Adam and Stephan discuss a Christian mystic's masterpiece on prayer and meditation with many analogous ideas in Hinduism.
Copyright 2023 by Letters to the Sky
Adam and Stephan discuss a Christian mystic's masterpiece on prayer and meditation with many analogous ideas in Hinduism.
Copyright 2023 by Letters to the Sky
Stephan Downes:
Hi. I'm Stephen Downes.
Adam Rizvi:
And I'm Adam Rizvi.
Stephan Downes:
This is Letters to the Sky, a podcast about the metaphysical iconoclasts, philosophical visionaries and religious leaders of the world.
Adam Rizvi:
Whether you consider yourself religious, spiritual, neither or something in between, we invite you to take a deep dive with us through metaphysical rabbit holes and learn to see your life from a new perspective.
Stephan Downes:
Hey, Adam.
Adam Rizvi:
Hey, Stephan.
Stephan Downes:
How's it going?
Adam Rizvi:
Pretty well. Pretty well. Okay, wait, before you go any further.
Stephan Downes:
Okay, okay.
Adam Rizvi:
Before anything gets discussed about St. Theresa of Avila and the Interior Castle, you have to tell us about your cats. You got some kitties, right?
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, I have two cats. So I have one cat named Freyja, one cat named Krishna. They're siblings although they're from different fathers. So cats, I believe like dogs, can have different fathers because the females are in heat until their body tells them they're pregnant. So they're siblings. They're very different. Krishna, God bless him, is probably inbred. Cats can be autistic. He's autistic. I don't know if that's possible, legitimately, I don't, but he's super sensitive to certain like sensations or things like that. He really doesn't like his sister at all. He angrily demands pets and then you know, doesn't want attention anymore, not like a normal...
Adam Rizvi:
Normal cat behavior. Yeah.
Stephan Downes:
A lot of cats to that, but it's to a different level. He also loves the litter box. So Freyja won't touch it. She'll use the litter box and just run. And it stinks to high heaven, and you just, you know what's happened.
Adam Rizvi:
Oh, gotcha.
Stephan Downes:
She just gets out of there as quickly as possible. She knows what she did. She knows it ain't good, but Krishna will stay in there and just scratch for like minutes. So right before I came out, he was using the restroom, and then like five minutes later, I still hear him just slowly scratching at the litter. He comes out coated in litter. And of course, his favorite thing to do is to jump up on the kitchen counters immediately to look for food now that he's empty. So our counters are perennially covered in cat litter paws, which we have to clean all the time before anything else touches it, but it's hopeless, and we've tried everything to keep him off of these counters and life finds a way, you know onto those counters.
Adam Rizvi:
Mm-hmm. Oh my God.
Stephan Downes:
But he's very sweet. He loves to sit on laps and get pet for hours upon hours. He would like happily sit on someone's lap for five hours, no problem.
Adam Rizvi:
Last time I visited you guys, Krishna just seemed angry the whole time, and Freyja, she was super sweet, like really quiet but very skiddish. Like, I took one step towards her, and boom, she darted off.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah yeah. Of the two of them, they were both feral rescues. And of the two of them, if they were to be put out into the wilderness again, she would be the one to survive for sure. She is super aware of everything around her at all times, and she will duck under the bed at a moment's notice, no hesitancy. She's super sweet as well. She loves getting pet on the bed. She's like the opposite of Krishna where with Krishna, you have to tell him like three times a day to stop being on the counters. Nothing works, spraying him doesn't work. We've even like dunked him in the sink, put the faucet on him to really wet him, doesn't do anything to him. He doesn't like it at the time. He'll go right back up on the counter.
Adam Rizvi:
It kind of makes sense. I mean, if you're saying he's a little slow up there, right?
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. Yeah.
Adam Rizvi:
He won't pick it up.
Stephan Downes:
Doesn't care. Freyja, on the other hand, you look at her the wrong way, and she'll never do that thing again. She's very sensitive to that. So.
Adam Rizvi:
Freyja, goddess of what? Something in Norse mythology.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. I forget what she's the goddess of, but she does have a chariot of cats.
Adam Rizvi:
Does she really? Like in the mythology?
Stephan Downes:
Yeah.
Adam Rizvi:
Shut up.
Stephan Downes:
She has a chariot of cats.
Adam Rizvi:
Huh. That's why you named her that, huh?
Stephan Downe:
Nope. Just liked the name. I guess they're both gods, though, and goddesses. So there was something there.
Adam Rizvi:
That's true. Norse mythology, Hindu mythology. Nice.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, yeah. So they're doing well. Life's good. What are they, like six this year?
Adam Rizvi:
Wow.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, I've had them a while. Had them a while. They're sweet. It's good to have cats. You tried to have a cat.
Adam Rizvi:
I had a cat for a grand total of four days. His name was Oliver. I remember him very well. Super cute, tabby. I think he was a year old. It was thanks to Oliver that I realized what a profound cat allergy I have.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, it was really bad. So Adam and I, you know, we've known each other for years and talk and do Zoom calls and stuff all the time, and I just remember him like suffering. It was awful. I could just see it in his eyes. It was just miserable.
Adam Rizvi:
Bloodshot, pink face, swollen, chubby cheeks. It was bad.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, yeah. So ever since, I've been trying to convince Adam to get a hairless cat, but he's too good for that. Adam is too good for a hairless cat. You just put a cute little sweater on him. People make sweaters.
Adam Rizvi:
I'll have to get a little mane, some fake fur to put on him.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, absolutely. You're in Tucson. Like, you're in the desert. That cat's going to be fine. He's not going to be too cold ever. They're really sweet. You got to try it. You love cats. I know you love cats. Stop being so stuck up and get a hairless cat, Adam.
Adam Rizvi:
Okay, tell me about this, or tell me what you know about this.
Stephan Downes:
That's a picture of Krishna, I think. Well, Krishna, my cat...
Adam Rizvi:
What?
Stephan Downes:
...is really sweet. Okay. So.
Adam Rizvi:
I see what you did.
Stephan Downes:
Adam held up the book we're discussing this week. So this week, we are doing the Interior Castle by St. Theresa of Avila. This is a real treat, I have to say. I really haven't read much Christian mysticism ever, and this was really, really something special. I'm going to re-read this book soon. It was really, really beautiful. But why don't you tell us a little bit about it since I've been talking about my cats now?
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah, well, St. Theresa of Avila, or Avila, however you say it, I guess it's a city in Spain. So whatever the Spaniards would say. I've known her for quite some time. I actually studied the Christian mystics. A lot of them, since I was a kid because my mother was raised Catholic, and I got that appreciation of the Christian saints when I was young, but what I like about her is, I think one of the first stories that I remember hearing about her was how she would go into these states of rapture and feel so connected with Christ, and she would be sitting in the pews of whatever convent she was at during mass or something. And she'd go into this state that she would actually start to levitate. Like her body would rise off the pew. And her sisters, the fellow nuns, they knew that weird things would happen around her. Although, incidentally, she never really talks about any of that in her books, which either's a testament to her character or... Yeah, I guess she's just humble about it. But anyway, so the fellow nuns would actually grab her arm and her leg and hold her down while she goes through her thing. I had this like, mental image of this amazing woman who's in this state and her nuns being like, "Oh, God, there she's going at it again." I just found that hilarious you know. Her going through her thing. That was my first exposure to the story of Theresa of Avila, and I've loved her since.
Stephan Downes:
Wonderful. Well, they mention the levitation in the prologue. Or not the prologue but the introduction. And in the introduction, they talk a lot about her life, and she has a really interesting life. Do you want to share about her life a little bit, as well?
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah, yeah. I'd love to, actually. And then you jump in. So 1500s, mid-1500s, I think, is kind of her lifetime. I'm not going to go on Google and check it out. I just remember that this book, The Interior Castle was published in 1577. So I know that tells you roughly. And then she did a book, which is basically an autobiography called The Book of My Life roughly 13, 14 years before she wrote this one. So I would say mid-1500s is when she was alive. She was a contemporary of St. John of the Cross who actually was, in many ways, a counterpart of her. He was a lot younger. I think when she was in her 50s, he was in his 20s. But they reformed the Catholic church in many ways at the time, certainly in Spain. I think she had a couple of... She was a wild child. Her mother died when she was really young. She was very close to her father, but would go off and sort of do crazy things and was the leader of... I had this image of she's the leader of a wild pack of kids, and a bunch of the neighborhood kids would follow her around. They would explore the town. I imagined her being a very boisterous young child, and I think in her teen years, she got pretty flirtatious, and apparently she was very beautiful. So she flirted, and it's unclear to what extent, to what base she got with this young kid, a strapping young lad in the town that she grew up in. But suffice it to say, in a conservative neighborhood, that was frowned upon considerably, and her dad and others decided that she needed to go to a convent to straighten her out. I think, to their dismay, unfortunately, she ended up loving it and decided that she wanted to dedicate her life to Jesus Christ, as she would say in her words, and to make you know, being a sister what her life was about. All her dad wanted was a simple, well-mannered, normal young girl. He didn't want a nun for a daughter, but I think his attempts to straighten her out made her swing the other way. So began the amazing life, and let me just say one last thing. The life of Theresa of Avila was not only one of contemplation and rapture and visions and miracles, but she was actually quite the reformer. She did a lot of social works, transformed the Catholic church in Spain quite a bit, and this was during the time of the Inquisition, which says a lot, I think, about her ability to work this system, if you will, and actually, the author and translator of the book that we read is Mirabai Starr, does a really good job of actually saying the abundance of self-deprecation in this book is not just a potential byproduct of how women were educated at that time and how they saw themselves, but actually more maybe St. Theresa playing the game of putting her male superiors on a pedestal, if you will, and depreciating herself to the point where they would never accuse her of heresy because she's so humble about everything that she says and experiences and adds caveats to everything she says with like, "Well, what do I know? I know so little. My superiors know so much more than me." Although it might be tedious for like the modern reader, I think she was doing that for a reason. She's really protecting herself from the Inquisition in many ways. So, anyway, that's the intro.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. Absolutely. So she writes about this in the introduction where not only was she very self-deprecating, but she also, I think the advice of her confessors, is that what they call them? The people who do the confessionals with, recommended that she write in like a hypothetical person, and audience member as opposed to, "My life, me," because really you know, the Catholic church kind of held political sway through being the supposed only intermediary between the individual and Christ right. You had to attend church. You had to be in good standing with the church. You had to play the game. And a lot of Catholic mystics in particular were accessing God directly, and that wasn't allowed. And that's you know, one of the things that the Spanish Inquisition was looking for were people who were going against the grain of the way it was supposed to work, not just people who weren't Christian, but also you know the introduction talks a little bit about her family being persecuted for being secretly Jewish. Her grandfather, I believe...
Adam Rizvi:
I forgot about that. Yeah, you're right.
Stephan Downes:
Not just that, but also, practicing Catholicism the wrong way. So, you know take what you will from that, but it's an amazing book, truly amazing. We were actually, before we started recording, I was mentioning to Adam that this felt like autobiography of Yogi, in the depth of devotion and I guess there was passion and devotion that St. Theresa has for God.
Adam Rizvi:
That's absolutely right. I feel, there's many things to talk about, and then one of the things is the devotion. I think St. Theresa of Avila, she has this way of drawing out of the reader, certainly out of me, this like love of God, love of the divine. It's funny because it seems that she's a little scatterbrained. I'm not sure if that's her personality. I'm sure she was a rambler.
Stephan Downes:
It said in the introduction that she wrote this... Do you remember that from the introduction about how she wrote this? So basically, she wrote this in two months. And she wrote it not even looking at the page, but her eyes were rolled up in her head and she like just went.
Adam Rizvi:
Oh, that makes so much sense.
Stephan Downes:
She just wrote and wrote and wrote like non stop.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. In a fit of passion. Yeah, there's this... Oh my God. Okay, here comes the first of many, many quotes.
Stephan Downes:
Everybody get ready. Get ready. If you're driving, stop driving. This is going to be huge.
Adam Rizvi:
Oh my God.
Stephan Downes:
Put the children to bed.
Adam Rizvi:
So I have a couple of quotes here where I underlined, and I have "LOL" on the side.
Stephan Downes:
So hold on, real quick, real quick. Let me set up this episode. So let me set up what the book is about because we talked about St. Theresa.
Adam Rizvi:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know.
Stephan Downes:
We talked about my cats at length. It's 16 minutes in. What is the book about? My God.
Adam Rizvi:
Priorities, my friend. Priorities.
Stephan Downes:
The book is about, namely, The Interior Castle, which St. Theresa describes as the way we progress inwardly towards meeting God. So it goes through seven of them, the seven dwellings, and each one is successively closer and closer to God. And she writes very subtly about the different temptations one faces, the different types of interactions with God and what ways at certain points in really, really, really beautiful language. Okay, go ahead. Quote.
Adam Rizvi:
I got a quote is coming. I do want to piggy back on that, which is that... So St. Theresa's confessor asks her to write this book, and specifically to write a book about how to pray for her other sisters so that they can know what silent contemplation looks like, what prayer looks like. And she ends up creating this masterpiece in apparently two months where she outlines her own personal path of prayer. And it is exquisitely detailed. She says that she got inspired to write this book with an image that the Lord, now I'm going to start using the language that she uses, the image that the Lord gives her, which is that her soul is a crystal palace, or a crystal mansion with many, many rooms, many chambers, hallways, courtyards, gardens, with a huge entry courtyard, even before entering into the house itself, the grounds, if you will, of this great castle. And she breaks it down into seven mansions or seven chambers or seven dwellings that brings one deeper and deeper into the core of the castle where her bridegroom, where her beloved, where Christ the Lord dwells. Now, I'm using her language because she says it in such a poetic way that you're left walking this journey with her, like entering into the castle, going through all of the experiences that she goes through and then finally entering this like bridal chamber, the very core of this castle. And she's amazingly explicit in this, and she says it multiple times that this is about going within, and given what we said about the church and how controversial that is, she says it throughout the whole book abundantly. The process of learning to pray is going within, into those chambers, into that castle within until eventually, you merge, you experience a union with the divine. And also, I'm surprised that she even said that because that concept of becoming one with Christ or one with the divine suggests that you don't need the church. You just go within. And yet, they allowed her to publish this, which I'm amazed. So, yes, that's what this book is about.
Stephan Downes:
Wonderful. All right. Give us a quote.
Adam Rizvi:
Okay. This is the first page in the second dwelling. So now she's presumably walked through the entryway of this castle within. "Who are the souls that make it through to the second dwelling? And what are they doing there? I realize that I've written about this at great length in other places, but because I can't remember a thing I've said, I'm sure I'll end up repeating a lot of it here. As long as I say it in some new way, I trust you won't mind too much since most of us never get tired of the multitude of books that deal with matters of the soul." And at a later place, she says something very similar about like, "I can't remember what the hell I wrote, and I can't be bothered." I forget what she says, but, "I can't be bothered to go back and literally read the words I have just written. So I'm going to do my best to keep on writing." There's been three or four times that she did that, and I just laughed. I'm like, "Oh, yeah." I'm getting a feel for what kind of person you are. Oh, Theresa.
Stephan Downes:
Was that the quote? Oh, shit. Okay. Wait, hold on. I'm going to keep reading.
Adam Rizvi:
There's another one.
Stephan Downes:
I'm going to keep reading. No, no, no. I'm going to keep reading.
Adam Rizvi:
Okay, go ahead. Go ahead.
Stephan Downes:
So, okay, the first dwelling. The first dwelling is basically, for lack of a better word, mass consciousness, right? It's like people are not really aware, they're not really trying to be aware.
Adam Rizvi:
It's basically the awareness of the existence that there is a spiritual path.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. Yeah.
Adam Rizvi:
But you're just like, "Oh, oh hm. That's interesting." Like that there is a thing.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. So then this is, again, the first. This is right after the passage that Adam read. So, "The second dwelling is for those who have already begun to practice prayer and became aware that it's time to move on beyond the dwelling of entry, but they haven't quite developed the fortitude to avoid falling back into occasions for spiritual err. At least now they understand the danger they're in. They will be striving to flee from serpents and poisonous creatures because they have a much clearer sense of how good it is to leave these things behind. Their hope for entering more deeply into the castle is much greater now."
Adam Rizvi:
That's really good. In fact, actually, quote, I think we're going to have a quote-off here. This is going to be two pages past what Stephen read, but it gives you a sense of what St. Theresa is describing in the second mansion, or the second dwelling. This is someone who's like... Okay, so I have some notes here. Basically, for me, when I read this, the second dwelling is like the vacillation between the things of the world and the spiritual path. So you're not really in the courtyard, or I should say, you're not in the entry area of the castle. You're standing, literally, in the doorway of the castle. You've just stepped in. You have one foot in, one foot out the other. But you could easily go back and forth, get distracted by things of the world. In our modern day parlance, it'd be like you know, social media distracts you, TV, you know, your wants and desires of getting richer and accumulating material wealth, but like all that stuff, some days, you realize it doesn't matter and that's not what life's about. And other days, it really matters and you know, you care about it a lot. Going back and forth, I think, is characteristic of the second dwelling. Okay, here's the quote. And this, I think, is what makes the second dwelling unique. "I'm not saying that God calls to us directly here as he will do later. For now, his voice reaches us through words spoken by good people, through listening to spiritual talks and reading sacred literature. God calls to us in countless little ways all the time through illnesses and suffering and through sorrow, he calls to us. Through a truth glimpsed fleetingly in a state of prayer, he calls to us. No matter how half-hearted such insights may be, God rejoices whenever we learn what he is trying to teach us." It's one of many sweet passages in this book. I think it's very important because there are times in the spiritual path where there's a direct felt presence of the divine or whatever you want to call it, right. I know there's atheistic spiritual paths and theistic spiritual paths, but whatever you want to replace the word divine with, but she's saying, for those who are not quite there yet, you'll get that from the world around you. You'll get that from the word of a passer-by, a neighbor, some TV show you're watching gives you some tiny bit of insight. And I think that that's really important to know that that's actually a part of the spiritual path is to engage with life that way.
Stephan Downes:
Absolutely. You know, one of the things I love about this book and the things that really touched me is how caring it was. You know, this book is about love, I think, fundamentally and the love of God, essentially, but you know love, I think, would be a broad enough term to capture it. And there's so many different stages of the spiritual path, and she does a really good job of encouraging people who are even just beginning, which a lot of the times, people who are very advanced spiritual practitioners don't spend a lot of time doing that, for whatever reason you know, for whatever reason. They spend a lot of time teaching the really high esoteric teachings. And I just really appreciated these first few dwellings because she really, she really spends a lot of time on people who are just starting out.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah, actually, this might be jumping dwellings a bit, but...
Stephan Downes:
Go dwelling jumping, my friend.
Adam Rizvi:
Oh dwell jump. Dwell jump, sir. She talks about how there's a certain point, and I think it's actually the third, maybe the fourth dwelling where people, they think they know what the spiritual path is about, and they consider themselves teachers, and they deserve to teach, right. And yet, I think she said their lives are neat and orderly. They live harmoniously, they do spiritual things. Like they're "acting in the world in a spiritual way," but when it comes to challenges or tribulations, they get all worked up. They get hot and bothered. They can't handle it, and they start to complain. And God, that is so reminiscent of many, I think, pop culture spiritual icons. You know, it's like you're working to live one thing, but to say that you know it all, that you're the ultimate, I think it's disingenuous, but it's also not humble, right? To acknowledge that you are still a student. No matter how much you think you know, you are still a student on the spiritual path. The greatest leaders are actually the greatest followers. They recognize that the greatest students, also I will say, to recognize that there's still so much to learn, and she says this multiple times. In fact, there's a part in the later part of her book where she says she connects with God so much that she realizes she knows nothing. What little she thinks she knows, it's actually nothing compared to the secrets within.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. Absolutely. It is the third. I was looking it up while you were talking. It is the third dwelling. So you didn't dwelling jump. You didn't. You did good.
Adam Rizvi:
We didn't? Aw, man. Would've been fun. This is in the third dwelling. "Who am I to be writing..." This tells you. She's about to tell you about the need for humility on the path, and she literally starts off the chapter by saying, "Who am I to be writing something to those who could just as well be teaching me?" I think it's like... I mean, this is suffused with humility, and she didn't know the time. I think this says a lot about her, too, to be humble. Let's see another. Okay, "Be assured that where there is humility, God will grant the peace that comes from being aligned with his will." Here's a quote. Okay, "I have known quite a few souls who have lived for a number of years in a righteous and orderly way, both physically and spiritually. Then after all that time, when it seems that they have become masters of this world or at least radically detached from it, his majesty sends them a few small tests, and they react far out of proportion to the challenges they face. They mope around so disturbed and distressed, it bewilders and even frightens me. It's no use offering them advice. They have been engaged in spiritual practice so long, they think they should be teaching others and that they are perfectly justified in feeling the way they do."
Stephan Downes:
I know some of those people. Sorry, that was sassy. I've also been there myself. So something interesting happens at the fourth dwelling. Do you remember what happens? The transition from external to internal. Tell me about it.
Adam Rizvi:
It becomes supernatural.
Stephan Downes:
It's the word she uses, yep.
Adam Rizvi:
That's the word she uses. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephan Downes:
Absolutely. So I think there's this moment when you are going along the spiritual path, and if you're going by the third dwelling, then you think you know something or however you want to say it, but you've accumulated knowledge about it, you've accumulated some experience, and then something happens. All of a sudden, it takes on a meaning that is directly personal in a profound way that borders on the supernatural. It borders on not being describable by common sense reality. And it's real enough that you have to pay attention to it. And this fourth dwelling, as St. Theresa describes it, is this shift from an external focus even in prayer to like really starting to get what's going on, that it is inside you, and that you've experienced it now. And there's less doubt, I'll say. There's less doubt.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. The thing that I noticed about the fourth dwelling or the fourth mansion is that it's the beginning of, for lack of a better term, it's the beginning of Grace, you know, with a capital G, which for me is... I mean, there's different ways to interpret that, but what I mean by that word is the spiritual aspirant, the student, whoever it is, isn't actually doing something to illicit an experience. Instead, the experience is given to them. It's like they're the recipient of something that was unbidden, like completely unrequested. It's out of the blue. It's like the heavens open up and God, as Theresa would say, grants the aspirant a gift. That quality of like being given something, being the recipient is characteristic of the fourth dwelling here.
Stephan Downes:
Absolutely. So then we go to the... I'm kind of pushing through just because I think we're going to want to talk about like the sixth and seventh a lot. So one of the metaphors that St. Theresa uses is the silk worm going into a cocoon, and it's really interesting. I love this because it's about death, spiritual death. The fifth dwelling...
Adam Rizvi:
Wait, wait, there's like two or three things about the fourth. So first, I want to notice something. I don't know if you caught this, but okay seven dwellings, seven chakras. Huh? Huh?
Stephan Downes:
I didn't catch it, but it's very obvious.
Adam Rizvi:
Like the first, the second, the third, like those are very worldly kind of things right, and then you go to the fourth, which is the transition point, right. In the Hindu mythos or worldview, you have this idea that as you evolve, like certain chakras get activated, if you will. But there's something important about the fourth, which resides in the exact middle of the lower third and the higher third. And I just found that so fascinated that there was this parallel. On multiple levels, there's a lot of parallels with the Hindu cosmology.
Stephan Downes:
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Adam Rizvi:
And the fourth dwelling... Oh, and here's another thing, she said something about... She said, "In the fourth dwelling, there are two types of prayers that occur. There's the prayer of recollection and the prayer of quiet." And the prayer of recollection, she says, is something that happens to you without necessarily the aspirant wanting it to happen, which is that they all of a sudden retract like a turtle in its shell or like a hedgehog. They go within themselves, and the senses get shut off. Now, Yogananda talked about this, actually. He used the term Pratyahara, which is when all of the sense organs, the vision, hearing, taste, smell, all that stuff, shuts off. Instead, they turn that search light within. Instead of paying attention to the outer world, it turns within, and all your awareness is on the inner realms. For me, when she was describing the prayer of recollection, I was like, "That sounds a lot like Pratyahara. It sounds like you know, the senses shut off and she's going internal." And then she talks about how that's a prelude to the prayer of quiet, which is where essentially thoughts cease and the mind is just absorbed into itself and into the divine, and there's a great quietude within. I feel like she's starting to describe certain states of Somati. Again, with the Hindu cosmology. It is a fascinating parallel.
Stephan Downes:
Absolutely. And I just want to mention real quick, I'd be remiss to mention that I really can't stand how you remember all of these terms that you've read in multiple books and multiple traditions. I can't stand it, and I resent you for it.
Adam Rizvi:
You can keep resenting me.
Stephan Downes:
God.
Adam Rizvi:
Resent away.
Stephan Downes:
I will. I will. I will continue to do so until I take my last breath. I said it reminded me a lot of Yogananda, and I mean, literally tracks just like a Hindu book, right. Like I didn't feel like there was much difference. There was maybe a bit more focus on... I think Mirabai Starr, let me clarify that. Mirabai Starr made some editorial decisions to take out harsh Christian language like sin and things like that and so we hear the word...
Adam Rizvi:
And the devil.
Stephan Downes:
And the devil. So we hear the words like evil or misunderstanding or confusion which are you know...
Adam Rizvi:
Unconsciousness.
Stephen:
Yeah, yeah. Which are words you're much more likely to see in English translations of Hindu texts. I actually don't know what the words the Hindus use in the actual texts to see if they're comparatively strong, and they've been kind of like toned down for a western audience or not. I have no idea, but tracked really well.
Adam Rizvi:
Out of curiosity, I actually purchased another copy with a different translation, with a more strict translation.
Stephan Downes:
Of course you did.
Adam Rizvi:
There's a lot of devil in there. The devil, the evil one, the beast. I'm a sinful person. I've committed so much sin. The sinners. Like, it's definitely heavy, heavy in the Christian terminology. So I think to Mirabai Starr's credit, she makes it more palatable for the modern spiritual reader.
Stephan Downes:
And she does an exceptional job of it, as well. It really reads very smoothly.
Adam Rizvi:
Okay, tell me about the fifth dwelling.
Stephan Downes:
So the fifth dwelling is where you know, if you think about, I'm going to use the metaphor... So St. Theresa laments how she doesn't have ways to describe things and then goes on with these like really great metaphors. So one of the metaphors she used throughout the book is the silk worm turning into the butterfly, essentially. And so the fifth dwelling is where the silk worm dies. It essentially, spins a cocoon for itself, the house, and then it, in science-y terms, turns into goo and then, but in spiritual terms dies. So this is kind of the death of the small self and the awakening of the capital S Self. So there's a quote here. So I love the way she talks about this. So now that I've given you that metaphor, this is from page 129 in our translation, the top of it. "So let's get on with, my friends. Let's do the work quickly and spin the silking cocoon relinquishing our self-centeredness and personal willfulness in giving up our attachment to worldly things. Let's practice humility, prayer, purification, surrender and all the other good works we're familiar with. We have learned exactly what the do. Let's do it. Let it die. Let the silk worm die. This is the natural outcome once it has done what it was created to do. Then we will see God and see ourselves nestled inside his greatness like the silk worm in her cocoon. Remember that when I say we see God, I mean in the sense in which he allows himself to be seen in this kind of union."
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. And she continues the quote by saying, "Everything I've been saying leads up to what becomes of the silk worm. The soul in this state of prayer dies to the world and emerges a little white butterfly." You know what's funny? Of course you would somehow find the one place in the book that has the sentence, "Let it die. Let the silk worm die."
Stephan Downes:
That's true. I would find that.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah, you would find it. Okay, let's dive a little bit further into this idea of death and spiritual death because Rumi talks about it a lot. I actually had some notes here about like Rumi in the Islamic mysticism tradition, which by the way, we need to do more episodes on. We're going to dive into that at some point. But, so tell me, what does it mean to die spiritually? Why is death such a big theme in many spiritual traditions, in your opinion?
Stephan Downes:
I think it has... What really comes to mind is two reasons. One is there's this... Death is kind of described in a lot of traditions as the primordial fear of human beings, right? It is that moment of complete loss of control. It's one complete loss of control because we can't control it, and two, we have no idea what happens afterwards. No matter what we believe, there is a sense of not knowing of what happens immediately following death, despite you know, that we have these great descriptions of it and all these different traditions. And so one, it's the ultimate unknown, but it's also... Yeah, I guess it's the ultimate unknown. So when we talk about spiritual death, there are, I mean even in Zen, they talk about dying every breath, right? Every breath is a little death. So there's sense of surrender. There's this sense of accepting it, and that could be for the practitioner just you know, surrendering into that moment and let the thoughts die away, or it could be the ego having some sort of small ego death or having a large ego death. Or, you know, I even think about, for me, you know going back to the first, second, third dwellings, I can recognize all those parts of my life and where doing spiritual things or thinking in a spiritual way was an effort. It was a real effort to do so. It was like... I think I probably mentioned this on the podcast before, but when I first started on the spiritual path, I couldn't finish sentences. You know? I'd be describing what the spiritual path was about, my understanding of it, and I couldn't... My brain would just stop. It was literally being rewired, and nowadays, I feel much more fluid in that world. I feel it's not a challenge to have spiritual thoughts, to turn my attention toward the spiritual world. I've had very direct experiences of you know, high states of consciousness, and I would even say, in those things, that I've had to go through successive little deaths to get there, you know? The part of me that wants to just go party all the time and get drunk has died, for lack of a better word. I think there's lots of ways to think about it, but that fundamental notion of the unknown and of transformation I think is what I keep coming back to.
Adam Rizvi:
I really appreciate that. I mean, when I think about it, the very first place I go to is the... There's this quote, and I forget who's the Sufi master that says it.
Stephan Downes:
Oh, the first place you go is a quote? Oh really?
Adam Rizvi:
No. Well... Cold water. You are cold water. Okay, so the quote is, "Let me die before I die." In the Sufi tradition, which is great because for me, that idea of death, it refers to, I think I'm Adam, right. I think I am this person, the story of Adam, the ego construct, the mental construct of there actually being a person here, right. That's what I die to. And although, to you and others, the physical body of Adam might still be here, there's no one there anymore once the total ego death has occurred. That's what I think about, but what I like in what you shared is there are many smaller deaths before that larger ego death. Like you said, the different ways of being that we die to to become the various versions of butterflies that we become.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. Absolutely. Can I tell you a little bit real quick about cold water?
Adam Rizvi:
Sure.
Stephan Downes:
Cold water is really great for finding out how hot things are. If you find something, if you throw cold water at things, and you get back a really intense flame that evaporates the water, you know you've found real heat.
Adam Rizvi:
Touche. Touche, my friend. That's good.
Stephan Downes:
Okay, go ahead.
Adam Rizvi:
You said something about how you weren't struggling anymore in the first two or three dwellings where you had to work towards having spiritual thoughts, and now they just come to you. She has an analogy of two fountains that I wanted to read here because it's in the fourth dwelling chapter. All right, she's talking about the prayer of quiet here. "See if this image helps you understand what I mean. There are two fountains, and they each have a basin to be filled with water. You know, I haven't found any better metaphor for describing certain spiritual experiences than water. I love this element. I have spent a great deal of time contemplating it. These two basins fill up in different ways. The water from one comes from far away, carried through many aqueducts, requiring much ingenuity. The source of water for the other one is right beside it, and the basin fills soundlessly. "The spring is abundant and so the basin spills over and a large stream flows from it. This requires no engineering skills or the construction of conduits. The water just continuously bubbles forth. I think that the water that comes through the aqueducts is like spiritual consolations and meditation." Just to break aside, she uses the term consolations to be the things that we strive towards, and spiritual sweetness to be the things that is gifted from the divine. "We draw these consolations through our thoughts. We meditate on creating forms to help us, and we fatigue our minds. Finally, through our own efforts, comforting feelings come splashing in making noise as they fill up the basin. "With the other fountain, the water springs directly from its own source, God. When his majesty wishes to bless us with supernatural favor, the delight brings with it the greatest peace, quietude and sweetness to our innermost self."
Stephan Downes:
Hm. Love that.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. Yeah. It's like those moments of being joyful for absolutely no reason.
Stephan Downes:
Mm-hmm.
Adam Rizvi:
Like, I remember, I was in Minnesota during residency, and I was driving through an underpass. For no reason, I was thinking about some random stuff in residency, and for no reason, everything got quiet, and I was filled with this immense joy. Like, for no reason, and I couldn't think. I just had my hands on the wheel, and I was just feeling so blissful. Nothing I did spurred it. It just came. I think these are what Theresa would say are the gifts of the divine, the spiritual sweetness where it's not noisy, it's not bubbly. You're not having to churn and meditate to achieve something. It just come out of the blue.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. I mean, the word grace, like you used before, I think is really apt for that. The word grace, there's a sense of effortlessness, a sense of just grace. Grace is a great word for it. Yeah. Lovely, lovely.
Adam Rizvi:
Tell us about the sixth dwelling.
Stephan Downes:
Well, I actually you know... I was thinking about this. You said earlier that you had some parallels among Patanjali. So I really want to get to those about this sixth dwelling. I actually don't have a lot underlined in the sixth. I know it was a long one, but I felt like I wanted to get to the seventh. I think part of me wanted to get to the seventh. It's probably illustrative of a lot about me.
Adam Rizvi:
Well, the one thing I'll say about the sixth, and I agree, it's a long section. She talks about visions, spiritual visions, and there's one analogy that she gave that I thought was really nice. She said how God would grant her these immensely complex and detailed visions of reality and of her innermost self, but she could never explain them. She could never give the details to someone else, and yet they left an imprint on her. In fact, she uses this idea of the soul being like wax upon which the seal of the divine is imprinted. And she said, "When that happens, your job is to be like wax, soft and pliable, ready to receive without obstruction." I think that's a nice way of describing the internal state of being. In many ways, Theresa offers analogies to give us a feel for what's happening internally to be this soft, pliable wax, but her analogy with the visions was, she said at one point in her real life, IRL, she was brought to, I think like, a duchess or the equivalent, some royal woman's house. And they had a room, a huge room with like knick-knacks from all over the world, like bronze vases and flowers. She said it was all sorts of stuff all over on the walls, and it was immensely beautiful and very striking. But then when she walked out and she would tell people of that experience going into this room, she couldn't remember any one single object. She couldn't remember what color it was or whatnot, but she was left with the impression of being in a beautiful room of objects. And she said in the same way, "Visions will come along the path of great secrets within. You'll only be left with the impression. You can't put to words what is seen of God's kingdom," you know, which I thought was a nice analogy of what people experience.
Stephan Downes:
It was, and it reminds me kind of the initial stages of non-duality, if that... I know that's going to be, what's the word, contradictory, initial stages of non-duality, but I remember the first time I really had a strong non-dual experience. I had no words for it. It was completely beyond words. There was nothing like... I remember, it took me a long time. My girlfriend at the time, I would just be really weird. Like I didn't know what to do. I was super sensitive. I was like kind of withdrawn from her eyes, and I had no words for it. I would try to put words to things, and they just wouldn't come out. She even has here, it's on...
Adam Rizvi:
Is this the girlfriend that eventually ended up marrying you?
Stephan Downes:
That's the one.
Adam Rizvi:
I do not understand how she did it. You're weird enough as it is. I can't even imagine how you were when you're going through what experiences you're going through.
Stephan Downes:
So page 157, she actually talks about once you've reached the sixth dwelling how things really change. So she said, "The gossip of something like this, 'She thinks she's such a saint, or she's falling all over herself to deceive the world and make it seem like other people are missing the mark when they, in fact, are more spiritual than she is, only they don't put on an outward show.' It's worth noting, by the way, that's she's not putting on any kind of show, but striving to fulfill her station. People she had believed to be her friends turn on her. They're the ones who take the biggest bite out of her. They regret that this is a soul who has 'gone astray' and it 'obviously deluded.' They lament that she has deceived her spiritual guides and it responsible for an overall decline in virtue. They run to these guides, eager to point this out setting tragic examples of other souls who have been lost in similar fashion. They come up with a thousand other ridiculous accusations, scoffing at the poor creature the entire time." That's a really powerful passage. Here's what I want to say about it. I remember writing in my journal. I actually I never... I don't think I've told anyone this, probably my wife, but I don't think I've told anyone this. I have a journal that I started when I first had really strong non-dual experiences and things would just come to me. And I just write them down. They're very powerful, but I remember having this sense that like I was truly seeing how it was for the first time and that it felt like no one else could see what I was seeing. Like I felt like I was going crazy. I don't know that I had friends turn on me and this dramatic of a stage turn, but like, people definitely thought I was weird and I was out of touch, and I was falling, for lack of a better word. But all I remember is this notion that the ego will do anything to survive, anything. And when people see it in you that you're getting very close to dropping the ego, they have the weirdest reactions. People really, really don't like it. And it's really unexplainable where you know, I would... It's like all of fa sudden, you stop engaging with people the same way you have, right? Whereas, before, there was... If you've seen the movie Thor Ragnarok?
Adam Rizvi:
Uh-huh. Luke the Marvel movie?
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, yeah. I'm going to describe it if you haven't seen it. So Thor has a brother who's a main character. He's the Norse god of thunder. He has a brother, Loki, who's a trickster god. And Loki can like project images of himself out into the world. And so he keeps doing this where he's talking to Thor, and Thor will throw things at him to see if it's really him or not, right? So it happens in reverse in the movie where most of the time he's not really there, and then one time he actually is, and he like hits him in the head with a bottle or something like that. It's a funny moment. But it's the point where you know, as long as you've known people, you have reacted, you have... There's been stuff inside of you to get triggered by, that gets triggered, the stuff inside of you that stuff sticks to right, emotional stuff, karmic stuff. And all of a sudden that stops right, and there's nothing left to stick to. And people literally don't know what to do with it, right? They really don't know what to do with it, and they think you're acting really weird. They don't know what's going on. They don't know how to connect to you. They don't know how to do any of that. That, for me, is the sixth dwelling, is that you've really connected to something deep, and it's kind of taken over. And people don't like it. People don't like it so much because they have no idea what's going on.
Adam Rizvi:
First of all, thank you for sharing that. It's interesting. I feel like there's going to be a lot more revealed as time goes on about all the various experiences you and I have had. I think the way that people tend to be really triggered by spiritual leaders in many ways is partly explained by that tendency that there's nothing to grab onto. There's no pushback from another ego out there right, presumably for a teacher who has had some degree of realization, like one of the advanced Buddhist masters that we've talked about in the past.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, we can call them master, a spiritual master.
Adam Rizvi:
Right, right, exactly. What you will end up interacting with are your own projections, but typically, we're used to interacting, our projections interacting with their projections, right. Like we're never really meeting each other. It's two projections interacting with each other, right. I'm not interacting with Stephen. I'm interacting with who I think Stephen is, and then vice versa. The other thing I want to comment about what you're describing is it can be a place, at least my impression from St. Theresa, a feeling like of groundlessness. I don't know what's normal, right? Because clearly, the shit that's happening out there is not, and I'm having an experience that I don't have words for. What do I hold onto, right? So there's the feeling of you're falling and there's no ground. You just keep falling, and this goes back to Chogyam Trungpa.
Stephan Downes:
I was just going to go there. Go for it! Got for it! Do it, do it, do it! It's the best!
Adam Rizvi:
No, no. Well, I can't quote that, but that's what he says.
Stephan Downes:
He says, one of his most famous lines is, "The bad news is that you're falling and you don't have a parachute. The good news is, there is no ground."
Adam Rizvi:
Wow. That's great. I would not have done that justice. I'm glad you jumped in.
Stephan Downes:
Alan Watts talks about it. It is like walking your entire life and then all of a sudden stepping into water. There is no ground, and the only thing you can do is figure out how to float and then eventually swim. But in order to float, you have to stop walking. You have to stop trying. You just have to float. That is what gets people, and that shift from walking to floating is... People who haven't floated don't know what's happening. They don't know that someone's floating, right?
Adam Rizvi:
I heard recently that Russell Brand did an episode on Alan Watts's, the very book that our second episode, I think one of our first two episodes, was on the taboo against knowing who you really are. He was talking about that.
Stephan Downes:
So guys, let us know how his podcast is. Let us know how Russell Brand's podcast on the book Against the Taboo of Knowing Who You Really Are is.
Adam Rizvi:
I think it's a testament to Alan Watts and the impact and the far reach that he has had, but before we get sidetracked into Alan Watts and Chogyam Trungpa.
Stephan Downes:
I think we can stick on the dwellings.
Adam Rizvi:
The seventh dwelling. Tell me about the seventh, and this is a good way to sort of wrap things up.
Stephan Downes:
Here's my kind of... The sixth is like the... Kind of the... One, I recognize things from my life in it, but the seventh, I thought was that where you really start to understand non-duality, for lack of a better word. So I'm going to go to 263. It's starting in the second paragraph. "Yet when he unites," he, being God, "Yet when he unites himself with her at last, she understands nothing. She loses her senses and her reason entirely." We'll come back to that. "In the seventh dwelling, everything is new. Now, our great God is ready to remove the scales from the eyes of he soul so that she can see and understand something of the blessing he is granting her. He does this in a strange and inexplicable way. The soul enters the innermost chamber through a transcendental vision of the three divine persons which imparts to her a particular representation of truth. "At first, an incredible clarity descends on the soul like a luminous cloud, setting her spirit on fire and illuminating each of the three aspects of God individually. At the same time, through a wondrous kind of knowledge, she apprehends the truth that all three divine persons are one substances and one power and one knowing and one God alone. The soul realizes then that what the rest of us know by faith, you might say, she understands by sight. But this is not a seeing with the eyes of the body or even the eyes of the soul. It isn't a visual revelation. Here, all three persons communicate themselves to the soul. They speak to her, explaining things like what Christ meant in the gospels when he said that he and the father and the Holy Spirit come to dwell inside the soul who love God and honors his ways."
Adam Rizvi:
Wow.
Stephan Downes:
I can dive in, but if anything inspired you there. I also want to acknowledge, just for our listeners, sorry this is a long episode, but we're going to keep going. All right. Does anything strike you from there because I have stuff to talk about, too.
Adam Rizvi:
Well, I mean, I'm amazed that you chose that. I actually saw that sentence, and I was like, "Hm, should we go into the trinity?"
Stephan Downes:
Oh, I didn't go in for the trinity part. I don't have a relationship with the trinity.
Adam Rizvi:
Oh, got it. Okay. That's part of my childhood.
Stephan Downes:
Disgusting.
Adam Rizvi:
There's a lot to be said about the recognition... Okay, since we're short on time, I'm just going to plant a seed here.
Stephan Downes:
No, no. I just want to acknowledge to our listeners, I'm sorry it's a longer episode, but you're going to have to deal with it because this is the juice. Go for it.
Adam Rizvi:
This is like a whole episode worth, but sacred geometry. There's this idea in the spiritual wisdom traditions of many, many faiths that numbers represent existential truths, epistemological truths, to use a more accurate word, which is like... There's a fundamental structure to reality and to the nature of consciousness that it can be expressed in geometrical shapes. And this idea of the triangle or the trinity or three and one, oh my God, has so many references. In fact, Taoism is one of the first to do that where the one becomes two, the two become three and the three become the myriad things. That's a very well-known quote from Lao Tzu. But why does it go from one to two to three and then three to everything? Right? There's something about you have the singularity right, of consciousness. Then from that, you have duality, subject, object, and then once you have a trinity, which is subject, object and the relationship between the two, one among many symbolic forms of the trinity, that, the subject, the object and the relationship between the two gives birth to a world of form, gives birth to all existence in itself. I think symbolically, it's conveying something really profound because at no point will you ever leave, at least in this world of form, will you ever leave that trinity of subject, object and your relationship between that. That will be with you forever. And you could argue that the recognition that the three are one, again, we're talking about symbolism here, it's taking that step in reverse. You're reversing the act of creation and returning back to source. You're recognizing there is no subject, object. The three and the two are one. And there's so much... So many, even in Egyptian literature of the father, the mother, the king and the queen and then the horse being the son or the Madonna, father and child. Right? There's these amazing repetitive themes of three, but as I see it, Theresa's description here is a deeply, deeply mystical recognition of the reality of the oneness of the trinity. Now, I'm potentially interpreting things in a way that she wouldn't have because she could be talking about Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Father and the Son, but there's aspects to this that I'm like, she's describing an ontological experience that is beyond words.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. I mean, I don't think your, your description of the subject, object and the relationship between the two like is very analogous to the relationship with the Holy Ghost between... Am I quoting that completely wrong?
Adam Rizvi:
No, no.
Stephan Downes:
Do I just only understand it through that lens. But the father, son and Holy Ghost, right? Like is that analogous at all?
Adam Rizvi:
Well, I think it is, but there's also... This is why I wanted to just plant a seed because it's a whole other conversation. But I'll just say, in Gnosticism, there are other ways of interpreting what the son and the father represent.
Stephan Downes:
Right, right, right, right. Okay. So what really struck me about this one is that very first part of the quote and the last, as well. "Yet when he unites himself with her at last, she understands nothing. She loses her senses and her reason entirely." This probably read something like before, heard something like this before, experience something like this before, but when you finally really pierce non-duality, you realize that no knowledge, she understands nothing. So for me, that strikes me as any time you have a concept, any time you have a formation, that is duality., right There is a subject and object. There's a thing and the thing it's not. And that's just the nature of the world. That is the definition of duality. And when you get to that point where you realize that and you realize what's left besides that is that there is no more understanding because any understanding is inadequate, right? Any understanding is putting things into words, is putting things into concepts, which... So you go to this place where there's omnipresence because you understand everything, but you do it through understanding nothing. You don't rely on concepts for our sense of self. You don't rely on concepts to exist in the world anymore. You've dropped that away. And then the next part of this where she says, "At first, an incredible clarity descends on the soul like a luminous cloud setting her spirit on fire and luminating each of the three aspects of God individually. At the same time, through a wondrous kind of knowledge, she apprehends the truth that all three divine persons are one substance and one power and one knowing and one God alone." And I think this is... I mean, you had spoken about going back from duality into the source of all, so to speak, and this is that, that non-duality that there's no difference between any of these things, that there's no difference between good and bad, and there's no difference between hot and cold or any of the other dual things. That's the true "nature" of reality.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. Page 266 she, halfway through the mid paragraph, she says, "We can look inside ourselves in such a way that we perceive a clear difference between soul and spirit, even though they are really one the same. The duality is so subtle that differentiating between their functions can be like trying to distinguish one flavor of the beloved from another." That's another sweet description. Again, in the Hindu cosmology, there's this idea of like an individual optimum, an individual soul and then the great Brahman, like the Paramatman, right? And at a certain point, that distinction dissolves. There's no individual there anymore like we've been talking about. And yet, an individual can still function in this world of form, but doesn't identify with himself. But you can still kind of draw a slight distinction. She's, I think, kind of hinting at that it seems.
Stephan Downes:
Absolutely.
Adam Rizvi:
In her way.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Adam Rizvi:
So much. So much. We didn't... I didn't really get into Patanjali, but...
Stephan Downes:
I know.
Adam Rizvi:
Well, let me make a quick comment for those who want to do their homework. There's this guy. His name is Patanjali. He's a scholar, philosopher, meditator from thousands of years ago. I forget exactly when, but a long time ago. He has this path that he's outline in his Yoga sutras. It's the eightfold path. There's sort of eight steps to self-realization, and I wrote them down here. The eight steps, I'll say all of them and then I'll break them down, Yam, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi. Now, Yam is like observances. You're doing correct things like washing yourself and saying ritual prayers and meditating regularly and going to church, right? The Niyama is the things you don't do. Like if you're a monk, then you're celibate. You don't have sex. You don't kill people. You don't lie. You don't steal. Like these are things that you don't do. And then Asana is certain postures, how you carry the physical body. Pranayama is how you breathe. Pratyahara is actually the withdrawal of senses, which is what I talked about earlier. Dharana is determination, perseverance, the steadfast quality that one needs to have as an aspirant. And then Dhyana is meditation. You actually start to focus on your breath or on a candle flame or on whatever you're doing. And then the final step is Samadhi, which is total absorption, meditative absorption with your object of focus. And that's where self-realization occurs. Like, that's where subject object duality dissolves because you've absorbed with your object of focus. And it's interesting how the first three dwellings in St. Theresa is all about like moving away from the worldliness and living a more spiritual life. And actually, the third dwelling is the person who is doing all the right things and is avoiding all the wrong things and is living the correct life, but still hasn't realized that they're a beginning on the spiritual path. And the later four steps, Pratyahara, which is when the senses withdraw, and meditation and absorption, that's like describing her prayer of quiet and her prayer of unity.
Stephan Downes:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Adam Rizvi:
For me, I was reading this, and I was like, "Holy shit. This is the Christian Patanjali." It just seems like there's such a parallel here.
Stephan Downes:
It is. There really is a parallel. And truly an amazing book, an amazing book, truly.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. I guess to wrap things up in a long episode, I would say that what I liked most about... Oh my God, we didn't even talk about how there's this beautiful quality to... There's so many passages here where St. Theresa talks about her devotion to God. I think that's the biggest thing I'll take away. The structure of spiritual growth is important, but the feeling that I'll take away from this is her love for God. It just comes across so profoundly. Like, you can start to feel her devotion, just taste it.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. You really can in every page. And it's stunning. I mean, for me, it's really rare that an author does that, that it really comes through. You know...
Adam Rizvi:
Maybe I'll wrap this up with reading one of those...
Stephan Downes:
I think this deserves a quote. Yeah. We need to end on a quote, as is tradition.
Adam Rizvi:
Wait, when did that start?
Stephan Downes:
That's not a tradition. I just like saying as is tradition.
Adam Rizvi:
All right. "Oh, my beloved, my God, how awesome is your grandeur. We walk around down here like silly little shepherds believing that we are starting to actually know something about you, but it must add up to nothing at all. There are even secrets in our own selves that we cannot fathom. What I mean is that in light of the vastness that is God, our little minds can know nothing at all. The soul herself cannot even understand what is unfolding here. She senses a certain fragrance, we could say, as if within the depths of her being, there were burning coals sprinkled with sweet perfumes. We cannot see the light or locate the source of the fire, but the sweet smelling warmth permeates the whole of the soul and maybe even spreads into the body. Look, try to understand what I'm saying. We don't actually feel heat or smell an aroma. The experience is far more delicate than that. Even if you have not gone through these things, you must know, they really do happen. The soul perceives and understands this more clearly than my mere words could ever express."
Stephan Downes:
Hm.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. Sweet smelling perfume of the soul. That's St. Theresa.
Stephan Downes:
I think that's a great place to end.
Adam Rizvi:
Thank you, everyone, for listening. We are working on creating our YouTube channel. You're welcome to join us on our not so often visited Discord channel. We also have a website, LetterstotheSky.com that is updated with lots of lovely pictures and a transcript of every single one of the our docs. Anything?
Stephan Downes:
And of course, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us an email. There's a link on the website. Or hop into Discord, and you can talk to us.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah, exactly. And if we ever um, get the YouTube channel up, then leave your comments down below and subscribe and do all that lovely stuff.
Stephan Downes:
The best part is that Adam leaves his Discord notifications on super loud. So sometimes I send it, maybe he's in the middle of a procedure, and it just goes off. And you know, see how good of a doctor he really is. No, that's not true. I don't really do that. That's very cruel.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah.
Stephan Downes:
All right.
Adam Rizvi:
Awesome.
Stephan Downes:
Well, you have yourself a wonderful evening.
Adam Rizvi:
Thank you.
Stephan Downes:
Talk to you soon.
Adam Rizvi:
You do the same, sir.
Stephan Downes:
Bye.
Adam Rizvi:
Bye.