“Instead of the usual unlocalized centre of myself, there was nothing there, it was empty, and at the moment of seeing this there was a flood of quiet joy and I knew, finally I knew what was missing-it was my “self”.”

Spiritual life is like a moving sidewalk. Whether you go with it or spend your whole life running against it, you’re still going to be taken along.

Since the moment of self-consciousness comes to a permanent end – and a new journey begins- is such a decisive stroke or milestone in the contemplative life.

To go beyond the self, beyond even its most intimate union with God, and this is where we enter yet another new life- a life best categorized, perhaps, as a life without a self.

The reflexive mechanism of the mind -or whatever it is that allows us to be self-conscious – is cut off or permanently suspended so the mind is ever after held in a fixed now moment out of which it cannot move in its uninterrupted gaze upon the Unknown

But this going-out is an upheaval, a complete turnabout of such proportions it cannot possibly be missed, under-emphasized, or sufficiently stressed as a major landmark in the contemplative life.

It can no longer be tested by any force or trial, nor moved by the winds of change, and at this point the self has obviously outworn its function; it is no longer needed or useful, and life can go on without it.

Rather, it is for the hardy who have been tried by fire and have come to rest in a tough, immovable trust in “that” which lies beyond the known, beyond the self, beyond union and even beyond love and trust itself

But coming home that day, walking downhill with a panorama of valley and hills before me, I turned my gaze inward, and what I saw, stopped me in my tracks.

When one is perfectly still-mind and body, silent and alone-there is no personality to speak of, thus personality is one’s unique way of expression, it is what others see and know of us, nothing more or deeper than that.

The onset of this second movement is characterized by the falling away of self and coming upon “that” which remains when it is gone.

When there is no longer a cyclone, there is no longer an eye. So the storms, crises and sufferings of life are a way of finding the eye.

I can only speculate why so little has been said of this breakthrough; in fact , I may never get over the silence on the part of writers who say nothing about this second movement.

This journey then, is nothing more, yet nothing less than a period of acclimating to a new way of seeing, a time of transition and revelation as it gradually comes upon “that” which remains when there is no self. this is not a journey for those who expect love and bliss.

This is the step beyond our highest experiences of love and union, a step in which self is not around to divide, separate, objectify or claim anything for itself. Self does not know God; it cannot love him, and from the beginning has never done so.

Only God is love, and for this love to be fully realized self must step aside. And not only do we not need a self to love God, but for the same reason we do not need a mind to know him, for that in us which knows God, is God.

My purpose here is to affirm that the unitive state is a hidden path in itself, a movement in its own right that ultimately leads to no-self (no true-self and no-union). In short, the unitive state is the hidden path to no-self.

We are no guiltier in following the primative impulses that govern us than is the Nile for her floods or the sea for her waves.

At that moment He’ll flood your Life with His presence and power.

Nobody’s strong enough to stand up under a flood of weak material.

That has been the great achievement of our age: to so thoroughly flood the planet with megabits that every image and fact has become a digitized disembodied nothingness. With magnificent determination,

Love, being in love, isn’t a constant thing. It doesn’t always flow at the same strength. It’s not always like a river in flood. It’s more like the sea. It has tides, it ebbs and flows.

They are simply not capable of promoting the indigenous economy. Many billions of dollars flooded into Afghanistan, but without any significant effect.

When by the flood of your tears, the inner and the outer have fused into One, you will find Her whom you sought with such anguish, nearer than the nearest, the very breath of life, the very core of every heart.

Oh! for this baptism of fire! when every spoken word for Jesus shall be a thunderbolt, and every prayer shall bring forth a mighty flood.