The Elder \u2013 Good Morning! Abel. So, just like Teresa, you are now eighty years old. In India, you would belong to the one thousand moons group, those who have seen one thousand full moon nights pass. That moment is said to be the moment when all the cosmic doors will open for you. What a blessing!<\/p>\n
Abel \u2013 My entire life has been a blessing. My profession was an exciting one. I founded a family with the woman I have always loved. I’ve had two loving and devoted children, and now I have a joyful tribe of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. That didn’t prevent me from having to deal with a very difficult early extreme old age. Such a critical transition in my life had me wish nearly everyday I could soon leave that world of suffering.<\/p>\n
The Elder \u2013 My dear Abel, I have known you for ages. I followed your soul’s adventures. What a wonderful journey with God you’ve had on this earth! Do you know that all due honours are awaiting you on the other side? It’s going to be a festival of lights.<\/p>\n
Abel \u2013 I’ve never been interested in honours, but I’m eager to see what awaits me there.
\nI’ve got a glimpse of beings of light with whom I regularly get in touch with. Their lighting group helps people like me. When I am in the same dimension, I do hope I’ll be able to work with them for the good of humanity.<\/p>\n
The Elder \u2013 You have taken a very great spiritual step forward in recent years.<\/p>\n
Abel \u2013 If ever I have advanced, I had no control over that. The superfluous has left me, just as many other things are still leaving me by themselves. Through such a cogent renunciation my soul could reveal itself and I was able to let it play its full role. It was none of my doing; it just happened.<\/p>\n
The Elder \u2013 You are a humble man. You have spent all your life studying a great number of spiritual ways. You have been very active practicing meditation and you have applied the universal laws you had embraced.<\/p>\n
Abel \u2013 I have tried hard, anyway. Today, more than ever, I am convinced that only the Divine matters in life. All that I thought was important is leaving me unaided.<\/p>\n
The Elder \u2013 That is what detachment is!<\/p>\n
Abel \u2013 Then it detaches all by itself. I tried to practice non-attachment. For me, it remains something uneasy to do since I still believe in principles such as justice or fairness; so, whenever these are violated, I still suffer and get irritated, even though I know it is to no avail. I am not yet the fine wise man nothing can ever disturb…<\/p>\n
The Elder \u2013 I remember that, when you were young, we used to say that you had a pain ‘at humanity’, and you would answer that you did not belong to this barbaric world!<\/p>\n
Abel \u2013 I still have that same feeling, which is also leaving me, whether I like it or not.<\/p>\n
The Elder \u2013 Apart from this detachment, what would the benefits of old age be, according to you?<\/p>\n
Abel \u2013 Patience. To start with, I could not help being restless. I have always been a practical man, a man of action. I would know all about a person just by working with him or her. Presently, I can’t do that any more since I am confined to the bed most of the time. The only activity for me consists in a bit of study and practice, and the only Being I can befriend is God.<\/p>\n
The Elder \u2013 Do you mean that you can approach Him just thanks to your loneliness and your inner silence?<\/p>\n
Abel \u2013 I’d rather say that I was obliged to be alone and silent, which worried me a lot at the beginning. Then I would think my life was useless, pointless and worthless. I even thought of putting an end to it. Then, gradually, I had access to another dimension of the Being.<\/p>\n
The Elder \u2013 I find you are more and more peaceful. What emanates from you is a serenity that works on your environment.<\/p>\n
Abel \u2013 That is just because the only thing I now have is what is essential. My life has been tremendously simplified and purified. The notion of Nothingness I was so concerned with has been transformed into a ‘Nothing’ that is very well filled in fact, if I can say so.\u00a0 His Presence has been intensified.<\/p>\n
The Elder \u2013 At the end of his life, Thomas Aquinas said, “Everything that I have written seems like straw to me”. At that very moment, having renounced and bared his being, he experienced that ‘nothing’, that ‘Nada’, which Saint John of the Cross described so wall as a way to access Union with God.<\/p>\n
Abel \u2013 I do not claim to be another Saint John of the cross, but that is the idea I have of it.<\/p>\n
The Elder \u2013 Do you remember what Teresa of Avila said to her Carmelite nuns?
\n“The first thing you should do is to do nothing at all and let yourselves be loved”.<\/p>\n
Abel \u2013 Of course I do! ‘Love’ is the keyword, the Loving Presence, which now lives within me, the one that matters every minute.<\/p>\n
The Elder \u2013 Our friend Teresa used to say, “You’ll see! You are going to pass from one dimension of love into another dimension of love, over and over again, until… Plop! And here you are, right in the Ultimate Love. You have become love.” After all, that is exactly what you have been through, isn’t it?<\/p>\n
Abel \u2013 I tasted its perfume and I now long for it … calmly, simply ant innocently.\u00a0 All my life I made the effort of working on my self, on my ego, with relative success, and now, as I am going into my twilight years, I realize that loving requires no effort at all. It is the Presence within us that loves, and when the Presence has become infinite, it loves infinitely.<\/p>\n
The Elder \u2013 Could you describe the way you got in touch with that Presence?<\/p>\n
Abel \u2013 The Presence just came within me, gently, at a moment when I was exhausted and finally surrendered. My highest beliefs were the hardest to surrender. I wanted to be a good person, whereas God wanted me to be simple, just like Him. That is the only way Union becomes possible. Only Love can help us get ready for it. Love is at the heart of everything.<\/p>\n
The Elder \u2013 Teresa addresses the Presence in the following terms: “I am nothing if Thou art not there. Thou art All and everything in the gift of existence Thou hast bestowed onto me.”<\/p>\n
Abel \u2013 As you see, much humility is required there, and humility has never been in my blood.<\/p>\n
The Elder (laughing<\/em>): \u2013 It is the coup de gr\u00e2ce, Abel concluded, in a very serious manner.<\/p>\n Our two Elders, amused and benevolent, slipped into a tranquil silence that took them to the heart of a deep meditation. There they shared a moment of eternity…<\/p>\n Theophile the Elder <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Elder \u2013 Good Morning! Abel. So, just like Teresa, you are now eighty years old. In India, you would belong to the one thousand moons group, those who have seen one thousand full moon nights pass. That moment is said to be the moment when all the cosmic doors will open for you. What […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":2589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[409,405,877,393,683,681,394],"tags":[612,190,586,667,684],"class_list":["post-2760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianism","category-daily-life","category-dialogues","category-lifestyle-recommended","category-old-age","category-sharings-views-with-the-one-thousand-moons","category-spiritual-paths","tag-detachement-en","tag-love","tag-nothingness","tag-presence-en","tag-renunciation"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n\u2013 Neither in mine! Love did it all.<\/p>\n
\nAn excerpt from Dialogs with Theophile the Elder<\/em>
\nSharing views with Abel<\/em><\/p>\n