| Dark Night of the Soul |
We all come to dark nights of the soul - times when we feel totally separate from each
other and from our Source, as well as frustrated, depressed, lost and alone. Here's
one of mine... when I have a bad day, it's really bad - and remember, even this dark
depth is transient, and we always return to joy. The darkest night truly is just before
the dawn ...
Here I am at a blank computer screen wondering what to write. I'm feeling at the
bottom of the barrel, scraping the scum off the rusting edges to use for ink. I guess
this is what they call a spiritual crisis. I've been here before, but never with such
clarity and awareness of where I am. Before it was just a black hole surrounding me in
darkness and pulling me deeper, but now that I'm at the bottom, I can see clearly
where I am, and I can see the sides of the barrel, and I can even look way way
upward and see a circle of light far above me, unreachable at the moment.
I'm tired, tired of doing the right thing, tired of trying to succeed and tired of the
consequences of not trying. The worst part is, I know the spiritual rules... I am
responsible for my own happiness. I am responsible for my own life. I am responsible
for everything that happens to me. That's sometimes just too much responsibility. It
would be nicer not to know the rules when I'm tired of following them.
One of my friends and I have been discussing free will. Do we have free will on this
planet?? And most of the time we say, yes, of course we do. We can choose
whatever we want to do and do it - but is that totally true? What is the price of
choosing to go against the rules? When the price is so high that free will becomes an
illusion, it no longer truly exists. The earth system is just like Las Vegas - the odds are
in the favor of the house. Play by the rules and you'll win a little, but mostly we lose,
but the high of winning makes the intermittent reinforcement attractive enough to
keep us playing - most of us.
And just what constitutes winning? He who has the most toys wins the game -
materialism? That is exciting to a point, but once you realize that you can buy anything
you want, the fun of it ceases. And working can take a lot of time and effort, identifying
yourself with your job and knowing you have succeeded because you do your job well,
and you are paid well and head hunted by the top corporations and then you reach
the top of the ladder, or someone knocks you off the ladder and you see the view from
the top and the view from the bottom look pretty much the same - lonely. And then
you begin looking around for something more.
Then you turn to relationships - ah yes, the sweet fragrant blossom of love. Love is all
there is! And for a moment happiness lives on our doorstep, but looking for love in all
the wrong people is a roller coaster ride at best and and a heart-breaking
life-devastating train wreck at worst. But for a time we keep trying, knowing that just
the right person will make everything right with the world. Until one morning we wake
up and see clearly that there are no right or wrong people, only people - people
struggling with the world and looking for love in all the wrong people too. And one
more disillusionment returns the focus to us and our choices. Responsibility sucks.
And then comes spirituality - we begin to seek answers to our unhappiness. If we are
mentally inclined, we seek them through science - breaking down everything and
examining it and learning how it works and coming to hardly any conclusions except
those we jump to in a moment of need and desperation for something to be real and
valid. If we are emotionally inclined, we turn to psychology for help, examining our past
which must be blamed for our inadequacies because someone damn well better take
responsibility for the mess in our lives because no way could we have ever created
such a stupid mess. Years of therapy ensue, at the end of which we have placed all
the blame and forgiven all the perpetrators, and still we are unfulfilled. What then?
Surely someone must know the answer, the secrets, the hidden truth. We turn to the
spiritual gurus - and that goes for the televangelists, the Hindu babas, the Zen
masters, the e.t.s, the Kahunas, ascended masters of all forms, shapes and
persuasions; all those who give us systems to live by - if we just follow those systems,
all will be well, we will reach heaven or nirvana or enlightenment when we have
practiced enough and said enough mantras, done enough good deeds and given up
enough of ourselves and our money to the systems. And so we follow.
Then one day we graduate from the system, having completed every qualification,
mastered every exercise, and earned the respect of all the other followers. Hell, now
we're the leaders, and we look around and see the same damn view as reaching the
top of the corporate ladder, and the same disillusionment creeps into our bones and
darkness encircles us and shrouds us, and all our friends disappear when we begin
questioning the religious system - we have just become the anti-Christ, Satan
embodied, Beelzebub - the bringers of light through darkness - and nobody wants to
have anything to do with us now. We ask too many unanswerable questions, we raise
too many doubts, we cast light on places people would rather keep in darkness. We
are shadows, zombies, and we live in the underworld. What now?
Now we have become destructors - destroying the systems that supported us because
they lied - they didn't give us what they promised - they only gave us a cheap imitation
of it - not because they intentionally misled us, but because those who created the
system truly believed they would bring us these riches, these pearls of great price, and
by the time they saw the truth, it was too late, the system was in place, and no one
wanted to hear them calling out from the shadows to beware of the system, that it is
an illusion, the worthy goals have not been met. No one wants to know that, and few
want to try to tell anyone because it only brings cries of witch and devil and demon
with fingers pointed toward the messenger.
What happens now is one of two things...
1. death or
2. you realize your own responsibility for creating a new system.
So, you take all you know about life and begin reforming yourself into something new,
someone new, someone who has seen it all, done it all, been it all and still continues
to find a way to go on with life, to find a way to glean the rewards without expecting
the rewards to solve the human dilemmas. We live in cycles of light and dark and both
those cycles have their purposes. Darkness is not evil, it is just half of the day. Our
lives move in and out of productivity and stagnation, activity and rest, questioning and
accepting, judging and being judged, loving and hating, health and illness, sleep and
waking, and we keep cycling through the impermanence of everything.
A few questions are - Can we see the glimmer of light on the horizon of our deepest
darkness? Can we acknowledge our worth in times of inactivity when others judge us
as worthless? Can we feel love during our periods of hatred? Can we believe in
restored health when we are sick and in deep pain? Can we awaken after deep sleep
and disturbing dreams and live on and find some joy in the world where nothing is
what it seems?
Then you find the answer, on your own, hope. Hope is the answer, always hope,
forever hope, hope brings light and light replaces the darkness. Hope keeps us going,
hope is the essence of life, and without it, nothing else matters, not even love. And
with it, all is love. And we recognize our connection with all of it, and we stop judging
it, and accept ourselves as an increment of the Oneness.
And so it goes. And so it is. And so am I. The beginning.
other and from our Source, as well as frustrated, depressed, lost and alone. Here's
one of mine... when I have a bad day, it's really bad - and remember, even this dark
depth is transient, and we always return to joy. The darkest night truly is just before
the dawn ...
Here I am at a blank computer screen wondering what to write. I'm feeling at the
bottom of the barrel, scraping the scum off the rusting edges to use for ink. I guess
this is what they call a spiritual crisis. I've been here before, but never with such
clarity and awareness of where I am. Before it was just a black hole surrounding me in
darkness and pulling me deeper, but now that I'm at the bottom, I can see clearly
where I am, and I can see the sides of the barrel, and I can even look way way
upward and see a circle of light far above me, unreachable at the moment.
I'm tired, tired of doing the right thing, tired of trying to succeed and tired of the
consequences of not trying. The worst part is, I know the spiritual rules... I am
responsible for my own happiness. I am responsible for my own life. I am responsible
for everything that happens to me. That's sometimes just too much responsibility. It
would be nicer not to know the rules when I'm tired of following them.
One of my friends and I have been discussing free will. Do we have free will on this
planet?? And most of the time we say, yes, of course we do. We can choose
whatever we want to do and do it - but is that totally true? What is the price of
choosing to go against the rules? When the price is so high that free will becomes an
illusion, it no longer truly exists. The earth system is just like Las Vegas - the odds are
in the favor of the house. Play by the rules and you'll win a little, but mostly we lose,
but the high of winning makes the intermittent reinforcement attractive enough to
keep us playing - most of us.
And just what constitutes winning? He who has the most toys wins the game -
materialism? That is exciting to a point, but once you realize that you can buy anything
you want, the fun of it ceases. And working can take a lot of time and effort, identifying
yourself with your job and knowing you have succeeded because you do your job well,
and you are paid well and head hunted by the top corporations and then you reach
the top of the ladder, or someone knocks you off the ladder and you see the view from
the top and the view from the bottom look pretty much the same - lonely. And then
you begin looking around for something more.
Then you turn to relationships - ah yes, the sweet fragrant blossom of love. Love is all
there is! And for a moment happiness lives on our doorstep, but looking for love in all
the wrong people is a roller coaster ride at best and and a heart-breaking
life-devastating train wreck at worst. But for a time we keep trying, knowing that just
the right person will make everything right with the world. Until one morning we wake
up and see clearly that there are no right or wrong people, only people - people
struggling with the world and looking for love in all the wrong people too. And one
more disillusionment returns the focus to us and our choices. Responsibility sucks.
And then comes spirituality - we begin to seek answers to our unhappiness. If we are
mentally inclined, we seek them through science - breaking down everything and
examining it and learning how it works and coming to hardly any conclusions except
those we jump to in a moment of need and desperation for something to be real and
valid. If we are emotionally inclined, we turn to psychology for help, examining our past
which must be blamed for our inadequacies because someone damn well better take
responsibility for the mess in our lives because no way could we have ever created
such a stupid mess. Years of therapy ensue, at the end of which we have placed all
the blame and forgiven all the perpetrators, and still we are unfulfilled. What then?
Surely someone must know the answer, the secrets, the hidden truth. We turn to the
spiritual gurus - and that goes for the televangelists, the Hindu babas, the Zen
masters, the e.t.s, the Kahunas, ascended masters of all forms, shapes and
persuasions; all those who give us systems to live by - if we just follow those systems,
all will be well, we will reach heaven or nirvana or enlightenment when we have
practiced enough and said enough mantras, done enough good deeds and given up
enough of ourselves and our money to the systems. And so we follow.
Then one day we graduate from the system, having completed every qualification,
mastered every exercise, and earned the respect of all the other followers. Hell, now
we're the leaders, and we look around and see the same damn view as reaching the
top of the corporate ladder, and the same disillusionment creeps into our bones and
darkness encircles us and shrouds us, and all our friends disappear when we begin
questioning the religious system - we have just become the anti-Christ, Satan
embodied, Beelzebub - the bringers of light through darkness - and nobody wants to
have anything to do with us now. We ask too many unanswerable questions, we raise
too many doubts, we cast light on places people would rather keep in darkness. We
are shadows, zombies, and we live in the underworld. What now?
Now we have become destructors - destroying the systems that supported us because
they lied - they didn't give us what they promised - they only gave us a cheap imitation
of it - not because they intentionally misled us, but because those who created the
system truly believed they would bring us these riches, these pearls of great price, and
by the time they saw the truth, it was too late, the system was in place, and no one
wanted to hear them calling out from the shadows to beware of the system, that it is
an illusion, the worthy goals have not been met. No one wants to know that, and few
want to try to tell anyone because it only brings cries of witch and devil and demon
with fingers pointed toward the messenger.
What happens now is one of two things...
1. death or
2. you realize your own responsibility for creating a new system.
So, you take all you know about life and begin reforming yourself into something new,
someone new, someone who has seen it all, done it all, been it all and still continues
to find a way to go on with life, to find a way to glean the rewards without expecting
the rewards to solve the human dilemmas. We live in cycles of light and dark and both
those cycles have their purposes. Darkness is not evil, it is just half of the day. Our
lives move in and out of productivity and stagnation, activity and rest, questioning and
accepting, judging and being judged, loving and hating, health and illness, sleep and
waking, and we keep cycling through the impermanence of everything.
A few questions are - Can we see the glimmer of light on the horizon of our deepest
darkness? Can we acknowledge our worth in times of inactivity when others judge us
as worthless? Can we feel love during our periods of hatred? Can we believe in
restored health when we are sick and in deep pain? Can we awaken after deep sleep
and disturbing dreams and live on and find some joy in the world where nothing is
what it seems?
Then you find the answer, on your own, hope. Hope is the answer, always hope,
forever hope, hope brings light and light replaces the darkness. Hope keeps us going,
hope is the essence of life, and without it, nothing else matters, not even love. And
with it, all is love. And we recognize our connection with all of it, and we stop judging
it, and accept ourselves as an increment of the Oneness.
And so it goes. And so it is. And so am I. The beginning.
| WritingMuse |
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Writing by: Sandy Penny WritingMuse sandy@writingmuse.com Explore my life, writing and the magical mystical winding road I have traveled to become the WritingMuse |
| Dark Night of the Soul |