Of the Threefold Life

3. Pride forbids seeking.

3. It is pure pride that forbids you from seeking, so that you should not find, and so that she (namely pride) in her crowned heap (like a bold Woman) may soar above the wonders of God. For thus the Devil wants it, so that he remains unknown: they are blinder than the simple layman.

4. What one must do, who wishes to seek and find rightly: how the proud parade with foreign tongues and eloquence.

4. If you desire to seek, then knock, so that the right door may be opened to you, and seek in the fear and love of God, then you shall surely find, and do not let the slander of the proud lead you astray. For if the right door is opened to you, then you shall see how they are so blinded. Their pride has blinded the world, so that everyone looks only at art and eloquence, as well as at foreign languages, and thinks that they understand it or the common man thinks that right knowledge and wisdom come from the high schools and out of the mouths of the learned. Thus they rule over the souls of men, and yet their knowledge consists of mere doubt, as can be seen from their strife.

5. One must not trust one's soul to any human: its power is in the love and in the light of God.

5. Thus I say again, no one should trust his soul to men and hypocrites: for the soul does not stand in this world, but in the originality of the essence of all essences, and she is in the center original: "centro" of the eternal band, in which God, the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Kingdom of Hell stand. And if she reaches the love of God in the light (which dwells in her foundation), then she can well behold or see eternal nature, as well as God and the Kingdom of Heaven and Hell: let her only not be blinded. It is not difficult: it is only about achieving the rebirth (out of the darkness into the light), without which you cannot reach the depth in the center.

A manicule points toward paragraph 6. 6 How all is created out of the birth-giving: of the eternal word and the name of God.

6. If we now wish to speak of the center original: "centro", or the circle of life, we consider the Birth-Giver original: "Gebaerrinne" or the Mother-Womb. She is the center and the essence of all essences. Out of the eternal center all things are born: and out of that which is birthed all things are created that are in being. And just as we have explained the foundation to you, how it was in the beginning (as in the center), the eternal word, and the word is God's, and the eternal will is the same word. For the eternal God has the same will in Him, and that is His heart, and in the re-conceived will (in the eternal Father of all things) the eternal Godhead has its name, God.

7. Neither God nor the will has a maker.

7. For we cannot say that God has a maker, likewise the will also has no maker. For it makes itself from eternity to eternity throughout, and yet there is no making, but an eternal birthing. The word in the

of Man.

in the Father, and the Spirit that goes out from the power, that is the life of the Godhead.

8. Wherein the foundation of hell and all evil stands: the worst, the most useful.

8. Now we see that the sign that is the limit or the target stands in the center. For God is also a jealous, fiery God, and a consuming fire. And in the same source-quality original: "quael," meaning the stinging or painful quality of existence stands the abyss of Hell, the anger and the malice of all Devils, as well as the poisonousness or the corruption of all Creatures. and it is found that without poisonousness and severity, there is no life. And from that comes all adversity, all kinds of struggle. And it is found that the most severe and the grimmest is the most useful: for it makes all things, and it is the sole cause of all mobility and of life.

9. Of the eternal will, word Father, and of two wills: what nature: A and O is named: in the second will nature becomes manifest (like the fire in the light.)

9. For as previously told, the eternal Word (as the eternal will of the Father) is the Creator of all things, and the eternal Father is the essence of the will, from which the word has created all things. Now the essences are the Being, which cause the will: for understand here, there are two wills in one single essence, and they cause two principles: the one is love, and the other the anger, or the quality quael of the grimness or the property of the severity. The first will is not called God, but Nature original: "Natura". The second will is named Alpha and Omega original: "A ende O", beginning and end from eternity to eternity. And in the first will nature would not be manifest, the second makes her manifest, for he is the power in the strength or in the ability, and the one without the other would be a nothing.

10. Why the Father is the first person, the desire in the will is the first.

10. Since then the will of the Father is the first in eternity, he is also the first person in the Trinity, as the center itself. Now the will or the center is such: namely, to desire to birth the word, or heart: for there is otherwise nothing, and there may also otherwise nothing be named earlier than the desire in the will.

11. What the desire is, and its working.

11. Thus we ground ourselves in a deep sense in the mind: and find that the desire is astringent original: "amper" or "wrangh," meaning harsh, sour, or pulling together and attracting. For it is the severe power: namely, not at an end, but everywhere, pulling the width into the narrowness and manifesting itself therein. For otherwise there would be nothing in the entire depth, but there would be an eternal stillness.

12. What the sighing, or the pregnancy of the desire is.

12. Now the desire pulls to itself, and yet it has nothing but itself: and that which is pulled toward it is the sighing original: "bezuchtinghe," meaning the first stirrings or groans of matter of the desire, and makes the desire full, and yet it is nothing else than a darkness, for that which is pulled is thicker than the will, therefore it is the darkness of the mute will.