Observations placeholder
Saint Teresa of Avila - Nirvana
Identifier
012812
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Herself
The faculties of the soul are asleep, not entirely lost nor yet entirely conscious of how they are working. The pleasure, sweetness, and delight are incomparably more than in the previous state, for the water of grace has risen to the soul's neck, and it is powerless, knowing neither how to advance nor to retreat; what it wants is to enjoy its very great glory.
It is like a man with the eternal candle in his hand, on the point of dying the death he desires. It takes unutterable delight in the enjoyment of its agony, which seems to me like nothing else but an almost complete death to all the things of this world, and a fulfilment in God. I know of no other words with which to describe or explain it.
The soul does not know what to do; it cannot tell whether to speak or be silent, whether to laugh or weep. It is a glorious bewilderment, a heavenly madness, in which true wisdom is acquired, and to the soul a fulfilment most full of delight.