There is a longing that burns at the root of spiritual practice.
This is the fire that fuels your journey. The romantic suffering
you pretend to have grown out of, that remains coiled like a serpent
beneath the veneer of maturity. You have studied the sacred texts.
You know that separation from your divine source is an illusion.
You subscribe to the philosophy that there is nowhere to go
and nothing to attain, because you are already there
and you already possess it.
But what about this yearning? What about the way a poem by Rilke
or Rumi breaks open your heart and triggers a sorrow
that could consume you if you gave in to it? You’re pretty sure
this is not a matter of mere psychology. It has little to do with unresolved
issues of childhood abandonment, or codependent tendencies
to falsely place the source of your wholeness outside yourself.
The longing is your recognition of the deepest truth
that God is love and that this is all you want.
Every lesser desire melts when it comes near that flame.
—Mirabai Starr
from Parabola July 2017
art by Fra Angelico, c.1437–1446
3 comments:
Yes... Absolutely! The longing that triggers a sorrow deep within, for that which is deep within... One could call it "God" longing for ItSelf... It remains no matter how much we "know" in our heads... my experience anyway...
Well said, thank you!
all of the searching and grasping so hard for someone, something outside, to satisfy, just to be in that "pure space into which flowers endlessly open,"
as Rilke says:
"Lovers, if the beloved were not there
blocking the view, are close to it, and marvel...
As if by some mistake, it opens for them
behind each other... But neither can move past
the other, and it changes back to World."
Yes... searching and grasping only seem to obscure it as well...or obscure our awareness of its omnipresence... I find that just resting in the "pure space" (which I call The Silence, some call Awareness), is what allows me to have a felt sense of that which is longed for in the Heart - The Presence of the Divine Beloved (beyond/behind the "lovers")... Hard to articulate. Words can't describe the actual experience of it...
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