Chapter XI

Showeth forth the Second Mode of true Contemplation.

HEREAFTER followeth the Second Mode of the Contemplative Life.

They who are uplifted in simple purity of spirit by the love and reverence they bear towards God, stand with their faces open and unveiled before the Presence of His Majesty. And from the Face of the Father there shineth forth a clear Light upon the Souls whose thought is bare and stripped of images, uplifted above the senses and above similitudes, beyond and without reason, in high purity of spirit.

This Light is not God, but it is an intermediary between the seeing thought and God.

It is called a Ray of God or the Spirit of the Father, and herein God showeth Himself simply, neither by differentia- 82 tion, nor by the mode of His Persons, but in the unveiling of His Nature and Substance ; and in this Light there speaketh the Spirit of the Father in the uplifted thought, which is bare and stripped of images, saying : " Behold Me as I be- " hold thee."

Then the pure and single26 eyes are strengthened, by the inpouring of that clear Light of the Father, and they behold His Face, in a simple seeing, beyond reason and without consideration.

This Light and this Vision give to the contemplating spirit a conscious certainty that she seeth God, so far as man may see Him in this mortal life.

Here, for thy better understanding, I will set forth an analogy taken from the life of the senses.

If thou standest in clear sunlight, turning thine eyes from all considerations of form and colour27, and from all things whereon the sun shineth, and thereafter simply following with thy gaze the rays of light coming from the sun, thou wilt be led into that essence which is the sun itself.

And so, in like manner, if thou followest the bright rays that stream from the Face of God upon thy clear gaze, they will lead thee into the source of thy created being, wherein thou shalt find no other thing but God alone.