some
small
hard
granthi nut
lies buried
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
deep
inside
of me
the source of
my
dis-ease
to break
open
this nut
would
unleash
a
black hole
of
sorrow
which would
annihialate
me
where
is
my
nutcracker
?
As San Juan de la Cruz says in his “The dark night of the soul”, the light of the Face of God is so bright that our imperfect soul cannot percieve it; and what we cannot percieve for us that is non-existent, void and darkness. This is the dark night the advanced souls are put in, where they slowly get purified from the memory of the joys given by the senses, and become ready to feel the joy of seeing His Face.
Whenever I feel pain or sadness, I have this thought that it is never in vane, because it prepares me for greater pains and fears I might have to face.
Related to this, Rudolf Steiner says that initiation means that one gets the “knowledge” one normally would get in several lives. In a way, initiation is a shortcut, but the experiences one would get in those lives must be aquired somehow. Initiation is like an intensive course, and there are trials what will provide the equivalent of the experiences of many lives. This means the trials are very hard if we think of them in normal life’s terms.
That’s why not anyone can be an initiate, everyone has to follow his own pace, and while most will have a slow pace, there are few who are tried and tested beyond the limits we would think normal. These men and women are rare, but one must keep the faith that noone is ever tested beyond his/her capacity to endure.