First the Agony, then the Ecstasy, and then the Laundry.

Or, maybe after the small ecstasy, the agony, then higher ecstasy, then some more agony, then more ecstasy, and during this all someone has to do the laundry.

I loved Jack Kornfield’s book “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.”  To be honest, Jack does write about the agony as well.  He just didn’t put “Agony” in the title.  

Often within spiritual unfolding, after the first taste of ecstasy, there is a period of depression.  Often before any great spiritual opening there is a period of great agony.  The ancients wrote about the experience as “swallowing a red-hot ball of metal.” 

The following describes considering the Koan “Mu.”  Koans are puzzles meant to confuse the rational thinking mind, when the mind is totally confused, this is one way to let pure consciousness arise:    

So then, make your whole body a mass of doubt, and with your 360 bones and joints and your 84,000 hair follicles, concentrate on this one word No [Mu]. Day and night, keep digging into it. Don't consider it to be nothingness. Don't think in terms of 'has' or 'has not.' It is like swallowing a red-hot iron ball. You try to vomit it out, but you cannot. [Translation from Boundless Way Zen]

http://buddhism.about.com/od/chanandzenbuddhism/a/What-Is-Mu.htm

So what is this agony? 

 

The agony comes from the ego struggling to survive.  The experience is of dying. 

In order to climb higher on the evolutionary tree, you must die to who you were before. 

Actually, you are, strictly speaking, transcending and including.  You may feel like you are dying.  But, you actually include that old self into this new self. 

http://enlightenedmdphd.blogspot.com/2013/02/just-stranger-in-strange-land-part-2.html

It feels like dying anyway. 

So, in your quest for personal evolution, in your quest for “enlightenment.”  (Whatever the hell you think that might be.) 

Welcome the depression.  Welcome the agony.  Realize it is temporary. 

It hurts anyway.  And, may be quite miserable for everyone around you as well. 

As Vonnegut says “so it goes.” 

Most of us on this sacred quest have no other choice.  We must push on. 

We may take some breaks.  But, there is no end to our spiritual unfolding. 

Agony and Ecstasy. 

Unfold We Must.  

I like that, should make that a bumper sticker or a T-shirt! 

I am sorry for your pain.  Been there.  Will be there again, and again.

And I delight with you in your Ecstasy. 

I am with you.  We are all with you.  We have never been apart from each other. 

Come, let us continue to surf together.