The Dark Side of Spiritual Living

[Spirit Flower]

Maybe it is winter and time to experience the dark and the cold. Maybe I'm finally well enough to go and look at the darkness. I find myself wondering and willing. I've tried to be happy and fulfilled for a number of years. I've followed the instructions and been happy; but now, I seem to want to allow the ooze to flow and look at it. I've never really allowed myself to just drop the quest for fulfillment/joy, and see what happens.

Mainly I've tried to prove that i am as good as all the enlightened people I see out there. I've felt judged by religious people and attempted to prove that the non-consecrated life of a lay spirititualist is just as good as the professed religious. I've self helped myself and I've followed teachers. Now, I want to try just letting myself enter the darkness and find out what it contains.

Has anyone else put their happiness instructions away and just entered the dark?

[Dave]

In my opinion:

If one has in hand instructions on how to be happy and where to be and at what time -they shall not be truly happy. Maybe for a fleeting moment, like the high from a drug, one could feel happy when they feel they have found a formula. But fleeting, again, is the operative word.

It is not so much a case of dropping anything, or stopping anything, or even taking time out from anything. One does not enter the darkness as a seperate place / state. Always it is there with us.

One should not, I do not feel, associate darkness with the percieved opposite of happiness -or even light- when using it as a metaphor for spiritual work.

Letting oneself simply be -by entering themselves- is the manner in which one finds what all things contain. Darkness then is only apt for describing those negative traits of our consiousness which we often shy away from.

[Spirit Flower]

It seems like I live by the rules because I never had a natural way of living. So I thought I had to “pursue happiness,” without a clue as to what it is for me. So I needed instructions. And now I want to quit following the rules which say I should be happy.

I guess when I say “the dark side” I mean those attributes I’ve been trying to “correct” because other people don’t like them. Now, instead of trying to get rid of them, I want to go into them and find out more deeply what they are. I can do this because I really am no longer a real angry or hateful person, but the blessed roots are within me. The roots did not cause an angry plant, my own twisted horticulture did. The roots are good. I need to nurture them and see what they were meant to be.

Actually I feel a new freedom coming. I’ve stopped doing what “everyone else” said to do or be.

Thank you Dave, you helped me to come up with some new thoughts!

[Dave]

On negativity and the shadow aspects of spiritual practice and life: "instead of trying to get rid of them, I want to go into them and find out more deeply what they are". And in doing so, my friend, you shall find out whom and what you really are -and what it truly is to be (not only happy, or sad, or this, that and the next thing) but truly be. When living for that moment you are living for yourself -and vice versa. Through living for yourself, with love and compassion, you are living for all others. Thus dawns upon us the realization that there is no such distinction between self and other.

...But back to the original point!

One can not fully understand a thing without studying and integrating the whole thing -even if it is percieved to comprise of many thousands of individual parts. If you were to practice and live with your focus trained only on the niceitys and easy to cope with aspects of existance, you would be half the person you could and deserve to be. One must, as you have realized, delve into themselves and embrace all that they are -anger, hate- the lot.

Thanks again. It has been nice chatting with you.

[Spirit Eagle]

I've never been good at making sense of someone's rules that don't fit me. How well I understand what you have written. Trying to follow another's path certainly is a sure recipe for darkness and confusion.

If you ever have a chance, you might find the "winter" section of a blog I wrote in zaadz. The blog itself is called "Seasons" and chronicles a year I lived in a tiny mountain village. During that year and since I have come to view winter and darkness with an entirely different perspective. It no longer frightens or concerns me. Indeed, I have just come out of a period of time where I retreated into a cocoon (a dark place?) for a few months in order to regroup, restore and renew.

We each are born from the darkness of the womb into bright lights, noise and activity new to our experience. Is it any wonder we cry? We grew in that darkness from a few formless cells to the physical beings we are. We always are in a process of becoming, always moving from one moment to a new one we have not experienced. Being enlightened, too, is part of the process of moving from the darkness to new understanding, new awareness, new, new, new.

Perhaps one of the most powerful examples of what can happen when a being surrenders to the darkness required at a particular time is the life cycle of caterpillar to butterfly. The caterpillar scrunches along, happily chomping whatever is available and tasty. However, that sun-filled life changes when some movement in the spirit of the caterpillar demands it stop chomping merrily away and begin to spin its cocoon. Now it wraps itself into a close, dark shell and hangs suspended in space. The caterpillar becomes a gelatinous blob. It has surrendered even its physical identity, its very essence to an unknown process. Eventually, the blob turns into something entirely different than it was before and it starts to force its way out of the cocoon. As it emerges into the sunlight, it has a new body, wings it never had before, new life and new energy. It must, however, spread those wings and dry them off before it can soar into the sky, resplendent in beauty and magic.

Dearest Flower, you have cocooned away from all that did not work for you, others' expectations and standards, beliefs and practices. It is dark and uncertain, filled with the honesty sitting in the darkness demands when we are to grow into who we can be. There is nothing bad, nothing wrong, nothing amiss. It is part of the process, part of becoming. Becoming at peace with the darkness is what allows us to discover and to be true to our spirits. There is no shame or lack in accepting the shadows and questions. How else can we discover the source of light and the possibilities of new answers without finding the root from which those can grow?

When we stop the striving and enter the stillness, we can begin to discover ... and it is good and beautiful.

[Spirit Flower]

Thank you! Very wonderful.

[Spirit Flower]

I found a blog called "beginnings and endings" with a picture of snow on trees. I can see myself heading toward the "bare bones" of my existnce, as you described in your blog.

One thing i truely like about you, Spirit Eagle Gini, and other internet friends is that I don't scare you. When I talk of darkness, you don't tell me to go see a shrink, but realize that a person really needs to make the inner journey. And you have been there so I don't feel so alone in my quest.

[Spirit Eagle]

Scared of you? Heck, it's almost like standing beside you and hearing echoes of myself from other times. If I even had a notion of being scared of you it would only be as the result of facing truths about myself I didn't want to face. However, those days are long gone. Have hope.

Here's the link to that essay, if you want it. http://ginieagle.zaadz.com/blog/2007/2/seasons_of_change#comments

[Lisha]

I too have been there and I spent the better part of my life going against the grain. I embraced the darkness refusing to compromise or correct because other's felt there was a defect in me. I can take responsibility NOW,but back then it only made me hate even more to see that the more I revealed this aspect of myself the more people felt uncomfortable. I've been looked at strangely all of my life because I've said what I really feel as intense as it can be. For awhile I decided to be mean and nasty about it since they didn't accept me as I was in those "moments". Now I've softened tremendously and I'm embracing ALL parts of me and realizing I played my part very well in this grand illusion. You definitely are not alone many of us are old souls too intense for those that are new kids on the planet :-)

[David Hale]

Ditto to the wisdom already shared... your post has moved me today Spirit Flower. The paradox of finding a way to acknowledge all that is... in it's entirety. Too include the dark side of course.

A link back to ZaadzNowGai with my favorite quote about interacting with others and seeing their views. Not scary to hear you say this... natural, exciting, hopeful for where you emerge when you dig through it all.

That quote - Thomas Hoving.

Blessings, David

[David Hale]

That is a wonderful description of the change we seem to go through again and again... Spirit Eagle.

I've always loved the caterpillar/butterfly analogy.

And Spirit Flower thanks for the the original thoughtful post.
Blessings, David

[Meenakshi]

The dark night of the soul...perhaps all go through it at some time in their life. Perhaps when they are really ready, as you are feeling as well, Spirit Flower.

It is even more difficult to live the life of a lay spiritualist; than that of a monk. There is a humility in you, that perhaps those who caused you to feel judged, did not possess. There is a memory of a time long past, when I feel that I had a conversation with one who was an enlightened master. I was one of those close to him, a monk, arrogant, pitying those householders who came to the teacher for advice and help and healing; but not for teaching and enlightenment. When I voiced that, he said, very gently, that i needed to understand how difficult it was for them to see the light. I understood that I was to have a life as a householder; and bowed with great humility to him, and said - Even if I go into the darkest life; I will never forget the light.

I know I could see the light within since a very young age. Immense sensitivity caused me to see even the miniscule darkness even where there was much light. It was actually easier to find the light within.

When this conversation above first surfaced in my memory, I thought it was a plot of a story I wanted to write; but now, I wonder. It is so real; I can feel the dust below my feet. And the silken voice of the teacher.

In this life, I have seen the teacher in a ceremony on a new moon night. He has come to me and shown me the purpose of the dark.

Dear Spirit Flower, take the hummingbird as way-shower, ask some to hold sacred space for you, perhaps in this group, by the night of a new moon; and venture into the dark. It is full of hidden potentiality. The womb. There is nothing to fear; and if you are feeling drawn to it; it is usually joys that are waiting for you. There can also be much emotional clearing before that; so it is good to ask some people to hold sacred space with you.

We have been having the conversation about the flowing river in this group---it is relevant here.

[Spirit Flower]

Meenakshi, When you first posted this reply, and I read it, I was in my darkness and only felt anger towards you for seeming loving and enlightened while I was not.

Now, weeks later, as I have come out of the darkness, I can see and appreciate your love and wisdom. So now, with genuine gratitude, I say Thank you. Maybe your words helped even though I didn't register them at the time.

Namaste in return!