Find a way to say yes, the secret of life in one phrase. Perhaps the hardest thing to do, find a way to surrender, to give up your silly struggle. Say yes. Say ok, im done. And it doesn’t happen overnight, although it could if you really mean it.
But most people spend a lifetime in this little fight with god, trying to outmanuever and find some little hidden treasure for them alone. Some corner no one looked in. How hard it is to give that up, to let go. To let god. What assurance can we have, that things will work out ok? So we back down from the edge. Tomorrow, another day. Next year.
Why is the fire needed? To purify the raw ore into gold. The gold is there, but it cannot shine until the dirt and impurities are removed. Until the mud settles. Then the lotus can grow, the gold can glitter. But we don’t want to let the dirt go, we’ve become very attached to the game we’re playing with ourselves.. it makes us feel special. And thats fine, until its time to move on. Then it is out of our control. Well, its always out of “our” control, but the illusion of control begins to dissipate. The water swirls down the drain.
But we are tentative, we stand by the edge of the drain, dipping one foot in. We want some assurance that if we fall in entirely, everything will be ok. But that assurance can’t be given. Not because something will “not be ok”, but because the loss of assurances is the price for eternity. This fear and this hanging on comes from a faulty notion, it is the illusion of separation, of me-ness. That is the impurity covering up the shining gold. But we want to see the gold first, we demand to see the shine before we will undertake the quest.. and this is impossible. Well we may get a glimpse, but the kingdom of heaven can’t be revealed until we take the plunge.
So we begin to refine and polish the stone, but we also keep dirtying it up again. The cost of total surrender seems impossible, and yet, that is the inescapable reality. Sooner or later, you’ll have to let go. Language and spirituality can help up to a point, but finally the unbreakable vow has to be made, the rubicon has to be crossed. And only you know when that time comes. It could be tomorrow. It could be years from now. But that is where we are headed for, the event horizon. In retrospect, it is inevitable.
Right now you feel small, like a little bubble that could pop at any moment. But its really just a limitation of the mind. A self-imposed one at that. The consciousness can expand, it takes other “bubbles” into its own. The I grows, a reservoir filling with more of itself. After all, you are all there is.
A real woman keeps a man hungry, she wants him at his most dangerous. She knows thats where he yearns to be, and she can push him over the edge. And this is the way of life, you must meet it in the darkness. In the unknown, forced into the now – seeing if your eyes can adjust, you are totally alert. The purpose of life is not in sustaining comfort and certainty, but in acclimating oneself to perpetual uncertainty. There is a rhythm to the chaos, and the right kind of ears can begin to hear its tune, to dance the silent dance.
Jeff Nirenberg 