Authors From Belgium

"I reject the notion that technology is a neutral thing, so I see it as creating new capabilities for humanity. But then, these capabilities can be an object of conflict. And if you analyse p2p technology, it can take different forms. These different forms are the function of the forces which control the technology. For example, in what I call “netarchical capitalism,” that is where you have proprietory platforms, business-owned entities creating p2p front-ends, because they want people to communicate with each other, but they combine it with controlled and hierarchical back-ends, where they control the design and your personal data, so that they are able to sell your attention. So, when we talk about peer-to-peer technology, we have to be very careful, not just look at the structure: computers organised in a peer network, humans organised in a peer network etc., but you have to look at governance and ownership as well."

"As much as is iron, so much is fire; And as much as is fire, so much is iron; Yet the iron doth not become fire, Nor the fire iron, But each retains its substance and nature. So likewise the spirit of man doth not become God, But is deified, And knows itself breadth, length, height and depth: And as far as God is God, So far the loving spirit is made one with Him In love."

"The Love of God is a consuming Fire, Which draws us out of ourselves And swallows us up in unity with God, Where we are satisfied and overflowing, And with Him, beyond ourselves, Eternally fulfilled."

"'There are more answers than questions, and lots of people have found answers that were perfectly satisfactory for them. Old Ruysbroeck for one...' 'Who was he?' 'He was a Flemish mystic who lived in the fourteenth century'"

"Men possess virtues and thumb|We are ravished out of self by purified Love, even to the Face of God, freed and emptied of every event and illusion. This is the contemplative life of highest price.the Divine likeness in differing measure; in greater or lesser degree have they found their own essence in the depth of themselves, according to their dignity. But God fulfils all; and each, clearer or fainter, according to the measure of his love."

"AND thus the Fourth Mode is a state of emptiness, made one with God in bare love and in Divine Light, free and empty of all the observances of love, above actions, and enduring a pure and simple love, which consumes and annihilates in itself the spirit of a man, so that he forgets himself, and knows neither himself nor God, nor any creature, nor aught else but Love alone, which he tastes and feels and possesses in simple emptiness. He feels himself one Breadth with Love, Which is measureless, comprehending all things, and Itself for ever remaining incomprehensible. He sees himself made one with the eternal Length, which is immovable, without beginning or ending, going before and following after all created things"

"The Will of God, which is free - indeed freedom thumb|When in the inmost Being the Soul follows the Divine drawing and gives itself up freely to the Spirit of God, it tastes infinite happiness impossible to comprehend, in which the whole being dissolves itself - takes from us the spirit of fear and makes us free, disengaged from and emptied of self, and of every fear that might oppress us in time or eternity."

"The air is pure and serene, lit by a light Divine, and by it we shall discover, fix, and contemplate the eternal Truth, with purified and illuminated eyes. There, too, all things are transformed, are one only Truth, one only image in the mirror of the Wisdom of God; and God created us that we might find, know, and possess this image in our essence and the Purity of our intelligence. Contemplating, applying our minds to this in the Divine Light, with simple and spiritual eyes, we attain to contemplative life."

"John Ruusbroec, "the Admirable," has been called the "second Dionysius the Areopagite," the West's most articulate Trinitarian mystic, and even the greatest mystical writer in the Christian tradition. This spiritual titan not only reached the summit of mystical contemplation but also possessed the theological profundity and the limpid prose to express it - especially that of the unitive life."

"[Ruysbroeck] comes very near to the doctrine of . He expresses almost the same view in his teaching that everything in creation and everything in man exists eternally in God. Creation comes forth eternally in God as God, without any difference, and then it comes forth differentiated in time and space. Originally it is God in God. So the image of God exists eternally in God, in its archetype. Ruysbroeck says, "God utters himself in the Spirit eternally without intermediary and in this Word he utters himself and all things." In the utterance of the Word which comes forth from the Father eternally the whole creation, the whole of humanity, you and I and all created things, are present. Everything and all beings are present in that eternal Word, eternally present with God, in God and as God. We are all participating in the Infinite at that stage, beyond creation. This is what is meant by our uncreated being in the Godhead. Eckhart had the same idea but he expressed it less carefully while Ruysbroeck puts it extremely well. He speaks of "a waylessness and darkness in which we never find ourselves again in a creaturely way." We lose ourselves in that divine darkness. And he goes on to speak of God, this "God beyond", as it were, as "a simple nudity, an incomprehensible light". The one who has reached this point " finds himself and feels himself to be that light, gazing at that light, by that light, in that light. Here one has entered totally into the Godhead and one knows in the light and by the light". This is exactly how it is put in the Upanishads and in the 'Bhagavad Gita', where it is said that one knows the 'atman', through the 'atman'. The 'atman' cannot be known by any other means. God is grasped and held through God."

"I regard the ninth and tenth chapters of The Sparkling Stone as the high water mark of mystical literature. Nowhere else do we find such a marvellous combination of wide and soaring vision with the most delicate and intimate psychological analysis. The old Mystic, sitting under his friendly tree, seems here to be gazing at, and reporting to us the final secrets of that Eternal World, where the “Incomprehensible Light enfolds and penetrates us,as the air is penetrated by the light of the sun"."

"If every earthly pleasure were melted thumb|An intelligence in repose without images, an intuition in the light of God, and a spirit elevated in Purity to the Face of God, these three qualities united constitute the true contemplative life into a single experience and bestowed upon one man, it would be as nothing when measured by the joy of which I write for here it is God who passes into the depths of us in all His purity, and the soul is not only filled but overflowing. This experience is that light that makes manifest to the soul the terrible desolation of such as live divorced from love; it melts the man utterly; he is no longer master of his joy. Such possession produces intoxication, the state of the spirit in which its bliss transcends the uttermost bounds of anticipation or desire. Sometimes the ecstasy pours forth in song, sometimes in tears: at one moment it finds expression in movement, at others in the intense stillness of burning, voiceless feeling. Some men knowing this bliss wonder if others feel God as they do; some are assured that no living creature has ever had such experiences as theirs; there are those who wonder that the world is not set aflame by this joy; and there are others who marvel at its nature, asking whence it comes, and what it is. The body itself can know no greater pleasure upon earth than to participate in it; and there are moments when the soul feels that it must shiver to fragments in the poignancy of this experience."

"The interior life must be filled with grace and charity, without dissimulation, of direct intention, rich in virtue, the memory exempt from cares and solicitude, freed and detatched, entirely delivered of every image; the heart set free, open and up lifted above the Heavens; the intelligence empty and stripped of all consideration but God."

"When in the inmost thumb|Above all knowledge and science, we find within us a limitless ignorance when, passing beyond every name given to God or creatures, we expire and pass to an eternal Unnamable where we are lost Being the Soul follows the Divine drawing and gives itself up freely to the Spirit of God, it tastes infinite happiness impossible to comprehend, in which the whole being dissolves, caught and embraced between immense Love and unending Happiness, under the regard of Love Himself"

"But yet another thing is necessary, Purity of spirit; for an intelligence in repose without images, an intuition in the light of God, and a spirit elevated in Purity to the Face of God, these three qualities united constitute the true contemplative life, where none can err; for the pure spirit expands ceaselessly and follows rapidly in purified love, the enlightened intelligence towards its Cause."

"Here the reason no less than all separate acts Must give way, For our powers become simple in Love; They are silent And thumb|In the most secret part of the understanding, the simple eye is ever open. It contemplates and gazes at the Light with a pure sight that is lit by the Light itself: eye to eye, mirror to mirror, image to image.thumb| The sight of the simple eye is a living mirror bowed down in the Presence of the Father. And this revelation of the Father Lifts the soul above the reason Into the Imageless Nudity. There the soul is simple, pure, spotless, Empty of all things; And it is in this state of perfect emptiness That the Father manifests His Divine radiance. To this radiance neither reason nor sense, Observation nor distinction, Can attain. All this must stay below; For the measureless radiance Blinds the eyes of the reason, They cannot bear the Incomprehensible Light. But above the reason, In the most secret part of the understanding, The simple eye is ever open. It contemplates and gazes at the Light With a pure sight that is lit by the Light itself: Eye to eye, Mirror to mirror, Image to image. This threefold act makes us like God, And unites us to Him; For the sight of the simple eye is a living mirror, Which God has made for His image, And whereon He has impressed it."

"If we would thumb|We must self forgo if God we would attain, his grace must in us grow and ease us from all pain God discern, The world we must despise, His love and hate must learn, See all things with His eyes. And we must self forgo If God we would attain, His grace must in us grow And ease us from all pain. So shall we sing His praise And be at one with Him, In peace our voices raise In the celestial hymn, That with quadruple harmony And all mellifluous melody, In Heaven resounds eternally."

"Such is the citadel of loving Souls where all pure intellects are united, in one simple Purity. This is the habitation of God in us, where none can operate but God alone; its Purity is eternal, there is neither time nor space, past nor future, always present and ready to be revealed to those pure intelligences raised to it."

"By thumb|This experience... melts the man utterly; he is no longer master of his joy. Such possession produces intoxication, the state of the spirit in which its bliss transcends the uttermost boundsthumb|If every earthly pleasure were melted into a single experience and bestowed upon one man, it would be as nothing when measured by the joy of which I writethumb|Sometimes the ecstasy pours forth in song, sometimes in tears: at one moment it finds expression in movement, at others in the intense stillness of burning, voiceless feeling By the way of perfect likeness and fullest union. Every good deed, however small, if it be directed to God by simplicity of intention, increases in us the Divine likeness, and deepens in us the flow of eternal life... Entering into and transcending itself, traversing all worlds of being,surpassing all creatures, the soul meets God in its own depths... The whole life of the spirit and its activity consists solely in the Divine likeness and this simplicity of intention; and the final peace abides on the heights in simplicity also, in simplicity thumb|All the divine means and all conditions, and all living images which are reflected in the mirror of truth, lapse in the onefold and ineffable waylessness beyond reason of essence."

"Ruysbroeck is certainly one of the greatest mystics, but he can be comprehended only by advanced souls."

"Kabir belongs to that small group of supreme mystics amongst whom St. Augustine, Ruysbroeck, and the Sufi poet Jalalu'ddin Rumi are perhaps the chief who have achieved that which we might call the synthetic vision of God. These have resolved the perpetual opposition between the personal and impersonal, the transcendent and immanent, static and dynamic aspects of the Divine Nature; between the Absolute of philosophy and the 'sure true Friend' of devotional religion. They have done this, not by taking these apparently incompatible concepts one after the other; but by ascending to a height of spiritual intuition at which they are, as Ruysbroeck said, 'melted and merged in the Unity,' and perceived as the completing opposites of a perfect Whole...Rusysbroeck discerned a plane of reality upon which 'we can speak no more of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but only of One Being, the very substance of the Divine Persons'"

"John Ruysbroeck, 'the Admirable', is in some ways the most wonderful of the mystics. As a descriptive mystic he stands alongside of St John of the Cross in the daring and eloquence with which he ventures to utter in human language the experiences of union and knowledge to which he, was admitted. If he lacks St John's Latin clarity of thought and expression, he more than makes up for it by a certain massive mysteriousness that may be called Teutonic he was a Fleming of Brabant through which we seem ever and anon to catch glimpses of realities deeply impressive though at times bewildering. But there is a consistency and a sanity through it all, and a restraint due to his sound theological formation, which make an overwhelming impression of truth and reality. It may with all probability be said, that than him there has been no greater contemplative; and certainly there has been no greater mystical writer. His contemplation is highly intellectual, and at the same time fully mystical. Whether in the sublimity of his elevations or in the power of recording his experiences, Ruysbroeck stands as one of the very greatest of the mystics."

"[T]he counterpoint to this enormously exposed and public life is Eckhart and Jan van Ruysbroek. They really give me balance and a more necessary sense of humor."

"The greatest of the Flemish mystics, Jan van Ruusbroec was conversant not only with the main currents of mystical theology in the medieval Low Countries and the Rhineland but also with the patristic heritage of both the East and the West. His personal appropriation of this legacy, together with a keen sensitivity to the needs of all the members of the church of his day and a rare gift for describing the highest levels of mystical experience, enabled Ruusbroec to produce treatises of unsurpassed beauty, perspicuity, and synthetic power."

"In the history of the spiritual adventures of man, we find at intervals certain great mystics, who appear to gather up and fuse together in the crucible of the heart the diverse tendencies of those who have preceded them, and, adding to these elements the tincture of their own rich experience, give to us an intensely personal, yet universal, vision of God and man. These are constructive spirits, whose creations in the spiritual sphere sum up and represent the best achievement of a whole epoch; as in other spheres the great artist, musician, or poet—always the child of tradition as well as of inspiration—may do. John Ruysbroeck is such a mystic as this. His career, which covers the greater part of the fourteenth century—that golden age of Christian mysticism—seems to exhibit within the circle of a single personality, and carry up to a higher term than ever before, all the best attainments of the Middle Ages in the realm of Eternal Life. Rooted firmly in history, faithful to the teachings of the great Catholic mystics of the primitive and mediæval times, Ruysbroeck does not merely transmit, but transfigures, their principles: making from the salt, sulphur, and mercury of their vision, reason, and love, a new and living jewel—or, in his own words, a ‘sparkling stone’—which reflects the actual radiance of the Uncreated Light. Absorbing from the rich soil of the Middle Ages all the intellectual nourishment which he needs, dependent too, as all real greatness is, on the human environment in which he grows—that mysterious interaction and inter-penetration of personalities without which human consciousness can never develop its full powers—he towers up from the social and intellectual circumstances that conditioned him: a living, growing, unique and creative individual, yet truly a part of the earth from which he springs."

"John Ruusbroec (1293-1381) is one of the greatest of the Christian mystics. His masterpiece, The Spiritual Espousals (sometimes translated as The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage) in my opinion belongs on the short list of “must read” classics of western mysticism."

"Next follows the seventh step, the noblest and most elevated that it is possible to realize in the life of time or eternity. It is attained when, above all knowledge and science, we find within us a limitless ignorance; when, passing beyond every name given to God or creatures we expire and pass to an eternal Unnamable where we are lost; when, further than any practice of Virtue, we contemplate and discover within us everlasting Repose, or immeasurable Beatitude where none can act; when we contemplate above all blessed Spirits an essential Beatitude where all are one, melted, lost, in their Superessence in the bosom of a darkness defying all determination or knowledge."

"Then are we ravished out of self by purified Love, even to the Face of God, freed and emptied of every event and illusion. This is the contemplative life of highest price."

"Finally, and beyond all else, ravished out of self into the Glory of God, without limit, incomprehensible, immense, we are to enjoy Him for ever and ever"

"To die to sin is to live to God, thumb|If we would God discern, the world we must despise, his love and hate must learn, see all things with His eyes to be emptied of self and detached from all that pleases or displeases, leads to the Kingdom of God; heart and desire must close to things of earth to open to God and things eternal, if we desire to taste and see that the Lord is sweet"

"He shows Himself to the soul in the living mirror of her intelligence; Not as He is in His nature, But in images and similitudes, And in the degree in which the illuminated reason can grasp and understand Him. And the wise reason, enlightened of God, sees clearly And without error in images of the understanding All that she has heard of God, Of faith, of truth, according to her longing. But that image which is God Himself, Although it is held before her, she cannot comprehend; For the eyes of her understanding Must fail before that Incomparable Light."

"And its seeing is Unconditioned, Being without manner, And it is neither thus nor thus, Neither here nor there; For that which is Unconditioned hath enveloped all, And the vision is made high and wide. It knows not itself where That is which it sees; and it cannot come thereto, for its seeing is in no wise, and passes on, beyond, for ever, and without return. That which it apprehends it cannot realise in full, Nor wholly attain, for its apprehension is wayless, and without manner, And therefore it is apprehended of God in a higher way than it can apprehend Him. Behold! such a following of the Way that is Wayless, Is intermediary between contemplation In images and similitudes of the intellect, And unveiled contemplation Beyond all images in the Light of God."

"You should watch the wise bee and do as it does. It dwells in unity, in the congregation of its fellows, and goes forth, not in the storm, but in calm and still weather, in the sunshine, towards all those flowers in which sweetness may be found. It does not rest on any flower, neither on any beauty nor on any sweetness; but it draws from them honey and wax, that is to say, sweetness and light-giving matter, and brings both to the unity of the hive, that therewith it may produce fruits, and be greatly profitable. Christ, the Eternal Sun, shining into the open heart, causes that heart to grow and to bloom, and it overflows with all the inward powers with joy and sweetness.So the wise man will do like the bee, and he will fly forth with attention and with reason and with discretion, towards all those gifts and towards all that sweetness which he has ever experienced, and towards all the good which God has ever done to him. And in the light of love and with inward observation, he will taste of the multitude of consolations and good things; and will not rest upon any flower of the gifts of God, but, laden with gratitude and praise, will fly back into the unity, wherein he wishes to rest and to dwell eternally with God."

"This is that Wayless Being which all fervent interior spirits have chosen above all things, that dark stillness in which all lovers lose their way. If we could prepare ourselves through virtue in the ways I have shown, we would at once strip ourselves of our bodies and flow into the wild waves of the Sea, from which no creature could ever draw us back."

"God in the depths of us receives God who comes to us: it is God contemplating God."

"God is a flowing and ebbing sea which ceaselessly flows out into all his beloved according to their needs and merits and which flows back with all those upon whom he has bestowed his gifts in heaven and on earth, together with all they possess or are capable of."

"This possession is a simple and abysmal tasting of all good and of eternal life; and in this tasting we are swallowed up above reason and without reason, in the deep Quiet of the Godhead, which is never moved...And therefrom follows the last point that can be put into words, that is, when the spirit beholds a Darkness into which it cannot enter with the reason. And there it feels itself dead and lost to itself, and one with God without difference and without distinction."

"Unity is this: that a man feel himself to be gathered together with all his powers in the unity of his heart. Unity brings inward peace and restfulness of heart. Unity of heart is a bond which draws together body and soul, heart and senses, and all the outward and inward powers and encloses them in the union of love."

"We behold that which we are, and we are that which we behold."

"In the deeps of his ground he knows and feels nothing, in soul or body, but a singular radiance with sensible well-being and all pervading savour."

"God loves without limit and this puts a loving person most securely at peace."

"Knowledge of ourselves teaches us whence we come, where we are, and whither we are going. We come from God, and we are in exile."

"God contemplates Himself and all things in an Eternal Now that has neither beginning nor end."

"Secondly, he must cleave to God within by devoted intention and love, just like a kindled, blazing fire that can no longer be extinguished. During the time that he feels himself to be in this state, he can contemplate."

"The indrawing attraction drags us out of ourselves, And calls us to be melted away and naughted in the Unity. And in this indrawing attraction we feel that God wills that we should be His, And for this we must abnegate ourselves and let our beatitude be accomplished in Him. But when He attracts us by flowing out towards us, He gives us over to ourselves and makes us free, And sets us in Time."

"My words are strange, but those who love will understand."

"Our work is the love of God. Our satisfaction lies in submission to the Divine Embrace"

"Thirdly, he must have lost himself in a waylessness and in a darkness in which all contemplatives wander around in enjoyment and can no longer find themselves in a creaturely way. In the abyss of this darkness in which the loving spirit has died to itself, there begin the revelation of God and eternal life. For in this darkness there shines and is born an incomprehensible light which is the Son of God, in whom one contemplates eternal life. And in this light one becomes seeing."

"And this divine light is granted in the simple being of the spirit, where the spirit receives the brightness –which is God Himself- above all gifts and above all creaturely activity, in the empty void of the spirit in which it has lost itself through enjoyable love and receives the brightness of God without intermediary. And without cease, it becomes the very brightness which it receives."

"See, all creaturely activity and all practice of virtues must fail here, for here what God works is nothing but Himself in the highest nobility of the spirit. And here there is nothing but an eternal contemplation and gazing at the light with the light and in the light. And the coming of the Bridegroom is so rapid that He is always coming and is indwelling with fathomless richness, and that He is coming anew personally, without crease, with such new brightness just as though He had never come before. For His coming consists in an eternal now, without time, which is always received with new lust and in new joy."