Session Two
Chapter nine
A great many of your thoughts are quite good. But they must all be let go of during the time of prayer. Even the very best, most sacred thoughts of saints and angels must be let go of during the prayer period. Though wonderful they are obstacles between you and God. In this prayer we rest in pure being in the darkness of the cloud of unknowing.
Chapter Ten
On sinful thoughts
Obsession leads to anger
Contempt leads to envy
Malaise leads to laziness
Thoughts about your own natural goodness leads to pride
Thoughts about your wealth leads to greed
Thoughts about food and drink lead to gluttony
Thoughts about giving and receiving flattery leads to lust
Strike all these thoughts down to avoid the risks inherent in indulging in them
Chapter eleven
Develop an awareness of how each thought influences your behavior
To let your thoughts run wild can lead you into a bad neighborhood
Work at “mental vigilance” so that you don’t get careless about what you’re thinking and find yourself mired in some indiscretion.
Chapter twelve
“Contemplative work pulls sin out by its roots and grows goodness in its place.”
No spiritual practice compares to the “blind stirring of love” directed to God.
Virtue is - “a mature and deliberate affection plainly directed at God - for God alone.”
If you have the virtues of humility and unselfish love you have everything.
Chapter thirteen
Humility is a gift. “God alone is its source.”
“Humility is seeing yourself as you really are.”
Humility takes two forms -imperfect and perfect
Imperfect humility is awareness about one’s shortcomings through self-reflection
Perfect humility comes as a gift when you experience and accept “God’s goodness and superabundant love” in spite of your shortcomings.
“Self-awareness is a constant necessity.”
Contemplation: a gift of unmediated intimacy with God in which one is swept away from one’s separate self sense and suddenly becomes uninterested in categories like sinful and holy. “It never lasts long.”
Chapter fourteen
Self knowledge is the only way to get and maintain humility. It does not come as a result of praying for it. Self-knowledge work causes one to assume an inner stance of openness to receiving the gift of humility.
Just the awareness of the idea of perfect humility will help to make you more humble.
If you think you’ve arrived at humility you haven’t. That’s pride dressed up to fool you.
Chapter fifteen
“The best way to grow in humility is not to reflect on our weaknesses, but by remembering God’s goodness and love.”
Chapter sixteen
Mary Magdalene was not forgiven by Jesus because she was particularly sorrowful or repentant regarding her sins. She was forgiven because “she loved much.” “The secret nudge of love is stronger than anything.”
In the contemplative groove we learn to “love what we can never clearly see with her mind or feel with her emotions.”
Chapter seventeen
Martha and Mary are exemplars of the active and contemplative lives. The first stage of the active life is service (Martha busily moving about serving), the second stage of the active life (also the first of the contemplative life) is heeding the presence and voice of Jesus, the second stage of the contemplative life is embodied in Mary “pressing every ounce of love in her heart against that high cloud of unknowing between her and God.”
Chapter eighteen
“Actives complain about contemplatives sometimes just like Martha complained about Mary.” The author cuts this chapter short b/c he does not want to get off track with this negativity.