41 quotes
We behold that which we are, and we are that which we behold.
Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912)
Knowledge of ourselves teaches us whence we come, where we are, and whither we are going. We come from God, and we are in exile.
Ruysbroeck the Admirable (1925)
God contemplates Himself and all things in an Eternal Now that has neither beginning nor end.
The Spiritual Espousals (1340)
God in the depths of us receives God who comes to us: it is God contemplating God.
An Anthology of Mysticism and Mystical Philosophy (1927)
Then are we ravished out of self by purified Love, even to the Face of God, freed and emptied of every event and illusion. This is the contemplative life of highest price.
There their naked understanding is in penetrated with eternal clarity as the air is penetrated by the light of the sun.
We are ravished out of self by purified Love, even to the Face of God, freed and emptied of every event and illusion. This is the contemplative life of highest price.
My words are strange, but those who love will understand.
God is more interior to us than we are to ourselves.
His acting in us is nearer and more inward than our own actions.
God works in us from inside outwards;
creatures work on us from the outside.
Spiritual inebriation is this: that a man receives more sensible joy and sweetness than his heart can either contain or desire.
The Spiritual Espousals (1340)
The incomprehensible richness and loftiness of the Divine Nature, its outpouring generosity toward all in common, fills a man with wonder.
The Spiritual Espousals (1340)
All our ways end in superessential Being
God loves without limit and this puts a loving person most securely at peace.
The Spiritual Espousals (1340)
Now, if the spirit is to contemplate God with God, without intermediary, in this divine light, three things are necessary for a person.
The Spiritual Espousals (1340)
Even as God is common to all, the sun shines upon all trees
The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage (1916)
But yet another thing is necessary, Purity of spirit; for an intelligence in repose without images, an intuition in the light of God, and a spirit elevated in Purity to the Face of God, these three qualities united constitute the true contemplative life, where none can err; for the pure spirit expands ceaselessly and follows rapidly in purified love, the enlightened intelligence towards its Cause.
God's transcending nature must be understood as oneness and simplicity,
unscalable height and unfathomable depth,
incomprehensible breadth and infinite length,
dark silence and ferocious energy.
The image of God is found essentially and personally in all mankind. Each possesses it whole … In this way we are all one, intimately united in our eternal image.
Compassion is a wound in the heart whence flows a common love to all mankind and which cannot be healed so long as any suffering lives in man.
The Spiritual Espousals (1340)
Finally, and beyond all else, ravished out of self into the Glory of God, without limit, incomprehensible, immense, we are to enjoy Him for ever and ever