As we have seen, the narcissistic wound will arise whenever there is a lapse of mirroring. At this stage, the student experiences this lapse whenever she feels the pressure to conceptualize her experience of herself so that she can be seen and recognized. When anyone defines her with words or concepts, or expects her to manifest herself with words and concepts, she experiences the loss of the mirroring self-object. This activates the narcissistic wound, the hurt and sadness of her alienation from her Being. At this level, the hurt is activated by any identification with a mental structure, sometimes by any conceptualization of her experience of herself. This is a deep and fundamental hurt that underlies all experiences of the ego-self, any experience of self in the conventional dimension of experience. It is very subtle and cannot be contacted without the capacity to experience the warmth of compassion on a very deep level, beyond thought or concept.

Aloneness is frequently considered synonymous with not being with the mother, or with loss of the mother. This produces all the reactions that have to do with separation. Aloneness in this case is seen as an extreme state of separation. This indicates that there is still an identity with ego, and the sense of autonomy of the Personal Essence makes one feel one is alone, or going to be very alone. This brings about fear, deep sadness and longing. Aloneness is equated here with loss of love, pleasure, intimacy, security, support, etc.; all the libidinal supplies that can come from the love object. Sometimes students associate with aloneness the feelings of abandonment, rejection, hurt; so they react with feelings of loneliness.

With the recognition of the soul as a shell around the emptiness of the absolute, its substance begins to dilute and become watery. I feel it now as tears, warm deep tears, as the blackness of the absolute begins to penetrate and pervade it. The soul melts, becoming an ocean of tears and sadness. As the perception develops, I become the depths of the absolute, aware of the totality of the universe as made out of soul substance in the process of diluting. The state of unity of appearance manifests now from the perspective of the absolute. The universe exists as a beautiful appearance, as the apparel of the absolute. This leads to further understanding of the absolute, what it is, how it affects consciousness. The understanding is that the absolute is divine ipseity, divine essence, the secret, the inner of the inner, the source, the unknowable, the guest.

The soul feels any sense of movement away from total intimacy with the absolute mystery to be an intolerable loss. However, regardless of her resistance and protest, it finally dawns on her that she cannot stay where she is, and that it is not up to her personal choice. At some point she recognizes that her unfoldment is taking her to a place different than the transcendent absolute ipseity. She might feel the arising of a great sadness, tremendous grief. It may take her a long time before she realizes that there is no loss of the total intimacy with the absolute, that she does not have to actually leave her home to go on to these further stations. As she surrenders to the dynamism of Being, and ceases to hold on to her realization of the absolute ipseity, she recognizes and surrenders her attachment to the absolute realization. In this process she discovers that while it is true that she is on a journey of descent from the heights of transcendence, this journey is not a separation from the absolute. The descent is a descent into limitation, but it is the descent not of her individual sense of herself, but the descent of the ipseity itself. In other words, she descends into the limitations of the world not as a soul entity, but as the absolute mystery itself. Nevertheless, this process feels like separation and loss; it is more than the soul has wanted, and a journeying further when she wants to journey no more.

Ultimately, we experience longing and sadness and unhappiness because we experience ourselves as separate objects. Then we try to connect to other separate objects through love or sex or spiritual work. But we have to see the basic truth that we’re not separate beings. We don’t need to do anything to be connected. There is no disconnection. Disconnection is an illusion. In fact, it is a delusion, a psychotic delusion. This perspective is not new. For thousands of years, the oneness of reality has been the central insight in various spiritual traditions and teachings.