Not only does he, in a general way, thus make the will the decisive element in human destiny, he also implies that the creative "flash" of spiritual insight, "the innermost birth" which brings the soul into living union with its source is due, on the human side, to "resolution," to "earnestness," to "valiant wrestling," to a brave venture of faith that risks everything. It requires "mighty endurance," "hard labour," "stoutness of spirit," and "a great storm, assault, and onset" to open the Gate. In a word, the key to any important spiritual experience is _intention_, inward pre-perception, that holds the mind intently focussed in expectation, without which the "flash" of spiritual vision is not likely to come. But on the other hand Boehme is a powerful exponent of the idea that desire and will must utterly, absolutely die before God can come to birth in the soul--"Christ is born and lives in our Nothingness."[63] A man, he says, must die wholly to self-hood, forsake it and enter again into the original Nothing,--the eternal Unity in which nothing is willed in particular,--before God can have His way with him; all sin arises from self-hood, from desire.[64] "How," asks a disciple in one of Boehme's imaginary dialogues, "shall I come to the hidden centre where God dwelleth and not man? Tell me plainly, loving sir, how it is to be found and entered into?" {205} _The Master_: "There where the soul hath slain its own will and willeth no more anything of itself." . . . _The Disciple_: "But how shall I comprehend it?" _The Master_: "If thou goest about to comprehend in thy own will, it flieth from thee, but if thou dost surrender thyself wholly, then thou art dead to thy own will, and Love will be the Life of thy nature."[65] He seems to go as far in this direction toward the annihilation of desire, negation of the finite, and loss of self-hood as any of the pantheistic mystics. This sample passage will indicate his teaching: "When thou art wholly gone forth from the creature and become nothing to all that is nature and creature, then thou art in that Eternal One which is God Himself, and then thou shalt experience the supreme virtue of Love."[66]