Imagine if all the tumult of the body were to quiet down,
along with all our busy thoughts about earth, sea, and air;
if the very world would stop, and the mind cease thinking about itself,
go beyond itself, and be quite still;
if all the fantasies that appear in dreams and imagination would cease,
and there be no speech, no sign:
Imagine if all things that are perishable grew still – for if we listen they are saying,
“We did not make ourselves; he made us who abides forever” – imagine, then,
that they should say this and fall silent, listening to the very voice of him who made them
and not to that of his creation;
so that we should hear not his word through the tongues of men, nor the voice of angels,
nor the clouds’ thunder, nor any symbol, but the very Self which in these things we love,
and go beyond ourselves to attain a flash of that eternal wisdom which abides above all things:
And imagine if that moment were to go on and on,
leaving behind all other sights and sounds but this one vision
which ravishes and absorbs and fixes the beholder in joy;
so that the rest of eternal life were like that moment of illumination which leaves us breathless:
Would this not be what is bidden in the scripture, Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord?
– Saint Augustine
