Showing posts with label the Cloud of Unknowing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Cloud of Unknowing. Show all posts

Friday, January 21, 2022

be as wood to a carpenter





To put it more simply, let that mysterious grace move in your spirit
 as it will and follow wherever it leads you.  Let it be the active doer 
and you the passive receiver.  Do not meddle with it, but let it be... 

Your part is to be as wood to a carpenter or a home to a dweller.
  Remain blind during this time cutting away all desire to know, 
for knowledge is a hindrance here.  Be content to feel 
this mysterious grace sweetly awaken in the 
depths of your spirit.   Forget everything...



~ The Cloud of Unknowing




by the true, loving will of your heart






For silence is not God, nor speaking; 
fasting is not God, nor eating; 
solitude is not God, nor company; 
nor any other pair of opposites.  

He is hidden between them, 
and cannot be found by anything your soul does, 
but only by the love of your heart. 


He cannot be known by reason, 
he cannot be thought, caught, or sought by understanding.  
But he can be loved and chosen by the true, loving will of your heart.



~ The Cloud of Unknowing
Written anonymously, this practical, unemotional book of instruction focuses on stripping away all earthly ways of knowing, of passing through the cloud of forgetting and piercing the cloud of unknowing that exists between himself and God.  Widely read in the fourteen century for its beauty in aiding a contemplative experience, The Cloud, is better known than the later work, The Book of Privy Counseling which also clearly written by one who has trodden the mystical path himself and offers others a helping hand.

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Monday, January 11, 2021

let go







Let go 
this 'everywhere' and this 'everything' in exchange for this 
'nowhere' and this 'nothing.' 
Never mind if you cannot fathom this nothing,
for I love it surely so much better. 
 
It is so worthwhile in 
itself that no thinking about it will do it justice. 
One can feel this nothing more easily than see it, 
for it is completely dark and hidden to 
those who have only just begun to look at it. 
 
Yet to speak more accurately, 
it is overwhelming spiritual light that blinds the soul that is experiencing it, 
rather than actual darkness or the absence of physical light. 
 
Who is it then, who is it then, who is calling it 'nothing'? 
Our outer self, to be sure, not our inner. 
Our inner self calls it 'All', 
for through it he is learning the secret of all things, 
physical and spiritual alike, 
without having to consider every single one separately 
on it's own.
 
 
 

~ The Cloud of Unknowing





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Monday, August 17, 2020

cannot be thought, caught, or sought by understanding








For silence is not God, nor speaking; 
fasting is not God, nor eating; 
solitude is not God, nor company; 
nor any other pair of opposites.

  He is hidden between them, 
and cannot be found by anything your soul does, 
but only by the love of your heart.  

He cannot be known by reason, 
he cannot be thought, caught, 
or sought by understanding.  

But he can be loved and 
chosen by the true, loving will of your heart.




~ the cloud of unknowing



Wednesday, March 4, 2020

the burden of self






Yet do not misunderstand my words, I did not say that you must desire to un-be,
 for that is madness and blasphemy against God.  I said that you must desire 
to lose the knowledge and experience of self.  This is essential
 if you are to experience God's love as fully as possible in this life.

  You must realize and experience for yourself that unless you lose self
you will never reach your goal.  For wherever you are, in whatever you do, 
or howsoever you try, that elemental sense of your own blind being
 will remain between you and your God.  It is possible, of course, 
that God may intervene at times and fill you with a transient experience
 of himself.  Yet outside these moments this naked awareness of your blind being
 will continually weigh you down and be as a barrier between you and your God..
. It is then that you will realize how heavy and painful 
is the burden of self.




~ the Cloud of Unknowing
art by Victoria Burns


Thursday, January 17, 2019

only by love




For silence is not God, nor speaking;
fasting is not God, nor eating;
solitude is not God, nor company;
nor any other pair of opposites.

He is hidden between them,
and cannot be found by anything your soul does,
but only by the love of your heart.

He cannot be known by reason,
he cannot be thought, caught,
or sought by understanding.

But he can be loved and
chosen by the true, loving will of your heart.
 
 ...

To put it more simply, let that mysterious grace move in your spirit as it will and follow wherever it leads you. Let it be the active doer and you the passive receiver. Do not meddle with it, but let it be... Your part is to be as wood to a carpenter or a home to a dweller. Remain blind during this time cutting away all desire to know, for knowledge is a hindrance here. Be content to feel this mysterious grace sweetly awaken in the depths of your spirit. Forget everything...




~ The Cloud of Unknowing