“Nine verses made upon an ecstasy of high contemplation” by Saint John of the Cross
I entered in, not knowing where,
And there remained uncomprehending,
All knowledge transcending.
I entered – where – I did not know,
Yet when I found that I was there,
Though where I was I did not know,
Profound and subtle things I learned;
Nor can I say what I discerned,
For I remained uncomprehending,
All knowledge transcending.
Of peace and holy truth
It was knowledge to perfection,
Within the depths of solitude
The narrow path of wisdom;
A secret so profoundly hidden
That I was left there stammering,
All knowledge transcending.
I was so caught up and rapt away,
In such oblivion immersed,
That every sense and feeling lay
Of sense and feeling dispossessed;
And so my mind and soul were blessed
To understand not understanding,
All knowledge transcending.
The one who truly reaches there
No longer in himself remains,
And all that he had known at first
Seems base and mean to him, and wanes
So great a knowledge the he gains
That he is left uncomprehending
All knowledge transcending.
His understanding is the less endowed
The more he climbs to greater heights
To understand the shadowed cloud
Which there illuminates the night;
Thus he who comprehends this sight
Will always stay not understanding,
All knowledge transcending.
This knowledge through uncomprehending
Is of such supreme dominion
That by learned men contending
It is never grasped or won;
Their learning never lights upon
The knowledge of unknowing,
Beyond all knowledge going.
And that exalted wisdom
Is of such a high degree,
It can be undertaken
By no art or faculty;
Who knows the way to mastery
By a knowledge that unknown
Transcending ever goes.
And if you wish to hear,
This highest knowledge is conceived
In a sense, sublime and clear
Of the essence of the Deity;
It is an act of His great Clemency
That keeps us there uncomprehending,
All knowledge transcending.
-Saint John of the Cross
The truly mystic man knows that the rationalist outlook is a corruption of understanding, which displaces the direct and silent knowing of God, incommunicable in words. What if the inspired man wishes to speak to those who only understand words? The paradox is then in the hands of the inspired man, a tool to order the cognitive elements instead of placing them as opposites.
In this beautiful poem, St. John of the Cross speaks to us about two ways of acquiring knowing: one from the mind, and one from the spirit. Because knowing from the spirit is superior than knowing from the mind, the latter is overwhelmed, thus surrenders its privilege to spiritual knowledge, allowing a coexistence of both views in the same man. In other words, in this poem, when he ignores God and considers Him to be inscrutable, it’s because he uses his reason, and fails to grasp the totality. But as an inspired man, he subordinates his reasoning to his spirit, and so he knows even what seems to be unknowable.
Undoubtedly, it is necessary to revaluate our current priorities in knowledge, in order that they might reach a whole notion of Truth.