Still Weathering...

The dark night of the soul is when you have lost the flavor of life but have not yet gained the fullness of divinity. So it is that we must weather that dark time, that period of transformation when what is familiar has been taken away and the new richness is not yet ours.

Ram Dass

Crazy

Hmm! This dark night I am experiencing is  a crazy thing to observe.  Some , I am sure, are observing "me" and saying that it is "me" that is crazy....and I would have to agree with that too.  This "me", this "psyche", this part of my mind so busy focusing on "little me's" desires and aversions is absolutely nuts! Non stop chatter...with pressure of speech like I have never heard before...flight of ideas...obsessive and compulsive...disorganized thinking...dissociative fugue...delusions...paranoia...anxiety...over use of the defense mechanisms of suppression, repression, denial and avoidance...and  having illusions and hallucinations non stop.  These are things one would find in the DSM V under the most severe forms of mental illness. 

Of course if these mind tendencies were what was being judged,  it is no wonder why others would say I was crazy. But  this is not what is being judged. is it?  This is the part of me  considered "normal" because it is what most of our minds are doing, isn't it?  It is my wanting to step away from all that "normal" suffering- inducing madness. that others are observing in me, and thinking is "crazy." Sigh!

Knowing What I am Not...Not Knowing What I Am 

I have realized that I am not my mind stuff.  I am not this body and this role this body plays in this world.  I am not what I own or don't own.  I am not what I do or don't do. I left what I thought I was behind and stepped out into the dark night to make my way to something more.  I am not the opinion others have of me. People around me see a big change in me and they see that as crazy.  It is true, I am feeling so disconnected from what I once knew, unstable and off balance, confused, scared, excited, unsure, vulnerable, insecure, terrified etc as I go forward blindly, having no idea what is up ahead but feeling like I have no choice but to keep going.  This is a very unsettling experience for me...to be between what I once thought I was but wasn't... and what I am, not yet knowing who that is. I don't feel like I belong anywhere...hovering between two poles...so "out of place". I don't fit in that other world I left anymore. None of it has much meaning and I find it hard to interact with others...I mean I love and feel compassion for all  but I have this sense that I no longer belong becasue they see me as "crazy".

 That feeling is far from pleasant but I would never go back to the way it was before.  That life never felt right to me either.  It never made sense to me.  I do not want to return to a state of suffering with a few bouts of conditional okayness to help me get by...where I  felt I had to struggle to grasp, cling, push away, fix, and manipulate everything out there so I could feel okay in here.  How are any of us expected to be okay with a mind like that ( as described above), with a "me" that is never satisfied or settled? Hmm! So I left what I thought I was, the familiar, and am now on the journey to something more.  It is dark and scary. People around me are asking, in not so many words, "What are you doing crazy lady?"

The Destination is Here 

I am portraying it like a journey...as if there is something up ahead in the distance I am trying to get to. Michael Singer, in the below linked podcast, reminds us, however, that You are there already...You are sat chit ananda (eternal conscious ecstasy) .

There already? Ecstasy? First of all,  I would settle for a feeling of "relief" from fear and this heavy weight of suffering that seems to be weighing me down. Ecstasy and bliss seem so far out of my wheel house right now lol. Peace of mind is another rung  I want to reach on this ladder that takes us up to this proverbial Sat Chit Ananda in the sky. (Still have this image in my head of having to get somewhere...and it it is an arduous hike or an arduous climb in the dark. ) I am being told by so many others that I don't have to go anywhere, that I am already there. So if I am there already, why can I not at least feel a bit more relief, a bit more peace?  I have been working so hard, practicing, going inward to the mess inside everyday...and this dark night seemed to have landed on me creating even more suffering...because I cannot see where I am going or tell  if I am even progressing by looking backwards.  And I am supposed to be feeling ecstasy?  Wow!  There must be really something wrong with me if I cannot even tap into a feeling of "relief"? 

So why don't you go back to where you were, crazy lady?

(As you can tell, I am having a really hard time avoiding the idea of  linear distance travel lol).  

I don't think I could go back, even if I wanted to.  I have a feeling, once we truly leave the house...like with both feet outside the door ( before then we likely played with a one foot out and one foot in type of experience)...I think the door locks behind us or maybe the house turns into a pile of sawdust because it was never real or sturdy in the beginning. I don't know...I can't see, remember? The night is too dark for me to look back to see what happened to the house. lol

 Anyway, I think that when we get to where I am now in my understanding of things, we cannot go back to our old ways of seeing and perceiving. That is another reason why this Dark Night is so challenging. We are suddenly like timid guinea pigs  getting the guts to explore the  open, only to find when we hear a strange noise, that  our shelter has been removed.  There is no place to retreat back to. Did you know that guinea pigs can have sudden cardiac deaths because of that? Might be why my ticker is acting up lately, as well. 

Back to the Question: If I am already there, why am I not feeling the ecstasy that is supposedly a part of my innate Shakti flow? 

I get from the below podcast, that there is two reason why: 1. We are too busy staring at the lower and darker parts of us and 2.  We have blocked the flow of  Shakti with our samskaras. 

1. We are too busy staring at "me"? Most of us spend our whole life in "me-me" focus...focusing on our wants and aversions...trying to figure out what we can do to feel better inside. We have a very narrow focus. It is such a narrow beam of this wonderful light of consciousness we shine on "me" that we cannot see anything around it.  Our focus on me is so intent. The world appears to be there for "me" at the exclusion of anything else.  This narrow focus does not bring realization of sat chit ananda because it is shining the light away from the light, into the darkest parts of ourselves where me grows. This brings suffering, right?  That is why we leave the house we were in...a house that was lined with mirrors. 

So we did remove most of our focus on "me" when we left the house for the dark night. We left the mirrors behind and even if we brought one along ...it is dark right, how are you going to stare at yourself in the dark?Anyway...some of our "me" focus is gone as we journey out...but not all of it.  It now becomes about this "me" travelling on this hero's journey...suffering the dark night.  Our beam of consciousness is now on this me going through the dark night.  We focus on how dark and challenging it is and not on the reasons why we are here. We still focus on the darkness and the more we focus on the darkness, the darker it seems to get.  If we are focusing on the darkness, we are not focusing on the light. You are a light shining on something that is dark and you say, "I am dark". 

2. The other reason why we are not able to feel the ecstasy of Shakti is because we have blocked the flow with our samskaras.  So much of Life we have resisted over the years. When we resist we  stuff these things deep down inside us so we don't have to deal with them on the conscious level. We have created psychic blockages and damns over our Shakti...cutting us off from experiencing the flow.  The Shakti is still there trying to flow but we do not feel it. Our samskara ridden psyches are in the way. Sigh. Now as we walk out into the dark night, leaving what we thought we knew behind, the Samskaras become unsettled from their knotted tangles and start to emerge on their own.  What was stuffed in pain, is released in pain.  So here we are travelling along in the dark, disconnected from all we once thought we knew...not knowing where we are going and what we will find there...and on top of that we have all this painful energy from emerging samskaras to deal with. Yuck! That is going to make it hard to connect to these wonderful feelings of Shakti, right?

So is there any good news in this sad and twisted tale , crazy lady?

Yes...as painful as it is we need to remember that "this too shall pass".  This dark night will not last forever.  We will eventually get to where we are going, to where we always were. We just need to have faith and trust that intuitive feeling that gets even stronger in the dark.  As confused and challenged by this experience  as I am right now...I know in my gut that I am going to where I need to go.  I have no desire to turn back, and wouldn't,  even if I could.  

It helps, I find, to remind yourself that going forward is not crazy, what you left behind was the craziness. You were not truly happy and fulfilled back there.  You were just compensating...trying to make the prison you were stuck in more comfortable....and even when you succeeded at doing so, it never lasted, right? It was always just a prison.

Accept the dark night forever long it lasts for you.  Acceptance is key. If we resist the dark night...it becomes another samskara that blocks our energy flow. Know that it is there for your evolution and it will last as long as it needs to to get you there!

You can also take that light of consciousness you were shining on the dark parts of you and this night and shine it elsewhere.  What would you need to possess inside you to endure this night if you discovered it was going to last forever? Peace, calm abiding, other focus, service, strength, courage....build those qualities and focus the light on them.  

Don't push the samskaras back down as they emerge.  Let it all come up. Sit with the pain and then let it go! 

Trust that the light and the shakti is right there ready to flow. Trust that though the remaining surface you does not feel okay, the "I am' within is always okay and it is back to that you are heading. 

And remember we don't go to God....we are just reaching a state of being, where we stop leaving.

All is well!

Michael A. Singer / Temple of the Universe. ( June 12, 2023) Let the deep Truths Set You Free. https://tou.org/talks/

Examining the Mind

 If you keep examining your mind you will come to see that thoughts of who you are and how it all is are creating the reality you are experiencing.

Ram Dass

The Mind In the Way

Well the sun has been revealed after days and days of rain.  The first real sunny day was yesterday and I rejoiced in it as much as this tired body and still heavy mind would let me.  I pushed the body to walk and exercise ( in hope of stimulating the shakti flow) and I went to what has been termed a  healing place by the first nations people here. I walked along the ocean listening to the waves crash against the shore like breaths from Mother Nature herself, hiked through a cedar forest, ad travelled in an open field that seemed to stretch for miles under the blue sky. It was healing for soul even if mind and body objected lol. That is what I tell myself anyway. :) The only thing in the way of me fully enjoying it? Mind, of course. 

This dark night makes me so aware of this mind and teh impact it has on my life!  And it is a nasty critter sometimes...chomping and gnawing away at my insides, standing in the way of peace and joy ...for no good reason at all! I had an encounter with it this morning...or at least I "observed" it in action.

Examining the Barrier

I awoke this morning...feeling the physical effects of overexertion yesterday...so I was a little off. Being off physically doesn't bother me. I wouldn't mind waking up to chest pain and sore muscles but what was even more in  my face was  Mind.  It was so in my face, reminding me of a cousin of mine that passed a few years ago.  He had undiagnosed Asperger's or something on the spectrum, and had no sense of social distance. He would often  come right into your face as he spoke.  He was also bitterly depressed and there was often so much negativity spitting out from his mouth.One would try to shed a little light and he would turn that light into something dark. His expressions got dark fast, so full of  conspiracy stories. It was so draining to be around him, I often found myself avoiding him. 

Well when I woke up this morning, Mind reminded me so much of my cousin.  It was as if Mind was standing way to close to my face, relaying a conspiracy story that "me" was the center of.  It all began when I wondered why I never got the same calls D. did to certain schools and my mind took that and ran with it...creating this big elaborate conspiracy story about false assumption about me. I lay there and I watched mind build on that story until it reached the most negative of conclusions. Mind was telling me that people were assuming the absolute worse thing possible about me.  I could hear  a voice in the distance behind the drama unfolding , saying, "Well you wanted to get rid of your attachment to "me" in a hurry, didn't you? In order to do that you  need to be free of the good opinion of others. This is the ultimate test. Are you free?"  

I realized I wasn't free...yet.

All Just Thought

Now...I was aware as I was observing that this was all just thought.  I was also aware of the negative charge to this thought stream...bringing me down pretty fast ( well lowering the focus of consciousness into the mud and keeping the shakti flow in the very depths of that mud....that is what "down" is, isn't it?).  I was aware of the negative feelings I was experiencing...yick! I was also aware of the habitual tendency emerging to  "fix" this so I didn't have to feel that way.  Thoughts for redemption came into my head.  I needed  to figure out how I could make people out there think better of me. Then I thought well maybe, for now,  I could just come up with another reason why I didn't get the calls...a less challenging to deal with possible negative assumption or opinion of me. Then I went to...maybe it had nothing to do with "me" but just a preference for others or a glitch in the system.  I started to come up a bit, to feel better.

Then I realized that I just spent ten minutes in this horrible drama I made up in my head.  Wow! Mind is still so much in the way. There is still so much "me" there to shed. Am I ever going to get past this?  Am I ever going to be free from the suffering it causes? Am I even progressing at all?

As I sit here reflecting on it, much to your bored horror, I see that yes there is a way to go but I am getting somewhere.  A few years ago I would not have been "observing" myself thinking these thoughts...There would have been no awareness of  "observer".  I would have been totally identified with the thought stream , lost in it.  It all would have been real .  I would have believed my thoughts and lived according to them!

Observing and Asking "Why?" 

Now,  I am observing objectively. Sure, there was a subjective pull there this morning and I felt a lot of negative emotions in response to those negatively charged thoughts...but there was some distance...I was observing myself experience the thinking and its consequences.  I knew I was observing Mind, not reality,  and I was not believing the thoughts to be 100%  true. I also caught myself at one point going from "How do I fix this so I feel better?" to "Why am I thinking like this?"   

Why Am I Thinking Like This?

I realized upon asking that question that the past samskaras were being triggered.  My samskaras are rising to the surface and are even more easily triggered than they were before. The fear of wrong assumption is based on other negative assumption that were wrongly  made about me in the past, the energy of which I did not process through fully and is now stored inside.  Some of these assumptions were minor, with little consequence, but some had drastic consequences on my life like the assumptions that arose when I was  health seeking and seeking support. That was traumatizing. The trauma of that was based on something even deeper I was holding onto that is also resurfacing. My inability to be available as much as intended in this little job venture is triggering past work experiences where I was less than available and not validated for my reasons. People have made incorrect assumptions about me in the past.  I guess I have just learned to expect negative assumption from others. So all this was being triggered coming up to the surface...when I asked, "Why did I not get those calls..." 

The Healthy Question

Anyway...the point is .... "Why am I thinking this way or i.e. why am I not okay inside?" is a much more progressive question to ask than,"How can I fix this so I feel better inside?" is .  The focus is taken away from external cause and solution , which we have so little power to control, to internal.  So the fact that I ask "why" and examine the reasons for my lack of okayness inside is a sign that I am progressing. 

Are You Free Yet?

I was granted a gift with this dramatic reverie. as well. Behind the thought stream was a voice reminding me of my commitment to be free of me and the need of good opinion of others. My mind, as troublesome and annoying as it is, was doing me a solid. It was putting me in a situation where the worse opinion from others could arise to test me in my head instead of  me having to be tested in real life. Then behind the virtual drama was the voice that  asked...Are you free yet? 

 I was made to realize that I wasn't.  There is still work to be done. Sigh.

Now,  I know that was long boring detail about a thought process I was experiencing.  I share because I know such things likely go on in your head, as well. Do you want freedom?  Do you want peace of mind?  If so you need to catch yourself dropping down into the negative thinking,  Then when you do, first of all, step back and observe it all from a distance, knowing it is just Mind stuff and not real.  Secondly, I want you to ask:  Why am I thinking this way?  And look inside for the answer. 

Are you free yet?  If not, that is perfectly okay, Trust that you are getting there...one thought at a time, one question at a time, one answer at a time.

It is all good! 

All is well. 

What is Love?

Love is the most satisfying way to control the mind. 

Radhanath Swami 

 Another imperfect attempt to answer a challenging question.

All is well.

The Last Stanza

 I continued into oblivion lost,

My head was resting on my love;

Lost to all things and myself,

And, amid the lilies forgotten,

Threw all my cares away.

Saint John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, Stanza 8

This last stanza depicts the accumulation of what we are all longing for, whether we know it or not...the mergence with the Source.  In this stanza the speaker states that she continues on ( not die) into oblivion ( I think of ...infinity...spacious emptiness when I hear the word oblivion). I continue  into oblivion lost,  She at this point not yet sure what is happening?  But it was okay because My head was resting on my love; In the stanza previous it was the opposite...the Beloved was resting on them.  This signifies, to me, the union...the mergence into One.  Goes on to say, Lost to all things and myself...What is this "lost" but a sense of disconnection from what one once thought was true, what was known, from the conceptual mind? The speaker is no longer attached to this world of form...to the needs of the little me, the personal self.  The speaker has transcended physicality for the invisible realm. Amid the lilies forgotten.  I am a bit confused here.  Amid the forgotten lilies...or is the speaker saying that they or all their cares are forgotten among the lilies?  Regardless  the lilly is a significant flower in the catholic church signifying Easter...resurrection...rebirth! The speaker has died to be reborn and in so doing was able to cast away all fears and concerns. threw all my cares away. They ( he/she)  are free.

Wow! That is what I long for...that freedom from fear, worry and concern.  I desperately want to be able to throw my cares away into the lilies. It is for that reason that I am on this path and now making my way through the dark night. It is actually a pretty selfish mission. I say I am seeking God and know intuitively that I am...but I have no "idea" what God is.  I really don't. All I know is  that the way I have been living before...at the proverbial "house"...the focus on physicality and materiality, the horizontal plane of existence.... wasn't enough, wasn't why I am here, wasn't working for "me" or for the "I am"I intuitively know is within me but have yet to fully experience. So I left the house in the dead of night, seeking more,  to go deeper, not knowing exactly what I will find when I get there  but trusting that I will find what "I"...not "me" needs there. Freedom! None of it makes a lick of sense conceptually....but the farther I get into this dark night the more I am pulled onward by Something within. 

So I read poems like this .  I listen to talks from enlightened or semi-enlightened beings.  I read the scriptures that come from those that have made the transition back to God...and I am inspired to keep going...even though everything "out there" says, "This is crazy, lady.  You don't even know where you are going or who or what it is that you are seeking. What are you doing?" 

I just shrug my shoulders and keep going.

Man, this is indeed a crazy ride.

All is well.

Saint John of the Cross/ Translated by David Lewis ( 1908) Dark Night of the Soul. Poetry Foundation https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/157984/the-dark-night-of-the-soul

Dance?

 Eventually you can be in life, 

and not only does it not bother you 

but you dance.

There is nothing to get; there is nothing to lose, 

there is no better or no worse, 

there is no good; there is no bad, 

there is no right; there is no wrong...

there is just the experience of life 

that blows through you like the breeze, 

And eventually you learn to dance with her.

And when you can dance with Life, 

without bringing anything to the party 

that is personal, you move 

into what is called the Tao.  

You move into a place 

where there is movement 

but you are not moving, 

where there is action without motive.  

I told you, 

you are like the leaf that blew off the tree 

and the wind is blowing it.  

It is following a path 

but the path is not its 

yet it is in perfect harmony with the path...

it is not ahead or behind.  

The wind determines the movement of the leaf...

so Life determines your Life.

and you dance with it...

it is the only dance there is. 

Michael A. Singer

I listened to those words today as part of my Sunday practice...I tend to start with words of wisdom from a wise being and it is usually Michael A. Singer I check out first. So grateful for those words.

I want to dance so badly with Life!

A question was raised and I will ask it of you:

Can you stand in the presence  of whatever Life puts before you? 

I hope so!  I want you to enjoy this dance!

I have a ways to go yet .  Still need a lot of dancing lessons and practice before I stop stepping all over Life's toes.  :)  But I am getting there. Part of my practice, because I have already been through some nasty dealt hands, involves standing before them as they come back up from the dark depths I stuffed them in, and letting them go.  

I do see that the only thing in life that needs fixing is me...I do.  And I am progressing very well in my practice of accepting what unfolds in front of me without getting disturbed by it.  I am observing my judgements...my likes and dislikes that are so much in the way of me truly experiencing Life and I am getting beyond them.  I find myself less and less judgemental or opinionated, with less and less expectations about how things "should be" , and therefore I am less and less frustrated as I encounter what Life offers. I can, for the most part, accept Life, as it is. I stopped fighting it! I am well on my way to graduating from Stage One: Learning not to be bothered by Life.   Ready to go on to Stage Two:  The experiencing of Life.  Stage Three: Is settling into Life as the lead and enjoying it.  Stage Four: Is the dancing with Life. ( Well this the way I see it.) 

I still feel fear, so I have a ways to go yet in my Life practice.  

The day you are fine with the worse cards that can be dealt out is the day you will never feel fear again. 

What about you? Are you almost ready to dance with Life as it leads you around the dance floor? 

All is well!

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe. ( May 11, 2023) Dance With Life. https://tou.org/talks/

Getting Comfortable in the Unfamiliar

 Use your life to become  comfortable with being in an unfamiliar place.  Use your life to become comfortable with uncertainty, with insecurity, with groundlessness and all the other synonyms we can come up with.

Pema Chodron

In the below video, curtesy of Sounds True, Pema Chodron talks about the Bardo...a Buddhist term basically describing the dark night of the soul, the gap between the ending of one thing and the beginning of another.  This video just showed up in my inbox. Serendipity again lol.

All is well!

Pema Chodron/ Sounds True (2022) Embracing the Unknown with Pema Chodron. https://join.soundstrue.com/watch-now-in-the-flow-episode-1-with-pema-chodron/

Lost That Lovin' Feelin'?

 You lost that lovin' feelin', Whoa, that lovin' feelin', You lost that lovin' feelin', Now it's gone, gone, gone, Whoa-oh.

Righteous Brothers

Hmmm! Did the loving feeling actually  get lost? Is it even possible for that loving feeling to stop? If you find yourself nursing a heart ache that will take more than a couple of pints of Hagan -Daz and a box of kleenex to get through, it may feel like love has been stripped from you...but is the loving feeling really gone?

No, Michael Singer reminds us in the below podcast, it isn't gone.  What is gone is yours or your wanna be lovers attention on it. That's all.  If you feel a loss of love, it means you stopped focusing on love and put your attention elsewhere. 

You got distracted by distractions.

Huh? What the Fork , crazy lady?

Love isn't something out there.  It is something in here! Love is easy but because we get distracted by the mind and its never ending chattering, its busy-body way of telling us what to do and how to do in order to feel good inside, its noisy  directions as to what we need to pull in  from the outside world in order to be okay and its preferences...we tend to pay more attention to that, than we do to this natural and easy flow of love within us. We get distracted from seeing and experiencing this love  within by the mind. We open and close our awareness of this flow of love based on what unfolds "out there" at mind's direction. We close! We don't lose the lovin' feelin', we just lost our focus on it.  

The other person whom we assumed was either filling our heart or breaking our heart becomes a distraction from Mind's chatter...our focus on them  distracts us from our mental distractions.  If they please mind...meet its preferences we feel "good" and are open to the flow of love within us. We are no longer absorbed by the craziness of mind.  If they do not please mind by checking off all the things on the "unwanted" list , we feel bad.  We close to the love that is within us. It has little to do with the other person, regardless if they are flaming the loving feeling or losing it, and everything to do with whether we are opening or closing to the awareness of the love within.

Hmm! All is well.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe. ( June 8, 2023) Releasing the Boundaries to Unlimited Love. https://tou.org/talks/

And All Sensations Left...

 

On my flowering bosom,

Kept whole for Him alone,

There He reposed and slept;

And I cherished Him, and the waving 

Of the cedars fanned Him.

As his hair floated in the breeze

That from the turret blew,

He struck me on the neck

with His gentle Hand,

And all sensation left me. 

Saint John of the Cross , Dark Night of the Soul, Stanza 6 & 7

So as we proceed through this dark night, we see the  speaker  has reached her destination and has been reunited with her lover.  This stanza depicts a scene of rest after the connection was made with the Beloved resting on a "flowery Bosom"...one that has opened to receive ( is how I see it). Of course, this is not just the chest but the heart. This heart was kept whole for God alone...the only true love. There He reposed and slept...This kind of depicts the idea that God finds a certain rest, a certain peace in our love. This image of the sacred heart in Christ emerges in my mind as I read that too as would have been expressed in Christian artwork at the time.   But the point is: God/ Christ...is resting directly on the heart...that close. Cherished...speaking to the deep love this speaker had within.  and the waving of the  cedars fanned Him. Not sure of the significance of that other than to show how even nature was worshipping and honoring Him. There is a very "maternal" type of love being expressed in this stanza. I am starting to wonder if the speaker is intended as a Carmelite nun? Saint John had a lot to do with that order. Is this depicting the marriage union a sister would have with Christ? 

We see the Christian Anglo-Saxon image of Christ now in the seventh stanza...hair floated in the breeze. This breeze blew from the castle tower ...so we have this picture of the lovers under a tree close to a castle..( as would be seen in many 15 th century art pieces).  He struck me on the neck with His gentle hand....( good to note that the translation in the book creates a more sensual image).  So though struck seems quite violent, it was done with a gentle Hand. Regardless we have this idea of what happens when we get strangled or hit in the carotid...we lose all consciousness...all awareness of the senses. And all sensations left me.  Most important to note here, is that this stanza shows how the speaker has been taken beyond the senses...beyond the body and the connection with the material world... which is the quest of many spiritual seekers. So, so far the speaker has left what they knew, gone through the dark night of the soul, found God, connected with God in the most intimate of ways, opened their heart fully and is now losing all sense of self....going into darkness again?

Hmm! And the plot thickens lol.

All is well! 

Saint John of the Cross/ David Lewis Translator ( 1908) Dark Night of the Soul. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/157984/the-dark-night-of-the-soul

Guiding Light to Love

 That light guided me

More surely than the noonday sun

To the place where He was waiting for me,

Whom I knew well,

And where none appeared.

O, guiding night;

O, night more lovely than the dawn;

O, night that has united

The lover with his Beloved

and changed her into her love.

Saint John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul, Stanza 4 & 5

So as we read on, again before getting any explanation from the poet, we are reminded of the light of passion, love, and devotion that is in the speaker's heart as they continue into the night towards their destination. Now this love is so bright, brighter than the noonday sun, it offers the guiding light needed to get there. So even when the dark night with its confusion and uncertainty there is a light, and that light is the light within. It is our desire for God that can lead us forward.  

How do we know it is God the speaker is seeking?  By the capitalization of the pronoun He.  The poet goes on "where He was waiting for me, whom I knew well...(The male God image is used as is understandable considering the time and context in which the poem was written). God is not a stranger to the speaker...he/she/they know Him more than they know themselves ...and He was always waiting for the lover to come to Him. 

This next part is cool: the  speaker goes on to say, and where none appeared.  I wonder if this line signifies there were no other beings to witness or if the speaker is saying ...none, as in there was no visible physical form to this He that was waiting?  Again, showing the internal, esoteric nature of this arrival, of this He that the speaker is meeting?

In the next stanza the speaker praises the night...as a lovely, guiding source,  as to which without the speaker would never have reached the Beloved. We see the necessity of the night for this union. The night  is responsible for getting the speaker there. The dark night of the soul is a means of helping us to arrive. 

Now, the next line I find confusing, just because of the use of pronouns...united the lover with His beloved and changed her into her love. Hmmm! So God is the lover and the speaker is the beloved.  Why was Saint John using "her"?  That was my question, so I went back to the other translation in the book I am reading and see that there was no gender pronoun used.  This, I assume. must have been this particular  translator's bias on translation?  It was translated in 1900 and due to the almost erotic imagery of the union maybe, the translator assumed , it had to be between a male and a female.  I don't imagine, sadly, that homosexual imagery would have been acceptable.  Hmm!Anyway...regardless the two are "united"...not "reunited" as one would expect if the speaker knew Him well?  

And changed her into her love is pretty profound...I see the message here to mean, we are not people who love...not the lover but we are love. And when we reach this level of Self-realization, emergence with God ...we are transformed into God's love. 

Anyway...lovely.  Of course, my interpretation might be totally different than what was intended lol. The more I read the poem, however, the more I am feeling at peace and even grateful for this dark night I am experiencing.

All is well

Saint John of the Cross/ Translated by David Lewis. ( 1908) Dark Night of the Soul. Poetry Foundation.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/157984/the-dark-night-of-the-soul

Shine!

 The light guided me more surely than the noonday sun to the place where He was waiting for me...

St John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, David Lewis Translation

Do you want to be seen, noticed, recognized?  

I just watched season 23 of The Voice on a binge. I delightedly cheered on a shy and  timid vocalist as she won.  I love watching  talent competitions on TV,  shows where people come on to the stage and share a hidden  talent with the world. Many, before that televised audition,  only performed in their bedrooms and are now performing to millions. They suddenly get noticed and their special gift, that they may have even given up on,  is suddenly appreciated and valued. I find it so inspiring, addictively so, to watch these people shine in their God given talent...to break through their own mental barriers of limitation and self doubt , of fear;  to witness as they bust through the darkness of obscurity and "shine," so brightly like the "noonday sun" .  They give the world a gift they have been secretively holding onto  all of their lives. They touch us with the gift of their voices (or other talent) but also they touch a part of us that says, "You can do this too!  You can shine! " I think that is the lure of these shows...they pull us in with this deep rooted desire we all have to "shine". 

This little light of mine...I'm gonna let it shine...

Shine?

 We all have some talent, some gift inside us.  Yes, we do! It may not be a voice or an ability to dance. It may be something so tiny and ordinary...but it, whatever it is,  is a special ember waiting to burst into a flame that lights up our lives and the lives of others around us. It will just smolder unseen, until we let it out.  It sometimes takes just one person noticing it to feed that tiny little light, to encourage it to grow beyond our fear.

A Spiritual Thing

I think the expression of this gift ...the offering it to the world...is a spiritual thing.  It is part of the reason, if there is a reason beyond simply being, why we are here.  We are lights meant to shine , helping each other  to experience and see clearly the beauty in this world. We are not meant to be lamps hidden under the bed.

A "Desire" Warning

Now., at the same time, I believe we have to be careful with our desire to be seen. Having our lights shine enough to make the beauty of this world clearer for others, to inspire and motivate... is one thing. Getting it to shine to feed the ego's never ending quest for external fulfillment is another. We have to be respectful of these little flames we carry inside us  and protect them  from ego. 

 When we desire to shine, I believe, we need to ask: What am I hoping to gain from this?  Is this a "me' motivated thing or just a desire to express what I have been given? Am I trying to set myself up and apart from others or am I bringing us all together? Am I rejoicing in the moments I am expressing, or am I too busy worrying about the outcome? Do I feel God in what I do? ( And God, of course, has different meanings for everyone.)

Obscurity...Not Such a Bad Thing

Hmm! I am realizing that obscurity, concealment, being unseen and unrecognized may be "my lot" in life, I am finding some peace in that, finally! Being "invisible" to others was always the most triggering  thing for my deep rooted pain...that and being noticed in the "wrong" way. So, All my life I tried to be seen and noticed in the "right way" just so this inner pain would not get triggered.  If I couldn't hide, I felt I had to create something out here to redeem myself with.  Someone, somewhere, once told me I could write...so I tried to have my writing read, so others would hear "me".   Someone, somewhere, once told me I could speak, so I stood up on stages and spoke, so others would see "me".  Someone, somewhere, once told me I could teach, so I stood  in front of crowds of people and taught, so others would be in awe of what "me" knew.  Sure a light went outward to others when I did those things...and sure Spirit was rejoicing in the expression...but too often it was ego that was fanning the flame...feeding this "me". "Me"  was was always more in the way of the light shining than anything else.  In fact, it kind of drowned out the light.

So, as I go through this dark night, looking for a light to guide me, I am learning that I can find that light in my heart, just as Saint John of the Cross, did. My writing, speaking and teaching...may be received by no more than a handful of others, and that is perfectly okay. Something in my heart is saying "write...no matter what..." and I listen.  Something says "speak and teach, no matter what!" and I listen. These things take me through the darkness. If I stay true to why I am doing what I am doing, this light will grow, guiding this form and mind , and possibly a few other forms and minds, to what is really important. 

Every little bit of glowing light that helps the world to see is a gift! I am going to protect my light from ego  but at the same time I am going to let it shine.

What about you? What are you going to do with your light?

All is well!

Secrets and Concealment

 In darkness and in safety ,

by the secret ladder, disguised,

O, happy lot!

In darkness and concealment ,

my house being now at rest

In that happy night,

In secret, seen of none,

Seeing not myself.

Without other light or guide

Save that which in my heart was burning.

Saint John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul.  Stanza Two and Three

Just from reading these next two stanzas I am envious of the narrators relationship with the dark night.  It is not addressed as  something to be feared or resisted, but something to be excited about, appreciated and celebrated. Why? Because of the  way it hides the speaker on their quest.

In darkness and in safety, by the secret ladder disguised .  Why does he/she want to be so concealed? He/she feels safe in this concealment. So no one would recognize them and stop them from pursuing their quest? I can see that in the imagery of the lover sneaking off to meet their beloved. There is something about this obscurity that is so important to the poet.  I can't help but think how these ideas of direct union would be viewed by the hierarchy- dependent church at that time...blasphemy?  The poet has to be sneaky and secretive about his desire for direct union? Or is this "humility" vow of the brotherhood leading him to diminish his expression of faith...to "be pious" instead of "appearing " pious? This secret ladder?  Is he speaking to this alternative route, the non ordained route,  he discovered to finding God...that maybe was not aligned with church dogma at the time? ...When I think of ladder...I think of the speaker sneaking down a ladder from upstairs in order to get out.  That is like descending down into the depths of our beings from our intellectual faculties ( where most of the church dogma would have been pointing to).  It is about going deeper. His quest is an inner one, not a church directed one.

O happy lot! Again the speaker is expressing how fortunate he/she is at having this night ...this dark time to process through.  Because it is a place to hide the mission and the quest?  I had this thought:  Was the poet depressed or ill  and seeing this depression or illness as a means for the church to get off his back so he could pursue his inner quest?  I don't know why that came to my mind.  But obviously this night somehow surprises him...though we all know night comes every 12 hours? It was a fortunate thing that emerged almost unexpectedly....it seems... by the way he appears to feel so lucky he came across it. 

In darkness and concealment, my house being now at rest. His/her house seems to be at rest because of the darkness and concealment? Or the house being at rest caused the darkness and concealment? In the former...we can view the house as something visibly unstable until the night came and hid it from view? The "me". the reliance on bodily senses to perceive the world, the reliance on intellectual and conceptual mind's need for knowledge etc is consumed by this period of darkness, so it is no longer agitating the soul??  In the latter possibility...I see death as being that which puts everything but the soul at rest.

In that happy night, in secret seen of none.  Again there is this joy that the night was there allowing for this secret ...this obscurity...this hiding to take place. Why does it have to be a secret?  Why does this quest have to be hidden from the view of others?  Just like the lover sneaking off knows they are breaking social and moral contracts...does the poet feel he is breaking his religious contract? There does not seem to be any shame though for doing so...just joy and excitement? Still ...there is that need to keep it all a secret. Or is the secretive, concealed, hidden nature of this simply referring to the fact that it  is internal not external quest, therefore cannot be seen by others. The poet may be speaking to the "mystery" of awakening.

Seeing not myself.  Now this is a big one.  We see a dissolution of ego maybe.  In the first stanza ego was still hanging around but we see  as the speaker gets further into the dark night...he/she can no longer see the little self.  Of course, that is what the dark night on this awakening quest is all about, isn't it?  A dissolution of me. We stop seeing who we thought we were. At this point the speaker does not yet see what is ahead either.

Without other light or guide Save what my heart was burning. So this line marks the confusion part of the dark night...this being unable to see where we were or where we are going.  There is no light...there is noone out there guiding us.  It is such a personal and blind journey.  So what keeps the speaker going forward? His/her burning heart...this light in the heart that is telling them to keep going.  It is that desire for God that is leading the speaker forward. Blind faith leads the speaker on. 

Well that is the way I see it.  Yet to read Saint John's explanation. All good! 

Saint John of the Cross/ translated by David Lewis ( 1908) Dark Night of the Soul .Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/157984/the-dark-night-of-the-soul

Good Days? Bad Days?

 

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.

Victor Hugo

Was looking for some healing and helpful activity to help "pass the night away." ...and decided to answer more questions from the jar, in the very imperfect way that I do.

Back to the Dark Night

We are getting a lot of rain here and are told to expect this heavy cloud cover and heavy precipitation for another four days.  This stormy period represents, in  sense, what is going on inside me as I deal with this proverbial dark night of the soul. It is actually kind of cool.  I am learning to "calmly abide"  in it without my preferences,  and my resistance. I am doing pretty good focusing on that quality of calmness.  I mean, I do slip away from it...like when I opened the fridge last evening to discover that the soya sauce bottle had tipped over and what a mess!  There was a moment of reactivity there.  I felt the rush of anger and frustration...the urge to lash out at someone for not being more careful about putting things in the fridge...but I took a breath and stood back mentally.  I still felt those feelings, experience it all,  but I used that energy to clean the fridge and then I let it all go. Poof! Gone! Then I got back to my calm abiding in this rainy, extended dark night.I don't know when it will pass but I will find some peace in it. I will.

I hope that you will weather this rainy period  and this night, ( if you too are experiencing one) with a certain peace as well. 

All is well!

All is well

Leaving the House for the Dark Night

 In a dark night,

With anxious love inflamed,

O, happy lot!

Forth unobserved I went,

my house being now at rest.

Saint John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, Translated by David Lewis https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/157984/the-dark-night-of-the-soul

I still wake up every morning after a somewhat restless night with my jaws clenched tight and this dark night still lingering around me.  My curiosity and desire to understand what I, as this me, am experiencing was drawn to to the famous poem on the subject, The Dark Night of the Soul.

In the above epic poem from Christian mystic, Saint John of the Cross, the soul's journey, spurred on by  a desire for God, is depicted in seven short stanzas, beginning with the soul leaving its bodily home and ending with the soul's union with God.  There are many translations from the latin it was first written in. I am presently reading a translation of the poet's own explanation of the process ( see below) but I wanted to be exposed to another version/translation to see how those words would be absorbed in  me before I read the author's explanations in more depth

In a dark night: So in this first stanza we are made aware of the "dark night"...that period of not knowing what is around the corner, the period of decreased clarity, that time between dusk ( our previous understanding of things) and dawn ( the emergence of light and truth...the new day). To get out into the night...is to to do so blindly as in "blind faith". Night, of course, also implies death. A certain dying is taking place here.  There is this unimplied warning, as well...that because of the  darkness the journey will be challenging.

with anxious love inflamed: ( in the book's translation, it reads: Kindled in love with yearnings. I bring that up because I think "yearning" is a key word needed to understand the pull of the senses, the soul is still experiencing at this point?) So we have the imagery, in either translation, of a fire burning in the heart...which is a "passion" that represents the human desire. "Anxious"?  Maybe the narrator can't wait or maybe the use of the word is possibly indicating a fear of the unknown?  

oh happy lot! So the poet is describing how lucky he/she is for having the night to give some cover in which to secretively leave behind the house and travel to the Beloved in. The night is not a cursed and unfortunate thing but a blessing, something the narrator might have been waiting for because they are so excited to see it. 

Forth unobserved I went: I went forth without being observed. No one could see me leaving. There still may be some social expectations holding the poet back from admitting to others his desire to merge with the divine.  The poem  was written in the 16th century by a brother of the very powerful Catholic Church where how to believe and how to practice that belief  was strictly enforced, so much was censored.  Knowing God directly was also taboo. So the desire for direct union with God could have been considered a sin even, and would have to be approached secretively under the cloak night provides? The poet could also be describing how one dies to be reborn...no one can see one dying in the spiritual sense...not  leaving the body but leaving all former conditioning and beliefs, leaving the ego and attachment to "me, my and mine" could be done without anyone observing.  One could die in that way without being noticed?   The lover here could be walking around doing whatever during the day  without anyone noticing that they have "died" inside in order to be reborn in God's arms. Of course , as a holy man, Saint John  could be referring to how being unobserved..."obscure" is humility and a necessary trait for a true person of faith to possess.  Instead of outwardly creating a show of piety, one should keep their love for God inside them...not exploiting it , not making it an object of other people;s observations.?? This is the way many cloistered monks and nuns choose to practice their faith.

my house being now at rest: Hmm! I see this again as a dying of old egoic ways and of finding a certain peace as we leave or let go of bodily concerns.  The senses are no longer controlling us...thus the "dark night" as well.  It is that spiritual step of being pulled beyond the senses. We are stepping away from how we once lived...based on the perception of pleasure or pain...what we once knew and are walking out into the unknown in search of something Greater, deeper. In order to step out we must have reached a certain level of understanding...that would lead to a certain degree of peace and thus " a house at rest". 

Of course, through this verse we have the picture of someone in love sneaking out of the house at night to meet a lover in secret. Which is quite a thing for a catholic monk to be writing about. The soul is the lover and God is the beloved. 

I know not what the poet intended...what the poem was meant to say.  I can only gather and make my own conclusions...assumptions I should say ...by the way it makes me feel when I read it. Poetry, I believe,  just points to something in us and projects it outward.  I want to tear this poem a part stanza by stanza just to get a better understanding of this dark night thing this mind of mine is experiencing. I am just going to do the first stanza  today.

I am fascinated by this idea of leaving a house, that was once unstable, for the dark night. This house the poet speaks about, I believe,  is something mind  built around who we really are...this little meness with all its ideations and beliefs, its attachments. This identification with the superficial is something we need to leave eventually.  I had an image as I read the poem of this flimsy house built on sand blowing this way and that way in the wind...and the soul swept up going from side to side. The only time it settled or became "at rest" was when the soul stepped out of it. Though the soul senses there is something more out there and yearns for it, it has not yet made clear contact with it.  It is not yet sure what that Something is. It just feels compelled to go forward, into the dark night regardless if that means not being able to see or understand where it is going.  In the poem it was the soul stepping out of the "me".  

 In line with that, I heard these words today and they kind of stuck:

Use life to free yourself, instead of using life to fight, to bind yourself. Michael A. Singer.  

We so often lock ourselves into these houses that we build...these false identifications, this superficial life style but at the same time , part of us knows there is more...so much more out there...( well actually in here lol).  We need to leave these false protections that we built and venture out into the darkness in order to find that Greater Something. 

Eckhart Tolle speaks to this as well in the below video.  He mentions how we tend to build our self identification (our  houses) on the superficial plane, the material plane, the plane of form ( which includes thoughts, emotions, roles etc)...which in other videos he refers to as the horizontal plane.  The vertical plane can cut right through that taking us deeper...to a deeper sense of "I" if we allow it to. Most of us are still too attached to what is on the surface to go deeper, as the poet above so wanted to do. Tolle assures us we can transcend but we must be willing to step out of these ideas of who we are...again...venture out into the dark night...to discover who we really are, at a deeper level.  He also  assures us that we do not have to go very far...the spaciousness of  deeper "I" is right there... so very close...God is right there, so very  close. We just need to be willing to leave our houses and venture through a bit of darkness to get there.

Anyway, dark night or not, it is all so wonderful, just as it is.

All is well in my world

Saint John of the Cross (2021) Dark Night of the Soul. General Press: New Delhi. Kindle Edition

Michael A. Singer/Temple of the Universe ( June 5, 2023) Using Life to Free Yourself. https://tou.org/talks/

Eckhart Tolle (June 4, 2023) Deepening Your Sense of I. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nycEaSdxhg

Heavy

 My Self will straight aboard, and to the state

With heavy heart this heavy act  relate.

Othello (William Shakespeare) 

Hmm! Continually watching my little self experience this dark night of the soul. Almost everything is down: my mental energy, my emotional energy and even my physical.  I am so tired and the body signs validate that fatigue: very low BP (systolic in the 70's) and pulse in the 40's throughout the day. It is all so heavy. Not accepting work right now because I am afraid of a faint...and that makes ego chirp up, leading to even more heaviness.  Sigh! I feel inclined to relate this heavy act  to the state  :)

Heavy

The head literally feels heavy to carry; the body feels heavy to move. What I am experiencing is matched by the heaviness of the environmental atmosphere right now: heavy cloud cover, heavy rain. The barometric pressure is playing with the experience of gravity, making it a little more heavy than usual. There is a heaviness in my chest that makes each breath fight against this unusually heavy sense of gravity. 

And all that which  is emerging from the depths of me is heavy. Some pully system in me, spurred on by conscious will and my desire for freedom, is  pulling and pulling and pulling the stuff up from the bottom. Those buckets of stored and buried  liquid "me-ness" are  very, very heavy. The weight of the past is heavy.  Well the memories themselves are just puffs of air that blow away but the emotional energy they were buried in is heavy. This dark night of the soul  literally feels heavy! 

And I read and listen to wise others speak about the "blissed out!" experience one can achieve on this path and I am like, "Huh? Man...I cannot even imagine that possibility right now. I just want a little less suffering, a little less darkness, a little less heaviness.  I would be more than appreciative if  Source threw a little tiny beam of light over here, now and again,  in both the visual sense of light as well as the gravitational sense of "light" ie add a little lightness to this that I seem to be carrying at this stage of my growth.  Bliss is too far away to even imagine.

Or is it?

Can one actually go from heaviness to bliss? I am reminded of new recruits in boot camp...having to put on heavy back packs loaded with weight as they are marched for miles. This is done to help them "practice", to build stamina and prepare them for the hardships that might arise when they are actually out there in the field. It would be the ultimate test of their strength and endurance. How they must feel when the practice is over and they can remove those heavy backpacks. I do wonder how it will feel to get past this stage of my practice and have this load lightened (in both ways).  

I think about "relief" more than I do  about attaining "bliss" but they come from the same Source, don't they?  Where relief and peace is found, one will find bliss. Beyond all this heaviness is an airy lightness. Beyond that dark cloud cover, is the sun shining brilliantly. I know that intuitively!  And it is all already in this being  that I am.  I just can't see it becasue I am too busy focusing on the heaviness.  I want that cloud cover and rain, that is in between what I am experiencing now and what I could be experiencing, gone.  That is my mission here...So I keep pulling up the blockages from this deep well of my past.  I keep trudging up this steep hill carrying  this heavy pack, as I recite  a "1-2-3- and 4; Remember what we do this for!" 

I have learned that tensing up and struggling against the weight, only adds more weight.  To get through this dark night, we  must breathe into each pull, into each step, relaxing, as much as we can into the process. We must tune out the ego that is going to chirp and complain about how difficult it is and what we must do to fight the absurd commands of the drill sergeant, and just keep relaxing into what is, letting go of every load that is pulled up from the bottom of that well, letting go of every extra thing ego tells us to carry to make it better.  Just let go and keep going... knowing that eventually the heaviness will be replaced with a certain lightness that will never go away. And maybe...just maybe...that lightness will lead to bliss. Who knows?

"One-Two-Three- and Four! Remember what we do this for!" 

All is well

Inspired by:

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe. ( June 4, 2023) Not Closing-The Path of Unconditional Love. https://tou.org/talks/

More On the Dark Night

 

God leads into the dark night  those whom He desires to purify from all these imperfections so that He may bring them further onward. 

Juan De La Cruz, Dark Night of the Soul

It is raining. The sky is heavy and dark .  A cool wind is blowing and I have been freezing, walking around the house (that desperately needs to be cleaned) with my housecoat on and a blanket over my shoulders.  I am dragging my feet, stepping over things, as I with head down move around like a zombie. It all looks like a scene from a movie entitled, "Dark Night of the Soul".  (I am the star ...in case you haven't figured that out yet and I am playing the part brilliantly, lol)

I found so much relief when I researched this thing I was presently going through yesterday to discover that it is actually " a thing."  I mean, I heard of it before but I never applied it to this experience I have been having off and on ( mostly on) for months or even years now.  

What experience, crazy lady? 

Well it was like I was walking under a sky that was overcast my whole life without  noticing or thinking it could be any other way.  I was doing my best to make it as good as it could be in this darkness. Then one day I began to question what was under that cloud cover and suddenly the sky began to open. This light, in tiny streams,  started to trickle through and I was like "Wow!  What is that?"  I was soaking up the little rays, wanting to know more about them so I began to ask questions. I was hearing from certain wise people  that this was just a tiny tease as to what was under the cloud cover, that there was so much more sunlight under that dark canopy I have been living under,  waiting for me to experience it . I wanted more so I asked , "How? How can I get more? "

I began researching, studying, listening, practicing in order to get more light into this life.  I have been trying to do what I could do to get those clouds to open.  It even seemed like I was doing it . There seemed to be a little more light, a little more blue sky everyday as I practiced.  I was getting there. 

But  all of a sudden it got dark and rumbly overhead again...just like it is now....and that darkness just lingered....It is so hard to take this cloud cover after seeing what was under it.  I couldn't understand why it was happening after all my "work".  Crazy thoughts went through my head. I thought I was a failure. I thought I was karmically doomed. I thought I was mentally ill...with depression or something.  I thought it was all just a big lie.

Then yesterday, when I listened to people who have been through it, I felt so relieved to be able to put a name on it. It was like, "Oh this is supposed to happen.  This is part of the process.  This is a good thing,",  indicating I am getting somewhere with my practice ( again I use the term "getting somewhere" just to make a point). I am not doomed to this darkness.

The question remined though: How long will it last and will I be strong enough to handle it?

The Question to Ask

I also listened to a snippet of a Super Soul Sunday video with Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith and in that snippet he gave this great advice.  He said instead of wondering how long it will last and what we can do to get out of it ...ask, "If this experience were to last forever, what quality would have to emerge for me to have peace of mind?" He says that when we focus on the quality instead of resisting the dark night, we move through it faster.  Hmm! Makes sense, doesn't it?

What quality do I need?  I need a calm abiding...a willingness to just relax and be with this. What I am learning is that I cannot do a thing about it anyway. In fact, that  cloud opening and light experience I had previously had nothing to do with me...it was simply Life/ God/Nature doing what It does...opening up through me.  I didn't have to do anything but "want it".  So all the doing I was doing in my practice to get rid of the cloud cover was really not making the sky open...at all. (It was helping me to shed "me" layers so I could see clearer when the time comes but it wasn't making the sky open i.e. Truth come to me faster.  "Doing" doesn't do it.  It will open when it opens to reveal to this person "I am" beyond the "me" , what It is, what I am. I don't have to "do".  I just have to "be". 

This dark night will last as long as it lasts and it is okay.  I have been in darkness before but this time I know the light is there beneath the cloud cover, and that makes all the difference. I will hold my head up as I calmly abide in this moment, "being" the best human I can be,  until I feel those rays on my face again.

All is well! 

Own (2017) The Secret to Getting Though the Dark Night of the Soul/ Super Soul Sunday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_apTvwxMUQ

Navigating Through the Dark Night of the Soul

 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

On Not Being Liked

 

Be Independent of the  Good Opinion of Other People

Abraham Maslow

I am obscure as a writer, poet, teacher...right now. Few people even know I do what I do here or in my  other writing, and I am finding a certain  peace in that.  Sometimes I think I even subconsciously seek obscurity out so as to avoid putting myself in the position of not being liked. This "me"... I still see my self as...really, really, really doesn't like not being liked. :)  

When I sense that I am unliked, that awareness causes some   deep samskara pain to emerge. It is the source of most of my lack of okayness and is probably the biggest challenge for me as I wake up.  It is a prime trigger point for a very,very tender spot inside me.    My habitual pattern of responding to that "second arrow" is usually to do what I can to rectify the situation so I am liked: apologize, make amends, figure out how to be better. Or I may put great effort into trying to redeem myself in this situation or compensate by increasing my "likes" elsewhere. I may also deny, suppress and repress those painful triggers and therefore push down that samskara that so wants to emerge, be seen, be heard, be felt  and then be released. If suppression  doesn't work at "making me feel okay inside", I will run away from those situations where I assume, perceive, or am told I  am not liked, avoiding them or similar situations again  Am I alone in this?

I think the "fear" of not being liked, accepted, included into the pack for psychosocial survival reasons is a common and natural fear shared by many of us.  Depending on the degree and nature of the wounding, it is even more intense for a select few of us. I understand where this samskara comes from in me and it goes far beyond just a fear of not fitting in.  It involves a fear of not surviving on all levels without the approval of the pack.  And entwined into  that fear,  from past trauma, is this core belief that I am not only too different but too "bad" and too "potentially harmful " for the pack. I have a belief that the pack  if any member gets a good whiff of me and my brokenness, will do whatever it can to get me out . There is an intense and underlying belief beneath my fear that I could never fit in and "be liked" as my very broken , authentic self.  Am I alone in this?

No...I don't believe I am. If I did believe that, I would never have had the courage to write this here and share these "deep, dark" secrets. I can see what I do and I witness what others do when this need to be liked in order to avoid old wound poking is prevalent.  I spent my entire life building layers of "redemption" around myself  by doing things that others would like and approve of,...and that included all things from what I wore to what I chose as a career. Every thing had to pass a "How will this make people feel about me?" assessment. It was so exhausting! I had to work very, very hard to achieve certain status symbols, to be calculative and very much in tune with where others were in their potential opinion of me so I could stay one step ahead in the creation of what I presented to them. I am naturally very kind (genuinely caring about others) but I had to be even nicer, and kinder, selflessly giving up my needs for others, just so I would be accepted into this "pack". It was such a mind game.  It was not until I was in my forties that I started to say things like "People won't like this...but I have to do it anyway if there is any chance of being okay inside." 

Awakening and writing about it was one of those things I started  doing despite the lack of approval from others. What is bigger than my fear of not being liked is my commitment to awaken...to evolve, learn, grow away from my need for the good opinion of others. Being independent of the need for others to like us is what Abraham Maslow referred to as a major factor in Self-actualization.  Awakening, of course, is self actualization/Self-realization and freedom from our samskaras. 

So as I pumped up my practice and delved even deeper into this "I am not okay inside and I want to be okay inside" thing, I began to make freedom from old wounding  my major priority in Life. I even prayed that I be handed what ever I need to become self-actualized, to get beyond the demands of this broken little "me" and its preferences. I said, "Bring it on!"  

Well, Life/God is obliging big time lol in most avenues of this life I call "mine". Circumstances are arising where I find myself saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing ( innocently so) and coming off as an unlikeable person. I even find myself hurting and offending people when that is the last thing I intended to do for all kinds of reasons ( the authentic me, beneath this need to be liked, is genuinely a very compassionate person). With nothing but love and concern in my heart, I have failed to reach out to others enough or in the right way in their time of need. I find myself in situations where I feel the healthy need to assert myself in a benign and kind way and it turns out that I am coming off as arrogant and pompous  to others.  Many of my neighbors, who used to be very friendly, now urn their heads when I walk by and the gossip started about the dog incidents is still pretty prevalent.  I chose this little job opportunity thinking I would walk into classrooms and be accepted as well as I was in the college setting, only to find the complete opposite. lol.  Trigger, trigger, trigger.  Poke, poke, poke and it feels absolutely awful. 

I just keep reminding myself: I chose this!  This is great for my practice!  I will grow from this. I can handle this!  I got this!

It is not fun though! My not okayness is coming up into conscious awareness and it is challenging to live with all that old pain there. It is even more challenging to be face to face without  that pseudo protection I used to wear. Man!  I am a mess right now  and instead of that mess hiding nicely under the rug I swept it under, it is right there in front of me in a big dust pile. I find myself yelling at the people around me, "Stay out of the  dust!!" .  It is even having an impact on me physically...I want to go in to face the disturbance every day becasue I know it is good for me (and because I definitely could use the money)  but my body says, "Nope! Not today Sweetheart! I don't care how broke you are, how much you want these samskaras to be gone...you are not driving me to the ground!"  I was close to hitting the floor with my face  on Wednesday afternoon even though I didn't want to admit that to myself.  I need to take a step back and examine how to do this in a more healthy way. 

n the bright side...I am growing and letting go more and more of this need for the good opinion of others...even when part of me is still slipping from my commitment and  trying so hard to be liked from time to time.  When I notice myself slipping  I step back and observe.  Layer after layer is getting pulled off,  as the authentic Self is becoming more and more exposed.  People may not like the "me" that is still there hanging around and because of this experience of unravelling I see how I don't even like the "me" lol...I want it off already! But it is only going to happen when it happens.  I need to respect my body and mind as this unravelling continues whether people like me or not. 

Anyway...it is all so good. 

Jet Plane Without "Me"

 I'm leaving on a jet plane.  Don't know when I'll be back again...

Sorry...can't remember who sang that

Those words came to mind when I was listening to Michael A. Singer's podcast.  Why?  He mentioned how Yogananda taught that there was a jet plane path to growth..."Kriya Yoga is the jet plane route to God". Our mission, whether we know it or not, is to get to God, to get to the truth and to remember who we are at the deepest level.  How do we do that? 

We can do it the hard slow way or the super sonic jet way. We do it the hard, slow way by living like we are living now...feeding and clinging to this idea of "me" and this idea that "this is my life".  This ideation  leads  us to take whatever we can from life, the planet and each other as if we have a right to.  Well, I have learned the hard way, that attempting to attain peace through the getting what "me" feels it needs doesn't get me very far.  Feeling we are entitled to take all "me" needs  from the material world is going to lead to winning a few, losing a lot; smiling a bit, frowning  a lot; laughing a bit, crying a lot...all in reaction to what is unfolding in front of us...but it is never going to make us happy as Self realization will. And no matter how hard we try or how hard we suffer...we will never be able to make life go the way we think it should.  Life is going to be Life . Life is going to do what Life does, with or without our intervention.

Yogananda taught that we can grow and evolve the fast and sure way through choosing Self realization over "me-me" satisfaction.  In order to do that..we need to leave our sense of  entitlement behind , hop on the jet plane to God and go farther and higher than we ever imagined possible by allowing Life , in whatever form she shows up, to fly us there.

We are just guests here, having this amazing opportunity to observe and participate in this human experience.  We own none of it.  It all belongs to Life...even our bodies belong to Life and they will do what they will do.  It all belongs to the Source of creation ...not us.  So why do we feel compelled to claim pieces of it for this "me"to control it and change?  It isn't ours! 

Can you imagine being invited to this amazing vacation resort by loving owners.  And as soon as you get there you start marking off sections of the property and calling it your own. Imagine going around telling everyone: staff, owners, guest  how they should be and act so as not to disturb you? Maybe you'll start rearranging all the furniture, on the pieces of property you were kind enough to leave to others, so it suits you best? Imagine trying to do something about the way the sun is setting over the ocean you view through your window...because you see that it could do it better? Can you imagine spending more time writing negative reviews because it rained or the soup was cold and then hanging onto those reviews in your head so you can go home and tell everyone what was wrong with this place...,  instead of appreciating the opportunity and the adventure you have been given, (free of charge), to experience? Hellooooo... Is that not what we are doing here? 

We must let Life do what Life will do around us and to us. Things will be challenging at times.  Things won't always turn out the way we want them to. It is going to rain. People won't always like us. We will lose sometimes. That is just the way it is going to be. Resisting, struggling against, grasping from, clinging , pushing away  because of that reality is futile anyway.  We can claim none of it,  hold onto to none of it, stop none of it.   

Enough with trying to live to feed the "me"! Time to feed the spirit by allowing Life to be Life as we learn and grow with each experience.  Every challenge will help us to evolve faster.  If we could see that potential in our challenges we would welcome instead of resist them. 

Let go of the "me".  Leave it behind at the gate and jump on that jet plane to Self realization. 

All is well

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( May 29, 2023) The Vector of Letting Go. https://tou.org/t