A few days ago, while I was in a moment of conscious exchange with the sun, opening myself to let myself be penetrated by its light and the qualities that this brings with it, suddenly I felt a new point of contact with myself. It is that point where those rays, not only physical but above all psychic, meet what I am, with everything that represents me and defines me as a person: a jumble of different elements, of different origin and nature, of different levels of maturation, each with a more or less high or low vibration. In theory we know that in man, the divine and the human, the spirit and matter converge. Indeed, in no living creature does this happen as much as in man, both because he can be aware of it to some extent, and because the extremes of spirit- matter in him/her are more accentuated than in other natural forms.
At that moment, that inner point of encounter between such different aspects, caught my attention like never before. I felt that was the point “to keep”, there I could reside and settle down.
As humanity indeed that is where we live and are; with different types of relationship between the two parts, those with their gaze turned more into light, others looking more into the shadow, but we all share the experience of this ‘life on the border’. Only that as humanity we are not aware of it and generally, we deal more with the outer spaces in which to move, than the internal ones in which to live as a consciousness. And yet it is when we find our place “inside” that we can move even better “outside”. The conscious search for light, with all the meanings that this broad term can take, marks the beginning of a conscious spiritual path: a light to be contacted and spread as our service task. Generally, in this beginning there is not only a search, but a real yearning for light, perhaps because we had
been looking for it for a long time, even without knowing it. By yearning for it, we learn to perceive it, to recognize it, to immerse ourselves in it, to make it our own. And the more we live this contact, the more we disdain and reject anything that has to do with the shadow: they may have been emotional factors, attachments, points of weakness and ignorance (in the sense of not knowing), almost trying to hide them even from ourselves. While every splash of light fills us with joy and a sense of achievement.
At this first phase of enthusiasm and certainty that soon our life will be only positivity and joy, follows another: the one in which we come to terms with moments of “relapse”, of the emergence of old problems and conflicts. In our lexicon then appears the phrase: “I am still there…”, and we pronounce it with a feeling of disappointment both towards ourselves and towards our hope to meet with an enjoyable path.
Thus, for those who go down the path of conscious growth and service, a state of frustration and disappointment at not being able to respond to it in a “superior” way is added to the suffering caused by the events themselves that arise in any human life. All of this is in order not to be able to exercise that “divine indifference” that the Teachings tell us so much about. Thus, the result is a double suffering, where the feeling of not being able to act like “real servants” tends to even take over the problems itself.
This phase of alternating between up moments and down moments, between a sense of achievement and a sense of inadequacy, lasts rather long, giving rise to even strong fluctuations in the quality of the relationship with ourselves and with the world. In this long period we live often expending a big effort stretching towards the conquest of new territories of knowledge and contact with life; and just as much effort to maintain the positions conquered in terms of attention orientation and quality of thought and action.
The life of the person who aspires to new spaces of consciousness and who nourishes this aspiration giving it priority and constancy, cannot therefore be defined as relaxed and free of challenges. But fortunately, just when we might be invaded by discouragement in the face of a rather impervious inner path, new understandings open up before us, which indicate attitudes and ways which gradually feel more helpful in walking the path.
To put aside the expectation of shifting self-identification from the world of form to that of light, and instead accepting as a new point of identification, that boundary between our light and our shadow, can represent a new passage in consciousness. It is a point of freedom; being able to be neither this nor that and at the same time being able to live both simultaneously, greatly expands the field of our possibilities. It also makes us more flexible and accepting towards ourselves, pulling us out of that “must be” that more than facilitating us, slows us down and harms us.
We are embodied souls, which have both the purpose of learning to live more and more in the light, but equally that of attending to and exploring all the possibilities of matter, of our own matter and of that around us. So that boundary point fits perfectly as a space for identification. At the bottom is the line of our psychic horizon, where our heaven and our earth come together. It is a union that gives joy because it allows us to be as we want and what we want; precisely on that fine edge we can experience everything that attracts us to the world of matter, while remaining open to the world of the spirit. I believe that this is, after all, the most beautiful gift of our human incarnation, a gift that we cannot risk not fully accepting.
Who can teach us to stand on that horizon and create from that point? It is only our heart: the mind instead tends to separate the elements of a different nature, and the body is more familiar with the earth than with the sky. But the heart, tailored to what is subtle and ineffable, knows how to recognize that very thin line of internal horizon, and indeed, that is where it is really comfortable.
That point is where, as servers, we are called to stand and from there we are asked to work, thus living and expressing at the same time the light of the earth and the concreteness of heaven. That’s the magic point where the deep red of our blood mixes with the golden fluid that emanates from the heart of the sun.
The real task of the server, whatever his occupation in concrete terms, is of an alchemical type: to know how to foster the transition between light and form, between spirit and matter. He is partly a sentinel who stands on that border and observes all the events; in part she is a caring mother who loves and welcomes both sides of reality; in part she is, precisely, an alchemist who constantly finds the right ways to bring light into matter, thus freeing it from what envelops it and making it beautiful, flexible, fluffy.
There we are, servers and priests of a new era and a new world, called to celebrate moment by moment the great rite that merges the earth with heaven, the spirit with matter.
Marina Bernardi,
July 4, 2020