https://periodic-reset.writeas.com/tag:john https://bit.ly/periodic-reset-of-civilizations Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:38:44 +0000 https://periodic-reset.writeas.com/st?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[St. John of the Cross & Mortifications. “St. Catherine of Genoa said: “I AM NO MORE MY OWN”. From Facing Adversity with Grace: Lessons from the Saints by Woodeene Koenig-Bricker: “As we look at the ways saints dealt with adversity, physical pain is a good place to start since almost everyone has experienced physical pain at some time in their lives. In fact, many other types of suffering, such as torture, hunger, disability, and even mental anguish, are expressed physically. Pain is one of the common denominators of humanity. You'd be hard-pressed to find a saint who didn't suffer physically in some form or another. Sometimes the pain was the result of illness or injury; at other times it was the result of self-mortification, and especially in the past, it was often the result of torture. Like all addicts, Matt Talbot had to exercise self-discipline in order not to take up drinking again, but he did more than just resist the urge to drink. Some of his additional self-discipline came in the form of PHYSICAL MORTIFICATION. WHY IS SELF-DISCIPLINE important when dealing with the suffering associated with addiction? AS IS THE CASE WITH SO MANY OTHER KINDS OF SUFFERING, IT'S BECAUSE LIVING A DISCIPLINED LIFE STOPS THE CYCLE OF SELF-PITY.” MEANING ACTIVELY DESTROYING THE EGO. The Awakening IS THAT. “Often whatever we concentrate on INTENSIFIES, so if want to lessen our suffering, WE MUST STOP FOCUSING ON IT. Living a disciplined life is the key to making that happen.” Meaning the Will. You will see from the rest of the article that many so-called saints are not indeed saints. Because they forced this focus on something they did not like. Ending up believing that they “have arrived” when they have not even begun their work of destroying the ego. From Spiritual Canticle by St. John of the Cross: “No soul therefore can overcome his might [...] without [...] MORTIFICATION. St. Paul, saying: “IF BY THE SPIRIT you mortify the deeds of the FLESH, YOU SHALL LIVE.” By the siege is meant the passions and desires, WHICH, WHEN NOT OVERCOME AND MORTIFIED [...]” From that Edition of "Spiritual Canticle" translated by David Lewis: We find; Mortal 1 time, mortal flesh 1 time, mortal body 3 times, mortal tongue 2 times, mortal nature 1 time, mortal eyes 1 time, mortal sin plus mortal sins 4 times, mortal life 3 times, mortal vision 2 times, mortified 5 times, mortify 2 times, mortification plus mortifications 7 times, mortifying 2 times. THIS IS THE THEME OF THE TEXT, and of all the “Mystical literature”; TO OVERCOME HIS FLESH. What is written in the religious texts has nothing to do with the conception of a monotheistic god at all; it's a state 'that it is about'; the mystical state. For this reason, everything is an allusion in these religious texts: For the Allusion exceeds the mental (mind). Mental in the sense of “something Reactive”. Example of the mental; eating chips reminds you of barbecue; nudity reminds you of sex; the heat of the sun reminds you of the feeling of warmth, et cetera. IT'S ALL ABOUT MEMORIES in the mental process; one idea calls 'to another idea'. A tool used 'for the Basis of marketing'. The MIND “works” this way: one idea calls to another. I wish it were more complicated, but it's not. It's simplistic and 'NOT VERY SMART'. IN FACT 'NOT SMART AT ALL'. TO USE A CONTEMPORARY VOCABULARY: OVERCOMING THE FLESH IS OVERCOMING THE MIND. This mind “that always knows what is best for you”. BUT IN FACT NOT, AS IT IS ONLY REACTIVE. [...] You know when every time an idea pops up, and that it's just related to what you're used to doing. But this idea is not the right one, IT'S NOT THE BEST IDEA YOU COULD HAVE. BUT THAT THERE IS AN INSISTENCE in the brain on “getting this idea through”; because you are used to; IT'S THAT MENTAL ACTIVITY 'that needs to be overcome'. Mystics talk about that nothing else. It is 'this state that the mystics speak of'. This is what the mystics pointed 'to as a state'; awakening is about that, nothing else. The mind is not the one, WHICH HAS TO CONTROL YOU, you have to control 'the mind'. And yes, WE CAN CHANGE THIS BIOLOGY. This is the Essence of Esotericism. Esotericism is the ESSENCE of Religions, religions are not meant TO BE institutions at all. It is a 'USURPATION OF RIGHT'. THERE IS NO LEGITIMATE AUTHORITY in a religion AS A STRUCTURE. NONE. 'Don't be IMPRESSED BY THEM'. IF RELIGIOUS PEOPLE 'TELL YOU OTHERWISE'; THEY LIE. RELIGIOUS PEOPLE have no legitimacy over you or society. From A Time to Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor and Karen Armstrong: “BY FIERCE ASCETICISM, cloistered incarceration, sleeping on straw and rising in the darkness after a few hours’ sleep, by abstinence, fasting, humiliation, the hair shirt, the scourge, the extremes of heat and cold, and the unbroken cycle of contemplation, prayer and back-breaking toil.” 'THE GOAL IS TO BREAK THE EGO', that identification “we have”. What remains after the broken ego will be the mystical state. The Mystical liberation which is the basis of religious texts. ALL RELIGIONS ARE MYSTICAL, then became institutions without authority, WANDERING LIKE 'A CHICKEN THAT HAS JUST BEEN DECAPITATED'. From Alchemical Active Imagination by Marie-Louise von Franz: “And then comes the “SYMBOLIZATION”: when one speaks such different languages, one can communicate only by using symbols. AT FIRST THE BODY CANNOT UNDERSTAND SYMBOLS but always says to stop and cease THAT SYMBOLIC WAY OF TALKING AND BE CONCRETE, FOR HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND IT. But after a while he begins TO UNDERSTAND THE SYMBOLIZATION, and then they can be reunited IN A NEW ONENESS.” This is 'why Myths' WERE SO IMPORTANT in the Antiquity and why the population 'was much more' EVOLVED THAN MODERN PEOPLE ARE. FOR THE PRACTICE OF SYMBOL, evolves this mental capacity towards 'MORE ABSTRACTION'; AND ULTIMATELY “this is how the brain Works.” The Ancients were much more sophisticated than we are, we see this in their art, in their texts, 'in their poetry', it is they who gave us the MODERN ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY, The Civilization. Since we have Abandoned this way of functioning, we are 'ONLY DRIFTING', especially in the West WITH THIS RIDICULOUS DEMOCRACY. “That is why first the separation or distraction, distractio of the mens from the body, is necessary, so that the later union can be achieved. Many call this distractio a voluntary death reached by making animus and anima one and by making them subdue the body, which has to be forced to give up his petulance, his agitation, and his constant worry about worldly things, and also his lack of moderation in his desires. THIS HAS AN EFFECT ON THE WILL. The latter starts liking THIS CHANGE AND BECOMES THE MEDICINE. Just as wild animals become ferocious when they eat too much, and get a cancerous tumor when they do not cleanse their bodies of all superfluous juices through the excrement, through defecation, SO THE PHILOSOPHICAL MEDICINE HAS TO CLEANSE OUR BODIES FROM EVERYTHING THAT IS SUPERFLUOUS AND CORRUPT, AND THEN IT CAN CURE THE BODY.” MORTIFICATION. “If you read certain medieval texts on the spiritual education of a monk, such as the Exercitia Spiritualia by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, you will see that some orders also have such rules as to how to OVERCOME THE DESIRES OF THE BODY. Saint John of the Cross even said that someone who really took the imitation of Christ SERIOUSLY SHOULD NOT LIVE BEYOND FORTY.” The STATEMENT is a bit exaggerated. But it's TRUE in the sense that if you don't economize yourself (if you refuse the gentrification of life), THEN BY DEFINITION you're not going to 'take care of that body' and age faster than someone who does economize. The bourgeois lifestyle being as opposed to the mystical lifestyle and mystics aging faster than a typical 'middle class man'. And the reserves of the body being not inexhaustible. You age faster. But after enlightenment, this Preoccupation disappears; being alive or dead doesn't matter. “For in medieval meditation texts, the body is always tortured, mortified, and abused as much as possible, treated completely as an enemy. Here he is treated not quite as an enemy BUT RATHER AS A POOR CHAP WHO DOES NOT UNDERSTAND, and he gets a decent meal in another room. He is not just mortified or rejected, as in medieval treatises like Diligendo Deo, or in the writings of Saint John of the Cross and others.” The objective is to 'BREAK THE RESISTANCE'. From Cultivating Virtue: Self-Mastery With the Saints by Anonymous, translated from the Italian by A Member of the Order of Mercy. Originally published as A Year With the Saints: A Virtue for Every Month of the Year in 1891: “In it the soul becomes like that of a little child, enjoys a pure and holy tranquility, never thinks evil of others, nor interests itself in what does not belong to its own position.” IT'S SUPER HARD TO EXPLAIN, because THERE'S THE RELIGIOUS INTERPRETATION that comes up first; THE ONE WE WERE RAISED IN; PURITANICAL, BOURGEOIS. BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT IT'S ABOUT. IT'S NOT ABOUT SOCIAL DECORUM. The transformation (enlightenment) of the body leads to THE INTERIOR. THE ENLIGHTENMENT SEALS THE BODY FROM THE OUTSIDE, NOTHING EXTERNAL CAN ENTER FROM NOW ON. The Wanderings of others can therefore only be foreign 'to us' because there is no longer a exterior “perceived”. It is not explicable. This is why esoteric traditions speak of Unification, although Unification “is not the right word”. “Thence he brought her up to the second terrace, [...] Here he enumerated to her the properties of TRUE LOVE, WHICH IS PURE, SIMPLE, UNSELFISH [...] These are: a true mortification of ALL VICES AND OF EVERY EARTHLY AFFECTION [...] A LIVING DEATH, by which the soul dies to itself and TO ALL AFFECTIONS OF SENSE, and lives in a total annihilation and transformation into its crucified Lord, so as to be able to say: “I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me.” [Gal. 2:20]” Read this sentence and Especially the End of this sentence; “its crucified Lord, Christ liveth in me”, in a non-dualistic way, for that is what it is all about. EVERYTHING HAS BEEN INTERPRETED “dualistically” by religions ('institutions'). And the mystical state 'is not about that'. “The soul that has gained this state seems to have conquered the world, and bears sufferings and crosses as if it could no longer feel them. The fourth terrace, he said, TYPIFIED THE STATE of real and perfect union.” That is why you read in the mystical writings; “that they walk on the world”. St. Francis de Sales: “I hear nothing talked of but perfection; yet I see it practiced only by few. Everyone forms his own ideal of it. Some place it in simplicity of attire; some in austerity; some in almsgiving; some in frequent reception of the Sacraments; this one, in prayer; that one, in passive contemplation; and another, in the gifts called gratuitous. BUT, BY A GENERAL MISTAKE, THEY TAKE THE EFFECTS FOR THE CAUSE, AND THE MEANS FOR THE END. The greater part of Christians usually practice incision instead of circumcision. They will make a cut indeed in a diseased part; but as for employing the knife of circumcision, to take away whatever is superfluous from the heart, few go so far.” “FOR MY PART, I KNOW OF NO OTHER PERFECTION THAN LOVING GOD WITH ALL THE HEART, AND OUR NEIGHBOR AS OURSELVES.” And here too this has not been understood by the christian who, from where he is, has God on one side of his head and himself on the other; this is not possible. Whereas the saints and mystics 'do not speak of this' but of a Union meaning not two. […] That is, no longer God on one side and you on the other. This means that the monotheistic notion of a God is false and showed by 'the mystical state'. “Whoever imagines any other kind of perfection deceives himself, for the whole accumulation of virtues without this is but a heap of stones. And if we do not immediately and perfectly enjoy this treasure of holy love, the fault is in us. We are too slow and ungenerous with God, and do not give ourselves up entirely to Him, as the Saints did.” The Master-Disciple relationship: a relationship that has not existed in the West 'for 1800 years': “The Saint sought to mortify his disciple, while the latter, in the meantime, obeyed promptly in everything and bore all WITHOUT REPLY. And thus, in the course of only five years, he reached a very high perfection and sanctity.” It doesn't take more than 'five to ten years' to awaken; from the moment 'you have two people who have one will. You don't have that anymore in the West, that's why; there is no way to awaken 'anybody in the West'. The Esoteric Tradition has been Interrupted in the West and is not in a position to resurrect anytime soon in this 'moribund continent'. St. John of the Cross: “I wish I could persuade spiritual persons that the way of perfection DOES NOT CONSIST IN MANY DEVICES, nor in much cogitation, BUT IN DENYING THEMSELVES completely and yielding themselves to suffer everything for love of Christ. And if there is failure in this exercise, all other methods of walking in the spiritual way are merely a BEATING ABOUT THE BUSH, and profitless trifling, although a person should have a very high contemplation and communication with God.” “CASSIAN WROTE CONCERNING THE ABBOT PAPHNUTIUS THAT THE ROAD BY WHICH HE ARRIVED AT SUCH GREAT SANCTITY WAS THAT OF CONSTANTLY MORTIFYING HIMSELF; and that in this manner he extinguished in himself all vices, and perfected in himself all virtues.” THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO GET THERE. You have to 'Nuke' ALL THE MENTAL RESISTANCES, you have to 'purify this mind'. “FATHER BALTHASAR ALVAREZ PRACTICED CONTINUAL MORTIFICATION AND SELF-DENIAL, not only in great things BUT ALSO IN SMALL; and by this he arrived AT HIGH PERFECTION. The Blessed Angela di Foligno, in ecstasy, saw the Lord bestowing marks of love upon some of His servants, but upon one, more; upon another, less. Desiring to understand the cause of this difference, she advanced to inquire of Our Lord, who answered thus: “I invite al