Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light. So when we are in sorrow, this light is nearest of all to us.
Meister Eckhart
Dark Night of the Soul
I woke up this morning asking, "Why is this process of awakening suddenly so yucky? I feel like crap these days and I am certainly no fun to be around!" In my earnest plea and prayers, I have asked for healing of all that which is in the way of me experiencing who I truly am. As a result, (I am assuming), I am finding myself in a proverbial dark night of the soul.
...that's a term ["Dark night of the soul''] used to describe, what one would call, a collapse of perceived meaning in life...an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness...nothing makes sense anymore...there is no purpose to anything....what has collapsed then is a whole conceptual framework for your life...the meaning your life has given it...that results in a sense of darkness...a dark place.."
Eckhart Tolle
I am in a dark place. In some traditions ( mine) the dark night is longed for or even recreated in order to bring about awakening. Am I the only crazy person in the world wanting and calling upon this yucky experience in order to awaken and be free from the pain I am experiencing now once and for all?
I am assuming again that I am here, in this uncomfortable spot, not only because I am now facing a certain meaninglessness in my life but also because with each peeling away of a layer of "me," samskaras have risen to the surface. They are so much in my face now....well the emotional energy is anyway. They are constantly getting triggered by life events. In fact, it is almost as if the life events are arising with the intended purpose to trigger my samskaras. Man! As a result, I am a mess and thanks to my mindfulness practice, I am so aware that I am a mess. It's crazy.
It is dark and heavy in here as I realize I am not that who I thought I was all my life, and I am not yet that which I want to be. I can't seem to see clearly where I am heading and who it is I am becoming because of this veil of samskaras truth is still buried under. I feel almost stuck under it. Yuck! It is also so sticky...creating a dark film over my eyes ( or eye..as in true sight)...It is just a thin film but enough to obscure the light. Enough to weigh me down a bit so I feel stuck where I am. I mean...I know in my heart, and so want to believe, that this dark night is all for a reason of greater good, signifying I am close to healing's end. I want to believe that the light is right there waiting for me to break through to grab it, that purification will be complete once this stuff is released and out of the way. It is all so close to being released. I know that intuitively but right now it sucks. I want this dark heaviness off and out of me already. I want the light to be able to shine up and through...for the shakti that so wants to flow through me to flow. Being at the edge of purification, close but not quite there, is an uncomfortable stage of this healing journey.
It Sucks!
I feel unsettled, unhappy, confused as fork, I do not want to do anything but write, meditate, practice a bit of Hatha and numb with Netflix. I don't want to be around other people. I know it would be best if I did, but I don't want to face all those triggers out there hiding behind every corner, it seems. I spend hours sitting here, rationalizing why I should be sitting here. Hope is no longer there to pull me up and through because I fired hope a while ago, once I seen how it was misguiding me! I am no longer running and hiding from the feelings that are exposed after each and every layer of "me" is peeled off, either. So I am raw and inflamed, like an open sore in lemon juice. Stings like the dickens! This is where I am at. This is what it is and at this part of the process, I am just as I am. And I have to say, it kind of sucks! Nothing has meaning anymore. Nothing makes sense. It all seems so dark.
"The problem is that our sense of personal identification starts to loosen...that contracted energy we call "me"...it begins to dissipate...and the dying ego creates a lot of pain and suffering. So this period is a time of confusion because the whole paradigm we created in the past...all that conditioning now...begins to breakdown... The paradigm breaks down because you start to question if it is really going to bring you happiness...
Jagjot Singh
Paradigm Loosening
To others and to the part of "my conceptual mind" that understands mental health issues...it seems that I am more unwell than most around me, and more unwell than I was before I started this journey. People I watch, are smiling, laughing, going on with their day to day lives without these feelings of being weighed down. They easily and happily stick with the script from the screenplay entitled. This is what will make you happy and is what you are supposed to do! They focus on getting educated, finding a good job and showing up everyday to it, finding a respectable partner, getting a home, building a family, having the kids turn out a certain way, gaining a few status symbols, following some select religious and political dogma, retiring and then and only then enjoying the fruits of their labors. This is the paradigm...this is the script most of us adhere to.
Never Really Liked the Script
The "me" I was before...tried to do the same though it never ever felt right (I kind of knew from the onset it would never bring true peace but felt compelled to follow the crowd) and the "me" I was before was never really healthy. Heck, it was never even real! It was even more removed from the core of who I am, from what is truly important and gives meaning to Life than, it is now. I, as "me", wasn't healthy and living Life fully. This person I thought I was supposed to be was numb, disconnected, getting by, lost in the unimportant things and so unaware that it was so. Most of the people I see around me are doing the same. They are living from atop of all the stuff they stuffed convincing themselves it is a lovely or at least "an okay" hill they have settled on...when really it is a volcano that could explode at any minute.
From Dipping to Diving In
Like I said, I never really felt intuitively that it was the way to go and I wasn't very good at following the norms lol. I was always doing things that others thought was inappropriate and not meeting social expectations. If I wasn't consciously choosing to step away from "normal"...life was pushing me across those lines. I tried to stay within the lines, I did. Something inside me, however, was always whispering, calling and eventually yelling at me to smarten up! It wanted self to leave the "me" I was and reconnect with my Greater Self. I have been dipping my toes in the spiritual pool ever since I was young but it wasn't until the challenge of keeping up with the pack got too big for me to manage, that I finally dived in.
Since my dive in, I have had some lovely peaceful moments and I had many not so peaceful moments. Something was always in the way of me fully experiencing the beautiful reality of Life and that something was a "me" that just happened to be pretty broken by social standards. So though I know that "me" is not who I am...I am not yet knowing who I am is. I am between two ideas of Self. This leaves me splashing and floundering in some pretty dark water. We all have to get past our egos and our "meness" if we want to awaken and that means dropping all we once thought was real which is hard enough to do... but when that "me" is broken, there is a lot of stuffed and stored samskara to get through before we can touch the "I am" of our existence.
I know that it isn't that the process doesn't work or is at fault. It is just that there is so, so much stuffed inside me. Soon as some buried energy is pulled out and released, more arises to the surface. It is like the scarf being pulled out of a magician's pocket...never seems to end. But there is an end to everything, isn't there? Man, I gotta be close to the end.
Cognitive Dissonance?
There are other reasons why this is such a yucky period of my growth ( as you can see I have not reached the true realization of non duality yet ... I am still using the word "yucky!"lol). There is some cognitive dissonance going on...a tug a war between what is left of my "me" with its need for pleasure and relief of discomfort, and my need for truth ( a desire to keep going along this path no matter how hard it gets). (Jagjot Singh)
I felt some comfort today when I heard these words from Jagjot Singh...someone I just happened upon on my searching through the net for an answer to this question: "Why is there so much discomfort in spiritual awakening?"
Whatever darkness you are experiencing right now....whatever suffering you are experiencing right now...is a pointer to the absolute.
On the Right Path Still. Whew!
Meaning, regardless of how yucky it might feel, this is a good thing I am experiencing right now. It is an indication that I am getting there ( we will use the concept "getting there" for now, though it is greatly misleading). I need to settle into this dark night and find some peace in it. I need to remind myself of that whenever it gets especially dark.
How long will it last and what can I do to make it go away sooner?
I have faith that this dark period will lead to light eventually...
It is is from the dark night of the soul that people can awaken, not necessarily, but quite often... it is from there where people awaken out of their conceptual sense of reality which has collapsed. They awaken into something deeper which is no longer based on concepts in your mind ...a deeper sense of purpose or connectedness with a greater life that is not dependent on explanations or anything conceptual any longer.
Eckhart Tolle
But how long will it last? When will I awaken?
It will last as long as it will last and there is no-thing for me to do but wait. This type of suffering was created by Source and it will only be alleviated by Source when the time is right. I am actually doing nothing. Source is simply seeking itself through this mind and form and it will find itself through this mind and form. I don't have to add to the discomfort of this stage with my resistance of it. As with all things, I must let it be! I must ride out the storm. I need the right attitude of acceptance and allowance to do that.
The happiness you are seeking is not to be found in the flow of life, but in your attitude towards whatever life brings.
Ramesh Balsekar
All is well!
Jagjot Singh (February?, 2023) Dark Night of the Soul-Awakening to the Source of Unconditional Love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT_k1PtX7X4&t=1160s
Eckhart Tolle (January? 2023) Going Through a Dark Night of the Soul? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DrR6rSJhN0
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