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Next, May refers to a more unsettling process of the passive night of spirit: the loss of the sense of the Divine presence. There is a purpose for this loss of felt sense of the Presence, as well as other losses in this passive night of the spirit: it is time for us to relinquish our attachment to them. This is attuned to the Buddhist teaching on detachment, or non-clinging.
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Many cultures and subcultures are hooked on tantalizing experiences. We like to be entertained, we relish being excited. Just living is boring to us. It seems, for example, a widespread belief is that what we believe religiously is not really that important at all. Rather, what is vitally important is having a moving experience of God or having profound spiritual experiences.
I learned this truth as a pastor. At one congregation I served, after some years of feeling like I had to deliver a wonderful spiritual experience every Sunday, I realized I could no longer bear that burden for others. I found out very quickly who in the congregation had attached to me as their experience-giver. When I began to seek to wean them off reliance on my delivering a God-experience and their loosening their self-focus regarding worship and devotion, I could easily see some having a feeling of being let down by their pastor.
Possibly, like the Zen student above, the hardest thing to release on the spiritual Journey is our self-focused attachment to spiritual experience. However, in doing so, we learn the joy and freedom of being with God as a Love beyond all experience. We find that the process of the spiritual Journey is one, not of addition, but of subtraction, that we might be free of the self-centricity that keeps us from loving union with others and Life Itself. And, ironically, when the self is no longer the center, the self can be more present in graciousness and kindness with and for others, can give itself more fully and joyfully to the flow of Life.
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Wonderful was the day, when in meditation I first heard a deeper wisdom arising, saying, I dont care. The message kept arising in the Silence over days. I could not figure where that message came from, at first. "Not caring, as the Zen student in the above story, is an ironical way of saying, It does not matter that I am not having the experience I want. See, that I is the empirical self, or the ego. That self is not bad. However, that self needs to be transformed, so that self agrees with the Deeper Self, which is the self attuned to Life
Also, I am not speaking of not having an experience spiritually, of not wanting experience. Experience is part of the path, is part of life. Yet, not focusing on a particular experience is key; being open to whatever experience is presented keeps us grounded and available to the workings of Grace.
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