We pay for freedom with freedom. Once one is free, he can no longer go back to his old ways. To do so would be to go back to the thicket where he just emerged.

 There is a price for finding fundamental freedom. Aloneness.

Chogyam Trungpa describes it perfectly.

"It is like living among snow capped peaks with clouds wrapped around them and the sun and the moon shining brightly. Below tall trees areswayed by the howling winds and beneath them is a thundering waterfall. 

From our point of view, we may appreciate this desolation if we are an occasional tourist who photographs it or a mountain climber trying to climb the mountain top but we do not really want to live in those places. It's no fun. It is terrifying, terrible."

This is what Jesus Christ meant when he said "Where I am going I 
you can not follow but later you will follow. John 13:36 KJV It is what St. John of the Cross wrote about: The dark night of the soul.

In that place, there is no one to catch you if you fall.

You are all alone and you have to deal with it. There is a natural tendency to want to take others with you. The ego wants this because it is another way of validating yourself. 

You want to go back,escape, but there is no escape.

The stages of awakening follows.

First, dealing with boredom, relating with the neurosis of your mind and befriending your ego instead of fighting it.

The way of the bodhisattva and then the way of the warrior.

Then upon surrendering, seeing the universe dance at your feet, bliss.

One can, and some do, stay in this stage for eons. Sooner or later, one has to deal with aloneness, the inevitable aloneness that comes after the bliss.

This is when one decides to step in to the gateway of the unknown or go back to the way it was and start all over. Another lifetime.

And then, perhaps, one day one can come back and show others The Path. Coming down from the snow peaked mountains is much faster, for now the clouds have parted and the sun illuminates everything and for the first time one sees that it was impossible to fall. One had to experience the fear. It was part of the test.


© 2009 by Melinda M. Sorensson