The Mystic Path: Unitive Vision

Unitive Vision is the final stage of the mystic path. The best description I can find of what this is, is from Meister Eckhart, a 14th Century German mystic.  He says: "If I am to know God directly, I must become completely He and He I: so that this He and this I become and are one I."

If I consider the dark night that comes before this stage of union as a time of germination, then perhaps this stage is one of re-birth into a new reality.

To try and understand this more fully I once again looked to the mystical poets and Hafiz (as translated by Daniel Ladinsky) once again gave guidance:

 

The Seed Cracked Open

It used to be

That when I would wake in the morning

I could with confidence say,

"What am 'I' going to

Do?"

that was before the seed

Cracked open.

Now Hafiz is certain:

There are two of us housed

In this body,

Doing the shopping together in the market and

Tickling each other

While fixing the evening's food.

Now when I awake

All the internal instruments play the same music:

"God, what love-mischief can 'We' do

For the world

Today?"

Does my SoulCollage® card have any wisdom for me?

Take it one step at a time.
The way is always clear.
Let light guide your path towards the Light.

The Mystic Path: Dark Night of the Soul

Most of us have experienced the "dark night of the soul" in one form or another.  Mystics are as human as the rest of us and also experience times of deep sadness and fatigue when nothing seems meaningful or even makes sense and when one feels abandoned. But it appears that this period of the "dark night" also is a period of growth.

St. John of the Cross, who is most well known for the phrase "the dark night of the soul" talked about it as a "passive purification, a state of helpless misery, in which the self does nothing, but lets Life have its way with her".

It seems to me that if I think of this stage of growth and discovery as similar to that of a seed in the deep darkness of the soil.  Essential expansion is taking place within, even though from without it doesn't look as important as the more exciting phases of budding and blooming.  Perhaps this is a time of "gestation of the soul".

And the wisdom from my card?

I am the one who waits patiently in the dark allowing the sadness and despair to wash over me.
I am the one who knows that there is no light without darkness.
I am the one who is growing wings in my darkness, although I am not aware of them sprouting.