The Play of Awakening: Adventures in Direct Realization Tantra by Sarasvati Shambhavi

Author:Sarasvati, Shambhavi [Sarasvati, Shambhavi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jaya Kula Press
Published: 2018-11-12T16:00:00+00:00

Adventuring in the Dark

When people begin a spiritual practice, they generally have some idea of what the fruits should be. They want to find peace, acquire special abilities, or become “enlightened” according to their concept of enlightenment. But any ideas you have of the fruits of practice are limited by your current condition. Most of what small I can imagine is dull, dry dust compared to the fruit of coming into contact with the blazing, aware aliveness of reality.

This is why it is always advised to practice without being attached to a preconceived goal. You should do your sadhana with the orientation of an adventurer or explorer. What will you find? Practice in a state of open perception, not with expectations.

Inevitably, practicing with concepts about practice leads to frustration, desperation, and feelings of failure. Small I starts to realize that its days are numbered, yet it keeps trying to get what it wants. Perhaps spiritual practice felt lovely in the beginning. Now it seems to not be “progressing.” At times you feel afraid, or bored, or angry, or dried up. This isn’t what you signed on for.

You become desperate, so desperate that you will even keep up your practice in spite of your “self.” You just don’t know what else to do. It seems that your spiritual life is falling apart. All of your former spiritual ego gratifications are being denied. You can’t tell if you are slipping backwards or moving forward.

You feel that sadhana is your life raft, but you don’t even know where you are headed. You have lost all sense of goal and direction. This is a good sign. Now is the time to just keep going, day-by-day, even in darkness. Great humility and confidence can be established at this point as wisdom carries you into deeper surrender.

Back in the 16th century, the Christian mystic St. John of the Cross wrote about the dark night of the soul. He captured for every age thereafter the essence of times during which spiritual seekers are inevitably confronted with the reality of their own attachments.

The first dark night of the soul generally occurs for sincere practitioners when the blush of initial enthusiasm for the spiritual path begins to give way to the recognition of the reality of our bondage to our compulsive patterns of body, energy, and mind. This is a time to sit quietly and allow obsolete self-concepts and spiritual concepts to fall away.

In contemplation in the space of the heart, we can discover the diamond-like natural longing that is our true inheritance, our royal road to wisdom. It is time to discover the indestructible wisdom that got us onto the path in the first place.

This initial dark night of the soul is also the time to cry out, to reach out, and to ask for nourishment from our teachers and communities. It is the time to bow our heads to our real circumstance and keep sitting even in the midst of frustration or despair. If the dark night

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