The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

The Varieties of Religious Experience“Therefore, in our rooms,” Father Rodriguez continues, “theremust be no other furniture than a bed, a table, a bench, and a candlestick,things purely necessary, and nothing more. It is not allowedamong us that our cells should be ornamented with pictures or aughtelse, neither armchairs, carpets, curtains, nor any sort of cabinet orbureau of any elegance. Neither is it allowed us to keep anything toeat, either for ourselves or for those who may come to visit us. Wemust ask permission to go to the refectory even for a glass of water;and finally we may not keep a book in which we can write a line, orwhich we may take away with us. One cannot deny that thus we arein great poverty.But this poverty is at the same time a great repose and a greatperfection. For it would be inevitable, in case a religious personwere allowed to own supernuous possessions, that these things wouldgreatly occupy his mind, be it to acquire them, to preserve them, orto increase them; so that in not permitting us at all to own them, allthese inconveniences are remedied. Among the various good reasonswhy the company forbids secular persons to enter our cells, theprincipal one is that thus we may the easier be kept in poverty. Afterall, we are all men, and if we were to receive people of the world intoour rooms, we should not have the strength to remain within thebounds prescribed, but should at least wish to adorn them withsome books to give the visitors a better opinion of our scholarship.”192Since Hindu fakirs, Buddhist monks, and Mohammedan dervishesunite with Jesuits and Franciscans in idealizing poverty as the loftiestindividual state, it is worth while to examine into the spiritualgrounds for such a seemingly unnatural opinion. And first, of thosewhich lie closest to common human nature.The opposition between the men who have and the men who areis immemorial. Though the gentleman, in the old- fashioned senseof the man who is well born, has usually in point of fact been predaceousand reveled in lands and goods, yet he has never identified hisessence with these possessions, but rather with the personal superiorities,the courage, generosity, and pride supposed to be his birth-192 Rodriguez: Op. cit., Part iii, Treatise iii., chaps. vi., vii.286