The Dark Night Of The Soul

What is the dark night of the soul? Some of you may have heard poems or songs with the same title. And if any of you out there are seeking enlightenment along the Mystic path, then there is a possibility that you know exactly what I am going to talk about here. Perhaps, even, you have already experienced the dark night for yourself.
First of all, I would like to say that I am sorry that I missed last weeks blog. I really do enjoy writing about things that I know will reach out to at least one person and inspire or enlighten them. And I love to write about my own experiences which leads me to today's topic. The month of May was a traverse and difficult month for me because I had decided to let go of something so profound that it effected my very soul. Letting go of this 'something' spiraled me into days and nights of doubt, emotion, questions, loneliness, and pain. I, myself, was experiencing the dark night of the soul. And what a long month it was! Before I go any farther into my own personal experience, I would like to explain to you what the dark night of the soul is and what it means to those seeking truth and enlightenment.

A tidbit on history
It began in Christianity with Saint John of the Cross' poem narrating the journey of the soul from its bodily home to its union with God. The journey is called 'The Dark Night', because darkness represents the hardships and difficulties the soul meets in detachment from the world and reaching the light of the union with the Creator. There are several steps in this night, which are related in successive stanzas. The main idea of the poem can be seen as the painful experience that people endure as they seek to grow in spiritual maturity and union with God. The first is a purification of the senses. The second and more intense of the two stages is that of the purification of the spirit, which is the less common of the two. Dark Night of the Soul further describes the ten steps on the ladder of mystical love. (Wikipedia)

The dark night of the soul entered into the mystics process in the high middle ages. 'Dark night of the soul' sounds like a threatening and much to be avoided experience. Yet perhaps a quarter of the seekers on the road to higher consciousness will pass through the dark night. In fact, they may pass through several until they experience the profound joy of their true nature. However, to one engaged in the dark night, suffering seems unending. The dark night could last, as the name suggests, a single night or it could last for years. The experience and length of time is unique to the individual.
The dark night occurs after considerable advancement toward higher consciousness. Indeed, the dark night usually occurs like an initiation before one of these special seekers is admitted into regular relationship with higher consciousness. The dark night also occurs to those who do not seek relationship but immersion or unity in the higher consciousness. While the term dark night of the soul is used broadly, its general meaning — in the field of higher consciousness — is a lengthy and profound absence of light and hope. In the dark night you feel profoundly alone.

The ego self
If you were to research about the dark night of the soul, you would find a hundred different versions of what it is. The truth is, the dark night is going to be different for each person. There is no special formula or recipe to follow. There are no steps to be taken. You cannot prepare for it or brace yourself against it. You either do it or you don't. It is called the dark night of the soul because when we do make the decision to let go, we are doing so on the soul level. When we let go of something on the emotional or conscious level, the result is significantly different than when we let go of something on the soul level. This will be explained later.
As we awaken to a higher level of consciousness and as we move higher along the path to enlightenment, one becomes more aware of what the dark night will mean for them because they have been awakened to truth. Your eyes and heart have been opened to a point where you understand what you truly are in relation to the divine universe. Then the dark night becomes something you try to avoid but inwardly know that in order to achieve enlightenment, you must first walk through the darkness, the true darkness. This is why many on the path to enlightenment will not reach it because they know at some point they must open their hearts completely and doing this means facing who they truly are. In essence, one must face their ego head on. The thought alone of facing yourself, your true self, is so scary for many, that they will, unfortunately, cease their growth and settle into their lives where they have stopped. 

The dark night is ultimately about transformation. Your ego, your limited sense of self, your inadequate complex of ideas about who you are had to be dissolved. Your ego was, you begin to see, eclipsing higher consciousness and your true nature. Your old sense of self was inadequate to your new hopes and proper state. Your suffering intensified because of a major misapprehension. You were too used to thinking of yourself based on inputs from your previous experiences in life. On and on through life, you gathered information and responses from the world which indicated to you what kind of person you were and are. These superficial units of related inputs became integrated in what is called the ego — your sense of self, your sense of who you are. As long as you allowed this inaccurate or only partial sense of who you are to dominate, you could not know or abide in your true nature.
Your ego sense is so powerful — you invest in it with so much of your thought and feeling — that your attitudes of life become based on an egocentric perspective. The ego gains a progressively greater foothold on your entire life because your basic attitudes about your existence and essential nature are strongly linked with ego.
Then, your ego sense, due to your suffering or your limitations in life, wants to have more power over circumstances and a more pleasant life. The ego sense often becomes motivated to seek higher consciousness and, thus, greater ability to dominate in life. Not always, but often, it is the ego sense which most eagerly pursues higher consciousness. It wants to be in charge; it wants to manipulate events and make life come out more to its satisfaction. But, as long as your ego dominates, it is on a collision course with your true nature and your higher consciousness. There’s going to be a showdown. There has to be a confrontation sometime if your higher consciousness is ever to emerge, if you are ever to know truly who you are and what your human capabilities are.

Letting go completely
There will come a point along your path where you realize how the ego is effecting your progress and you know without a doubt that you must let go. You cannot 'think' or 'wonder' if you are going through the dark night, you simply know that you are. There is no planning it out or making an appointment. One day it just happens. You close your eyes and jump. 
Ego cannot, by its will or any other skills whatsoever, create the wholeness of heart which will end your deep suffering. In a sense your ego recognizes itself — in the dark night — to be the disease. It recognizes that its foothold on your mind and heart has, at an advanced stage on your path, proven a great numbing agent and a high stone wall against the light. Ego stands against the fulfillment of your faith and the realization of your profoundest yearnings. Finally your ego has found something it cannot do and, in the dark night of the soul, it becomes totally convinced it is inadequate. It cannot deal with your suffering or the fulfillment of the heart’s yearning. Nothing it can do, think, say, buy, or travel to, will in any way suffice.
Here in this dark night, the lifelong ego sense dies: impotent. Having fulfilled its part, now weak and incompetent, it is dissolved — transmuted. From a higher sense now awakening within you, you slough off your false sense of self. You now know yourself to be a different person than you thought you were. Your ego was merely experiencing some of the attributes, some of the qualities, of your true nature, while at the same time obstructing others.
You, in passing successfully through the dark night, enter the realms of higher consciousness. You’ve been cleansed of the most deep-rooted sickness: your ignorance of your true nature and your inadequate, often totally wrong opinion of who you are. You now cease your inner conflict and abide serenely in your true nature. The dawn of a new life in higher consciousness transforms your bleak life of the past into one with a heavenly nature. You have been delivered of the intolerable bondage to ego.
Henceforth, you will walk the earth seeing others afresh, living a new life, and abiding in your true nature. You have become a son or daughter of higher consciousness. Now your words and actions will be attuned with your true self. Now you express inspiration and comfort.
The dark night has passed. It is over.
(The Mystic)

My experience
My experience with the dark night lasted nearly a month. At first I dreaded the thought of entering the dark night but knew, with out a doubt, that if I was to find peace within myself and my path, I was going to have to let go. I remember I was sitting at the computer working on my website when it just happened. As usual, I could feel my ascended master near by. Prior to this day, I had had many lessons in meditation from my ascended master on definition versus reflection. How not to define myself as an individual or artist but be a reflection of who I truly am. My flaw during these lessons was that as I was releasing old energies and fears, not only from this life but also from past lives, I was still holding onto pieces. Through these pieces that I was holding onto was where I was trying to find out how I was a reflection and not a definition. Over and over again, my ascended master would question why I was holding onto these pieces? I finally asked him one day, 'if I get rid of everything, then what is left for me to reflect from?'
That day I was sitting at the computer, I realized that I was trying to be a reflection from what my ego had created. I was reflecting myself from years and many lives of definitions of the world around me and who I thought I was. My ego was interfering with the process of my growth. That is when I knew I had to let go. I remember getting through my work and then shutting off the computer. I sat right there at my computer, closed my eyes and rested my forehead on my folded hands. Taking a deep breath I emptied my mind and shifted my focus to my heart chakra. Imagining my heart opening like a flower, I then shifted my attention to my ascended master clearly stating to him that I was ready. And I let go.
Over the next weeks the emptiness was overwhelming. I could feel the dark creep up behind me and cover me like a cloak. For no reason I would cry uncontrollably then be angry in an instant. My heart  hurt for days on end and a few times I thought I was actually having a heart attack. My sleep was disrupted with vivid and horrifying dreams. Depression crawled into my life and I was sick off and on sometimes with a fever. I felt very alone during this time. I couldn't paint. I couldn't even feel my ascended master near. Even though I still meditated each day, I couldn't concentrate, I couldn't settle my thoughts of random images and feelings that would flow through my mind. I began to question what I was doing as an artist if I was doing the right thing at all. Suddenly I felt myself being tugged back into old wants and professions. Maybe I should do this, maybe I should do that, maybe this is what I am supposed to do?
Then one day, a little over three weeks had gone by, I was in meditation when I realized that everything I had been going through was false. I was allowing myself to experience all these negative things. I was in control over my own life. Me, the true me and not the ego me. It was then that my ascended master interceded. He asked my again, 'how can you let go when you are still holding onto these pieces?' My answer, 'I can't. These pieces are not truth, they are illusions. I know that now. These pieces are not light but darkness. And I know that the heart can also be an illusion. It is not how big our heart is but how open it is. In the open heart is unconditional love, compassion, truth, and light. I want to be a part of the light and reflect from my light within.'
Then my human body fell away as if it were a coat. It fell to the ground and lay crumpled in a pile. I was there, floating, a bright golden and white light. I had been allowed to see my true form.
When I came out of meditation that day, everything that I had been through had vanished - the depression, sickness, roller coaster ride of emotions, questions, all of it, gone. I was back on track to my purpose reflecting myself from the light within. My energy increased as well as my love for life and everything in it. My art has taken giant leaps forward, something I am very excited to share next month when I reveal new works.
It was hard to make the decision to let go but I am not a person to just stop progress. I know there is always more ways to learn and there is an infinite amount of possibilities for my life. Today I am great but tomorrow I will be even greater. I am my own masterpiece in progress, ever shaping, with each layer more colorful and defined. Following the path of enlightenment is not easy, especially in the beginning, but if you endure and work hard enough, there is nothing more rewarding than the unconditional love granted by the universe.

Love and Light,
Tara