Silent Solitude

When I was getting kicked out of the monastery, I was terribly upset that I would never have the close relationship with Jesus, as spouse, that the sisters professed to have. Hidden in the fear was the notion that I wouldn't be as good as them in God's eyes.

Now, realizing today, Jesus is a mental object for me. This mental object seems to have no reality in the tangible world whatsoever. I have either been faking it, hoping he would show up based on my faith. Or I had faith that despite his lack of reality, good ideas and beneficial situations were somehow spiritual gifts. I presumed that there was an accessible spiritual level filled with a tangible presence, a personality, which could be felt.

But now I admit that the spiritual level is for me a silent solitude which is a dark nothingness. No voices. No lights. There may be a sense of presence, but that sense could be merely a projection of my fervent wish for a tangible presence. Its funny that I hesitate to say it is darkness because I have before been accused of being in the devil because the devil is darkness and God is light.

For decades I have entered the silent solitude and looked for anything else. I read books and noticed that other people found something. So I continued my pursuit. Many people find nothing, give up, go have a beer and forget about spiritual pursuits. Yet I have persistently continued to enter that nothingness and say, "Into your hands I commend my spirit."

I said before that this silent solitude need not be perceived as terrible; and reacted to with a desperate primal scream followed by furious worldly activity which roots the person firmly in the concrete world. I am coming to believe that I can live consciously in the reality of the silent solitude, the dark nothingness.  I am coming to identify with the reality of silent solitude and allow my investment in the concrete world fritter away. I see that if my loyalty is to the nothingness, then all my worldly fears have no basis. I prefer to live fearless, even if it is as nothing.

Such a plan to let go of tangible reality would be considered psychologically dangerous. The fear of what other people thin of me is probably one of the biggest barriers to freedom that I have allowed to govern my consciousness. Now, my decision is to live in spiritual silence and follow each intuitive thought. The hazard is the insidious underlying selfish hope: if I pretend to be nothing, maybe I'll fool the gods into giving me emotional pleasure and enviable knowledge this time. That knowledge of God which is better than what others have is what my ego wants.

I, the unknown spirit writing this, am starting to want a silence which is utterly pristine, unadulterated by spiritual achievement.