Chapter 10. Jacob Behmen

Sitting one day in his room his eyes fell upon a burnished pewter dish, which reflected the sunshine with such marvellous splendor that he fell into an inward ecstasy, and it seemed to him as if he could now look into the principles and deepest foundation of things. He believed that it was only a fancy, and in order to banish it from his mind he went out upon the green. But here he remarked that he gazed into the very heart of things, the very herbs and grass, and that actual nature harmonized with what he had inwardly seen. He said nothing of this to any one, but praised and thanked God in silence. He continued

in the honest practice of his craft, was attentive to his domestic affairs, and was on terms of good-will with all men [123].

About the year 1600, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, he was again surrounded by the divine light and replenished with the heavenly knowledge; insomuch as going abroad in the fields to a green before Neys Gate, at Görlitz, he there sat down and, viewing the herbs and grass of the field in his inward light, he saw into their essences, use and properties, which were discovered to him by their lineaments, figures and signatures. In like manner he beheld the whole creation, and from that foundation of revelation he afterwards wrote his book, "De Signatura Rerum." In the unfolding of those mysteries before his understanding he had a great measure of joy, yet returned home and took care of his family and lived in great peace and silence, scarce intimating to any these wonderful things that had befallen him till in the year 1610, being again taken into this light, lest the mysteries revealed to him should pass through him as a stream, and rather for a memorial than intending any publication, he wrote his first book, called "Aurora, or the Morning Redness" [40: 13–14].

Ten years later [1610] he had another remarkable inward experience. What he had previously seen only chaotically, fragmentarily, and in isolated glimpses, he now beheld as a coherent whole and in more definite outlines [123].

Ten years afterwards, anno 1610, his third illumination took place, and that which in former visions had appeared to him chaotic and multifarious was now recognized by him as a unity, like a harp of many strings, of which each string is a separate instrument, while the whole is only one harp. He now recognized the divine order of nature, and how from the trunk of the tree of life spring different branches, bearing manifold leaves and flowers and fruits, and he became

impressed with the necessity of writing down what he saw and preserving the record [97:3].

The gate was opened to me that in one quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years together at a university, at which I exceedingly admired and thereupon turned my praise to God for it. For I saw and knew the being of all beings, the byss and abyss and the eternal generation of the Holy Trinity, the descent and original of the world and of all creatures through the divine wisdom: I knew and saw in myself all the three worlds, namely, (1) the divine [angelical and paradisical] (2) and the dark [the original of the nature to the fire] and (3) then the external and visible world [being a procreation or external birth from both the internal and spiritual worlds]. And I saw and knew the whole working essence, in the evil and the good and the original and the existence of each of them; and likewise how the fruitful-bearing-womb of eternity brought forth. So that I did not only greatly wonder at it but did also exceedingly rejoice [40: 15].

Jacob Behmen was in possession of remarkable occult powers. He is known to have spoken several languages, although no one ever knew where he had acquired them. They had probably been learned by him in a previous life. He also knew the language of nature, and could call plants and animals by their own proper names [97: 19].

I am not a master of literature nor of arts, such as belong to this world, but a foolish and simple minded man. I have never desired to learn any sciences, but from early youth I strove after the salvation of my soul, and thought how I might inherit or possess the kingdom of heaven. Finding within myself a powerful contrarium, namely, the desires that belong to the flesh and blood, I began to fight a hard battle against my corrupted nature, and with

the aid of God I made up my mind to overcome the inherited evil will, to break it, and to enter wholly into the love of God in the Christ. I therefore then and there resolved to regard myself as one dead in my inherited form, until the spirit of God would take form in me, so that in and through Him I might conduct my life. This, however, was not possible for me to accomplish, but I stood firmly by my earnest resolution and fought a hard battle with myself. Now while I was wrestling and battling, being aided by God, a wonderful light arose within my soul. It was a light entirely foreign to my unruly nature, but in it I recognized the true nature of God and man, and the relation existing between them, a thing which heretofore I had never understood, and for which I would never have sought [97:50].

His bodily appearance was somewhat mean; he was tall of stature, had a low forehead but prominent temples, a rather aquile nose, a scanty beard, gray eyes sparkling into a heavenly blue, a feeble but genial voice. He was modest in his bearing, unassuming in conversation, lowly in conduct, patient in suffering, and gentle-hearted [123: 15].

In his exterior appearance Behmen was little, having a short thin beard, a feeble voice and eyes of a grayish tint. He was deficient in physical strength; nevertheless there is nothing known of his having ever had any other disease than the one that caused his death [97: 17].

Before one A. M. Behmen called his son Tobias to his bedside and asked him whether he did not hear beautiful music, and then he requested him to open the door of the room so that the celestial song could be better heard. Later on he asked what time it was and when he was told that the clock struck two he said: "This is not yet time for me, in three hours will be my time." After a pause he again spoke and said: "Thou powerful God, Zabaoth, save me according to thy will." Again he said: "Thou crucified Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me and take me into thy kingdom." He then gave to his wife certain directions regarding his books and other temporal matters, telling her also that she would not survive him very long (as indeed she did not), and, taking leave from his sons, he said: "Now I shall enter the Paradise." He then asked his eldest son, whose loving looks seemed to keep Behmen's soul

from severing the bonds of the body, to turn him round, and, giving one deep sigh, his soul gave up the body to the earth to which it belonged and entered into that higher state which is known to none except those who have experienced it themselves [97: 15].

A man [he says] cannot conceive the wonderful knowledge, before he has read this book diligently through, which he will find to be contained in it. And he will find that The Threefold life is ten times deeper than this and the Forty Questions to be tenfold deeper than that, and that to be as deep as a spirit is in itself, as the author says; than which there can be no greater depth, for God Himself is a spirit [42:3].

I am not young [he writes], being now near my fiftieth year; nevertheless I have begun to learn German in order that I may read this incomparable author in his own tongue. I have written some not unacceptable books myself, but I am not worthy to unloose the shoestrings of this wonderful man, whom I regard as the greatest light that has ever appeared upon the earth, second only to Him who was the light itself. . . . I advise you by all means to throw yourself into this abyss of knowledge of the profoundest of all truths [97: 32 and 199: 30].

If you will behold your own self and the outer world, and what is taking place therein, you will find that you, with regard to your external being, are that external world [97:137].*

You are a little world formed out of the large one, and your external light is a chaos of the sun and the constellations of stars. If this were not so you would not be able to see by means of the light of the sun [97:137].*

Not I, the I that I am, know these things: But God knows them in me [97:34].*

He alone, therefore, in whom Christ exists and lives, is a Christian, a man in whom Christ has been raised out of the wasted flesh of Adam [97:5].*

Suddenly . . . my spirit did break through* . . . even into the innermost birth of Geniture of the Deity, and there I was embraced with love, as a bridegroom embraces his dearly beloved bride. But the greatness of the triumphing that was in the spirit I cannot express either in speaking or writing; neither can it be compared to anything, but with that wherein the life is generated in the midst of death, and it is like the resurrection from the dead. In this light my spirit suddenly saw through all, and in and by all the creatures, even in herbs and grass, it knew God, who he is, and how he is, and what his will is; and suddenly in that light my will was set on, by a mighty impulse, to describe the being of God. But because I could not presently apprehend the deepest births of God in their being and comprehend them in my reason, there passed almost twelve years before the exact understanding thereof was given me. And it was with me as with a young tree which is planted in the ground, and at first is young

* "Strange and hard that paradox true I give, objects gross and the unseen soul are one" [193: 173], and Gautama, Plotinus and Carpenter are all equally definite upon the same point.

* "Dazzling and tremendous, how quick the sunrise would kill me if I could not now and always send sunrise out of me" [193: 50].

* "The other I am" [193: 32]. "'Tis thee [myself] that for myself I praise" [176: 62]. The recognition of the duplex individuality of the Cosmic Conscious person—i.e., the self conscious self and the Cosmic Conscious self.

* "Christ" here was used as Paul constantly uses the word, as a name—that is, of Cosmic Consciousness.

* The "breaking through" into the Cosmic Sense and the intense feeling of joy and exaltation which thereto belongs. The realization of "heaven, which is pure light; light intellectual, full of love, love of true good, full of joy; joy which transcends every sweetness" [72: 193].

and tender, and flourishing to the eye, especially if it comes on lustily in its growing. But it does not bear fruit presently; and, though it blossoms, they fall off; also many a cold wind, frost and snow, puff upon it, before it comes to any growth and bearing of fruit [41:184].

If thou climbest up this ladder on which I climb up into the deep of God, as I have done, then thou hast climbed well: I am not come to this meaning, or to this work and knowledge through my own reason, or through my own will and purpose; neither have I sought this knowledge, nor so much as know anything concerning it. I sought* only for the heart of God, therein to hide myself from the tempestuous storms of the devil [41:237].

Now the will cannot endure the attracting and impregnation,* for it would be free, and yet cannot, because it is desirous; and feeling it cannot be free, it entereth with the attracting into itself, and taketh (or conceiveth) in itself another will, which is to go out from the darkness into itself, and that other conceived will is the eternal mind, and entereth into itself as a sudden flash (of lightning) and dissipateth the darkness, and goeth forth into itself, and dwelleth in itself, and maketh to itself another (or second) principle of another quality (source or condition), for the sting of the stirring remaineth in the darkness [43:5]. The first eternal will is God the Father, and it is to generate His Son—viz., His Word—not out of anything else, but out of Himself; and we have already informed you about the essences, which are generated in the will, and also how the will in the essences is set in darkness, and how the darkness (in the wheel of the anxiety) is broken asunder by the flash of fire, and how the will cometh to be in four forms, whereas in the original all four are but one, but in the flash of fire appear in four forms; as also how the flash of fire doth exist, in that the first will doth sharpen itself in the eager hardness, so that the liberty of the will shineth in the flesh. Whereby we have given you to understand that the first will shineth in the flash of the fire and is consuming by reason of the anxious sharpness, where the will continueth in the sharpness, and comprehendeth the other will in itself (understand in the centre of the sharpness), which is to go out from the sharpness, and to dwell in itself in the eternal liberty without pain or source [43: 15–16].

For Jesus Christ*, the Son of God, the Eternal Word in the Father (who is the glance, or brightness, and the power of the light eternity), must become man, and be born in you, if you will know God; otherwise you are in the dark stable, and go about groping and feeling, and look always for Christ at the right hand of God, supposing that he is a great way off; you cast your mind aloft above the stars and seek

* None of those who have attained Cosmic Consciousness ''sought" for it; they could not, for they did not know there was such a thing. But it would seem that all the pronounced cases were men who earnestly sought for the "heart of God"—i.e., for the highest and best life.

* Two quaint expositions of the generating of the second (Cosmic Conscious) self in the first (self conscious) self.

* "Christ," used as by Paul for the Cosmic Sense—"I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" [22: 2: 20]. ''Christ who is our life" [25: 3: 4]. "Jesus Christ is in you" [21: 13: 5].

God, as the sophisters teach you, who represent God as one afar off, in heaven [43: 24].

I was as simple concerning the hidden mysteries as the meanest of all; but my virgin* of the wonders of God taught me, so that I must write of His wonders; though indeed my purpose is to write this for a memorandum for myself, and yet I shall speak as for many, which is known to God [43: 31].

Thus we distinguish to you the substance in the darkness;* and though we are very hard to be understood by you, and though also little belief may be afforded to it, we yet have a very convincing proof of it, not only in the created heaven, but also in the centre of the earth, as also in the whole principle of this world, which would be too long to set down here [43: 33].

The scholar said to his master: "How may I come to the supersensual life,* that I may see God and hear Him speak?" His master said: "When thou canst throw thyself but for a moment into that where no creature dwelleth, then thou hearest what God speaketh."

Scholar.—Is that near at hand or far off?

Master.—It is in thee, and if thou canst for awhile cease from all thy thinking and willing thou shalt hear unspeakable words of God.

Scholar.—How can I hear when I stand still from thinking and willing?

Master.—When thou standest still from the thinking and willing of self, the eternal hearing, seeing and speaking will be revealed to thee, and so God heareth and seeth through thee.* Thine own hearing, willing and seeing hindereth thee, that thou dost not see nor hear God.

Scholar.—Wherewithal shall I hear and see God, being He is above nature and creature?

Master.—When thou art quiet or silent, then thou art that which God was before nature and creature, and whereof He made thy nature and creature. Then thou hearest and seest with that therewith God saw and heard in thee before thy own willing, seeing and hearing began.

Scholar.—What hindereth or keep eth me back that I cannot come to that?

* The Cosmic Sense a virgin. Compare Dante's Beatrice and Balzac's Seraphita—Seraphitus—so also the youth—Cosmic Sense—in Bacon's "Sonnets" is a virgin. "For a memorandum." Compare Whitman: "Only a few hints I seek for my own use to trace out here" [193: 14].

* So as proof or argument for some of his most spiritual and recondite doctrines—optimism, immortality, unending growth, expansion and evolution—Whitman appeals to the common phenomena of nature and life. He says: "I hear you whispering there O stars of heaven, O suns—O grass of graves—O perpetual transfers and promotions, if you do not say anything how can I say anything" [193:77]?

* So Balzac tells us: "From abstraction [self consciousness] are derived laws, arts, interests, social ideas. It is the glory and scourge of the world: Glorious, it creates societies; baneful, it exempts man from entering the path of specialism [Cosmic Consciousness], which leads to the Infinite" [5: 142].

* The same doctrine is repeated over and over in the Suttas. Compare also Carpenter [56: 166–174].

Master.—Thy own willing, seeing and hearing. And because thou strivest against that out of which thou art come, thou breakest thyself off with thy own willing from God's willing, and with thy own seeing thou seest in thy own willing only; and thy willing stoppeth thy hearing with thy own thinking of earthly natural things, and bringeth thee into a ground, and overshadoweth thee with that which thou willest, so that thou canst not come to that which is supernatural and supersensual [50:75–6].

Master.—If thou rulest over all creatures outwardly only,* then thy will and ruling is in a bestial kind, and is but an imaginary transitory ruling, and thou bringest also thy desire into a bestial essence, whereby thou becomest infected and captivated, and gettest also a bestial condition. But if thou hast left the imaginary condition, then thou art in the super-imaginariness, and rulest over all creatures, in that ground out of which they are created, and nothing on earth can hurt thee, for thou art like all things, and nothing is unlike to thee [50:76].

His master said to him very kindly:* Loving scholar, if it were that thy will could break off itself for one hour from all creatures and throw itself into that, where no creature is, it would be ever clothed with the highest splendor of God's glory, and would taste in itself the most sweet love of our Lord Jesus, which no man can express, and it would find in itself the unspeakable words of our Lord concerning his great mercy; it would feel in itself that the cross of our Lord Christ would be very pleasing to it, and it would love that more than the honor and goods of the world [50:78].

Master.—Though thou lovest the earthly wisdom now,* yet when thou art ever-clothed with the heavenly [wisdom] thou wilt see that all the wisdom of the world is but folly, and that the world hateth but thy enemy—viz., the

* So says Whitman in respect to ownership: "As if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter upon all and incorporate them into himself" [193: 214]. And again: "To see no possession but you may possess it, enjoying all without labor or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one particle of it, to take the best of the farmer's farm and the rich man's elegant villa, and the chaste blessings of the well married couple and the fruits of orchards and tho flowers of gardens [193: 127].

* The "cross of Christ," from the point of view of what might be called the Pauline type of these men, means simply the deprivation of the good things of self consciousness and the bearing of the so-called evils of the self conscious life. But these goods are seen by them not to be good, and these evils not to be evils, and to reach that point of view (in Cosmic Consciousness) is the one good thing. "To arrive there is to depart hence, going away out of one's self as far as possible from this vile state to that which is the highest of all. Therefore, rising above all that may be known and understood temporally and spiritually, the soul must earnestly desire to reach that which in this life [the self conscious life] cannot be known and which the heart cannot conceive; and, leaving behind all actual and possible taste and feeling of sense and spirit, must desire earnestly to arrive at that which transcends all sense and all feeling" [203: 74].

* "We speak wisdom among the perfect; yet a wisdom not of this world" [20: 2: 6]. "If any man thinketh he is wise among you in this world let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God" [20:3: 18–191. The wisdom of self consciousness is p. 189 foolishness from the point of view of the Cosmic Sense.

mortal life; and when thou thyself comest to hate the will thereof, then thou also wilt begin to love that despising of the mortal life [50:80].

Scholar.—What is the virtue, power, height and greatness of love?*

Master.—Its virtue is that nothing (whence all things proceed), and its power is (in and) through all things, its height is as high as God and its greatness is greater than God; whosoever findeth it findeth nothing, and all things.

Scholar.—Loving master, pray tell me how I may understand this.

Master.—That I said its virtue is that nothing, thou mayest understand thus*: When thou art gone forth wholly from the creature, and art become nothing to all that is nature and creature, then thou art in that eternal one, which is God himself, and then thou shalt perceive and feel the highest virtue of love [50–1:81]. Also, that I said whosoever findeth it findeth nothing and all things; that is also true, for he findeth a supernatural, supersensual abyss, having no ground, where there is no place to dwell in; and he findeth also nothing that is like it, and therefore it may be compared to nothing, for it is deeper than anything, and is as nothing to all things, for it is not comprehensible; and because it is nothing, it is free from all things, and it is that only good, which a man cannot express or utter what it is. But that I lastly said, he that findeth it,* findeth all things, is also true; it hath been the beginning of all things, and it ruleth all things. If thou findest it, thou comest into that ground from whence all things are proceeded, and wherein they subsist, and thou art in it a king over all the works of God [50: 81].

Scholar.—Loving master, I can no more endure anything should divert me, how shall I find the nearest way to it?*

Master.—Where the way is hardest there walk thou, and take up what the world rejecteth; and what the world doth, that do not thou. Walk contrary to the world in all things. And then thou comest the nearest way to it. . . .

Master.—That thou sayest also,* thou shouldst be accounted a silly fool is true; for the way to the love of God is folly to the world, but wisdom to

* This extract and the next contain a definition of Cosmic Consciousness from the point of view of Nirvâna, its Buddhist name.

* "O Bhikshu, empty this boat (i.e., empty yourself of the things of self consciousness); if emptied it will go quickly; having cut off passion and hatred, thou wilt go to Nirvâna" [156: 86].

* He who is fit (says Whitman) can enter into possession of all things [193: 214].

* If you wish to attain the divine life (Cosmic Consciousness), says Yepes, you must cast away every satisfaction, temporal and spiritual (of the self conscious man) [204: 534], "forgetting the things which are behind [the things of self consciousness] and stretching forward to the things which are before" [24: 3: 13]. And this seems to be the universal dictum.

* "The natural [merely self conscious] man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him" [20: 2: 14].

the children of God. When the world perceiveth this fire of love in the children of God, it saith they are turned fools, but to the children of God it is the greatest treasure, so great that no life can express it, nor tongue so much as name what the fire of the inflaming love of God is; it is whiter than the sun, and sweeter than anything; it is far more nourishing than any meat or drink, and more pleasant than all the joy of this world. Whosoever getteth this is richer than any king on earth, more noble than any emperor can be, and more potent and strong than all authority and power.

Then the scholar asked his master further, saying: "Whither goeth the soul when the body dieth, be it either saved or damned?"

Master.—It needed no going forth.* Only the outward moral life with the body do separate themselves from the

soul; that soul hath heaven and hell in itself before, as it is written. The kingdom of God cometh not with outward observation, neither shall they say, to here, or to there it is, for behold the kingdom of God is within you: And whether of the two, viz., either heaven or hell, shall be manifest in it, in that the soul standeth [50:82–3].

Scholar.—What, then, is the body of a man?

Master.—It is the visible world,* an image and essence of all that the world is; and the visible world is a manifestation of the inward spiritual world, (come) out of the eternal darkness, out of the spiritual weaving (twining or connection) and it is an object or resemblance of eternity, wherewith eternity bath made itself visible; where self-will and resigned-will, viz., evil and good, work one with the other; and such a substance the outward man also is; for God created man out of the outward world, and breathed into him the inner spiritual world, for a soul and an understanding life, and therefore in the things of the outward world man can receive and work evil and good.

Scholar.—What shall be after this world, when all things perish?

Master.—The material substance only ceaseth*—viz., the four elements, the sun, moon, and stars, and then the inward world will be wholly visible and manifest. But whatsoever hath been wrought by the spirit in this time, whether evil or good, I say, every work shall separate itself there in a spiritual manner, either into the eternal light, or into the eternal darkness; for that which is born from each will penetrateth again into that which is like itself [50: 86].

* "There will never be any more heaven or hell than there is now" [193: 30].

* Says Whitman: "Not the types set up by the printer return their impression, the meaning, the main concern, any more than a man's substance and life, or a woman's substance and life, return in the body and the soul, indifferently before death and after death. Behold the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern, and includes and is the soul; whoever you are, how superb and divine is your body or any part of it" [193: 25].

* "The soul is of itself, all verges to it, all has reference to what ensues, all that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence, not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day, month, any part of the direct lifetime, or the hour of death, but the same affects him or her onward afterwards through the indirect lifetime" [193: 289].