“The painter, however great his natural powers, can hardly dispense with some technical training; the musician is wise if he acquaints himself at least with the elements of counterpoint. So too the mystic. It is true that he sometimes seems to spring abruptly to the heights, to be caught into ecstasy without previous preparation: as a poet may startle the world by a sudden masterpiece. But unless they be backed by discipline, the sudden and isolated flashes of inspiration will not long avail for the production of great works. ‘Ordina quest’ amore, o tu che m’ami’¹ is the imperative demand made by Goodness, truth, and Beauty, by every aspect of reality, upon the human soul. Lover and philosopher, saint, artist, and scientist, must alike obey or fail.

“Transcendental genius, then, obeys the laws which govern all other forms of genius, in being susceptible of culture; and, indeed, cannot develop its full powers without an educative process of some kind. This strange art of contemplation, which the mystic tends to practice during the whole of his career—which develops step by step with his vision and his love—demands of the self which undertakes it the same hard dull work, the same slow training of the will, which lies behind all supreme achievement, and is the price of all true liberty.” ~Evelyn Underhill

Technical Training

What Ms. Underhill means by technical training is not training in the use of technology such as computers or cell phones. What she means is training that is specific to the discipline you want to learn, such as the artist studying perspective, or the musician studying music theory. Many people today who are calling themselves “spiritual,’ or “awakened,” think that little training is necessary. You simply have to become aware that there is something more than the physical. While that is the first step in the spiritual journey, it is hardly all of it. There is much to learn and it is best learned through a reputable school or teacher. This was the convention at the time Ms. Underhill was writing.

Note: The quote uses “him” or “his” when referring to a mystic. It doesn’t mean a mystic or spiritual student can’t be a woman.

Caught into Ecstasy

As Underhill notes, there may be a rare case of a person who is suddenly caught in spiritual ecstasy with no preparation or training. Those cases, though, are quite rare, so waiting for that to happen is a foolish plan. Also, those who do have this sudden ecstasy generally either lose it or go insane because they don’t know how to deal with it. It is far better to prepare for it.

Backed by Discipline

In the ancient mystery schools, the mystic learned discipline, among other things. In fact, part of the trial period that most new students were put through was so the teacher could evaluate their ability to become disciplined. The reason it is important to be disciplined is that the undisciplined person is far more easily misled by the forces of darkness, and led away from the true path of Enlightenment. A large part of the training in modern armies is training in discipline. This is necessary so the soldier will not fail on the battlefield. The battle of Light and Darkness is a different kind of battle, but still demands discipline and training.

Obeys the Laws

The sensible spiritual aspirant understands that like those learning anything else, she must obey the laws. That means, in this case, primarily the Laws of God, but also the Laws of Nature while we live in the world of matter. It is also generally a good idea to obey the laws of man as well, except when they conflict with the Laws of God.

Develops Step by Step

This is a very important point Underhill makes. The mystic doesn’t develop overnight. The great mystery schools of the past took years to develop a mystic, not because they were inefficient, but because it is required. That need hasn’t magically disappeared in our age, despite having the help of the Spiritual Sun of Righteousness. Spiritual development is not something that happens instantly, or even quickly. It takes years of discipline.

“A slave longs for freedom and doesn’t hope to own a master’s estate. A child claims the father’s legacy, but those who inherit the dead are dead. Heirs to the living are alive and are heirs to life and death. The dead are heirs to nothing. How can the dead inherit? Yet if the dead inherits the living, the living won’t die and the dead will survive.

“Those who sow in winter reap in summer. Let us sow in the world to reap in summer. Winter is the world, summer the other realm. It is wrong to pray in winter. From winter comes summer. If you reap in winter you will not reap. You will pull up young plants. At the wrong season no crop is yours. Even on the days of the Sabbath the field is barren.” ~The Gospel of Philip

The Slave Longs for Freedom

Yes, the slave longs for freedom. We all long for that which we don’t have. The sick long for good health, the blind long to see, etc. There may be a few slaves who wish to be masters with slaves of their own, but most simply want to be free. We must understand, though, that almost everything in the quote above is allegorical. While it may be true in a physical sense, it is the spiritual equivalent that Philip is writing about.

Those Who Inherit the Dead

This is a line that is, I think, obviously allegorical. Obviously, no one inherits the bodies of dead people or animals. This is talking about those who inherit material goods. While having material goods, through inheritance or otherwise, doesn’t make us dead, if it is all we have and all we desire, then we are indeed among the living dead. Our primary desire should be for the spiritual. We should desire a true awakening of the spirit, a full development of the soul, and finally, unity with God. We are among the living if we desire those spiritual things above all else.

But there is hope for even the living dead. The quote says that if the dead inherit the living, they will survive. This means that if the materialist develops their spiritual self, and puts the spirit above the body and mind, they will join the living by becoming eternal. Only those who awaken and develop the soul do that.

Sow in Winter to Reap in Summer

Just as with similar tales about sowing and reaping in the Bible, and other Scripture, this is an allegorical type of sowing and reaping. In this case, winter refers to being trapped in the cold and darkness of the realm of matter. Summer is the Light, Joy, Peace, and freedom of Heaven, or the Spiritual realm. SO Philip is saying that if we want to reap eternal life in Heaven, we must sow the seeds of spiritual development now, while we are in the realm of matter. Many think they should wait until they are physically dead to worry about the development of the soul. That is like thinking you should learn how to swim after the boat you are on sinks. That is too late. We must do it now, while we are still alive in a physical form. Only then can the mind and spirit become fully integrated so that we can become complete beings in the spiritual realm. So don’t try to reap if you haven’t yet sowed, and don’t wait for summer to do the sowing that should have been done in winter.

“The name of the father is the son. It is he who, in the beginning, gave a name to him who came from him, while he remained the same, and he conceived him as a son. He gave him his name, which belonged to him—he, the father, who possesses everything that exists around him. He possesses the name; he has the son. It is possible for the son to be seen. The name, however, is invisible, for it alone is the mystery of the invisible about to come to ears completely filled with it through the father’s agency. Moreover, as for the father, his name is not pronounced but is revealed through a son. Thus, then, the name is great. Who, then, has been able to pronounce a name for him, this great name, except him alone to whom the name belongs and the children of the name, in whom the name of the father is at rest, and who themselves in turn are at rest in his name, since the father has no beginning? It is he alone who conceived it for himself as a name, in the beginning before he had created the eternal beings, that the name of the father should be supreme over them—that is, the true name, which is secure by his authority and by his perfect power. For the name is not drawn from lexicons, nor is his name derived from common name-giving. It is invisible. The father alone gave the son a name, because he alone saw him and because he alone was capable of giving him a name. For he who does not exist has no name. For what name would one give him who did not exist? Nevertheless, he who exists exists also with his name, and he alone knows it, and to him alone the father gave a name. He is the father, his name is the son. … When it pleased the father, then, that his son should be his pronounced name, and when he who has come from the depth disclosed this name, he divulged what was hidden, because he knew that the father was absolute goodness. For this reason, indeed, the father brought this particular one forth, that he might speak concerning the realm and his place of rest from which he had come forth, and that he might glorify the fullness, the greatness of his name and the sweetness of the father.” ~The Gospel of Truth

Name of the Father

I don’t think that when the Gospel of Truth says “the name of the Father is the son,” that it literally means that God’s name is “The Son”. Neither does it mean that God’s name and the name of the son are the same. It means that the name of God is known through His creation, and the son is the first creation of God. It also means that the name of God is revealed through the son, and the son is the eternal spirit known as Christ to most of us. The quote adds that God’s true name is great, and only “pronounced” by God, and the true Children of God.

Children of God

We have been told that we are all Children of God, and that is true to a certain degree. But the vast majority of us are unrealized Children of God because we have never awakened and developed our spiritual faculties. Those few who have developed those faculties are the ones who truly know God.

That He Might Speak

The quote adds that God created the son and gave him a name so that “ he might speak concerning the realm and his place of rest from which he had come forth.” In other words, it is the job of the son to teach the lost souls how to return to God and Heaven. So the son is born in human form to bring the truth to us. This has happened several times, but the message tends to get lost, or at least greatly distorted, after a few centuries. The son teaches the truth of God, so we can say that he reveals the name of God, in a sense. And now that we are in the End Times, we must all start to listen to the message, and follow the teachings, before it is too late.

“The Hermetic Fragments teach that the whole universe is ruled by intelligent and semi-intelligent Forces and Power. Christian theology admits and even enforces belief in such, but makes an arbitrary division and refers to them as ‘Angels” and “Devils’. Science denies the existence of such, and ridicules the very idea. Spirituaalists believe in the Spirits of the Dead, and, outside of these, deny entirely any other kind or class of invisible beings. The Occultists and Kabalists are thus the only rational expounders of the ancient traditions, which have now culminated in dogmatic faith on the one hand, and dogmatic denials on the other. For, both belief and unbelief embrace but one small corner of the infinite horizons of spiritual and physical manifestations, and thus both are right from their respective standpoints, and both are wrong in believing they circumscribe the whole within their own special and narrow barriers.” ~H. P. Blavatsky

A Living Universe

Our universe is teaming with life, yet science has difficulty finding it by looking in too narrow a way for it. Science expects all life to be very similar to life on Earth and that is too narrow a viewpoint. In addition, much that science considers none living things are in fact alive also. What science doesn’t understand is that the life force is one of the strongest forces in the universe and will generate life with whatever material it has available and in whatever environment that material exists.

Forces and Powers

As we develop spiritually, we will learn that there isn’t much difference between forces, powers, and beings. And if beings of many kinds are alive, then forces and powers can be living things also. We should note that when we talk about forces and powers on a spiritual level, forces are things like gravity and centrifugal force, while powers are the governors of the realm of darkness, the realm of matter. So as you can see, there is no firm division between beings and powers, or even beings and forces.

Spirits

Blavatsky says that Christians believe that spirits exist, but insist on categorizing them all as Angels or Devils. Then she says that spiritualists believe only in the spirits of the dead, making it seem as if the spirit only exists after a person dies. Both of those limited concepts of spirits are wrong. There are spiritual beings who have never lived as physical beings. There are also spirits other than Angels or Devils. Blavatsky then adds that only “ Occultists and Kabalists” have the correct idea of spirits by following ancient traditions. That may have been true at one time, but I think there are spiritual people today who are aware that all living beings have a spirit. Not just humans, but dogs, frogs, trees, and all living things have a spirit. And since everything is alive on some level, everything has a spirit. Native Americans knew that long ago. They believe that even mountains, wind, and rivers have spirits, and they are correct. The universe is teaming with life, both physical and spiritual. It is far more alive than our current science believes.

“What, then, is that which he wants such a one to think? “I am like the shadows and phantoms of the night.” When morning comes, this one knows that the fear that had been experienced was nothing. Thus they were ignorant of the father; he is the one whom they did not see. Since there had been fear and confusion and a lack of confidence and double-mindedness and division, there were many illusions that were conceived by them, as well as empty ignorance—as if they were fast asleep and found themselves a prey to troubled dreams. Either they are fleeing somewhere, or they lack strength to escape when pursued. They are involved in inflicting blows, or they themselves receive bruises. They are falling from high places, or they fly through the air with no wings at all. Other times, it is as if certain people were trying to kill them, even though there is no one pursuing them; or they themselves are killing those beside them, and they are stained by their blood. Until the moment when they who are passing through all these things—I mean they who have experienced all these confusions—awaken, they see nothing because the dreams were nothing. It is thus that they who cast ignorance from them like sleep do not consider it to be anything, nor regard its properties to be something real, but they renounce them like a dream in the night and they consider the knowledge of the father to be the dawn. It is thus that each one has acted, as if asleep, during the time of ignorance, and thus a person comes to understand, as if awakening. And happy is the one who comes to himself and awakens. Indeed, blessings on one who has opened the eyes of the blind.” ~The Gospel of Peace

Shadows and Phantoms of the Night

The Gospel of Peace is not talking about actual shadows and phantoms here, but of those that visit us in dreams. Dreams may be warnings about things that may happen in the future or things that are happening at present without our conscious knowledge—for example, a dream meaning showing us an illness we have inside that we are unaware of. Yet we should not fear such dreams as they are only trying to help us, so the writer of the quote is correct in saying that the fear experiences in the dream, he knows was nothing when he is awake. Unfortunately, many are not so sure about dreams, or they may take the dream symbols too literally (a good dream dictionary could help with that). Some just ignore dreams entirely, and that too is foolish. Dreams are sent to help us, not frighten us.

Some shadows and phantoms may be things that are believed by those who have not become spiritually awakened, and are false beliefs. By acting on, and living in accordance with such beliefs, they live a false life and are easily manipulated by those who love to control people. They are as if they remained asleep and living in a dream world.

Dawn of the Father

Those who make the effort to awaken their spiritual faculties experience the Knowledge of the Father, which is Wisdom and Truth. Such people escape the illusions of false beliefs and teachings by false teachers and prophets. Such people are happy and blessed, just as the Gospel of Peace says. Sadly, there are many today who call themselves awake, and even believe it is true, but the majority of them have been fooled by false teachings just as much as those who believe in materialism and capitalism. The real mystery schools of the ancients spent years helping one to awaken. The real spiritual schools of today do likewise. Those who claim they can awaken you with a simple meditation technique taught in an hour are teaching falsehoods.

“Peter, messenger of Jesus the anointed, to Philip, our beloved brother, and our fellow messenger, and the brothers who are with you: greetings. I want you to understand, our brother, that we received orders from our lord, the savior of the whole world, that we should come together to teach and preach concerning the salvation that was promised us by our lord Jesus the anointed. But you were separated from us, and you did not wish us to come together and learn how to orient ourselves that we might tell the good news. So would it be agreeable to you, our brother, to come according to the orders of our god Jesus?

“When Philip received and read this, he went to Peter, rejoicing with gladness. Then Peter gathered the others. They went to the mountain called Olivet, where they used to gather with the blessed anointed one when he was in the body. When the messengers came together and fell on their knees, they prayed in this way, saying, Father, father, father of the light, you who possess the incorruptions, hear us, just as you have taken pleasure in your holy child Jesus the anointed. For he has become for us a luminary in the darkness. Yes, hear us. And they resumed again and prayed, saying, Child of life, child of immortality, you who are in the light, child, deathless anointed, our redeemer, give us strength because they are searching for us to kill us.” ~The Letter of Peter to Philip

Brother and Messenger

The Letter of Peter to Philip was found as part of the Nag Hamadi Library, probably written around 200 AD. It begins with Peter addressing Philip as a “beloved brother and fellow Messenger.” Peter refers to Philip as a brother because he is a fellow apostle of Jesus. He also refers to him as a fellow messenger because Philip, like Peter, is tasked with spreading the teachings of Jesus—the real teachings of Jesus, not the false ones later introduced by Paul. It appears that Philip has gone off on his own to teach and spread The Word, and Paul wants him to rejoin the others.

Learn to Orient Ourselves

Here Peter gently chides Philip for going off to teach on his own rather than staying with the group and continuing to learn how to “Orient” himself. By this, Peter means learning how to practice the spiritual development techniques that Jesus taught them, perhaps including some advanced ones that Peter knows, but Philip doesn’t. Peter then asks Philip if he will return to the group if it is the orders of Jesus rather than Peter. In the Quote, Peter calls Jesus, “our god Jesus”. This is a giveaway that this was not actually written by the Apostle, Peter, as Peter knew that Jesus was the Messiah, the messenger of God, but not God Himself.

Mountain Called Olivet

This is the same mountain called the Mount of Olives, where Jesus prayed on the night the authorities took him to be judged and murdered. It may be that this was simply a convenient place to meet, and practicing spiritual development techniques is often done on a mountaintop, but I think there is another reason for mentioning that they met on Mount Olivet. The olive tree and the olives on it have a lot of spiritual symbology. In many ancient societies, the olive tree was considered a link between the material and the spiritual, the Earth and Heaven. As such, it could also be a symbol of the Spiritual Sun. Therefore, it could mean that Peter and Philip practiced spiritual solar growth techniques together. Green olives can represent abundance, while black ones represent protection and power. Peter may be telling Philip that by coming together, they will have greater power and abundance. Not power in the sense of a king or dictator, but a spiritual power that can overcome the evil of the world.

If the olives are purple, this is a very spiritual color and is associated with the crown energy center. And because purple olives are connected with bright sunlight, they are a reminder to stay connected to the sun.

Father of the Light

So when Peter and Philip met, they prayed together saying, “Father, Father of the Light.” They are not speaking of just any light, but of the Divine Light that comes to us primarily through the Spiritual Sun¹. So overall, these few paragraphs from the beginning of Peter’s letter are a reminder to Philip, and therefore to all who read it, that we can get greater benefits when we practice spiritual techniques as part of a community. Of course, there are times when we must be physically away from our spiritual community, but we must remember to get together occasionally to recharge our batteries, in a manner of speaking.

Sleeping Conscience

Boeme says that one who has not yet passed “the Judgement,” has a “sleeping conscience,” but I think it would be more accurate to say we have a sleeping spirit. The conscience is certainly connected to the spirit, but there are many people who seem to have a conscience of sorts, yet are not spiritually Awakened.

Deferred for Latter Days

Sadly, Boehme is correct here. Many people do believe that they can live their earthly life as they wish, and not be concerned with the spirit and Soul until they are old and dying. The danger in doing that is twofold. First, many die before they reach the age where they think they should be preparing for the afterlife. Second, even if they decide to start changing their ways while still alive, but quite old, they are likely to die before making enough progress for it to make any difference. You don’t want to wait until you are on a sinking ship before learning to swim. And you don’t go find a job first, then go to college to get the degree necessary to hold the job. You have to get the education first then get the job when you are fully qualified. It is much the same with spiritual development.

Devil’s Fort of Prey

What Boehme is saying here is that the longer we let ourselves be controlled by the forces and beings of darkness, the harder it is to break away from that and turn to God and Truth. We have all heard the old saying that the truth will set us free, but that is true only when we are able to accept the truth and act on it. If the barriers of darkness have been built very strongly in our subconscious mind, it is more difficult to turn away from that darkness. So Boehme advises us to do so while we are still young, and the “Devil’s Fort” within us is not so strong. While he has a point, the truth is that the majority of us will not seek a spiritual awakening until we get older and start realizing that we are mortal.

Vineyards of Heaven, Garden of Christ

Boems says that those who awaken become laborers in the vineyards of heaven and sow seeds in the Garden of Christ. He is simply saying in an allegorical way that we become workers in Heaven for God’s Great Plan. This is contrary to the image many people have of Heaven, or the afterlife. We say of the departed, “Rest in Peace,” but while peace is certainly an attribute of Heaven, resting is not. Those who reach Heaven must work hard in this world and the next to get to Heaven. And those in Heaven continue to work to help others reach that level of consciousness. So it might be better to send off those who have physically died by saying “Work in Peace”.

“Human love is changeable, Divine Love, however, is the most steadfast; there are no changes in it.

“If you let Divine Love in your spirit, you will acquire power; the power is the Light that moves.

“If love acts in your soul, it will give you warmth. Warmth is the nicest, it is necessary because, with warmth, everything glows and ripens. Without warmth, humans cannot grow and ripen.

“There is nothing nicer in Man’s life than this, to be a pure child of God, with pure thought, pure wishes, and pure actions. Not to be just for a day, but from the day you were born until the day you leave Earth, be an excellent Child.¹

“know that if you do not love, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. No one’s foot can ever step in there if they do not love.

“If you live with love in the world, you will have one result. If you live without love, you will have another. If you live with hope, you will have one result; if you live without hope, you will have another.

Humans, for their own good, must Love God.” ~Biensa Douno

Human Love

When Douno speaks of human love, he is talking about ordinary human love, or love of material things, including material beings. Such love is changeable, as most of us know. As we age and change, the things we love change. Even the people we love sometimes change, even though we believed at one time that that would never happen.

Divine Love

Humans can also have Divine Love, but this is love of a higher nature. It is love of God, love of the spirit and soul, love of our higher self, love of Heaven as it really is and not as we wish it to be. Many people will say they have such love, but few of them actually do. You can’t love something when you actually don’t know what it is, you only have a vague concept of it as described by others. If you love God as a little old man sitting in the clouds and judging everyone, you do not have Divine Love, because that human-created concept of God is far from reality. If you think Heaven is much like earth, where you will once again be with old friends, relatives, and pets, you have a false concept of Heaven, and you don’t have Divine Love. To have Divine Love, you must awaken your spiritual faculties and develop them until you are aware of what Heaven and God really are. Then you will Love God, Heaven, and all that God created including human Souls. When that happens, you will have Divine Love.

Love Gives Warmth

Love may not literally warm you, but it will make you feel warmer, in a sense. Any form of real love fills us with joy and warmth. That is not the same as lust, which is often confused with love. The warmth of the sun does make everything grow and flourish. The Light of the Spiritual Sun helps us grow and flourish in a spiritual sense. The warmth of that light awakens and develops our spiritual faculties as nothing else can.

Kingdom of God

Douno is correct in saying that without Love, specifically Divine Love, we cannot enter the Kingdom of God. Heaven is a place of Love, Pure Love, Divine Love, and no being, no spirit, is allowed there that does not have that Divine Love. To allow someone in there who doesn’t have Divine Love would be polluting the purity of Heaven, so it doesn’t happen. Those who think that everybody goes to heaven simply because they have physically dead are wrong. If that were true, such beings as Hitler and Genghis Khan would have gone to Heaven after death. Obviously, that could not happen if Heaven is to maintain its purity. Such beings might get there eventually, but certainly not until they have gone through centuries of purification.

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“The soul, sprung from the Divine, lay self-enclosed at peace, true to its own quality; but its neighbor, in uproar through weakness, unstable of its own nature and beaten upon from without, cries, at first to itself and afterward upon the living total, spreading the disorder at large. Thus, at an assembly, the Elders may sit in tranquil meditation, but an unruly populace, crying for food and casting up a host of grievances, will bring the whole gathering into ugly turmoil; when this sort of people hold their peace so that a word from a man of sense may reach them, some passable order is restored and the baser parts cease to prevail; otherwise, the science of the better allows the rabble to rule, the distracted assembly unable to take the Word from above.

“This is the evil of state and of council: and this is the evil of Man; Man includes an inner rabble—pleasures, desires, fears—and these become masters when the person, the manifold, gives them play.

“But one that has reduced his rabble and gone back to the person he was, lives to that and is that person again, o that what is allowed to the body is allowed as to something separate.” ~Plotinus

Sprung from the Divine

Some people believe that what is called the soul is just an aspect of the mind. Others believe that the body came first, then the mind and the soul were developed later. As this simple statement from Plotinus indicates, both of those beliefs are wrong. The Soul comes from the Divine, from God.

Self Enclosed

Plotinus says that the soul is “self-enclosed,” and not communicating with “its neighbor,” which is the physical body and mind. In truth, the soul, being pure spirit, is not enclosed in anything, but it is in a dormant state when we are born into the physical world. It is our job to awaken and develop it so it can communicate with the body and mind, and control the ego. As Plotinus notes, the body and mind are weak and unstable on their own. Not necessarily weak in the sense of weak muscles, but in the sense of being easily conned by the dark forces and beings into doing that which brings the person deeper and deeper into the depths of matter, instead of turning toward the realm of spirit where redemption lies.

Spreading the Disorder

The mind knows nothing of spirit, therefore, it embraces the realm of matter which it does know and understand. This can result in the entire being becoming materialistic and pursuing the doomed path of material delights that lead to death. That is what Plotinus means by “spreading the disorder”. Eternal life in Heaven is not found by following that path. That is why the spirit must be awakened and developed into a conscious Soul, and that soul takes over control of the ego, which is needed in the physical world, but hen lest on its own, leads us astray.

Assembly of Man

Plotinus gives the example that in an assembly, the “Elders,” by which he means the spiritually developed people, should lead the crowd. Then peace and beneficial development can happen. But if the materialistic rabble holds sway, then the assembly becomes a mob that does as much damage to itself as to others. This is why it is important to have spiritually developed leaders, or at least leaders who are guided by spiritual people. When they are not spiritual people, but materialistic ones, we have the mess we have seen in recent years in politics. And it is likely to get worse before it gets better, as the dark ones among us, use various methods to silence and control the spiritual.

Inner Rabble

Humans do have an inner rabble that lives by and is controlled by, fear, emotions, desires, and false beliefs. Plotinus says we must stop this by going back to the person we were. In other words, we need to go back to what we were before we had a physical body and mind, and the spirit reigned supreme. We do that by awakening and developing our spiritual faculties. We do that primarily by turning to the Light of the Spiritual Sun, in peace, love, and humility, so that Light will awaken our True Self.

“If we will speak of our native Country, out of which we have wandered with Adam; and will tell of the resting place of the Souls; we need not cast our minds far off; for far off and near is all one and the same thing with God; the Place of the Holy Trinity is all over. Heaven and Hell is everywhere all over in this world, and Christ wells all over, for he has laid off the corruptibility, and has swallowed up death, as also that which is temporary, and he lives in God; his Body is the substance of the Element, which out of the Word of the Mercifulness, is from eternity generated out of the Gates of the Deep; it is the Habitation where the Sharpness of God breaks open the Darkness, where eternal virtue appears in Wonders, and it is the tincture of the Deity, which is before God, out of which the heavenly Virtues are generated; its name is wonderful; the earthly tongue cannot express it.” ~Jacob Boehme

Our Native Country

Our “Native Country,” as Boehme calls it, is Heaven, or the Spiritual Realm. We were created by God as spiritual beings long before we had physical bodies, long before the physical universe existed. We descended to the material world because of the errors made by early man represented by the allegorical couple, Adam and Eve. When the Bible says that they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, that does not refer to apples. The Tree of Good and Evil is the realm of matter. So as Adam and Eve were pulled down to the material world, so are all humans. But God has provided us with a way to be redeemed and return to Heaven. It is up to us, however, to choose to follow that path.

Not Far Off

Boehme then tells us that we need not cast our minds far off to find Heaven, the resting Place of Souls. This is difficult to understand when you are used to thinking in physical terms. It is true that physically, the Spiritual Realm is not far off. Since spirit exists outside of the limits of space and time, it is everywhere and every when. So as Jesus said, “The Kingdom is all around you, yet you see it not.” But this is misleading because there are multiple dimensions to the entire universe. The physical realm that we reside in is the third dimension. The spiritual dimensions are dimensions five through nine.

Christ Has Swallowed Up Death

This statement is allegorical. Christ, an Eternal Spirit and the first creation of God, is beyond the realm of death as he is in the spiritual realm and no longer has a physical body that can die. Death, disease, pain, etc. do not exist in the realm of spirit. Being pure spirit is what Boehme means when he says Christ’s body is “the substance of the Element.”

The Sharpness of God Breaks open Darkness

This is an odd way to express it, but it means that the Infinite Light of God banishes the Darkness of demons and devils. This is not darkness in the simple physical sense. If it was, a simple light bulb would banish it. This is a different sort of Darkness and only God’s Light can banish it.

The Earthly Tongue Cannot Express It

This is a problem that many great spiritual people have experienced. Those who have manages to get a glimpse, even briefly, of heaven and the Spirits that dwell there, have had great difficulty in describing it. Earthly language is not made to express such Divine things. Even if our languages could express what Heaven is truly like, our brain-minds could not comprehend it. The only way to actually know what Heaven is like is to awaken our spiritual faculties which can understand them. Fortunately, we now have the Sun of Righteousness shining down on us making it easier for us to awaken. We still have to make the effort, though. Then we can learn for ourselves that heaven really is not far off.