The Cloud Of Unknowing Quotes
He should well con make himself like unto all that with him communed, whether they were accustomed sinners or none, without sin in himself: in wondering of all that him saw, and in drawing of others by help of grace to the work of that same spirit that he worketh in himself. And this I do for fear lest thou shouldest conceive bodily that that is meant ghostly. Here is no taint of quietism, no invitation to a spiritual limpness. Michael recites The Cloud of Unknowing - put yourself to the test and see if you can memorise this poem too. And yet not all these, but if thou list; for it sufficeth enough, a naked intent direct unto God without any other cause than Himself. Six manuscripts of the Cloud are in the British Museum: four on vellum (Harl. For I tell thee truly, that this work asketh a full great restfulness, and a full whole and clean disposition, as well in body as in soul. Imagin- ation and Sensuality work beastly in all bodily things, whether they be present or absent, in the body and with the bodily wits. I say not that thou shalt continue ever therein alike fresh, for that may not be.
What Is The Cloud Of Unknowing
As verily as I open this bodily firmament, the which is called heaven, and let thee see My bodily standing, trust fast that as verily stand I beside thee ghostly by the might of My Godhead. For the perfection of this work is so pure and so ghostly in itself, that an it be well and truly conceived, it shall be seen far removed from any stirring and from any place. Surely this is a fact which all lovers of mysticism, all "spiritual patriots, " should be concerned to hold in remembrance. For in misconceiving of these two words hangeth much error, and much deceit in them that purpose them to be ghostly workers, as me thinketh. "Whoso deserves to see and know God rests therein, " says Dionysius of that darkness, "and, by the very fact that he neither sees nor knows, is truly in that which surpasses all truth and all knowledge. Numerous copies of the Cloud of Unknowing and the other works attributed to its writer are in existence. If the cloud of unknowing makes you feel alienated from God, that's only because you've not yet put a cloud of forgetting between you and everything in creation. When I say 'everything in creation', I mean not only the creatures themselves but also everything they do and are, as well as the circumstances in which they find themselves. And yet this is no ordinary nephophilic metaphor: "When I refer to this exercise as a darkness or a cloud, I don't want you to imagine the darkness that you get inside your house at night when you blow out a candle; nor do I want you to imagine a cloud crystalized from the moisture in the air … When I say 'darkness', I mean the absence of knowing. And in all other sweetness and comforts, bodily or ghostly, be they never so liking nor so holy, if it be courteous and seemly to say, we should have a manner of recklessness. True, the will alone, however ardent and industrious, cannot of itself set up commu- nion with the supernal world: this is "the work of only God, specially wrought in what soul that Him liketh. " For all virtues they find and feel in God; for in Him is all thing, both by cause and by being. "Shall I, a gnat which dances in Thy ray, Dare to be reverent.
The Cloud Of Unknowing Review
Discipline yourself as much as possible, so you won't be the cause of your own weakness. IMAGINATION is a power through the which we portray all images of absent and present things, and both it and the thing that it worketh in be contained in the Memory. But although the shortness of prayer be greatly commended here, nevertheless the oftness of prayer is never the rather refrained. For of all other creatures and their works, yea, and of the works of God's self, may a man through grace have fullhead of knowing, and well he can think of them: but of God Himself can no man think. And therefore if we will go to heaven ghostly, it needeth not to strain our spirit neither up nor down, nor on one side nor on other. But not ever, nor yet no long time together, but when Him list and as Him list; and then wilt thou think it merry to let Him alone. Not because a soul is divisible, for that may not be: but because all those things in the which they work be divisible, and some principal, as be all ghostly things, and some second- ary, as be all bodily things.
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On the other hand, God alone sets those loving feelings in motion. For if you are going to experience or see God in this life it can only be in this cloud and in this darkness. NEVERTHELESS, means there be in the which a contemplative prentice should be occupied, the which be these—Lesson, Meditation, and Orison: or else to thine understanding they may be called—Reading, Thinking, and Praying. A gossip or tale-bearer. And where you are is where you are not. There are no exceptions.
ALL men will they reprove of their defaults, right as they had cure of their souls: and yet they think that they do not else for God, unless they tell them their defaults that they see. Abandon them entirely. Remember that when your mind is focused on anything in particular, that's where you are spiritually, just as certainly as when your physical being is located in a specific place, that's where your body is. Thou wottest well this, that God is a Spirit; and whoso should be oned unto Him, it behoveth to be in soothfastness and deepness of spirit, full far from any feigned bodily thing. And therefore when they read or hear spoken of ghostly working—and specially of this word, "how a man shall draw all his wit within himself, " or "how he shall climb above himself"—as fast for blindness in soul, and for fleshliness and curiosity of natural wit, they misunderstand these words, and ween, because they find in them a natural covetyse to hid things, that they be therefore called to that work by grace. And what shall I more say of these venomous deceits? Surely not in that devout stirring of love that is continually wrought in his will, not by himself, but by the hand of Almighty God: the which is evermore ready to work this work in each soul that is disposed thereto, and that doth that in him is, and hath done long time before, to enable him to this work. For how should a soul, the which in his nature hath no manner thing of bodilyness, be strained upright bodily? Nor prayer may not goodly be gotten in beginners and profiters, without thinking coming before. AND if any thought rise and will press continually above thee betwixt thee and that darkness, and ask thee saying, "What seekest thou, and what wouldest thou have? "