The Way to Christ

The Master.— Though thou lovest the earthly Wisdom now, yet when thou art clothed with the heavenly, thou wilt see that all the Wisdom of the World is but Folly, and that the World hateth but thine Enemy, viz., the 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.

24. The Scholar. — But how may these two stand together, viz., that a Man should both love and hate himself?

Of the Super-Sensual Life . 101

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THE Master. — In thus loving thyself thou lovest not thyself \ as thy own , but as given from the Love of God ; thou lovest the Divine Q round in thee ; by which thou lovest the Divine Wisdom , God’s Works of Wonder, and thy Brethren . But in hating thyself thou hatest only that which is thy own , wherein Evil sticketh close to thee ; and this thou dost, that thou mayest wholly destroy in thee that which thou callest thine , when thou sayest I or myself do this or that. This thou wouldst wholly destroy in thee, that thou mayest become a Qround wholly Divine . Love hateth Self or that which we call /, because it is a deadly Thing, and they two, viz., Love and Self cannot well stand together. For I^ovP possesseth Heaven , and dweileth in itself ; but that which I call /, possesseth the World \ and worldly Things , and also dweileth in itself. And as Heaven ruleth the "*W<orld, sarnd as' Eternity ruleth Time , so Love ruleth over the natural Life.

25. TyE SCHOLAR. — Loving Master, pray tell me wherefore must Love and Trouble , Friend and Foe be together ; would not Love alone be better ?

How Low and Sorrow stand together in one ; and what Love is > what its Power , Virtue , Height and Greatness are ; and where it dweileth in Man ; also the nearest Way to attain it.

The Master. — If Love dwelt not in Trouble , it could have nothing to love ; but its Substance which it loveth, viz., the poor Soul, being in Trouble and Pain, Love hath cause to lose its own Substance , in order to deliver its Beloved from Pain, that itself also might be beloved again. Neither indeed could it be kftown what Love is, if it had not something which it might love .

26. # The Scholar. — What is the Virtue, Power \ Height , and
Qreatness of Love ?

The 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 Qreatness is greater than Gop. [Here is meant the Manifestation of the Deity in the glorious eternal Light of the Divine Essencel\ Whosoever findeth it, findeth nothing and all Things.

27. The Scholar.— L oving Master, pray tell me how I may understand this.

The Master. — What I meant by saying, < its Virtue is that
4 nothing whence all Things proceed thou mayest understand thus.

1,02 The JFay to Qhrist .

When thou art wholly gone forth from the Creature , and 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 . *

But as to what I said that ‘ its Power is in and through all ‘ Things' thou shalt perceive and find that in thy own Soul and Body, when this great Love is kindled in thee, it will burn more than^any Fire can do. Thou shalt see also in all the Works of God that Love hath poured forth itself into all Things, and is the most inward and most outward Qround in all Things, Inwardly, in the Virtue and Power ; and outwardly , in the Figure , Form and Shape , of every Thing. «

The Meaning of that which I said, viz., ‘ its Height is as high ‘as Qod , 1 thou mayest also come to understand in thyself, in that it will bring thee to be as High as God himself ^s ^as mSy* be seen by our beloved Lord Christ in our Humanity ; which Humanity Love hath brought into the highest Throne , even into the Power of the Deity .