thee from coming to this Supersensual State. And it is because thou strivest so against that, out of which thou thyself art descended and derived, that thou thus breakest thyself off, with thine own Willing, from God’s Willing, and with thine own Seeing from God’s Seeing. In as much as in thine own Seeing thou dost see in thine own Willing only, and with thine own Understanding thou dost understand but in and according to this thine own Willing, as the same stands divided from the Divine Will. This thy Willing moreover stops thy Hearing, and maketh thee deaf towards God, through thy own thinking upon terrestrial Things, and thy attending to that which is without thee; and so it brings thee into a Ground, where thou art laid hold on and captivated in Nature. And having brought thee hither, it overshadows thee with that which thou willest; it binds thee with thine own Chains, and it keeps thee in thine own dark Prison which thou makest for thyself; so that thou canst not go out thence, or come to that State which is Supernatural and Supersensual.
Jakob Böhme (March 8, 1575 – November 17, 1624) was a German Christian mystic and theologian. He was considered an original thinker by many of his contemporaries within the Lutheran tradition, and his first book, commonly known as Aurora, caused a great scandal. Wikipedia
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