(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.
