The seven story mountain

You will be loved, and it will murder your heart and drive you into the desert. "You will be praised, and it will be like burning at the stake. All the good things that other people love and desire and seek will come to you, but only as murderers to cut you off from the world and its occupations. Every created joy will only come to you as pain, and you will die to all joy and be left alone. "Everything that can be desired will sear you, and brand you with a cautery, and you will fly from it in pain, to be alone.

"Everything that touches you shall burn you, and you will draw your hand away in pain, until you have withdrawn yourself from all things. They will cast you out and forsake you and reject you and you will be alone. "Because of their enmity, you will soon be left alone. "Therefore all the things around you will be armed against you, to deny you, to hurt you, to give you pain, and therefore to reduce you to solitude. I will lead you by the way that you cannot possibly understand, because I want it to be the quickest way.