Imagine there is a girl-next door.
You initially meet her briefly, say hi, speak a few words.
She makes you feel excited, mesmerized and really spikes your curiosity.
Now, say you have a lot of other girlfriends – 100’s of them.
And say you meet different ones each day.
Sometimes you meet them in groups too.
Each of your other girlfriends have specific qualities to them that you admire.
The next day, you start to look forward to meeting the girl next door
You tap on her door, and wait for her.
Again you 2 chat up for a while, and you come back once again feeling captivated and fascinated.
Now, this goes on for a while, everyday you chat with her for a while and get back to your life.
As you get to know more about her, she only seems to get more mysterious and interesting.
Generally, when you get to know someone fully, you tend to lose interest.
But this girl is captivating you more and more each time.
You get drawn to her, entranced, and more and more excited to spend more time with her.
You steadily increase the time you spend with her.
You spend hours at her house each day and it is never boring.
Eventually, you start to drop all your other engagements too with all your other girlfriends more and more.
This girl next door has all the qualities of your other girl friends and much much more.
She is a rich mystery, a plenitude, and always escapes your understanding.
After a while, you start to drop EVERYTHING, and spend all your waking time with her.
You even leave your own house, you leave all of your other girlfriends, everything.
All you want to do is spend time with her and invest everything you have got in her – your heart, mind, soul, body.
She is everything that you can possibly conceive of, or imagine, and yet much much more.
Everytime you try to understand her, it is like gold slipping through your fingers, you just cannot grasp it.
There is nothing you want to do, besides being with her totally all the time.
You want to merge with her, you want to become her, you want to become all that she is.
She is mesmerizing beyond your wildest dreams, and you are ready to lay down everything for her.
You spend 24×7 of your time with her now.
She is your all-encompassing absorption and trance.
Now you ask her to merge you into her.
She swallows you in her embrace.
You feel the increasing pain of your dissolution, as you are being absorbed into her body.
You feel you are losing yourself, your mind space is filled with the smoke of grief.
You are blinded, you cannot see anything.
But yet, you hold on even more, and you want her to absorb you into her.
You know she is a million times greater/grander/vaster/richer than anything you could ever be.
Your only desire is to union with her.
She pulls you in even tighter, and you give in more and more.
And finally you are absorbed into her and now you are ‘her’.
You live as her, experience as she does, and see as she does.
The spiritual path is very similar.
Here, you are the separate self/ego.
The girl-next door is the transcendent spirit object and your source.
The other girl-friends you have are all your other worldly desires/passions/interests/ambitions/hobbies.
The love affair that you have with the girl next door is the spiritual quest.
When you ask her to embrace you and absorb you into her – it is the Dark Night of the Soul.
When you finally fully merge into her, and start seeing from her eyes – you are the spirit itself.
You initially meet her briefly, say hi, speak a few words.
She makes you feel excited, mesmerized and really spikes your curiosity.
Now, say you have a lot of other girlfriends – 100’s of them.
And say you meet different ones each day.
Sometimes you meet them in groups too.
Each of your other girlfriends have specific qualities to them that you admire.
The next day, you start to look forward to meeting the girl next door
You tap on her door, and wait for her.
Again you 2 chat up for a while, and you come back once again feeling captivated and fascinated.
Now, this goes on for a while, everyday you chat with her for a while and get back to your life.
As you get to know more about her, she only seems to get more mysterious and interesting.
Generally, when you get to know someone fully, you tend to lose interest.
But this girl is captivating you more and more each time.
You get drawn to her, entranced, and more and more excited to spend more time with her.
You steadily increase the time you spend with her.
You spend hours at her house each day and it is never boring.
Eventually, you start to drop all your other engagements too with all your other girlfriends more and more.
This girl next door has all the qualities of your other girl friends and much much more.
She is a rich mystery, a plenitude, and always escapes your understanding.
After a while, you start to drop EVERYTHING, and spend all your waking time with her.
You even leave your own house, you leave all of your other girlfriends, everything.
All you want to do is spend time with her and invest everything you have got in her – your heart, mind, soul, body.
She is everything that you can possibly conceive of, or imagine, and yet much much more.
Everytime you try to understand her, it is like gold slipping through your fingers, you just cannot grasp it.
There is nothing you want to do, besides being with her totally all the time.
You want to merge with her, you want to become her, you want to become all that she is.
She is mesmerizing beyond your wildest dreams, and you are ready to lay down everything for her.
You spend 24×7 of your time with her now.
She is your all-encompassing absorption and trance.
Now you ask her to merge you into her.
She swallows you in her embrace.
You feel the increasing pain of your dissolution, as you are being absorbed into her body.
You feel you are losing yourself, your mind space is filled with the smoke of grief.
You are blinded, you cannot see anything.
But yet, you hold on even more, and you want her to absorb you into her.
You know she is a million times greater/grander/vaster/richer than anything you could ever be.
Your only desire is to union with her.
She pulls you in even tighter, and you give in more and more.
And finally you are absorbed into her and now you are ‘her’.
You live as her, experience as she does, and see as she does.
The spiritual path is very similar.
Here, you are the separate self/ego.
The girl-next door is the transcendent spirit object and your source.
The other girl-friends you have are all your other worldly desires/passions/interests/ambitions/hobbies.
The love affair that you have with the girl next door is the spiritual quest.
When you ask her to embrace you and absorb you into her – it is the Dark Night of the Soul.
When you finally fully merge into her, and start seeing from her eyes – you are the spirit itself.
Journey to the Abstract 