Jakob Böhme said: ‘I am dead in knowledge for the sake of the one who wants to know in me.’
And further: ’The simple, divine way in which one can see God in his word, essence and will is for man to become simple in himself and to leave everything that he himself is and has in his own will.’
When we hear the terms simplicity or simple-mindedness, we tend to associate them with a disparaging meaning, because a simple person is considered to be rather naive and lacking in intelligence. In colloquial language, simplicity is used in contrast to the term diversity. On the political stage, the German Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency conducted a major campaign in 2010 under the motto ‘Diversity instead of simplicity – Together for equal treatment’ to promote tolerance and openness.
In the Germanic root of the word, simplicity goes back to undividedness, and in the Middle Ages the exclamation ‘Sancta Simplicitas’ was used to describe the simple but straightforward consistency of spiritual people.
For Friedrich Kirchner (a 19th-century philosopher), ‘aesthetic simplicity’ had the following meaning:
Aesthetic simplicity consists in the unforced harmony of all parts of a work of art. It never gives more than the purpose of the whole demands; its artistic means are the simplest; its arrangement and connection is natural; it is devoid of any overload and embellishment. Such simplicity ennobles the works of all true geniuses. It prevailed in the art of the ancients and is absent in many forms of modern art (cf. Schiller’s poem to Goethe: ‘The mind that praises only the true spurns the ostentatious gestures of false propriety’).[1]
What, then, is the spiritual meaning of the concept of simplicity? And what does this imply for the concept of diversity?
Jakob Böhme (1575–1624), a highly spiritual incarnation, frequently used the terms simplicity, simple-minded or unpretentious in his writings. What did he mean by this?
In the anthology Ein einfaches Leben in Christus (A Simple Life in Christ)[2] we find a selection of important texts by Jakob Böhme. The editor Konrad Dietzfelbinger translated them into modern German.
In 1600, Böhme had an experience of enlightenment. He describes what was revealed to him in a language that is deeply rooted in Christianity. At the same time, he invents new words to express the emotions within him. In his first writing, Aurora, or Dawn in the East, the 19th chapter reads:
But when, in such darkness, my spirit […] was lifted up in God as with a great storm, and my whole heart and mind, together with all my other thoughts and will, closed in on it, without ceasing to struggle with the love and mercy of God, and not to let up until He blessed me, that is, until He enlightened me with His Holy Spirit, so that I might understand His will and be rid of my sadness – then the spirit broke through.[3]
The Son of God must be born in us
Jakob Böhme emphasises that it is not possible to find the true foundation of God’s world through reason alone and through strenuous reflection[4]. Instead, we must sink into the love and mercy of God with a pure heart and a purified mind, with a will that wants nothing other than what God wills. The Son of God, Christ, must be born in us, and this can only happen if we trust in God with our calm will and hope for all good things from Him. Self-will has broken away from the order of God and lives in self-centredness. The mind is something natural, its world of thoughts has a beginning and an end, it passes away with death. In this context, Jakob Böhme emphasises[5] that he is ‘not born of the school of this world’, but is a simple man. Without a volitional intention from his consciousness of self or a desire and wish from his heart, he has been introduced to divine knowledge and high research into nature by the grace of God’s spirit and will. This is the true spiritual simplicity of mind and heart that is required to approach the knowledge of God. In this context, he says, ‘For I am dead in knowledge for the sake of the One who wills in me.’[6]
Jakob Böhme did not learn his wisdom and knowledge of God from books. He had not pursued an academic career. He was a simple man, a shoemaker, and yet he experienced for himself the greatest grace that God can bestow on a person in earthly life. He was able to read the ‘Book of God’ within himself and found an external sign for his inner book in the Bible. ‘The simple, divine way in which one can see God in his word, being and will, is that man becomes simple in himself and in his own will leaves everything that he himself is and has, be it power, might, honour, beauty, riches, money and goods, father and mother, brother, sister, wife and child, body and life, and becomes a mere nothing for himself: He must give up everything and become poorer than a bird in the air, which still has a nest.”[7]
Withdrawing identifications
All academic arrogance prevents people from finding true knowledge of God. The saying from the Bible, ‘Become as little children’ (Matthew 18:2-4), means nothing other than that people become aware of their identifications and projections and, through their life experience, can withdraw them and transform them into spiritual knowledge. Newborn babies are free of this; the divine spiritual world can still have a direct effect on them. It is only in the course of their lives that people fill their minds with thoughts that have no eternal value and want to be redeemed through a spiritual path. A ‘thoughtlessness’ in this sense is a state that describes a mature person who uses his mind only for the regulation of his daily life.
The spiritual teacher Krishnamurti (1895–1986) describes this simplicity of mind with the following words:[8]
The fullness of life lies in the stillness of the mind. The ability to observe without judging is the highest form of intelligence. Only when the mind is absolutely still, both on the surface and deep within, can the unknown, the immeasurable, emerge. Awareness is the complete and unconditional surrender to what is, without rationalisation, without the separation of observer and observed. Meditation is the cleansing of the mind and heart from selfishness; through this cleansing arises the right thinking, which alone can free man from suffering.
In one of his last lectures, he says, ‘I have nothing against what is happening right now.’[9]
Jakob Böhme walked the ‘simple path of the child’ in Christ. He explained that he could not write of himself differently ‘than as of a child who knows and understands nothing, has learned nothing but this, that the Lord wants to know him according to the measure in which He reveals Himself in him’.[10] In his simplicity, Böhme sought only the heart of Jesus Christ and earnestly asked God for His Holy Spirit and grace. Through this earnest seeking, a portal was opened for him in which he saw and experienced more in 15 minutes than he would have gained from a lifetime of study. He realised that knowledge is not his, but God’s, that God knows in the soul of man what He wills and how He wills it. The intellectual wise have no knowledge of this because they do not stand in the ‘thoughtless’ simplicity of the intellect, but are proud of being scholars.[11]
Böhme was steeped in divine wisdom, theosophy; he saw the original state of the world and was initiated into cosmosophy. He possessed the wisdom of man, anthroposophy, and the Christ mystery at Golgotha was revealed to him, which shows and enables people the way back to divine unity, Christosophy.
This form of simplicity manifests itself in different variations in all enlightened souls. From this starting point, they gain a special view of diversity. Jakob Böhme writes:
But since the Father’s nature is immeasurable, and He is the cause of all wisdom, but all things have come into being through His wisdom, so the souls are structured in many different ways. They all come from one Being, but their effect is different, according to God’s wisdom. Thus, the Spirit of Christ opens up each soul’s own essence, so that each speaks of the wonders of God’s wisdom from within its own essence.[12]
In the light of this understanding of simplicity and diversity, the title of this edition of LOGON, Diversity and Simplicity, would have to be reworded as ‘Diversity from Simplicity’, because spiritual simplicity is the prerequisite for the reflection of simplicity in diversity from the knowledge of God.
A wonderful artistic work in this context is the Christophorus by the Master of Meßkirch. The Holy Spirit in the form of the Christ child introduces his wisdom into the purified, that is, simple mind of the struggling human being who has purified his fire of consciousness and now uses it symbolically as a powerful staff.[13]
Image:
St. Christopher. – Master of Meßkirch
(https://de.wikipedia.org › wiki › Meister_von_Meßkirch)
[1] > wiki > simplicity; https://www.gedichte.de › poems › friedrich-schiller
[2] Jakob Böhme, Ein einfaches Leben in Christus (A Simple Life in Christ), Anthology, Rozekruis Pers, Haarlem 1999
[3] Jakob Böhme, Aurora oder Morgenröte im Aufgang (Aurora or Dawn in the East), edited by Gerhard Wehr, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 1992, p. 361 f.
[4] Jakob Böhme, Anthology, p. 33
[5] Jakob Böhme, Anthology, p. 41
[6] Jakob Böhme, Anthology, p. 43
[7] Jakob Böhme, Anthology, p. 46
[8]https://www.zitate7.de › Krishnamurti
[9] https://www.om-online.de › kultur › einfachephilosophie-mein-freund-das-jetzt
[10] Jakob Böhme, Anthology, p. 68
[11] Jakob Böhme, Anthology, pp. 69–71
[12] Jakob Böhme, Anthology, p. 75
[13] Meister von Meßkirch – Wikipedia
