How I Suffered for 9 Years in The Dark Night of the Soul
(And Why You Don't Need To)
What is the Dark Night of the Soul, and How Did I Suffer Through it?
After my Spiritual Awakening, I encountered The Dark Night of the Soul. It was a long, depressing, dark experience that continued for what I felt like an eternity. It lasted for 9 years.
During the Dark Night of the Soul, I felt lost. My heart was continuously filled with anxiety, as if my world, with its known habits and conditioning, was coming to an end. This was because, after a spiritual awakening, my conditioned mind pattern was dying. While it was dying, my mind made me feel miserable by re-identifying myself with its old dysfunctional patterns.
At that time, I was in the initial phase of my awakening experience, and I was unsure about my outer purpose in the world. The things that motivated society no longer encouraged me.
Whatever resonated with me before was not resonating with me anymore. My career, habits, relationships, inclinations, and likings all fell apart.
At the same time, still I felt continuous anxiety or being "out of place." It felt like the end of my "known" world.
I was suffering through tremendous physical and emotional pain
A significant reorientation took place in my life, and I pondered, what do I do with my life? What's my role? What's my relationship with my family, friends, wife, and children?
Why is awakening not blissful and free from negative states?
Why was the meaning I assigned to career, relationship, ambition, achievement, etc., no longer fulfilling?
I saw the craziness of our civilization and felt somewhat alienated from the society surrounding me. I felt like I existed in a no-man's land. I did not feel that I belonged to the inner world of Being, nor did I belong to the outer competitive world. Now due to spiritual awakening, I fluctuated between ego and Inner Being. My newly emerging awareness had not yet fully become a part of my daily life.
My inner purpose, which is awakening, and my outer purpose, which was functioning in the world, had yet to integrate fully.
Whatever meaning my mind had attached to Career, Relationship, Ambition, Achievement, etc., was no longer fulfilling. I felt a deep sense of meaninglessness. My inner state was very close to what is conventionally called depression. Nothing made sense to me anymore.
How does The Dark Night of the Soul initiate in people?
In the case of some people, the Dark Night of the Soul was triggered by some external event, such as the death of loved ones, the loss of business, possessions, relationships, or anything that their ego had strongly identified with. This resulted in a dark place for their mind as their mind lost everything it had identified with.
After the dark night of the soul, I emerged into a transformed state of consciousness. Life had meaning again, but it was no longer a mind-made meaning I could necessarily explain. Now, my life was sustained by the being and not the ego. And while my ego was dying, it made every last attempt to make me identify with itself. It made me feel miserable by instilling fear in me—fear of no longer being run by the egoic mind. Before awakening, I was my mind, and now, I am not my mind. My center of life changed from MIND to BEING.
What Happened to me after the Dark Night of the Soul?
After the Dark Night of the Soul, I awakened to something more profound, which was no longer based on concepts in my mind. A deeper sense of purpose no longer depended on my mind. It was a kind of rebirth. The Dark Night of the Soul was a kind of death that I died.
What died was the egoic sense of self. Of course, death is always painful, but nothing real had died there – only an illusory egoic identity.
How Spiritual Awakening and the Dark Night of the Soul is related?
Remember This: A spiritual awakening is the rebirth of everything you are, and the Dark Night of the Soul is the process of dying of everything you are not!
Two Spiritual practices to recover from the Dark Night of the Soul
Presently, if you are in the dark Night of the Soul, going through pain and suffering like me, I will teach you how to recover from the Dark Night of the Soul in 30 days or less so you do not have to endure the misery for 9 years like me.
These involve only 2 spiritual practices. The first you do while being engaged in the world and the second you will do as a meditation.
So, Let’s Start.
Whenever you surrender your mind within and rest it in your Being, your nature is Love, Peace and Joy. Your mind transforms into being itself.
The nature of Being, which Hindus call Atman and Jesus call the kingdom of heaven, is Love, Peace, and Joy
When you don’t surrender your mind to Being, your mind has only one function: to think, go outward, and identify with thousands of things.
When the mind goes outward, Love turns into comparison by identifying with thoughts, emotions, and worldly objects.
When the mind goes outward, Peace turns into unpeace, that is, forgetfulness of being in the form of anxiety and fear.
When the mind goes outward, Joy becomes suffering as we get lost in the world, reacting to people, events, and circumstances.
So our True Nature, Love, Peace and Joy Turns into its opposites.
Remember This Greatest Spiritual Secret even if you don't implement anything from this post. According to enlightened sage Ramana Maharshi, retaining your mind inward, surrendering to being, and never letting your mind go out is the most direct way to attain enlightenment. Not Seeking anything other than your Being is Desirelessness. Not Leaving the Being and Always resting in being is the greatest Wisdom.
Now, you may ask, how can we constantly retain our mind inside Being? We need to put our attention and mind outside to deal with day-to-day activities, right? That's a very good question!
You See, Once you rest your mind in Being, your mind transforms into Being, and then your life is taken over by the higher power, that is God Itself. Then whatever is required to get done will get done without the mind's judgment and analysis.
Remember This: Your mind will create noise that, without full attention to the outside world, you will not be able to perform on an optimal level. But the opposite is true. By keeping your mind on God (in Being), God will be the doer of all worldly activities, not your mind. Then the universe will act through you to manifest its purpose.
To retain our mind inward, we need to understand what a Spiritual Heart is.
The Spiritual Heart – The Center of Being
Enlightened sage Ramana Maharishi and ancient scriptures said that our spiritual heart is slightly on the right side of the chest and it's the "center of our being". The spiritual heart differs from the physical heart and is the seat of spiritual experience. This spiritual heart pervades both inside and outside the body. The Spiritual Heart is not an organ you locate physically; it is the Source of life itself, and one can only be aware of its real nature by being it. The spiritual heart is Being or God or Atman, whatever you call it. It's the essence of the whole universe.
DON'T try to locate the spiritual heart with the mind's concentration on the right side of your chest. The spiritual heart is beingness, awareness, and it's everywhere.
Practice#1: Resting in Being practice while engaging in the world
If you want to abide in the spiritual heart, just let your attention rest in the inner chest all the time while engaged with the world. Ensure you have 80% of your attention always inside you. At first, Its difficult for the mind. But even 50% attention is enough initially.
So the ONLY practice you require is "Rest your attention in the inner chest and make that your lifelong practice."
You can call it "Resting In Being."
If you cannot rest your mind inside your chest, you can take two conscious breaths whenever you realize you are not present. Conscious breath itself is a powerful meditation. It will immediately bring your mind into the present moment, and then slowly, you can feel your chest in the form of your inner body and anchor your attention there while doing your daily activities.
Practice#2: Resting in Being Practice as Meditation
Sit in a comfortable position or lie flat on your back. Close your eyes. Choose different parts of your body to focus your attention. Start with your head, hands, and feet in the top-to-bottom order and then bottom-to-top. Scan the whole body that way. Be with each part for five to ten seconds. Feel the life energy inside those parts as intensely as you can.
Run your attention through the body like a wave a few times, from feet to head and back again. It will take a couple of minutes.
After that, feel the inner body as a single field of energy in its totality. Abide in that feeling. Be intensely present in the moment with every cell of your body. Go beyond your inner chest and transcend the outer and inner body completely. You might feel a void, spaciousness or emptiness. And that is beautiful. In that state, there is no future or past; hence, there is no human. The intense presence is Being itself.
Don't get distracted by wandering thoughts, even if they occasionally take you out of your body. Once you notice that happening, simply return your attention to the inner body and transcend the inner body, too, as explained above
You can do this meditation for a total of fifteen minutes. Above meditation is NOT a substitute for the moment-to-moment practice of resting in Being, putting your attention inside your inner chest while engaged in the world.
Once you do these two practices, your mind will dissolve in Being and become Being. Then you will recover from the Dark Night of the Soul as your mind will not identify with you with thousands of things of the world. Now your life will be operated under the power of Being -that is, God itself.
Eventually, I got through the Dark Night of the Soul. Now, I usually live in eternal Peace by surrendering to my Inner Being. This course, The Courage to Awaken, will teach you how to live in that eternal state.
This is a hard place to navigate out of. I understand the concept of being and I appreciate the take on it from the place of your spiritual heart. I separated my Trauma response from logical and physical reality when I had panic episodes that froze me in place. I identify the sensation i feel, the emotions it is causing and I remember that I'm safe I am in control and fear is a sensation it just passes thru us .
I know everyone experiences trauma differently but mone gave me inept clairvoyant abilities that I misunderstood as psychosis for so long and it would ache in my chest almost as my spirit was breaking every time I took meds and ignored my gifts instead of using them as my purpose.
Thank you for this article. It's a real predicament to get control of but it's definitely possible. I took about 9 years too but am currently trying to regain society on the outside, so I can be the healer I was meant to be. ❤️😇