The Dark Night of the Soul
Die once and henceforth enjoy the rest of your life
May 2015
The Dark Night of the Soul
The greatest crisis that can befall an intelligent, heroic and potent man, is the silent suffering in the dark night of the soul. The man has attained the summit of modern consciousness and feels king of the world. He stands on the top of his ladder, and suddenly he realizes that the wall supporting this no longer exists. All his efforts in all his life have not brought peace to him at all. The key for peace - it must be found elsewhere, outside of what he is aware of.
At some point this realization is inevitable. But how to handle it?
He can no longer ignore it. Also he can no longer step back to find retreat in his inner world of wishful thinking. He can no longer be satisfied owning his car, supporting his football club, enjoying the merry musicians. Will he, because he can no longer suppress his knowing, develop a strategy into inward or outward blame? Will he sink into grieve? Will he resign? Will he have enough integrity and clear-thinking like Hamlet, so he can analyze the situation completely objectively, but still not find a way out for relief? Hamlet would like to die - if he just knew that thereafter a better world would be waiting for him.
This is the dark night of the soul, Dante's journey through Hell and the purifying purgatory. What is actually needed for the resolution of this crisis and why so many fail is the perception of a new dimension.
We are talking about the own shadow, the immense power that lies in the ever displaced dark side of the Self. It is uncontrollable. We make it shadow, but actually it illuminates what we would prefer not to see. It is the force that can break down our own concepts. It is so powerful that it can resolve the unsolvable. It makes us complete, if we ally ourselves with it. It has the power of paradox. It offers unexpected perspectives and surprising solutions, we would never be aware of, because exactly it is the awareness we are lacking.
The instructions for the dark night of the soul is simple and difficult at the same time.
Absorb the shadow of your unlived life.
Find a new center of gravity greater than yourself.
Shift the center of your personality away from your ego and toward this new place.
Perhaps one has met his dark shadow before, for example in a Vision Quest. However in the dark night of the soul this goes further. The Ego dies. The center of consciousness is no longer personal. I am not my body. I am no longer my mind and not my thoughts.
In a way it is suicide, but it is not a physical one. It would be totally absurd to harm the body when dealing with questions of consciousness. It is indeed only the ego that dies voluntarily.
Depending on integrity and perhaps a little knowledge the dark period can take weeks or years to complete. Of Jesus it is said that he has spend 40 days and 40 nights in the desert.
We can read of exciting insights that the great and inspiring leaders have brought back, once they perceived the unknown beyond their real world. Siddhartha Gautama Buddha spoke of the world we know as of Maya (illusion), Mikao Usui, after his Satori, began to explore an unknown and everlasting soul force in the universe, he got aware of and which would provide life energy to every being.
A center of consciousness outside of one's own body could thereby make perfect sense. Bruce Lipton vividly explains that our identity is nothing more than chemical and electrical signals triggered by our environment. Lipton compares the individual even with a radio receiver that only records what a radio broadcaster is transmitting from far. So why not? At least, this concept appears to be useful to a man who has given up his ego. He can hang on a different kind of consciousness and hold onto it.
At one day perhaps you, dear reader, or I will go through this experience. At some point maybe we will see a light turning up, shining into the dark night of the soul. Perhaps we will feel then an incredible joy and discover an unusual pulsating vitality. Perhaps the fourth dimension then reveals, and time has come to enjoy the rest of our lives!