St. Augustine's Experience

Consider the accent of realism with which St. Augustine speaks in the most celebrated passage of the Confessions, where we seem to see a born psychologist desperately struggling by means of negations to describe an intensely positive state. St. Augustine writes: "I entered into the secret closet of my soul, led by Thee; and this I could do because Thou wast my helper. I entered, and beheld with the mysterious eye of my soul the Light that never changes, above the eye of my soul, above my intelligence. It was not the common light which all flesh can see, nor was it greater yet of the same kind, as if the light of day were to grow brighter and brighter and flood all space. It was not like this, but different: altogether different from all such things. Nor was it above my intelligence in the same way as oil is above water, or heaven above earth, but it was higher because it made me, and I was lower because made by it. He who knoweth the truth knoweth that Light: and who knoweth it, knoweth eternity. Love knoweth it" St. Augustine, Confessions, Bk. vii Chp. xl.