The Interior Castle with its seven dwelling places is simply a way of explaining how we experience God at the different levels on the journey to the center where we encounter our true selves. Selfknowledge, surrender, humility and love grow in each of the various stages. In the fourth dwelling places God takes on a more active role in this transforming experience. This active role by God is called mystical experience.
We must prepare for the fourth dwelling places with a long period of faithfulness to prayer and a committed life. In the end, however, it is a total gift from God.
Like all the experiences of the Castle the events of the fourth dwelling places have a clear goal: self-discovery that leads to union with God. This movement produces a new life moving away from selfishness and focusing on God who dwells within us at the center. When this happens our life dramatically changes for the better.
The fourth dwelling places proceed from the ego-driven and controlled actions of the first three dwelling places towards union with God. Letting go generates the change. A growing awareness delivers us from being petty and thin-skinned. On the contrary, there is a peace that opens us up to surrender and acceptance on an unprecedented level. We experience a new freedom in the Lord.
Teresa clarifies this dramatic change using the comparison and contrast between two words: “contentos” and “gustos” In English they are “consolations” and “spiritual delights.”
“Well now. In speaking about what I said I’d mention here concerning the difference in prayer between consolations and spiritual delights, the term “consolations,” I think, can be given to those experiences we ourselves acquire through our own meditation and petitions to the Lord, those that proceed from our own nature – although God in the end does have a hand in them; for it must be understood, in whatever I say, that without Him we can do nothing. But the “consolations” arise from the virtuous work itself that we perform, and it seems that we have earned them through our own effort and are rightly consoled for having engaged in such deeds. (IC IV.1.4)
Consolations are natural and often helpful but in the end not necessary for spiritual progress. They produce strong positive feelings that make the spiritual journey a bit easier. They are similar to other strong emotional encounters such as winning the lottery or the experience of an unexpected healing. In the spiritual journey they begin in human nature and often lead to God.
Spiritual delights are quite different. Here the experience comes directly from God. This is a totally new encounter on the spiritual journey. This action results in movement toward the center that draws us into God’s desires. The spiritual delights always begin in God and end in our human experience.
Teresa uses a phrase from the psalms to show how this new experience expands the heart. “I will run the way of your commands, for you open my docile heart.” (Ps 119:32) This expansion of the heart flows from the gift of spiritual delights. God acts to enlarge our capacity to receive God’s loving and transforming presence. The individual sees with new clarity the extent and dominance of one’s personal weaknesses, deceptions, illusions and over-all self-grandiosity. It is not a pleasant experience.
The fundamental teaching of Teresa on self-knowledge and humility now takes place with unprecedented clarity and depth. The experience leads to a growing acceptance of God’s grandeur and mercy. The fourth dwelling places are essentially a bridge that connects what Teresa called the natural and supernatural. Today we understand these events in the overall context of grace. Our good will opens up the possibility but in the end, it is the action of God. This bridge leads to the fifth and sixth dwelling places that intensify the journey to the center, union with God and the total transformation of the person in the seventh dwelling places. Today we understand this journey through the final dwelling places as the complete human development of the individual.
An adjustment takes place deep within us. The new experience of God happens at a level particular to the fourth dwelling places. We usually do not understand this new activity. God purifies both our image of God and our self-understanding. The different and direct activity of God leads to feelings of chaos within us. The dryness and even a feeling of abandonment lead us to feel confused and lost. Prayer seems futile. Teresa explains that these changes happen because God’s new presence expands and transforms the soul. We are learning to love in a totally new way. Growth is happening.
“Just as we cannot stop the movement of the heavens, so neither can we stop our mind; and then the faculties of the soul go with it, and we think we are lost and have wasted the time spent before God. But the soul is perhaps completely joined with him in the dwelling places very close to the center while the mind is on the outskirts of the castle suffering from a thousand wild and poisonous beasts and meriting by this suffering. As a result we should not be disturbed. (IC IV.1.9)
Teresa has a strong admonition to help this new form of prayer in the fourth dwelling places. This prayer moves from the mind to the heart. The new style of prayer is non-discursive which means thinking lessens and quiet presence increases. She invites the individual to forsake the prayer that is dominated by reflections and seeking deeper insights. “I only wish to inform you that in order to profit by this path and ascend to the dwelling places we desire, the important thing is not to think much but to love much and so do that which best stirs you to love.” (IV.1.7) This departure from thinking to loving is the major change in the prayer of the fourth dwelling places. We leave the soul in God’s hands. This losing control leads to surrender that characterizes the change in the fourth dwelling places. The switch to contemplative prayer takes place.
Teresa has another example to help clarify this prayer of the fourth dwelling places. She talks about getting water. The former prayer of the first three dwelling places demanded a lot of effort, like walking a long distance to obtain water. Now in the fourth dwelling places the prayer is a total gift. The water just bubbles up as the person needs it. This new dimension is the mystical experience.
As contemplative prayer begins one cannot reach God by sheer human effort. That is why we need to give up control. We must surrender. This submission holds true both in prayer and life in the fourth dwelling places.
We begin to experience things in a new and fascinating way. Our relationships experience a new independence. We let people be free. Our clinging fades. We recognize that others are quite capable of directing their lives without our direction. This happens “because being closer to the center room, the eyes of the soul begin to see the self and others through the eyes of God.” (IC IV.2.5-6)
In the fourth dwelling places the upside down images of the Gospel where first is last and the need to lose one’s life to save it kick in in a forceful way. The basic shift to place God at the center leads to new perceptions never possible before. A less self-centered focus lights up the world in all manner of ways that shatters the former darkness. The new awareness opens up both the grandeur of God and discloses the consequences of our dependence on God. God’s mercy becomes front and center.
The activity of God makes the difference in the fourth dwelling places. The spiritual delights flow from God’s action. This movement of God is contemplation. The divine action produces a change for the good. The individual receives healing that transforms. We no longer try to conquer God but are free and open to be conquered by love. Letting go and letting God has never been so real. The fourth dwelling places points to the deeper and richer presence that lies ahead in the fifth and sixth dwelling places. Both the heights of joy and the agony of the purification and transformation enter new depths. Then in the center, the seventh dwelling places, a new peace prevails. The spiritual marriage that is union with God completes the transformation of the individual.
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