Why strain?

This is an hypothetical situation. Suppose you are with your husband. A woman decides to catch his attention. You get distracted by her antics. Your mind shifts to that woman. Depending on your personality type, you have various reactions -- u may quarrel with your husband; you may fight with the woman; you may choose to see the woman as sad and feel sorry for her; you may fume about her for long.  Whatever you do, this woman has managed to come between you and your husband.

So, too who is that who comes between you and the divine? Is a situation or is it you yourself?

When you go deeper into sadhana, this is a terrible state when you realise finally that something has come between you and That.  Who is that someone? We like to think it is the external factor -- however, just as in the above situation though there is, indeed a woman who is indulging in annoying antics -- it is not her who comes between you and your beloved. It is your own mind. It is you yourself.

This is disturbing to a meditator for several reasons. Because the onus has suddenly shifted from the external trigger/factor to you yourself. How then can u handle this? To tell oneself this, that I myself stopped loving my husband or beloved for a few seconds because I allowed the external factor to step in.. as my mind dwelled on that, I shifted my mind from my beloved to some vague irritant. This is disturbing for the simple reason you feel that you could control the external trigger -- even if you must move away from that.For instance, as in the above incidence you can just move off from that woman. However, in this awareness where you yourself come between yourself and your beloved, where to move and how to move and in which direction.

This is disturbing because it seems far easier to control something that is outside of ourselves than something within ourselves.  This thing that is the self-jiva-awareness -- it rises into a crescendo, like some irritating tinnitus in the ear that cannot be wished away. If the noise came from outside, you could shut it off. Plug your ears. But if it came from within where to run?

This is where you strain and struggle...  You yourself, having come between yourself and That.

Then there is all those associated emotional turmoil that even greater souls than us have experienced.

The sense of panic -- like a child would, having been torn from its mother. The yearning to get back.

The sense of extreme despair -- of separation, like you would if you quarreled with someone you love, and wish to make up, but cannot since some silly ego (really silly:) gets in the way.

The sense of intense loneliness -- so close, but having shut yourself out of the presence, like a cold war between two people deeply in love -- lonely, alone, despite being together.

The sense of strangeness -- since you know your beloved is there, where you wish to go, but you are in a crowd which does not know him, so you do not know whether you may talk of him, to ease the longing or keep quiet since they do not know what he is all about --

The worst -- you know he is just a hair breadth away, yet you do not know the magic thing that will make him materialise where you feel him keenly -- and know that it is you yourself who have locked yourself away from him, and thrown off the key... such a separation, from that which is pure and beloved..