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← The Imitation of Christ/Book 2 · Counsels on the Inner Life
Chapter 5Imit.2.5

De propria consideratione.

The Blindness of Self-Trust

Because grace is scarce and our inner light is dim, we must not trust ourselves, for we are blind to our own faults while quick to judge others.

We can't put too much trust in ourselves, because grace is often lacking in us, the light within us is small, and we quickly lose it through our own negligence. Often we don't even notice how blind we are within. We often act badly and excuse ourselves even worse. Sometimes we're moved by passion and think it's zeal. We pick apart small faults in others and pass over our own far greater ones. We quickly perceive and weigh what we have to endure from others, but we don't notice how much others have to endure from us. Anyone who weighed his own faults honestly and carefully would never judge another person harshly.

Turning the Eye Inward

True interior devotion requires silencing concern for others and attending diligently to oneself and to God, for only then is the soul undisturbed and at peace.

The inward person puts his own care above every other concern, and whoever pays close attention to himself easily stays silent about others. You will never become inward and devoted unless you stop talking about others and turn your attention back to yourself.1 If you give your full attention to yourself and to God, very little of what happens around you will disturb you. Where are you when you're not present to yourself? And when you've run through everything, what have you gained by neglecting yourself? If you want peace and true union, you must set everything else aside and keep only yourself before your eyes.

God Alone, Above All Things

Freedom from worldly attachment and the elevation of God alone as the soul's joy mark the path of true spiritual progress.

You'll make great progress, then, if you keep yourself free from every worldly worry. You'll fall far short if you set your heart on anything worldly.2 Let nothing be exalted to you—nothing great, nothing pleasing, nothing welcome—unless it is purely God or concerns God.3 Count it all as empty—whatever comfort comes to you from any created thing.4 The soul that loves God, under God's authority, despises and looks down on all things.5 God alone—eternal and immense, filling all things—is the soul's comfort and the mind's true joy.6

Read the original Latin

Non possumus nobis ipsis nimis credere, quia sæpe gratia nobis deest, modicum lumen est in nobis, et hoc cito per negligentiam amittimus. Sæpe etiam non advertimus, quod tam cæci intus sumus. Sæpe male agimus, et peius excusamus. Et passione interdum movemur, et zelum putamus. Parva in aliis reprehendimus, et nostra maiora pertransimus. Satis cito persentimus et ponderamus quid ab aliis sustinemus; sed quantum alii de nobis sustinent, non advertimus. Qui bene et recte sua ponderaret, non esset quid de alio graviter iudicaret.

Internus homo sui ipsius curam omnibus curis anteponit: et qui sibi ipsi diligenter intendit, faciliter de aliis tacet. Nunquam eris internus et devotus, nisi de aliis silueris et ad te ipsum specialiter respexeris. Si tibi ipsi et Deo totaliter intendis, modicum te movebit, quod foris percipis. Ubi es, quando tibi ipsi præsens non es? Et quando omnia percurristi, quid te neglecto profecisti? Si debes habere pacem et unionem veram, oportet, quod totum adhuc postponas et te solum præ oculis habeas.

Multum proinde proficies, si te feriatum ab omni temporali cura conserves. Valde deficies, si aliquid temporale reputaveris. Nihil altum, nihil magnum, nihil gratum, nihil acceptum tibi sit, nisi pure Deus, aut de Deo sit. Totum vanum exstima, quidquid consolationis occurrit de aliqua creatura. Amans Deum anima sub Deo contemnit, despicit universa. Solus Deus æternus et immensus, implens omnia, solatium est animæ et vera mentis lætitia.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩silueris and respexeris: forms ambiguous between future perfect indicative and perfect subjunctive; subjunctive preferred after nisi, rendered here as 'unless you have been silent' and 'have turned back.'
  2. 2 ↩reputaveris rendered as 'set your heart on' to capture the evaluative sense of reputo in context — treating something as significant or worthwhile.
  3. 3 ↩The fourfold nihil construction (altum, magnum, gratum, acceptum) is rendered with parallel 'nothing' phrases to preserve the rhetorical force.
  4. 4 ↩Totum vanum exstima rendered as 'Count it all as empty' — vanum carries the sense of futility/emptiness; exstima as imperative 'count/esteem.'
  5. 5 ↩sub Deo rendered as 'under God's authority' to capture the relational subordination, not merely spatial 'under.'
  6. 6 ↩solatium rendered as 'comfort' (consolation/comfort); mentis laetitia as 'the mind's true joy' — mens here denotes the higher faculty of the soul.