Cuartas moradas, Capítulo 1. Trata de la diferencia que hay de contentos y ternura en la oración y de gustos, y dice el contento que le dio entender que es cosa diferente el pensamiento y el entendimiento. - Es de provecho para quien se divierte mucho en la oración.

The Lord's Generosity in the Fourth Dwellings

Teresa introduces the fourth dwellings as the threshold of supernatural favors, where the Lord freely gives His gifts and temptations serve to protect the soul.

1. To begin speaking of the fourth dwellings, I really need what I've already done: to entrust myself to the Holy Spirit and beg Him from now on to speak through me, so I can say something about those that remain in a way you'll understand; because they are beginning to be supernatural things, and it's extremely hard to make them understandable if His Majesty doesn't do it, as in another writing I composed based on what I understood then, about fourteen years ago, more or less. Although it seems to me I have a little more light about these favors the Lord grants some souls, knowing how to put them into words is another matter. May His Majesty do it if some good is to come of it, and if not, then not. 2. Since these dwellings are already closer to where the King is, their beauty is great, and there are things so delicate to see and understand that the understanding can't figure out how to say anything exactly right without it remaining fairly obscure to those without experience; whoever has that experience will understand it very well, especially if it's deep. It will seem that to reach these dwellings you need to have lived a long time in the others; and although the usual thing is that you need to have been in the one we just finished talking about, that isn't a fixed rule, as you've already heard many times; because the Lord gives when He wills, as He wills, and to whom He wills, as goods that are His own, and He wrongs no one. 3. In these dwellings, poisonous things rarely enter, and if they do, they do no harm; instead, they leave a gain. And I think it's far better when they do enter and wage war in this state of prayer; because if there were no temptations, the devil could deceive—amid the delights God gives—and do far more harm than when temptations are present, and the soul would not gain nearly as much, at least by stripping away everything that would give it a chance to merit, and leaving it in an ordinary absorption.¹² For when that absorption is steady and unchanging, I don't consider it safe, nor does it seem possible to me that the Spirit of the Lord should remain always the same in this exile.³

Consolations and Delights: Distinguishing the Human from the Divine

Teresa explains the difference between consolations, which arise from our own nature aided by God, and delights, which originate from God and enlarge the heart.

4. So, turning to what I said I'd discuss here—the difference between consolations in prayer and delights—consolations, it seems to me, are what we ourselves acquire through our meditation and petitions to our Lord. They proceed from our own nature, though in the end God helps toward them—and that must be understood whenever I say we can do nothing without Him. But they spring from the very virtuous work we do, and it seems we've earned them by our labor, and with good reason it satisfies us to have spent ourselves on such things.⁴ But if we think about it, we'll have the same consolations in many things that can happen to us on earth: as when a large estate is suddenly provided for someone; as when we suddenly see a person we love dearly; as when we've succeeded in an important affair and a great matter that everyone praises; as when a woman has been told her husband or brother or son is dead, and she sees him come alive. I've seen people shed tears from a great consolation, and it's even happened to me at times. It seems to me that just as these consolations are natural, so too are those that the things of God give us—except that they are of a nobler lineage, though the others weren't bad either.⁵ In short, they begin from our own nature itself and end in God. The delights begin from God, and our nature feels them and enjoys them as much as it does those I've already mentioned—and much more. Oh Jesus, how I long to know how to make myself clear about this! Because I understand—or so it seems to me—a very clear difference, and my knowledge isn't enough to make myself understood. May the Lord do it. 5. Now I remember a verse we say at Prime, at the end of the last psalm, which at the close of the verse says: Cum dilatasti cor meum.⁶ For anyone with much experience, this is enough to see the difference between the one and the other; for anyone without it, more is needed. The consolations already mentioned don't enlarge the heart; on the contrary, most often they seem to tighten it a little, though with complete contentment at seeing that it's done for God; but some anguished tears come that in some way seem to be stirred by passion.⁷ I know little about these passions of the soul—which might perhaps make it clear to me—and about what comes from the senses and from our nature, because I'm very dull; I'd know how to explain myself if, having gone through it, I understood it.⁸ Learning and letters are a great thing for everything. 6. What I know from experience of this state — I mean these gifts and consolations in meditation — is that if I started weeping over the Passion, I couldn't stop until my head was splitting; if over my sins, the same.⁹ Our Lord was granting me a great favor — and I don't want to examine now which is better, the one or the other; I only want to be able to explain the difference between them. In these things, these tears and desires sometimes come aided by our nature and by whatever our disposition happens to be; but in the end, as I've said, they come to rest in God, even so.¹⁰ And they should be highly valued, if there's humility enough to understand that people aren't better for having them; because you can't tell whether they're all effects of love — and when they are, they're given by God. For the most part, souls in the dwellings they've already passed through have these kinds of devotion, because they go almost continually with work of the understanding, occupied in reasoning with the intellect and in meditation; and they're doing well, because nothing more has been given them — though they'd do right to spend a while making acts of the will and praising God, delighting in His goodness and that He is who He is, and desiring His honor and glory.¹¹ Do this as best you can, because it greatly awakens the will. And take great care: when the Lord gives them this other gift, not to leave it aside in order to finish the meditation they're used to doing.¹²

Love Over Thought: The Path to Progress

Teresa warns that progress in prayer is measured by love, not intellect, and teaches that the imagination is distinct from the understanding, which brings peace amidst distractions.

7. Since I’ve already written about this at length elsewhere, I won’t repeat it here. I only want you to take this warning: to make much progress on this path and climb to the dwellings we desire, the point isn't thinking a great deal, but loving a great deal; and so whatever most awakens you to love, do that. Perhaps we don't know what it is to love, and I won't be much surprised; because it doesn't lie in the greatest delight, but in the greatest determination to want to please God in everything, and to try, as far as we can, not to offend Him, and to beg Him that the honor and glory of His Son and the growth of the Catholic Church may always go forward.¹³ These are the signs of love, and don't think the point is to never think of anything else, or that if your mind wanders a little, everything is lost.¹⁴ 8. I've been quite hard-pressed at times by this uproar of thought, and it's a little more than four years since I came to understand by experience that the thought (or imagination, so it may be clearer) is not the understanding; and I asked a learned man about it, and he told me it was so, which was no small consolation to me.¹⁵ Because, since the understanding is one of the faculties of the soul, it seemed a hard thing to me that it should be so stunned at times—and ordinarily thought flies off so quickly that only God can bind it, when He binds us to Himself in such a way that we seem somehow loosened from this body.¹⁶ I saw, as it seemed to me, the faculties of the soul occupied with God and gathered in recollection with Him, and on the other hand the thought in an uproar: it left me feeling foolish. 9. O Lord, consider how much we go through on this path because we don't know! And the trouble is that, since we don't think there's anything more to know than thinking of You, we don't even know how to ask those who do know, nor do we understand what we ought to ask; and we experience terrible hardships because we don't understand ourselves, and we take what isn't bad but good for a great fault. From this come the afflictions of many who practice prayer, and their complaints about interior trials—at least a large share among those without learning—and melancholy sets in, and they lose their health and even give up prayer entirely, because they don't realize there is an interior world within; and just as we can't stop the movement of the heavens, which races at full speed, neither can we control our thought, and then we throw all the soul's powers into it, and it seems to us that we are lost and have badly wasted the time we spend before God; and yet the soul may well be completely gathered with Him in the dwellings very near, while the thought is out in the outskirts of the castle, suffering among a thousand wild and venomous beasts and earning merit through that suffering; and so this must neither disturb us nor make us abandon it, which is what the devil intends.¹⁷¹⁸ And for the most part, all the unrest and trials come from this failure to understand ourselves.

Enduring Interior Battles with Patience

Teresa describes the noise and distraction in the head, comforts souls that suffer from wandering thoughts, and encourages patience and self-knowledge rather than self-blame.

10. As I'm writing this, I'm considering what's going on in my head—that great noise in there that I mentioned at the beginning, which made it almost impossible for me to do the writing I was ordered to do. It's as if there are many swollen rivers in there, and on the other hand, as if these waters are plunging down; many little birds and whistling sounds—not in the ears, but in the upper part of the head, where they say the higher part of the soul is.¹⁹ And I was in this state for a long time, because it seemed that the spirit's great upward movement was rising quickly. May it please God that I remember, in the later dwelling places, to explain the cause of this, which doesn't fit well here; and it wouldn't be surprising if the Lord wanted to give me this headache so that I could understand it better—because even with all this uproar in it, it doesn't hinder my prayer or what I'm saying; rather, the soul remains completely intact in its quiet, love, desires, and clear knowledge.²⁰ 11. So if the higher part of the soul is in the upper part of the head, how does this not disturb it? I don't know that myself; but I do know that what I'm saying is true. It's distressing when the prayer is not with suspension — for then, until it passes, you feel no harm at all; but it would be a great harm if I gave up everything because of this impediment.²¹ And so it isn't good for us to get troubled by thoughts or to make anything of them; for if the devil puts them there, he'll stop when we do this; and if it comes — as it does — from the misery left us by Adam's sin along with many other miseries, let's have patience and bear it for the love of God, since we're also subject to eating and sleeping, which we can't get out of, and that's hardship enough. 12. Let us know our misery, and let us long to go where "no one despises us"; for I sometimes remember hearing what the Bride says in the Song of Songs, and truly I find nothing in all of life to which those words can more rightly be applied — because all the scorn and hardships there can be in life do not seem to me to come near these interior battles.^✦ Any unrest and warfare can be endured when we find peace where we live — as I've already said; but that we want to come and rest from the thousand hardships there are in the world, and that the Lord should be willing to prepare that rest for us, and that the obstacle should be in ourselves — that can't help but be very painful and almost unbearable.²² For that reason, Lord, bring us where these miseries will not despise us — for they sometimes seem to mock the soul. Even in this life, the Lord frees her from this when she has reached the final dwelling, as we will say, if God so wills. 13. And these miseries won't cause everyone as much distress, nor will they attack them as they attacked me for many years because I was so wretched—it seemed I myself wanted to take revenge on myself. And since it's such a painful thing for me, I think it may perhaps be the same for you, and I keep saying it again and again, hoping I might somehow make you understand how unavoidable it is—so that it doesn't leave you restless and distressed, but rather that we let this mill-clapper keep rattling and grind our flour, without ceasing to work with the will and the understanding.²³ 14. There's more or less of this hindrance, depending on health and on the times. Let the poor soul suffer, even though she isn't at fault in this—we'll do other things that make it only fair we should have patience. And because what we read and what we're told—namely, that we shouldn't pay attention to these thoughts—isn't enough, for those of us who know little, it doesn't seem to me a waste of time to spend all this time explaining it further and consoling you in this matter; but until the Lord is willing to give us light, it does little good. But it is necessary, and His Majesty wants us to take measures and understand ourselves—and not to put the blame on the soul for what the weak imagination, our nature, and the devil do.

Read the original Spanish

1. Para comenzar a hablar de las cuartas moradas bien he menester lo que he hecho, que es encomendarme al Espíritu Santo y suplicarle de aquí adelante hable por mí, para decir algo de las que quedan de manera que lo entendáis; porque comienzan a ser cosas sobrenaturales, y es dificultosísimo de dar a entender, si Su Majestad no lo hace, como en otra parte que se escribió hasta donde yo había entendido, catorce años ha, poco más o menos. Aunque un poco más luz me parece tengo de estas mercedes que el Señor hace a algunas almas, es diferente el saberlas decir. Hágalo Su Majestad si se ha de seguir algún provecho, y si no, no.

2. Como ya estas moradas se llegan más adonde está el Rey, es grande su hermosura y hay cosas tan delicadas que ver y que entender, que el entendimiento no es capaz para poder dar traza cómo se diga siquiera algo que venga tan al justo que no quede bien oscuro para los que no tienen experiencia; que quien la tiene muy bien lo entenderá, en especial si es mucha. Parecerá que para llegar a estas moradas se ha de haber vivido en las otras mucho tiempo; y aunque lo ordinario es que se ha de haber estado en la que acabamos de decir, no es regla cierta, como ya habréis oído muchas veces; porque da el Señor cuando quiere y como quiere y a quien quiere, como bienes suyos, que no hace agravio a nadie.

3. En estas moradas pocas veces entran las cosas ponzoñosas, y si entran no hacen daño, antes dejan con ganancia. Y tengo por muy mejor cuando entran y dan guerra en este estado de oración; porque podría el demonio engañar, a vueltas de los gustos que da Dios, si no hubiese tentaciones, y hacer mucho más daño que cuando las hay, y no ganar tanto el alma, por lo menos apartando todas las cosas que la han de hacer merecer, y dejarla en un embebecimiento ordinario. Que cuando lo es en un ser, no le tengo por seguro ni me parece posible estar en un ser el espíritu del Señor en este destierro.

4. Pues hablando de lo que dije que diría aquí, de la diferencia que hay entre contentos en la oración o gustos, los contentos me parece a mí se pueden llamar los que nosotros adquirimos con nuestra meditación y peticiones a nuestro Señor, que procede de nuestro natural, aunque en fin ayuda para ello Dios, que hase de entender en cuanto dijere que no podemos nada sin El; mas nacen de la misma obra virtuosa que hacemos y parece a nuestro trabajo lo hemos ganado, y con razón nos da contento habernos empleado en cosas semejantes. Mas, si lo consideramos, los mismos contentos tendremos en muchas cosas que nos pueden suceder en la tierra: así en una gran hacienda que de presto se provea a alguno; como de ver una persona que mucho amamos, de presto; como de haber acertado en un negocio importante y cosa grande, de que todos dicen bien; como si a alguna le han dicho que es muerto su marido o hermano o hijo y le ve venir vivo. Yo he visto derramar lágrimas de un gran contento, y aun me ha acaecido alguna vez. Paréceme a mí que así como estos contentos son naturales, así en los que nos dan las cosas de Dios, sino que son de linaje más noble, aunque estotros no eran tampoco malos. En fin, comienzan de nuestro natural mismo y acaban en Dios. Los gustos comienzan de Dios y siéntelos el natural y goza tanto de ellos como gozan los que tengo dichos y mucho más. ¡Oh Jesús, y qué deseo tengo de saber declararme en esto!

; porque entiendo, a mi parecer, muy conocida diferencia y no alcanza mi saber a darme a entender. Hágalo el Señor.

5. Ahora me acuerdo en un verso que decimos a Prima, al fin del postrer salmo, que al cabo del verso dice: Cum dilatasti cor meum. A quien tuviere mucha experiencia esto le basta para ver la diferencia que hay de lo uno a lo otro; a quien no, es menester más. Los contentos que están dichos no ensanchan el corazón, antes lo más ordinariamente parece aprietan un poco, aunque con contento todo de ver que se hace por Dios; mas vienen unas lágrimas congojosas, que en alguna manera parece las mueve la pasión. Yo sé poco de estas pasiones del alma -que quizá me diera a entender-, y lo que procede de la sensualidad y de nuestro natural, porque soy muy torpe; que yo me supiera declarar, si como he pasado por ello lo entendiera. Gran cosa es el saber y las letras para todo.

6. Lo que tengo de experiencia de este estado, digo de estos regalos y contentos en la meditación, es que si comenzaba a llorar por la Pasión, no sabía acabar hasta que se me quebraba la cabeza; si por mis pecados, lo mismo. Harta merced me hacía nuestro Señor, que no quiero yo ahora examinar cuál es mejor lo uno o lo otro, sino la diferencia que hay de lo uno a lo otro querría saber decir. Para estas cosas algunas veces van estas lágrimas y estos deseos ayudados del natural y como está la disposición; mas, en fin, como he dicho, vienen a parar en Dios, aunque sea esto. Y es de tener en mucho, si hay humildad para entender que no son mejores por eso; porque no se puede entender si son todos efectos del amor, y cuando sea, es dado de Dios. Por la mayor parte, tienen estas devociones las almas de las moradas pasadas, porque van casi continuo con obra de entendimiento, empleadas en discurrir con el entendimiento y en meditación; y van bien, porque no se les ha dado más, aunque acertarían en ocuparse un rato en hacer actos y en alabanzas de Dios y holgarse de su bondad y que sea el que es, y en desear su honra y gloria. Esto como pudiere, porque despierta mucho la voluntad. Y estén con gran aviso cuando el Señor les diere estotro no lo dejar por acabar la meditación que se tiene de costumbre.

7. Porque me he alargado mucho en decir esto en otras partes, no lo diré aquí. Sólo quiero que estéis advertidas que, para aprovechar mucho en este camino y subir a las moradas que deseamos, no está la cosa en pensar mucho, sino en amar mucho; y así lo que más os despertare a amar, eso haced. Quizá no sabemos qué es amar, y no me espantaré mucho; porque no está en el mayor gusto, sino en la mayor determinación de desear contentar en todo a Dios y procurar, en cuanto pudiéremos, no le ofender, y rogarle que vaya siempre adelante la honra y gloria de su Hijo y el aumento de la Iglesia Católica. Estas son las señales del amor, y no penséis que está la cosa en no pensar otra cosa, y que si os divertís un poco va todo perdido.

8. Yo he andado en esto de esta barahúnda del pensamiento bien apretada algunas veces, y habrá poco más de cuatro años que vine a entender por experiencia que el pensamiento (o imaginación, porque mejor se entienda) no es el entendimiento, y preguntélo a un letrado y díjome que era así, que no fue para mí poco contento. Porque, como el entendimiento es una de las potencias del alma, hacíaseme recia cosa estar tan tortolito a veces, y lo ordinario vuela el pensamiento de presto, que sólo Dios puede atarle, cuando nos ata a Sí de manera que parece estamos en alguna manera desatados de este cuerpo. Yo veía, a mi parecer, las potencias del alma empleadas en Dios y estar recogidas con El, y por otra parte el pensamiento alborotado: traíame tonta.

9. ¡Oh Señor, tomad en cuenta lo mucho que pasamos en este camino por falta de saber! Y es el mal que, como no pensamos que hay que saber más de pensar en Vos, aun no sabemos preguntar a los que saben ni entendemos qué hay que preguntar, y pásanse terribles trabajos, porque no nos entendemos, y lo que no es malo, sino bueno, pensamos que es mucha culpa. De aquí proceden las aflicciones de mucha gente que trata de oración y el quejarse de trabajos interiores, a lo menos mucha parte en gente que no tiene letras, y vienen las melancolías y a perder la salud y aun a dejarlo del todo, porque no consideran que hay un mundo interior acá dentro; y así como no podemos tener el movimiento del cielo, sino que anda a prisa con toda velocidad, tampoco podemos tener nuestro pensamiento, y luego metemos todas las potencias del alma con él y nos parece que estamos perdidas y gastado mal el tiempo que estamos delante de Dios; y estáse el alma por ventura toda junta con El en las moradas muy cercanas, y el pensamiento en el arrabal del castillo padeciendo con mil bestias fieras y ponzoñosas y mereciendo con este padecer; y así, ni nos ha de turbar ni lo hemos de dejar, que es lo que pretende el demonio. Y por la mayor parte, todas las inquietudes y trabajos vienen de este no nos entender.

10. Escribiendo esto, estoy considerando lo que pasa en mi cabeza del gran ruido de ella que dije al principio, por donde se me hizo casi imposible poder hacer lo que me mandaban de escribir. No parece sino que están en ella muchos ríos caudalosos, y por otra parte, que estas aguas se despeñan; muchos pajarillos y silbos, y no en los oídos, sino en lo superior de la cabeza, adonde dicen que está lo superior del alma. Y yo estuve en esto harto tiempo, por parecer que el movimiento grande del espíritu hacia arriba subía con velocidad. Plega a Dios que se me acuerde en las moradas de adelante decir la causa de esto, que aquí no viene bien, y no será mucho que haya querido el Señor darme este mal de cabeza para entenderlo mejor; porque con toda esta barahúnda de ella, no me estorba a la oración ni a lo que estoy diciendo, sino que el alma se está muy entera en su quietud y amor y deseos y claro conocimiento.

11. Pues si en lo superior de la cabeza está lo superior del alma, ¿cómo no la turba? - Eso no lo sé yo; mas sé que es verdad lo que digo. Pena da cuando no es la oración con suspensión, que entonces hasta que se pasa no se siente ningún mal; mas harto mal fuera si por este impedimento lo dejara yo todo. Y así no es bien que por los pensamientos nos turbemos ni se nos dé nada; que si los pone el demonio, cesará con esto; y si es, como lo es, de la miseria que nos quedó del pecado de Adán con otras muchas, tengamos paciencia y sufrámoslo por amor de Dios, pues estamos también sujetas a comer y dormir, sin poderlo excusar, que es harto trabajo.

12. Conozcamos nuestra miseria, y deseemos ir adonde «nadie nos menosprecia»; que algunas veces me acuerdo haber oído esto que dice la Esposa en los Cantares, y verdaderamente que no hallo en toda la vida cosa adonde con más razón se pueda decir; porque todos los menosprecios y trabajos que puede haber en la vida no me parece que llegan a estas batallas interiores. Cualquier desasosiego y guerra se puede sufrir con hallar paz adonde vivimos -como ya he dicho-; mas que queremos venir a descansar de mil trabajos que hay en el mundo y que quiera el Señor aparejarnos el descanso, y que en nosotras mismas esté el estorbo, no puede dejar de ser muy penoso y casi insufridero. Por eso, llevadnos, Señor, adonde no nos menosprecien estas miserias, que parecen algunas veces que están haciendo burla del alma. Aun en esta vida la libra el Señor de esto, cuando ha llegado a la postrera morada, como diremos, si Dios fuere servido.

13. Y no darán a todos tanta pena estas miserias ni las acometerán, como a mí hicieron muchos años por ser ruin, que parece que yo misma me quería vengar de mí. Y como cosa tan penosa para mí, pienso que quizá será para vosotras así y no hago sino decirlo en un cabo y en otro, para si acertase alguna vez a daros a entender cómo es cosa forzosa, y no os traiga inquietas y afligidas, sino que dejemos andar esta tarabilla de molino y molamos nuestra harina, no dejando de obrar la voluntad y entendimiento.

14. Hay más y menos en este estorbo, conforme a la salud y a los tiempos. Padezca la pobre alma, aunque no tenga en esto culpa, que otras haremos por donde es razón que tengamos paciencia. Y porque no basta lo que leemos y nos aconsejan, que es que no hagamos caso de estos pensamientos, para las que poco sabemos no me parece tiempo perdido todo lo que gasto en declararlo más y consolaros en este caso; mas hasta que el Señor nos quiera dar luz, poco aprovecha. Mas es menester y quiere Su Majestad que tomemos medios y nos entendamos, y lo que hace la flaca imaginación y el natural y demonio no pongamos la culpa al alma.

Scripture echoes

↩Song.8.1 — Oh, that you were like a brother to me, one who nursed at my mother's breasts! If I found you outside, I would kiss you, and no one would despise me.

Notes

1 ↩embebecimiento: a soft, absorbed, half-dazed state in prayer. Rendered as 'ordinary absorption' to keep Teresa's contrast with true mystical quiet; not mere distraction or daydreaming.
2 ↩a vueltas de: under cover of / in the midst of. gustos: here the felt delights God gives in prayer (as distinct from contentos treated in the next section).
3 ↩en un ser: Golden Age idiom for a continuous, unvarying state ('steadily the same'), not ontological 'being' in the abstract.
4 ↩Teresa's technical pair contentos / gustos is kept as consolations / delights: contentos arise largely through our own meditation and petition; gustos begin from God (see s7).
5 ↩Elliptical Spanish: 'así como estos contentos son naturales, así en los que nos dan las cosas de Dios, sino que...' rendered as parallel natural consolations from divine things, distinguished by nobler lineage (linaje más noble).
6 ↩Latin liturgical citation kept as in the Spanish source: Cum dilatasti cor meum (“When you enlarged my heart”).
7 ↩contentos: Teresa's natural consolations/sweetness in prayer (as distinct from gustos); rendered 'consolations.' pasión here is affective passion of the soul, not Christ's Passion—clarified by the next sentence's pasiones del alma.
8 ↩sensualidad: not modern 'sensuality' in a sexual sense, but the sensitive/sense appetite in Teresa's anthropology; rendered 'the senses.' natural: innate disposition/nature.
9 ↩regalos y contentos: Teresa's terms for spiritual favors and consolations in prayer, distinguished in this chapter from gustos.
10 ↩aunque sea esto: even granting natural aid and dispositional causes, the tears and desires still terminate in God.
11 ↩hacer actos: acts of the will (loving, praising, desiring), as Teresa contrasts with discursive work of the understanding.
12 ↩estotro: 'this other' gift/mode, contrasted with customary discursive meditation; likely the higher consolations/gustos under discussion.
13 ↩gusto here is Teresa's technical term for interior spiritual delight/consolation (distinct in this chapter from contentos); rendered as 'delight' rather than generic 'pleasure'.
14 ↩divertís retains the early-modern sense 'distract yourselves / let the mind wander,' not modern 'amuse yourselves'; matches the chapter heading on distraction in prayer.
15 ↩Spanish distinguishes pensamiento (thought/imagination) from entendimiento (the understanding as a faculty of the soul); the parenthetical clarifies that she means the roaming imaginative thought, not the intellective power.
16 ↩tortolito (literally 'little turtledove') is idiomatic here for being stunned, dazed, or quieted into helplessness; rendered 'stunned' to keep the sense without the opaque image.
17 ↩«tener el movimiento del cielo / tener nuestro pensamiento»: parallel of inability to restrain—rendered as 'hold still' / 'hold' to keep the cosmic analogy.
18 ↩«arrabal del castillo»: outskirts/suburb of the castle in Teresa's dwelling-metaphor; kept as 'outskirts' rather than 'suburb' for register.
19 ↩"lo superior del alma" rendered as "the higher part of the soul," matching Teresa's scholastic/mystical usage for the soul's superior region; "adonde dicen" keeps the reported opinion of others.
20 ↩"barahúnda" rendered as "uproar" for the noisy tumult in the head; "quietud" kept as "quiet" for Teresa's interior stillness in prayer.
21 ↩"suspensión" is Teresa's technical term for the suspension of the faculties in contemplative prayer; rendered here as "suspension" to preserve that sense.
22 ↩insufridero: archaic Spanish for unbearable/intolerable; rendered as 'almost unbearable'.
23 ↩tarabilla de molino: Teresa's image of the noisy wooden mill-clapper (chattering rattle) for the restless imagination that keeps going while the will and understanding still grind the flour of prayer.

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