The Liberated Soul

(A Free Transliteration after Marguerite Porete)

No longer addicted to the chronic compulsion which obscures effortless natural recognition (timeless awareness) with interpretive fantasies and conceptual designations, the liberated soul rejoices in an open invitation for infinite expansion and limitless creative self-expression.

Let's be clear: this liberated soul is so anchored in the perfect divinity of unconditional love that, even if it were to possess all of the wisdom of every sentient being who ever was, is, or will be, it would be as nothing, compared to that unspeakable truth at the heart which was never understood, is not now, and never shall be, by the mind which futilely attempts to figure life out with human reason and logic.

Because there is only What Is, the liberated soul only sees and recognizes What Is, and thus in What Is does it rejoice, even in the midst of pleasure and pain, heaven and hell, plus and minus -- experiencing What Is as the fundamental identity and true nature of its own being, from which it has never been divided.

Indeed, since What Is is none other than That of which one can understand nothing perfectly with the meaning-making mind, it is incomprehensible except to Itself, and thus truly incomprehensible. In that sense, it is natural and fitting that the liberated soul should wander, purposeless, in the sweet paradisiac realms of not knowing, but only being that existence, consciousness, bliss.

As long as such a luminous soul should will nothing, its shine is a transparent reflection of the miraculous display of its own perfection. Without clinging or fixating on any momentary appearance of an independent and enduring self, it remains completely unencumbered. However, if it should will something, it spontaneously deludes itself into identification with transient formations, and thus loses its apparent freedom through an error of mistaken identity.

Now, whoever would inquire of such free souls, relaxed and at rest in and as the Great Perfection, if they would want to be elsewhere, they would say no; or if they would want to be certain of supreme liberation in this life, they would say no; or if they want to be in some spiritual heaven realm of endless rapture, they would say no. Really, what willfulness would they arouse to grasp any of that conceptual fabrication? Indeed, should a miniscule fraction of any such desire arise in their child-like innocence, they would instantly separate themselves from Love, and what a truly intolerable state would result!

Such a liberated soul neither grasps nor turns away pain and sorrow, neither samsara nor nirvana, neither freedom or bondage, but rather gives to Nature all that is necessary, without anticipation or regret. No wonder that Nature itself is so responsive, transformed as it is through that unity consciousness which is the fruit and display of Love, and into which the will is merged. Likewise, the ensuing Play of Consciousness will demand nothing which is prohibited.

This simple ordinary life itself becomes the devoted servant who prepares the space for the emergent manifestation of Liberation by Willing Nothing, the unfathomable Life which lives the soul who no longer has within itself any willfulness that it be elsewhere, or anything other than What Is.

Such an annihilated soul possesses so great an understanding within itself that nothing can dwell in its memory -- not joy, not adversity, not self or other, not good or evil, not right or wrong. All of these are projections of mind, but for the liberated soul, mind is empty, emptiness is clear light, clear light is union, and union is Great Bliss.

This greater part of absolute divine love, which it Is, reveals to the liberated soul its nothingness, which in turn makes it deep, large, supreme, and sure. Standing naked in its own selflessness, one rapturous overflow of the movement of divine light pours into it, revealing the perfection of What Is, and the understanding of what is not. Such revelation transmutes the will of the soul from any fixed abode, in order to dissolve all clinging, contrivance, or contraction.

Love and such souls are one thing, no longer two things. This soul is totally dissolved, melted and drawn, joined and united to Love, its own fundamental identity, that it can arouse no will of its own, except the will of that divine Love which lives it.

The liberated soul loses its name in That in which it is melted and dissolved, like a body of water which flows from the sea, and when this water or river returns into the sea, it loses its course and its name with which it flowed in many countries in accomplishing its task. Now it is in the sea where it rests, and thus has lost all labor.

This soul rests and is held in the country of complete peace, for it is always in the full sufficiency in which it swims and bobs and floats, and so is surrounded by divine peace, without any movement in its interior, and without any exterior work on its part.

These two things would remove this peace from it if they could penetrate to it, but they cannot, for it is in the sovereign state where they cannot pierce or disturb it about anything.

This is right, says Love, for its will is ours. It has crossed the Red Sea, its obscurations and afflictions have been drowned in it. For it has fallen from grace into the perfection of the work of the virtue, and from the virtues into Love, and from Love into nothingness, and from nothingness into clarification by That -- the nameless, the unspeakable. Just so, the soul is so dissolved in That that it is neither itself nor That, and thus What Is, simply Is, and nothing more can be said.

This Soul is at rest without obstructing the outpouring of divine Love. The liberated soul no longer seeks itself through strategies, schemes, or methods; not through thoughts, nor through words, nor through deeds; not through creature here below, nor through creature above; not through justice, nor through mercy, nor through glory of glory; not through divine understanding, nor through divine love, nor through divine praise.

The liberated soul has nothing to sin with, for without a will no one can sin. It is dissolved by annihilation into that prior existence where Love has received it. Such souls possess as equally dear, shame as honor, and honor as shame; poverty as wealth, and wealth as poverty; torment as comfort, and comfort as torment; loved as hatred, and hatred as love; hell realms as paradise, and paradise as hell; small as great, and great as small. It neither wills nor not-wills anything of these prosperities nor of these adversities.

Behold, the liberated soul has fallen into certainty of knowing nothing and into certainty of willing nothing. And this nothingness gives it the All, and no one can possess it in any other way.