Spiritual Intimacy: The Sense of Oneness

SPIRITUAL INTIMACY; THE SENSE OF ONENESS

I who am divine am truly in you. 

I can never be sundered from you;

however far we have parted, 

never can we be separated. 

I am in you, and you are in Me. 

We could not be any closer.

We two are fused into one, 

poured into a single mold; thus unwearied,

we shall remain forever.

Mechtild of Magdeburg

Cited in The Christian Mystics

Matthew Fox makes these comments and affirmations:

     “GOD WITHIN, GOD TRULY WITHIN. God deeply within. God so surely within That nothing can separate us from God. Panentheism: I am in you, and you are in me.”

    We cannot be any closer to God. We are fused into one, and this is forever.

     Have you ever glimpsed the truth that Mechtild has tasted, and is teaching us? It is the same experience that Julian also spoke of– a true oneing, no separation, nothing between us and God.”

While I am earnestly drawn to this ideal of soul fusion, that feeling of never being separate, or being so intimately connected that there can be no true sense of alienation or aloofness, it is a rare occurrence.  Sadly, I have to admit that this experience has remained an elusive feeling, or experience for me. 

     I have more often experienced the estrangement than the intimacy, and I accept that for some of us, myself included, the “dark night” can last many years. It can be a prolonged stage of emptiness or estrangement, where one’s understanding of God has deadened, and one’s connection to divinity seems non-existent. In some biographies of the saints and spiritual adepts, there looms a large question: They rail and they wonder, if and when the supernal light will ever arrive! 

     Yet, that is as it must be. We are consoled by glimpses, fleeting looks, quick flashes of experience and almost magical episodes of understanding. For the full truth of its reality shining within our human form and existence might well be impossible!

If I were so enraptured by the intimacy and gracious, powerful connection that I felt all the time, life on earth would cease its purpose, and I would not be able to work or relate in any ordinary way! I would exist in my personal sense of bliss!  

     They say that some saints were so blessed/afflicted, and that some Hindu musts or enlightened gurus were totally absorbed in this awareness, that they ceased to live or to function in any meaningful way. 

     However, I most likely would be locked up for my safety in a mental illness asylum, or if fortunate, in some lofty residence for the holy disturbed!

    My most reverent and revelatory understanding is that feeling and experiencing an intimacy with the Divine is our best antidote to fear, apprehension, and estrangement – those terrible phantoms by day and those awe-ful terrors by night. 

     As I understand it, it requires a radical sense of trust, a constant devotion, a fierce abiding sense of connection, and other such qualities to be completely free of our subjectivity while we are on the earthly plane. 

     Realistically, for me, that means having those few precious moments of acceptance and grace that turn my world around- that set before me a new path and a deeper understanding of truth, love, and compassion. And for each and every fleeting moment I have felt or endured, I am profoundly grateful.