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Awakening the Absolute

Enlightenment is conventionally viewed as a form of mental life, a state of consciousness unique to the mystic. It is his awakening to the Absolute, an esprit de corps with the Absolute. He now sees God in nature, now he gains a radiant awareness of the otherness of natural things and two thirsts become abundant. The first is a thirst for admiration and love for nature. He wants to become father of nature to safeguard and comfort all humans, animals and plants against cruelty and destruction. The second thirst arises from the first and is a thirst for more of God.

In his new adoration for nature, he touches a tree trunk and knows that he has found a new friend. He admires a leaf and knows that the universe would have been poorer if the leaf had never existed. He no longer plucks flowers in his garden, because he feels the pain of a plucked flower, and by cutting a dead leaf from a pot, he grieves at the death of something so admirable. And sooner or later he hears the voice of a tree or a plant or an animal speaking to him. It is not a voice like that of a human being, but a childish and sweet awareness of the existence of the other that runs through the interior of oneself like an evanescent sensation. It is a knowledge of the most intimate needs of the other, a knowledge of the unknown in the purest and most authentic way.

Like Saint Francis of Assisi, he considers every living creature as a theophany of God, and he humbly appreciates sharing life with all the creatures of the Absolute. It was also Saint Francis who made the sign of the cross for a very aggressive wolf to close his jaw and calm down. The wolf then gently approached Saint Francis and rested at his feet. The saint extended his hand and the wolf put his paw on the saint’s hand. According to legend, Saint Francis then said: “Brother wolf, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ, come with me now, without hesitation, and we will establish this peace in the name of God.” The wolf obediently followed him and lived with him for two years before he died of old age.

Saint Francis was also one of a handful of saintly people who received the stigmata of Christ. The Stigmata in Christianity, is the resemblance of the scars that Christ suffered during his crucifixion that in this life, are inflicted on a person, probably by a supernatural deputation. It includes the scars on the hands, feet, side as well as the scars left by the crown of thorns. According to the release, some cases have been reported where the stigmata were only subjectively experienced and others were not seen. However, these cases are not the norm and the stigmata can usually be seen by others. Saint Francis was the first and most notable example of the stigmata.

Then there was the sensitive Rosa de Lima, who befriended a little bird that perched on a tree just outside her window, every afternoon at sunset. Night after night the two sang a duet that Rosa de Lima composed for this purpose. “Begin little bird,” she said, “may your throat be filled with sweet melodies, go forward with them, so that together we praise the Lord,” and together then bleed.

Ruysbroeck says of these attentive mystics: “Here begins an eternal hunger that will never be satisfied again. It is the inner longing and the longing for affective power and the created spirit for an uncreated good. And as the spirit longs for fruition and is invited and exhorted to it by God, must always desire to attain it”.

Another characteristic, which is probably the most constant characteristic of Enlightenment, is the clear awareness of the Divine Presence. Of this Presence, the seventeenth-century Carmelite monk, Brother Lorenzo, says: “We must establish in ourselves the sense of God’s Holy Presence by continuously conversing with Him.” For the mystic, it is a state of enjoyment and comfort of the deepest kind. The spirit that approaches God says that he has touched it, and from then on, is blissfully aware of the Divine Presence on an existential level. “What that presence feels like can be known better by experience than in writing,” says Walter Hilton, “because it is the life and the love, the power and the light, the joy and rest of a chosen soul…He comes secretly sometimes when you know him least, but you will know him well or he will go, because wonderfully He moves and powerfully turns your heart in the contemplation of His goodness, and your heart deliciously melts like wax against the fire in tenderness of his love.”

The pedagogy that comes by virtue of enlightenment is purchased at a distinguished price, since enlightenment continually exposes the individual spirit to the atrocity and barbarism towards nature that endures in the world at large. The agony and hardships that inevitably follow cruelty dwell in the soul of the mystic and he endures pain endlessly on behalf of his fellow men and women. It is the kismet of every mystic.

By the time he reaches this stage of intense appreciation and awareness of nature and the Presence of the Divine, he has already gone through his first soul purification, also called “dark night of the soul.” The first dark night of the soul is called the “night of the senses” – see “Purification” below. After the first purification, the mystic usually feels complete and convinced that his quest is already accomplished. He has been through taking possession of it and has a solid certainty about God. However, although he is now virtuous, he is not yet perfect, and further purifications await him after which he will discover that the heavenly food of enlightenment cannot quench his hunger for communion with the Absolute. All bona fide mystics and artists are partakers of the enlightened life.

Mystics are no less interested in normal life than others. We agree with Merton who once said: “The true contemplative……….. is more interested and more concerned. The fact that he or she is a contemplative makes him or her capable of greater interest.” and a deeper concern. The contemplative has the unfathomable gift of appreciating at their true value values ​​that are permanent, truly profound, human, truly spiritual, and even divine.”

Enlightenment is not a claim to supreme communion with God, but the awakening of the soul to God’s creation in general. This makes it a symptom of growth, and growth never stops, it is always with us.

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