block quotes below are excerpts for various texts by the mystical shoemaker of Görlitz and italicised text is my meager commentary.
In that same power groweth up and is generated fruit according to every quality and species or kind, viz. heavenly trees and plants, which without ceasing bear fruit, blossom fairly, and grow in divine power, so joyfully that I can neither speak it nor write it down; But stammer it like a child that is learning to speak, and can by no means rightly call it forth to be known as the spirit giveth it.
the material speech of Christ outpaceth the ability to speak of it
The reason why so few know true Love is because they seek for it within their desires; but true Love resides within itself and is free from desire.
I imagine reading this and at once being offended and thinking “that’s wrong.” then I should ask myself, “what desire is possessing me that I don’t want this to be true?” if the desires indenture our logical rational faculty, which should rule over them, to justify themselves, to do their bidding, what may appear to be an exercise in rationality is in fact an exercise in rationalization, which is a pretense and technically a form of “bullshit” because it earnestly masquerades as something for which it has no real concern. that’s a perversion of the psyche. we should decide what to desire rather than allowing foregone desires to minister our decisions.
Heaven is throughout the whole world and outside of it; everywhere, without any separation, locality or place ; existing only within itself through the power of divine (interior) revelation. It is nothing else but a manifestation of the eternal One.
“The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” it’s not some other place any more than eternity is some other time
The sun is not very different from water, for water has the quality and essence of the sun. Without that the water would not receive the light of the sun. Although the sun is a body having a form, nevertheless the essence of the sun is also in water, but not manifest. In fact, we recognize that the whole world is all sun, and the locality of the sun would be everywhere if God would want to ignite it and cause it to become manifest, for all existence begins in the light of the sun.
nothing is far off. a being acts everywhere that it is, but also is everywhere that it acts. the sun is present in me—else whence cometh the warmth in my arteries? it is present everywhere that life springs in abundance. distances in space are like spaces between words in a text and not like chasms in existence. for the same reason, great men and women never die. the past is not gone, it’s not even past.
The external world is also of God and belonging to God, and man has been created therein, so that he may bring again the external into the internal one; the end into the beginning.
Adam was called to be the lord and priest of Creation; that is, to mediate the relation of Heaven and Earth. but he fell short of his mandate so Christ came to show us what lordship really means. “For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you,” the Master sayeth.
St. Maximus elaborates: “man was called to achieve within himself the mode of…completion, and so bring to light the great mystery of the divine plan, realizing in God the union of the extremes which exist among beings, by harmoniously advancing in an ascending sequence from the proximate to the remote and from the inferior to the superior. This is why man was introduced last among beings — like a kind of natural bond [syndesmos] mediating between the universal extremes through his parts, and unifying through himself things that by nature are separated from each other by a great distance.”1
In Paradise the substance of the divine world penetrated the substance belonging to time, comparable to the power of the sun penetrating a fruit growing on a tree, and endowing it with such qualities as render it lovely to the sight and good to the taste.
in an improbable connection Rudolf Steiner lays out the epistemological trial of the human condition: “For us, the world-whole splits into above and below, before and after, cause and effect, object and idea, matter and force, object and subject and so forth.” most fundamental is the division of percept and concept. to wit, one aspect of the world confronts us through our senses, as percept which in itself unintelligible, whereas it’s complementary and completing aspect is accessible to us only in thought, as a concept, which in itself is not manifest. only when the world of percepts becomes as an open book to us, to be read and elaborated in the light of intelligence, can we repair our primordial eviction from Eden and become ministers of the Word of God, which embodies itself in created Nature. http://theoriapress.substack.com/p/rudolf-stei…
Ambiguum 41, Constas, vol. II, p. 105
Well done! So many lovely connections. Thank you.
Max - thank you for attempting to help us with perhaps the most elusive of mystics...
A simple question: Is my intuition correct that it is of very "real" (material) fruit trees of which Boehme speaks?
That this is not just a "spiritual" metaphor he is engaged in?
"the material speech of Christ outpaceth the ability to speak of it"
In other words - that the apple tree growing in my back yard IS "material speech" - the speech of Christ - and not a mere "Scientific" fact... yes "that" - but so much more?
Or am I missing the point entirely - reading too much into both Boehme and your remarks?
Thanks!