The Fourth Dwelling Places of The Interior Castle
The Interior Castle, with its seven dwelling places, enlightens how we experience God at the different levels on the journey to Paradise. The entire process is a movement to the center where God dwells. Self-knowledge, 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 the bridge to the experience of contemplation. This is a radical change. This clearly is different from all previous experiences of God’s grace.Like all the personal activity of the Castle, the processes of the fourth dwelling places are simply part of a journey of self-discovery that leads to union with God. The action of this stage moves away from selfishness in a new and intense way. There is a direct awareness of God who dwells within us at the center. The consequences are significant changes for the better.
The ego-driven and controlled actions of the first three dwelling places encounter the bridge. This crossing is the invitation into contemplation where God actively purifies and transforms us. These changes emerge in the stages leading towards union with God. It is the awesome power of the first step onto the bridge that shatters the false stability of the third dwelling places. This is the beginning of the contemplative experience. Letting go is crucial to the change. A growing awareness delivers us from being petty and thin-skinned. 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’s Two Examples
Teresa uses two rich examples to illuminate the action of God in the fourth dwelling places. All through her writings she uses water to unveil the action of God in the human heart. Here in the fourth dwelling places she lays out this scenario. The Carmelite author uses the example of two ways of getting water to explain the new dimension of prayer at this new level. She compares it to the transition in the style of prayer in the third and fourth dwelling places.
The first way of gathering water demands a great deal of effort such as pulling the water out of well or walking a great distance for the water. The second example is where the water just bubbles up in the garden or there is a downpour of rain. Here the prayer is a gift without effort. This is the difference in the prayer on the two sides of the bridge, the third and fourth dwelling places. This new dimension is the mystical experience of God’s extraordinary activity in the soul.
Teresa further clarifies this dramatic change in the pattern of prayer 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. In the end, however, they are not necessary for spiritual progress. They generate strong emotional encounters like winning the lottery or the experience of an unexpected healing. The compelling positive feelings make the spiritual journey a bit more tranquil. In the spiritual journey they begin in human nature and often lead to God.
Spiritual delights are a totally different event. “The spiritual delight is not something that can be imagined, because however diligent or efforts, we cannot acquire it.” (IC 4.11.4) Here the experience is initiated by God. This is a totally new encounter on the spiritual journey. This divine action frees the passage toward the center. This encounter draws us to embrace God’s desires. The spiritual delights always begin in God and ends in our human experience. It is clearly a movement away from self-centeredness. It places God at the center of our life.
The Beginning of Transformation
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. Teresa’s basic message highlights self-knowledge and humility. This two-faced reality now takes place with unique clarity and depth. There is 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 is always necessary but in the end, the action of God opens the way. Today we understand this journey through the final dwelling places as the complete human development of the individual.
Consequences of Contemplative Prayer
The new experience of God, the bridge to contemplation, is the main characteristic of 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, opens us to feelings of being in disarray 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. This contemplative prayer is non-discursive. This implies less thinking and more awareness of a quiet and loving presence. She invites the individual to forsake the prayer that is dominated by reflections and seeks 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 reduction of thinking and expansion of 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.
As contemplative prayer begins, the frustration is that 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.
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 shattering the former darkness. The new awareness opens both the grandeur of God and discloses the consequences of our dependence on God. God’s mercy becomes front and center.
We begin to experience things in a new and fascinating way. Our relationships reveal 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)
Conclusion
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 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 point to the deeper and richer presence that lies ahead in the fifth and sixth dwelling places where the heights of joy and the agony of the purification and transformation enter new depths. Then in the center, the seventh dwelling places, a newborn and unchanging peace prevails. The spiritual marriage that is union with God completes the transformation of the individual.
