This path to God does not consist in having a multitude of meditations or particular practices, nor in having ecstasies… but rather in the one thing necessary… earnestly to deny oneself interiorly as well as exteriorly, and for Christ’s sake to be ready to suffer and die to self in every respect. Whoever schools himself in this will achieve and find all and more than that. But, if one fails to practise this, then, no matter how exalted one’s contemplation or how much one’s communication with God resembles that of the angels, all other practices of virtue will be nothing more than a water sprout, which is totally unproductive.
Saint John of the Cross