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Jacob Boehme – Dialogues between Disciple and Master

The Disciple 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

 Disciple  Is that near at hand or far off?

 Master  It is in thee.  And if thou canst for a while but cease from all thy thinking and willing, then thou shalt hear the unspeakable words of God.

Disciple How can I hear him speak, when I stand still from thinking and willing?

 Master   When thou standest still from the thinking of self and the willing of self; when both thy intellect and will are quiet and passive to the impressions of the Eternal Word and Spirit; and when thy soul is winged up and above that which is temporal, the outward senses and the imagination being locked up by holy abstraction, then the Eternal hearing, seeing and speaking will be revealed in thee; and so God heareth and seeth through thee being now the organ of his spirit; and so God speaketh in thee and whispereth to thy spirit and thy spirit heareth his voice. 

Blessed art thou therefore if that thou canst stand still from self thinking and self willing, and canst stop the wheel of imagination and senses; forasmuch as hereby thou mayest arrive at length to see the great heavenly communications.  Since it is naught indeed but thine own hearing and willing that do wonder thee, so that thou dost not see and hear God

 Disciple  Loving Master, I can no more endure anything should divert me, how shall I find the nearest way to him?

 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 him