There is only one way to triumph over these obstacles [in the will]: God would have to take complete possession of the interior of the soul and occupy it, which happens only to His true friends. He sent us His only Son in order that the holy life of the God-Man, His great and perfect virtue, examples, teachings, and multiple sufferings might lift us above ourselves, make us leave ourselves completely (draw us from the depth of egoism), and that we might let our own pallid light disappear in the true and essential light.
Johannes Tauler OP (1300–1361)