The long dark night of the Soul.

If others want to add their experiences, I'll include them as an addendum to the poll.

Date: 7/18/99 From: Sharon Are you ready for another mini-poll?

If so, how many of you have experienced what you consider to be a "dark night of the soul?"

And if you did, what happened? How long did it last? And did it occur before or after K started?

Sharon

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Sharon..what a rich question!! Yes I will have to say that I have experienced the DN. I was born K-active and know that I have been in the DN for a long time.....:) The DN is where we confront all of our beliefs, values, our definitions etc....where we truly meet God. The DN comes and goes in cycles and eventually they grow smaller and smaller as circles in a drop of water.....For me the DN is the Spiritual mental side of the K. Same coin .. different sides so to speak. In the DN it is our ego which is being reformed to a more spiritual role...depression comes into play as the ego does not want to be changed ...it likes its supreme position :) I have tried many things to speed along my experience of the DN....I can say that meditation, prayer, and faith in God...(however God appears to you) is what brings us through....the best quote I can give you on this is from Ron Roth. "In the DN God takes away the good in order to give us the BEST."

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel within my DN. I would like to hear more of what others are experiencing with the DN.

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my DN preceeded becoming k-active. the DN led me to renounce a self-willed life and call on the soul for answers. the DN lasted for years but was not constant (i would have committed suicide if it was). in the midst of the DN, i was given the financial abundance that i thought i lusted for but found it lead to more problems.

so like most people, i called on a higher power when life was in disarray. i was given a 'vision' and followed that vision to an adept who gave me the gift of Shakti online. as a pragmatic business person, i had never seen a full color vision before but intuitively went to the web after receiving it.

btw, i had been involved with mystical exercises prior to the DN but now understand that an essential ingredient (Kundalini) was missing all along.

love and light,

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Mine occurred after realization of oneness, of God, of all there is (I call it ''my three-hour tour")... K was extremely active for approximately 9 months prior.
After realization, a like occurrance of *birthing* labor happened - there were days of extreme bliss, then days of (ewww) darkness/separation/nothing, which overall lasted 25 days. The days (bliss/dark) became shorter and shorter - expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction - it was very noticeable to me as a likeness to labor.

What I had assumed was to be a most beautiful and wondrous birthing experience of Self, and a repeat performance of my mystical experience of God became the MOST frightening thing anyone could ever experience -- facing yourself in all its illusions -- seeing the ego and its workings, the world and its illusions. It was too much to bear -- the remembrance of how long *I* had been here, how robotic the world is and how we pull each others strings, just as puppets. I took it as *truth* instead of lifting the veil.
I thought I had failed God and myself because I wasn't strong enough to look at this with *open eyes*.

This sent me for a tailspin in a downward angle for 6 months, where I felt completely disconnected from God. Nothing I could do would help me *connect*. I felt I was being punished, banned. My external life was also in chaos, but none of that mattered. I only wanted to *feel* God in my life once again, but there was no one there. It was THE worst experience of my life... even moreso than when a little less than a year later, I experienced insanity trying to reach God when my crown chakra blew once again. At least when I was *insane*, I knew God was with me. The Dark Night of the Soul is truly soul-wrenching, where I would literally wake up during the night sobbing or moaning because of the separation I felt.

Six months later, the dark night was lifted. I felt connected once again. Nothing external happened... it was some sort of an internal shift. During this horrid 6 months, many wonderful and beautiful healers appeared in my life - reiki masters, love healers, healers that worked with angels, etc. - all offering their gifts of love and healing that I hadn't (externally!) asked for. Looking back, I can see I was never disconnected... but the feelings I had, caused by my own assumption that I failed God in some way, caused the separation.

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and I have experienced more than one dark night...the first was almost 2 years and the minor episodes have been no more than a few months....I think for me it is the cycle of death and rebirth, over and over again...always a new me to be birthed.

> >beforeor after K started?

Oops! I answered that above...2 years at first...the big one after K started, but I had a dark winter of the soul years prior to active k being an undeniable force.

> The days (bliss/dark) became shorter and >shorter - expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction - it was very >noticeable to me as a likeness to labor.

I completely identify with your birthing/labor analogy!

>...This sent me for a tailspin in a downward angle for 6 months, where I felt >completely disconnected from God.

Boy, I've been there!

> Nothing I could do would help me >*connect*. I felt I was being punished, banned.

That is such the way we are inclined to interpret isn't it? Reward and punishment for being good or bad? But after a while we see that is our illusion.....that there is no separation in darkness. It is only our perception of darkness "disconnecting us" that leaves us feeling separate and alone. I think for me I had to experience God in the dark night....to experience that this too was love....and such tender attentive love at that. I had to get there.

>My external life was also >in chaos, but none of that mattered. I only wanted to *feel* God in my >life >once again, but there was no one there.

Doesn't that make you wonder about our preconcieved notions of what God should FEEL like?? Just me opinion here, but I think our attempts to box God into catagories perpetuates the experience of the disconnectedness of the dark night. We get out of a box to find another box we've made....at least, I'm speaking from my expereince here.

>>At least >>>when I was *insane*, I knew God was with me.

YES!

I absolutely love that last sentence. May I say "amen" to that! I'd love to quote that! Beautifully put!

> Looking back, I can see I was never disconnected... but the >feelings I had, caused by my own assumption that I failed God in some way, >caused the separation.

I personally agree with your conclusion just based on my own experience. Thank you for sharing, and these polls are great!

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>and I have experienced more than one dark night...the first was almost >2years and the minor episodes have been no more than a few months....I >thinkfor me it is the cycle of death and rebirth, over and over >again...always anew me to be birthed.

yes, me too..

>I completely identify with your birthing/labor analogy!

There is a phase of K. that is exactly that.. you relive your own birth.. die, and spend some time in Hades... till you have forgiven all your stuff, and find the light again. For me it kinda happened all at once, and I'll remember that night as the best and worst of my life.. LOL!! But it also took well over a year to complete itself, entirely.

Every kundalite is individual, but I have observed many common events with this phase of K.

It can be compared to the "hero's journey". Joseph Campbell liked to write about it a lot.. The story of Dante's descent into Hell is an excellent metaphor, and so is the Quest for the Grail in chapel Perilous, the Descent of Inanna into the realm of her sister Eriskriegel.. death and rebirth.
The doorway to the Void, the doorway to the deep unconscious, the veil of separation, and the door into death are all one. The void is terrifying in exact proportion to your uncleared Karma.. it is a reflection of your own fear. This is a protective mechanism to keep the seeker from crossing too soon. The leap is not made, till the faith to succeed is in place. "Yea tho I walk thru the valley of death.." Essentially, the death of the ego-individuality. For sleepers, this happens at physical death.. for kundalites, we die by shredding the veil of separation.. we go into the light and come back to live in the body, as light.. Spirit having a human experience.

Following death, the body experiences re-birth.. literally being born again.. into the same body..The seed of light that is awakening, come into the womb of potential that is human, bears fruit.. a body which feels brand new, because usually one aspect of the experience is a hallucination of one's physical body dying, decaying or being cremated, and being absorbed back into unity with the Earth. What once was the body of an individual, becomes part of grass roots, flowers and earthworms.. part of the Wheel of death and rebirth. As the body is absorbed back into the Earth, it becomes part of the Earth, and the stars, and All that Is.
Kundalites are as individual as snowflakes, so the order of these events is sometimes mixed up.. but one part of this journey is the Dark Night. The journey thru the underworld. Dante had to descend all of the levels of hell, with unconditional love and unconditional forgiveness for everything he encountered there, to find the exit at the center.. which is a marriage bed into Unity with the Divine, and a teleportation portal into the light. Anywhere along the journey that is a path thru what is yet unforgiven, one may become trapped by fear.. stuck in the separation of Hell. Hypnotised by the Chapel Perilous funhouse mirrors of fear, trying hopelessly to change or deny the reflection with ego-reasons because the judgments it represents are uncomfortable... but being blocked from unity by them, is more uncomfortable, still...
Only the Knight who is pure of heart may survive the traps and attain the grail.. only those who are without fear may pass under the flaming sword into Eden. After ego-death, the remaining illusions of separation come up to be surrendered and released. The journey is a purification, to prepare for eternal unity.
Of course, we all _do_ make it, coz Goddess provides plenty of angels and helpers and guides along the path.. altho some do get sidetracked quite badly, into paranoid realities, there are still people like me who think the underworld is a kewl place, and return to hang out there to offer a helping hand to stuck travellers. ;)
The advice for travelers that was posted on the Gates to Hell, in Dante's inferno, is excellent: It reads "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here".. The underworld is a timeless place, where every attachment to anything must be surrendered to Divine Will. In that place, hope shows it's duality: as fear of the future, and attachment to outcomes that takes one out of seeing perfection in the Now. Hope becomes an attachment, a funhouse mirror trap. No hope for the Dead.. only love, forgiveness and faith.

>> I thought I had failed God and myself because I wasn't strong enough to >look >>at this with *open eyes*. >>This sent me for a tailspin in a downward angle for 6 months, where I felt >>completely disconnected from God. >Boy, I've been there!

You are both dead women who have been to hell and back..:) Dead and gone into the light, and the light has become who you are. I suspect that the "Dark night" is simply normal non-awakened state.. where the sleepers live, disconnected.. but for us who have grown accustomed to a personal relationship with the Divine, it feels like we have been pulled suddenly.from the breast. The separation is much more painful when one has known unity, however

>>At least when I was *insane*, I knew God was with me.

Yeah tho I walk thru the funny farm, I will not worry coz Thou art with me. :)

>>Looking back, I can see I was never disconnected... but the >>feelings I had, caused by my own assumption that I failed God in some way, >>caused the separation.

Yes, precisely so.. the traps are self-created. Goddess doesn't judge. I got into a different trap.. the night I re-experienced my own birth and teetered on the edge of the void terrified, the refusal to surrender was predicated on the idea that Goddess doesn't judge, and also makes nasty painful shit, so I knew going in meant losing myself entirely and being recreated, but I was terrified that the stuff of my fear would be what the new self was made out of and I'd be a psycho paranoid.. GIGO.. I forgot about "unconditional love can find a better way than I could think of".. and was freaking that a nonjudgmental creator would remake me badly. LOL!! Sounds funny, now, but in a way I was right. Any doubt of Divine will, in the months following would give me a flashback of that cold back of the neck chill fear. Very unpleasant, but I learned quick! The other trap I had been in, that night, was the presence of thousands of disapproving ancestors in the room with me: the old information coming out of my trembling shaky cold&electric bones, of how life must be a hard struggle.. Goddess provided a friend to come and rescue me, and tell me to love them and set them free... and when I did that, I felt as if my body was destroyed and recreated, in an instant.. as the time pathways changed.

The attachment I had clung to, fear of harm, remained.. and the year following told me how deep it really was. At age 12, as a K-awakened novice self hypnotist, I had used all of the power I possessed to bind into myself a law "For the good of all and the harm of none".. and I had made it to be incontrovertible so long as I lived.. and binding to myself also, without realizing it, the duality of my Law.. the fear of harm.
Realizing my folly, I asked Goddess to send Death to free me from my self-created prison.. and spent several very odd months, being courted by the Reaper, and being guided to create an elaborate ritual of the Marriage of Persephone to Hades, while my inner child seemed to be starring in some kind of tearjerker movie about terminal illness.. and my body remained in radiant health.
Buried in the ritual, was a completion of my Shamanic quest. Some years before, I had become a Shaman of Chacmool, the Rain God of the Maya.. I had explained to him on day 1, that ripping the bloody hearts out of folks as sacrifice doesn't fly, this century.. He reassured me that it wasn't necessary..Part of the ritual of "marriage", was the gift of my heart to Him.. as an aspect of death, the light under the ground I had sought in the plantpot.. :) ..and of my male unconscious. Heart sacrifice, in the way of the old Mayan Royalty..
What is given up to Goddess, comes back, better.. it awakened the Holy Grail. Since then, my heartbeat is a pulse/wave of energy that I can feel physically, like I'd been running, even when at rest.. in every part of my body, even the ends of my hair.. and in everything I touch. I can fall into it, in meditation, and it expands till it is the universe making love to itself. The heartbeats of others synchronize with it, into unity.. and it is incredibly peaceful and healing.
I have led some of my slave-students thru ego-death and rebirth, and some, but not all, have attained the Grail. I can only guess that the others were in some way not yet ready. I am still learning.. Last week, synchronicity took me to an elegant web page that describes the fractal energy effect of the grail very beautifully, especially with regard to how it creates a sense of unity with everything. Very interesting stuff!
http://www.danwinter.com/grail.html this page has a very kewl animation of the fractal wave form that will make your K. spin.
http://www.danwinter.com/predictions/grailpg.html larger view: http://www.danwinter.com/grail1.gif Blessings..

************ I have experienced the dark night of the soul twice. Both times, it lasted almost exactly for a month. Both were psychosis. The first occurred around the same time I became aware of K. My memory of the events is not as clear as it used to be, and it has been a while thanks to mind-numbing prescription drugs. I've always wanted someone to ask me about it though, so here is a brief description. ...

First off, during these episodes, I felt responsible for almost everything that happened in the world or around me that I heard about. I had to keep reassuring myself that I had nothing to do with it. Also prominent was intense all-pervading fear and anxiety. The fear stemmed from alarming beliefs that appear out of nowhere and were for the most part, wrong (delusions). Difficulty functioning in society also was a part of it. I was lucky to get up and eat under these conditions. I once had to take an exam while under psychosis. I got an 18%. Also, everything that was sensed became oversignificant in my mind. Everything was a sign that meant something else. The mind was very cluttered. Many streams of thought were all coincident, each being complex. I suffered from "complexification" were simple things were made unnecessarily complex and probably frightful.

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>What exactly do you mean by the term Dark Night of the >Soul ? > >Now, a lot of ppl will probably say, >oh, if you don't know what a DN is, you probably >have not experienced it, and that is ok.

I'd like to know that too. I thought the classical DN that the Christian mystics wrote about was a loss of faith... a period of despair and not being able to find God... not knowing whether there was a God. But some people here seem to be talking about something very different... a trip into the deep unconscious. I've done that, more than once, but I wouldn't call it a Dark Night of the Soul. It wasn't for me, anyway.

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Hi All...... will write a bit how it was for me .. and you will all realise that it is different for everybody.

Well for me it was a protracted period within deep in the unconscious, which is dark. Though I appeared to everyone to look the same - I was becoming aware of mighty spirit - which in its unfamiliarity was scary to me. I seemed to be on an inner journey within and could not get out till I learned my lessons.

It seems rigid attachment to my ego and body as self was replaced with learning I am fundamentally spirit in essence. This was scary for ego to go through for it fears its power being replaced by spirit awareness. So trials and tribulations and torments etc were experienced to teach me how bad is clinging to ego and matter as self .. to wean me off rigid attachment (now I can come back to play as all aspects - I am body too and I love my ego).

It was learning how to let go attachment - it was learning how to let go duality polarity (even momentarily can be the Gift) .. It was very arduous and difficult. Not an overnight thing.

In this inner dark, God and any comfort cannot be found (though one is protected during this holy process but you feel anything but) - as we are trusted enough by the Lord to be ready to go it alone .. to find the Light Within the Dark. The dark is God too. Resisting it empowers it as real and fearful. It taught me so much and yes as Christopher has said taught me all my brainwashing from religion set me up for separation and attachment to fear of a valid part of the whole which is ALL God. The teachings of P'taah and such saved my but - but you are drawn to that which will help.
~*~
St. Symeon the New Theologian

'I thank you that you, even when I was sitting in darkness, revealed yourself to me. You enlightened me, you granted me to see the light of your countenance, that is unbearable to all.

I remained seated in the middle of the darkness I know, but while I was there, surrounded by darkness, You appeared as light, illuminating me completely from your total light.

And I became light in the night, I who was found in the midst of darkness. Neither the darkness extinguished your light completely,

Nor did the light dissipate the visible darkness,
But they were together, yet completely separate,
Without confusion, far from each other, surely not at all
mixed,
Except in the same spot where they filled
everything ...
So I am in darkness.
Yet I am still in the middle of the light.

How can darkness receive within itself a light
And, without being dissipated by the light,
It still remains in the middle of the light?

O awesome wonder which I see doubly,
With my two sets of eyes, of the body and the
soul!'

I would say that there are a few here most likely in their dark night of soul (transformation). It's psychological awakening to Self as witness and ego as fear and spirit as Love (as it seemed to me). In any case learning to let go rigid attachment to ego allows one to balance awareness as Self (wholeness).

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<< I'd like to know that too. I thought the classical DN that the Christian mystics wrote about was a loss of faith... a period of despair and not being able to find God... not knowing whether there was a God. >>

Although I was not Christian these symptoms are exactly what I experienced as my Dark Night. At the time my Kundalini was awakened I was smoking a lot of ganja, fancying myself some sort of western saddhu. My mindset was predominately filled with images of Vedic gods, I was reading a lot about ayurveda, and mixing psychedelics with practice. The woman I was with practiced more in a Wiccan tradition and we mixed the whole lot together.

Then, one day, something happened. It's taken me ten years to accept the experience as Kundalini awakening. These years of denial have been my long dark night. I've tried to explain the experience in many other ways -- all failing. Part of my denial came from the crushing blow dealt to my ego. In truth I was not what I pretended to be. My false self was lost to me. What I thought was God was lost to me. At the same time the "real" me is much more than I could ever "fake."

Another part of my denial came from wanting more -- a more continuous experience, a more powerful experience. Part of me said: "What!? This can't be 'it'! Look at me! I'm still here! I'm still human!" Really, I should have said something like: "Perhaps now I can become more human." :-)

My apologies for a rather incoherent account. It is only a few weeks now that I was called on my denial and have recast these years in this new light. Life is again an adventure, not an adventure of control and conquest, rather acceptance and surrender: watching the subtle and profound play of Shakti.

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Probably the most concise understanding of the Dark Night that I have read ... ..... don't appologise for your individuality ... don't make it wrong ... or allow others to make it wrong ...

The Dark Night is, in fact, the stripping away of the 'society personality of need/approval ... and the false sense of 'God out there' (religious beliefs) ...

and seeing that the 'soul' is merely a thought form projection of 'religious consciousness with its associated 'identity' ... that thought form which has been projected on us, which we own ... now has no basis for being ... and dies ..

With it, the false 'heart', the illusion of 'godliness' dissolves into the beingness of 'god' which is the true heart ... which is the realisation of I Am ...

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Link to Chapter 10: THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL from the book 'Mysticism' by EVELYN UNDERHILL

http://ccel.wheaton.edu/u/underhill/mysticism/mysticism1.0-THE-6.html

[Note: Now moved to http://www.ccel.org/u/underhill/mysticism/mysticism1.0-THE-6.html ]

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Hello!!

>Goddess once told me: become a flame, then the fire >will never burn you.>

WOW!! I love this! Thank you!!!

> ) - as we are trusted enough by the > >Lord to be ready to go it alone .. to find the Light Within the Dark. The >dark is God > >too. Resisting it empowers it as real and fearful. >

My DN .. similar to what you are referring to ..came before K awakening, and through an unusual set of circumstances I had been raised southern baptist and later started frequenting pentecostal holly roller churches(another story..lol) and I was pretty much..I hate to say it..quite judgemental and annoying..lol so now I know that the little quote..."What you judge you become" is true for me because I readily trashed New Age as stuff of the devil...ROFL even wrote a paper on it which I kkep here in my desk as a reminder...anyway..somhow one day I found myself at a healers house trading a healing treaatment for a perm!(Im was a part time hairdresser) and OMG it rocked my world. The sensations I felt really caused me to review and reexamine my whole basis of thought. I started reading Edgar Cayce and looking into reincarnation...etc etc.. and had to tear down everything that I had built my life on thus far...scary??? Damn Straight... Once I cut loose my attachment to the bible as the only literal truth..I was scared..sh**less :-0 Visions of demons and what now and where do I go..I had to reconstruct and examine every belief and see if it "felt "true..I started feeling things in my gut to see how it "felt " to me. I would have to say that period was my DN. It was liberating but frightening at the same time and I lost some friends because of it.. Upon K awakening I knew it had something to do with energy becuase it felt energetic but I thought I was jsut somehow overenergized and it confused me and was uncomfortable..but it didnt rock my world the way tearing down my beliefs did!

ps- heres another of my favorit quotes..... "What is eternal cannot be seperated form its source"..this one helped me out alot at that time :-)

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