them that at the least movement they will lose their sweet peace."[103] Others say that in this state we “stop the wheel of imagination,” leave all that we can think, sink into our nothingness or our ground.  In Ruysbroeck’s phrase, we are “inwardly abiding in simplicity and stillness and utter peace";[104] and this is man’s state of maximum receptivity.  “The best and noblest way in which thou mayst come into this work and life,” says Meister Eckhart, “is by keeping silence and letting God work and speak ... when we simply keep ourselves receptive we are more perfect than when at work."[105]

But this preparatory state of surrendered quiet must at once be qualified by the second point:  Attention.  It is based upon the right use of the will, and is not a limp yielding to anything or nothing.  It has an ordained deliberate aim, is a behaviour-cycle directed to an end; and this it is that marks out the real and fruitful quiet of the contemplative from the non-directed surrender of mere quietism.  “Nothing,” says St. Teresa, “is learnt without a little pains.  For the love of God, sisters, account that care well employed that ye shall bestow on this thing."[106]

The quieted mind must receive and hold, yet without discursive thought, the idea which it desires to realize; and this idea must interest and be real for it, so that attention is concentrated on it spontaneously.  The more completely the idea absorbs us, the greater its transforming power:  when interest wavers, the suggestion begins to lose ground.  In spite of her subsequent relapse into quietism Madame Guyon accurately described true quiet when she said, “Our activity should consist in endeavouring to acquire and maintain such a state as may be most susceptible of divine impressions, most flexible to all the operations of the Eternal Word."[107] Such concentration can be improved by practice; hence the value of regular meditation and contemplation to those who are in earnest about the spiritual life, the quiet and steady holding in the mind of the thought which it is desired to realize.

Psycho-therapists tell us that, having achieved quiescence, we should rapidly and rythmically, but with intention, repeat the suggestion that we wish to realize; and that the shorter, simpler and more general this verbal formula, the more effective it will be.[108] The spiritual aspect of this law was well understood by the mediaeval mystics.  Thus the author of “The Cloud of Unknowing” says to his disciple, “Fill thy spirit with ghostly meaning of this word Sin, and without any special beholding unto any kind of sin, whether it be venial or deadly.  And cry thus ghostly ever upon one:  Sin!  Sin!  Sin! out! out! out!  This ghostly cry is better learned of God by the proof than of any man by word.  For it is best when it is in pure spirit, without special thought or any pronouncing of word.  On the same manner shalt thou do with this little word God:  and mean God all, and all God, so that nought work