'Why is there darkness, why is this happening to me, Dark Night of the Soul 138 what should I do with it?' Or do you pose the question from fear, anger, and resistance: 'Why on earth is that darkness present in my life, and how can I beat or avoid it?' Feel the despair and the resistance expressed in the latter question, and recognize those emotions within yourself, because it such a human reaction to resist what feels dark, unwholesome, or difficult.
The deepest challenge to you as a human being is to say yes to situations that you initially refuse to accept; to say yes to what you want to avoid at all costs. It requires great inner strength to say yes to what comes into your life in the form of darkness. If you cannot find that strength -- which is understandable -- and you say 'no,' you harden in opposition to that which happens, and the darkness becomes deeper and the despair increases.
There are actually two kinds of darkness in life. The first darkness is something external that happens to you on your path in life. It can be a divorce from someone you love, the loss of a loved one, a disease, or an accident. In short, it could be anything that deeply distresses you in the form of a crisis or a major setback. I will call this darkness one.
And then there is your reaction to darkness one, your emotional response. Every human being is inclined to initially resist fate, to rail against the darkness. But if you keep up your resistance and close down and keep saying no by passing judgment on what is happening in your life, then there is an additional layer of darkness, a second kind of darkness. I will call this darkness two; it surrounds darkness one.
Darkness one brings you into a level of intense, deep emotions. Something happens in your life that brings a lot of grief, fear, and pain, and as you experience those emotions, you are very much alive. Life flows through you like a thundering wave. Can you allow this to happen? Deep emotional blows strike you – they shock you – and then it becomes a question of whether you have the strength to trust that there is something in that experience that will take you somewhere that you would like to go. If you do find that inner strength, you begin to trust that life has meaning, even though you, as a human being, often do not understand the meaning.
To put it even more clearly, darkness one invites you to accept that your soul may have chosen to have this experience, perhaps to bring something hidden to the surface, to heal something you did not know needed healing. A pivotal Two Types of Darkness 139 moment of choice then arises when you are confronted with the options of either accepting and opening up or resisting and closing down. It is most common still for humans to want to say no. I will not say it is wrong, but by doing so, you are putting an extra layer of darkness (which I have called darkness two) onto the darkness already present (darkness one). Darkness two comes from within; it is your reaction to darkness one. If you persist in saying no, the flow of your emotions will come to a stop, and you, too, will become immobile by saying, 'No, I do not want to experience this; I refuse; I cannot accept it'. If you persist, you will be filled with resentment, anger, and bitterness. These sentiments are not really emotions; they are judgments that freeze the natural flow of emotion inside you. Darkness two prevents life from flowing through you; you have put up walls and defenses. In the end, this may attract grave forms of darkness to you, such as deep despair, alienation, and depression. When you are in a deep depression, the flow of life has almost halted. You feel dead inside.
Life is always subject to change. Life inherently holds the possibility for growth and healing, for a new birth, if you trust it at a basic level. But if you persist in saying no, you shut out that possibility. You keep insisting that life is not as it should be, and as you judge life in this way, you disconnect yourself from life and can sink to the deepest darkness that a human being can experience. It is not darkness one(external situations) that brings people to the deepest level of darkness, it is the persistent refusal to accept the emotions arising from darkness one. This is darkness two: an inward hardening, a shutting off of your feeling nature.
How does a person bring light into this kind of darkness? If someone arrives in the first kind of darkness, and becomes very sad, anxious, and distressed, you can still reach them. They are still alive, they are in touch with the emotions running through their body and psyche, and they actively seek for the meaning behind what is happening to them. This person is still whole and healthy from a psychological standpoint, even if they face very grave situations. A person dealing with darkness one is in need of comfort and compassion, and they are able to receive and appreciate a loving gesture from another – they are still very much alive.
But someone who persists in their refusal to accept, who keeps saying no, such a person is shut off from receiving love. They close down, not only against their inner light, but also against the light from outside that wants to Dark Night of the Soul 140 come to them through others. That is loneliness, and isolation, that is being lost – that is hell on Earth. And I tell you that each of you knows this hell from within. Maybe you are not fully aware of it, but for most people, a process of closing down started long ago during their childhood.
You know how a child stands spontaneous and uninhibited in the world, and how their emotions flow easily. These emotions often pass quickly through their being, because no barriers have been erected, no gates have been closed. Generally, life freely flows through a child. There are exceptions, of course, because some children carry burdens from early childhood or past lives, but you get the point I am making. Being a child is to be in a state of relative openness. A child is alive and spontaneous because it cannot be otherwise; it has not yet learned to rein in itself the way adults do.
But as you grow older, you start to experience emotions with which you do not know how to deal. People are trained by society to shy away from difficult emotions. Thus, the adults around you often do not help you understand those emotions and they avoid speaking about them. Most of you become confused as a child. You start to believe you are strange and different. Maybe as a child you were still full of inspiration, enthusiasm, love, and dreams, and then those dreams bump against the harshness of reality. You begin to put up barriers against your feeling nature in reaction to the fears and prejudices that exist in your family environment, or later at school and in the people you meet. Inner doors close, and this often happens subconsciously, but some of you may remember it as an old grief.
See if you are able to find the child within yourself, the symbol of your spontaneity; a child who is outgoing, uninhibited, alive, and someone who says yes to what presents itself as experience. Can you see that someone who says yes to joy, pleasure, and enjoyment, as well as to grief, fear, and anger? Imagine that this child within wants to come to you. It is still there; space and time are illusions. In the inner reality nothing is ever lost. Your original life stream is preserved, and still wants to join with you.
Imagine for a moment that a smiling child is coming to you with an attitude of openness. In your imagination, hear it say: 'Do you remember who I am?' Look at that child, and ask what you can do for it. There is a heart-wish the child wants to see fulfilled, something you may have pushed away for a long time. Let the child speak for a moment. The child stands for the yes in you, the part of you that wants to live, so let it speak.
A child still possesses trust. As adults, you have absorbed ideas that are full of fear and mistrust, and that feeds saying no to life and contributes to darkness two in you. Try now to sense or visualize this second kind of darkness; the part of you that is opposed to life, which no longer wants to experience pain, and which actually wants to escape this life. Can you feel that element of hardening and contraction within yourself? Can you feel it physically, or perhaps see a color associated with it?
There is a part in you that is very tired and no longer wants to live, because it has seen and experienced too much pain and struggle. Feel the weight of that part. Can you say yes to it? Do not try to change it immediately; try to understand how that has come about. No one deliberately closes off themselves because of an unwillingness to live. It is an act of desperation; it is the not knowing that there is another way to live that leaves you with that reflex of shutting off, of shrinking back, of saying no.
I do not ask you to only say yes to darkness one in your life: the difficult events, illness, pain, suffering, or whatever. I ask you to also say yes to darkness two, to that within you that has closed off itself from life as a result of painful events; to that which no longer wants to experience life and rejects it. And to reach that part in yourself, you have to be very gentle, because insistence and coercion do not work there.
That is the essence of light; the light that can flow into the darkness. This light can reach every corner because it carries no judgment. It does not say, 'Oh, this is bad, we must break down this defense or that blockage, because life must flow again'. It never says that. The light simply says: 'I understand'. The light says: 'It has been so very difficult for you, I can see that. I can see how you have tightened up, how you have closed down yourself, and how that contraction has eventually made you tired and empty.' Light is gentle and fluid. It can penetrate into the deepest pain and suffering, and the most hardened human soul.
I ask you to again open yourself to that light. If you cannot find that willingness within yourself, if you do not feel the openness to let go of the 'no', then allow that to be as well, because the light is always there. It is with you even in moments of despair so deep that you feel that there is no more light within you. It is there during those times, and in those situations, where you have totally lost touch with it and never again expect to see it.
The fact is, the light is not yours, it belongs to all that is. The entire universe, and all creation, is light; everything is imbued with light. Know it is there and put your trust in the light and in life. As soon as you allow even a small opening for trust and surrender to enter into your life, you are opening the door a crack. Know that even during the darkest night, your soul is always connected to you and offering you light and consolation. Although that door is open only a tiny crack, the light will find that opening. You do not have to do anything except allow it to happen. The light is with you, life is with you. Ultimately, your 'no' to life cannot maintain itself.
I ask you to surrender to the light, where light means saying yes, and not only to the difficulties in your life, but also to your problem with saying yes, the resistance you put up against deep emotions that make you feel naked and vulnerable. Become like a child again. Live! Say yes to everything. Envelop yourself with compassion and understanding. In doing this, you bring flow and movement into your life. You can do it! I see your strength. In each of you is a flame of consciousness, a bright flame of light. I am here to remind you of it.
By Pamela Kribbe
Book on website: http://www.jeshua.
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