What to do
The first dwelling place
The first step towards inner peace is to commit to self-knowledge. ‘[S]elf-knowledge is the most important thing for us,’ Teresa advises. Imagine you were asked where you came from, and you didn’t know. ‘Well now, if this would be so extremely stupid, we are incomparably more so when we do not strive to know who we are, but limit ourselves to considering only roughly these bodies.’ Beginning is straightforward: ‘Insofar as I can understand the door of entry to this castle is prayer and reflection,’ Teresa says.
From an atheist perspective, imagine your inner self as a new love interest. You would get to know them by spending time and doing things together. Similarly, to know yourself better, you intentionally carve out space for introspective reflection. Reflective activities might include journaling, listening to your thoughts, automatic writing, drawing, or dancing.
Teresa pointed to preoccupations with immediate gratifications, success, achievements, fame and possessions as key obstacles to self-knowledge. Like vipers, they poison your soul by siphoning your time and energy. The point of reflection is to become aware of, and then eliminate, beasts of distraction: ‘[S]trive to give up unnecessary things and business affairs … Guard yourselves, my daughters, from extraneous cares.’ There’s no need to give up everything; not even nuns do that: ‘Each one should do this in conformity with his state in life.’
The second dwelling place
Of the second dwelling, Teresa writes: ‘O Jesus, what an uproar the devils instigate here! And the afflictions of the poor soul: it doesn’t know whether to continue or to return to the first room.’ The devil tries to discourage souls from connecting with God by tempting them with earthly superficialities such as ‘pastimes, business affairs, pleasures’. But, Teresa exhorts: ‘oh, my Lord and my God, how the whole world’s habit of getting involved in vanities vitiates everything!’
The most important thing is persistence. ‘One always gains much through perseverance,’ Teresa advises. Continue reflecting. Remember that inner peace is worth it. And choose your company wisely. Teresa had many bad experiences with ‘half-learned’ men. ‘Be careful not to choose someone who will teach you to become a toad, satisfied only with catching little lizards,’ she warns.
While this wisdom applies to non-religious souls, another way to think about this phase is the importance of reevaluating what and who makes you happy. Perhaps you are drawn toward familiar people who remind you of your childhood but who do not support your growth as an adult. It can be hard to walk away from relationships, but sometimes we have to, in order to save ourselves. Instead, focus on nurturing good relationships with wise people.
The third dwelling place
Even greater adversaries lurk in the third dwelling. Illnesses and financial woes, for example, can tempt you to feel that the journey is too hard. ‘It is a great misery to have to live a life in which we must always walk like those whose enemies are at their doorstep,’ Teresa writes. Which is why she points to two strategies for dealing with such disturbances: detachment and humility.
Of people facing challenges, Teresa proposes that: ‘Sometimes seeing their fault distresses them more than the thing that disturbs them, for unable to help themselves they are affected by earthly happenings even though these may not be very burdensome.’ For example, Teresa had visions, people didn’t believe her, and they chastised her. Teresa learned to detach herself from others’ opinions and advised: ‘Humility is the ointment for our wounds because if we indeed have humility, even though there may be a time of delay, the surgeon who is our Lord, will come to heal us.’
Even if the Lord doesn’t come to heal you, practising humility and gratitude for what you have – including your life – can be ameliorating. The third dwelling is all about reframing your perspective. Challenges create opportunities for self-discipline. Reminiscent of the Stoic dichotomy of control, accepting what you can’t control and managing your responses develops inner strength. In the grand scheme of the universe (or God), we’re nothing, so detach yourself from your ego and outcomes. Temper your cravings for prestige and material objects. Let go of your sense of entitlement and need for validation. Care less about other people’s opinions. Be OK with being misunderstood.
The fourth dwelling place
The fourth dwelling calls for cultivating a more sophisticated form of reflection: ‘recollection’. The goal of recollection is to calm your rambling brain by being mindful. ‘[T]he soul instead of striving to engage in discourse strives to remain attentive and aware of what the Lord is working in it,’ Teresa explains.
Teresa meditated on Bible stories and God, but recommended doing whatever supports you in being present. ‘[A] book can be a help,’ Teresa offers, and: ‘It helped me also to look at fields, or water, or flowers.’ Whether you contemplate literature, nature, art or the mysteries of life, Teresa suggests that the point is ‘considering in detail the things there are to think of and feel.’ It took Teresa 20 years to master this, but for another person she said it might take just a day. That’s up to God.
Teresa believed that ‘supernatural experiences begin here’ but, even without supernatural influences, it makes sense that, given the practices of the earlier three realms, you’re better prepared to fight beasts of distraction and face trials. As for recollection, sometimes the doing is simply being – or being open, letting go, and accepting – not adding more to your to-do list. The more you practise being open and present to the moment as you go about your everyday activities, the easier it will be, and the greater benefits you will reap.
The fifth dwelling place
Imagine your soul is like a silkworm. It grows by eating mulberry leaves but soon realises its life lacks meaning, so it builds itself a cocoon. For a more meaningful life, Teresa advises that we too need to build ourselves a metaphorical cocoon in which we shed self-love, let go of attachments, and pray.
In this cocoon, Teresa believed that the soul can finally touch God and metamorphose: ‘When the soul is, in this prayer, truly dead to the world, a little white butterfly comes forth. Oh, greatness of God! How transformed the soul is when it comes out of this prayer after having been placed within the greatness of God and so closely joined with Him for a little while – in my opinion the union never lasts for as much as a half hour.’ But the cocoon phase is not fun. Teresa writes: ‘[I]t seems that the pain breaks and grinds the soul into pieces.’ But it’s worth it. ‘[I]f after God brings a soul here it makes the effort to advance, it will see great things.’
Back to the dating metaphor: you and your inner soul have spent time together, got to know each other, overcome many obstacles to the relationship, started to be intimate, and now the focus is on the possibility of marriage. The cocoon phase involves killing your former self (as a silkworm). It’s hard because you become estranged from your former life, connections and everything you used to value. It’s understandable to feel sad about the death of your old self and attachments. But the benefit is opening yourself up to new possibilities of togetherness with your inner self, to see how to integrate, and agree on how to live together more authentically (as a butterfly).
The sixth dwelling place
The penultimate dwelling is the space of spiritual betrothal. After meeting God in the cocoon, ‘the soul is now wounded with love for its Spouse and strives for more opportunities to be alone [with Him],’ Teresa writes. As immortalised in Bernini’s orgasmic sculpture, when Teresa connected with God, she swooned with great but delightful pain. She would cry aloud and thought she was dying, but trembled with delight over the ‘fiery arrow’ penetrating her soul. She didn’t want to be cured of the satisfying wound because when ‘He who wounds it draws out the arrow, it indeed seems, in accord with the deep love the soul feels, that God is drawing these very depths after Him.’
[Inline image: Bernini’s The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa (c1645-52). Courtesy Wikipedia]
In addition to the pain of love, Teresa faced the emotional pain of gossip and slander. She endured the struggles by likening them to cleansing in Purgatory and believed the only solution is patience: ‘[T]here is no remedy in this tempest but to wait for the mercy of God.’ The mercies of God included locutions such as ‘Don’t be distressed’, ‘Be calm’ and ‘Everything will turn out all right’, which resonated with Teresa from the depths of her soul.
Teresa assumed the reminders came from God but it seems plausible that affirming these kinds of messages yourself can be soothing. It’s also understandable that getting in touch with your core desires sparks your curiosity for more, especially if it leaves you with a sense of harmony. But, like Teresa’s raptures, living in accordance with your inner truth might be a delightful torment, incomprehensible to others and painful for you, but ultimately ecstatic. You may not experience orgasmic transcendence when you connect with the core of your soul, but perhaps that’s just as well: Teresa’s ecstasies (sometimes dismissed as epileptic seizures) often occurred at inconvenient times and in public, ‘Hence, persecutions and criticism,’ she notes.
The seventh dwelling place
In the final dwelling, the mystical marriage takes place. ‘The Lord appears in this centre of the soul,’ Teresa writes, and ‘joins the soul to Himself.’ The soul aligns with the divine, and the butterfly dies joyfully ‘because its life is now Christ.’ Teresa likens it to when rain falls into a stream and the waters combine so you can’t separate them.
In this stage, ‘The soul doesn’t worry about all that can happen.’ It exists only in the service of God. (Of course, a person still eats and sleeps, but Teresa’s focus is what’s happening internally.) In forgetting itself, the soul finally realises inner tranquility and freedom from earthly distractions. Suffering is desired, persecutors are loved, and death is no longer feared because the soul understands it’s God’s will.
The most startling thing that Teresa mentions about the soul’s core, in my opinion, is that there’s a mirror there. You find the god at your centre illuminated and reflected back to you. You realise the truth of who you really are. A secular interpretation is that being united with your inner self – like in a great marriage – fortifies you. The fragmented parts of your being fuse into an integrated totality that gives you the serenity and confidence to act authentically.
Teresa believed God was at the centre of the soul, hence it had to be good. But why should you believe your inner self is necessarily good? There’s no guarantee, but if you heed Teresa’s advice to ‘Strive for the virtues and practise them’, and focus on ‘the birth always of good works, good works’, then you need not fear monsters lurking in your depths.