Chapter XI
Shows forth the Second Mode of true Contemplation.
HEREAFTER follows the Second Mode of the Contemplative Life.
They who are uplifted in simple purity of spirit by the love and reverence they bear towards God, stand with their faces open and unveiled before the Presence of His Majesty. And from the Face of the Father there shines forth a clear Light on the Souls whose thought is bare and stripped of images, uplifted above the senses and above similitudes, beyond and without reason, in high purity of spirit.
This Light is not God, but it is an intermediary between the seeing thought and God.
It is called a Ray of God or the Spirit of the Father, and herein God shows Himself simply, neither by differentiation, nor by the mode of His Persons, but in the unveiling of His Nature and Substance; and in this Light there speaks the Spirit of the Father in the uplifted thought, which is bare and stripped of images, saying: "Behold Me as I behold you."
Then the pure and single eyes are strengthened, by the inpouring of that clear Light of the Father, and they behold His Face, in a simple seeing, beyond reason and without consideration.
This Light and this Vision give to the contemplating spirit a conscious certainty that she sees God, so far as man may see Him in this mortal life.
Here, for your better understanding, I will set forth an analogy taken from the life of the senses.
If you stand in clear sunlight, turning your eyes from all considerations of form and colour, and from all things whereon the sun shines, and thereafter simply following with your gaze the rays of light coming from the sun, you will be led into that essence which is the sun itself.
And so, in like manner, if you follow the bright rays that stream from the Face of God on your clear gaze, they will lead you into the source of your created being, wherein you shall find no other thing but God alone.