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Category Archives: Ascending the Noble Mountain of Primordial Perfection
Closing Reflection: Ascending the Noble Mountain of Primordial Perfection
It’s best to explore this series sequentially beginning with its introductory blog. Each blog builds upon the other in describing the various stages one must undertake in order to Ascend the Noble Mount in quest of Union with the Unborn. John of the Cross was adamant in terms of this resolve. There are two nights that must be endured—one a transcendence of sensorial impressions, and the other entailing a transfiguration of the spirit itself. Neither are an easy climb, yet the Dark Night of the Spirit demands an almost herculean endurance before the realization dawns that one must eventually surrender to higher spiritual agencies THAT initiate a series of purifications that alone will lessen the load and open the transcendental gate to Divine Illumination and Mystical Coitus.
Mystical Coitus
As the Dark Contemplation reforms the mindset, it also at the same time instills it with the Light of Holy Gnosis. This mystic stimulus ignites the will and transfigures it into the flame of Divine Vitality. The mind and spirit of the adept are enflamed with an untold richness and eternal delight. One can now taste the Divine Essence, hinting at the perfect mystical coitus with the Unborn. This would have been impossible without the prior extensive purification-process. For such a perfect Divine Union is devoid of any defiled-garbha. The spirit is cleansed and healed by the darkening of the interior faculties, thus emptying all formal obstructions and refining it with an incomparable Wisdom.
The Edge of Illumination
Even though the Holy Darkness of the Spirit disassembles the adept’s mindset, it does so only to illumine the ways of the Unborn thus emptying all former natural inclinations and instilling a mindset that becomes privy to all Divine associations. Without this purification the adept’s spirit would be unable to partake in Divine Gnosis and Wisdom and taste the delectability of all spiritual delights. Thus, if the spirit is to enter into this Supernal-Realization, the Dark Contemplation needs to annihilate all inferior tendencies. Yea, the Unborn Light that is forthcoming is so pure and of the highest degree, only one purified in such manner can withstand its Bright Wonder and thus enter into Undivided Union with the Bodhimind.
Further Lamentations
Pierced by the Dark Ray of Infused Contemplation, the adept sees no immediate remedy from the awful desolate landscape which presents itself. Recollecting past spiritual gains only intensifies the grief of its loss. Advanced adepts who have entered into the Dark Night of the Spirit and who have accumulated past merit, experience tremendous grief in the sudden and all-encompassing realization of just how far removed they are from such former consolations. They despair of never being able to regain them in the same form as before.
In the Belly of the Beast
The spiritual-death that the adept incurs in the Dark Night of the Spirit is like joining Old Jonah in the Belly of the Whale. Yet the adept must continue to abide in this dark-confining tomb until the Dark Ray of Infused Contemplation has completed its task and the great day of ascension dawns. What the adept most acutely experiences during this confinement is that even spiritual agencies have abandoned him. On the relative plane even close friends and associations have departed and no longer provide any source of comforting support. Not only this apparent humiliation, but the Dark Contemplation also has the effect of making the adept realizing one’s own abject spiritual-poverty and misery. It’s like hanging over the dark precipice not even being able to breathe. The adept is not even made aware of what is actually occurring, and that is the Unborn Spirit consuming all the deeply-rooted habit energy that has afflicted the adept throughout his entire life.
Infused Contemplation
The Dark Night of the Spirit is an inflowing of the Unborn Spirit. It purges the Unborn Mind adept of all imperfections, both natural, psychophysical and spiritual. This is known by contemplatives as “Infused Contemplation”. This is also when celestial agencies transmit secret gnosis and perfects the adept in the Unitive Way of the Unborn. The adept does not move an inch nor is required to use the reasoning faculty. All natural faculties are now subdued in order to receive the Dark Contemplation that is reserved for those few shining ones who dare enter such illuminating heights of the Spirit. The same Transcendent Wisdom that blesses such spiritual pilgrims on other planes of existence now descends upon those who will incur the Great Silent Illumination on the sultry planes of this saha-world.
Dark Night of the Spirit
II. Dark Night of the Spirit
Congratulations! If you have come this far in this series and have been in spiritual earnest, then you have completed the first leg of the Noble Ascent of Primordial Perfection. You have journeyed through the purgative night of the active sensorial and the illuminative night of the active spiritual tribulations and have thus purified and mortified these faculties. It needs to be known that many never enter into the next and darker phase of the journey. They feel content in no longer being disturbed by the discursive mind or spiritual anxiety in mastering this first phase and make the decision not to progress further into the “Passive” Dark Night of the Spirit. Passive in the sense of not initiating any form of action but just surrendering to the work that the Unborn Spirit still needs to confer. For those few brave souls who do, they need to be prepared for the harsh arid and desolate experiences that await them on the ‘Unitive-Way’ of the Unborn. Yea, no matter how profound the purgative and illuminative ways have been, the spirit is not yet totally purified and still needs to endure a more thorough cleansing before the Actual Union will occur.
In Darkness and Secure
We have been covering the preparation for Infused Contemplation, the preparation of the Mindground as it were. An evacuation of the sensate faculties was in order before proper Union with the Unborn Mind could be conferred. If the mortal (and spiritual) appetites are not mortified, then the adept is still held-bound and preoccupied with habit-energy and thus not free to receive the Supernal Self-Realization and communication of the Unborn Spirit. Hence the mortification of habit-energy leaves the adept in a form of darkness and void with respect to them. The spirit is no longer fixated upon, and thus secured, from being further affected by them. The way is thus open for the first rudiments of Infused Contemplation to unfold. The active night of the senses thus ended, the way is now set for the active night of the spirit.
Hungry Ghosts
Those who decidedly cling to their unfulfilled sensual desires are like Hungry Ghosts never having their fill. An eternal feast on crumbs that never satisfy. They are the spiritually famished who continually open their rancid dry-mouths in dire yearnings for just a taste of something that would fulfill their insatiable thirst. They even begin to feed upon each other in some languorous hope of filling up their despondent emptiness. Thus does the demon of sexual perversion lord it over our sickened, diseased and weary culture. All of these appetites are wearisome because they agitate and weary the spirit just as the wind disturbs the calm surface of the ocean. Oh how these voracious sensual appetites consume the unwary soul! An endless eating-away at their nothingness like an incurable itch until they are freed from being bound by the tortuous cords of the rack.
One Dark Night
John of the Cross utilizes the first few stanzas of his poem, The Dark Night of the Soul, as a medium in which to better understand The Ascent. Darkness is a metaphor for the complete mortification of the senses. To deprive oneself of the gratification of the appetite for all sensate phenomena, the disease of desire is cessated. In Buddhism this has to do with Āyatana, or everything under the sphere of the senses: