✶Gnosis
← Contents
Theme
11 / 80

Listen

Dhammapada · narration sample

A one-minute narration sample. Every book in the library is narrated end to end — hear the rest in the app.

The Cloud of Unknowing · 11 of 80

Chapter 6. A short conceit of the work of this book, treated by question

BUT now thou askest me and sayest, “How shall I think on Himself, and what is He?” and to this I cannot answer thee but thus: “I wot not.”

For thou hast brought me with thy question into that same darkness, and into that same cloud of unknowing, that I would thou wert in thyself. For of all other creatures and their works, yea, and of the works of God’s self, may a man through grace have fullhead of knowing, and well he can think of them: but of God Himself can no man think. And therefore I would leave all that thing that I can think, and choose to my love that thing that I cannot think. For why; He may well be loved, but not thought. By love may He be gotten and holden; but by thought never. And therefore, although it be good sometime to think of the kindness and the worthiness of God in special, and although it be a light and a part of contemplation: nevertheless yet in this work it shall be cast down and covered with a cloud of forgetting. And thou shalt step above it stalwartly, but Mistily, with a devout and a pleasing stirring of love, and try for to pierce that darkness above thee. And smite upon that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love; and go not thence for thing that befalleth. p. 90

Asked of Guide

If God cannot be thought, how am I supposed to reach Him in prayer or contemplation?

The chapter says God “may well be loved, but not thought,” and it instructs you to abandon conceptual thinking and rest in a loving, longing awareness: “smite upon that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love.” That means the method is affective—hold a single, humble desire for God and keep striking into the darkness with that longing rather than trying to form images or arguments.

This practice echoes John of the Cross’s dark-night language in The Dark Night of the Soul, which also makes longing and purgation the path to union. The Cloud teaches that love attains and thinking cannot, so keep a simple, steady love-piercing into the cloud until presence is felt.

Guide is the guide inside the Gnosis app, where every book on these shelves is free to read. Guide is the part you pay for — your guide has read all of them, and answers about the passage you’re actually on. Ask your guide your own question.