The Circle of Love by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Author:Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee [Vaughan-Lee, Llewellyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Golden Sufi Center
Published: 1999-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

THE ABYSS OF ABANDONMENT

The way of love is not

a subtle argument.

The door there

is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles

of their freedom.

How do they learn it?

They fall, and falling,

they’re given wings.

Rûmî1

PREPARATION

“The path,” writes Rûmî, “is not for brittle, easily-broken, glass-bottle people. The soul is tested here by sheer terror.”2 What is this terror that awaits the wayfarer? What are the depths of despair that we are forced to confront? Can we be prepared, or is the only preparation our desire to face whatever is given, to surrender to the path’s devastation?

Every traveler has to journey within, to cross the boundaries into the unconscious, into the unknown inner world which is the home of the shadow Here we encounter our own darkness, our rejected and repressed selves, the cruelty, pain, and poison as well as the positive qualities, lurking in the depths. In these shadowlands we are tested. Do we have the humility and strength to accept what has been rejected, not only by ourself, but by our families and even by our whole culture? All the hunger, violence, and despair, the wounds that we so carefully cover up, come to meet us; and we are forced to witness the disintegration of our personality, “what we like to think we are,” in the face of what we discover we are.

The work on the shadow is a painful, demanding process, but one that is a necessary preparation for the mystical path. Through our loving and accepting what we find in the depths, our whole psychic structure is transformed, lead is turned into gold, and the energy that has been locked in the depths is released. The energy that has been stored in the shadow is needed for the journey; we need the power of our own repressed self to cross into the beyond. This work in the darkness frees us from our personal and collective ego-identity, giving us a glimpse of the primal wholeness of the Self.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.