“’How,’ says the Desciple to the Master in one of Boehme’s ‘Dialogues,’ ‘am I to seek in the center this Fountain of Light which may enlighten me throughout and bring my properties into perfect harmony? I am in Nature, as I said before, and which way shall I pass through Nature and the light thereof, so that I may come to into the supernatural and supersensual ground whence this True Light, which is the Light of Minds, doth arise; and this without the destruction of my nature, or quenching the Light of it, which is my reason?’

‘Master: Cease but from thine own activity, steadfastly fixing thine eye upon one point … For this end, gather in all thy thoughts, and by faith, press into the center laying hold upon the Word of God, which is infallible and which hath called thee. Be obedient to this call, and be silent before the Lord, sitting alone with him in thy inmost and most hidden cell, and attend His Will in the patience of hope.

So shall the Light break forth as the morning, and after the redness thereof has passed, the Sun Himself, which thou waitest for, shall arise unto thee, and under his most healing wings thou shalt greatly rejoice: ascending and descending in his bright and health-giving beams. Behold, this is the true Supersensual Ground of Life.’”

-Evelyn Underhill with an inner quote from Jacob Boehme.

Seek the Fountain of Light

The Desciple in this dialogue by Boehme knows that he should seek the fountain of light, he just doesn’t know how to do so. Still, he is ahead of many who call themselves spiritual, yet have actually done nothing to develop their spiritual faculties. This disciple at least knows of the Fountain of Light and knows that this Light brings Enlightenment, hence the name.

Bring Into Harmony

There are different things involved in being in harmony, but the primary one for most spiritual students is developing their spiritual centers in such a way that they are in harmony and work together without any one of them dominating. There are some spiritual schools that have you developing, or energizing, only the top three or four energy centers. That is fine for the more materialistic person who is overly developed in the lower centers, but a lot of those who seek out spiritual development are actually weak in those lower centers. We need to develop all of them and bring them into balance and harmony. Another way spiritual development brings us into harmony is that it makes us more loving and understanding, more peaceful and humble. This allows us to live in harmony with all people regardless of their age, sex, religion, race, or political leaning.

Without Destruction of My Nature

What the disciple is calling his nature, is what we would refer to as his individuality. Some schools teach that when we become One with The All, we lose all individuality like a drop of water that falls into an ocean. But when we become one with The All, we retain our individuality, much like a brick that becomes part of a wall. The wall is one whole, yet the bricks are still individual things.

Light of Mind

Boehme refers to the Spiritual Light as the Light of Mind. This may be the result of a poor translation or simply because Boehme had to be careful what he wrote so he wouldn’t be accused of heresy. Since Boeme received his enlightenment when sunlight was reflected onto his eyes from a metal bowl he was holding, I think he knows that this is a matter of the Spirit, not the mind.

Fix Thine Eye

The Master tells the student that he must fix his eye on one point, but he doesn’t say what that point is. In part, I think he is saying that one must concentrate on spiritual development when engaging in spiritual development techniques, but he also means to fix his eye on the sun as taught by spiritual masters so that you do not harm your eyes (NEVER stare at the sun).

“Faith is indeed as the ‘grain of mustard seed, to which, as to growth, it is compared in the New Testament. But it can grow for evil as well as good, and, if for evil, may become a tree in which every foul bird of evil omen will come and build its nest. Your evil or gloomy imagining is faith in that evil. Your fear of a disease is in the perpetuity and increase of such disease. You have a slight derangement of stomach or kidney or other organ. So, having it for one day or a few days, you begin to expect it. You think of it only as an unhealthy organ. You never in your mind see it as a sound organ. You may be then told it is in dangerous condition. You have a name possibly given to the ailment which suggests great suffering, debility, and ultimately death. All this is aiding your faith in evil. The force of other minds added to your own increases that evil. Everything tends to make you see yourself as sick, weak, and enfeebled. You have not in your own mind an imagining of the part affected as sound and healthy. None are sending you thoughts or imaginings as vigorous and healthy. The spiritual force sent to you is all for evil. You get more disease, more weakness by the same law, or force, which can, otherwise directed, bring you heath.”

-Prentice Mulford

Grain of Mustard

When Jesus said that with faith no bigger than a mustard seed, which is a very small seed, we can move mountains, that is very true, but it is just as true that if we have faith we won’t be able to do something, then we won’t be able to do it until we manage to lose that false faith. Mulford calls that kind of faith, faith in evil. Still, I would prefer to call it faith in falsehood, because I think of evil as intentional, while in most cases, as in Mulford’s example regarding health, we are not doing it intentionally.

A Tree for Every Foul Bird

What Mr. Mulford is saying here in an allegorical form is that once you have let some false faith, more is likely to follow. Evil attracts more evil.

Fear of Disease

The rest of the quote from Mulford centers on the idea of developing faith in disease. Sadly, just about all of us do this to some degree. You don’t have to be a hypochondriac to develop a faith in disease or unhealthy conditions of the body. A hypochondriac can hear someone talking about an illness on the news and they immediately think they have it and actually start developing symptoms. However, anyone can have an illness such as the stomach flu and convince themselves that it is something serious that will never go away. Or a man can have sexual problems on one day and think he has become impotent and needs to use drugs all the time if he wants to have sex. We could go through a hundred variations, but the point with all of them is that we make the situation worse by believing the illness will continue to get worse. If we learn to start thinking and telling our subconscious mind that the illness is temporary, it will get better, it is getting better every day, etc. We will usually see improvement. Unfortunately, when a belief has become firmly embedded in the subconscious, it is hard to overcome, but it can be done.

Besides Disease

Our physical health is not the only area in life where many of us tend to sabotage ourselves with false beliefs. We do it in business also. We believe that we won’t get a promotion and so fill the situation with falsehoods that hold us back. We think that we aren’t smart enough to become a doctor or a lawyer, possibly because others have told us so, therefore we never try.

Spiritual False Beliefs

The most deadly kind of evil, or falsehood, is false spiritual beliefs. Demons of darkness love to whisper ideas into our heads that fill us with false spiritual beliefs, and we often fall for it. Churches that have, for the most part, lost the way, teach many falsehoods, and millions of people believe them. Scientists will sometimes claim that there is no God, when they have no proof of that belief, and therefore, should know better. In any case, false spiritual beliefs often prevent us from developing our spiritual faculties, even when we want to. That is why an old Chinese saying says you must empty the tea cup before you can fill it with fresh tea. It means you must clear out the false beliefs before the truth can start seeping in. It isn’t easy to do, but it can be done. You don’t have to convince your subconscious that all those beliefs you have accumulated are false, you have to convince it that they may not be true.