Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
Turning within to the Eternal One
To turn the soul inward and become ‘nothing’ to the visible, resting in the eternal divine ground beyond images and senses.
In 5 lines: Turn inward, away from the visible world. Let the senses and the picturing mind fall quiet — “holy abstraction.” Become nothing to all that is creature: release every image, even of God and self. In that emptiness, throw yourself, if only for a moment, toward the groundless divine centre. Rest there in the Eternal One, receiving rather than seizing.
What it is
This is Jakob Böhme’s contemplative turn: the soul withdraws from the outward, visible, sensory world and from its own images, and turns inward and upward into the eternal divine ground — what he calls the Ungrund or “Eternal One.” It is silence beyond pictures.
In the Dialogue of the Supersensual Life the Master tells the disciple that to come to the supersensual life “where no Creature dwelleth” is to “throw thyself into THAT. though it be but for a moment,” and that “When thou art gone forth wholly from the Creature, and from that which is visible; and art become Nothing to all that is Nature and Creature, then thou art in that Eternal One, which is God himself.” The practice is to enter that imageless interior stillness where, the senses and imagination “locked up by holy abstraction,” the divine light at the centre may be known.
The Method
Böhme gives no step-list; this distills the inward movement he describes (faithfully, not reproduced):
- Withdraw from the visible. Turn attention away from outward objects, “from the Creature, and from that which is visible.” The first step is interiority.
- Lock up the senses and imagination. Let the outward senses and the picturing mind grow quiet — Böhme’s “holy abstraction.” Stop the “wheel of imagination.”
- Become nothing to all that is creature. Release every image, including images of God and of self, until you are “Nothing to all that is Nature and Creature.” This emptying is the threshold.
- Throw yourself into THAT. Turn, in that emptiness, toward the groundless divine centre — “where no Creature dwelleth.” Even a moment suffices; do not demand duration.
- Rest and receive. Abide silently in the Eternal One rather than reaching for an experience. What is given — the inner light, the “eternal hearing, seeing and speaking” — is received in the stillness, not seized.
Source & Lineage
Jakob Böhme (1575-1624) of Görlitz set this teaching out in The Way to Christ (1624), especially the Dialogue of the Supersensual Life.
It belongs to the apophatic, ground-of-the-soul strand of Christian mysticism (Eckhart, Tauler, the Theologia Germanica) reworked in Böhme’s own visionary, alchemically-coloured language of the Ungrund.
Common refinements
Chasing a vision. Böhme’s “nothing” is imageless; straining to see something reinstates the very imagination to be quieted.
- Grasping at the One. The turn is a letting-into, not a seizing; effortful reaching keeps the self at the centre.
- Mistaking blankness for the ground. Mere mental emptiness is not the goal; the emptying is a threshold, the orientation is toward the divine centre.
- Demanding duration. “Though it be but for a moment” is the honest expectation; momentary openings are enough.