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The truth about our endeavours is that we have one pre-eminent, pressing need above all other needs, which is to Find God. When we have accomplished this we discover without any further teaching that we no longer care to pass our time with air-balls, because they appear so paltry, so inadequate. We are grown up and are no longer puerile in our desires: at the same time we are not without desires, but, on the contrary, we glow with a new, more ardent, and larger set of desires.
V
What I know of the soul's actual Finding and Contact with God I keep very closely to myself. Here and there to a few, a very few souls, I may speak: to all others I am forbidden to speak. I am stopped; and I understand perfectly why this is: it is that I should do more harm than good. Anyone looking at me would say (and all the more so because I am dressed in the fashion of the day, and not in some peculiar way, or in a nun's habit, for such trifling things affect many minds), "That person is demented to think that she knows what it is to have Contact with God," and it would seem a scandal to them. But the explanation of the mystery is not so simple as this. I am not demented. I never was so sane, so capable in my life as now. I never was so perfectly poised as now. But if you say to me, "Explain what it is that you know, in order that I too may know," then I can say to you nothing more than, "Come and know for yourself, for God awaits you."
To illustrate a mere fraction of the difficulty of passing such a knowledge from one self to another self, let us take such a case as that of a man born blind. He sits beneath a tree, on the grass. You put a blade of grass in his fingers, and also a leaf from the tree, and you say to him, "This is grass, and this is the leaf of the tree which shelters you, and both are green." "And what," he asks, "is green?" And to save your life you cannot make him know what it is, or make him know the tree, or know the grass, though he touches them both with his hands. How, then, shall God, Who can be neither seen, nor heard, nor touched, how shall He be made known from one to another? He must be experienced to be known. And if you should say to me, "What does it feel like to have found God?" then I should say, "It feels that the roof is lifted off the world, and wherever we may be or stand it is a straight line from us to God and nothing between, nothing between, day or night."
VI
To come to the contemplation of God it is not necessary to go through any lengthy toil, some process of throwing out this or that, painfully, slowly, denying the existence of everything in order to arrive at God. The way is not denying, but concentrating; and in the act of concentration, because of love, all other things whatsoever in creation fall away into nothing and are no more, because God in all His graciousness reveals Himself, and then He alone exists for the enraptured soul.
VII
Supposing that we have found Jesus Christ, supposing that we know Him so well and have come to love Him so much that our love for Him is become stronger than any other love, very much stronger than any other love, and still, in spite of hopes and endeavours, we know that we have not found the Godhead, we have not found Union with the First and Third Person of the Holy Trinity—the heavens have not, as it were, been opened to us to let our souls slip through to God. Are we to be discouraged because of this? Are we to think ourselves less favoured, less loved? A thousand times no. We are, perhaps, in neither heart, mind, or soul quite sufficiently prepared for the great ordeals that must be gone throughafter Union with God,To find God is Victory. But Victory has dangers. We have perhaps not yet sufficiently developed just those exact qualities which it is essential we must have in order tomaintainthe connection with God in the face of all obstacles when once He is found. When God reveals Himself to a soul she is in great danger, and she knows it, because to fail Him now, to turn away now, to be unfaithful now—this is a terrible disaster to the soul. God in His mercy exposes no soul to such dangers until she is as ready as may be, but He bides and He works in her till she is ready. So it may very well be that it is not in this life that we come to Union, but later; and the fact that we have not come to Union is a sign to increase our nearness to Christ by as much as we can: the very smallest advance that we make in this life is of the utmost value to us later.
VIII
The soul that is seeking Union with God must not, upon any pretext whatever, engage itself in spiritualism. Spiritualism may have its great uses for the heart and mind which are without, or are struggling for, belief—the heart and mind of Thomas seeking to touch, to have a proof; but remember the words of the Saviour to Thomas: "Blessed are they," He says, "who have not seen, and yet have believed." And we do not need to wait for death to receive this blessing, but we receive it here. The soul that would find God must go to Him by means of His Holy Spirit, and no other spirit but the Spirit of God can take us to Him; and to try to hold communications with the spirits of menis not the way.The soul that has come to Union with God is perfectly aware of the existence of spirits—is intensely aware,—but refuses to pay any attention if she wise. Some of these spirits are very subtle, very knowing; some are full of flattery, and very persistent; others present themselves as still in human form, and seek to terrify with their terrible faces, some diabolical, some appearing to be in a great agony and undergoing changes more astonishing and horrible than can be even imagined before experienced—and melting only to be re-formed into that which is yet more fearful. Have nothing whatever to do with spirits. Do not resist them when they come, but drop them behind by fixing heart, mind, and soul on Christ. The Spirit of Christ easily overcomes every spirit, every evil, every fear, and in order to ourselves overcome all such things, we need to unite with the Spirit of Jesus Christ by concentrating upon Him with love, and ignoring obstructions. Those who have lent themselves to spiritualism, hoping to find comfort, a lost friend, or even God Himself, when they give it up (as they must do) they may find themselves greatly plagued by the fires with which they have been playing; but these can soon be overcome by diligently uniting the heart and mind to Jesus Christ.
IX
After coming to full Union with God, the mind becomes permanently attached to Him,and this without effort;but in order that it shall be without effort, the will must be kept in a state of loving attention to Him, and this again can only be done without effort if the heart is so full of love that it desires nothing else than God; and this is dependent again upon the grace which the soul receives from Him because of her love and response—so now we see, living and working in our own being, the reason and meaning of His commandment to love Him with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength. It is doing thisafter He has Himself given us the power to do itwhich makes us able to live in the closest, most delicious and precious nearness to God during all our waking hours. But it takes time, and it takes much pain to learn how to live this, as it were, double life—this inward life of companionship, of wonderful and blessed inward intercourse with God, and the outward intercourse of the senses with the world, our everyday duties, and our fellow-beings. In our early stages we have profound innumerable difficulties in understanding either our own capacities or God's wishes: we are terrified of losing Him, and yet are often bewildered, and pained also, by some of the higher degrees in which He communicates Himself. We do not understand how to leave God and return to earthly duties. Supposing that we are altogether wrapped up in the company of God, and some fellow-being suddenly recalls us to the world (the human voice can recall the soul as nothing else can), the pain is so great as to be nothing less than anguish; and if done often would seriously affect the health of the body.
But in a few years we learn to accomplish it without any shock.
One pain, however, remains, and it grows. I find myself unable to carry on a conversation with anyone unless it is about God, or about some work which is for God and has to do with His pleasure (and this is rare, because people are so glued to worldly affairs), for more than an hour, and even less, without the most horrible, the most deathly, exhaustion, which is not only spiritual but bodily—the face and lips losing all colour, the eyes their vitality: so dreadful is the distress of the whole being that one is obliged, upon any kind of pretext, to withdraw from all companions, and, if it is only for five minutes, be alone with God and, where no eye but His can see, unite completely with Him once more, and immediately the whole being becomes revivified. There is nothing else in life so wonderful, so rapturous as this swift reunion of the soul with God; and the joy is not only the joy of the soul, because the heart and mind have their fill of it too, for they too have ached and thirsted and hungered and longed, and now are satisfied.
If this measureless happiness could only be imagined by us before we experience it, how many of us would be spurred to greater efforts instead of falling back amongst the dust and cobwebs of Vanity!—but it cannot be imagined, and the only way to come to it is by faith and obedience; and it is easy to see why this arrangement is necessary, for if we could imagine it thoroughly, then we should probably try to get to God only on account of greed, and should find ourselves drifting away instead of towards Him; it cannot be done by greed, greed being one of those things which beguiled the soul away from Him to begin with; and He does not send the soul His favours till she is free of, and has risen above, the dangers of greed and seeks Him for Himself and not for His favours. As soon as it is safe for her He will give the soul continual favours, because Perfect Love is ever desirous to give, and is only restrained on our account to withhold favours. The soul which knows how to make all necessary preparations to receive Him becomes a source of joy to God, for now He can give and give and no harm be done to that soul; but He does not acquaint the soul too suddenly with all the joy that she is to Him, because she would not (at least certainly my soul would not) be able to bear the knowledge of the privilege that she enjoys, without some danger to herself,—and so, all unaware of the singularity of the privilege that she enjoys without any analysis of her happiness, she concerns herself with sweetly obeying Him, with singing to Him, and with giving Him all that she has all the day long, and so hovers before Him as delightful simplicity and love.
This Union with God varies so much in degree that it makes an effect of endless variety. Yet it is all one same joy, it is the joy of angels reduced to such degree as makes it bearable to flesh: the soul knows that it is the joy of angels that she is receiving the first time that she has it given to her: immediately on receipt of this joy she comprehends themodeof heavenly living; she knows it is but the outer edge that she touches, but what means so much to her is that she hasrecaptured the knowledge of this mode of living:henceforth it is a question of progress, she bends all her attention to progress so that she may get nearer and nearer to God, so that she may do everything to please this suddenly refound, unspeakably beloved God.
She desires to get nearer and nearer to God in spite of the pain that she often experiences. Perhaps the first pains we experience are when we are in contemplation of God and are caught by God into High Contemplation. He will at times expose the soul to so much of the Divine Power that she cannot sever herself from the too great fulness of Union with God, though the body is crying to her to do it and the sufferings of the body are all felt by the soul, which is pulled two ways: all this is very painful and makes us almost in afearof God again. Why should Perfect Love inflict this pain on us? It may be to remind us that He is not only Love, but Power, Might, Majesty, and Dominion also. Yet could this ever be forgotten? It seems incredible. But it does not do to trust to one's soul, or to count on what she will do or not do: we know that the soul has forgotten almost everything about God, so much so that we are now thankful to arrive even so far as being quite certain that He exists! What infinite kindness that He should consent and condescend to Himself be her Teacher! But He does so condescend, and the more the soul relearns of God, the more she also learns that He is never weary of working for us all: this keeps the soul in a state of intense gratitude.
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When the soul arrives at Union with God, does she remain always in Union? Yes, but not at the degree of Union which is Contact. What is the difference? It can perhaps be most easily explained (though extremely imperfectly) by referring to the union of married life. In this union, though we live in one house, we are not always both in that house at the same time; but this does not dissolve our union, and we both know our way to return there, and the right to meet is always ours. When we are both in the house, although not in the same room, there is a much nearer feeling about it, and we are apt to give a momentary call one to the other, just to have the pleasure of response: yet, though we are aware the other one is in the house and that there is no part of the house where we are forbidden to meet—it is not enough; love requires more: it will be necessary for one to go and seek the actual presence of the other (the soul does this by a quiet prayer with perhaps a few words, but more probably no words). The one finds the other one; but the other one is occupied, so the one waits patiently (this is passive contemplation), and suddenly the occupied one is so constrained by love for the waiting one that he must turn to her, open wide his arms, and embrace her—they meet, they touch, they are content. In spiritual life this is contact or ecstasy or rapture. Here comes in the immensity of the difference between joys physical and joys spiritual—physical joys being limited to five senses: spiritual joys being above senses and open to limitless variations; but in order that these may be known in their fulness, we must eventually (after leaving the flesh) rise to immense heights of perfection: the joys enjoyed by the Archangel woulddestroya lesser angel: the degree of joy that invigorates the saint, that sends him into rhapsodies of happiness, woulddestroythe sinner—(becoming insupportable agony to the sinner). This celestial joy is, fundamentally, a question of the enduring of some un-nameable energy. How can energy be a means of this immeasurable Divine joy? After years of experience I find I cannot go back upon the knowledge that I acquired on the very first occasion of experience—that energyis a fundamental principle of the mystery.
But how, it may very well be asked, do sins interfere with the reception of this activity? Sins are all imperfections, thickenings of the soul from self-will: pure soul is necessary for thehappyreception of this celestial activity, and because impurities are automatically dissipated by this activity, and the dissipation or dispersion of themis the most awful agony conceivablewhen too suddenly done, what is bliss to the saint is the extremity of torture to the sinner. Now we come very fearfully and dreadfully to understand something more of the meanings, the happenings, of the Judgment Day. Christ will inflict no direct wilful punishment on any soul; but when He presents Himself before all souls and they behold His Face, immediately they will receive the terrible might of the activity of celestial joy. The regenerated will endure and rejoice; the unrepentant sinner will agonise, and he must flee from before the Face of Christ, because the agony that he feels is the dispersal of his imperfect soul; and where shall the sinner flee, where shall he go to find happiness? for saint and sinner alike desire happiness, and there is in Spirit-life only one happiness—the Bliss of God. So then let us be careful to prepare ourselves to be able to receive and endure this happiness, even if it can at first be only in a small degree, so that we shall not be condemnedby our own painto leave the Presence of God altogether and consequently lose Celestial Pleasures; let us at least prepare ourselves to remain near enough to know something of this tremendous living.
It was this Divine Activity which on the night of the Too Great Happiness so anguished my imperfect soul. But that night, and that anguish, taught my soul what she could never have learnt by any other means, and what it was I learnt I find myself unable to pass on to anyone; but that night was for my soul the turning-point of her destiny, that night altered my soul for evermore; that night I knew God as deeply as He can be known whilst the soul is in flesh.
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God uses also a peculiar drawing power. All souls feeling desire towards God are to a greater or lesser degree conscious of this, and, as we know, frequently remain conscious of it as a desire and nothing further to the end of life in flesh. By means of it He draws a soul towards Himself until, because of it, the whole being is willing to make efforts at self-improvement, and this is the essential: it is this cleaning up of the character, this purification, which alone can bring us to the point where we can receive God's communications of Himself (in other words, ecstasies and periods of reunion with Celestial-living). Ecstasies inspire and awaken the soul: they convince the mind absolutely of the existence of another form of livingand of God Himself.
After ecstasy the efforts of the entire being are bent on trying to perfect itself, and extraordinary Graces may be freely and almost continually given to us in order to make improvement more rapid for us. The feeling for God which before ecstasy was a deep (and often very painful) longing for God now increases to a burning, never-ceasing desire for Him: only three thoughts can be said to truly occupy a person from this stage onwards—how to please God, how to get nearer to Him, how to show practical gratitude. He may increase the flow of His Power to a soul till she is in great distress, longing to leap out of the body owing to the immensity of God's attraction. This attraction at times has a very real and sensible effect upon the body: it feels to counteract gravity, it makes the body feel so light it is about to leave the ground; it affects walking, and unaccountably changes it to staggering. To receive this attraction can be an ecstatic condition, but is by no means ecstasy. So long as we have power to move the body by will we are not in true ecstasy. In ecstasy the body feels to be disconnected in some unaccountable manner from the will; it lies inert, though it knows itself and knows that it stills lives—which fundamentally differentiates it from sleep, because in sleep we do not know our body, we do not know if we are alive or dead, we know nothing. In ecstasy is no such blankness: merely the body is perforce inert, it would be entirely forgotten but for its periods of distress.
Neither can ecstasy be confused with dreaming, by even the most simple person. In dreaming, objects and events of a familiar type still surround us; the total inconsequence with which they present themselves alone makes dream-living unlike actual living, for it remains fundamentally of the same type—physical and full of persons, forms, objects, and word-thoughts. We can procure sleep by willing it, but we cannot will to procure ecstasy: we find it totally independent of will.
The Attraction of God can be a penetrating pain, because the soul, terribly drawn to God, exceedingly near Him, yet remains unsatisfied even in this close proximity. Why? Because she is being subjected to one Force only—she longs, she remains near, and receives nothing. God is not bestowing His Activity upon her, which is the way that she "knows" Him—she is not living the celestial life.
It is the combination of the two Forces working together simultaneously on and in the soul which differentiates ecstasy and rapture from all other degrees of God-Consciousness. When these two Powers work together, we experience celestial living, full Union, the bliss of Contact. It cannot possibly be said that in ecstasy we see God: it is a question of "knowing" Him through the higher part of the soul, in lesser or in deeper degrees.
X
If the Divine Lover gives such joys to the soul, how does the soul give joy to the Divine Lover? Is she beautiful? She becomes so. Also the soul is a poet of the first water, though she uses no words; and the soul is a weaver of melodies, though she makes no sound; but above all, and before all, the soul is a great lover. Now we know in this earthly life that a lover desires above everything else the love of her whom he loves. Only when she whom he loves returns his love, can he truly enjoy her.
So also the Divine Lover. O incomparable Love! Love gives all when it gives itself, love receives all when it receives Love.
By love, then, the soul is the Delight of God.
XI
The soul feels to be formless; though we become aware of aspreadingwhich causes her to feel of the form of a cup or a disc when she receives God, and in contemplation she feels to extend—flame-like until she meets God. She can wait for God—spread, but cannot maintain this form for long without God rejoices her by His touch. How can so formless a thing, still waiting for its Spiritual Body, be beautiful? She is beautiful because of the colours she is able to assume: she can glow with such colour as no flower on earth can even faintly imitate. Celestial colours are beyond all imagination. As the soul grows in purity and is able to endure an increase of the Divine Radiations and Penetration, so she changes her colours; by her colours she delights the eye of her Maker, He touches her, she becomes yet more beautiful.
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Very early in the morning God walks in His Garden of Souls, and in the evening also, and in the noonday, and in the night.
The soul that knows Him knows His approach, and, preparing and adorning herself for Him—waits.
XII
Does God come and go? The soul feels Him there, and not there. Is she mistaken in this, and God always to be possessed, but she not dressed to receive Him? If this is so, then how grievously frequent is our failure!
It is more encouraging to our own state to suppose that God lends Himself and withdraws; that He will be possessed; and He will not be. But this involves caprice. Can Perfect Love have caprice?
We find that grace can be received without intermission for weeks, even months, together. Without coming and departing (although in lesser and greater intensity) the Presence of God, Love and Comfort, envelop the soul. So then we learn by our own experience that God is willing to be present amongst us continually in His Second and Third Persons.
Yet, although He is present in His Two Persons, the soul is not filled: she is unspeakably blest and happy, but not wholly satisfied till He is present to her in His First Person also. She knows immediately when He so comes, and then the Three become One, and when They become One to her, in that moment the soul enters Bliss. It is true that if He so came to her very frequently, the soul could not endure Him; but certainly she could endure Him more frequently than she receives Him. It is not because she is worthy that she possesses Him: the soul never, under any circumstances, feels worthy: it is love alone which enables her to possess Him, and this love that she knows how to shed to Him is His own gift to her.
So the soul cries to Him, O mystery of love, was ever such sweet graciousness as lives in thee: such exquisite felicity of giving and receiving, in which the giver and receiver in mysterious rapture of generosity are oned! And this mystery of love is not in paucity of ways, but in marvellous variety of ways and of degrees—the ways of friendship, the brother and the sister, the mother and the child, the youth and the maiden, and Thyself and we.
Love makes the soul ponder on His tastes, His will, His nature. Does He prefer even in heaven to possess Himself to Himself in His First Person? or are there parts of heaven where He is ever willing to be possessed in His fulness: where He is eternally beheld in His Three Persons by such as can endure Him? The soul believes it, and this is the goal she strives for both now and hereafter.
Yet there is That of Him which is for ever Alone, which will never be known or shared by the greatest of the Angels. The soul comprehends that He will have it so because of that Solitary which sits within herself, she who is made after His likeness.
XIII
For many years before coming to Union with God, I found that it had become impossible to say more than a little prayer of some five or six words, and these were said very slowly: at times I was astonished at my inability, and ashamed that these pitiful shreds were all that I could offer, and always the same thing too; I tried to vary it—I could not. When I tried to say some fine sentence, when I tried even to ask for something, I could not; it all disappeared in a feeling of such sweet love for God, and I merely said again the same old words of every day. I loved. I could do nothing more than say so, and then stay there on my knees for a little while, very near Him, fascinated, adoring. But God is not vexed with a soul when she cannot say much. Is an earthly father vexed when his child, standing there before him, forgets the words upon its lips, forgets to ask, because it loves him so? Far from it.
This prayer is the commencement, the foretaste, of Contemplation. A distinguishing mark between this prayer and Contemplation is that in even the lowest degree of Contemplation God (if one may so express the inexpressible) is Localised. Hitherto His Presence has been near—but we cannot say how near, or where, andwe cannot be sure of finding it.After Union we are certain of finding God's Presence everywhere, and at any time. He may at times be far away, or pay no attention to us; but we know whereabouts He is, and we can go and wait outside that place where He has hidden Himself and which is no place (but a figure of speech): He merely disappears from our consciousness, but not so entirely but that we can partly find Him. All this cannot be explained, but after Union God is as present to the soul in Contemplation (and far more so because of the great poignancy of it) as is a fellow-creature whom we actually see and touch, much more so because between ourself and a fellow-creature, however dear, is always a barrier: try as we may there is always a dividing line between two persons. We are two: we remain two. But when we meet God there is nothing between us and God, nothing whatever divides us, and yet we are not lost in God—that is to say, we do not disappear as a living individual consciousness, but our consciousness is increased to a prodigious degree, and we are One with God.
XIV
This Oneness, in a tiny degree, can be experienced by two persons who are in close spiritual sympathy when both are simultaneously and powerfully animated by very loving thoughts of Christ, or are working together, andgivingon account of Christ: then a fluid interchange of sympathies and interests takes place in which the barriers of individuality go down.
This same fluid interchange in a still lesser degree takes place in ordinary friendship between two friends of similar tastes; but this interchange must always be with the mental and the higher part of us, it can never take place because of the merely physical, for in the physical, dependent as it is upon senses, barriers always exist: we see this in the union of lovers—their union is merely a transitoryself-gratification, although it may include another self in that it is mutual; but more frequently it is not even mutual, and what is a pleasure to one is at the moment distasteful to the other, though the one can easily conceal from the other that it is so, proving how complete the duality of consciousness and of feeling remains between two individuals who depend upon contiguity ofsubstance(or the sense of touch) for their union, and not upon spiritualsimilarity: in spiritual similarity alone isidentityof feeling and personality and perfect union to be found, and in this identitydeceit is impossible.
XV
The more we investigate the question of satisfactions the more we find that these, in order to be permanent, must take place upon a very high level, upon a plane above materialism. However much we may with our sense of taste enjoy a dinner to-day, it will be no joy whatever even a week hence. The natural everyday facts should (and are intended to) prove to us the futility of giving so much time and thought to the pleasures of the flesh: these pleasures lead nowhere, they end abruptly, they are very limited, being confined to five senses, and consequently, owing to a necessity of continual repetition, satiety supervenes, and there remains nothing else to turn to. Yet when this happens we are really very fortunate, because it may be a cause of our searching amongst our higher faculties for our gratifications.
XVI
The soul finds it bitterly hard to rid herself of selfishness and self-will: she gets rid of one form, only to find herself falling to another. When first my soul reknew the Joy of God I said to myself, "I will hide it in my own bosom, I will keep it all to myself. I am become independent of all creatures, I want none of them, I cannot bear the sight or the sound of them, how joyfully I leave them all behind!—I want only my God—I want—But what is all this?—I want, I will, I, I, I, I!" Later the days come when God hides Himself from me: I can go and wait at His threshold (because when she knows the way He never denies the soul the threshold, though He denies her Himself). I may pour out all the sweetness of my love, but he makes no response; I may sing to Him all day: He will not hear; I may give Him all that I am or have, and He will not communicate Himself to me. Then I remember all the years of my striving, I remember the stress, the sweat of all that climb to His footstool—the sweat that at times was like drops of blood wrung out of the soul, out of the heart, out of the mind; and yet all forgotten in the instant of the rapture of Finding. Did He then beckon and draw and delight the soul only to madden with the anguish of more hiding and more striving: was He to be found only that He might again be lost? My soul sickened with fear, and I said, Love is a calamity; who can release me from the anguish of it? O God, since I may no more possess Thee, grant that I may shortly pass into the dust and for ever be no more, so that I may escape this pain of knowing Thy Perfections and my own necessity for Thee; and I mourned for Him till my health went.
Weeks passed, and three words came constantly to me: "Visit my sick." But I did not listen: I was sick myself with a deadly wound. Almost every day the same three words came; but I turned away resentfully from them, saying to myself, "What have the sick to do with me? I am weary of sick people: I have been so much with them. Must I accept the sick in place of the ecstasy of God? I mourn for the loss of God. I can cheer no sick."
The words came again, with excessive gentleness, and the gentleness was like the gentleness of Christ, and it pierced. So that day I go to the village and visit the sick again, and I look at them tenderly and lovingly, and tenderly and lovingly they look at me, and some say, "It is as if God came into the house with you"; and tears come to my eyes, and I say, "It may be so, because He sent me," and they gaze at me lovingly, and lovingly I gaze at them; and it seems to me that I can no longer tell where "they" cease and where "I" begin, and the sweetness, the peculiar sweetness, of Christ pierces me through from my head to my feet—that sweetness that I have not known for weeks. And so I comprehend that Holy Love is not alone just Thee and me, but it is also Thee and me and the others, and Thee and the others and me.
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I wanted my own way. The way I wanted was to be free in order to worship and bless God in a beautiful place, in some place thatIshould choose. I wanted to worship Him, and to sing Him the Song of the Soul from some quiet hill among the olive trees by the Mediterranean Sea. I wanted this marvellous, this almost terrible, joy of meeting God in a beautiful place thatIshould choose: I wanted it so that it became spiritual greed—spiritual self-indulgence.
Duty, heavy-winged duty, prevented my taking the journey; duty to an always-contrary relation, now unwell. It was only a little thing—just a journey prevented, but it crossed my self-will; and in an impatient, detestable way that I have, I wanted to push all duty, even all human relationships, anywhere upon one side, or over the edge of the world, so they might all fall together out of my sight and I be free!
Because I thought these thoughts, I came to the Place of Tribulation. And the Messenger came, and he said, "Escape, and the way is consenting." But I said, "No, I will not have that way, I will escape by some other way." So I tried every other way, but found it guarded by something which seemed to be armed with a hammer; but I persisted: then for days and nights my soul stood up to the hammers and received terrible blows, and still I persisted—I would find a way to escape that should please my will. But I could not eat, I could not sleep, the flesh visibly lessened on my bones, and at last I loathed myself and my own will and my own soul, and I cried to God, "Shall I never be through with this terrible struggle with self-will?" and groaned aloud in my despair.
Then the words that were sent long ago to a saint, and that he was inspired to write down to help us all, now came and did their work for me through him: "My grace is sufficient for thee." And so I found it, and more than sufficient—when I consented.
Who is it, what is it, that so punishes the soul? Is it God? No. Patiently, lovingly He waits. Our pain is the difficulty of consenting to perfection: every virtue has a hammer, every perfection a long two-edged sword; and the punishment we feel is the breaking and wounding of self-will under the hammers of the virtues and the sword-thrusts of the vision of perfection.
Put aside these wretched, these sometimes awful and terrible, battles and punishments, shrink from them when they come, and we may put aside salvation. Accept them—stand up to the hammer and take the blows and learn: consent to the sword that pierces up to the hilt, and what do we come to?—The Blisses of God.
PART V
I
After coming to Union with God, our prayers become entirely changed, not only in the manner of presenting them, but changed also in what is presented. Petitioning is a hard thing. I had found it easy to pray for others whether I loved them or not, with the lips and with some of the heart; but I found that I could not do it in the new way, with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, so that everything else fled away into nothing and was no more, except that for which I petitioned God. A perfect concentration for the welfare of a stranger or of some cause was a very hard thing; yet I was made aware that I must learn to do it.
For two or three years I suffered pain and exhaustion over this petitioning; I would be so fatigued by it, found it so great a strain, that I said to myself, "I shall lose my health over this petitioning, for as I do it, it is as though I gave my life-energy for the cause or person for whom I pray." But my Good Angel whispered me not to give in, but continue to be willing, continue to be generous, no matter the cost. I am not generous, but I went on with it, and secretly had the greatest dread of it; my whole nature shrank from the effort, from the strange loss of vitality this petitioning brought.
Then at last, after more than two years, because of remaining willing, because of trying to remain generous about this, to me, most grievously hard prayer, one happy day God lifted away all the strain and difficulty, all the pain and fatigue, and turned it into the sweetest of prayers: into a new song, a new honey, new music, a new delight, in which the soul has, as it were, but to sip at the nectar of His Love and Beneficence, to bring it to a fellow-soul.
I found that God causes the soul to pray this joyous, this exquisite, prayer for total strangers, passers-by in the street, fellow-travellers by road and rail, here and there, this one and that, she knows which one it is: how surprised these persons would be if they knew that a total stranger, who never saw them before and never will see them again, was joyously, lovingly, holding them up before God for His help and His blessing! and they receive His blessing. God does not prompt such prayers for nothing. Is this favoritism? No; they are secretly seeking Him.
II
When the soul is united to God a great change comes over the mind, which now thinks continually, lovingly, of God. God not merely hoped for, looked for, as in the past, but God found and known, God close and near; interruptions come and go, but the mind, like a pendulum, swings back to God, nothing stops it; the soul streams to Him: she discovers Him everywhere: she knows her way to Him, and she has not far to go. Her own door is also His door. There are many degrees of intensity about this condition, which can increase to such an extent as to entirely interfere with our everyday duties. When it is increased to this degree it would appear (certainly at times) to be on purpose to teach the soul a self-abnegation which she could not otherwise learn, because, together with an intense, almost terrible, attraction and desire to be alone with God, will come the pressure of a duty which it is obvious God would wish us to attend to: this is a severe and a very continual lesson to the soul—the lesson of learning patiently to continue some sordid work in this world, after finding the joys of the spiritual life.
What are amongst the most noticeable changes in the mind? first, we notice it has become very simple in its requirements, and very restful; it no longer darts here and there gathering in this and that of fancied treasures, as a bird darts at flies; it has dropped outside objects, in order to hover around thoughts of God, which at the same time are not particularised, but, as it were, quietly, contentedly, float in a general and peaceful fragrance of beauty.
Ordinarily the mind would find it difficult to hover in this way with such a singleness of intent, but in certain other cases we see the same contentment—in the mother beside her babe: though she may not talk to it, or touch it, she is happy; she knows it near; she is secretly giving to it. We see it in the babe also: it gazes at its mother and is quiet; if the mother removes herself, the child may cry; no one has hurt it—merely, it has ceased to be happy because the object of its desire has gone too far from it, has disappeared. We see it also in two lovers; they sit near together, and the more they love the fewer words they require to speak: they are happy: they require very few words, very few thoughts. Separate them, and they spend their time uneasily in sending messages, in thinking numberless yearning thoughts which become painful, and, if continued for long, can affect the health. Put them together again, and they barely say two words: their joy at meeting occupies the whole of their attention. It is the same when we love God. The heart, and the mind, and the soul are blissfully content, they are in a love-state, they bask in His Presence; but that we should be aware of His Presence—this is His gift, this is the vast difference between our former and our present state.
When we have become experienced in this Presence of God, the Reason tries very earnestly to comprehend the manner of it. Christ says that when love is established between God and a man, "My Father and I will come to him and make our abode with him." How can such a tremendous thing as this be carried out without, as it were, burning the man up with the greatness of it? Does God, then, when experienced feel to be a Fire? Yes, and no, for we feel that we shall be consumed, and yet it is not burning but a blissful energy of the most inexpressible and unbearable intensity, which has the feeling of disintegrating ordispersing flesh.The experience is blissful to heart and mind only so long as it is given within certain limits: beyond this it is bliss-agony, beyond this it would soon be death to the body; and the soul feels that in her imperfect state it can soon easily be the dispersion of herself also: this is a very terrible feeling: this does not bear remembering or thinking about. How, then, can it be possible that God can take up His abode with us and we still live?
In all contacts with God we notice one fact pre-eminently—they do not take place with the mind, but with that which was previously unknown to us, and which communicates the joy and the realities of meeting God to the mind. What is this? It does not live in the heart: it lives, or feels to live, in the upper cavity of the chest, above the heart, and below the throat-base. It can endure God. It is spirit, it feels to be a higher part of the soul: we might call it the Intelligence and Will of the soul, because it acts for the soul as the mind acts for the body, it is above the soul as the mind is above (more important than) and rules an arm or leg. The more we experience God, the more we are forced to comprehend that we have in us an especial organ in this spirit with which we can communicate with God and by which we can receive Him without the mind or body being destroyed. For when God takes up His abode with a man He will communicate Himself to this loving Spirit-Will or Intelligence in ecstasies. And through His Son He will communicate Himself in another manner, to the heart and mind, so graciously, with such a tender care, that without the stress of ecstasy we are kept in a delicate and most blessed Awareness of God. In these ways we can know, even in flesh, the beginnings of the true love-state, the beginnings of the angelic state, which is this same love-state broughtto completion by Beholding God.
III
Although this blessed condition of Awareness of God is a gift, and at first the mind and soul are maintained in it without effort on their part, it being accomplished for them solely by the power of the Grace of God, yet later—and somewhat to their dismay after receiving such favours—they discover that it must be worked for in order to be maintained. The heart must give, the mind must give, the soul must give: when they neither work nor give they may find themselves receiving nothing: God ceases to be present to them. Generosity on our part is required. It works out in experience to be always the same thing that is needed for our perfect health and happiness—reciprocity. Without we maintain this reciprocity we shall experienceextraordinary disappointment.
IV
The soul is now blind: we know this by experience; but do we know that she ever had sight? If she did not, but was created imperfect, and was so created in order that only by work and merit she should arrive at completion and perfection and Behold God (instead of merely, as now in this world, being able only to apprehend Him by the retrospect of His effect upon her), then she was always below angels. If through work and obedience she becomes so raised that she merits sight and the actual Beholding of God, then she becomes equal to angels because of this Beholding; and so Christ tells us that she does as the Child of the Resurrection.
It is the inability of the soul to comprehend, after experiencing the bliss of Union with God, how she came to embark upon this wandering and separation, which so presses the Reason for an explanation of the fall of the soul.
It may be that not all souls are fallen, but that some are merely in process of progressing to sight. These are Righteous Souls. But there are more souls also created sightless, who are fallen by curiosity, by infidelity or plain self-will and forgetfulness—these it is who need the Redeemer: "I come not to call the Righteous, but sinners to repentance." From this it would seem that there are souls who, though they are in this world, are yet fundamentally righteous: not fallen, but working to receive sight. It is inconceivable to the soul that, had she ever Beheld God, she could have left Him, but not inconceivable to her that, having never Beheld Him, she may have been unfaithful on her road to Sight. She understands this awful possibility after coming to Union with Him from this earth, because then she learns the immense difficulties of maintaining this sightless Union.
She knows the terrible solitude and testing it entails, and the innumerable temptations when low-spirited and lonely to turn to interests and consolations apart from God; for God will frequently, in the later stages of progress, withhold every consolation and comfort from the soul, leaving her solitary. Will she stay? Will she go?
V
We hope for much from "education"; but what education is it that will be of enduring value to us? Is it the education which teaches us the grammars of foreign languages, scientific facts, the dates when wars were won, when kings ascended their thrones, princes died, artists painted their masterpieces, that will bring us to our finest opportunities of success? To the soul there is little greater or less chance of success offered by the degree of "polish" in the education we have the money to procure: the peasant who cannot read or write may achieve the purpose of life before the savant: we know it without caring to acknowledge it to ourselves: the education that we really require is the education of daily conduct, the education of character, the education by which we say to Self-will, to Pride, and to Lusts, "Lie down!"—and they do it!