Ungrund

 

UNGRUND by Maester Jacob Böhme

(1 of 2)

(November, 17-1575-1624)

Victor. A. Cabello. Reyes

'Where I have spoken most clearly and openly of Our Science,

there I have done so in an unintelligible way and, there,

I have hidden it.'(1) 

(Geber)

The German spiritual master and philosopher was a mystic who through the Vision manages to perceive internally the spiritual worlds.

UNGRUND is the Pure Deity that rests in itself.

But it is not only that, it is the expression of the self-sufficient and perfect infinity.

The Theosophy of Maester Jacob Böhme is a theory of divine Imagination where the NOTHINGness that the SELF manages to manifest.

It is a complex theology of Revelation=Vision.

For his disciple and biographer Abraham von Frankenberg,

"... by the Divine Illumination (...) and, in an instant, at the sight of a tin vessel, of pleasant and jovial appearance, it is transported to the deep interior or center of the secret nature.''

Personal and intimate revelation where the eternal nature includes two principles or polarities = darkness and Light.

For Jacob Böhme the transcendent Divinity is the culmination of the antagonistic struggle of eternal nature that transcends in its very transcendence; Not in the BEING=SER.

To ascend in alchemical terms for Bohme is to go through the stages from Saturnal lead to Solar Gold through astrological-alchemical Celestial agriculture.

In its Absolute Transcendence the Divinity is Mute, but in its Double Reflector Mirror is SOPHIA. God is known in our body and human beings are created for the faithful fulfillment of that Divine Revelation that becomes known throughout humanity. Hidden God is not Revealed.

In his Theosophy Jakob Böhme, he reflects on an Absolute that does not Know itself and that aspires to be KNOWN by Itself and creatures, in order to be God Revealed by knowing Himself.

Then and by analogy, it is known and Manifested in the Saturnal Body of Man.

The Light is your Substance and Flesh. Gain Visibility.

Bohme elaborates his profound metaphysical thinking of the Absolute as a Creative Source of the Whole.

Ungrund is its own Source of fecundity is an absolute germ in development that becomes the BEING.

The Absolute (itself) the absolute Abyss that exists in it as the absence and negation of All determination. Urgrund exposes the foundation and source of All Beings.

It is already in itself the absence of substance and determination since it is neither the First nor the Final cause of the world.

It is neither revealed nor manifested!

God is ALL and the Infinite in Himself is NOTHING and Not FULLNESS to be realized in Fullness uses his Double Mirror-Sophia.

UNGRUND is really an ontological starting point of explanation of the WHOLE, it is an Immensity, something that manages to go beyond all possible human imaginations.

In UNGRUND 'God Grows'-potentially-, in Ternary=Trill since Everything is contained as a possibility to be realized.

We can say that the divinity aspires to externalize and be filled with the SELF.

Ontologically for Jakob Böhme, evil like 'All Things' contains its antithesis.

Being the evil necessary for the good since thanks to it = evil we can know the good and know of its existence.

Evil is necessary for Good. In any case, all things do not begin with God, which is the First BEING, but with UNGRUND or the Non-BEING (beyond the BEING).

In THE NOTHING. UNGRUND has the ontological value of NOTHINGNESS.

''We have already explained what we assume in the first respect: that there must be a Being before All basis and before All existence, that is, before any duality at all; how we can we designate it except as 'Primal ground', or rather, as the 'groundless'.''

(Schelling, On Human Freedom)

It is anything that has no cause, no foundation, no reason... In this sense it is a term that designates the TOTAL absence of determination, cause, foundation and reason = (Grund) = background and basis.

(grunden=establish and found)

Urgrund is the Reason for BEING='Raison d'étre' and causal foundation of All Things.

''From here, Boehme's indirect influence reaches Hegel and Schopenhauer, Nietzche and Hartmann, Bergson and Heidegger''(2)

The Ungrund is The WHOLE and the Non-Thing.

Contradiction that gives birth to dialectics as consciousness of antithesis of 'Grund'.

In this sense it is, the without essence and unfathomable-impenetrable.

In any case it is, No-Thing=Nothing=(Nichts), and the ALL.

''Nothing and yet is everything.''

(Gnad.1, X)

There is a Yes and a No in all things and the existence of a BEING is assumed before any exposition of existence; before any duality, a first foundation that is without foundation=Urgrund.

'The essence of Consciousness is distinction, conditioned Being. For self-knowableness the UNGRUND'S chaos must be broken, and the opposites separated. In manifested Being the opposites seek another, the tending back again to rest.'(3)

A surprising relationship between Urgrund and the Hindu ATMAN can be speculated.

Mystery hidden in All Things.

Schopenhauer claimed that Urgrund was an idea of Divinity as All, which came from Eastern ideas and currents.

(John Joseph Stoudt, p.114)

M. Eckart knew him and called him=Abgrund.

Good-bad-yes-no.

Dark and endless depth where the SELF dwells; hidden and undisclosed and invisible.

Ungrund is the union of all human antitheses.

'In Eternity... there is nothing but a stillness without being there is nothing either than can give anything; it is an eternal rest..., a groundlessness without beginning and end.'

(Böhme, Menschw, II,1,8)

Böhme,'s God has and contains the UNGRUND and SOPHIA=SABIDURÏA-Wisdom merged to generate the world of things. 

Existence needs a movable and motivating will that Ungrund creates as a creative instrumentality of the Holy Spirit.

'The Ungrund... makes an eternal beginning as a craving =Sucht).

For the nothing is craving after something. But as there is nothing that can give anything... the craving itself is the giving of it, which yet also is Nothing...'

(Böhme)

Let us remember that for Bohme there is no cause for divine power, the heart or seat of the Eternal Will of God is the Ungrund...

'The Ungrund possesses itself in a ground'.

Divine eternity is understood as a free will that does not resurface from anywhere.

It has its peculiar 'seat' in itself and alone.

Nothing is ONE and also Nothing for itself.

It is the only will of the Abyss=abyss.

Neither high nor low. But it is Everything and Nothing. (4)

It is neither First nor Final Cause Now, there are two dialetic forces that manage to interact and are completely inherent in UNGRUND=Will-of-SER=(sich-in-sich,'selbst-fassen).

A latent second tendency in Ungrund itself constitutes the Spirit of God.

Sophia is the same image of God by which UNGRUND can be known; She=Sophia is the Body of God.

(Böhme)

And, by her according to Bohme man can enter into a sacred erotic relationship.

Ungrund is the foundation and ultimate cause of things.

Indeterminate Absolute and Absolute free from All Possible Determination!

'... The nature of Fire is His property, thought he is in Himself the UNGRUND where there is no feeling or any pain.'(5)

Nothingness is NOTHING=URGRUND Divine Darkness that comes to be seen in its own contemplation in which God sees 'himself'.

"The fish lives in the water, the plant in the earth, the bird in the air, the sun in the firmament. The salamander must be preserved in the fire and God's heart is Jacob Böhme's element. " (Angelus Silesius (1624-1677, Silesian poet and theologian)

Evil is necessary for Good...

UNGRUND by Maester Jacob Böhme.

Victor. Arturo. Cabello. Reyes. 

Bibliography: 

1. Geber, Biblioteca Chemica Curiosa, Manget, Genoa

(1702), IX, X, p.557.

2. Paul Tillich, Harvard.

3. John Joseph Stoud, Sunrise to Eternity, A Study in Jacob Boehme's Life and Thought, p.98.

4. Böhme, Myst. Mag. XXIX, I.

5. Böhme, Menschw. II, 6, -7.