This is the first and principal benefit caused by this arid and dark night of contemplation: the knowledge of oneself and of one’s misery. - John of the Cross

Nisu stvari ovog svjeta te koje gospodare dušom i uništavaju je,jer one u nju ne ulaze,nego želja i čežnja za njima koje u njoj prebivaju.

They measure Him by themselves, and not themselves by Him, in direct contradiction to His teaching in the gospel; “He that shall lose his life for My sake, shall find it.”3 That is, he who shall give up his will for God shall have it, and he who will have it, he shall have it never. 4. They also find it wearisome

Now, if they who are in this state knew how to be quiet, to disregard every interior and exterior work — “for the accomplishment of which they labor” — to be without solicitude about everything, “and resign themselves into the hands of God, with a loving interior obedience to His voice,”3 they would have, in this tranquility, a most delicious sense of this interior food. This food is so delicate that, in general, it eludes our perceptions if we make any special effort to feel it, for, as I am saying, it does its work when the soul is most tranquil and free; it is like the air which vanishes when we shut our hands to grasp it. 9. The words of the Bridegroom which, addressed to the bride, in the Canticles, are applicable to this matter: “Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have made me flee away.”4 For this is God’s way of bringing the soul into this state; the road by which He leads it is so different from the first, that if it will do anything in its own strength, it will hinder rather than aid His work. It was far otherwise once. 10. The reason is