I want to share a passage with you from Saint John of the Cross, a Spanish mystic from the sixteenth century:
"To enjoy the taste of all things, have no taste for anything. To know all things, learn to know nothing. To possess all things, resolve to possess nothing. To be all things, be willing to be nothing. To get to where you have no taste for anything, go through whatever experiences you have no taste for. To learn to know nothing, go whither you are ignorant. To reach what you possess not, go whithersoever you own nothing. To be what you are not, experience what you are not."
I had really no idea what this meant until very recently. I’ve been run ragged these last few weeks with my daily writing, daily Murph (a kind of workout), and just the general volume of things I’ve been doing. At the same time, many things have been removed from my life, and more things are being removed by the minute.
I feel like I’m losing taste for everything.
I feel like I know less than I ever have.
I feel like I have nothing in comparison to what I had hoped for myself.
I feel like I’ve completely severed one path my life could have taken.
Despite all of this, I feel like I’m exactly where I want to be, exactly where I need to be. I’m free.
This feeling didn’t come from getting everything I “wanted”. Most of the time, I don’t know what I really want, anyway. This feeling came from a complete surrender, a total letting go. I had built a life that was not in alignment with my spirit’s calling, and I was lying to myself. Once I got honest, I knew the next step would be humbling. I’ve gotten rid of all of the things that make me “valuable” to society, to potential partners. No more fancy apartment, no more six figure job, no more perfect neighborhood. No more lies. The only way to get to my soul’s destination is to take a step backward, to go down into the underworld (ironically, I’m living in a basement) and rebuild from the ground up.
I’ve never felt so alone, and I’ve never felt so alive. For the first time in my life, I’m catching glimpses of the secret knowledge of the ancient sages and mystics. I have nothing, but with nothing comes the potential for everything.
Funny how it all works.