Phanes: Completion is poverty. But poverty is means gratitude.
This way shall lead out into the land of men, an assignment.
The mystery of the summer morning, the happy day, the completion of the moment, the fullness of the possible, born from suffering and joy, the treasure of eternal beauty, the goal of the 4 paths, the spring and the ocean of the 4 streams, the fulfilment of the 4 sufferings and of the 4 joys, father and mother of the Gods of the 4 winds, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and man’s divine enhancement, highest effect and non-being, world and seed, eternity and rime instance, poverty and abundance, expansion, death and the rebirth of God, borne by eternally creative force, resplendent in eternal effect, loved by the two mothers and sisterly wives, ineffable pain-ridden bliss, unknowable, unrecognizable, a hair’s breadth between life and death, a river of worlds, canopying the heavens-I give you the love of men, the opal jug of water; he pours water and wine and milk and blood, food for men and Gods.
I give you the joy of suffering and suffering of joy. I give you what has been found: the constancy in change and the change in constancy. The jug made of stone, the vessel of completion.
Water flowed in, wine flowed in, milk flowed in, blood flowed in.
The four winds precipitated into the precious vessel.
The Gods of the four heavenly realms hold its curvature, both the mothers and both the two fathers guard it, the fire of the North burns above its mouth, the serpent of the South encircles its bottom, the spirit of the East holds one of its sides and the spirit of the West its other side.
Forever denied, it exists forever.
Recurring in all forms, forever the same, this one precious vessel, surrounded by the circle of animals, denying itself, and arising in new splendor through its self-denial.
The heart of God and of man. It is the One and Many.
A path leading across mountains and valleys, a guiding star on the ocean, in you and always ahead of you.
Completed, indeed truly completed is he who knows this. Completion is poverty. But poverty is means gratitude. Gratitude is love. ~Phanes, The Black Books, Vol. VII, Page 192-193
