Ruusbroec's Inward Gathering

Ruusbroec describes the inward exercise in The Spiritual Espousals, Book II. Reconstructed as a doable sitting:

1. Settle the body and the senses first. Begin from the active life: an ordered, virtuous, externally quiet life is the floor. Sit still. Let the outward senses (sight, hearing, the body’s restlessness) come to rest. Ruusbroec calls for being “as empty of every outward work as if he did not work at all” — a deliberate setting-down of doing.
2. Draw the powers inward (inkeer). Consciously turn the attention away from the world and gather the faculties — Ruusbroec especially names the three higher powers: memory, understanding, and will — out of their scattering and into the single point of the heart. Don’t manage many things; collect into one. Feel yourself “gathered together with all your powers in the unity of your heart.”
3. Empty the mind of images (inward silence). The second required attribute of the inward life is “a mind unencumbered with images” — what he calls inward silence. Let go of pictures, plans, discursive thoughts. Do not manufacture a vision or a phrase; let the image-making faculty fall quiet. This is apophatic: emptiness, not content.
4. Rest in the unity, attentive and receptive. Having gathered and emptied, simply abide there, recollected. Ruusbroec is emphatic that, at this depth, God works from within outward, not through the outward senses — so the posture is receptive waiting, not effortful seeking. You hold the unity; you do not grasp for an experience.
5. Receive the “touch” without grasping (if it comes). Ruusbroec describes an inward stirring or touch (gherinen) of grace felt in the inmost spirit. It cannot be produced by technique. If a sense of warmth, longing, or presence arises, receive it; if it does not, the gathering and silence are themselves the practice. The third attribute he names is “a feeling of inward union with God,” likened to “a burning and glowing fire which can never more be quenched” — but he treats this as gift, not achievement.
6. Let the touch turn into longing, then back into love. Ruusbroec warns against settling into mere blank repose. The touch leaves the spirit “in a state of hunger and thirst” — a yearning that should not curdle into self-absorption but flow back out into love and works (see his “common life,” cross-linked below). End the sitting by carrying the inward stillness back into ordinary action. (Sourcing note: the definition of “unity of the heart,” the “empty of every outward work,” “inward silence,” and “burning and glowing fire” phrasings are documented translations of Ruusbroec’s text, attributed. The step ordering is faithful reconstruction of his inward-life sequence; the distinctively theological elements — Trinitarian indwelling, divine touch — are his, reported as his claims.)

Ruusbroec wrote in Middle Dutch (Brabantian), not Latin — a vernacular mystic. The Spiritual Espousals maps three lives (active → inward/yearning → contemplative), and the inward gathering is the hinge between the first two.

He drew on Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, and the Beguine mystic Hadewijch, and his work shaped Geert Groote and the Devotio Moderna, Tauler, and later Ruusbroec → Herp → the Rhineland-to-Carmelite stream. → (mystics: Ruusbroec; cf.

Tauler, Eckhart, Hadewijch). Evelyn Underhill’s monograph Ruysbroeck (1915) popularized him in English and frames this as the “art of introversion.”

Recollection (Teresa of Ávila / Carmelite) — gathering the faculties inward to the centre of the soul; structurally the same move. → Carmelite recollective prayer.

• Apophatic silence (The Cloud of Unknowing, Eckhart) — emptying of images and concepts to rest in unknowing.
• Hesychast stillness (Eastern Orthodox) — drawing the mind (nous) into the heart, “bringing the mind down into the heart.”
• Pratyahara + dharana (yoga) — withdrawal of the senses, then collection of attention to one point.
• Focused-attention → open-awareness meditation (secular) — settling the senses, releasing discursive thought, resting in unified awareness.
• Centering Prayer (Keating) — modern Christian descendant of exactly this image-free interior resting.

Grasping for the “touch.” Trying to manufacture the felt union defeats it — Ruusbroec treats it as gift. Hold the gathering and silence; let any experience come unbidden.

• Filling the silence with content. The second attribute is image-lessness. Resist substituting a vivid scene or a busy phrase; the work is emptying, not picturing.
• Stopping at blank repose. Ruusbroec sharply criticized quietists who rested in passivity and called it union. The yearning and the overflow into love are part of the practice, not optional.
• Skipping the active-life floor. He insists the inward gathering rests on an ordered, virtuous outer life; a chaotic outer life makes the inner gathering unstable.
• Forcing length. Better a steady, bounded daily sitting than occasional marathon sessions that fray attention.