How to Transcend the Dark Night of the Soul
The story of lotus and the mud
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Words: 598 | Normal Reading: 3 minutes | Slow Reading: 6 minutes
Awakening from the Identification with Worldly Forms
There comes a moment on the path of awakening when the world you once knew begins to dissolve. The things that once gave you purpose — relationships, roles, profession, achievements, possessions — start to feel strangely distant, as if they no longer belong to you. What once lit your worldly life now flickers dimly or not at all.
You look around and realize that the identity you so carefully built no longer fits. The dreams you chased feel empty. Even joy feels out of reach. It is not depression; it is deeper than that. It is the Being calling you inward, stripping away illusion, beckoning you toward something real.
This is the Dark Night of the Soul, where everything false must die so something real can be born.
It is not an illness or a failure. The false identity you carried for years begins to dissolve—not because you did something wrong but because awareness awakens from its dream, the dream of identification with worldly forms.
The mind resists. It asks, Why do I no longer care for worldly things? What is the point? These questions come from the ego struggling to maintain control. But this is not the loss of life; it is the loss of life’s situations.
There is silence when the old self falls away—a profound stillness that feels like emptiness. But it is not emptiness. It is space. And in that space, something real emerges from within.
The Story of the Lotus and the Mud
A lotus seed was once buried deep in the mud at the bottom of a murky pond. That mud is nothing other than the world forms—thoughts, emotions, beliefs, identities—that keep us in bondage. For a long time, the seed believed that life was about surviving in the darkness—competing with other roots for space and nutrients, striving to grow stronger.
Then, in the stillness, a subtle presence stirs within the seed. It feels like an inner call to move upward above the water, not to win or to prove anything, but simply because the call is real.
As the lotus seed surrendered to its upward path through the murky water, the pull of the mud below began to dissolve. It’s akin to leaving the egoistic games of status and comparison after awakening. Even the drive to “succeed” loses its meaning. The journey upward felt lonely, and the lotus seed questioned everything. “Why do I no longer care for the things I once lived for?”
But it kept rising. One day, it broke the surface of the water and bloomed.
For the first time, it felt the warmth of the sun, the whisper of the wind, the infinite sky above. And in that still moment, it knew it had not come into form to remain buried in the mud but to blossom and exude its beauty and light to the world.
The lotus didn’t hate the mud from this new place. It recognized its role; it had nourished its journey. The mud is not the enemy of the lotus; it is its womb. Through the silent pressure of the mud, the lotus gathers its strength to rise. Now, it simply exists in beauty and expresses beauty—without effort, without seeking. The lotus resembles you. You are now spreading awareness by resting in your Being.
Let your suffering become the soil from which your inner power blooms.
Integrating Awakening into Daily Life
Awakening is not the end of life in the world. It is the beginning of a new way of being in the world. Live in the world but not of the world.
After the Dark Night, when the mind no longer drives your choices, you may ask: How do I live now? How do I work, relate, or plan a future from this stillness? The answer is from Presence. From the abundance of your inner Being.
You don’t need to abandon action. You abandon identification. You still care for your children, earn for your family, and conduct your worldly affairs—but no longer from a mind seeking itself in outcomes. Instead, you bring awareness into the doing. You move from inner stillness. A simple task, done consciously, becomes sacred.
Work becomes a field of presence. The awakened state doesn’t reject life—it embraces it without clinging. Let the doing arise from the Now, from the abundance of inner Being.
Full of wisdom and enlightening
PN