“The person who combines spiritual knowledge with the practice of the virtues is a throne and a footstool of God. A throne because of his spiritual knowledge and a footstool because of his ascetic practices. And the human intellect, purified of all material images, and occupied, or, rather adorned with the divine principles of the noetic world, is a heaven itself.

“When any philosopher – any devout philosopher – fortified with virtue and spiritual knowledge, or with ascetic practice and contemplation, sees the power of evil rising up against him through the passions like the king of the Assyrians rising up against Hezekiah, he is aware that only with God’s help can he escape. He invokes God’s mercy by crying out silently and by striving to advance still further in virtue and knowledge; and he receives as an ally, or rather as his salvation, an Angel that is one of the higher principles of Wisdom and Knowledge.

“Every passion has its origin in the corresponding sensible object. For without some object to attract the powers of the soul through the medium of the senses, no passion would ever be generated. Without food, there is no gluttony; without gold, there is no love of money, and so on.”

–St. Maximos (in The Philokalia)

“’How,’ says the Desciple to the Master in one of Boehme’s ‘Dialogues,’ ‘am I to seek in the center this Fountain of Light which may enlighten me throughout and bring my properties into perfect harmony? I am in Nature, as I said before, and which way shall I pass through Nature and the light thereof, so that I may come to into the supernatural and supersensual ground whence this True Light, which is the Light of Minds, doth arise; and this without the destruction of my nature, or quenching the Light of it, which is my reason?’

‘Master: Cease but from thine own activity, steadfastly fixing thine eye upon one point … For this end, gather in all thy thoughts, and by faith, press into the center laying hold upon the Word of God, which is infallible and which hath called thee. Be obedient to this call, and be silent before the Lord, sitting alone with him in thy inmost and most hidden cell, and attend His Will in the patience of hope.

So shall the Light break forth as the morning, and after the redness thereof has passed, the Sun Himself, which thou waitest for, shall arise unto thee, and under his most healing wings thou shalt greatly rejoice: ascending and descending in his bright and health-giving beams. Behold, this is the true Supersensual Ground of Life.’”

-Evelyn Underhill with an inner quote from Jacob Boehme.