“The stupid cannot become wise, and the non-existent cannot become existent, nor can the existent go into non-existence.”
Of all beings in this field, the only one capable of turning away from the incessant stream of phenomena, from mundane existence and the life of the field, is human being. This being roams the field while standing on the fence between the two worlds; facing the world he’s standing against The Abyss. But he is standing against the abyss in such a way that one could even say man is the abyss staring into the world.
Every night after a long day of work in the field, after planting my seeds, I takes off this human disguise and withdraw back into that abyss, I return home.
In every man, woman, and child that wakes up from sleep, in all beings starting from the first cause up until now, I alone have been the one returning from the abyss known to you as dreamless sleep. I am the single mover in all movements. I move all things while myself remaining unmoved. I move by a single glance from the abyss, from my transcendent throne: I am the possessor of all masks. I am the Animator. I dwell in eternity and recur eternally.
There is a type among us whose soul suffers much with every small turbulence, as a sensitive tooth does with every wind. In this suffering soul, a layer of spirit is exposed to the harshness of bare existence. The sober soul understands him not, for he/she has not known the spiritual madness for transcendence. This world has no remedy for such souls except a congregation of souls who understand by gnosis the restlessness of a spirit longing for home. Our suffering fellow isn’t aware that he’s been seeking to be restored to the original and primordial state of his existence, that is, to coincide with the archetype of which he is a projection. A dental appointment doesn’t cure this type; he/she needs a transcendental appointment.
A sensitive spirit has residual memories from the good old times its father’s house. This type, coming from that old city of Eidos in eternity, has no tolerance for time and impermanence. This type is the insane one, and his insanity lies in forgetting that the remedies of this world have only an apparent resemblance to the consolations he found in Eidos. The impregnated abyss has come between him and Eidos. How can one bridge a gap that is not even of the nature of space! How can one reach for the Hidden Door that is at once infinitely near and infinitely far!
We suffer from separation, and our only remedy is a bridge, a Logos from Eidos and not a bridge of our own making.
We must remind ourselves, those of us practicing religion as a means of salvation rather than welfare, that the spiritual life, the life of God, is about God and not us. That we complain so often of our imperfections and the subsequent suffering is a misunderstanding of religion. Perhaps we think that spiritual life is about having a good time, that a good spiritual life is a life of mental and emotional security and perfect devotion. In the face of the slightest suffering we blame ourselves of spiritual failure as if perfection, spiritual or otherwise, was a human possibility!
It is a bad habit of our times, more so in the western hemisphere, that we should think everything is about us and how we feel, that anything that disturbs the emotions has an evil origin unless one sees the visible hand of God. We have a hard time accepting, let alone trusting, that whether we are in suffering or not God is working within and without. We feel that we must know his every move or else we lose faith and find ourselves in despair, as if He owes us an explanation on top of the possibility of salvation offered by grace, as if God has a “Buy one get one for free” business!
We cannot trust in the invisible, thanks to our faulty culture and education; so instead of raising ourselves to God we bring Him down to our own mundane level which is no more Him but a projection of our own desires in one form or another. Our complaint over lack of spiritual perfection is the most destructive of all spiritual imperfections, for it indicates that we pursue the path so to feel good about ourselves; above all it indicates our lack of faith and trust in Him.
The best violins in the world were at once a seemingly useless pieces of wood. That wood has become the masterpiece that it is because it gave itself totally to the hands of a master who chopped and hammered it for thousands of hours. The best architect chooses the material that shows the highest degree of conformity to both the means and the final end of perfection.
Whenever we come to such moments of suffering, the dark nights of the soul, we must think ourselves, if we seek God rather than the self, as deformed souls under the hammer of God who is cutting away our imperfections. And by no means should we think or expect that we are on the way of becoming perfect beings in the face of God, for our perfection is in our non-being before Him: Our salvation is nothing but our annihilation in God.
We must ask of God nothing for ourselves except more consciousness of Himself. And we must remember that each blow of His hammer is a chance of becoming more conscious of Him. God’s hammer is the grace to embrace.
