Passages similar to: The Three Principles of the Divine Essence — Chapter 19: Of the Entering of the Souls to God, and of the wicked Souls Entering into Perdition. Of the Gate of the Body's Breaking off [or Parting] from the Soul.
Source passage
Christian Mysticism
The Three Principles of the Divine Essence
Chapter 19: Of the Entering of the Souls to God, and of the wicked Souls Entering into Perdition. Of the Gate of the Body's Breaking off [or Parting] from the Soul. (67)
Therefore the Soul (when it departs from the Body) needs not to go far; for at that Place where the Body dies, there is Heaven and Hell; and the Man Christ dwells every where. God and the Devil is there, yet each of them in his own Kingdom. The Paradise is also there; and the Soul needs only to enter through the deep Door in the Center. Is the Soul holy? Then it stands in the Gate of Heaven, and the earthly Body has but kept it out of Heaven; and now when the Body comes to be broken, then the Soul is already in the Heaven; it needs no going out or in, Christ has it in his Arms, for where the four Elements break, there the Root of them remains, which is the holy Element, and therein the Body of Christ stands, and also Paradise, which stands in the springing Source of Joy; and that Element is the soft still Habitation.
And as the Deep above the Earth is, so is Man also both in Love and Wrath, till after the Departure of the Soul; but then when the Soul departs from t...
(63) And in this Heaven dwells the Man that fears God, even with and in the living Body; for that Heaven is as well in Man, as in the Deep above the Earth. And as the Deep above the Earth is, so is Man also both in Love and Wrath, till after the Departure of the Soul; but then when the Soul departs from the Body, then it abides either only in the Heaven of Love, or only in the Heaven of Wrath. [f Or alive in the Body here upon Earth.]
Christ’s soul must needs descend into hell, before it ascended into heaven. So must also the soul of man. But mark ye in what manner this cometh to...
(11) Christ’s soul must needs descend into hell, before it ascended into heaven. So must also the soul of man. But mark ye in what manner this cometh to pass. When a man truly Perceiveth and considereth himself, who and what he is, and findeth himself utterly vile and wicked, and unworthy of all the comfort and kindness that he hath ever received from God, or from the creatures, he falleth into such a deep abasement and despising of himself, that he thinketh himself unworthy that the earth should bear him, and it seemeth to him reasonable that all creatures in heaven and earth should rise up against him and avenge their Creator on him, and should punish and torment him; and that he were unworthy even of that. And it seemeth to him that he shall be eternally lost and damned, and a footstool to all the devils in hell, and that this is right and just and all too little compared to his sins which he so often and in so many ways hath committed against God his Creator. And therefore also he will not and dare not desire any consolation or release, either from God or from any creature that is in heaven or on earth; but he is willing to be unconsoled and unreleased, and he doth not grieve over his condemnation and sufferings; for they are right and just, and not contrary to God, but according to the will of God. Therefore they are right in his eyes, and he hath nothing to say against them. Nothing grieveth him but his own guilt and wickedness; for that is not right and is contrary to God, and for that cause he is grieved and troubled in spirit. This is what is meant by true repentance for sin. And he who in this Present time entereth into this hell, entereth afterward into the Kingdom of Heaven, and obtaineth a foretaste there of which excelleth all the delight and joy which he ever hath had or could have in this present time from temporal things. But whilst a man is thus in hell, none may console him, neither God nor the creature, as it is written, “In hell there is no redemption.”11 Of this state hath one said, “Let me perish, let me die! I live without hope; from within and from without I am condemned, let no one pray that I may be released.” Now God hath not forsaken a man in this hell, but He is laying His hand upon him, that the man may not desire nor regard anything but the Eternal Good only, and may come to know that that is so noble and passing good, that none can search out or express its bliss, consolation and joy, peace, rest and satisfaction. And then, when the man neither careth for, nor seeketh, nor desireth, anything but the Eternal Good alone, and seeketh not himself, nor his own things, but the honour of God only, he is made a partaker of all manner of joy, bliss, peace, rest and consolation, and so the man is henceforth in the Kingdom of Heaven. This hell and this heaven are two good, safe ways for a man in this present time, and happy is he who truly findeth them. For this hell shall pass away, But Heaven shall endure for aye.
Now comes the question of the soul leaving the body; where does it go? It cannot remain in this world where there is no natural recipient for it; and...
(24) Now comes the question of the soul leaving the body; where does it go?
It cannot remain in this world where there is no natural recipient for it; and it cannot remain attached to anything not of a character to hold it: it can be held here when only it is less than wise, containing within itself something of that which lures it.
If it does contain any such alien element it gives itself, with increasing attachment, to the sphere to which that element naturally belongs and tends.
The space open to the soul's resort is vast and diverse; the difference will come by the double force of the individual condition and of the justice reigning in things. No one can ever escape the suffering entailed by ill deeds done: the divine law is ineluctable, carrying bound up, as one with it, the fore-ordained execution of its doom. The sufferer, all unaware, is swept onward towards his due, hurried always by the restless driving of his errors, until at last wearied out by that against which he struggled, he falls into his fit place and, by self-chosen movement, is brought to the lot he never chose. And the law decrees, also, the intensity and the duration of the suffering while it carries with it, too, the lifting of chastisement and the faculty of rising from those places of pain- all by power of the harmony that maintains the universal scheme.
Souls, body-bound, are apt to body-punishment; clean souls no longer drawing to themselves at any point any vestige of body are, by their very being, outside the bodily sphere; body-free, containing nothing of body- there where Essence is, and Being, and the Divine within the Divinity, among Those, within That, such a soul must be.
If you still ask Where, you must ask where those Beings are- and in your seeking, seek otherwise than with the sight, and not as one seeking for body.
(121) Therefore Heaven must be a Firmament between the Sparkle which had conceived from the Heart of God in the first Glance, that though the Body might happen to perish, yet the holy Seed might remain, which is the Soul, which qualifies, mixes, or unites with the Heart of God, out of which a new Body might come to be; when the whole God should kindle again the Deep of this World in the Light of the Heart of God; and just so it is come to be with the Body. The Love of God have Mercy, and take Pity on it.
Chapter 19: Concerning the Created Heaven, and the Form of the Earth, and of the Water, as also concerning Light and Darkness. Concerning Heaven. (1)
THE true Heaven, which is our own proper humane Heaven, into which the Soul goes when it parts from the Body, and into which Christ our King is...
(1) THE true Heaven, which is our own proper humane Heaven, into which the Soul goes when it parts from the Body, and into which Christ our King is entered, and from whence it was that he came from his Father, and was born, and became Man in the Body or Womb of the Virgin Mary, has hitherto been close hidden from the Children of Men, and they have had many Opinions about it.