Living in Truth's Palace — The Interior Castle

Teresa describes a highly intellectual vision in which the soul understands how all things are beheld in God, not by seeing images but by knowing mysteries engraved in memory in an instant. She compares God to a very spacious and magnificent mansion in which creatures dwell, so that every sin is committed within His very being, an awful thought that should produce shame rather than complacency. Offences against God happen inside the palace of Truth itself, yet we resent small injuries done to us while offering outrages to our Creator.

Teresa urges sisters to forgive as they are forgiven and to love enemies, since God has not ceased to love us despite our sins. The vision reveals God as verity that makes all creaturely truth seem obscure; David's words Every man is a liar become realized as never before when Pilate's question What is truth? is recalled. Teresa calls souls to walk in truth before God and man, not merely avoiding falsehood but refusing to seem better than they are, ascribing good to God and misery to themselves.

Humility, she discovers, is truth itself because we have nothing good of ourselves but misery and nothingness; whoever ignores this lives falsely. These favours come to the bride resolute to do God's will, manifesting divine attributes that teach how to accomplish it, and Teresa assures her readers they may rest in peace, for neither devil nor imagination can easily counterfeit such graces.