The Book of Heaven
—Unofficial Version—

November 22, 1901

The self carries the mark of all ruin, while without the self everything is safety.

After going through most bitter days of tears, of privation and of silence, my poor heart can bear no more. The torment of being outside of my center, God, is so great, that I am continuously battered amid dense waves of a fierce storm in a state of strong violence, such that I suffer death at each moment, and what’s more, I cannot die.

As I was in this position, He made Himself seen for a little while and told me: "My daughter, when the soul does the will of someone else in everything, it is said that she has trust in that person, therefore she lives from someone else’s volition, and not from her own. In the same way, when the soul does my Will in everything, I say that she has faith. So, Divine Will and faith are branches produced by the same trunk; and since faith is simple, faith and Divine Will produce a third branch, that of simplicity. And here is how the soul comes to reacquire the characteristics of a dove in everything. Don’t you want, then, to be my dove?"

On another occasion, another day He told me: "My daughter, pearls, gold, gems, the most precious things, are kept in good custody inside some casket, and with double locks. What do you fear, then, if I keep you in good custody inside the casket of holy obedience - most safe custody, in which, not one, but two keys keep the door well closed so as to preclude the entrance of any thief, and even of a shadow of any defect? Only the self carries the mark of all ruin, but without the self everything is safety."