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"When the soul has arrived at the attainment of the
general light, of which I have spoken, she should not
remain contented, because, as long as you are
pilgrims in this life, you are capable of growth, and
he who does not go forward, by that very fact, is
turning back. She should either grow in the general
light, which she has acquired through My Grace, or
anxiously strive to attain to the second and perfect
light, leaving the imperfect and reaching the
perfect.
"For, if the soul truly have light, she will wish
to arrive at perfection. In this second perfect light
are to be found two kinds of perfection; for they may
be called perfect who have abandoned the general way
of living of the world.
"One perfection is that of those who give
themselves up wholly to the castigation of the body,
doing great and severe penance. These, in order that
their sensuality may not rebel against their reason,
have placed their desire rather in the mortification
of the body than in the destruction of their
self-will, as I have explained to you in another
place. These feed their souls at the table of
penance, and are good and perfect, if their penance
be illuminated by discretion, and founded on Me, if,
that is to say, they act with true knowledge of
themselves and of Me, with great humility, and wholly
conformed to the judgment of My Will, and not to that
of the will of man.
"But, if they were not thus clothed with My Will,
in true humility, they would often offend against
their own perfection, esteeming themselves the judges
of those who do not walk in the same path. Do you
know why this would happen to them? Because they have
placed all their labor and desire in the
mortification of the body, rather than in the
destruction of their own will.
"Such as these wish always to choose their own
times, and places, and consolations, after their own
fashion, and also the persecutions of the world and
of the Devil, as I have narrated to you in speaking
of the second state of perfection.
"They say, cheating themselves with the delusion
of their own self-will, which I have already called
their spiritual self-will, 'I wish to have that
consolation, and not these battles, or these
temptations of the Devil, not, indeed, for my own
pleasure, but in order to please God the more, and in
order to retain Him the more in my soul through
grace; because it seems to me that I should possess
Him more, and serve Him better in that way than in
this.' And this is the way the soul often fails into
trouble, and becomes tedious and insupportable to
herself; thus injuring her own perfection; yet she
does not perceive it, nor that, within her, lurks the
stench of pride, and there she lies.
" Now, if the soul were not in this condition, but
were truly humble and not presumptuous, she would be
illuminated to see that I, the Primary and Sweet
Truth, grant condition, and time, and place, and
consolations, and tribulations as they may be needed
for your salvation, and to complete the perfection to
which I have elected the soul.
"And she would see that I give everything through
love, and that therefore, with love and reverence,
should she receive everything, which is what the
souls in the second state do, and, by doing so,
arrive at the third state. Of whom I will now speak
to you, explaining to you the nature of these two
states which stand in the most perfect light."
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