If someone wants to enjoy both God and something else, they will inevitably do wrong to the more important thing, because they are making them equal. Since nothing equals God, the soul that loves something else alongside Him, or clings to it, does Him wrong.
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Ascent of Mount Carmel by St. John of the Cross is a systematic mystical treatise outlining the path of the soul's ascent to God through the active and passive purifications of the senses and the spirit. St. John draws on scripture and deep contemplative experience to map the stages of spiritual growth with extraordinary precision and depth. Together with Dark Night of the Soul, this work forms the cornerstone of Carmelite mysticism and one of the greatest guides to the contemplative life in any tradition.
Same theme, different voices
Treat pleasure and pain equally, gain and loss equally, victory and defeat equally — then engage in battle. In this way you will not incur sin.
When a child is born, there is no symbol to indicate that it belongs to a particular religion or caste. The distinction of man is only that he is man. It is the same divine light that dwells in every human being. It is therefore essential that after taking birth as a human being one must behave like a human being.
The soul should be equally detached from all earthly things, just as the heavens are equally distant from the earth.
In God's divine majesty, there is no distinction of quality; I, thou, and we will not be found.