“If you have not discerned that the eye of your mind has been opened and that it has seen the light;
If you have not perceived the sweetness of the Godhead;
If you have not been personally enlightened by the Holy Spirit . . .
If you have not sensed that your heart has been cleansed and has shone with luminous reflections;
If, contrary to all expectation, you have not discovered the Christ within yourself;
If you have not been stupefied at your vision of the divine beauty and have not become oblivious of human nature when you saw yourself so totally transfigured . . .
Then tell me: how is it that you dare to make any statement at all about God?”
– Symeon the New Theologian, Hymn 21.
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