(4) That body again in man is the heart within man, for in it the prânas (which are everything) rest, and do not go beyond.

(41) Behold, thou seeking Mind, that which thou seest before thy Eyes, that it not the Element, neither in the Fire, Air, nor Earth; neither are there four, but one only, and that is fixed and invisible, also imperceptible: For the Fire which burns is no Element, but [it is] the fierce [stern Wrath,] which comes to be such in the Kindling of the Anger, when the Devils fell out of the Element: The Element is neither hot nor cold, but it is the Inclination [to be] in God, for the Heart of God is Barm [that is, Warmth] and its Ascension is attractive and always finding; and then the hertz [that is, the Heart] is the Holding the Thing before itself, and not in itself; and then the ig [the last Syllable of the German Word Barm-hertz-ig, (that is, warm-hearted, or merciful) explained according to the Language of Nature] is the continual Discovering of the Thing, and this is altogether ewig [eternal;] and that is the Ground of the inward Element, which makes the Anger substantial, so. that it was visible and palpable, which [Anger] Lucifer with his Legions did awaken; and thereupon he now remains to be the Prince in the Anger [or Wrath] (in the kindled Element) as Christ (according to this Form) calls him a Prince of this World.

(44) Thou dear Soul, thus saith the high Spirit to thee; yield Infusion. up thy Mind here, and I will show it thee. Behold, what does comprehend thy Will, or wherein consists thy Life? If thou sayest, in Water and Flesh: No, it consists in the Fire, in the Warmth. If the Warmth was not, then thy Body would be stiff [with Cold,] and the Water would dry away; therefore the Mind and the Life consists in the Fire.

(16) And the Fire generates now also a Fire, according to the Property of every Quality; in the tart Spirit it is tart; in the Bitter, bitter; in the Love, it is a very hearty Yearning, Kindling of the Love, a total, fervent, or burning Kindling, and causes very vehement Desires; in the Sound it is a very shrill tanging and where the Sound in all Qualities tells or expresses, as it were with the Lips or Tongue, whatsoever is in all the Fountain-Spirits, what Joy, Virtue, or Power, Essence, Substance, or Property [they have,] and in the Water it is a very drying Fire.

(1) IF we consider now the Springing up of the Life, and in what Place of the Body it is where the Life is generated, then we shall rightly find the whole Ground of Man, and there is nothing so secret in Man but that it may be found. For we must needs say, that the Heart is the Place, wherein the noble Life is generated, and the Life again penetrates the Heart.

(5) For this Heart of mine is the Heart of the god of mighty names, of the great god whose words are in his members, and who giveth free course to his Heart which is within him

(22) And we find greater Mysteries yet in Evidence of the horrible Fall; for after that the four Elements had thus set themselves every one in a several Region, then they made themselves Lords over the Spirit of the Soul, which was generated out of the Essences, and they have taken it into their Power, and qualify with it. The Fire, viz. the mightiest of them, has taken it into its Region [or Jurisdiction] in the Heart; and there it must mkeep, and the Blossom and Light thereof goes out of the Heart, and moves upon the Heart, as the kindled Light of a Candle, where the Candle resembles the fleshly Heart, with the Essences out of which the Light shines. And the Fire has set itself over the Essences, and continually reaches after the Light, and it supposes that it has the Virgin, viz. the divine Virtue [or Power.]

(20) The Soul, being a brilliant Fire, by the power of the Father remaineth immortal, and is Mistress of Life, and filleth up the many recesses of the bosom of the World.

(4) And, indeed, the Flame is the most appropriate symbol for Life that can be thought of. For the Flame while ever remaining the same, yet is never composed of the same particles or sparks for even two consecutive seconds. The Flame, itself, in its Essence, ever remains the same and unchanged, yet its Manifestation is always accompanied and correlated to the appearance and disappearance of innumerable tiny particles of material substance which it kindles into sparks, then destroys by the process of combustion, and then replaces by others of similar nature.

(3) Man's heart stands under the fire sign (8). The flames of the fire press upward. When both eyes are looking at things of the world it is with vision directed outward. Now if one closes the eyes and, reversing the glance, directs it inward and looks at the room of the ancestors, that is the backward-flowing method. The power of the kidneys is under the water sign. When the instincts are stirred, it runs downward, is directed outward, and creates children. If, in the moment of release, it is not allowed to low outward but is led back by the force of thought so that it penetrates th& crucible of the creative and refreshes heart and body and nourishes them, that also is the backward-flowing method. Therefore it is said: The meaning of the Elixir of Life depends entirely on the backward- lowing method.

(1) For that heart there are five gates belonging to the Devas (the senses). The eastern gate is the Prâna (up-breathing), that is the eye, that is Âditya (the sun). Let a man meditate on that as brightness (glory of countenance) and health. He who knows this, becomes bright and healthy.

(83) Here now we find, that they heard the Voice of God in the Garden; for the Element, which is before God, wherewith Man qualifies [or mixes,] that did tremble because of Sin; and Sin was manifested in the Element of the Mind, first in Adam and Eve, and then Fear and Terror fell into the Essences of the Soul; for the first Principle in the [fierce] Sternness was stirred, so that [Principle] got (as a Man may say) Fuel for its Source of Fire. And it is risen up in the Kindling, in a Contrariety of Will, in the Essences, where one Form has continually opposed the other, viz. the sour Tartness, and the Cold, with their Attracting, have awakened the bitter Stinging and Tormenting in the Essences of the Tincture of the Blood in the Spirit; and the bitter Raging and Rising has awakened the Fire.

(6) 'He who (knows) him who was born first from the brooding heat (for he was born before the water), who, entering into the heart, abides therein, and was perceived from the elements. This is that.'

(41) To the pure of heart come also a quiet spirit, one-pointed thought, the victory over sensuality, and fitness to behold the Soul.

(70) Timaeus: in the burning heat. To this end they drew the channels of the windpipe to the lungs, and placed the lungs as a kind of padding round the heart, in order that, when the passion therein should be at its height, by leaping upon a yielding substance and becoming cool, the heart might suffer less and thereby be enabled the more to be subservient to the reason in time of passion. And all that part of the Soul which is subject to appetites for foods and drinks, and all the other wants that are due to the nature of the body, they planted in the parts midway between the midriff and the boundary

(5) And so it is with the Universal Life. It ever persists unchanged and unaltered in its Essence, yet constantly manifesting itself through and in countless material forms which come and go and are in turn replaced by other forms. The form appears, is consumed, and perishes—yet the Flame abides and survives all change. Those who have plunged deep into the esoteric teachings are aware that there are many other very good reasons why the Flame or Fire is the best possible symbol for Life, but it is not thought expedient to go into these further reasons at this time and in this place.

(3) 'That Self abides in the heart. And this is the etymological explanation. The heart is called hrid-ayam, instead of hridy-ayam, i. e. He who is in the heart. He who knows this, that He is in the heart, goes day by day (when in sushupti, deep sleep) into heaven (svarga), i.e. into the: Brahman of the heart.

(17) Although God is Almighty, He can only work in a heart when He finds readiness or makes it. He works differently in men than in stones. For this we may take the following illustration: if we bake in one oven three loaves of barley-bread, of rye-bread, and of wheat, we shall find the same heat of the oven affects them differently; when one is well-baked, another will be still raw, and another yet more raw. That is not due to the heat, but to the variety of the materials. Similarly God works in all hearts not alike but in proportion as He finds them prepared and susceptible.

If the heart is to be ready for the highest, it must he vacant of all other things. If I wish to write on a white tablet, whatever else is written on the tablet, however noble its purport, is a hindrance to me. If I am to write, I must wipe the tablet clean of everything, and the tablet is most suitable for my purpose when it is blank. Similarly, if God is to write on my heart, everything else must come out of it till it is really sanctified. Only so can God work His highest will, and so the sanctified heart has no outward object at all.

(22) Now the Sun and the Stars [or Constellations] continually kindle the Tincture, for it is fiery; and the Tincture kindles the Body, with the Matrix of the Water, so that they are always boiling, [rising] and seething. The Stars [or Constellations] and the Sun are the Fire of the Tincture, and the Tincture is the Fire of the Body, and so all are seething. And therefore when the Sun is underneath, so that its Beams [or Shining] is no more [upon a Thing,] then the Tincture is weaker, for it has no Kindling from the Virtue of the Sun. And although the Virtue of the Stars and the quality are kindled from the Sun, yet all is too little, and so it becomes feeble, [or as it were dead.] And when the Tincture is feeble, then the Virtue in the Blood (which is the Tincture) is wholly weak, and sinks into a sweet Rest, as it were dead or overcome.

(15) While all the Mysteries recognized the heart as the center of spiritual consciousness, they often purposely ignored this concept and used the heart in its exoteric sense as the symbol of the emotional nature, In this arrangement the generative center represented the physical body, the heart the emotional body, and the brain the mental body. The brain represented the superior sphere, but after the initiates had passed through the lower degrees they were instructed that the brain was the proxy of the spiritual flame dwelling in the innermost recesses of the heart. The student of esotericism discovers ere long that the ancients often resorted to various blinds to conceal the true interpretations of their Mysteries. The substitution of the brain for the heart was one of these blinds.