According to The Tibetan Book of the Dead, when a brilliant light comes to us in the after-death state, we shy away from it. When a pleasant, faint, soothing light comes to us, we go towards it. In choosing the dimmer light, we come back to square one, which is samsara. The point at which we can either extend ourselves further and go towards an unfamiliar brilliance, or return to a more soothing and familiar dimness is the threshold of magic.
This is very personal. We feel pushed, hassled, and exposed through our practice. All kinds of irritations and all kinds of boundaries begin to come up, and we would like to try to stay within our territory, within those boundaries. We don’t really want to step beyond them. Such boundaries or thresholds always come up, and we really do not want to push anymore. But some kind of push is necessary.
From Journey without Goal: The Tantric Wisdom of the Buddha, pages 111 to 112.
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