Theosophical Questions

XIIX. Theosophical Questions. Fragment 2.

2. Therefore, the will is a pure, willing love-delight, acting as an out-going of itself toward its own perceptibility. The will is (1) the Eternal Father of the groundThe "ground" (Grund) refers to the foundation or abyss of the divine nature.; and the perceptibility of love is (2) the Eternal Son, whom the will brings forth within itself to be a perceptible love-power; and the out-going of the willing, perceptible love is (3) the Spirit of Divine Life.

3. And thus the Eternal Unity is a threefold, immeasurable, and beginningless life, which exists as pure willing, as the grasping and perceiving of itself, and as an eternal out-going of itself.

4. And that which has gone forth from the willing, loving, and living is the Wisdom of God; it is the Divine Contemplation and the joy of the Unity of God, through which love eternally introduces itself into powers, colors, wonders, and virtues.

5. In this opening life of Divine Unity, five audible sensesoriginal: "Sensus." Böhme correlates the five vowels with the five senses and the process of divine revelation. are understood within the perceptibility of the love of life—namely A, E, I, O, U—in which the Divine willing and working reside. These lead themselves into an exhalation toward differentiation and toward the understanding of the Unified Trinity, through which the eternal life perceives and understands itself.

6. The Trinity reveals itself out of the Unity with a threefold breathing, so that this threefold breathing enters into itself in a threefold way to become its own being; and this same threefold sense is called by its sensory nameoriginal: "sensualisischen Namen." Böhme uses this to mean a name that can be felt, heard, or perceived by the spiritual senses. JEHOVAH.

7. For the Unity, as the I, goes into itself into a threefold essence, which is called JE; and the JE is the Father, who leads himself with his breathing will into the HO, as into a containment of love. In the HO, the Word of all powers is understood, for it creates a circumferenceoriginal: "Circumferens"; a boundary or enclosure. or an enclosing of itself, as the eternal Somethingnessoriginal: "Ichts." This is Böhme’s invented word, the opposite of "Nichts" (Nothing). It represents the first movement toward substance or "I-ness.". From this, the love-delight goes forth; this out-going is the Spirit, which grasps and forms itself into the VA. For the V is the Spirit, as the out-going, and A is the Wisdom, in which the Spirit grasps itself to become an active life.

8. Thus, this threefold breathing life is then called within itself O. JAH. For the contained delight is the O,