There is a moment when you realize that you are going to have to die in reality, not just pretend to die. Not just read about dying, not just recite Rumi late at night, but really, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, go into the darkness of the Love of God and really surrender, a moment when you realize that to do that, you will need Divine courage.
To be human is to be born into a dance in which every animate or inanimate, visible or invisible being is also dancing. Every step of this dance is printed in light; its energy is adoration, its rhythm is praise. Pain, desolution, and destruction in this full and unified sacred vision are not separate from the dance, but are instead essential energies of its transformative unfolding. Death itself cannot shatter the dance, because death is the lifespring of its fertility, the mother of all its changing splendor. If we could bring ourselves to open to this vision, we would undergo a revolution of the heart.
If you fuse knowledge of your transcendent origin with tireless service in and for God, you will come, on earth and in this body, to know divine joy and be fed by the ceaseless passion-energy of divine love. Human and divine, inner peace and outer action, knowledge and love, will be married in you at ever greater depths to make you an ever more powerful and radiant warrior for Love and Justice in all dimensions.
Slowly, the practice of gratitude will begin to transform your consciousness so you start to detect Divine Presence and Divine Mercy all around you, which in time tremendously lessens your fear and suffering. For, it will make you aware of the maternal protection of God and of how the entire universe and all of life is constantly giving you signs of God's glory, beauty, and love. Practicing gratitude not only heals you of vanity and pride; it also heals your fear, grief, and insecurity of separation.
The last time I saw Fr. Bede, I asked for his blessing and one final word of advice.
He held my face in his hands and then said, "Pray, pray always!"
And he went back to his prayers.
The child is the creation of that ecstatic, stainless, motiveless pure love. It is that pure love in the heart and soul that give birth to the Divine Child. It is that pure love that leads the soul right into the heart of the godhead.
To survive in the world, you need spiritual strength, you need solitude.
As I walked I heard her voice say:
As you awaken, all those you love awaken a little with you. All through you love are linked by that love, are on the same spiral, rising.
My heart filled with joy, for I knew in that moment that no awakening can be personal or selfish. Every awakening spreads its power and light throughout the world.
Another silence began, rich and profound. I looked at the next question on my list and laughed. "You work in silence. This is because silence is the ultimate and final initiation, isn't it?" "Yes." Ma adjusted the bangle on her right wrist. "Why is silence powerful?" "God is silent. Everything comes out of silence. In silence more work can be done. the true experience of Bliss is without words." The silence returned, this time ringing with her sound.
To create from joy, to create from wonder, demands a continual discipline, a great compassion. It demands a severity of mind towards all vanity and posturing of the ego that loves its suffering, and clings to its despairs and depressions and fears; it demands a continual objectivity of spirit, a continual looking out at, and beyond, the world created by the senses, towards a spiritual reality, whose lineaments only emerge slowly, after years of experience and meditation. You do not need to stop working, but you need to strive for a new relationship with your work... With time and sincerity you will discover a way to work that does not harm you spiritually, does not tempt you to vanity, that is the deepest expression of your spirituality.