So, how do I empty the ‘vessel’ of myself, how do I shatter it? We each hold so much darkness and pain in the ‘vessel’ of the personal, whether the darkness is ignorance, false beliefs, pain, anger, disappointment, etc., and it all conspires to dim the pure light of spiritual truth that lives in each heart. Naturally, the load must be lightened, the darkness removed, if we are to see clearly what truly lies and lives at our core.

So, the question is, “How do we remove all that darkness? How do I come to see Reality?” The heart of the spiritual journey is the removal of all that obscures the shining light, the real Truth of our Being-ness. Clouds do nothing to the sun they only diminish the amount of light that reaches the planet’s surface. So too, the spiritual light of life remains unaltered in the heart, despite the innumerable obstacles, the ‘clouds’, we humans have placed in the way of its action. Our ‘vessel’ is filled with darkness, and we suffer because of it.

So, how do we clear the personal from so much darkness? I suppose we could remove each piece of darkness, one bit at a time, and that would be like tipping the vessel of the self to pour out the darkness, one drop at a time. That is the normal way. Or we could shatter the vessel and release it all at once.

The Vision Quest is the only process I have found that has the power and grace to accomplish that shattering! The Quest is no respecter of any piece of darkness, but treats each as mere droplets within the obscuring clouds of our experience. Oh, how many times have I felt even my most cherished beliefs being dissolved by the light of the Quest! Yes, it is the light and power of the Quest that shatters the personal so that the purity, the true uniqueness of the Self, stands revealed.