When someone reaches insights into creation on the path of his ascetic life

for it is superfluous from then onwards for him to put a boundary to prayer | by means of (fixed) times or the Hours | his situation has gone beyond its being a case of his praying and giving praise when he (so) wants. | From here onwards he finds the senses continuously stilled and the thoughts bound fast with the bonds of wonder | he is continually filled with a vision replete with the praise that takes place without the tongue’s movement. | Sometimes, again, while prayer remains for its part | the intellect is taken away from it as if into heaven | and tears fall like fountains of water, involuntarily soaking the whole face. | All this time such a person is serene, still, and filled with a wonder-filled vision. | Very often he will not be allowed even to pray | this in truth is the (state of) cessation above prayer | when he remains continually in amazement at God’s work of creation — | like people who are crazed by wine | (for) this is ‘the wine which causes a person’s heart to rejoice’. | 35.1, p. 151