Therefore, heed thyself diligently, that thou mayest not destroy thy natural powers with all thy efforts. If love is to do her work, so that thou canst not withdraw thyself from her, thou must follow her through all her storms, and in all her external works. Therefore, when irrational love comes, all human work is swallowed up, and God comes and speaks to those men. This word is more useful than hundreds of thousands of words that could be spoken by any man. Dear children, I tell you of a truth, that none can attain to this but by the path of love.
Paths are often more even than ways.
Therefore, whoever can really find the right path, which leads to the true ground of God, while at the same time he is conscious of his own ground, he must, before all things, remain alone, and diligently seek the footpath, which is very wild, dark, rough, unknown, distant and strange to him. Many men go astray, running after external works and discipline. Therefore, when a man finds himself in this storm of love, he must not think of his senses, or of humility, or of anything else, but only, whether in his works he has enough love. Man struggles also in love against coldness, indifference and harshness. Man should devote himself entirely to love, and render full allegiance, being poor and miserable in all that is not love.