Page:TheCloudOfUnknowing 201810.djvu/26

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mental association to lead him further and further from the consideration of that supersensual Reality which he seeks.

The primal need of the purified soul, then, is the power of Concentration. His whole being must be set towards the Object of his craving if he is to attain to it: "Look that nothing live in thy working mind, but a naked intent stretching into God." Any thought of Him is inadequate, and for that reason defeats its own end—a doctrine, of course, directly traceable to the "Mystical Theology" of Dionysius the Areopagite. "Of God Himself can no man think," says the writer of the Cloud, "And therefore I would leave all that thing that I can think, and choose to my love that thing that I cannot think." The universes which are amenable to the intellect can never satisfy the instincts of the heart.

Further, there is to be no wilful choosing of method: no fussy activity of the surface-intelligence. The