Sacred Loss

 
"Whoever clings to his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for me shall find it." ~Master Jesus

The heart of God is not sentimental. Allowing yourself to be breathed into the groundless chaos prior to creation is not addition but subtraction. The Absolute is not a consolation, but a perfection of loss. If you lose nearly all, yet hold on to a little, you are poor. But if you lose all, unconditionally, giving everything away in one magnificent gesture of inward generosity, you are very rich.

Buddhists call it "sunya," emptiness. Christian mystics call it "kinosis," self-emptying. In Philippians 2 we read, "Jesus emptied himself." Vedanta describes self-emptied awareness as "neti neti," not that and not this.

As soon as a thought arises, kiss it and let it go. The energy you were expending in thought now rushes back to fill the void as pure bliss. Letting go of thoughts is not an effort that requires work, but a continuous replenishing of the heart. If you claim ownership of nothing, not even your thoughts, you will never be disappointed.
Lose the goal. Lose the path. Lose the beloved and break your heart. Loss will teach you everything.

Perhaps you are afraid that you will become a fool if you let go of thoughts and fall into the silence of the heart. Yes, you will. This is the foolishness of God. "But the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men" (1 Corinthians 1:22).
You may ask, does loss not entail some grief? Yes, most certainly. Yet in the paradoxical wisdom of loss, bliss and grief are the same energy. Sublime and hollow grief blossoms into pure compassion. 
Self-emptiness can never lead to spiritual pride, for there is no one left to be proud of. Becoming God is supreme humiliation. Without a glimmer of holiness, the soul is unveiled as God is unveiled, until they are the same nakedness. So the psalmist sings in Psalm 42, "Deep calleth unto deep." Can you taste the color of brilliant silence? Can you hear lightning in the void?

Darkness is not the absence of light. Darkness is the womb of light. This is a mystic's secret work: To become, at her core, un-created. To become so devoid of name and form that she cannot possibly be anyone else but the One who gives life to all creatures.


Painting: Mary Magdalene Penitent by Carlos sellitto

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