The important thing is not to think too much, and so to do whatever best awakens your love.

Saint Teresa of Avila

Awakens Your Love

Topic: Love, Compassion, & Kindness

If you want to make progress on the path and ascend to the places you have longed for, the important thing is not to think too much, and so to do whatever best awakens your love. If you fall sometimes, do not lose heart. Keep striving to walk your path with integrity. God will draw out the good even from your fall.

Saint Teresa of Avila

Saint Teresa of Ávila, born Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada (28 March 1515 – 4 October 1582), was an influential Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint, and a central figure of the Counter-Reformation. Best known for her deep theological insights, she authored several important works that reflect her devotion to a life of contemplative prayer. Known for her mystical experiences, Teresa embraced the spiritual path as a Carmelite nun, where she found the essence of her vocation. Her understanding of contemplative life through mental prayer has had an enduring impact on Christian spirituality, even transcending the confines of her own religious tradition.

In addition to her spiritual contributions, Saint Teresa is remembered for her significant role in reforming the Carmelite Order of her era. Her reformative efforts were a response to a perceived laxity in her order, focusing on the renewal of commitment to solitude and poverty. Along with Saint John of the Cross, she initiated a movement that resulted in the establishment of the Discalced Carmelites, an order that emphasized austerity and the contemplative life. Notably, this significant institutional development occurred posthumously, with neither Teresa nor John alive when the Carmelite Order ultimately separated into two distinct branches.

(1515-1582) Christianity
The Interior Castle

of Avila, St. Teresa. The Interior Castle. Translated by Mirabai Starr, New York, Riverhead Books, 2003 [Saint Teresa of Avila].

Saint Teresa of Avila

Theme: Spiritual Growth

About This Saint Teresa of Avila Quotation [Commentary]

Saint Teresa of Avila’s wisdom beautifully simplifies the essence of spiritual growth, centering it around the power of love rather than intellectual exertion. Her advice, “The important thing is not to think too much, and so to do whatever best awakens your love,” guides us towards actions that deepen our connection with the Divine through love. This approach suggests that spiritual progress is less about analytical thinking and more about nurturing a heartfelt bond with the Divine, emphasizing simplicity and love as key to a deeper spiritual journey.

In addressing the inevitability of human imperfection on the spiritual path, Teresa offers comfort and encourages perseverance. Her reassurance that “God will draw out the good even from your fall” reframes setbacks as opportunities for growth under Divine grace. This perspective encourages us to view our journey with compassion and resilience, understanding that every step, including the missteps, is part of our spiritual evolution. Teresa teaches us to embrace our flaws and to continue striving towards our spiritual aspirations with integrity.

Teresa’s insights into the spiritual journey illuminate the delicate balance between action and reflection, effort and surrender. She highlights the importance of allowing love to guide our spiritual practices and decisions, suggesting that a love-driven path is the most authentic route to divine union. Through her teachings, Teresa invites us to embark on a spiritual journey marked by love, patience, and trust in the transformative power of the Divine, reminding us that the path to spiritual growth is paved with both challenges and victories, all embraced within the embrace of Divine love.

Mirabei Starr about St. Teresa’s Interior Castle [Commentary]

In her vision of the soul as an interior castle, Teresa identifies seven stations of the journey to divine union, using the analogy of seven primary dwellings within the palace. The outer spaces represent the beginning of our journey home. The light of the Divine is dim at first, and her [Her/His] voice is faint. But both the radiance and the God song increase in clarity and volume the closer we come to the center.

The early stations are concerned with discipline and humility. Here we intentionally cultivate self-knowledge. We engage in contemplative prayer as a way to be closer to the Beloved. We may not always see her or feel her in the dark. It’s like sleeping next to someone at night, Teresa tells us. You don’t need visual or tactile evidence to know she is there. In fact, it would be crazy to believe she is gone just because you don’t see her. Listen for the sound of her breath. Take comfort in her proximity.

As the journey unfolds it builds momentum. We have met the one we love. We have fallen head over heels. Our love has been reciprocated. The wedding date is set. Now we can’t wait to consummate. We defy convention and take the most direct path to union, even if that route does not appear on any map. Who has patience for maps? We dispense with all suggestions and plunge into the wild. We turn inward.

Contemplative life is a tapestry of intention and surrender, of reaching out and letting go, of stillness and exhilaration, form and formlessness. It is devotional and non-dual. It is grounded in our connection with the Earth and our interconnectedness with all beings. And it is about moments of rapture in the face of the most ordinary phenomena, in which our particular embodied experience gives way to an undifferentiated melding with All That Is. This is the dance of masculine and feminine, which call each other from the core of our soul DNA, demanding reunification and wholeness.”

—Mirabai Starr. Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics. Boulder, Colorado, Sounds True, 2019.

A variation of this quote is given as an epigraph in Mirabai Starr’s book, Wild Mercy—Chapter 1, Turning Inward: Cultivating Contemplative Life,

“The important thing is not to think much, but to love much, and so to do whatever best awakens you to love.”

—Mirabai Starr [Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics. Boulder, Colorado, Sounds True, 2019] p.17.

Mirabei Starr: “For Teresa, merging with God meant turning inward and following the fragrance of love all the way to the center of her own being, where the Beloved dwelled. It’s from here that he called to her and from here he welcomed her home. She found traces of this presence everywhere she went. This is the trajectory Teresa so masterfully describes in her guide to spiritual development, the Interior Castle…”

“If you want to make progress on the path and ascend to the places you have longed for, the important thing is not to think too much, and so to do whatever best awakens your love. If you fall sometimes, do not lose heart. Keep striving to walk your path with integrity. God will draw out the good even from your fall.”

—Teresa of Avila [The Interior Castle. Translated by Mirabai Starr, New York, Riverhead Books, 2003].

Awakens Your Love

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