When one is perfectly still-mind and body, silent and alone-there is no personality to speak of, thus personality is one's unique way of expression, it is what others see and know of us, nothing more or deeper than that.

Since the moment of self-consciousness comes to a permanent end - and a new journey begins- is such a decisive stroke or milestone in the contemplative life, I can only speculate why so little has been said of this breakthrough in fact , I may never get over the silence on the part of writers who say nothing about this second movement.

In some ways, all our experiences of God are beyond belief, because all conceptual beliefs pale when compared to the experiential reality.

......at this point the self has obviously outworn its function it is no longer needed or useful, and life can go on without it. we are ready to move on, to go beyond the self, beyond even its most intimate union with God, and this is where we enter yet another new life- a life best categorized, perhaps, as a life without a self.

When there is no longer a cyclone, there is no longer an eye. So the storms, crises and sufferings of life are a way of finding the eye.

Once beyond the self, however, holiness is no longer possible, because now, there is nothing left to give and no-one left to do the giving.

Spiritual life is like a moving sidewalk. Whether you go with it or spend your whole life running against it, you're still going to be taken along.

The onset of this second movement is characterized by the falling away of self and coming upon that which remains when it is gone. But this going-out is an upheaval, a complete turnabout of such proportions it cannot possibly be missed, under-emphasized, or sufficiently stressed as a major landmark in the contemplative life.

Only God is love, and for this love to be fully realized self must step aside. And not only do we not need a self to love God, but for the same reason we do not need a mind to know him, for that in us which knows God, is God.

I went on to discover that in its deepest sense, the will is not primarily the faculty of desire for anything known, but rather, the desire for something unknown, animate desire for something that lies beyond ourselves, a longing for something we know is missing in us.