The psycho-physical occasions or reflexes of her various teachings, as far as the interconnection can be traced with probability, shall also be studied in the second volume. But already here I would have the reader clearly to understand, that nowhere are such psycho-physical conditions and experiences to be considered the causes of her doctrine, as though the lower produced the higher, and as though the spiritual were the automatic resultant and necessary precipitate of certain accidental, involuntary conditions in time and space. For everywhere such conditions can only, at best, be accepted as the occasions or materials for the development or illustration of some spiritual doctrine, or, contrariwise, as the psychic effects and embodiments of some vividly realized invisible truth or law; whilst this spiritual teaching itself is derived from far other and deeper causes,—the interaction of her own experience and free spiritual powers and of God’s grace, and the conflict of these with her own passions, the whole helped or hindered by the world without.
I. God as Creative Love. The Creature’s True and False Self; True and False Love.
1. Creation, an overflow of Goodness.
First, then, we will take the sayings about Creation, and the original, substantially indelible character of all created beings. “I saw a sight which satisfied me much. I was shown the Living Fountain of Goodness, which was (as yet) all within Itself alone, without any kind of participation. And next I saw that It began to participate with the creature, and made that very beautiful company of Angels, in order that this company might enjoy His ineffable glory, without asking any other return from the Angels than that they should recognize themselves to be creatures created by His supreme goodness.… And hence, when they were clothed in sin by their pride and disobedience, God suddenly subtracted from them the participation of His goodness.… Yet He did not subtract it all, for in that case they would have remained still more malign than they (actually) are, and they would have had Hell infinite in pain, as they now have it in time.” … “When we ourselves shall depart from this life,—supposing we are in mortal sin,—then God would subtract from us His goodness and would leave us in our own selves, yet not altogether, since He wills that in every place there should be found His goodness accompanied by His justice. And if any creature could be found that did not participate in His goodness, that creature would be as malignant as God is good.”[223]
2. Natural conformity between God and all rational creatures.
From her sayings as to Creation and Pure Love, Creation’s cause, we come to those as to the Natural Conformity between God and Rational Creatures; His constant care for the human soul; and the consequent law of imitative love incumbent upon us. “I see God to have so great a conformity with the rational creature, that if the Devil himself could but rid himself of those garments of sin, in that instant God would unite Himself to him, and would make him into that which he, the Devil, attempted to achieve by his own power. So too with regard to man: lift off sin from his shoulders, and then allow the good God to act,—God who seems to have nothing else to do than to unite Himself to us.”—“It appears to me, indeed, that God has no other business than myself.”—“If man could but see the care which God takes of the soul, he would be struck with stupor within himself.”—“I see that God stands all ready to give us all the aids necessary for our salvation, and that He attends to our actions solely for our good. And, on the contrary, I see man occupied with things that are opposed to his true self and of no value. And at the time of death God will say to him: ‘What was there that I could do for thee, O man, that I did not do?’ And man himself will then see this clearly.”—“When God created man, He did not put Himself in motion for any other reason than His pure love alone. And hence, in the same way as Love Itself, for the welfare of the loved soul, does not fail in the accomplishment of anything, whatever may be the advantage or disadvantage that may accrue from thence to the Lover, so also must the love of the loved soul return to the Lover, with those same forms and modes with which it came from Him. And then such love as this, which has no regard for aught but love itself, cannot be in fear of anything.”[224]
3. Relations between Love, God; love of our true self; and false self-love.
We can take next her teachings as to the relations between the love of God, love of our true self, and false self-love. “The love of God is our true self-love, the love characteristic of and directed to our true selves, since these selves of ours were created by and for Love Itself. The love, on the other hand, of every other thing deserves to be called self-hatred, since it deprives us of our true self-love, which is God. Hence ‘Him love, Who loveth thee,’ that is, Love, God; and ‘him leave who doth not love thee,’ that is, all other things, from God downwards.”[225]
“God so loves the soul, and is so ready to give it His graces, that, when He is impeded by some sin, then men say: ‘Thou hast offended God,’ that is, thou hast driven away God from thee, Who, with so much love, was desiring to do thee good. And men say this, although it is really man who then suffers the damage and who offends his own true self. But because God loves us more than we love our own selves, and gives more care to our true utility than we do ourselves, therefore does He get designated as the one who is offended. And, indeed, if God could be the recipient of suffering, it would be when, by sin, He is driven away by and from us.” “This corrupt expression: ‘Thou hast offended God.’” “Thou couldst discover, (O soul,) that God is continually willing whatsoever our true selves are wishing; He is ever aiming at nothing but at our own true spiritual advantage.”[226]
Hence happiness and joy, different from all mere pleasure, ever accompany this reconquest of our true self-love and this our re-donation of it to its true source. “Man was created for the end of possessing happiness. And having deviated from this his end, he has formed for himself a false, selfish self, which in all things struggles against the soul’s true happiness.” “This divine love is our proper and true love.” “Man can truly know, by continual experience, that the love of God is our repose, our joy, and our life; and that (false) self-love is but constant weariness, sadness, and a (living) death of our true selves, both in this world and in the next.” “All sufferings, displeasures, and pains are caused by attachment to the false self. And although adversities many a time seem to us to be unreasonable, because of certain considerations which we believe to be true and indeed quite evident; yet the fact remains that it is our own imperfection which is preventing us from seeing the truth, and this it is which causes us to feel pains, suffering, and displeasure.” “O Love! if others feel an obligation to observe Thy commandments, I, on my part, freely will to have them all ten, because they are all delightful and full of love.… This is a point which is understandable only to him who himself experiences it; for in truth the divine precepts, although they are contrary to our sensuality, are nevertheless according to our own spirit which, of its very nature, is ever longing to be free from all bodily sensations, so as to be able to unite itself to God through love.”[227]