One evening as I knelt to say my prayers, which were never long, because since the Visitation on the hill my natural habit—whether walking, sitting, working, travelling, or on my bed—had come to be a continual sending up from my heart and mind the tenderest and most adoring, the most worshipping and thanking little stream of thoughts to God (very much as a flower, if we could but see it, sends its scent to the sun).
And because this mode of prayer is so smooth and joyous, so easy, so unutterably sweet, in that during it the Presence of God laves us about as the sun laves the flower—so because of this it was only for short and set times that I worshipped Him as the creature in prayers upon its knees; but those few moments of prayer would always be intense, the heart and the mind with great power bent wholly and singly upon God.
So now, this evening as I knelt and dwelt in great singleness on God, He drew me so powerfully, He encompassed me so with His glamour, that this singleness and concentration of thought continued much longer than usual on account of the greatness of the love that I felt for Him, and the concentration became an intensity of penetration because of this magnetism, He turned on to me, and my mind became faint, and died, and I could no longer think of or on God, for I was one with Him. And I was still I; though I was become Ineffable Joy.
When it was over I rose from my knees, and I said to myself, for five wonderful moments I have been in contact with God in an unutterable bliss and repose: and He gave me the bliss tenderly and not as on that Night of Terror; but when I looked at my watch I saw that it had been for between two and three hours.
Then I wondered that I was not stiff, that I was not cold, for the night was chilly and I had nothing about me but a little velvet dressing-wrapper; and my neck was not stiff, though my head had been thrown back, as is a necessity in Communion with God; and I thought to myself, it is as if my body also had shared in the blessing.
And this most blessed happening happened to me every day for a short while, usually only for a few moments. In this way God Himself caused and enabled me to contemplate and know Him; and I saw that it was in some ways at one with my beautiful pastime, but with this tremendous difference in it—that whereas my mind had formerly concentrated itself upon the Beautiful, and remaining Mind had soared away above all forms into its nebulous essence in a strange seductive anguish, it now was drawn and magnetised beyond the Beautiful directly to the Maker of it: and the soaring was like a death or swooning of the mind, and immediately I was living with that which is above the mind: in this living there was no note of pain, but a marvellous joy.
Slowly I learnt to differentiate degrees of Contemplation, but to my own finding there are two principal forms—Passive and Active (or High) Contemplation.
In meditation is little or no activity, but a sweet quiet thinking and talking with Jesus Christ. In Passive Contemplation is the beginning of real activity; mind and soul without effort (though in a secret state of great love-activity) raise themselves, focussing themselves upon the all-unseen Godhead: now is no longer any possible picture in the mind, of anyone nor anything, not even of the gracious figure or of the ways of Christ: here, because of love, must begin the sheer straight drive of will and heart, mind and soul, to the Godhead, and here we may be said first to commence to breathe the air of heaven.
There is no prayer, no beseeching, and no asking—there are no words and no thoughts save those that intrude and flash unwanted over the mind, but a great undivided attention and waiting upon God: God near, yet never touching. This state is no ecstasy, but smooth, silent, high living in which we learn heavenly manners. This is Passive or Quiet Contemplation.
High Contemplation ends in Contact with God, in ecstasy and rapture. In it the activity of the soul (though entirely without effort on her part) is immensely increased. It is not to be sought for, and we cannot reach it for ourselves; but it is to be enjoyed when God calls, when He assists the soul, when He energises her.