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A Zen story tells of a Zen student who had the habit of monthly contacting his Teacher about his spiritual progress. His letters take a mystical turn when he writes, “I am experiencing a oneness with the universe.” The teacher, upon receiving the letter, glances at it and throws it away. The next month another letter arrives. The student writes, “I have discovered that the divine is present in everything.” The teacher uses the letter to start his fire. The following letter, revealing an even more ecstatic tone, has, “The mystery of the one and the many has revealed itself to my wonderment.” The teacher yawns. The next monthly letter has, “There is no self, no one is born, no one dies.” The Teacher throws up his hands in despair. The Teacher does not get another letter for a year. Concerned, the Teacher writes, asking the student to keep him informed on his spiritual progress. The student writes back, “Who cares?” Upon reading this, the Teacher smiles, saying, “At last! He’s, finally, got it!”
St. John of the Cross teaches us that in moving toward realized union with God, we go through a passive night of the spirit. Gerald G. May, in The Dark Night of the Soul, defines St. John’s teaching on the passive night:
[The passive night of the spirit] is the process of empting and freeing the spiritual faculties: intellect, memory, and will. It liberates them from attachment to rigidly held beliefs, understandings, dreams, expectations, and habitual, compulsive ways of loving and behaving righteously.
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May notes that the most difficult part of the passive night of spirit is the change in a person’s sense of relationship with God:
The deeper, more penetrating—and usually more painful—dimensions of the passive dark night of the spirit have to do with changes in people’s habitual sense of relationship with God. A common experience, often confusing but not too painful, is that the word “God” loses its meaning. … And there seems to be no satisfactory substitute.
Next, May refers to a more unsettling process of the passive night of spirit: the loss of the sense of God’s presence. There is a purpose for this loss of felt sense of God’s Presence, as well as other losses in this passive night of the spirit: “it is time for us to relinquish our attachment to them.”
We are a society hooked on experiences. And, we like to be entertained. 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 an experience of God or having spiritual experiences.
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