you imagine this castle to be, you cannot exaggerate it; the capacity of the soul is beyond all our understanding, and the Sun within this palace enlightens every part of it. (...) You must notice that the light which comes from the King’s palace hardly shines at all in these first mansions; although not as gloomy and black as the soul in mortal sin, yet they are in semi-darkness, and their inhabitants see scarcely anything.“ It is however important to realise that the symbol of a diamond or a castle depicts human soul and borders of the castle, the “outer walls” represent human body. It means that this symbolism describes a human, his body and soul. Teresa (1921, 18) for example says: “All our care is concentrated on our bodies, which are but the coarse setting of the diamond or the outer walls of the castle.“ Teresa’s structure of the text is progressive; it describes the mystical rise of the soul to God from the first chamber to the seventh chamber. This mystical ascent was known in Christian mysticism from the Middle Ages and its roots are found in the mystical ladder of patriarch Jacob. Many mystical authors spoke about a journey or ascend to God among them Bonaventure in his work Journey of the Soul into God. Ascend, or gradation can also be found in the classic three-phase or triadic understanding of mystical journey by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite – purification, illumination, unification (purificatio, illuminatio, unio in Latin). The first three mansions of the castle, as Teresa writes, are a kind of pre-stage of deeper mystical experiences. According to her, these are easily penetrated by the human’s negative characters, symbolised by frogs, lizards and venomous snakes. Basing on Teresa’s explanations, these first three mansions cannot be reliably identified with the first three grades of the Yoga chakra system (Muladhara, Svadhisthana and Manipura). The first three mansions are more likely to be part of the first stage of mysticism, which is purification (purificatio in Latin). However, if we consider also Patanjali’s first stages of ethical preparation in Yoga, then we would find something similar also here. The fourth mansion represents mystical stage of illumination and this is the place where spiritual turnover starts. Teresa (1921, 39) says: “Henceforth they begin to be supernatural and it will be most difficult to speak clearly about them“. And really, the fourth degree is in all religions supposed to be the centre, heart of spiritual existence. Teresa of Avila (1921, 44) surprisingly adds this: “This joy does not appear to me to originate in the heart, but in some more interior part and, as it were, in the depths of our being. I think this must be the centre of the soul, as I have since learnt and will explain later on.“ In this centre of the soul, Teresa says, it is very difficult to distinguish where the soul ends and God starts. She speaks (1921, 44) of this poetically: „[t]he dilation begun by the celestial waters in the depths of our being. They appear to dilate and enlarge us internally“. Teresa speaks here about expanding the heart, which resembles spiritual techniques to expand consciousness. It is not important if we speak about expanding the heart or expanding consciousness, it is the expanding itself that is required for open104 (8) Slavomír Gálik - Sabína Gáliková Tolnaiová
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