The Mystics Week 3 - Part 2 ~OR~ The Life Force, The Diamond Soul

She was radically faithful to something she didn't see coming,
and she surrendered to it, and it just broke right open. 
~Jim Finely

Contemplation is the practice of being fully present
—in heart, mind, and body—
~Richard Rohr

In the middle of the season, in the middle of the session, I leave Merton behind and skip to season two of Turning to the Mystics where I find St. Teresa of Avila. 

From the Introduction Jim speaks about Teresa's words in The Interior Castle, The First Dwelling (or mansion):

I began to think of the soul as if it were a castle made of a single diamond or a very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms...

We are a mystery to ourself. We are a mystery to ourself because our finite comprehension and ego consciousness is infinitely less than the infinite mystery of the depths of our own soul. So we cannot gather up the immensity of god giving herself away in and as the majesty of our own soul. Our little mind can't grasp it but what we can't grasp we can realize if we surrender to it. We can intimately realize the intimate immediacy of what we can't comprehend. Which is spiritual understanding. 

! Big insight into something that has troubled me from the beginning. If we are nothing without god's presence, if at the count of three we would vanish if that love was withdrawn, then god is the life force. Yes! The Life Force. Now I get it. 

From Jim's reflection: 

Our soul has a quality that is elegant, it's vast, it's mysterious, it's graced, it's luminous, it's inherently holy or, I would say sacred. This is the mystery of our soul. Reflecting on this, then god, who is being poured out and given to us as the mystery of our own soul, then that one, the life force lives inside of us, in the innermost hidden center of us. (I'm thinking our hearts.) And god takes his delight in us, that we are the beloved of this life force.

When we love someone deeply, we see the soul of them, we see in our love for them, we see the preciousness of who they are, like the innermost depth of the gift and the miracle of their presence. And we also sense then that when we see the soul of a person which is the preciousness of the person then we see how grateful they are to be so deeply seen. They see that you see in them this indescribable preciousness and this gifts them. This is love being poured out. 

(What a pity that Jim is speaking here only of romantic love, partnered love, marriage)

The door to which we enter into this first mansion of the diamond soul is prayer and meditation. As far as I can understand, the door of entry into this castle is prayer and meditation. For what is prayer? Prayer is the sincerity of asking for such things. Prayer is being aware of who we are talking to. When the prayer ends, ask god not to break the grace not to break the thread of such sensitivity. This subtle shift in the paradoxical state of realizing god's infinite oneness with us; this reciprocal love that is sustaining us. If we did nothing more than this, be a faith first mansion person, that would be an amazing thing. 

! It is our souls that are made in god's image!! Our souls, not our physical bodies. God is not a man because he made Adam in his image of a man! Huge, huge seeing for me. Oh what the church, patriarchy, has done. 

At the same time I have started reading Mirabai Starr's translation of The Interior Castle. From the introduction: 

"The extraordinary thing about this castle where god lives is that it is inside of us. The journey to union with the Beloved is a journey home to the center of ourselves. I myself can come up with nothing as magnificent of the beauty and the amplitude of a soul. The human soul is so beautiful, so glorious, that the Beloved chooses it as his dwelling place." A little stumbling block on this last piece. 

But we rarely consider the soul's excellent qualities or who it is that dwells within her or how precious she really is. And so we don't bother to tend to her beauty. 

I love that Mirabai translates "through our own faults" to "what a shame that, through our unconsciousness, we do not know ourselves."

Random Notes:

Richard Rohr: An appreciator is a contemplative, in fact you become an all day appreciator of little things, of everything...

Note: Merciful and mercy are more words that don't work for me. These are based on the needing of compassion or forbearance because one is an "offender" or a subject to one's power. Lower. Bad. Less than.