In Bernadette Robert's book; "The Path to No-Self" she compares her path to "truth" with the path taken by St.John of the Cross. I will try and compare my own path to what Bernadette describes.

She breaks the path up in . distinct phases. Since I am still in the waking up process, I can not comment on her final stage of no-self but, I can do some justice to the first 3 or so. I believe myself to be in the "Unitive Phase" she describes. The first phase is the "Dark Night of the Soul". She had a few of those and most seekers can probably conjure up few dreaded "Dark Night" scenes. My first major one occured when I was 31 or 32 and I felt like my whole existence was just blocked out. I amounted to nothing and I went completely numb with that horrible feeling of not being here and what did it matter if I was anyway. Bernadette is obviously much better at certain descriptions then I am but, maybe someone will be able to relate and that is the point of writing about this, I guess.

 

The term "presence" to describe God is kinda weak but, right now it's the only word that comes to mind to try and give it a name. Definitely a major challenge to describing the process to truth is language. The language we all share is pretty insufficient but, it's all we got. Truth it seems, has a language all it's own that does not take to translation very well. But, the desire to share this seeming miraculous experience will keep us busy trying to find the appropriate way to describe it. Although, I would guess most people don't try. I can see why. Since we all will get there eventually...lol....Bernadette wrote her books about the process because she could find little in any spiritual literature to describe the end process and she was trying to be helpful by sharing hers with us. I feel the same need but, my feeling is to take a lot of the Christian language out of it to make it more open to others of a more non traditional religious or non religious view.

 

After the final "Dark Night", which I had about 5 years later started my move into the phase Bernadette describes as the Unitive Phase. The phase where you do not find God outside of yourself as a person or object but, God is felt as a presence that is everywhere and in everything. You don't have to pray anymore like before because pray was invoking a power outside of us to help us but, now prayer is more like a constant state of being.

Truth is always the same, never changing but, the path to it is varied. It seems to be tailored made to suit the personality of the individual. There will be certain major themes that everyone will encounter but, how it is presented will be different. Back to Bernadette...."The second phase begins with the discovery that, where there was pain, now there is peace: from here on , it is the work of the soul is to maintain this peace at all movements to the contrary."

Bernadette says that you keep this peace by remaining passive. I agree. We remain passive and forgive. The word passive has a kinda negative connotation. It means to do nothing but, in this phase it is more of an "active passive", you don't react, unless the situation calls for it, you observe and forgive what ever it is that you see. In this phase you learn to realize that almost all of what is "out there" is a distraction for the real work of "waking up" so, you don't get emotionally involved anymore. To get involved is be off the path and onto something else and we all have been down that road and what it produces is generally more pain and not peace.

waking up from the programming

I am going to start talking about my process of "waking up".

I was raised in the standard strict Catholic home, went to church every Sunday  and attended Catholic grammar school. I believed what I was told and lived my life with those boundaries that the church and my 

parents imposed. I believed in hell and heaven and tried not to do bad things as to assure my entrance into heaven and avoid any temptations that would send me to the fire pits of hell. I was told like everyone else, that we were born with original sin so, I got the idea we were pretty bad right out of the starting gate.

My first hint that I might not be so bad came in the year that I made my first Holy Confession, when I was 8 years old. I was so freaked out to face the priest in the confessional,  the teachers and nuns didn't do much to help me feel any better but, it ended up going much smoother then I expected. He didn't say I was bad and just said I should say a Our Father and a Hail Mary and to think about what I did wrong and to try not to repeat it. I wiped the sweat off of my forehead as i was leaving the subdued confessional and boy was I relieved. I only had a few short prayers to say and he never mentioned "original sin" at all, there was no prayers to be said for that at all so, that was probably the first time that I considered that there may be something up with the old original sin concept. Plus, on many occasions after my first trip into the dreaded confessional box, I actually had to make stuff up because I just wasn't sinning that much. In my later years, I would make up for that seemingly sinless year or so but, as of my 8th birthday, I was still pretty damn spotless.