The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel Quotes

“Start practicing contemplation and watch how this spiritual exercise makes a difference in your life. When contemplation is genuine, it’s nothing but a sudden impulse coming out of nowhere and flying up to God like a spark from a burning coal.8 It’s awesome to count how many times your soul stirs like that in an hour, but, of these, you may only have one instance when you suddenly realize you’ve completely forgotten every attachment you have on earth. You’ll also notice that, because of our human frailty, each impulse rising to God immediately falls to earth in the form of a thought about something you’ve done or something that is still on your list to do. But so what? Right after that, it rises up again as fast as it did before.”
― Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel: A New Translation

“If your mind lets in any sort of thought about any particular thing outside your naked blind being (which is your God and your goal), it gets sucked into and trapped in the tricks and curiosity of your intellect, distracting your mind and alienating you from yourself and God. That’s why you must persevere in contemplation. Do it as often as you can. Grace will help you. When you persist in it and don’t give up, wisdom strengthens the inner poise you need to hold your soul whole and focused. Remember that contemplation is not an interruption to your daily life. Instead, as you focus on this unseeing seeing of your naked being uniting you with God, keep doing what you always do: eat and drink, sleep and wake up, walk and sit, speak and be silent, lie down and get up, stand and kneel, run and ride, work and rest. But at the hub of it all, you’re also offering God the most precious sacrifice you can make: this blind awareness. It’s the most important of all of your activities, active or contemplative.”
― Carmen Acevedo Acevedo, The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel: A New Translation

“Ask yourself what will most strengthen you, what will best meet your needs, and what will most help you and all humanity mature. Blind, ordinary contemplation will. When with purity and integrity you practice this spiritual exercise, it’s always better for you than any thought, no matter how holy.”
― Carmen Acevedo Acevedo, The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel: A New Translation

“THERE ARE OTHER strategies, but I won’t go into them right now, because when, by grace, you try these two and prove their worth, I believe that you’ll have more to teach me then than I could ever teach you.”
― Carmen Acevedo Acevedo, The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel: A New Translation

“Judge yourself as you want—that’s between you and God or your spiritual director—but leave others alone.”
― Carmen Acevedo Acevedo, The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel: A New Translation

“if by grace you can make love your own, do. For the experience is eternal joy;”
― Carmen Acevedo Acevedo, The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel: A New Translation