A dark night is a form of purgatory, a cleansing out.
And it’s as much or more about love.
What’s surfacing seeks to be recognized as love, and met with love. It seeks a loving presence.
It seeks to be seen, felt and loved.
It seeks for the believed stories that created it and maintains it to be seen through.
It seeks to be felt as is, and for it’s sensation component to be felt as sensations.
It seeks to be recognized as love, coming from confused love and a wish to protect the apparent separate self, and to be met with love.
It seeks it’s own liberation.
What’s triggering these wounded parts of us also seeks love.
Any situation in the world bringing these parts up in us also seeks love. It seeks to be recognized as love, and met with love.
Any person bringing this up in me comes with an invitation to be met with love.
Any perceived challenging situation is a potential purgatory, in this sense. It comes with an invitation for us to see through our stories about it, feel it, and find love for it.
It comes with an invitation for me to see through any of my stories about it. (Head center.) Recognize it as love, and find love for it. (Heart center.) And feel it. (Belly center.)
And for the heart facet of this, simple practices can be very helpful.
Prayer. Prayer for guidance. Prayer for the well being of myself and others. Prayer for love for me, suffering parts of me, and others. Prayer for receptivity. Prayer for support in meeting what’s here with love.
A simple loving kindness practice. I wish you love. I wish you ease. Said to myself or parts of me (my heart, pain), and others.
Tonglen. Ho’oponopono. (With me, parts of me, others.)
All-inclusive gratitude practice. I am grateful for….. (anything, what’s its easy to be grateful for, and especially what it’s less easy to find gratitude for.)
Seeing myself in the heart flame. Seeing others, and the world, in the heart flame. (Fanning the heart flame with my attention and devotion. Then seeing myself – body and mind – inside of it, allowing it to burn away anything not like itself, anything not real, anything not like clarity and love.)
Christ meditation, visualizing Christ in my heart, above and below me, in front and behind me, and on either side of me.
draft……
A dark night of any type is a form of purgatory. It’s a cleansing out.
And yet, some other ways of talking about it resonates as much or more with me:
Confused and wounded parts of us seek their own liberation.
They seek to be seen, felt and loved.
They seek for the (believed) stories that created them and maintains them to be seen through.
They seek to be felt as they are. For the sensations component of them to be felt as sensations, allowing a discharge.
They seek to be recognized as love, and loved. They were formed from confused love. They seek the loving presence that consciousness is.
Anything in our human self not aligned with reality, with clarity and love, comes up so they can align with reality, and with clarity and love.
In this way, any perceived difficulty is a potential purgatory. Our perception of it can be taken to inquiry (head center). The situation and our reaction to it can be recognized as love, and met with love (heart center). Our reaction to it can be felt, and it’s sensations component can be felt as sensation (belly center).
These parts of us were formed through confused love, through beliefs, in an attempt to keep the perceived separate self safe. They were formed through views not aligned with reality, and with clarity and love. So they surface so they too can align with clarity and love. They surface so these parts of our human self can be in service of clarity and love. So our human self more fully, with more of itself, can be in service of clarity and love.
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– initial opening/awakening
– purgatory – house cleaning, healing of wounds and trauma, realignment,
– any perceived difficulty, a potential purgatory (depends on how it’s met – w inquiry, love, or not)
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A dark night of any type is a form of purgatory. It’s a cleansing out. And it can be painful, as a purgatory.
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That’s one way to see it. And it’s not inaccurate, even if it’s a bit dry.
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At the same time, something else resonates more with me, and that’s how Adyashanti often talks about.
The dark seeks the light. It seeks our loving presence for it’s own