Self-Realization and Other Awakenings

However, I think you really like the passion you feel
now versus the deadness of five years ago. You know
the peace and deadness of non-attachment, and
eventually you can have the same peace and
acceptance even while being totally passionate, for
you will find that the peace of emptiness, of the Void,
can contain all the pain and passion you feel now. You
think they are separate and incompatible.
But, once you know emptiness, once you know the
peace of having seen oneness, once you can hold
steady in meditation, you learn how to relax in it and
let all the passions blow through you, sustaining and
energizing your life, and yet holding steady during all
the emotional storms.
It is all a matter of identification. What part of
your experience, what part of your Self do you identify
with; the personal drama, the impersonal witness or
emptiness, or both? Or neither? You can learn to
accept all and identify with all or part.
Eventually, the passions will begin to lessen as you
age, and by the time you are 80 you will be talking like
Nisargadatta, where he feels his personhood, passion,
and aliveness is all gone. He was preparing for the
great emptiness of death.
In the meantime, you have much passionate life to
live.