Produced by Ruth Hart
THE GOLDEN FOUNTAIN
or,
The Soul's Love for God
Being some Thoughts and Confessions of One of His Lovers
By
Lilian Staveley
London
John M. Watkins
21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, W.C.2
1919
How many of us inwardly feel a secret longing to find God; and this
usually accompanied by the perception that we are confronted by an
impenetrable barrier--we cannot find Him--we can neither go
through this barrier nor climb over it! We have faith. We are able to
admit that He exists, for we cannot help but perceive a Will
dominating the laws of the Universe; but something deep within us
that we cannot put a name to, something subtle, secret, and strange,
cries aloud, "But I need more than this, it is not enough; I need to
personally find and know Him. Why does He not permit me to do
so?"
We might easily answer ourselves by remembering that if, in
everyday life, we greatly desire to see a friend, our best way of
doing so is by going in the direction in which he is to be found: we
should consider this as obvious. Then let us apply this, which we say
is so obvious, to God. We waste too much time looking for Him in
impossible directions and by impossible means. He is not to be
found by merely studying lengthy arguments, brilliant explanations
of theological statements, or controversies upon the meanings of
obscure dogmas. He is not even to be found through organising
charity concerts and social reforms however useful. We shall find
Him through a self stripped bare of all other interests and
pretensions--stripped bare of everything but a humble and
passionately seeking _heart._
He says to the soul, "Long for Me, and I will show Myself. Desire
Me with a great desire, and I will be found."
* * *
Scattered all through history are innumerable persons, both great
and insignificant, who looked for the Pearl of Great Price: and not
too many would seem to have found it. Some sought by study, by
intelligence; some by strict and pious attention to outward
ceremonial service; some by a "religious" life; some even by
penance and fasting. Those who found sought with the heart. Those
who sought with careful piety, or with intelligence, found perhaps
faith and submission, but no joy. The Pearl is that which cannot be
described in words. It is the _touch of God Himself upon the soul,_
the Joy of Love.
* * *
The entrance to the land of happiness and peace is through union of
the will to Christ, by love. How can this sense of love be reached?
By centring the wheel of the mind, with its daily spinning thoughts,
upon the Man Jesus, and learning to inwardly see and hold on to the
perfect simplicity and love of Jesus Christ. We can form the habit of
taking Jesus as our heart and mind companion. We are all aware of
the unceasing necessity of the mind to fill itself: we cannot have
_no_ thoughts until we have advanced in the spiritual life to a long
distance. We may well see, in this, one of the provisions made by
God for His own habitation in the mind of man--a habitation too
often hideously usurped by every kind of unworthy substitute. Petty
social interests and occupations, personal animosities, ambitions,
worries, a revolving endless chaos of futilities, known and praised
by too many of us as "a busy life"!--the mind being given
opportunity only at long intervals, and usually at stated and set times,
to dwell upon the thought of God, and the marvellous future of the
human spirit. We are like travellers who, about to start out upon a
great journey, pack their portmanteaus with everything that will be
_perfectly useless to them!_
Now, it is possible to put out and obliterate this chaotic and useless
state of mind, which would appear to be the "natural mind," and to
open ourselves to receive the might and force and the joys and
delights of Christ's Mind. These joys are the Heart of Christ
speaking to the heart of His lover. They are incomparable: beyond
all imagination until we know them; and we receive them and
perceive them and enjoy them as we have largeness and capacity to
contain them. For there is no end. He has ever more to give if we
will be but large enough to receive.
We are too absorbed in the puerile interests and occupations of daily
life. We make of these endless occupations a virtue. They are no
virtue, but a deadly hindrance, for they keep us too busy to look for
the one thing needful--the Kingdom of God. What is this world? It is
a schoolhouse for lovers, and we are lovers in the making.
Is baptism of itself sufficient to get us into this Kingdom? No. Is the
leading of an orderly social life sufficient to find it? No. Is the hope,
even the earnest expectation, that we shall, by some means or other
(we do not know by what!), be brought to it, sufficient to find it? No;
not without the _personal laying hold_ can we ever achieve it. Shall
we find it in much outward study? No; and our aim is, not to be the
student but the possessor; and the key to this possession is not in
books, but, for us, in Jesus. He it is who must be invited and
admitted into the heart with great tenderness--with all those virtues
for which He stands--and made the centre point of thought. Out of
constant thought grows tenderness; out of tenderness, affection; out
of affection, love. Love once firmly fixed in the heart for Jesus, we
get a perception (by contrast) of our own faults--very painful, and
known as repentance. This should be succeeded at once by change
of mind, _i.e._ we try to push out the old way of thinking and acting
and take on a new way. We try, in fact, strenuously to please the
Beloved, to be in harmony with Him; and now we have established a
personal relationship between ourselves and Christ.
With the perception of our own failings comes the necessary
humility and the drastic elimination of all prides. We remember, too,
that although Jesus is so near to us, and our own Beloved, He is also
the mighty Son of God.
He is also the mystical Christ, who, when we are ready, leads us to
the Father: which is to say, that we are suddenly stricken with the
consciousness of and the love for God; and here we enter that most
wonderful of all earthly experiences--the Soul's great Garden of
Happiness.
To be a student of theories, dogmas, laws, and writings of men is to
be involved in endless controversy; and we may study books till we
are sick, and embrace nothing but vapour for all our pains. To be a
pupil and possessor we must first establish the personal relationship
between ourselves and Jesus. To do this we must realise more fully
than we now do that He _still lives._ The mind is inclined to dwell
on Him mostly as _having lived._ When we have taught ourselves to
realise that Jesus is as intensely alive to everything that we do as He
was when He visibly walked with men--that Jesus is as easily aware
of our inmost thoughts and endeavours now as He was of the secret
thoughts of His disciples,--then we shall have brought Him much
closer into our own life.
As the possessor of life is not the student of schools, but is the pupil
of Christ, let us prepare ourselves to be pupils; and this again we do
solely by the help of the Man-Jesus, who is in Christ, and Christ in
Jesus. For the Christ-God is at first too strong a meat for us: we
cannot with fullness understand that He is God, but He Himself will
teach us this when we are ready to know it. To know this truth in its
fullness is already to possess eternal life.
As no man is able to give us eternal life, so no man is able to give us
the knowledge that Christ is God, as He willed to reveal Himself to
man. If we have doubts which hurt, let us drop them out, changing
the thought quickly to the sweetness, simplicity, and gentleness of
the Man-Jesus. If we have questionings, let us cease to question, and
say with the man of old, "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief."
We do well to avoid these questionings, pryings, and curiosities, for
when we indulge in such things we are like that common servant
who does not disdain to peep through the keyhole of his master's
chamber! Let us put such spiritual vulgarities upon one side, and,
opening our heart to lovely Love, take Him as our only guide. Love
draws us very rapidly to His own abiding-place, for we are made of
love, and because of love, and for love, and to Love we must return,
for He awaits us with longing.
* * *
We often think, Where am I at fault? I am unable to _see_ myself as
a sinner, though publicly I confess myself to be one. For I keep the
commandments; I am friendly to my neighbours; I am just to my
fellow-men; I can think of no particular harm that I do. Why, then,
am I a sinner? And our very modesty and reverence may forbid us to
compare ourselves with God. Yet here lies our mistake; for if we
would enter the Garden of Happiness and Peace, which is the
Kingdom of God, this is the commencement of our advance--that we
should compare ourselves in all things with God, in whose likeness
we are made, and, making such full observation as we are able of the
terrible gulfs between ourselves and Him, should with tears and
humility and constant endeavour be at great pains and stress to make
good to Him our deficiencies.
"Be ye perfect as I am perfect."
"Be ye holy as I am holy."
If this were not attainable, He would not have set so high a goal. In
this, then, we are sinners--that we are not pure and lovely as God
Himself! This is a prodigious, an almost unthinkable height; yet He
wills us to attempt it, and all the powers of Heaven are with us as we
climb.
* * *
Fear curiosity. Fear it more than sin. Curiosity is the root, and sin
the flower. This is one of the reasons why we should never seek God
merely with the intelligence: to do so is to seek Him, in part at least,
with curiosity. God will not be peeped upon by a curious humanity.
The indulgence in curiosity would of itself explain the whole
downfall, so called, of man.
The Soul is the Prodigal. Curiosity _to know_ led her away from the
high heavens. Love is her only way of return.
Curiosity is the mother of all infidelity, whether of the spirit or of
the body.
* * *
Though on reading the Gospels carefully we may be unable to come
to any other conclusion than that Jesus Christ neither prayed for nor
died for all mankind, but only for the elect, yet we see equally
clearly that all mankind is _invited to be the elect._ We are, then,
not individually sure of heaven because Jesus died upon a cross for
men; but sure of heaven for ourselves, only if we individually will to
live and think and act in such a manner that _we become of the
elect._
"Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out," says the Voice
of the Beloved.
* * *
In our early stages, how we shrink from the mere word, or idea, of
perfection; and later, what we would give to be able to achieve it!
Yet though we shrink so from the thought of it, we know
instinctively that we must try to approach it; if we would stay near
Him, we must be wholly pleasing to Him. We think of saints--we
know nothing of saints, but think of them as most unusual persons
midway between men and angels, and know ourselves not fashioned
for any such position: and how change ourselves, how alter our
character, as grown men and women?
It is Christ who can show us the way.
The Water of Life is the Mind of Christ, and the true object of life is
to learn how to receive this Mind of Christ: for by it and with it we
enter the Kingdom of God. And how shall we receive the Mind of
Christ? Here is our difficulty. Firstly, we may do it through
sympathy with, and a drawing near to, the Man-Jesus, accompanied
by such drastic changes of mind as we are able to accomplish _to
show our goodwill._ We may learn to become more unselfish, more
patient, more sympathetic to others, and to curb the tongue, so that
words which are untrue or unkind shall not slip off it. We can learn
to govern the animal that is in us, instead of being governed by it.
No one could have a better guide in how to improve the condition of
his mind than Aaron Crane's book, _Right and Wrong Thinking._
And next, having become well knitted to the Man-Jesus, the Christ
will draw us forward step by step through all the next inward stages,
we giving to Him our attention; and He will bring us finally to that
marvellous condition of God-consciousness by which He is able to
perpetually refresh and renew us. There is one great first rule to hold
to, which is _to think lovingly of Jesus_: in this way we eventually
and automatically _come into a state of love._ In which state He will
teach us to put out our own little light, that we may learn to live by
the lovely light of God. And we have entered the Kingdom!
For myself, I experienced three conversions: the first two of terrible
suffering, and the third of great and marvellous joy, in which it is no
exaggeration to say that for a few moments I seemed to receive God
and all the freedom of the Heavens into my soul. I am not able to
say exactly how long this experience lasted, for I was dead to time
and place, but I should judge it to have been from fifteen to twenty
minutes.
The first conversion came upon me one afternoon in my room, as I
came in from walking. I had been thinking of Jesus while I walked,
as I was often in the habit of doing. Without any intention or
premeditation on my part, I was now suddenly overwhelmed by a
most horrible, unbearable, inexplicable pain of remorse for my
vileness: for I seemed suddenly to be aware of Him standing there in
His marvellous purity and looking at me--not with any reproach, but
with the sweetness of a wonderful Invitation upon His face. And
immediately I saw myself utterly unworthy to come near Him: and I
writhed in the agony of this fearful perception of my unworthiness
till I could bear no more. I was sick and ill with remorse and regret, I
was utterly broken up by it. I did not know then that this awful pain
is what is known as repentance, and wondered secretly what could
have come to me. After this I found myself far more constantly
thinking of Jesus--exchanging, as it were, sweet confidences with
Him, telling Him what I thought, and endeavouring in every
possible way to follow His manner of thought. I am ashamed to say
I was very remiss and lazy in prayers; upon my knees I prayed very
little indeed. But I was very faithful and warm and tender to Him in
my heart, and this had an effect upon my mind and actions, and
continued for two years.
I would be assailed by many questionings during this time. For
instance, how could my sweet Jesus, whom I was always so near to,
be the mighty Christ and God? But I dropped these out as they came,
feeling myself altogether too small to understand these things, and
very much frightened by such greatnesses.
When I was alone with Jesus, all was so simple and so lovely; so I
put away all other thoughts and held closely to Jesus.
This having continued almost exactly the two years, upon Easter
morning, at the close of the service, the horrible anguish came on
me again as I knelt in the church. I was not able to move or to show
my face for more than an hour; and to this day I am not able to dwell
upon the memory of that awful pain, for I think I should go mad if I
had to enter again into so great a torture of the spirit. I endured to
the utmost limit of my capacity for suffering--for this I will say of
myself, I did not draw back, but went on to the bitter end. And the
suffering was caused by the sight of that most terrible of all sights:
the vision of myself as over against the vision of Jesus Christ, and I
died a death for every fault. Whoever has felt the true wailing of the
soul, such an one knows the heights of all spiritual pain. The heart
and mind, or creature, suffers in depths; but the soul in heights, and
this at one and the same time, so that the pain of repentance is
everywhere. And the depth of the suffering of the creature is coequal
with the height of the suffering of the soul, and the joint suffering of
both would seem to be of coequal promise and merit for their after
joy and glory; so that it would seem that the more horrible our pain,
the quicker is our deliverance and the greater our later joys.
After this, Jesus, without my knowing how it came about, passed out
from the Perfect Man into the Christ of God. I walked and talked
with Him no longer just as sweet Jesus, but as the Marvellous and
Mighty Risen Lord! And now I became far more changed. The
world and all earthly loves began to fade; they no longer satisfied or
filled me in the least. How could I contemplate His exquisite
perfections, the ineffable beauties of His mind and heart, and,
turning from these to the sight of the world and of the men and
women that I knew, not feel the difference? Where among my
friends could I find perfect love? Amongst husbands and wives? No.
Amongst mothers and children? No. For everywhere I saw discord,
secret selfishness, separate and divided desires, and many deceits. I
found no love anywhere like His for us. I was always an epicure in
the matter of love, and knew the best when I found it. I continued
with my social and home life exactly as before: the change was an
inward change.
Almost immediately after this the war came, and, with it, torments
of anxiety over my earthly loves.
The fearful anxieties I was in drove me to prayer. I began to pray
more regularly; but though I prayed, I remained as miserable as
before. A painful illness came, and lasted four months. I had no
home because of the war, and nowhere to be ill in peace: and I drank
and ate wretchedness as my daily bread and wine, and wondered
why I ever was born.
I cannot recall I was ever rebellious. No, I never was. I walked in a
maze of trouble, and endured like a poor dumb thing, _and did not
throw out my heart to God enough_ in prayer. If I had done this I
think I should have been through my pains in half the time.
Two years went by, and, being in greater anxiety than ever because
of a great battle that was going on and my love at the front of it, I
went up on the hill where I often went, and standing there I
contended with God, crying out, "It is too much--the pain of this war
is too great and too long; I cannot bear it. I am at an end of
everything. Help me! Help me!" And in my anguish I seemed at last
to be melted and running like water before Him, and I came before
Him as it were immediately before a mighty and living Presence,
though I saw nothing.
But though I was so near Him and appealed to Him with the whole
of my strength, there was no answer, no reply, but the great silence
of heaven.
At last, my agony over, I walked for a little, very quiet and very sad,
and all at once a marvellous thing happened to me. I will not here
describe how it was done to me, but He filled me with love for
Himself, an amazing, all-absorbing, and tremendous love--from the
crown of my head to the soles of my feet I was filled with love. And
this was His answer--and all my sorrows fled away in a great joy.
This third conversion produced a fundamental alteration of my
whole outlook and grasp on life. It brought me into direct contact
with God, and was the commencement of a total change of heart and
mind and consciousness; the centre of my consciousness, without
any effort of my own, suddenly moving bodily from a concentration
upon the visible or earthly to a loving and absorbed concentration
upon, and a fixed attention to, the Invisible God--a most
amazing, undreamed-of change, which remained permanent, though
fluctuating through innumerable degrees of intensity before coming
to a state of equilibrium. And now Christ went away from me, so
that I adored Him in God. After this for some weeks I went through
extraordinary spiritual experiences, the like of which had never
previously so much as entered into my heart to imagine; again I will
say nothing here of these. I came to all these experiences with great
innocence and ignorance, never having read any religious or
psychological book, and I think now that it is perhaps easier to have
it so.
Knowing that nothing is done without a purpose, I would question
myself what I could possibly be intended to learn out of these things;
and though I have never yet found a reason for any one given
experience, yet I see this: the whole (which lasted for some
weeks and was gone through at night and always in a state of
semi-wakefulness, though not in a normal wakefulness, for the body
would be stiff and set like a board)--the whole was the most
convincing proof that He could have given me (without destroying
my flesh) of the reality of the life unseen. For how otherwise could
we be made to know of the reality of spiritual things if we were
never _taken into_ them? And having been taken into them, and
they being a thousand times more poignant than any earthly
experience, how could we forget them? Whenever doubts upon
anything presented themselves, I had nothing more to do than to
Remember! Nothing He could have devised to do for me could have
been of greater or more direct assistance to me. These experiences
were to my creature what the centre-board is to the racing yacht.
With these memories I could keep an even keel, and without them I
must have capsized many a time.
By these spiritual experiences He gives us an immense courage, and
personal knowledge of a mysterious and hitherto unknown life of
joys so great and so intense that all sufferings endured by us here
appear to us in their true light as being a melting and cleansing
agency infinitely worth while, that we may gain in permanence such
exquisite felicity.
Our means of reaching a personal experience, whilst still in the body,
of such a life of joys is to harmonise the spirit of our human creature
to the degree of purity required by the soul to enable her in
unfettered freedom to perform her divine functions.
We confuse in our minds the two separate essences--that of the soul
and that of the human spirit (heart, intelligence, and will), which are
widely different; the soul acting for us as the wings of the creature.
And above and superior to the soul, and yet within it, is the divine
and incorruptible Spirit or Sparkle of God, which in its turn acts as
the wings of the soul. So we have the worm (or creature-spirit), the
soul; and the Celestial Spark, or Divine Intelligence of the soul,
which is the organ of God, and with which we are able to come in
_sensible contact_ with the divine world and God Himself. What are
our enemies? Selfishness, impatience, covetousness, pride,
ill-temper, bodily indulgences, and, above all, indifference to God of
the will of the creature.
After this third, and last, conversion upon the hill, which so altered
my whole life, I was for a period of some months in such a state of
exaltation and enhancement of all my faculties that I did not know
myself at all. I was, without any intention or endeavour on my own
part, suddenly become like a veritable House of Arts! The most
beautiful music flowed through my mind, in which I noticed certain
peculiarities--there was no sadness in it, and it swayed me so that I
seemed to go into a state of white-heat with emotion over it. It was
extraordinarily much smoother than any earth-music I ever heard,
and extremely consecutive, like a fluid. Now with earth-music I find
that even Wagner is not able to achieve any consecutive perfection:
he reaches to a height--only to fall back and disappoint. But this
other music, which is not heard with the senses but is invariably felt
by the soul, remains at extreme and fluid perfection, and casts such
spells over the listener that he is beside himself with enjoyment.
Colour and form, imagery of all kinds, would pass through me till I
felt like an artist, and cried out with regret, "Oh, if I had only studied
this or that art and knew the grounding of it, what heights of
proficiency I could reach now!" An object of quite ordinary charm
seemed, because of that something which now filled me, to expand
into prodigious beauty! The very pavements and houses, mean and
hideous as they are, overflowed with some inexplicable glamour.
The world was turned into a veritable paradise! When I thought of it
all I was filled with amazement, and still am, for how can we
explain such changes in manner of living and seeing? At this time
my only trouble or difficulty was to conceal my condition from
others.
But this wonderful state of things gradually passed away, and I went
into a most difficult condition. At one time of the day I would be in
an ecstasy of delight, and an hour later in some altogether
unreasonable depth of wretchedness. I went to and fro from one
extreme to the other, and my time was, I think, mostly spent in
trying to regain some kind of balance. My love for God was as great
as ever, but it had become a love all made of tears. Indeed, my
whole being seemed made of tears. I thought often of these words,
the peace of God; most certainly I had not found it. On the contrary,
my life had become an indescribable turmoil. I found no help from
my fellow-beings; I seemed to have lost the power of talking
pleasantly with them, and my point of view had become different
from theirs. Men could no longer please me, and I could not please
God! I was entirely alone spiritually, and I said to myself it would
be better if I could be alone physically as well; and I ached and
longed and dreamed of solitude till it was like a sickness. But the
only solitude I could have was in my own room.
Now, believing myself to be a sensible and practical person, I would
say to myself that my condition, being so unreasonable, must be got
out of, and I must make every effort to do it. I prayed for two
things--that I might love God with a cheerful countenance and not with
tears, and that He would teach me quickly what to pray for; and He
gave me the impulse to pray for more and greater love.
Next, I banished my own feelings as much as I could (since love
must not think of itself), paying as little attention to them as possible
by perpetually dropping them out as they came and returning to the
thought of Jesus, concerning myself at all times of the day to loving
inward conversation with Him; and in this manner I fastened myself
closer than ever to Him, continually praying for greater love to give
Him and passionately offering Him all that I already had, whilst
with all my will and strength I tried to climb out of my miserable
state. Soon I succeeded--I was out of it in a matter of weeks.
* * *
How humanity is extolled by its own kind! How men are admired,
even glorified! I am amazed, for where is the glory of any man? But
rather, how wonderful and glorious is God! that He should cause to
spring from one handful of dust such possibilities! Wonderful God!
And blessed man, that he should have so wonderful a God!
* * *
Some men say that man has invented for himself the thought of God,
because of the great need he feels within himself for such a Being.
Yet look where we will in Nature, do we find a warrant for such a
thought? Are babes inspired with the desire for milk, and is that milk
withheld from the nature of all mothers? No; to the babe is given the
desire because the mother has wherewith to satisfy. So with grown
men: for to us is given a deep and secret desire for the milk of God's
love, and to Himself He has reserved the joy of leading us to it and
bestowing it upon us.
* * *
Sometimes for a short while the soul will suffer from a sickness (I
speak now for persons already very well advanced); she is parched
and without sweetness. Her love has no joy in it. This is not a
condition to be accepted or acquiesced in, but must be overcome at
once by a remedy of prayer: prayer addressed to the Father, _in the
name of Jesus Christ,_ a prayer of praise and adoration--"I praise
and bless and love and thank Thee, I praise and bless and love and
worship Thee, I praise and bless and love and glorify Thee"--till the
heart is fired and we return to the intimacy of love. Or the Lord's
Prayer, very slow, and with an intention both outgoing and
_intaking._ So far I have never known these remedies to fail, and
joy floods the soul and sends her swinging up, up, on to the topmost
heights again. It is magnificent.
How is it that we can pass so, up from the visible into the Invisible,
and become so oned with it, and feel it so powerfully, that the
Invisible becomes a thousand times more real to us than the visible!
It is like a different manner of living altogether. And when anyone
so living finds himself even for a short time unfastened from this
way of living and back again to what is known to the average as
normal life, this normal life seems no better to him than some
horrible chaotic and uneven turmoil, and his brain ready to be turned
if he had to remain in it for long. When so unfastened, the whole
savour of life is completely gone, and a smallness of mind and
outlook is fallen back into from which the soul recoils in horror and
struggles quickly to free herself.
Is this the remnant of the unruly creature rising up and grappling
with the soul again? Is this some deliberate trial of us by the Master?
or some natural spiritual sickness? Whilst in this condition we must
disappoint the Beloved. On the other hand, we find ourselves kept
to the knowledge of our own impotence and nothingness and
dependence, and the spirit is strengthened by the efforts made
quickly to recover the lost beautiful estate.
Also we become more able to feel true patience and compassion for
such others as do not know the way of escape. So we gain, maybe,
more than we lose.
* * *
We may wonder how it is that the Mighty Maker of the Universe
should choose to condescend to the mere individual piece of clay. It
is incomprehensible. It is so incomprehensible that there is but one
way of looking at it. This is no favouritism to the individual, but the
evidence of a Mind with a vast plan pursuing a way and using a
likely individual. These individuals or willing souls He takes and,
setting them apart, fashions them to His own ends and liking. Of one
He will make a worker, and of another He fashions to Himself a
lover. It would seem to be His will to use the human implement to
help the human. As water, for usefulness to the many, must be
collected and put through channels, so it would seem must the
beneficence of God be collected into human vessels and channels
that it may be distributed for the use of the many and the more
feeble.
* * *
The more any man will consider humanity, the more he will see that
the education of the heart and will is of more importance than the
education of the brain. For in the perfectly trained and educated
heart and will we find the evidence of highest wisdom.
* * *
Why mortify the body with harsh austerities? When we over-mortify
the body with fastings, pains, and penances we are _remembering
the flesh._ Let us aim at the forgetting and not the despising of the
flesh. A sick body can be a great hindrance to the soul. By keeping
the body in a state of perfect wholesomeness we can more easily
pass away from the recollection of it. Chastise the mind rather than
the body. Christ taught, not the contempt or wilful neglect of the
body, but the humble submission of the body to all _circumstances,_
the obedience of the will to God, and the glorious and immeasurable
possibilities of the human spirit.
* * *
We know that the love of the heart can be beautiful and full of zeal
and fervour; but the love of the soul by comparison to it is like a
furnace, and the capacities of the heart are not worthy to be named
in the same breath. Yet, deplorable as is the heart of man, it is
evidently desired by God, and must be given to Him before He will
waken the soul. To my belief, we are quite unable to awaken our
own soul, though we are able to _will_ to love God with the heart,
and through this we pass up to the border of the Veil of Separation,
where He will _sting the soul into life_ and we have Perception.
After which the soul will often be swept or plucked up into
immeasurable glories and delights which are neither imagined nor
contrived, nor even desired by her at first--for how can we desire
that which we have never heard of and cannot even imagine? And
these delights are unimaginable before the soul is caught up into
them, and to my experience they constantly differ. The soul knows
herself to be in the hands and the power of another, outside herself.
She does not enter these joys of her own power or of her own will,
but by permission and intention and will of a force outside herself
though perceived and known inside herself. No lovers of arguments
or guessing games can move the soul to listen when she has once
been so handled. For to know is more than to guess.
* * *
How can a Contact with God be in any way described? It is not
seeing, but meeting and fusion with awareness. The soul retaining
her own individuality and consciousness to an intense degree, but
imbued with and fused into a life of incredible intensity, which
passes through the soul vitalities and emotions of a life so new, so
vivid, so amazing, that she knows not whether she has been
embraced by love or by fire, by joy or by anguish: for so fearful is
her joy that she is almost unable to endure the might of it. And how
can the heat or fire of God be described? It is very far from being
like the cruelty of fire, and yet it is so tremendous that the mind
knows of little else to compare it to. But it is like a vibration of great
speed and heat, like a fluid and magnetic heat.
This heat is of many degrees and of several kinds. The heat of Christ
is mixed with indescribable sweetness: giving marvellous pleasure
and refreshment and happiness, and wonderfully adapted to the
delicacy of the human creature. The heat of the Godhead is very
different, and sometimes we may even feel it to be cruel and
remorseless in its very terrible and swift intensity. But the soul, like
all great lovers, never flinches or hangs back, but passionately lends
herself. If He chose to kill her with this joy she would gladly have it
so.
By these incomprehensible wonders He seems to say to the creature:
"Come thou here, that I may teach thee what is Joy; come thou here,
that I may teach thee what is _Life._ For none are permitted to teach
of these things save I Myself."
* * *
There is another manner. The Spirit comes upon the soul in waves of
terrible power. Now in a rapture God descends upon the soul,
catching her suddenly up in a marvellous embrace: magnetising her,
ravishing her. He is come, and He is gone. In an ecstasy the soul
goes out prepared to meet Him, seeking Him by praise and prayer,
pouring up her love towards Him; and He, condescending to her,
fills her with unspeakable delights, and at rare times He will catch
her from an ecstasy into a greater rapture. At least, so it is with me:
the ecstasy is prepared for, but in the quicker rapture (or catching up)
it is He that seeks the soul. These two conditions, though given very
intermittently, become a completely natural experience. I should say
that the soul lived by this way: it is her food and her life, which she
receives with all the simplicity and naturalness of the hungry man
turning to his bodily food. But these waves of power were
something altogether new and very hard to endure. As each wave
passed I would come up out of it, as it were, gasping. It was as if
something too great for the soul to contain was being forced through
her. It was as if one should try to force at fearful pressure fluid
through a body too solid to be percolated by it. I understood nothing
of what could be intended by such happenings, neither could I give
accommodation to this intensity. I tried to make myself a wholly
willing receptacle and instrument, but after the third day of this I
could not bear any more. I was greatly distressed. I could not
understand what was required of me. I gave myself totally to Him,
and it was not enough. And at last I cried to Him, saying: "I
understand nothing: forgive me, my God, for my great foolishness,
but Thy power is too much for me. Do what Thou wilt with me; I
am altogether Thine. Drown me with Thy strength, break me in
pieces--I am willing; only do it quickly, my Lord, and have done
with it, for I am so small. But I love Thee with all that I have or am;
yet I am overwhelmed: I am still too little to be taught in this way, it
is too much for my strength. Yet do as Thou wilt; I love Thee, I love
Thee." And He heard me, and He ceased: and He returned to the
ways that I understood and dearly loved, and for weeks I lived in
Paradise. But my body was dreadfully shaken, and I suffered with
my heart and breathing.
Shortly after I began to know that another change had come into me.
God had become intensely my Father, and Christ the lover was gone
up again into the Godhead--as happened after my third conversion
upon the hill.
So great, so tremendous was this sense of the _Fatherhood_ of God
become that I had only to think the word Father to seem to be
instantly transported into His very bosom. Oh, the mighty sweetness
of it! But it is not an ecstasy. The creature and soul are dead to
world-life, as in a rapture or ecstasy; but the soul is not the bride,
she is the child, and, full of eager and adoring intimacy, she flies
into His ever-open arms, and never, never does she miss the way.
Oh, the sweetness of it, the great, great glory of it, and the folly of
words! If only all the world of men and women could have this joy!
How to help even one soul towards it is what fills my heart and
mind. How convince them, how induce them to take the first steps?
It is the first steps we need to take. He does not drive, He calls.
"Come to Me," He calls. It is this failure to have the will to go to
Him which is the root of all human woe. Would we but take the first
few steps towards Him, He will carry us all the rest of the way.
These first few steps we take holding to the hand of Jesus. For the
so-called Christian there is no other way (but he is no Christian until
he has taken it). For the Buddhist, doubtless, Gautama is permitted
to do the same. But for those who are baptized in Jesus Christ's
name, He is their only Way.
* * *
God, once found, is so poignantly ever-present to the soul that we
must sing and whisper to Him all the day.
O marvellous and exquisite God! I am so enraptured by Thy
nearness, I am so filled with love and joy, that there is no one,
nothing, in heaven or earth to me save Thine Own Self, and I could
die for love of Thee! Indeed I am in deep necessity to find Thee at
each moment of the day, for so great is Thy glamour that without
Thee my days are like bitter waters and a mouthful of gravel to a
hungry man. How long wilt Thou leave me here--set down upon the
earth in this martyrdom of languishing for love of Thee? And
suddenly, when the pain can be endured no more, He embraces the
soul. Then where do sorrow and waiting fly? and what is pain?
There never were such things!
* * *
We do well never to recall past ecstasies. In this way the soul comes
to each encounter with a lovely freshness and purity, and neither
makes comparisons nor curious comments, but gives herself wholly
to love. But by these contacts the soul gains a secret and personal
knowledge of God: without sight and without reasoning she actually
feels to partake of God, so that she passes by these means far up
beyond belief, into experiences of knowledge which in their
poignant intensity are at once an ineffable violence and a marvellous
white peace.
* * *
I find the lark the most wonderful of all birds. I cannot listen to his
rhapsodies without being inspired (no matter what I may be in the
midst of doing or saying) to throw up my own love to God. In the
soaring insistence of his song and passion I find the only thing in
Nature which so suggests the high-soaring and rapturous flights of
the soul. But I am glad that we surpass the lark in sustaining a far
more lengthy and wonderful flight; and that we sing, not downwards
to an earthly love, but upwards to a heavenly.
To my mind, this is man's only justification for considering himself
above the beasts--that we can love, and communicate with, God. For
where otherwise is his superiority? He builds fine buildings which
crumble and decay. He digs holes in the earth to take out treasures
which he has not made; and if he makes himself the very highest
tower of wealth or fame, he must come down from it and be buried
in the earth like any other carcase.
* * *
It is better not to contend, either with others or against our own body.
If we contend against anything we impress it the more firmly upon
our consciousness. So if we would overcome the lusts of the body,
let us do it not by harming or by contending against the body, which
but emphasises its powers and importance, but let us rather proceed
to ignore and make little of the body by forgetting it and passing out
of it into higher things; and eventually we shall learn to live, not in
the lower state, but in the joy of the soul. Why have a contempt for
the body? I once did, and found that I was committing a great sin
against the Maker of it.
How dare we say "my body is vile," when He fashioned it! It is
blasphemous, when we consider that it is His Temple.
To my mind the body is a beautiful and wonderful thing, and is
greatly sinned against by our evil hearts and minds and tongues. The
body would do no harm if we, with our free-will, did not think out
the wickedness first in our own hearts. For first we commit theft and
adultery with the mind, and then we cause the body to carry out
these things. We know that the body is under the law, and its
appetites are under the law, but the heart and mind and tongue are
perpetual breakers of this law. It is lawful for the body to take its
meat and drink, but not to be surfeited and drunken. It is lawful for
the body to have its desires and its loves, but not to be promiscuous
and unfaithful.
But we know that a better way is to turn all appetites and greeds to
this, that we be greedy and ravenous for Christ. Only so shall we use
the appetites of mind and heart and body for their true end, and that
not by despising but by conversion.
With great insistence I have been taught not to despise anything
whatever in Creation of _things made_ in His most beautiful and
wonderful world, though often I may cry with tears, "Lord God!
raise me to a world holier and nearer to Thyself, for I am
heartbroken here."
Yet I am taught only to despise such things as lying, deceitfulness,
hypocrisy, and uncleanness--in fact, stenches of the heart and
mind,--and not to think too much about these, but, passing on, drop
out the recollection of them in thoughts of finer things.
His inward instruction has been this, quietly to lay upon one side all
that which is not pleasing to God; and one by one, and piece by
piece, to fold up and put away all that He does not love.
Above all, He has taught me to have no self-esteem and no prides;
and to such a degree do I have to learn this, that, without the
smallest exaggeration, I am hardly ever able to think myself the
equal of a dog. But the love of a dog for his master is a very fine
thing.
* * *
I think we mistake our own power and capacity in even seeking to
imitate the Christ; let us begin rather by taking into our heart and our
mind the Christ as the Man-Jesus. For His love and power only can
show us the way to imitate the Christ which is in Him.
* * *
Is the temporary loss of grace our fault, or is it a deliberate
withdrawal and testing upon His part? Both. Every condition that we
are in which is not pure and perfect of its kind, such as pure peace,
pure joy, pure harmony, is because of failure on our part to _hold_
to Him. Whenever, and for so long, as we keep ourselves in the
single and simple condition of mind and heart necessary for the
perception and reception of Him, for just so long shall we receive
and perceive him; but this condition again we cannot maintain
without grace. All loss of joy, of serenity, of contact, is failure, then,
on our part or withdrawal upon His. Yet we learn a bitter but useful
lesson by these losses of ability for connection. To return
ignominiously to our dust is a most bitter humiliation and trial--indeed,
a desolation. Now, if we did not so return we might suppose
ourselves able, of our own power, not only to achieve momentary
connection with the Divine, but to remain at will in this sublime
condition, by which I mean in a state bordering upon ecstasy. The
withdrawal of grace therefore would seem to be a necessary part of
the education and of the constant humbling of the soul. To find
ourselves, of our own unaided capacity, by the mere force of our
own will, able to constantly go up to so high a level would
inevitably foster pride; indeed, to attain such a capacity would seem
to place us on a level with the angels!
By these withdrawals of grace, which came at first very tenderly, but
gradually with greater and greater severity, I have learnt this: that in
spite of all that has been done for me, of all that I have experienced,
in spite of all the heights to which at times I have been raised, I
remain nothing better than the frailest and unworthiest thing! The
sight of an ugly grey cloud, momentarily and gloriously illumined
by the sun, is a sufficient illustration of the temporary
transformation of our own selves touched by the light and the glory
of God.
For the carrying out of His plan, it would seem to be His good
pleasure that we are just what we are--not angels, but little human
things, full of simplicity and trust and love. "Like dear children," as
St Paul says; and yet, oh! wonder of wonders! _far more than this._
For whilst we patiently wait, from time to time He stoops and
embraces the soul in an infinite bliss, in which we are no more
children, but are caught up into High Love.
At first when we begin this new kind of living He holds us firmly, as
it were, to a condition suitable for contact with Him. If He did not
do so, having had no previous practice, we should never remain in it
for two moments together. Then little by little He teaches us to live
with less frequent joy, and this is the cause of much difficulty and
trouble. It is hard to endure being without this blessed state and
these marvellous favours, and more and more I found He withdrew
them whilst often my worldly and commonplace heart and mind still
held me back--_even from peace._ If we could but rid ourselves
quickly of all selfish desires and greeds! Not until I had learnt to do
this was I given back my joys, and then sparingly.
How I would turn towards that secret door--the door of the kingdom
of love,--and calling to Him, hear no reply! Where is He gone?--why
this desertion?--I would cry. How can He cause such pain, how can I
bear such dreadful deprivations, and what is love but a sharp sword?
Lord, let me hear Thy voice, for I am in despair; I cannot bear these
pains, I fear for everything, my joy is lost. My bread is spread with
bitterness; where is the honey that I love so well? Lord, call to me
even from far away, and I shall hear and be consoled. Lord, I am
sick and ill--how canst Thou leave me so? Hast Thou no pity for my
pain?--is this Thy love? _My_ pain! Lord, I remember! Thou hast
been kissed by pain more frequently than I. Oh, let me wipe the
memory of Thy pain away with my warm love, and let me sing to
Thee and be Thy lark, and do Thou go and wander where Thou wilt
and I will love Thee just the same! And softly the Voice of the
Beloved, saying: "I am here, I never left thee; but thou wast busy
crying of thy pains and did not hear Me when I answered thee."
Lord, so I was! I was so filled with self, and, asking for _Thy gifts, I
did forget to give!_ and so lost love.
* * *