Now the practitioner enters the area of blind spot, in the grip of patterning which everyone but she or he can see and identify. Like the old story of having spinach between your teeth, you need reliable best friends to tell you what they see! It's no use for them to be saying to each other "Oh my, look at what she's doing, how can she be so blind!" The terrible fact is we simply cannot see the unconscious material that is driving the life. If you are fortunate enough to have the company of honest spiritual friends and/or a close relationship with a Teacher, you will be challenged to look in the mirror again and again, and they will present the mirror to you at slightly different angles in the hope that you're going to catch a glimpse of that hidden face. When you do start to "see through a glass darkly" you can begin a deeper journey.

Many beings get derailed here. Why? Either because they lack these supportive spiritual companions, or because life has become quite pleasant for them and there is little interest in looking further. By this stage much of the neurotic patterning that motivated them to practice meditation in the first place has been purified and there is also the base of many years of wholesome activity. Issues such as like livelihood and relationship are easier, the struggle is less apparent and there may not be the determination or the support from outside to probe deeply into these blind spot areas.

Next comes the stage which I call crucible. A crucible is a fire-proof container which is used to melt down metals so that any impurities can be removed. In alchemy, the crucible is the vessel in which iron (or gross matter) is transformed into gold (the purest substance). Now this crucible is nothing other than the accumulation of all the positive, informed activity (sometimes referred to as merit) that the being has generated. It is the strength in consciousness that arises from learning techniques and outfoxing your resistances and not getting hung up in the experiences that manifest. It is the determination not to be derailed by routine and tedium, to make the deeper, conscious commitment, to train consciousness, and refine question. It arises from a conceptual base informed by direct observation of phenomena which gives one the confidence to pry open the blind spots so that the more subtle elements of defilement are burnt away. When that crucible meets the fire of transformation what remain as residual conditioning is released as energy. For this process to be total, body, which is the densest part of this psycho-physical organism and therefore often the last to shift, must also freed from all the residual remnants of negative conditioning and distortion.

Now body, speech and mind are purified and able to come into a clear, direct, aware seeing of Universe, which has always been the ground, which has supported and fed and stimulated this process in all beings, from beginningless time until now. Universe commands transcendence, and universe obeys.

What could be simpler? Let's get on with it!

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