Dark Night of the Soul
"The human instinct for personal happiness must be
killed." Really? Is our Declaration of Independence then
counter to a mystic life?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,
as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness."
"Union: the true goal of the mystic
quest...characterized by peaceful joy,..."
"In the mystics of the West, the highest forms of
Divine Union impel the self to some sort of active, rather than of passive
life: ..."
Matthew 10.39:
Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose
their life for my sake will find it.
"...a change whereby that self turns from the unreal
world of sense in which it is normally immersed, first to apprehend, then to
unite itself with Absolute Reality: finally, possessed by and wholly
surrendered to this Transcendent Life, becomes a medium whereby the spiritual
world is seen in a unique degree operating directly in the world of
sense."
I have these impressions, deep within me as I read this
book, but they are not amenable to articulate expression. And I am so
very far from being able to live this out. My only consolation is
understanding that these states of being are commendable and desirable and I
hope for the beginnings of truly desiring them so that I can, in fact, begin to
see how I might operate their truth in the world of sense.
