Interior Castle Excerpt from The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila: “I thought of the soul as resembling a castle, formed of a single diamond or a very transparent crystal, containing many rooms. At the very heart of the castle is the King (God), whose presence illuminates and gives beauty to the entire structure. The closer one gets to this center, the greater the divine light. So different from any earthly light is this brightness and light that, by comparison, the brightness of our sun seems quite dim It is as if we were to look at a very clear stream, in a bed of crystal, reflecting the sun’s rays, and then to see a very muddy stream. in an earthly bed and overshadowed by clouds."