So in God is my being, my I, my strength, my bliss, my desire. But this I that I often call so (...) in truth I no longer know what the I is, or the Mine, or desire, or the good, or bliss. Buber, Ecstatic Confessions, P.108.
I do not want a love that would be for God or in God. I cannot bear to see this word for, this word in, for to me they indicate a thing that would be between me and God. (...)
I find in myself by the grace of God a satisfaction without nourishment, a love without fear; (...) Faith seems to me wholly lost, and hope dead; for it seems to me that I have and hold in certainty that which I believed and hoped at other times. I no longer see union, for I know nothing more and can see nothing more than him alone without me. I do not know where the I is, nor do I seek it, nor do I wish to know or be cognizant of it. (...) I am so submerged in the sweet fire of love that I cannot grasp anything except the whole of love, which melts all the marrow of my soul and body. (...)
Therefore it seems to me that I am no longer of this world, since I can no longer do the work of the world like the others; indeed, every action of others that I see disturbs me, for I do not work as they do, nor as I myself used to do. I feel myself altogether estranged from earthly affairs, and from my own most of all (...). I cannot work, or walk, or stand, or speak, but all this seems to me a useless thing (...). Many are astonished at this, and since they do not know the reason, they are offended. And truly, if it were not that God stands by me, the world would often consider me mad, and that is because I almost always live outside myself.
God became man in order to make me God; therefore I want to be changed completely into pure God. Ibid., P.109.
Last updated: 1999/04/05