Revelations of Divine Love · 64 of 127 · tr. Grace Warrack
Chapter XLVII
"We fail oftentimes of the sight of Him, and anon we fall into our self, and then find we no feeling of right,—nought but contrariness that is in our self" Two things belong to our soul as duty: the one is that we reverently marvel, the other that we meekly suffer, ever enjoying in God. For He would have us understand that we shall in short time see clearly in Himself all that we desire. And notwithstanding all this, I beheld and marvelled greatly: What is the mercy and forgiveness of God? For by the teaching that I had afore, I understood that the mercy of God should be the forgiveness of His wrath after the time that we have sinned. For methought that to a soul whose meaning and desire is to love, the wrath of God was harder than any other pain, and therefore I took that the forgiveness of His wrath should be one of the principal points of His mercy. But howsoever I might behold and desire, I could in no wise see this point in all the Shewing. But how I understood and saw of the work of mercy, I shall tell somewhat, as God will give me grace. I understood this: Man is changeable in this life, and by frailty and overcoming falleth into sin: he is weak and unwise of himself, and also his will is overlaid. And in this time he is in tempest and in sorrow and woe; and the cause is blindness: for he seeth not God. For if he saw God continually, he should have no mischievous feeling, nor any manner of motion or yearning that serveth to sin. Thus saw I, and felt in the same time; and methought that the sight and the feeling was high and plenteous and gracious in comparison with that which our common feeling is in this life; but yet I thought it was but small and low in comparison with the great desire that the soul hath to see God. For I felt in me five manner of workings, which be these: Enjoying, mourning, desire, dread, and sure hope. Enjoying: for God gave me understanding and knowing that it was Himself that I saw; mourning: and that was for failing; desire: and that was I might see Him ever more and more, understanding and knowing that we shall never have full rest till we see Him verily and clearly in heaven; dread was: for it seemed to me in all that time that that sight should fail, and I be left to myself; sure hope was in the endless love: that I saw I should be kept by His mercy and brought to His bliss. And the joying in His sight with this sure hope of His merciful keeping made me to have feeling and comfort so that mourning and dread were not greatly painful. And yet in all this I beheld in the Shewing of God that this manner of sight may not be continuant in this life,—and that for His own worship and for increase of our endless joy. And therefore we fail oftentimes of the sight of Him, and anon we fall into our self, and then find we no feeling of right,—naught but contrariness that is in our self; and that of the elder root of our first sin, with all the sins that follow, of our contrivance. And in this we are in travail and tempest with feeling of sins, and of pain in many divers manners, spiritual and bodily, as it is known to us in this life.
§ Ask Guru about this passage →Themes
Bhaktisoteriology
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 'reverently marvel' and 'meekly suffer' as duties rooted in a relationship of love and devotion to a personal God.
All passages →Dark Nightsoteriology
John of the Cross's stage of contemplative purgation: a felt absence and aridity of God that strips the soul of attachments to its own consolations en route to deeper union.
The text describes the 'tempest and sorrow' and 'blindness' experienced when the sight of God fails, resembling the aridity of the dark night.
All passages →Emotional Epistemologysoteriology
The doctrine that emotions constitute a valid and necessary mode of knowing reality, complementing or surpassing intellectual cognition.
The text explicitly details five 'workings' (Enjoying, mourning, desire, dread, sure hope) as the primary modes through which the mystic knows and experiences divine reality.
All passages →Evil As Privationtheology
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
The text identifies sin and misery as 'blindness' caused by not seeing God, implying that evil is a lack of divine presence rather than a positive substance.
All passages →Living Godtheology
The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.
God is portrayed as a personal, active agent who 'would have us understand,' keeps the soul by mercy, and grants specific feelings of comfort.
All passages →Separation From Sourcesoteriology
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 centrally describes the soul's painful experience of falling back into itself and losing the sight of God due to sin and frailty.
All passages →Related passages · 12 parallels
neoplatonism|Select Works of Plotinus|Select Works, Section 85 (part 1)
“Section 10 10.
But if Matter is devoid of quality how can it be evil?
It is described as being devoid of quality in the sense only that it does not essentially possess any of the qualities which it admits and which enter into it as into a…”
Shared concept: Evil As Privation — Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness. (derived)
western_esoteric|Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky)|Chapter XVIII (part 5)
“If we consider the emotional nature of man as self-contained, as serving life and not serving knowledge we shall never understand its true content and significance.
Emotions serve knowledge.
There are things and relations which can be kno…”
Shared concept: Emotional Epistemology — The doctrine that emotions constitute a valid and necessary mode of knowing reality, complementing or surpassing intellectual cognition. (derived)
neoplatonism|Iamblichus: On the Mysteries|Chapter XIX
“But neither does the cause [of the energies] of more excellent natures subsist as a certain middle instrument, nor does he who invokes operate through him who prophesies; for to assert these things is impious. And it is much more true to sa…”
Shared concept: Living God — The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality. (derived)
western_esoteric|Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky)|Chapter XIX (part 7)
“In the reduction of your soul to its simplest self, its divine essence, you realize this union—this identity.
But this sublime condition is not of permanent duration.
It is only now and then that we can enjoy this elevation above the limi…”
Shared concept: Separation From Source — 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. (derived)
sufism|The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi)|PROLOGUE-a
“HEARKEN to the reed-flute, how it complains, Lamenting its banishment from its home: "Ever since they tore me from my osier bed, My plaintive notes have moved men and women to tears.
I burst my breast, striving to give vent to sighs, And t…”
Shared concept: Separation From Source — 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. (derived)
neoplatonism|Select Works of Plotinus|Select Works, Section 627
“Section 7 7. It is inevitably necessary to think of all as contained within one nature; one nature must hold and encompass all; there cannot be as in the realm of sense thing apart from thing, here a sun and elsewhere something else; all mu…”
Shared concept: Emotional Epistemology — The doctrine that emotions constitute a valid and necessary mode of knowing reality, complementing or surpassing intellectual cognition. (derived)
theosophy|The Secret Doctrine|Page 71 (part 10)
“There reside mankind along with Daityas and Danavas, as well as with spirits of Heaven ( Gandharvas, Yakshas, Kimpurushas, etc .) and gods.
" ( Chapter iv.
) There is but one exception in the case of King Priyavrata, the son of the first…”
Shared concept: Emotional Epistemology — The doctrine that emotions constitute a valid and necessary mode of knowing reality, complementing or surpassing intellectual cognition. (derived)
neoplatonism|Iamblichus: On the Mysteries|Chapter VIII-r
“But there are a certain few who by employing a certain supernatural power of intellect, are removed from nature , &c.
The class to which these few belong is beautifully unfolded, as follows, by Plotinus, in the beginning of his Treatise on…”
Shared concept: Separation From Source — 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. (derived)
western_esoteric|The Book of Ceremonial Magic (A.E. Waite)|Page 5 (part 2)
“The anonymous Cloud of Unknowing belongs, I believe, to the early part of the fifteenth century, and it is to be classed among the most signal presentations of the conditions and mode of the Union which I have met with in Christian literatu…”
Shared concept: Dark Night — John of the Cross's stage of contemplative purgation: a felt absence and aridity of God that strips the soul of attachments to its own consolations en route to deeper union. (derived)
hinduism|The Bhagavad Gita|Chapter VII, Section 1b
“Whichever form (of deity) any worshipper wishes to worship with faith, to that form I render his faith steady.
Possessed Of that faith, he seeks to propitiate (the deity in) that (form), and obtains from it those beneficial things which he…”
Shared concept: Bhakti — 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. (derived)
hinduism|The Bhagavad Gita|Chapter X, Section 1a
“CHAPTER X.
Yet again, O you of mighty arms!
listen to my excellent words, which, out of a wish for your welfare, I speak to you who are delighted (with them).
Not the multitudes of gods, nor the great sages know my source; for I am in ev…”
Shared concept: Bhakti — 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. (derived)
theosophy|The Secret Doctrine|Page 55 (part 2)
“T HE Progenitors of Man, called in India "Fathers," Pitara or Pitris, are the creators of our bodies and lower principles.
They are ourselves, as the first personalities, and we are they.
Primeval man would be "the bone of their bone and…”
Shared concept: Bhakti — 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. (derived)