z i n l o o s !

Something has left you,
but it is good that it has left.
The last part of the ego has left.


You feel empty, mm? because you had become accustomed to a certain identity. You had become certain of living with somebody inside you. Now that somebody is not there. Now the house is empty, utterly empty. In the beginning it will feel kind of sad, kind of lonely. And yes, you will feel vulnerable and not in a loving way, because all the love that you have known before was love through the ego. Now, before another kind of love starts flowing you will feel that all flow has stopped; hence the hardness. That softness was not a true softness, but the ego pretends to be polite, soft. That is the polished ego. That's what a cultured man is. That is the only difference between the uncultured and the cultured: the uncultured has a gross ego and cultured has a very polished, polite, humble ego; he looks almost egoless. He has become his pretension. That softness is a pretension but one can become absolutely one with it.
Now the ego has gone, with it the softness has gone. You will find a natural hardness in you. This is your reality. It is just as if you painted your face with powder and you had made it beautiful and then it rained and all the powder went down the drain. Suddenly you find your real face. You had forgotten about it. Those flowers that you have arranged on the rock of your ego have disappeared; now the rock is left.... You will feel a little hard and at the same time vulnerable, at the same time unloving, empty. This is what christian mystics have called the 'dark night of the soul.' Before the morn, before the dawn, everybody has to pass through it. One has to be utterly empty, only then can one be full. There is no other way to fullness.
So these days will be a little difficult, but welcome them. They are part of growth, of immensely valuable growth. But you cannot see ahead. And I understand that -- you can see only that which was and is no more. You cannot see that which is going to be, which is already on the way, which may have already entered you. But before you can recognise it a little time will pass, because one has to learn a new grammar, an altogether new language to understand it, to conceive of it, to conceptualise it. One has to create a new kind of intellect. A new kind of intelligence has to arise and start functioning; only then can you see what is happening. But it is good.

thx M