receiving divine influences which enrich it with all sorts of virtues.”[16] St. John of the Cross declares that “the soul having attained to the interior union of love, _the spiritual faculties of it are no longer active_, and still less those of the body; for now that the union of love is actually brought about, the faculties of the soul _cease from their exertions_, because, now that the goal is reached, all employment of means is at an end.”[17] Again: “He who truly loves makes shipwreck of himself in all else, that he may gain the more in the object of his love. Thus the soul says that it has lost itself――that is, deliberately, of set purpose. This loss occurs in two ways. The soul loses itself, making no account whatever of itself, but referring all to the Beloved, resigning itself freely into his hands without any selfish views, losing itself deliberately, and seeking nothing for itself. Secondly, it loses itself in all things, making no account of anything save that which concerns the Beloved. This is to lose one’s self――that is, to be willing that others should have all things. Such is he that loves God; he seeks neither gain nor reward, but only to lose all, even himself according to God’s will. This is what such an one counts gain.… When a soul has advanced so far on the spiritual road as to be lost to all the natural methods of communing with God; when it seeks him no longer by meditation, images, impressions, nor by any other created ways or representations of sense, but only by rising above them all, in the joyful communion with him by faith and love, then it may be said to have gained God of a truth, because it has truly lost itself as to all that is not God, and also as to its own self.”[18]