Interior Castle, 4th Dwelling Places, Chapter 2
God help me with what I have undertaken! I've already forgotten what I was dealing with, for business matters and poor health have forced me to set this work aside just when I was at my best; and since I have a poor memory, everything will come out confused because I can't go back to read it over. And perhaps even everything else I say is confused; at least that's what I feel it is. It seems to me I have explained the nature of consolations in the spiritual life. Since they are sometimes mixed with our own passions, they are the occasion of loud sobbing; and I have heard some persons say they experience a tightening in the chest and even external bodily movements that they cannot restrain. The force of these passions can cause nosebleeds and other things just as painful. I don't know how to explain anything about these experience because I haven't had any. But they must nonetheless be consoling, for, as I'm saying, the whole experience ends in the desire to please God and enjoy His Majesty's company.
The experiences that I call spiritual delight in God, that I termed elsewhere the prayer of quiet, are of a very different kind, as those of you who by the mercy of God have experienced them will know. Let's consider, for a better understanding, that we see two founts with two water troughs. (For I don't find anything more appropriate to explain some spiritual experiences than water, and this is because I know little and have no helpful cleverness of mind and am so fond of this element that I have observed it more attentively than other things. In all the things that so great and wise a God has created there must be many beneficial secrets, and those who understand them do benefit, although I believe that in each little thing created by God there is more than what is understood, even if it is a little ant.)
These two troughs are filled with water in different ways; with one, the water comes from far away, through many aqueducts and the use of much ingenuity; with the other, the source of the water is right there, and the trough fills without any noise. If the spring is abundant, as is this one we are speaking about, the water overflows once the trough is filled, forming a large stream. There is no need of any skill, nor does the building of aqueducts have to continue, but water is always flowing from the spring. The water coming from the aqueducts is comparable, in my opinion, to the consolations I mentioned that are drawn from meditation. For we obtain them through thoughts, assisting ourselves, using creatures to help our meditation, and tiring the intellect. Since, in the end, the consolation comes through our own efforts, noise is made when there has to be some replenishing of the benefits the consolation causes in the soul, as has been said.
With this other fount, the water comes from its own source, which is God. And since His Majesty desires to do so – when he is pleased to grant some supernatural favor – he produces this delight with the greatest peace and quiet and sweetness in the very interior part of ourselves. I don't know from where or how, nor is that happiness and delight experienced, as are earthly consolations, in the heart. I mean there is no similarity at the beginning, for afterward the delight fills everything; this water overflows through all the dwelling places and faculties until reaching the body. This is why I said that it begins in God and ends in ourselves. For, certainly, as anyone who may have experienced it will see, the whole exterior person enjoys this spiritual delight and sweetness.
I was now thinking, while writing this, that the verse mentioned above, Dilatasti cor meum, says the heart was expanded. I don't think the experience is something, as I say, that rises from the heart, but from another part still more interior, as from something deep. I think this must be the center of the soul, as I later came to understand and will mention at the end. For certainly I see secrets within ourselves that have often caused me to marvel. And how many more there must be! Oh, my Lord and my God, how great are your grandeurs! We go about here below like foolish little shepherds, for while it seems that we are getting some knowledge of you it must amount to no more than nothing; for even in our own selves there are great secrets that we don't understand. I say “no more than nothing” because I'm comparing it to the many, many secrets that are in you, not because the grandeurs we see in you are not extraordinary; and that includes those we can attain knowledge of through your works.
To return to the verse, what I think is helpful in it for explaining this matter is the idea of expansion. It seems that since that heavenly water begins to rise from this spring I'm mentioning that is deep within us, it swells and expands our whole interior being, producing ineffable blessings; nor does the soul even understand what is given to it there. It perceives a fragrance, let us say for now as though there were in that interior depth a brazier giving off sweet-smelling perfumes. No light is seen, nor is the place seen where the brazier is; but the warmth and the fragrant fumes spread through the entire soul and even often enough, as I have said, the body shares in them. See now that you understand me; no heat is felt, nor is there the scent of any perfume, for the experience is more delicate than an experience of these things; but I use the examples only so as to explain it to you. And let persons who have not experienced these things understand that truthfully they do happen and are felt in this way, and that the soul understands them in a manner clearer than is my explanation right now. This spiritual delight is not something that can be imagined, because however diligent our efforts, we cannot acquire it. The very experience of it makes us realize that it is not of the same metal as we ourselves but fashioned from the purest gold of the divine wisdom. Here, in my opinion, the faculties are not united but absorbed and looking as though in wonder at what they see.
It's possible that in dealing with these interior matters I might contradict something of what I said elsewhere. That's no surprise, because in the almost fifteen years since I wrote it the Lord may perhaps have given me clearer understanding in these matters than I had before. Now, as then, I could be completely mistaken – but I would not lie, because by God's mercy I'd rather suffer a thousand deaths. I speak of what I understand.
It seems clear to me that the will must in some way be united with God's will. But it is in the effects and deeds following afterward that one discerns the true value of prayer; there is no better crucible for testing prayer. It is quite a great favor from our Lord if the person receiving the favor recognizes it, and a very great one if he doesn't turn back. You will at once desire, my daughters, to obtain this prayer; and you are right, for, as I have said, the soul will never understand the favors the Lord is granting there or the love with which he is drawing it nearer to himself. It is good to try to understand how we can obtain such a favor, so I am going to tell you what I have understood about this.
Let's leave aside the times when our Lord is pleased to grant it because he wants to and for no other reason. He knows why; we don't have to meddle in this. After you have done what should be done by those in the previous dwelling places, humility! Humility! By this means the Lord allows himself to be conquered with regard to anything we want from him. The first sign for seeing whether or not you have humility is that you do not think you deserve these favors and spiritual delights from the Lord or that you will receive them in your lifetime. You will ask me how, then, one can obtain them without seeking them. I answer that for the following reasons there is no better way than the one I mentioned, of not striving for them. First, because the initial thing necessary for such favors is to love God without self-interest. Second, because there is a slight lack of humility in thinking that for our miserable services something so great can be obtained. Third, because the authentic preparation for these favors on the part of those of us who, after all, have offended him is the desire to suffer and imitate the Lord rather than to have spiritual delights. Fourth, because His Majesty is not obliged to give them to us as he is to give us glory if we keep his commandments. (Without these favors we can be saved, and he knows better than we ourselves what is fitting for us and who of us truly love him. This is certain, I know. And I know persons who walk by the path of love as they ought to walk — that is, only so as to serve their Christ crucified; not only do these persons refuse to seek spiritual delights from him or to desire them but they beseech him not to give them these favors during their lifetime. This is true.) The fifth reason is that we would be laboring in vain, for since this water must not be drawn through aqueducts as was the previous water, we are little helped by tiring ourselves if the spring doesn't want to produce it. I mean that no matter how much we meditate or how much we try to squeeze something out and have tears, this water doesn't come in such a way. It is given only to whom God wills to give it and often when the soul is least thinking of it.
We belong to him, daughters. Let him do whatever he likes with us, bring us wherever he pleases. I really believe that whoever humbles himself and is detached (I mean in fact because the detachment and humility must not be just in our thoughts – for they often deceive us – but complete) will receive the favor of this water from the Lord and many other favors that we don't know how to desire. May he be forever praised and blessed, amen.
of Avila, St Teresa. The Interior Castle Study Edition (pp. 128-129). ICS Publications. Kindle Edition.