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Before we treat of the imaginary visions which are
wont to occur supernaturally to the interior sense,
which is the imagination and the fancy, it is fitting
here, so that we may proceed in order, to treat of
the natural apprehensions of this same interior
bodily sense, in order that we may proceed from the
lesser to the greater, and from the more exterior to
the more interior, until we reach the most
interior[292] recollection wherein the soul is united
with God; this same order we have followed up to this
point.
For we treated first of all the detachment of the
exterior senses from the natural apprehensions of
objects, and, in consequence, from the natural power
of the desires -- this was contained in the first
book, wherein we spoke of the night of sense. We then
began to detach these same senses from supernatural
exterior apprehensions (which, as we have just shown
in the last chapter, affect the exterior senses), in
order to lead the soul into the night of the spirit.
2. In this second book, the first thing that has
now to be treated is the interior bodily sense --
namely, the imagination and the fancy; this we must
likewise void of all the imaginary apprehensions and
forms that may belong to it by nature, and we must
prove how impossible it is that the soul should
attain to union with God until its operation cease in
them, since they cannot be the proper and proximate
means of this union.
3. It is to be known, then, that the senses
whereof we are here particularly speaking are two
interior bodily senses which are called imagination
and fancy, which subserve each other in due order.
For the one sense reasons, as it were, by imagining,
and the other forms the imagination, or that which is
imagined, by making use of the fancy.[293]
For our purpose the discussion of the one is
equivalent to that of the other, and, for this
reason, when we name them not both, it must be
understood that we are speaking of either, as we have
here explained. All the things, then, that these
senses can receive and fashion are known as
imaginations and fancies, which are forms that are
represented to these senses by bodily figures and
images.
This can happen in two ways. The one way is
supernatural, wherein representation can be made, and
is made, to these senses passively, without any
effort of their own; these we call imaginary visions,
produced after a supernatural manner, and of these we
shall speak hereafter. The other way is natural,
wherein, through the ability of the soul, these
things can be actively fashioned in it through its
operation, beneath forms, figures and images.
And thus to these two faculties belongs
meditation, which is a discursive action wrought by
means of images, forms and figures that are fashioned
and imagined by the said senses, as when we imagine
Christ crucified, or bound to the column, or at
another of the stations; or when we imagine God
seated upon a throne with great majesty; or when we
consider and imagine glory to be like a most
beauteous light, etc.; or when we imagine all kinds
of other things, whether Divine or human, that can
belong to the imagination.
All these imaginings must be cast out from the
Soul, which will remain in darkness as far as this
sense is concerned, that it may attain to Divine
union; for they can bear no proportion to proximate
means of union with God, any more than can the bodily
imaginings, which serve as objects to the five
exterior senses.
4. The reason of this is that the imagination
cannot fashion or imagine anything whatsoever beyond
that which it has experienced through its exterior
senses -- namely, that which it has seen with the
eyes, or heard with the ears, etc. At most it can
only compose likenesses of those things that it has
seen or heard or felt, which are of no more
consequence than those which have been received by
the senses aforementioned, nor are they even of as
much consequence.
For, although a man imagines palaces of pearls and
mountains of gold, because he has seen gold and
pearls, all this is in truth less than the essence of
a little gold or of a single pearl, although in the
imagination it be greater in quantity and in beauty.
And since, as has already been said, no created
things can bear any proportion to the Being of God,
it follows that nothing that is imagined in their
likeness can serve as proximate means to union with
Him, but, as we say, quite the contrary.
5. Wherefore those that imagine God beneath any of
these figures, or as a great fire or brightness, or
in any other such form, and think that anything like
this will be like to Him, are very far from
approaching Him. For, although these considerations
and forms and manners of meditation are necessary to
beginners, in order that they may gradually feed and
enkindle their souls with love by means of sense, as
we shall say hereafter, and although they thus serve
them as remote means to union with God, through which
a soul has commonly to pass in order to reach the
goal and abode of spiritual repose, yet they must
merely pass through them, and not remain ever in
them, for in such a manner they would never reach
their goal, which does not resemble these remote
means, neither has aught to do with them.
The stairs of a staircase have naught to do with
the top of it and the abode to which it leads, yet
are means to the reaching of both; and if the climber
left not behind the stairs below him until there were
no more to climb, but desired to remain upon any one
of them, he would never reach the top of them nor
would he mount to the pleasant[294] and peaceful room
which is the goal.
And just so the soul that is to attain in this
life to the union of that supreme repose and
blessing, by means of all these stairs of
meditations, forms and ideas, must pass though them
and have done with them, since they have no
resemblance and bear no proportion to the goal to
which they lead, which is God.
Wherefore Saint Paul says in the Acts of the
Apostles: Non debemus aestimare, auro, vel argento,
aut lapidi sculpturae artis, et cogitationis hominis,
Divinum esse similem.295 Which signifies: We ought
not to think of the Godhead by likening Him to gold
or to silver, neither to stone that is formed by art,
nor to aught that a man can fashion with his
imagination.
6. Great, therefore, is the error of many
spiritual persons who have practised approaching God
by means of images and forms and meditations, as
befits beginners. God would now lead them on to[296]
further spiritual blessings, which are interior and
invisible, by taking from them the pleasure and
sweetness of discursive meditation; but they cannot,
or dare not, or know not how to detach themselves
from those palpable methods to which they have grown
accustomed. They continually labour to retain them,
desiring to proceed, as before, by the way of
consideration and meditation upon forms, for they
think that it must be so with them always.
They labour greatly to this end and find little
sweetness or none; rather the aridity and weariness
and disquiet of their souls are increased and grow,
in proportion as they labour for that earlier
sweetness. They cannot find this in that earlier
manner, for the soul no longer enjoys that food of
sense, as we have said; it needs not this but another
food, which is more delicate, more interior and
partaking less of the nature of sense; it consists
not in labouring with the imagination, but in setting
the soul at rest, and allowing it to remain in its
quiet and repose, which is more spiritual.
For, the farther the soul progresses in
spirituality, the more it ceases from the operation
of the faculties in particular acts, since it becomes
more and more occupied in one act that is general and
pure; and thus the faculties that were journeying to
a place whither the soul has arrived cease to work,
even as the feet stop and cease to move when their
journey is over. For if all were motion, one would
never arrive, and if all were means, where or when
would come the fruition of the end and goal?
7. It is piteous, then, to see many a one who[297]
though his soul would fain tarry in this peace and
rest of interior quiet, where it is filled with the
peace and refreshment of God, takes from it its
tranquillity, and leads it away to the most exterior
things, and would make it return and retrace the
ground it has already traversed, to no purpose, and
abandon the end and goal wherein it is already
reposing for the means which led it to that repose,
which are meditations.
This comes not to pass without great reluctance
and repugnance of the soul, which would fain be in
that peace that it understands not, as in its proper
place; even as one who has arrived, with great labour,
and is now resting, suffers pain if he is made to
return to his labour. And, as such souls know not the
mystery of this new experience, the idea comes to
them that they are being idle and doing nothing; and
thus they allow not themselves to be quiet, but
endeavor to meditate and reason.
Hence they are filled with aridity and affliction,
because they seek to find sweetness where it is no
longer to be found; we may even say of them that the
more they strive the less they profit, for, the more
they persist after this manner, the worse is the
state wherein they find themselves, because their
soul is drawn farther away from spiritual peace; and
this is to leave the greater for the less, and to
retrace the ground already traversed, and to seek to
do that which has been done.
8. To such as these the advice must be given to
learn to abide attentively and wait lovingly upon God
in that state of quiet, and to pay no heed either to
imagination or to its working; for here, as we say,
the faculties are at rest, and are working, not
actively, but passively, by receiving that which God
works in them; and, if they work at times, it is not
with violence or with carefully elaborated
meditation, but with sweetness of love, moved less by
the ability of the soul itself than by God, as will
be explained hereafter. But let this now suffice to
show how fitting and necessary it is for those who
aim at making further progress to be able to detach
themselves from all these methods and manners and
works of the imagination at the time and season when
the profit of the state which they have reached
demands and requires it.
9. And, that it may be understood how this is to
be, and at what season, we shall give in the chapter
following certain signs which the spiritual person
will see in himself and whereby he may know at what
time and season he may freely avail himself of the
goal mentioned above, and may cease from journeying
by means of meditation and the work of the
imagination. |