That nowhere physically is everywhere spiritually...

from The Cloud of the Unknowing: A new translation
by Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Chapter 68

On a related point, another person might tell you to gather together your powers of body, soul and intellect wholly within yourself, and worship God there. This is good advice, well put, and if taken in the right way, you can't find any better. But I don't recommend this because I worry that such advice might be literally interpreted and mislead someone. My suggestion resists distortion. I only ask that during contemplative prayer steer clear of withdrawing into yourself. I also don't want you outside, above, behind, or on one side or the other of yourself.

"Where then," you ask, "will I be? If I take your advice, I'll end up 'nowhere'!" You're right. Well said. That's exactly were I want you, because nowhere physically is everywhere spiritually. Make sure that your contemplative work is fully detached from the physical. Remember that when your mind is focused on anything in particular, that's where you are spiritually, just as certainly as when your physical being is located in a specific place, that's where your body is. Obviously during contemplative prayer, your body's five senses and your soul's powers will think that you are doing nothing because they find nothing to feed on, but don't let that stop you-keep on working at this "nothing," as long as you are doing it for God's love. Persevere in contemplation with a renewed longing in your will to have God, remembering that your intellect cannot possess him. For I would rather be nowhere physically, wrestling with this obscure nothing, than be a powerful, rich lord, able to go wherever I want, whenever I want, always amusing myself with every "something" that I own.

So abandon the world's "everywhere" and "something" in exchange for this infinitely more valuable nowhere and nothing. Don't be bothered that your intellect is unable to comprehend it. I love it even more for its inscrutability. Its infinite worth makes it incomprehensible. Also remember that you can more easily feel this nothing than see it. It can be experienced but not grasped. That's why it seems completely hidden and totally dark to those who've only been looking at it for a very short time. Let me clarify "dark" here. When a person experiences this nothing, the soul is blinded by an abundance of spiritual light, and not by actual darkness or by an absence of physical light.

So who labels this "nothing"? That would be our outer self. Our inner self calls it "all," because experiencing this "nothing" gives us an intuitive sense of all creation, both physical and spiritual, without paying special attention to any one thing.