John Ruysbroeck: Quotes about light (page 2)

“Contemplation The shining forth of That which is Unconditioned is as a fair mirror wherein shines the Eternal Light of God. It has no attributes, And here all the works of Reason fail. It is not God, But it is the Light whereby we see Him. Those who walk in the Divine Light discover in themselves the UnwalledEven though the eagle, king of birds, can with his powerful sight gaze steadfastly upon the brightness of the sun; yet do the weaker eyes of the bat fail and falter in the same It is neither thus nor thus, neither here nor there; for that which is Unconditioned hath enveloped all…Behold! such a following of the Way that is WaylessThe Love of God is a consuming Fire, which draws us out of ourselves and swallows us up in unity with God This revelation of the Father lifts the soul above the reason into the Imageless Nudity. There the soul is simple, pure, spotless, Empty of all things; And it is in this state of perfect emptiness that the Father manifests His Divine radiance is a knowing that is unconditioned,
For ever dwelling above the Reason.
Never can it sink down into the Reason,
And above it can the Reason never climb.
The shining forth of That which is Unconditioned is as a fair mirror.
Wherein shines the Eternal Light of God.
It has no attributes,
And here all the works of Reason fail.
It is not God, But it is the Light whereby we see Him.
Those who walk in the Divine Light of it
Discover in themselves the Unwalled.
That which Unconditioned,
Is above the Reason, not without it:
It beholds all things without amazement.
Amazement is far beneath it:
The contemplative life is without amazement.
That which is Unconditioned, it knows not what;
For it is above all, and is neither This nor That.”

John Ruysbroeck

The Twelve Beguines

Love , Life , God , Way

“When love has carried us above and beyond all things, Into the Divine Dark, We receive in peace the Incomprehensible Light, Enfolding us and penetrating us. What is this Light, If it be not a contemplation of the Infinite, And an intuition of Eternity?”

John Ruysbroeck

Evelyn Underhill Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912), p. 506
The Sparkling Stone (c. 1340)

Love , Peace , Light

“When we have thus become seeing, then we can contemplate, in joy, the eternal coming of our Bridegroom, which is the second point about which we are going to speak. Now, what is the coming of our Bridegroom which is eternal? It is a new birth an a new enlightenment without cease. For the ground out of which the brightness shines, and which is the brightness itself, is living and fruitful. And therefore, the revelation of the eternal light is renewed without cease in the hiddenness of the spirit.”

John Ruysbroeck

The Spiritual Espousals (c. 1340)

Birth , Light , Joy

“Here comes Jesus, and sees the man, and shows to him, in the light of faith, that He is according to His Godhead immeasurable and incomprehensible and inaccessible and abysmal, transcending every created light and every finite conception. And this is the highest knowledge of God which any man may have in the active life: that he should confess in this light of faith that God is incomprehensible and unknowable. And in this light Christ says to man’s desire: Make haste and come down, for to-day I must abide at thy house. This hasty descent, to which he is summoned by God, is nothing else than a descent through desire and through love into the abyss of the Godhead, which no intelligence can reach in the created light. But where intelligence remains without, desire and love go in. When the soul is thus stretched towards God, by intention and by love, above everything that it can understand, then it rests and dwells in God, and God in it. When the soul climbs with desire above the multiplicity of creatures, and above the works of the senses, and above the light of nature, then it meets Christ in the light of faith, and becomes enlightened, and confesses that God is unknowable and incomprehensible. When it stretches itself with longing towards this incomprehensible God, then it meets Christ, and is filled with His gifts. And when it loves and rests above all gifts, and above itself, and above all creatures, then it dwells in God, and God dwells in it.”

John Ruysbroeck

From Evelyn Underhill, http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/asm/index.htm Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage
The Spiritual Espousals (c. 1340)

Love , Life , God , Faith

“Now, if the spirit is to contemplate God with God, without intermediary, in this divine light, three things are necessary for a person.”

John Ruysbroeck

The Spiritual Espousals (c. 1340)

God , Light , Personality

“See, all creaturely activity and all practice of virtues must fail here, for here what God works is nothing but Himself in the highest nobility of the spirit. And here there is nothing but an eternal contemplation and gazing at the light with the light and in the light. And the coming of the Bridegroom is so rapid that He is always coming and is indwelling with fathomless richness, and that He is coming anew personally, without crease, with such new brightness just as though He had never come before. For His coming consists in an eternal now, without time, which is always received with new lust and in new joy.”

John Ruysbroeck

The Spiritual Espousals (c. 1340)

God , Light , Time , Joy