The Inner Man

For the inner man, the new man says St. Augustine the first grade is living according to the ideas of good and saintly people but he is still childish, dependent and like an infant at the breast.

In the second grade, he no longer attends only to the examples of good people but he runs in hot pursuit of instruction, the counsel of God and divine wisdom, turning his back on the human and his face toward God.

In the third grade - putting fear away, he is taken up with the love of God, trusting Him with such zeal that at last he is established in joy and delight, so that whatever is unlike God… or unseemly in His presence has become disagreeable.

In the fourth grade he keeps growing and becomes sufficiently rooted in God’s love to be ready always to encounter temptation in any shape, to be put to the test, and is willing to suffer and to suffer gladly, with desire and joy.

In the fifth grade, he is at peace with himself and the world, at rest in the riches and delight of the highest, unspeakable wisdom.

In the sixth grade, he is “disformed” and transformed in the divine eternal nature, having achieved full perfection. He has forgotten the things of this passing temporal life and has been caught up into the likeness of God, having become a child of God. 

There is no higher grade, nothing beyond this. It is eternal rest and blessing - the final end of the inner and new man, eternal life.

There are no distinctions in God and no differences between the divine Persons, since they are to be regarded as one in nature.

Mystical Teachings

The divine nature is Oneness, and each Person is One, the same One in [God’s] nature. Since we find God in oneness, that oneness must be in him who is to find God. Be therefore that One so that you may find God. And of course, if you are wholly that One, you shall remain so, even where [apparent] distinctions are.

Different things will all be parts of that One to you, and you will no longer stand in your way. To look for unity short of God is to be self-deceived. This One is a friend only to persons of chaste and virgin hearts. This is how man is to be united to that One that only God is. He is a person who submits completely to God, giving up all he is and has a person who looks up to God, disregarding the self. That is genuine and perfect humility. He has nothing more to do with vanity. He is now pure being, goodness and truth. To be like this is to be a noble man (aristocrat) and nothing else.

When creatures are known in God, that is knowledge, in which creatures are perceived without distinctions, all ideas being rejected, all comparisons done away in that One that God Himself is. This is the knowledge that characterizes the aristocrat. He is One and knows God and creatures as they are One. The aristocrat is one who derives his being, his life and his happiness from God alone, with God and in God, and not at all from his knowledge, perception or love of God, or any such thing.

A person can hardly know that he knows God when he does not know himself! For a man must himself be One, seeking unity both in himself and in the One, experiencing it as the One, which means that he must see God and God only. And then he must return, which is to say, he must have knowledge of God and be conscious of his knowledge.

The foundation of spiritual blessing is this: that the soul looks at God without anything between.

Our Lord speaks in the prophet Hosea: “I will allure her, the soul into the wilderness and there speak to her heart, that is, One to one, one from One, one in One and One in one, eternally.