And now there is the brilliance – the brilliance – as things begin to reveal their inner light. And now also the shadow, no longer lurking – how everything is present without praise or apology –

And so the bottom line turns out to be the radical acceptance of the unacceptable and equally well the radical acknowledgement of pure ambient light, all the while finally inexorably sinking back into This.

Abhinavagupta, that 10th/11th Century Kashmiri Shaivist wisdom master/philosopher/practitioner, has said more than a few words on this topic, lest we be tempted to cast from infinity its infinite variety.

10. Their extreme diversity, the upper worlds, the lower worlds, the intermediary ones, and those that constitute them, here is existence endowed with pleasure and pain. …

14. In reality, no differentiation exists in Shiva, these two, bondage and liberation, are in no way separated from the essence of the supreme.

Hymnes de Abhinavagupta, translation and commentary by Lilian Silburn   (English translation is mine)

No more carrots, no more promises, merit badges, hearts and flowers, unless balanced by negative mind states and the putrid stench of rottenness. Love, joy, anger, grief, good moods, bad moods, magnanimity, avarice, saints, sinners – in luminous awareness, it is the same. It is only the mind that creates distinctions.

Doctors need sickies, sickies need doctors. In other words, duality proceeds in non-duality. It’s not an either/or situation. It is true that for the whole to be whole, for the infinite to be infinite, it must contain everything.

How terrible! Shouldn’t it be otherwise? What about personal responsibility? What about my preferences? Don’t I have the right to demand impeccable fiscal and/or sexual behaviour from my teachers?

It turns out in vastness, “This, too, this, too, and this, too,” is not different from “Not this, not this” (Neti Neti). Take your pick. It is the same. Every individual snowflake different, all made of crystalline water.

Wholeness demands only wholeness.