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Nothing is more foreign to authentic monastic and "contemplative" (e.g. Carmelite) tradition in the Church than a kind of gnosticism which would elevate the contemplative above the ordinary Christian by initiating him into a realm of esoteric knowledge and experience, delivering him from the ordinary struggles and sufferings of human existence, and elevating him to a privileged state among the spiritually pure, as if he were almost an angel, untouched by matter and passion, and no longer familiar with the economy of sacraments, charity and the Cross. Pp25

How to remove obstacles:

Those that think can use their own cleverness
Discover special gimmicks
Think higher than they are
Spiritual Inertia – inner confusion, coldness, lack of confidence.
Discouragment
Helplessness

In the language of the monastic fathers, all prayer, reading, meditation and all the activities of the monastic life are aimed at purity of heart, an unconditional and totally humble surrender to God, a total acceptance of ourselves and of our situation as willed by him. It means the renunciation of all deluded images of ourselves, all exaggerated estimates of our own capacities, in order to obey God's will as it comes to us in the difficult demands of life in its exacting truth. Purity of heart is then correlative to a new spiritual identity-the "self " as recognized in the context of realities willed by God-Purity of heart is the enlightened awareness of the new man, as opposed to the complex and perhaps rather disreputable fantasies of the "old man.)) 83

In passive purification then the self undergoes a kind of emptying and an apparent destruction, until, reduced to emptiness, it no longer, knows itself apart from God. 94

"That heart is pure which, always presenting to God a formless and imageless memory, is ready to receive nothing but impressions which come from him and by which he is wont to desire to become manifest to it. 102

But true emptiness is that which transcends all things, and yet is immanent in all. For what seems to be emptiness in this case is pure being. ... The character of emptiness, at least for a Christian contemplative, is pure love, pure freedom. Love that is free of everything, not determined by any thing, or held down by any special relationship. It is love for love's sake. It is a sharing, through the Holy Spirit, in the infinite charity of God. And so when Jesus told his disciples to love, he told them to love as universally as the Father who sends his rain alike on the just and the unjust. "Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect." This purity, freedom and indeterminateness of love is the very essence of Christianity. Pp119


This deep dread and night must then be seen for what it is: not as punishment, but as purification and as grace. Indeed it is a great gift of God, for it is the precise point of our encounter with his fullness.126

The whole gospel kerygma. becomes impertinent and laughable if there is an easy answer to everything in a few external gestures and pious intentions.
134


Without dread, the Christian cannot be delivered from the smug self-assurance of the devout ones who know all the answers in advance, who possess all the cliches of the inner life and can defend themselves with infallible ritual forms against every risk and every demand of dialogue with human need and human desperation.
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The purpose of the dark night, as st. John of the cross shows, is not simply to punish and afflict the heart of man, but to liberate, to purify and to enlighten in perfect love. The way that leads through dread goes not to despair but to perfect joy, not to hell but to heaven..
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But prayer is defiled when it is turned away from god and from the spirit, and manipulated in the interests of group fanaticism. 143