John of Ruysbroeck Quotes

And this divine light is granted in the simple being of the spirit, where the spirit receives the brightness –which is God Himself- above all gifts and above all creaturely activity, in the empty void of the spirit in which it has lost itself through enjoyable love and receives the brightness of God without intermediary. And without cease, it becomes the very brightness which it receives.

The Spirit of God now speaks within our own spirit in its hidden immersion: ‘Go out, into a state of eternal contemplation and blissful enjoyment after God’s own manner.’ All the richness which is in God by nature is something which we lovingly possess in God –and God in us– through the infinite love which is the Holy Spirit. .. There the spirit is caught up in the embrace of the Holy Trinity and eternally abides within the superessential Unity in a state of rest and blissful enjoyment. In this same Unity, considered now as regards its fruitfulness, the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, while all creatures are in them both.

And this is without time, that is to say, without before or after in an eternal present, for in the embrace in unity all things have been consummated. And in the out-flowing of love all things are being achieved. And in the living fruitful nature all things have the potentiality to occur, for in the living fruitful nature the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son, and the Holy Spirit in them both. For it is a living and fruitful unity which is the source And the fount of all life.

He shows Himself to the soul in the living mirror of her intelligence; Not as He is in His nature, But in images and similitudes, And in the degree in which the illuminated reason can grasp and understand Him. And the wise reason, enlightened of God, sees clearly And without error in images of the understanding All that she has heard of God, Of faith, of truth, according to her longing. But that image which is God Himself, Although it is held before her, she cannot comprehend; For the eyes of her understanding Must fail before that Incomparable Light.

God loves without limit and this puts a loving person most securely at peace.

Now, if the spirit is to contemplate God with God, without intermediary, in this divine light, three things are necessary for a person.

The grace of God is to God himself as sunlight is to the sun — a means and a way leading us to the latter. It therefore shines within us in a simple, one-fold way and makes us deiform, that is, like God. This likeness constantly sinks away, dying in God and becoming and remaining one with him, for charity makes us become one with God and causes us to remain living in union with him.

When we have thus become seeing, then we can contemplate, in joy, the eternal coming of our Bridegroom, which is the second point about which we are going to speak. Now, what is the coming of our Bridegroom which is eternal ? It is a new birth an a new enlightenment without cease. For the ground out of which the brightness shines, and which is the brightness itself, is living and fruitful. And therefore, the revelation of the eternal light is renewed without cease in the hiddenness of the spirit.

There is a distinction and differentiation, According to our reason, Between God and the Godhead, Between action and rest. The fruitful nature of the Persons (Trinity) Ever worketh in a living differentiation. But the simple Being of God, According to the nature thereof, Is an eternal Rest of God And of all created things

Next follows the seventh step, the noblest and most elevated that it is possible to realize in the life of time or eternity. It is attained when, above all knowledge and science, we find within us a limitless ignorance; when, passing beyond every name given to God or creatures we expire and pass to an eternal Unnamable where we are lost; when, further than any practice of Virtue, we contemplate and discover within us everlasting Repose, or immeasurable Beatitude where none can act; when we contemplate above all blessed Spirits an essential Beatitude where all are one, melted, lost, in their Superessence in the bosom of a darkness defying all determination or knowledge.

This is that Wayless Being which all fervent interior spirits have chosen above all things, that dark stillness in which all lovers lose their way. If we could prepare ourselves through virtue in the ways I have shown, we would at once strip ourselves of our bodies and flow into the wild waves of the Sea, from which no creature could ever draw us back.

Here the reason no less than all separate acts Must give way, For our powers become simple in Love; They are silent And bowed down in the Presence of the Father. And this revelation of the Father Lifts the soul above the reason Into the Imageless Nudity. There the soul is simple, pure, spotless, Empty of all things; And it is in this state of perfect emptiness That the Father manifests His Divine radiance. To this radiance neither reason nor sense, Observation nor distinction, Can attain. All this must stay below; For the measureless radiance Blinds the eyes of the reason, They cannot bear the Incomprehensible Light. But above the reason, In the most secret part of the understanding, The simple eye is ever open. It contemplates and gazes at the Light With a pure sight that is lit by the Light itself: Eye to eye, Mirror to mirror, Image to image. This threefold act makes us like God, And unites us to Him; For the sight of the simple eye is a living mirror, Which God has made for His image, And whereon He has impressed it.

Christ’s prayer is fulfilled in those united to God in this threefold manner. With God they will ebb and flow, and will always be in repose, Iin possessing and enjoying (Him). They will go out and in and find nourishment both within and without. They are drunk with love And have passed away into God in a dark luminosity.

This possession is a simple and abysmal tasting of all good and of eternal life; and in this tasting we are swallowed up above reason and without reason, in the deep Quiet of the Godhead, which is never moved...And therefrom follows the last point that can be put into words, that is, when the spirit beholds a Darkness into which it cannot enter with the reason. And there it feels itself dead and lost to itself, and one with God without difference and without distinction.

God is a flowing and ebbing sea which ceaselessly flows out into all his beloved according to their needs and merits and which flows back with all those upon whom he has bestowed his gifts in heaven and on earth, together with all they possess or are capable of.