Because the Rebel who opposes us fights by means of pride and wishes to conquer wrongfully by arrogance, our victorious King arms us with weapons of humility. For without the invincible strength of humility no one conquers. Humility abases the pride of the deceitful one, and makes him be trampled under the feet of the gentle and kind. (L52) 

      Only one thing pleases the Lord of all: that the heart be clear of every blemish. And who is able to do this in the company of many people? Because the greater the number, the more things are thrust upon him: dreadful things, which strip and clothe with shame, which are pleasing yet pollute, which are beautiful yet disfigure. Blessed is the sense of hearing which is closed to all those things! And blessed is the heart which is empty of their memory, because in it our Sweet God reveals Himself in his Glory! (L51) 

      Thou art to them the New World by virtue of their being born of thee, being the reflection of thy Glory and sons of God appearing in a form resembling the loveliness of thy Glory without likeness. Thou art to them the world called the New World and the place that is known as the place to come. (D20)

                                                                  John of Dalyatha

     They also call you Air, inspiration of all life, and Breath: they come and go within you without their way being hindered; while it is not as if they penetrate and pass through You like the air, but You are stretched out in them without hindrance, they move around in You, back and forth, unhindered in your expansion in them. (L51) 

     They also call you Sea: source of all the worlds and sustainer of all that is, enclosing and concealing all in the abyss of its greatness and offering ease to swimmers, allowing lightweights to float on its waves to cleanse their beauty. (L51) 

     Blessed is the one who makes his bed in the incessant admiration of your mysteries and dwells silently in it in the wonder they produce, for to gladden the heart of the diligent it also gives forth the Fragrance of Life produced by your Holy Spirit, guardian of the purity of those who love Him. (L51) 

     O my Paradise who appear to me within me! O Tree of Life, You inflame my heart every moment with desire for You, and change my countenance by the power of your love, holding my intellect in astonishment at the rays of your beauty. (L51) 

     Indeed when the remembrance of Paradise lifted up my soul to observe it, in the vision my soul became like Adam and was amazed. And again from there my soul was led by the power of the Spirit to marvel at the living and vivifying Paradise whose limit is unreachable and whose delight I find within me. (L51) 

     The heaven and earth and all that is in them are full of God; that He passes through all and that His nature is stretched out through all the natures; like the sun in the air. (L50) 

     O wise one, close your eyes to the world before the sun sets on your daily labour. (L47) 

      There is no one wise in understanding of You, except the one who has removed the wisdom of the world from his heart. (L47) 

      Glory to You, Father and Lord of my life, who have made me the link of all creatures that in me all creatures might lift up your praise. (L47) 

                                                                                                                         

     Their mind has gone out from the world which confuses the wise, and they have penetrated into the place of thick darkness, to the multi-splendored light where the divine light is concealed from the sight of all the living. Here, at the door of the mysteries, they stand amazed together with the Most High Powers. There is no shadow in their place because their Sun does not set. (L47) 

     They are no longer in this world, but in God. Nor are they workers of the flesh but of the Spirit. Their mind does not think of the world, but their impulses originate in God, in silence and great wonder. Their intellects gain new strength and always behold God. Instead of being human they have become divine. (L47) 

     There is found in him no prayer, nor petition, nor intercession, nor thoughts, nor impulses, nor life of human origin, nor recollection of things of this life or of things to come; but he is united completely with the Spirit of the Son who is speaking in him. Henceforth, he becomes one receiving prayers, not some one praying. (D19) 

     My brother, pardon the ugliness of the person bearing the Pearl and withhold your gaze from him, lest what he has in his hand to give you becomes contemptible in your eyes; remember too, in this regard, the colt bearing the Lord of Holiness. (D18) 

     Thy beauty stuns me; thy love inflames me; thy fervent love continually sets me in a consuming conflagration; thy love, my Lord, has spread through my heart and all my bones; all vitality has been stilled within me; my nature has begun to fall, my God, into life-filled non-knowledge. There is no power in speech here. My nearness to thee is impelling me to distance from everything. Thy Glory has covered my intellect's nakedness with it's cloak of light. (D18) 

     My God, grant me to announce what is yours from my own experience and not just repeat what I hear. (Letters) 

     I am standing in a world that is not my own and my face has been transformed by its wondrousness. Its inhabitants embrace me and I am a member of the family in their midst; the contemptibility of my nature is gone and I have entered into familiarity with them in unknown stammering. They have emcompassed me about in their dwellings in love glowing with affection, and they have all been comprehended in me. Oh what a great wonder, sons of men. (D18) 

     O life of my soul, the face of my soul is resplendent in the beauty of thy Glory, and heaven and earth are entirely covered by its brightness, the deeps are illuminated by the blaze of thy light, and everything is taken away from before its face, and it has become as though non-existent; for it is united with thine incomprehensibility in an end without ending, so that the senses have been stilled into inactivity and the intellect into motionlessness. (D18) 

     I stood senseless, and when I was revived I began to fly in the abyss and to breath the Spirit of Life. I flew and was raised above everything, but I did not have the strength and again I plunged and I retreated and did not attain anything and, dismayed, I remained in this way. Then again I was in it and with it, all in all and beyond all in its beautiful vision, yet I did not attain its length or its breadth. And again I turned and returned to the sweetness known to me. (L46) 

     O Christ, ocean of our pardon, allow this impurity with which I am clothed to be cleansed in You and may I shine in the garment of your holy light and be covered with the cloud of Your hidden glory and secret mysteries. (L42) 

     Here the nature of the angels is seen as it is by the mind, and it observes distinctly the ordering of their hosts; this is the place of non-place and of non-knowledge more sublime than all knowledges, the very sight of these being concealed from him when his mind is united with the majestic glory; here forgetfulness of everything including himself comes over him; the accusing mouth is stopped up that is not aware of these things, from the abundance of words our fathers speak concerning these mysteries; all the strategems from the Adversary are seen by this man who is thus illuminated (D15) 

     Ravenous beasts, cattle, birds, and noxious reptiles live peaceably with him, because they sniff the scent of their Creator off him; likewise stones and sticks and all inanimate things are at peace with him, and what is even more the rebellious (demons) show obedience to him as a result of the fear of him that comes over them. (D14) 

     Here begins the entering into the treasury, the place of glorious visions, the place of joy and exaltation, the place without shadow, the place of light where no mention of darkness is made, the place of life and delight, the place of peace, whose inhabitants are illuminated by the sight of the beauty of the King. (D13) 

     When someone attains these things by the Grace of Christ he attains unity with himself and with the One who restores him, the bodily faculties being united with the impulses of the soul, and the things of the soul with the mind; while the mind is expanded incomprehensibly in unity with the knowledge of God and it sees the Glory of God face to face, and shines in like manner, and is transformed into it. (D12). 

                                                      

     Upon arrival at this stage, when one of the powers cleaves to him he becomes intelligent and comprehending with respect to them all, the things that are from God or from the angels and the things that are from the Adversary. The distinction between each of these powers is as follows. When the divine power adheres to a person he is completely filled with a shining flame, tranquil pleasure, and ignorance and forgetfulness with regard to the things of this life with supernatural amazement; mental and spiritual faculties are perfectly stilled and thenceforth, as if he is no longer in life, he knows that he is in the supernatural life. (D12) 

     Blessed is the diligent monk who experiences mysterious visions because his intellect never ceases to receive the splendours of the universal Life. Blessed is the one who has seen his true being and does not spend years of his life like a beast. Blessed is the one who in his heart is set a pillar of ineffable light and from whose house the inhabitants do not need to ask about an alien fire. (L40) 

     Neither one clad in the flesh nor the spiritual beings can translate the mysteries of the Spirit into the material world. Only the Spirit can declare his secrets to us in our world and to the spiritual beings in their world, though the spiritual beings are capable of showing forth mysteries according to their spirituality in their world as their world is glorious and marvelous in beauty. May we all be accounted worthy of it through the Grace of Christ the Son of God. (D9)

     The speech of the Holy Spirit is a sensation in the soul that emanates from within the inner room of one's heart, and it is there that it is perfected. The speech of the soul arises in itself, and there it is that the sounds of spiritual natures and their cries of "Holy" are perceived. Then the mind sees them as they are in their spirituality and is expanded and united with them; then he learns their holiness and their cries of "Holy". The amazing thing is that in the vision of God there is no sound; their utterances are their wondrous impulses: that is, their substance pulsating entirely in the Spirit the Paraclete in the likeness of some fervent heat of inexpressible brilliance. (D8) 

      And when springs come forth which overflow from the ineffable sea, like unbroken waves of rays of light flooding over them, they forget their nature and do not remember what is theirs. (L40)