Tag: Dark Night of Soul

Posted on

Description of the realm of ‘dread, trance, and emptiness’

The dark night of the soul is the journey from:
Illusion -> Illumination -> Union.
During the ‘Illumination -> Union’ phase,
There are different bardo realms of experience to be passed through.

Here I’ll describe the bardo I am presently going through,
Which is of ‘Dread-Trance-Emptiness’.
The ‘dread-trance-emptiness’ bardo,
Has a lot of chaos, confusion, and disorganization
There is deep exhaustion,
In my ability to ‘be/become’ anything.

Like the king is unable to act anymore.
He is just a passive witness to his collapsing kingdom,
Which is falling into evermore chaos-confusion-randomness.
He has even lost interest/desire in it to keep it going,
And is simply now a passive spectator,
Of the spectacle of his kingdom falling into chaos,
And getting reabsorbed by all its surrounding forces.

‘Neglect’ and ‘Withdrawal’ of anything causes death of that thing.
So the process is very much like the process of conscious ego death.

This paradoxically feels like a descent and ascent at the same time.
The plunge into the depths is also the ascent to the heights.
To see everything from above is to see everything from below, and vice versa.

There is a process of passive purgation,
Of a journey into the purgatory playing/unfolding itself out.
I abide in this space passively,
In a ‘continuous falling’ into it.
It is like being in a kayak on a river current.
You cannot stop moving,
But you can influence the kayak with your paddles.

There is again a paradox here, that:
It seems deeply personal and yet so deeply impersonal at the same time.
Passions emerge, actions happen,
But the emptiness of all of it pervades my being.
Almost no experience is riveting enough,
To make me lose sight of the emptiness in the background.

I feel if I pass through all this madness,
I might bottom out and emerge on the other side.
This feels more like a time-energy thing,
Rather than a defined spatial thing,
Where there is a definite distance to cover.

The loss of identity,
Causes a fall into the shadows underneath.
Like sinking into the ground of chaos-filth,
From which the trees of identity spawn and return to.

This is a place where will/action are heavily suspended,
(Hanged man tarot archetype),
And one must mostly only abide/allow.
The only freedoms I have are to resist or allow.
And resistance hurts anyways,
So there is no actual freedom at all.

This archetypal chaotic dream madness (which is also the creative ground),
From which identities/egos in the world spawn,
Resembles the ’12th house’ described in astrology.
It is like the state of ‘dreaming and imagination’.
Waking > Dream > Sleep is what we ordinarily think.
But I think in the spiritual ascension path,
It is the reverse.
Being awake in ‘Sleep’ = Prajna (direct insight),
Being awake in ‘Dream’ = Vigyana (special meta knowledge),
Being awake in ‘Waking’ = Gyana (knowledge)
I feel like my awareness of emptiness is me being awake in the dream world/space/bardos.

This underground/underworld,
Feels like falling into a bottomless pit,
Where there is an infinite fall,
And where I am always in the center in spite of the continuously falling.
Only the scenery continuously keeps changing.
Sometimes I fall through clouds of scintillating mist,
Other times I fall through clouds made of acid.

The only way to communicate or share this experience with others,
Is through imaginative symbolic expressions.
A person going through a similar experience would probably instantly relate.
For others it may be a bit of a stretch to imagine/see.
Posted on

A description of the Dark Night of the Soul

# Participation turns into Withdrawal
# Investment turns into Disinvestment
# Enchantment turns into Disenchantment
# Attraction turns into Disgust
# Love turns into Hate
# Passion turns into Dispassion
# Interest turns into Disinterest
# Attraction turns into Aversion
# Energy turns into Tiredness
# Ecstasy turns into Deep-Grief
# Gain turns into Loss
# Vitality turns into Depression
# Vibrance turns into Listlessness
# Activity turns into Inactivity
# Vigor turns into Torpor
# Order turns into Chaos
# Focus turns into Confusion
# Hope turns into Hopelessness
# Bliss turns into Dread
# Peace turns into Suffering
# Laughing turns into Crying
# Pleasure turns into Pain
# Meaning turns into Meaninglessness
# Quest towards life turns into Quest towards death
# Ambition turns into Apathy
# Happiness turns into Sadness
# Clarity turns into Fog
# Awakeness turns into Stupor
# Aliveness turns into Deadness
# Desire turns into Fear
# Reality turns into Appearance
# Truth turns into Illusion/Maya
# Flow turns into Resistance
# Light turns into Darkness
# Knowing turns into Unknowing
# Becoming turns into Unbecoming
# Good-Sleep turns into Sleeplessness
# Novelty turns into Tedium
# Prized-Assets turn into Burdens
# Health turns into Disease
# Relationships turn into Isolation/Desertion
# Growth turns into Decay
# Prominence turns into Fading/Invisibility
# Importance turns into Neglect
# Development turns into Stagnation/Atrophy
# Victory turns into Defeat
# Pride turns into Humiliation
# Independence turns into Dependence
# Thriving turns into Desperation
Posted on

A short description of my experience

I experience life itself like a dream.
Where there is total subjectivity.
And “everything” could change into anything.
Absolutely malleable/changeable.
The “props” of my external environment may remain the same,
But the “dance” is in my body chemistry,
That can change the “entire relationship” I have with everything,
i.e. all of my thoughts/emotions/moods/feelings/perspectives/vision/projections etc.

Drugs really reveal this secret all too well,
That body chemistry shapes a tremendous/extraordinary amount of all of our experience.
Like esp. with marijuana and psychedelics, the alteration is phenomenal.
Chemistry and perception have a phenomenal correlation.
It can alter even time, space, and my whole vision about everything.
The body is like the million-chemical factory,
Controlled by forces from a higher dimension? (soul/karma/vasanas/engrams/samskharas/causal realm seed?)
Which are in turn controlled by the collective soul/collective karma/solar-system as a logos with planetary sub-logos etc.?

The only stable ground I see is ‘consciousness’.
That is the only certainty/ground I feel.
Everything else is super changeable in my experience,
Anything and everything can dramatically shift.
So there is a weaning out and a profound detachment that is deepening as this process is happening.
Sometimes I lose all energy, coherence, and suffer the dark night of soul,
Going through a hyper-negative sensitivity to everything,
In the cesspit of my wretchedness, despair, depression, reactivity, contradictions, confusions, paradoxes, frustrations, sufferings.
Like falling into the valley/pit of sorrow/miseries/pain.
Other times I come back with a bang, rise up to the mountains,
And regain coherence/meaning/purpose/direction/clarity with a sense of euphoria/insight/joy/beatitude.

I find the greatest/ultimate rejuventator for me is “SLEEP”.
Every “sleep” gives me a new lease of life.
Each day is a new life.
I live day to day, taking each new day as a life in and of itself.
My whole lifespan 85 years say,
Is really the aggregate of ~31100 sub-lives.
Every day I wake up to brave a new mystery/a new paradigm/a new context,
And by the night I am totally pooked/in deep fatigue.

My experience is like endless alternations of,
Coherence/Harmony/Purpose/Meaning –and– Confusion/Chaos/Suffering/Meaningless
Like mountain -> valley -> mountain -> valley…..and so on.
A constant agonizing alternation between ecstasy and depression.
With wild fluctuations in the influx and deflux of spirit.
My whole being is just an instrument that serves and abides in this mystery,
And rides its waves and dance.
I feel like i’m living in a constant Bardo realm,
With a very tenuous connect with the earth and body.

Like an endless fall into the abyss that will maybe drop me off in the next dimension.
Like being eaten by a Whale, and digested alive inside its stomach.
But maybe a day will come where I will open my eyes to the world again, not as me, but as the Whale,
And see through the Whale’s eyes and live in and as its being,
That has absorbed my essence into its.

The only one thing I desire is “spirit”.
I’ve narrowed it down to that after discriminating through all these extreme shifts.
When I am filled with spirit, life is wonderful.
In the absence of spirit, I am in deep agony.
Posted on

Musings on the dark night of the soul

dreamyskyline

The dark night of the soul,
Is when you become aware,
Of the underlying void,
Of the underlying darkness,
Of the underlying invisible space,
The silent invisible unknown unseen wind,
Beneath the wings of creation,
And drawn to that.

Like being drawn to the bed of the ocean,
From the waves in its surface,
Moving into the obscurity, unknown, and aloneness,
To find the ground of being and life.
A dark rapture of surrendering,
And letting yourself sink,
And going through the sadness,
Of disappearing/vacating the world you know.

Everything fades to the distance,
Sights and sounds become faint,
A cocktail of sublime emotions well up,
Nostalgia, sadness, clarity, and reflection.
As you descend to the cave of your own heart.
Like the feeling one has,
When journeying back home from an adventure.
The play of form and light departs and fades,
As you sink into obscurity, mystery, and devotion.

It feels like seeing a city skyline at night,
Standing afar on the other side of the shore.
Watching the shimmer and twinkling city lights.
As you walk away, you keep looking back,
And watching the lights recede, shrink, and fade.
And you willingly enter the darkness.
The uncreated, formless, unmanifest,
Into mystery, obscurity, and innocence,
Following the longing to return,
To the ineffable unknown that is the source of life.
Posted on

About Kundalini

I read that there are 3 stages of enlightenment:
# Stage 1: Gautam Buddha is behind you as a shadow.
# Stage 2: The Buddha comes in front of you, and you become the shadow.
# Stage 3: There is no more of you – not even a shadow, only the Buddha is.
(more information is available on this if you google it)

The kundalini initiates all 3 of these stages.
Kundalini is the “ascension energy” itself.
The “returning to source” movement from base to the crown chakra and beyond (not literal physical location, but more in terms of shifting of energy density from gross to subtle).
Spiritual seeking (the true kind) is from kundalini basically.
Kundalini is present in everyone but dormant, that is why this process is called kundalini awakening and kundalini rising.
Though I say “base to the crown”, the actual process is mystical and non-linear, not a linear flow from base to top in terms of physical location.
That is only for the purpose of symbolic representation.
Kundalini is like the stored source energy(potential) that serves as a vehicle to carry you back to source, it is the agency of transformation.

The concept of transcendence and spirituality does not even occur or appeal to someone whose kundalini is still dormant.
A sincere longing and seeking appears only after kundalini awakens.
Else there is no desire or any interest in such stuff, and such subjects.
The longing to transcend is the desire/potential, the force that makes you explore/seek/do sadhana is the kinetic/action.
That dormant potential that carries to the next dimension is the kundalini shakti.

It is like the upward current that carries you to a lower density, as your being receives greater energy.
Higher the energy = lower the density, like the molecules of gases have a lot more energy than liquids and solids.
Going up to lower density planes means, there is new information, new perception, new laws that are intuited, which are all the unfamiliar new terrains that are passed through in this process.
The “dark night of the soul”, is a stage in this kundalini ascension process, especially applies if you move very rapidly.
You can only move as fast as the amount of ‘loss’ you can handle and process.

So to recap the main points:
Kundalini is a symbolic system which represents the power/vehicle/fuel that carries you through the process of transcendence to lower densities planes from your current higher density plane.
This process is that it is highly mystical, non-linear, and beyond our understanding, at a level of mystery that is similar to life, birth, and death itself.
Posted on

Living through the death process

dead_trees

WARNING: This is a somewhat serious and heavy post.
For the readers not interested in the topic of death, this can be skipped.

I am losing control.
I am losing my will-power.
I am dying, fading, receding, dissolving, falling into the ground,
Into a subconscious in-between state.
The state in-between:
# waking and sleep
# waking and dreaming
# life and death
# birth and death
# consciousness and unconsciousness

I am like a dying tree,
Who is in the hands of all of nature’s elements.
I cannot weather the elemental forces anymore.
I submit to them.
I submit to their destruction of me.
The wind blows off my leaves and branches.
Animals eats off whatever they want from me.
Insects feast on me from the outside.
Microorganisms eat me from within.
I am decomposing and falling into the ground of filth,
From where I sprang forth.
It is as if god has given permission to everything in nature to finish me off.
I stand back within this apocalypse and witness tides and tides of destruction, loss, and grief.
The loss of everything I have known.
The loss and destruction continuously happens.
The only function “I” perform with my will, is opening the valve just enough so that it is bearable.
Every-time I open the valve, more of my self is torched in the flame.
Facing death consciously is like facing endless loss and grief.
I know that death is be allowed.
But I am compassionate to the me that is dying,
As every identification is being decomposed, rotted, and reabsorbed.
The process is as pretty as witnessing a vegetable rot in time lapse.
Every death of every part, fills my space with its smoke of grief.
But I only get short breaks, before the next series of deaths start.

My “senses” are going weak.
I can sense/feel/perceive anything only with a lot of strain.
I have to expend a lot of effort to crystallize a momentary perception.
And if I keep doing that, then I will be sent back into a stupor from exhaustion.
My will has become so weak and feeble,
I have to let 95% of things just happen.
I can no longer control my thought and emotion.
I have lost the unity of body mind spirit.
Now they are all fragmented.
It is a descent into chaos like what happens to a kingdom when the king falls.
The various fragments pull and push at each other and scream at the death process, which pulls off their life supports and they all struggle to survive until they fade away.

My mind reacts to the dissolution with painful dreadful suffering visions and agonies,
Which immediately affect the body too with an assortment of painful hormones.
Death is something that is done to you, I am not doing anything.
In fact with the structural dissolution, my power to do decreases more and more.
All I can do with the me that is left is let it happen or resist it.
And resisting it only gives me short breaks.
The flood of the death process, cannot be dammed away for too long.
My motto is: To bear it and allow it as much as possible,
With minimum-damage and suffering, which is the only priority.
The challenge is to go through it with as much grace as you can muster.

Every structure resists death, every structure wants to live.
And so every dissolution of every structure suffers onto its own demise.
Birth and death are suffering.
The growing pains and the dying pains.
Creation is painful and destruction is painful.
There is no escape from pain and resistance.
There is a fundamental duality of:
Statis(inertia, death) ——- Movement(life)
So because the whole of existence/experience is a play of opposing forces,
Resistance as an experience is going to be felt no matter what.
If you sit still, your life force will push on you.
If you move, your inertia will drag on you.
Posted on

The guru is really your own higher self

Projectionoflight

The greatest pain (that I have experienced) is of separation and disconnection.
Whenever a person is connected, one can see a beehive around them, i.e. all the people attracted to that connection to source energy.
Everyone needs/longs for this connection to live/survive/thrive, and therefore everyone seeks this, they are drawn to all the conduits that transmit the source power.
So when a person gets firmly connected, his extent of connection determines the attraction gravity he/she sets up.
The more powerful their connection, the larger their energetic influence, and more the people sitting in their shadow and gravity.

The opposite is seen, when there is total disconnection, the energy/power then of the person is even smaller than their own body, they simply struggle to survive, hold their own coherence.
In transformation, one can be completely reduced to pulp approaching a total chaos of the creative force (it depends on the extent of transformation that is happening).
Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Vivekananda, Lao Tzu and all the greatest spiritual teachers in history have had enormous connection to source power.

But the degree of connection visible is only the smaller part of the truth.
Don’t judge a work in its unfinished state, esp. when it has been dismantled totally into an incoherent chaotic pulp.
It only appears like there is no connection, but one is closer to the light than ever before and one is being DONE in its image. Being transformed, being resurrected, being remade.
The total unknowing, dark night of the soul where you are blinded (none of your instruments help in this terrain), makes you understand that it is not by your efforts (what you call ‘you’) that this transformation is happening.
Infact ‘you’ yourself are being remade by a higher power.
Really, everyone is looking for a conduit to grace/god/divine/…
When your longing is deep enough, it eventually(in time, as a journey) carries you to the greatest connection/wisdom.
Deeper the longing = Greater the transformation = Greater the power/wisdom/vision/inclusion = Greater the connection = Greater the transcendence.
The longing is the potential energy that will unfold into kinetic transformation/manifestation.
It is a process of ENFOLDMENT(longing, potential, seed sprouting) -> UNFOLDMENT(actualization, kinetic, tree becoming).
All desires are potentials, and their flowering are the trees.
It is from the ground of filth that the beauty of a tree emerges.
Both filth and beauty have their divine purpose and go together.

The outer guru, is a catalyst, the hope, the potential coming/appearing, the becoming, in manifest form.
When you meet your guru, you see your own potential in its manifest state.
Your recognition of the guru, is your inner recognition of your own higher self and higher potential/possibility.
That recognition of your own higher potential (projected as the outer guru) results in the surrender/devotion that follows.

All manifest is a projection of the inner experience.
The guru is yourself, none other than your own higher self appearing to you as the guru.
Your recognition of the guru, is your recognition of your own higher self/possibility/your own higher potential.
And the surrender/devotion/work that follows is the projection of your own higher self consuming/taking you/transforming you/absorbing you into itself.

 

Posted on

On Brain Transformation

digitalbrain

The [Dynamic Ground] is the context while the [Ego] is the manager within that background context. (these terms were borrowed from the book: The Ego and the Dynamic Ground – Michael Washburn)

All [judgments/labeling/categorizing/concepting/focusing/lensing] -> is from the [Mind Net] cast over [WHAT IS (Actual Perception + Perception stemming from Memory)].
It is [Mind Vision].
To [see with the mind] is to cast this [instrument’s net].
It is to see ‘through’ this net.
But if mind is an instrument then what is the driver of this instrument? = [DESIRE]

[Conscious Desire/Interests/Passions] -> which are basically the [deeper unconscious/archetypal forces/energies/cathexis] passing through the [NET of Worldly-knowledge and memory] and getting translated into forms that can fit into the [symbolic order/outer world].
The brain works as a [CONDUIT AND NET] for [translating/prism-ing] the [inner soul unconscious subconscious desires/forces].
If this [Brain filter] is too dense, and if it serves as a very poor medium or translator for letting the [higher soul inner desires] to [manifest] through this [realm/plane/symbolic order], and if it is just [repressing/barring/walling/shielding/blocking] most of it, and if it accumulates a lot of [useless conditioned dead habits] -> then this brain instead of being a conduit becomes an [overhead/dead-weight/poor conducting/resisting medium] -> The [task/imperative] then becomes to seek higher knowledge that will help create a [BETTER CONDUCTING and LIGHTER BRIDGE], so that more of the [soul’s true desires] can be [conduit-ed/translated] into [freedom/action/expression] in this [outer realm/symbolic order/plane].
This sort of [Brain Transformation] comes from the [unmanifest/unconscious] but one can [intuit] what is happening.
[Consciously] one can only [witness and manage] the [transformation process] happening – which happens in the [background/backdrop/context].
The [imperative] therefore during [TRANSFORMATION] is to [serve the process] by being an [efficient conductor of the ORCHESTRA] that unfolds.

 

Posted on

The dark night of the soul is from a saintly super-ego

colorful-wallpaper-screen-monitor-waves-abstract-art-digital

Prelude:
What keeps us [ALIVE/MAXIMALLY-FUNCTIONING] is [FLOW]
When [FLOW] does not happen for any quality, it results in [ACCUMULATION]
And [ACCUMULATION] impedes [FLOW] and leads to [DISEASE/DEBILITATION/LACK OF FUNCTION]
The [HEALING PROCESS] is nothing but [ALLOWING FLOW]

teastrainer

Supposing you have a [SAINTLY SUPER-EGO]
You [SUPPRESS/REPRESS] the [AWARENESS/EXPRESSION] of your [DARK SIDE] completely
Now, this structure acts as a [TEA STRAINER] and [COLLECTS] all the [GUNK] in the [FLOW] of [LIFE]
Every [WITHHELD EXPRESSION] gets [COLLECTED] in the [STRAINER]
The [STRAINER] here is the [SUPER-EGO MEDIATING STRUCTURE] itself.

If you feel no [GUILT] or [FEAR] about [ENJOYING],[FEELING PLEASURE], [INDULGING] and so on, then the [PLEASURE] passes through the [STRAINER] completely resulting in [NO ACCUMULATION] of [PLEASURE].
[PLEASURE] is then seen as [EMPTY], [PASSING], and [FLOWING], which is its [TRUE NATURE]

On the other hand, if you feel great [GUILT] and [FEAR], in expressing [NEGATIVE DESTRUCTIVE E-MOTIONS (energies in motion)], then you [REPRESS] all of [THAT].
That then [COLLECTS/ACCUMULATES] in the [STRAINER].
When a lot of [NEGATIVE E-MOTIONS] are [THWARTED/SUPPRESSED/REPRESSED/COLLECTED/ACCUMULATED] by the [SUPER-EGO] then they form a [WALL] and [SOLIDIFY/CLUMP UP].
Now this [CLUMPED-UP SOLIDIFIED MASS] on the [STRAINER] reduces the [FLOW OF LIFE] to a [TRICKLE].
Just like the [TEA WATER] not [PASSING THROUGH] and [BARELY TRICKLING] when the [STRAINER] is [ALMOST FULLY BLOCKED].

After this point, the only task for the [EGO] becomes to [ALLOW/RELEASE] this [ACCUMULATED CONCENTRATED CLUMPED UP CONCOCTION OF NEGATIVE DESTRUCTIVE E-MOTION] which [STANDS IN-BETWEEN] and [VEILS/BLOCKS/HIDES] your [TRUE NATURE].

This [PRINCIPLE] is true [BEYOND TIME].
How [FAST] your [STRAINER] gets [CLOGGED] depends upon the [INTENSITY/ZEALOUSNESS] of you [EGO STRUCTURE].
The [FASTER/MORE INTENSE/MORE ALLOWING] the [EGO] is, the [FASTER] this [DEADLOCK] happens.
Just like how, if you pour the [TEA WATER] into the [STRAINER] really [FAST], the [STRAINER] would get clogged at [THAT SAME RATE] and may take you much faster to the point where you would have to [STOP POURING] and [EMPTY THE STRAINER] first.
This may take [some egos] 100s of years, and for some [really intense egos] it may take only 30 years or less.
With a more [INTENSE EGO], you just happen to [SEE] the [RESULTS] of your [STRUCTURES] much [FASTER].
Just like if you are driving at 1000kph, every small movement of the steering takes you FAR AHEAD in that DIRECTION, vs. moving at 30 kph where the movement in that direction is little in comparison.
The PRINCIPLES do not CHANGE.

So coming back to the case of the [SAINTLY SUPER-EGO],
The [SAINTLY SUPER-EGO] [REPRESSES/SUPPRESSES/THWARTS] expression of ALL that is BAD.
This [ACCUMULATES] in the [STRAINER] until it [VEILS] the flow of [LIFE] completely.
At this stage, one arrives at the [DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL] where the only task is to [CLEAN THE STRAINER, LEARN FROM IT, TRANSFORM YOUR STRUCTURES].
All of [LIFE ENERGY] is now [EXPENDED] in [INCINERATING] the [CLUMPED UP COLLECTED CONTENTS] in the [STRAINER] until all of that has been [TORCHED/FREED] and until all the [NECESSARY WISDOM] has been [EXTRACTED].

The [PEOPLE], [SITUATIONS], [CIRCUMSTANCES], [CONDITIONS] you [ENCOUNTER] are only [PROPS] that [LIFE] uses to play out those [UNEXPRESSED EMOTIONS].
So there can be [ALL-CONSUMING HATRED] for [EVERYONE and EVERYTHING], which is actually just the REFLECTION of this [STRUCTURE], i.e. of the [LIGHT OF LIFE] passing through the [PRISM of these ACCUMULATIONS] causing the pattern you see projected on all [PEOPLE], [THINGS], [CIRCUMSTANCES, [SITUATIONS] and [CONDITIONS].
Posted on

The expenditure of karmic energy potentials

Van_Gogh_Starry_Night

I see experience as a curriculum of ‘karmic energy potentials’ for this lifetime.
Analogy:
Like the picture here showing Van Gogh’s famous starry sky, we could visualize ourselves as the whole space(the whole field) in true essence, and all the stars are all the container of various potential experiences we are to experience in this life.
Or I could say our soul/heart contains all these star experience potentials.
Each star then continuously expends its energy.
There are stars of various sizes, and the brightest ones tend to take up the most of our attention and may represent core characteristics of our identity whose qualities shine on us no matter where we are on this field.

Our observer point then starts accelerating along a certain path – the orbit of which is created such that we would have drunk the experience from all the stars energy on completion.
We have a certain degree of choice energy embedded in the observer point too.
So generally we choose to live through the pleasurable ones first (large gas giants and low density stars – which represent high vibrations) and identify our self as them (the white fish in yin-yang) and this forms the day period of our lives, and when all the pleasure-stars have exhausted their fuel of experience, they all vanish and we enter the night of our lives and experience all the other wonders and terrors of the various smaller night stars which mostly represent our repressed shadows/non-egoic potentials (dis-identified disavowed parts under the iceberg). This night journey represents the dark night of soul which our heart lives through.

Then once all the difficult dense energy stars (sadness, grief, pain etc. and the low vibration parts) exhaust their potentials too, then the journey completes itself and we are freed from the heart and union with the formless field as DELIGHT.