“Darkness within darkness,
the gateway to all understanding.”
The Source, the Tao, is darkness—the birthplace of everything. We come from it, and we return to it. It is the non-being from which our being arises. Close your eyes. Go inside your own dark center and draw near to the center of all.
“Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.”
Desire is the human condition. So, I, always desiring, am caught among the manifestations, while longing for the mystery. The ultimate desire is to be free from desire itself. How impossible that seems, but only then can I comprehend the mystery. Only then can I realize it; only then is it realized in me. Pass through the gateway; enter the darkness. Perhaps understanding waits there.
I wake up in the darkness. It’s two in the morning. Are you awake too?
It’s dark inside and around me. The sheets are cool, like darkness itself. I lie there, listening. The house is still. Yet I’ve been struggling in my dreams to persuade, convince, free myself from something, or resolve something, and it feels impossible. There is no way out. I am trapped. I know the only answer is to surrender, but I don’t know how. I’m on the verge of passing through the gateway into complete darkness. If I take that step, will I realize the mystery?
“Yet,” that freeing word! “Yet,” that promise of release and deliverance! Ah, “Mystery and manifestations arise from the same source.” And that source is darkness; blessed, holy, enfolding—the gateway to all understanding. Abide in the darkness, realize the mystery.
