The Story of a Soul. Authobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux

[Michal]

Hi,
I was listening recently to the book "The Story of a Soul. Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux".

And I am reminded of question which I was asking myself when I was a kid? or teenager?: How is that possible to use own reason against own reason? How is that possible to have discipline, intelligence, will and good heart and build own life on fabricated story?

The person of Therese took my heart... I love her. But in the same time I cannot get it why she made her life like she did. She was in convent of Carmelites. From early childhood she was training her self to be obedient to the will of Jesus and to exercise her self love. She did nothing visibly extraordinary - no miracles, no visions, no special gifts. Ordinary life. She was saying that her way was in doing small things.

The self-love issue she was raising quite often throughout the book resembled to me what Castaneda was writing about self importance.

I do not know if anyone of You knows this story but maybe question is more general? Is that example of what Gourdijeff was saying about 2nd way - the way of monk - that emotions were the driver of progress?

But how come that one may built life on fiction and be so ... good. ??? I do not know where Therese's soul went after her death but she was little hero. Little Flower.

I am uneasy with this way. This is something I know from childhood: from my mother, my grandmother, older women I know/knew in my family. Emotional approach without a doubt, without a doubting thought, without questioning anything.... That is so ... It is like looking at the abyss for me. So unbelievable.

 

[jsf]

While reading your post, I thought of another woman that could represent that path :

_https://translate.google.fr/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=fr&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Ffr.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FYvonne_Beauvais&edit-text=

And also, a writer that could represent the 2th way or even the 3th way is Maurice Zundel,

_https://translate.google.fr/translate?hl=fr&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ffr.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMaurice_Zundel

His writings are very interesting.

 

[Minas Tirith]

I visited Lisieux in Normandy about fifteen years ago, more by coincidence and not knowing about Therese, just being curious where all these people and cars were headed (it's a kind of pilgrimage site today). I never read anything by her, however, just visited the site. Thanks for bringing her into my memory again.

Is that example of what Gourdijeff was saying about 2nd way - the way of monk - that emotions were the driver of progress?

I guess it's a good example.

But how come that one may built life on fiction and be so ... good. ??? I do not know where Therese's soul went after her death but she was little hero. Little Flower.

I am uneasy with this way. This is something I know from childhood: from my mother, my grandmother, older women I know/knew in my family. Emotional approach without a doubt, without a doubting thought, without questioning anything.... That is so ... It is like looking at the abyss for me. So unbelievable.

There's nothing wrong with the Monk's way, it's one out of the three. For me it's as incomprehensible as for you, but there is something fascinating to "just have faith", work through your emotional center and awake that way.
For "us on the Fourth" it can be inspiring, seeing right work of the emotional center. I wonder if it's a good way in our times, though, with all the psychopathology around us (even though that existed then as well, but we seemed to be more asked to address it on the fourth working in "life").

M.T.

 

[obyvatel]

I do not know if anyone of You knows this story but maybe question is more general? Is that example of what Gourdijeff was saying about 2nd way - the way of monk - that emotions were the driver of progress?

I have not read the book but generally speaking it does seem like the way of the monk which involves surrender to God.

[quote author=Mikel]
But how come that one may built life on fiction and be so ... good. ??? I do not know where Therese's soul went after her death but she was little hero. Little Flower.
[/quote]

Service to others and sacrifice of one's egoism leads to evolution according to most known spiritual doctrines. Following a life of genuine surrender and service does set one apart from the mass of humanity. What happens to the soul is a question we cannot answer but only speculate. One possibility is that if the work on the feelings is done in one life while work on the thinking and moving centers may be done in other lives. For this to happen however, the work has to reach such a stage that the results can survive the demise of the physical body.


[quote author=Mikel]
I am uneasy with this way. This is something I know from childhood: from my mother, my grandmother, older women I know/knew in my family. Emotional approach without a doubt, without a doubting thought, without questioning anything.... That is so ... It is like looking at the abyss for me. So unbelievable.
[/quote]

If one is man 1 (man whose center of gravity lies in the moving center, the external, physically oriented man) or man 3 (thinking man dealing with logic and ideas), the way of complete surrender to an ideal without doubt, a possibility of man 2 (feeling, emotional man), will seem incomprehensible. Man 1, 2 and 3 cannot usually understand each other.

What needs to be considered in this context is that the possibilities of man 2 following the way of the monk can be realized in an isolated environment like a monastery. It is not applicable for regular life or for man1 or man 3. We can learn some tips to work on the emotional center through the lives of such people - but it may not be possible to emulate their ways.

In his work Lost Christianity, Needleman contrasted religious love with ontological love. The saints and mystics display religious love in their lives.

[quote author=Lost Christianity]
Mystical love, or religious love, may be defined as the caring for the inward-directed, or internal aspect of human nature. But such love often ignores or denies the physical and emotional desires of the other and therefore communicates an ideal of inner perfection with no practical means of leading the other to the attainment of that ideal. The result is a form of communication that encourages religious fantasies which , when combined with the volatile and repressed energies of sexuality and emotion and with the automatisms of the isolated intellect, may lead to social and personal disintegration.
.................................

Ontological love may be defined as the transmission to another of conditions of living, thinking and experiencing that foster the growth of the intermediate principle in human nature: the soul.
[/quote]

Hope this helps.