August,
I read and dissected your essay entitled The Invitation to Transformation. There were several paragraphs and pictures that struck me to the heart. Right now…this is where I am… I may be at the end of this trend or habit or cycle, but I truly identify with this description of living….
You wrote:
“Authentic spirituality undermines everything. As Thomas Merton said, “Dread is realizing that everything you depend on could possibly fail you.” Authentic spirituality is not a buffer: it is war against buffers. It is a counter-intuitive journey into dread where the ego is stretched to the breaking point by our desire for, and intuitive belief in, “something more” and our fear that this intuition is either wishful thinking or that, while there may be “something more” for a Buddha or Moses, we ourselves are not up to the task.”
My Comment:
Since I was a small girl I have been obsessed with the idea of “something more”. There is not much that has dazzled me in this world. I have often thought there is something wrong with me for not wanting more materialism although the 1963 porsche super c did catch my eye when I was 13. I remember telling my dad that was the car I would have when I was driving…. His response was “you better save your money, because those cars cost $4,000.00.” 
The point is I want my life to matter and feel that I have wasted precious time looking for that great calling on my life. Reading your essay I guess I am not the only one that has had this experience.
You Wrote:
“In this context the greatest spiritual dread is what I alluded to in my essay Brother John: we progress far enough into spirituality to “see through” life’s illusions, far enough to be irrevocably cut off from normalcy, but not far enough to break through to the “other side” — assuming there IS an “other side”.”
My Comment:
This is a tough place, because it is limbo… cut off from normalcy, but not far enough to be break through to the other side…. I do assume there is another side, because if I don’t, there is nothing left to live for.. the good news is, I am beginning to experience the other side, ever so slightly, but more consistently than in the past. I know now it comes from me, my within, my choices, my faith… Thank you for your words of encouragement.
You Wrote:
“Commitment to a spiritual path is analogous to a caterpillar in a cocoon. Once the caterpillar is committed it transforms or dies. Either/Or. But how can it be sure it will transform and not die in its dark limbo — no longer caterpillar and yet not quite butterfly? It is fear of this meaningless and dreadful limbo where we find ourselves without either God or man that is most daunting. Yet this is the essential movement — a movement into the tension between the “Great Faith and Great Doubt,” a movement that creates the essential energy, the pressure that cracks the ego. This Either/Or journey is into the Unknown because we have no more knowledge of what this “something more” is really like than a caterpillar has of butterfliness.”
My Comment:
Absolutely brilliant… this is what has kept me from being all in… it is type of doubt.. Your comments are welcomed. I have more to write, but this is good for now..
Thanks, Sandi
Dear Sandi,
Please do not mistake my tardiness in replying to lack of interest in your comments. It is precisely the opposite. I have read this email from you dozens of times and yes with tears in my eyes. Your brief commentaries demonstrate that you KNOW and UNDERSTAND what I am getting at and I can’t put into words what that means to me.
Of course what prompted The Invitation to Transformation (which orignially was a letter) was the fact that it was autobiographical. Like you I spent my life looking for “something more” only to find myself in the “limbo” I described. On the surface it seemed I “had it made” while underneath I was torn to pieces by these doubts. Especially doubts as to whether I “had what it takes.”
Perhaps what moved me most about what you wrote is your comment that fear is holding you back from going “all in.” First the fact that you recognize the need for going “all in” makes you one in a million. There are whole discussion groups on LinkedIn alone dedicated to “sprituality” yet most of it is just wishful thinking from people who don’t want to face the fact that going “all in” is essential. Secondly, it was precisely the knowledge that I too could not go “all in” that tortured me the most. Despite my best efforts I always knew I was “holding something back just in case”. It was as if I was buffering my ego by saying, “If things get too bad I can always go all in.” This however merely reduced me to the status of an alcholic telling himself that if things get too bad he could always stop drinking. And like a drunk what always held me back was the agonizing question: “what if I do go all in and it is not enough, then what?” It was the terror of having life’s walls close in on me once and for all with nowhere to run that kept me frozen in limbo.
I could go on forever because in you I feel like I have FINALLY met someone who “gets it.” Someone who KNOWS that spirituality is not just a warm and fuzzy game where we “believe” in order to be “comforted.” The essay that prompted your comments is in many ways closer to who I am than anything I’ve ever written, yet very few people resonate with it.
However I want to end by urging you to keep the faith. The limbo stage is necessary. Indeed it is essential. And in my own case in 1998 I finally had the “breakthrough” that i had longed for all my life. There IS AN OTHER SIDE. But it is not for the faint of heart. Reaching it requires total surrender and surrendering is the most difficult thing we can ever do. What makes it so difficult is that we can no more consciously DECIDE to surrender than we can commit suicide by holdig our breath. Surrender is something that HAPPENS to us when we’ve tried everything else and come up empty.
Please write again.
August
August,
Thank you for your reply… I so appreciate your work. The quote below is my current reality and my current question you have answered, I have come to the understanding that we can only be willing to surrender. but we cannot choose to surrender and nor is it a one time moment…. I yearn for surrender. It is something that happens to us… I hope my Father will work this work in me….
Sandi
“Reaching it requires total surrender and surrendering is the most difficult thing we can ever do. What makes it so difficult is that we can no more consciously DECIDE to surrender than we can commit suicide by holdig our breath. Surrender is something that HAPPENS to us when we’ve tried everything else and come up empty.”
