The time is ripe to detach from a life devoid of meaning and

Read Plotinus lad

read

http://www.christianperfection.info/tta78.php
https://archive.org/stream/MN41530ucmf_5#page/n748/mode/1up

Avoid Quietism, i.e. the practice of retreating from all activity in order to passively "immerse" yourself in God. This is the "quick and easy" mysticism. It has always been popular in the East. It gives you a false sense of divinity; it allows you to fell like you are One with God. This is a delusion though.
There is a passive state in the higher stages of the Spiritual Life where God unites Himself to the soul by love, and at that point you do temporarily cease from action to allow God to act in your soul. But this is a TEMPORARY state and one of intense love, sweetness, consolation. It is not a constant state of apathy that goes on indefinitely. In order to arrive at it you have to first practice prayer, meditation, penance, fasting, mortification, almsigiving, abstaining from sin in general, and cultivating the virtues. The reason that God does not immediately communicate Himself to the soul is because that would result in gross pride. If you could just sit down whenever you felt like it and "empty yourself" and God would come, you would feel like you had already arrived at perfection. God does not come to people who are lazy, lustful, proud, envious, etc. The reason for this is, for example, if God gave Himself to a lazy person, the lazy person would use His sweet communication with God as an excuse not to fulfil his duties in life. The same goes for any other vice. You have to exercise yourself spiritually, normally for years. God does give consolation/sweetness even to beginners at the very beginning of the spiritual life, but this is to draw them away from the world and reassure them in the beginning. As soon as the beginner makes his first proper steps God stops sending so many consolations in order to test the beginner's love for Him, because the point of the spiritual life is to love God for His own sake, not for His gifts.

>>7686941
This anon, speaks wisdom.

>>7686941
>It gives you a false sense of divinity; it allows you to fell like you are One with God. This is a delusion though.

Personal experience? Much as I would like it to be a genuine possibility, I cannot get rid of the idea that there's no such thing, and that those who claim to have had it do so for not so noble purposes.

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This is a good book for you OP

>>7687298
>I would like it to be a genuine possibility
If you meant that you would go after it.

God rewards those who seek Him. God exalts the humble but opposes the proud. This is often the reason so many false seekers find nothing. So if you seek Him, be humble. I cannot stress this enough, anon. Humility Humility Humility.

>>7687301
What did you get out of it?

>>7687301
I'm not OP but I've been meaning to read it. How does it compare to Power and Glory.

>>7686881
Precisely. Christianity is watered down Platonism. Dionysus the foremost Christian mystic was a shameless plagiarist of Proclus. No hard feelings tough, but who would settle for the copy when you can have the original?

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>>7686877
Would it help?

>>7687400
Havent gotten to it, but it was probably the best book ive read this year. Made me go steal his other books.
>>7687350
It is a surprisingly poignant argument against doctrine and for a personal relationship with Christ as the Godhead. It also poses a very interesting question on the primacy of mercy in the Christian faith. Also a great story.

>>7687965
How does a Catholic novel go against doctrine in itself? Or is it more speculative in nature?

Read the Upanishads

>>7689144
The author is catholic, and the setting is under extreme duress where adherence to doctrine vs faith are put into conflict. Don't want to give away main points of plot.

>>7689342
I just read the first 35 pages, the introduction was extremely moving.

>>7686941
>It has always been popular in the East.

please develop. are you talking about hesychasm?