Chapter V

Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.

God is described using human-like actions such as clothing, clasping, and enclosing the soul in an expression of 'homely loving.'

The path of loving devotion and self-surrender to a personal deity as itself sufficient means of liberation — the Gita's 'to those constantly devoted, I come forward as their deliverer,' Kabir's and the Sant poets' love-religion, the devotional stream that parallels Sufi love-mysticism. Distinct from mystical_union (the resulting state), fana_annihilation (the ego's unmaking at the path's end), ladder_of_love (eros staged toward Beauty), and prayer (the practice of address): bhakti names devotion as the soteriological road itself.

The passage emphasizes 'homely loving' and the soul's simple, plain yearning for God as the primary path to salvation, stating that only in God is there fullness.

Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.

The author advocates holding 'as nought all-thing that is made' and seeking rest only in the Unmade God, reflecting a radical letting-go of created attachments.

Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.

The passage asserts that all things last and have being solely because 'God loveth it' and 'keepeth it,' indicating active divine sustenance of creation.

Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.

The text explicitly states that the soul must be 'willingly made nought' regarding all created things to receive spiritual rest and fully possess God.

Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.

The passage describes a 'spiritual sight' and understanding granted directly by God, bypassing intellectual reasoning to reveal the nature of creation and divine love.

The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.

God is depicted as an active, personal presence who 'wrappeth,' 'claspeth,' and 'keepeth' the soul with tender love, rather than an abstract principle.

The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.

The passage centrally describes the soul's desire to be 'Substantially oned' with God so that nothing created stands between them, defining this union as the only source of true rest and bliss.

Direct address to the divine, whether petitionary, contemplative, or liturgical; speech and silence offered upward.

The text centers on the prayer 'God, of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself,' describing it as a simple, plain address that pleases God and touches His will.

The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.

The text frames the soul's journey as a return to God, who is the 'Very Rest,' implying that the soul finds its true home and origin only in Him.

The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.

The passage implies a state of unrest caused by seeking rest in created things rather than God, highlighting the soul's current separation from its true source.