Walking In Emptiness

Contemplation is the light of God’s love playing directly in the soul. That is all. And there is nothing delicate or nuanced about it.

It is a mistake even of the great masters to be delicate - reverential - when talking about contemplation. To bring in beliefs and superalatives to nuance the qualities explained. But again, contemplation is the light of God’s love playing directly in the soul. It is the outworking of the interaction of love that God has for people and that, planted by God in the soul, responds with God’s love for God and completes us. This is not some reward for us being good, or rational, or smart, or strong. It is not as if God’s love is too pure for us to be able to experience it. It is not as if God dumbs it down so that we can participate in it in some pitifully subdued manner. That is the argument of someone who has not experienced infused contemplation and wants, for whatever reason, to say that their knowledge somehow justifies not having done so. Do not listen to them.

And again, contemplation is the light of God’s love playing directly in the soul. And as humans there will always be the temptation to fill the natural emptiness that allows God to work in us in this manner with other things. But we all vary in the amount of emptiness that we can tolerate in our lives. Some are selfish; some are less selfish; others are selfless. Some are shocked by the intensity of the light of God’s love and recoil away. Some have notions about God that are barriers from the start. Some have so much self-love that there is no room for God. All of these are forms of psychological damage at best and mental disease at worst. Many in the church view these abnormalities and their variants as great graces of power that they propose to use to shape the church. And some simply seem to not be able to genuinely love or to be able to respond to genuine love in the first place. Do not listen to them.

But this brings us to a crucial point. True contemplative experience sooner or later causes an interiour revolution in people where they wake up and realize that they have a choice. Do they want to trust their own minds? Do they want to trust their own wills? Do they want to trust their own religious practises? Do they want to trust their own judgments and their own decisions? Do they want to be their own guides? These are physically and mentally sensual people for whom darkness and helplessness is foolishness. They can go no further. Do not listen to them. Furthermore, these may remain faithful to their notions about God. They may have complex and broad-ranging spiritual disciplines. They may purport to even serve God in formal manners with much popular support. They may live pious lives in religious enclaves in order to escape dying to themselves. This are characteristic of the church today, and its leaders, and its adherents across the board. Do not listen to them.

These people could not be bothered by you unless they want something from you.

Instead, believe intuitively contemplative people who want to live in obscurity. Believe in those who walk in emptiness.