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8. From Depth to Depth
- Fordham University Press
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8. From Depth to Depth From depth to depth from strength to strength Beyond the quiet beyond the night Our view of things is a view from the earth. No matter how high we climb to breach the vault of the heavens, all that remains to us is the mountain heights. It is only along their steep slopes that we can leave the valley behind and ascend to the summit. But our bodies resist the ascent, resist reaching the summit; they want to descend into the vale from which the higher levels of the self would flee. Our struggle against the standard that defines us at each level generates tension, which inhibits us from relaxing and collecting ourselves. The only way we can ascend to the summit is by being rational and openminded where we are. This is why God says to us: ‘‘And walk not in the earth exultantly; certainly thou wilt never tear the earth open, nor attain the mountains in height.’’1 It is only in our gaze that we can turn to and beyond the heights; but our gaze comes back to us again and again, dazzled and weary.2 This is the source of both hope and despair. From Depth to Depth / 153 In the hope that we may regain the lost intimacy with our Lord, we persist in turning our gaze, with the feeling that we must cross over the boundary between ourselves and the world and see our earth and our heavens with the clarity with which they manifest themselves to us in the outside world. In the despair caused by our inability to ascend to the heavens, we return to our errancy over the surface of the earth. But when there, too, we fail to find anything that fulfills our need to acquiesce, we turn to everything that is beyond the superficial and the impenetrable, beyond the quiet and the night. By day and night we are called upon in our turning. By day we are called to recognize Unity in multiplicity in the manifest differentiation of all things on earth, in the heavens, and all that lies between. By night we are called to recognize multiplicity in Unity in the gathering of all things in the dark. As a result, we are perpetually accompanied by incomparability and similarity, remoteness and intimacy, Unity and multiplicity. None of this by itself is possible for us. Multiplicity manifests Unity and an incalculable depth residing in all things, for there is nothing to be made manifest other than Unity. And to whatever depths we plunge, Unity will disclose itself to us still more powerfully in both its incomparability and its similarity. It is the interiority of every interiority. The closer we come to it, the more decisively will words translate themselves into silence, but not even there can Unity be attained, for It is the silence of all silences. This is Unity, the first and last, the inner and the outer. But when all sounds and all things manifest vanish, when night veils all the horizons, then, too, the unattainable blue appears in the depths and on the heights. In the manifestation of all the Names by day and night, we are constantly between concentration, where all are encompassed, and dispersal , where they elude us. As a result, whatever our condition, the call comes to us from full concentration and encompassment: ‘‘Call upon God, or call upon the Merciful; whichsoever you call upon, to Him belong the Names Most Beautiful.’’3 Wherever we are, in the depths or on the heights, in silence or in obscurity, God is Light,4 and He creates in threefold shadows.5 [54.90.236.179] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 05:34 GMT) 154 / Across Water: A Message on Realization Our ascent through the innumerable multitude of levels of existence always appears in the form of duality—the earth and the heavens in the outside world mirrored by body and Soul in the self. The goal of the ascent is openness, subservience, or nearness to God. But wherever we come to in that ascent, we are left with both the nearness and the remoteness of the Absolute. God calls upon us incessantly to prostrate ourselves and to draw nearer to Him.6 This call reveals both subservience and intimacy as the means by which we ascend; in them we find our openness and can then bear witness: ‘‘There is no power and no strength save in...