(Painting by Dhanajay Mukherjee)
Marguerite Porete
She was a medieval visionary burned at the stake in the 14th century for heresy. Her vision of the Divine is the same as those blissful mendicants like Lal Ded who wandered naked singing God’s name.
from The Mirror of Simple Souls
She is alone in love, the Phoenix alone.
The soul is solitary in love,
the soul has all and has nothing,
she knows all and knows nothing,
yet she swims in the sea of joy,
swims in the sea of delights flowing and streaming
down from the Godhead.
The soul feels no joy
for she is joy
swimming and floating in joy.
She lives in joy. Joy lives in her.
Marguerite Porete (13-14th c.)
Beloved, what do you want of me?
Beloved, what do you want of me?
I contain all that was, and that is, and shall be,
I am filled with the all.
Take of me all you please – if you want all of myself, I’ll not say no.
Tell me, beloved, what you want of me –
I am Love, who am filled with the all:
what you want, we want, beloved –
tell us your desire nakedly –
~ Marguerite Porete
The Soul
I rest wholly in peace, says the Soul, alone and nothing and altogether in the graciousness of the single goodness of God, without stirring myself, not with one single wish, whatever the riches that he has in him.
This is the end of my work, says this Soul, always to wish for nothing.
For so long as I wish for nothing, says this Soul, I am alone in him, without myself and wholly set free, and when I wish for something, she says, I am with myself, and so I have lost my freedom.
But when I wish for nothing, and have lost everything beyond my will, then I have need of nothing; being free is my support; and I want nothing from no-one.
~Marguerite Porete
Pure nondualism from Porete ~
He has transformed her of Himself for her sake into His goodness. And if she is thus encumbered in all aspects, she loses her name, for she rises in sovereignty. And therefore she loses her name in the One in whom she is melted and dissolved through Himself and in Himself. Thus she will be like a body of water which flows from the sea, which has some name, as one would be able to say Aisne or Seine or another river. And when this water or river returns into the sea, it loses its course and its name.
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