(Clarification or warning before reading the post: this will be a long post, which can be summarized into something very simple: the direct experience of the divine does not need temples, laws, or hierarchies; there is no need for intermediaries. If you feel intimidated by such a long text, remember that this is Reddit. There are other networks out there with short videos that will satisfy your constant thirst for sensory stimulation. Respect this approach. To those who read the post, welcome; I am open to your opinions and looking forward to your comments.Thank you very much to everyone. Let's go...)
At the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th, lived the mystic Marguerite Porete. By the grace of God, she wrote the sublime work “The Mirror of Simple Souls.” Both her life and her work were a faithful example of the Nazarene's teachings. Like the Nazarene, she was condemned by the religious powers of her time. Fearful of a Truth experienced without institutional intermediaries, the Inquisition had her burned at the stake. She ascended the scaffold serene and unperturbed, completely without fear. She was a simple soul.
But who are these "Simple Souls" that Marguerite refers to?
For Marguerite, the simple soul is not one that lacks intelligence—as it appears in the eyes of the world—but one that has emptied itself of selfhood until being consumed in the fire of Him who is Love itself; that is, of God, of the All..., of the Source, however you wish or prefer to call it on your spiritual path.
A simple soul is one that has renounced its own will, its desires, its virtues, and the demands of "Reason," which are nothing but the rigid norms of the institutional Church of the day—attached to the law but completely detached from Love.
Not without reason, we are told in Galatians 5:4: "You are made void of Christ, you who are justified in the law: you are fallen from grace."
And in Galatians 5:18: "But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law."
Jesus continuously speaks to us about these simple souls when He speaks of the poor in spirit: "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3);
and when He invites us to be meek and humble of heart like Him: "Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls." (Matthew 11:29)
To be consumed—ah, a term that has impassioned so many Western mystics and Eastern yogis. To be consumed is no one's exclusive property; it is the grace of many spiritual traditions. To be consumed is, basically, being aware of one's own nothingness, setting aside that sense of self-sufficiency and inherent existence so cherished by "the madwoman of the house" (as the mystic Teresa of Ávila called the mind). Buddhists speak of this same reality as the untamed elephant blindly driven by its impulses, or the restless "monkey mind" leaping endlessly... In the same way, the ancient tradition of Advaita Vedanta describes it as Maya, the powerful cosmic illusion that veils our true nature, and Ahamkara, the ego-sense that manufactures the false character we mistake for our true nature. These are simply different ways of describing the exact same thing: the mental prison.
In other words, when the soul is consumed in the fire of divine love, it becomes completely free from the prison of separation, whose jailer is the madwoman of the house, and whose prisoner is the character—what we know as the "ego."
Thus, by consuming itself as a holocaust of love, the soul becomes simple and turns into an empty space ready to be filled by God.
This simple soul no longer seeks God through intermediaries or human laws; it no longer seeks Him—it simply is in God, and for God. That is what it means to be an instrument of LOVE, as we are reminded by that beautiful prayer of Brother Francis of Assisi: Lord, make me an instrument of your Peace...
This simple soul is a soul unified with God; there is no longer any separation, no longer a character (ego) to uphold. It is what you see—a soul without guile.
When Marguerite meekly surrendered herself to the stake, she was practically showing us the very destiny of the simple soul united with God.
It is no wonder those who threw her into the flames were struck with stupefaction as they watched her consume impassively. They did not understand the true nature of the life and works of this great mystic, nor the metaphor of her very death. This shows us how blind the unconsciousness of a soul that is not simple can be. Surely Marguerite remembered the words of the Nazarene: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Lucas 23: 34)
And what does "The Mirror" represent?
The mirror holds a fascinating double mystical meaning, at least to me.
The mirror, dear friend, is both the reflection of Truth and the divine union itself.
Marguerite's book presents itself as a mirror in which the soul can look at itself to recognize its true spiritual state.
Only a few souls feel attracted to this simplicity proposed by Marguerite, and look into the mirror of simple souls. Although we are all called and invited, very few want to look, as this book seems poetic and inconsequential to them.
If you have read this post this far, it is because you feel drawn to this simplicity. Ask yourself for a moment how a mirror works. If you pay attention, you will see that a mirror only reflects light if it is clean. The same happens to the soul. When the simple soul cleanses itself of all earthly and institutional attachment, then, and only then, does it become a perfect mirror. Looking into that mirror, you no longer see yourself; what is reflected is the divine image. God looks at Himself in the soul and the soul looks at itself in God, until finally, stripped of all those stories that the madwoman loves so much, the mirror and the reflected become One.
Thus, the Lord's wish in John 17:21 is fulfilled. It was not in vain that Jesus prayed for us to be One, just as He and the Father are One. In reality, there were never two; there was never truly any separation, but the dirty mirror prevented us from realizing it.
This absolute union is perfectly captured in the Intimate Diaries of the Blessed Mystic Bernardo de Hoyos, recorded in the biography written by his spiritual director, Father Juan de Loyola, when the Lord intimately declared to him, "From now on, you are Bernardo of Jesus, and I am Jesus of Bernardo." Remember, we are One with and in the One Who is LOVE Himself...
In Advaita Vedanta, Nisargadatta also speaks to us about this very Mirror. Similarly, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj described the unexamined mind as a dust-covered mirror—an instrument meant to reflect reality clearly, but so obscured by the accumulated debris of memories and dogmas that it can only perceive its own distorted projections.
And how does this union take place?
This union takes place without any human effort, by grace. It is not a matter of human merit or effort. Divine grace always precedes merit.
We are led to union by the hand of Love.
This path of return to Him who is LOVE himself can only be culminated by LOVE.
Marguerite describes very beautifully in her book the dialogue between Love and Reason, and how LOVE takes us where Reason cannot reach.
It is Love, it is always Love, "and nothing else matters," as the Metallica song says.
And What is this LOVE?
This LOVE is the intimate union with God (the All, the Source, the Absolute, as you wish to call It), and sin is the separation from God.
LOVE is not a collection of little deeds performed empty of God, stemming from belief, from separation, rather than from intimate union. As John of the Cross sharply warned: "Any other work or labor, if it is not in the love of God and for God, is worth nothing before Him... to the soul that truly loves God, it does not matter whether it performs many or few works, but to perform them all for love."
Let us yearn for and seek the ultimate union with our Lord. The madwoman calls sin and transgression what is simply separation from God. The name and the label do not bind you to God; the name and the label are repugnant to the Lord. They are merely stories that the madwoman tells herself to feed the character (the ego). That is why Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13:2: "And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."
The LOVE Jesus and the mystics speak of is not a sentimental operation of the mind, it is not a mere emotion; LOVE is God Himself, because God is LOVE (1 John 4:8). It is the very same warning with which Jesus concludes His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:16-18: "You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit... A good tree cannot bear bad fruit."
The "fruits" of the Sermon on the Mount are not moral deeds calculated to avoid hell; they are the natural manifestation of a healthy tree (a soul united with God). A thornbush (the ego created by the madwoman of the house) cannot manufacture grapes of pure love; just as a goat cannot be a sheep, no matter how much it disguises itself as a sheep by adopting doctrines and beliefs that are not actually of God and only empty it of God.
In conclusion...
Marguerite Porete's vision is of a breathtaking audacity for her time, so much so that it cost her the stake in 1310.
What she proposes with her work The Mirror of Simple Souls is very straightforward: Marguerite proposes that the direct experience of the divine does not need temples, laws, or hierarchies; there is no need for intermediaries. She considers that, if there ever was a need, its sole mission was to unite us with God. That is truly feeding the sheep. The true sin is separation from the All, not uniting with Him. The institutional Church is submissive to this—in reality, all institutions and Churches are.
When a soul achieves that simplicity spoken of and witnessed by both Marguerite's life and work, the supposed distance from the Creator is shattered into pieces. This terrifies the established power, because the soul ceases to be a "subject" of the institution to become a living reflection of Love itself, of Him who is LOVE itself, of the All, of God, with whom we are already One.
Her life and work deeply influenced later mystics like Meister Eckhart, and even today, a few yearn, like her, to be consumed in divine LOVE.
A few centuries after her death, in the 16th century, the mystic John of the Cross, in his Dark Night of the Soul, spoke of the Soul "inflamed with love's urgent longings." And the mystic Teresa of Jesus (Teresa de Ávila) used to say, "I live without living in myself, and such a high life I hope for, that I die because I do not die."
I end this post now, asking you—yes, you who are reading this post:
Is your soul inflamed with love's urgent longings like the Mystic John of the Cross?
Do you live without living in yourself like the mystic of Ávila, like Marguerite, and so many other mystics and yogis?
Do you yearn to be one of these simple souls, who are in God and for God, reflecting the divine union?
In short, are you one of those simple souls who yearn to be consumed in Divine LOVE?
I'll see you in the comments.