Blessed Jan van Ruysbroeck – ‘THE BOOK OF SUPREME TRUTH’ – Chapter V-VII; ‘OF THE UNION WITHOUT …
[BLESSED JAN VAN RUYSBROEK – XIII-XIV Century AD; Ruisbroek, Holy Roman Empire/ Groenendael, Holy Roman Empire; aged 87-88, Mystic, Spiritual Writer, Doctor Divinus Ecstaticus]
“Chapter V ~ OF THE UNION WITHOUT MEANS
YOU may remember that I showed heretofore how all saints and all good men are united with God through means. Now I will further show to you how they are all united with God without means. But in this life there are but few who are meet for this, and sufficiently enlightened to feel and understand it. And therefore, whosoever wishes to find and to feel within himself those three unions of which I am going to speak, he must live entirely and wholly in God, so that he may satisfy and be amenable to the grace and the stirring of God, in all virtues and inward exercises. And he must be lifted up through love, and die in God to himself and all his works; so that he yields himself up with all his powers, and submits to the transformation through the incomprehensible Truth which …More
"What hath become of all that thou didst receive from God? Then his TEARS ARE HIS MEAT DAY AND NIGHT, as the Prophet says. Now if that man is to recover from this misery, he must observe and feel that he does not belong to himself, but to God; and therefore he must freely abandon his own will to the will of God, and must leave God to work in him in time and in eternity."
"When a man feels God within himself with rich and full grace, this I call heavenly health; for then he is wise and clear of understanding, rich and outflowing with heavenly teachings, ardent and generous in charity, drunken and overflowing with joy, strong in feeling, bold and ever ready in all the things which he knows to be well pleasing to God; and such-like things without number, which may only be known by those who feel them. But when the scale of love goes down, and God hides Himself with all His graces, then the man falls back into dereliction and torment and dark misery, as though he should never more recover: and then he feels himself to be nought else but a poor sinner, who knows little or nothing of God. He scorns every consolation that creatures may give him; and the taste and consolation of God he does not receive. And then his reason says within him: WHERE IS NOW THY GOD?"