The strange thing about this castle is that it is our soul. It is so small as to be invisible, and yet large enough for God to live there. And some reptiles too.

I am not sure whether I have used this picture before. It may well be, for I know I have written about this topic before, about the inner castle keep. I think it may have been in this anime (History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi) that I first saw it, or at least that it first made a lasting impression on me, that we can have a huge castle inside, even as small as we are. It also ties in with the A and B influences of Boris Mouravieff, one of the weirdest thinkers to ever graze the fringe of the Christian religion, from what I hear. I picked up that particular notion of his through the One Cosmos blog a few years ago, though I am not sure if it was before or after I saw this anime.

Basically A influences are all the things in life that fits right in with our life as smart apes, while B influences are the things that fits with our life as eternal spirits. There is by and large very little overlap between these two world views, and yet most of us usually lives in them both to some degree. Or perhaps just around half of us, if Mouravieff is right, as he is quoted as thinking that approximately half the human populace has no spiritual side whatsoever, and cannot understand or relate to such things no matter what is done or said (though they can pretend to for worldly gain if they live in a religious society).

On the other extreme, you have people like St Teresa of Avila, whom I did not know about until a couple days ago. I mean, I knew she was a Catholic saint. That was not much of a recommendation for most of my life: I grew up in Norway, which was almost pure Lutheran Protestant before it became post-Christian as it mostly is with my generation and later. We were led to believe that Catholicism was a kind of “paganism lite”, with the saints playing much the same role as minor deities of the pantheons formerly worshiped in Europe. Kind of like Christmas was dressed onto the existing midwinter holiday, I suppose. Paganism with a Christian face.

Of late, I have come to see this in a different light. I have taken some pretty long detours, admittedly: My understanding of Catholic saints is now similar to how I see Buddhist bodhisattvas. Not identical, but quite similar. But there are also other elements, like the Taoist notion of the Immortals. I think “eternals” is a better concept though, because while I would be happy to achieve immortality through not dying, it is possible to become an Eternal even if you die. As Jesus Christ said about the Patriarchs: They all live before God. And the saints likewise, if not more so, are still alive in the theosphere even if their bodies are long gone.  If you for some reason happen to wander into that realm, you may meet them in a more intimate way than your neighbors or coworkers.

This just recently happened to me. Amazon.com sent me a mail recommending a number of books, most of them old-fashioned spiritual books (and one manga tankubon…) based on my buying history. One of the books was “The Interior Castle” by St Teresa of Avila. Given that I have thought (and written) about this topic several times, and given that the book is freely available (though not from Amazon) – its copyright expired long ago –  I started reading it.

I soon ran into a problem. The problem was that I was so overwhelmed by joy that I could not continue reading. The brightness of her words, the way she verified things that made sense but that I had feared might not be Christian. It was a bit like a court case where the crown witness is led in and suddenly you start thinking that you might win after all.

St Teresa, where have you been all my life?

This is probably going to sound weird even to people who respect me, if there are any left. But I seriously had to restrain myself to not squeal loudly and hug random objects from the pure pleasure of the reading.  It was a pleasure that was in a certain meaning “sensual” in that it filled my body, but it was not sexual. I may not look like it, but I do know sexual pleasure, just take my word for it. This was not it. But it was a certain kind of ecstasy from within. If those who fall in love feel as strongly as I did (and they probably do) then I can understand why they behave the way they do.

Be that as it may, St Teresa is awesome, or I am badly misguided.

The interior castle she describes is made of a single enormous diamond or other clear crystal, at the center of which God dwells in a very bright light. (Yes, that is eerily similar to Happy Science’s notion of the Buddha-nature within, which is customarily described as a diamond and shining with a bright, warm light. I believe this notion comes to them from Buddha, whereas it almost certainly did not come to St Teresa from that quarter. Perhaps it just happens to be a very good description.)

Unfortunately, the castle is easily covered by dark cloth (it is not very big until you enter into it). It is also surrounded by reptiles. She keeps using this expression over and over during her first chapters, which are the only ones I have read after several days. Reptiles, snakes, venomous reptiles. They even follow you into the castle, where they are numerous in the outer mansions, and it is almost impossible not to be bitten by them.

Tell me about it!

Even though, and even after, I have rejoiced in the pure joy of the spiritual teaching, these critters are still biting at my heels. But that is life, I guess. The B influences yearn against the A influences, and the A influences against the B influences. They oppose each other, so that we may not do what we want.