"loyal to paradox"

I wanted to share a Marianne Williamson quote that has been popping up in my life on a regular basis for the last ten years. My friend Ivy just sent it to me for my birthday, and it exactly addresses the Guru Dilemma in my previous post. 

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." 

Much to my surprise, as I examine the dark corners of my mind, I find that I don't want to be my own guru. She's right: I fear my light much more than my darkness. I don't want to save myself. I don't want to be "brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous." I want to be a disciple at the feet of a master. I want to disappear into the blinding white light of holiness. I want to be a baby in the arms of my mother. I want to be taken care of. I don't want to work hard. I don't want to be responsible for my Light. And these feelings are, even as I admit them here in this blog, very shadowy for me. These feelings are definitely in the "not-me" box in the attic of my psyche. 

I strive to project an image of total self-sufficiency, power, strength. I do not admire dependency, and yet I find myself knee deep in this swamp of wanting desperately to be rescued, to be saved by an other. It's that eleven month old inside me waiting for mommy and daddy to come get me. And until they do, she refuses to move forward or grow up.

I have been feeling this ache all week, or for several weeks. Or for most of my life. But I've been really feeling it lately, and I see how I run the guru fantasy as a way of escaping that pain. I want the pure bliss I feel in the presence of Amrit. But I've learned enough about life by now to know that pain is as great a teacher as bliss. One gives way to the other. Either one without the other is dangerous. So that's been my meditation. When the painful ache comes up, I try to just be in it. I try to just let myself feel really sad, abandoned, and lost I let myself yearn. I don't act on it. Eventually, the pain and yearning give way to joy, and I don't resist that either. The pain comes back and I try to keep steady with it, resist the urge to join a cult. 

According to Robert Johnson, it is the entertainment of this kind of paradox--pleasure/pain, bliss/sorrow, light/dark--that lies at the heart of true spirituality. In Owning Your Own Shadow he writes, 

"What has paradox to do with the shadow? It has everything to do with the shadow, for there can be no paradox--that sublime place of reconciliation--until one has owned one's own shadow and drawn it up to a place of dignity and worth. To own one's own shadow is to prepare the ground for spiritual experience."

The paradoxes I am working right now are:

• the bliss of dissolving into my teacher/the terror of being trapped alone inside myself
  
• the light belongs to my teacher/the light belongs to me
  
• bliss/torment
  
• vulnerability/strength
  

Johnson inspires me to remember that none of these pairings represent good/bad. He insists, "We must retrain ourselves to think that each represents a divine truth. It is only our inability to see the hidden unity that is problematic. To stay loyal to paradox is to earn the right to unity."