Parte 1 · Observação Interior 10

Chapter TenThe entire substance that is attributed to the emanated being is the will to receive. Any addition in it is attributed to the Emanator.Know that the will to receive in the emanated being, it has been clarified that it is its vessel. Know also that it is all the general substance attributed to the emanated being. It follows that all that exists besides it is attributed to the Emanator.

The will to receive is the first form of every essence. We define the first form as “substance” because we have no attainment in the essence.We perceive the will to receive as an incident and a form in the essence, so how do we perceive it as the substance of the essence? Indeed, it is the same with essences that are near us. We call the first form in the essence by the name “the first substance in the essence” since we have no attainment or perception whatsoever in any substance, as all of our five senses are completely unfit for it. The sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch offer the scrutinizing mind mere abstract forms of “incidents” of the essence, formulating through collaboration with our senses.For example, if we take even the smallest, microscopic atoms in the smallest elements of any essence, which are separated through a chemical process, they, too, are merely abstract forms that appear that way to the eye. More precisely, we distinguish and discern them by the ways of the will to receive and to be received that we find in them.Following these operations, we can distinguish and separate these various atoms to the very first matter of that essence. However, even then they would be no more than forces in the essence and not a substance.Thus, you find that even in corporeality, we have no other way to understand the first matter, except by assuming that the first form is the first matter, which carries all other incidents and forms that follow it. It is much more so in the upper worlds, where tangible and imaginary do not apply.