We fear poverty, but we learn somehow that it is poverty that leads us to the joy of the kingdom, the joy of letting go. In poverty, we possess only what is necessary, nothing more, nothing less. But in this poverty we come to face a fear, a deep and real fear in us. It’s the kind of fear that you have when you are standing on the edge of a cliff. People often have this feeling of being on a precipice at certain stages in their journey of meditation, the fear of just being on the edge, of having to let go. There may be some kind of physiological, biological reason for it, perhaps, but this image of being on the edge, being on a precipice, is very common, very powerful; and the ego resists the final leap. The ego wants to draw back. The ego, which is this little island of consciousness, a dim light, wants to pretend that it is the whole light.
( Aspects of Love 2 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
