Superessential contemplation (Christianity)

John Ruusbroec refers to this state as being in divine light in accordance with the divine mode of being. There is establishment in a state of purity which transcends all understanding. It is the eternal reward for virtues and for the whole of life. Such a state cannot be achieved by exercises, it is only open to those with whom God wishes to be united in His Spirit and to enlighten through Himself. Because of their own incapacity, few attain this divine contemplation, and also because of the mysterious nature of the light in which one contemplates. Learned and subtle reflections are not sufficient for understanding its meaning - words and all that can be understood in the guise of creature are alien to and far beneath the truth. However, once united with God and enlightened in this truth a person can understand the truth through itself.

(1) God the Father of light wishes us to see. This is the generation and birth of the Son, the eternal light in whom all blessedness is seen and known. It is necessary for the person to be well ordered externally and unhindered internally - his interior must be as unaffected by his external good works as though they were not being performed. He must cleave to God with devoted intention and love. He must be in a state devoid of particular form or measure; this is a blissful losing his way in darkness, never again to find himself in a "creaturely" way. The loving spirit dies to itself in this darkness and it is here that an incomprehensible light is born, the son of God, in whom the person is able to see and contemplate eternal life. In the simple being of his spirit the spirit receives the resplendence of God, it becomes this very resplendence. In the ground of his being the contemplative is the same light with which he sees.

(2) Able to see, the person contemplates the eternal coming of the Bridegroom into his spirit. This is uninterrupted new birth and new illumination. Creaturely activity and exercise of virtue cease. In sublime nobility of spirit God works alone. There is only eternal contemplation of and gazing at the light with the light in the light. The Bridegroom comes in the eternal now, always received with new pleasure and new joy. This delight and joy is his very self.

(3) God's Spirit sends the person forth in a state of eternal contemplation and blissful enjoyment in God's own manner. This is eternal going forth, eternal activity without beginning. The created being depends on the eternal being and is one with it. The eternal being and life are in God and like God, the Holy Trinity. This image of the Holy Trinity is the wisdom of God in which God contemplates himself and all things in the eternal now. In this divine image all creatures have eternal life. This is the image to which the Holy Trinity has created us. God wills that we go from ourselves into this divine light, pursuing and possessing that image. In an eternal act of gazing by means of the inborn light the person is transformed by and become one with that light. All things are contemplated without distinction in a simple act of seeing in divine resplendence. In this contemplation the person remains free and master of himself.

(4) Having thus attained his eternal image, possessed the Father's bosom, enlightened with divine truth, receiving the eternal birth and going out in a state of divine contemplation, the interior, contemplative person knows a meeting in love where the highest blessedness resides. In the turning of the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father, the Holy Spirit, which is the love of them both and one with them, arises. When a person understands this wonder, his spirit is raised above itself and is made one with the Spirit of God. There is measureless savouring and seeing, like that of God Himself, of the riches which it has itself become. This meeting is actively renewed without ceasing in the mode of being of God, the Father giving himself to the Son and the Son to the Father in eternal wellbeing and loving embrace by means of the Holy Spirit. There is a darkness that encompasses all divine modes, activity and properties, a crossing over and immersion in essential bareness where all reflected in the mirror of divine truth passes away in simple ineffability. All is encompassed in a state of blissful blessedness while the ground is completely uncomprehended unless through essential Unity. Before this the Persons of God give way, as does all that lives in God, there is nothing but the eternal state of rest in a blissful embrace of loving immersion.