…remarks in one of his letters He remarks on the great difficulty of reconciling, not merely uniting, mysticism and Christianity. St. John of the Cross is like a sponge full of Christianity. You can squeeze it all out and the full mystical theory remains.…

…of Christianity. You can squeeze it all out and the full mystical theory remains. Consequently, for 15 years or so, I hated St. John of the Cross and called him a Buddhist. I loved St. Teresa and read her again, over and over again. She is first a…

…the necessity for direct experience and on the inefficacity of symbols and of the ordinary discursive use of the mind. St. John of the Cross says categorically, all that the imagination can imagine and the reason can conceive and understand in this life is…

…this in Buddhist literature. And I was interested not long ago to find a very interesting passage in the writings of St. John of the Cross the great Spanish mystical writer of the 16th century, on the problem of memory. This is what he says. He says…

…striking fact about this is that all the great masters of the spiritual life of the 16th and 17th century from St. John of the Cross in Spain to Charles de Condron in France. All of them are agreed in deprecating emotionality. They all insist that the…

…in deprecating emotionality. They all insist that the real life of the religious life of the spirit is not an emotional life. St. John of the Cross says in so many words that Christian charity is not a feeling, it is an act of will. And they all…

…to a stop and the memory is emptied. This phrase, the emptying of the memory, is an interesting one. It's used by St. John of the Cross, who makes the at first startling statement that the emptying of the memory is a good second only to union with god…

…us going completely mad and furthermore another result of total awareness is the emptying of the memory in the words of St. John of the Cross with consequent ability to live here and now and to be aware of reality moment by moment as it arises and…