At some point, most of us go through a phenomenon known as the Dark Night of the Soul. Although we try to run from it, it is still there. Although we try to cover it up and smother it, it is still there. Although we try to put on a happy, smiley face and pretend it away, it’s still there. While some of us seek reprieve in religious thought, others of us seek respite in spiritual philosophy or psychology, and still, others seek relief through addiction and mind-numbing external pursuits.
The truth is that although we are all born with Souls, not all of us know how to fully embody and integrate them into our human experience. The truth is that in our modern world, we live ego-centrically rather than Soul-centrically.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest Souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars. – Khalil Gibran
Mystics, saints, and shamans throughout history have all referred to this ego-centric human struggle in different ways. But the one thing they all had in common was their tendency to point to the need for us to consciously grow into our Divine potential. One of these people was Saint John of the Cross, a Spanish monk who coined the term “Noche Oscura” (Dark Night of the Soul) based on his own mystical experience.
The Dark Night of the Soul is a period of utter spiritual desolation, disconnection, and emptiness in which one feels totally separated from the Divine. Those who experience the Dark Night feel completely lost, hopeless, and consumed with melancholy. The Dark Night of the Soul can be likened to severe spiritual depression (it’s a type of spiritual emergency or existential crisis.)
If a man wishes to be sure of the road he’s traveling on, then he must close his eyes and travel in the dark. – Saint John of the Cross
Traditionally, the Dark Night of the Soul refers to the experience of losing touch with God/Creator and being plunged into the abyss of godless emptiness. The modern understanding of having a Dark Night of the Soul, however, is not exclusively a religious one, but can often mean losing all meaning in life, feeling out-of-touch with the Divine, feeling betrayed or forsaken by Life, and having no solid or stable ground to stand on.
Some of the heaviest questions we ask during this period include for example, “Why am I alive?”, “Why do good people suffer?”, “What is truth?”, “Is there a god or afterlife?” and “What is the point of living?”
It’s important to distinguish between the Dark Night of the Soul and depression. Even back in the 16th century, Saint John of the Cross himself was at great pains to distinguish the Dark Night from melancholia (depression). Although they share many characteristics, depression can often be treated and sometimes cured with medications, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness practices, lifestyle changes, and so forth. Depression often has its roots in biological chemical imbalances and/or unhealthy thought patterns, and often comes as a result of personal loss, mental illness, physical illness, abuse, genetics, and so on.
On the other hand, having a Dark Night of the Soul is a much different experience because it is primarily a spiritual and existential form of crisis that can’t be treated or cured with therapy or psychiatry. Therefore, those of us going through the Dark Night often feel an increasing sense of hopelessness, unease, and despair as we discover that no one can save us but ourselves. Inevitably, this makes us feel even more alone, frustrated and confused about the world and about ourselves.
I am intensely aware of what it is like to experience complete psychological and spiritual desolation and although the feeling seems endless, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The Dark Night heralds deep-seated changes occurring within us known as spiritual transformation. When depression ends, not much changes in your life in terms of your beliefs, values, and habits. However, when the Dark Night of the Soul ends, everything in your life is transformed, and life becomes wondrous again.
I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses. – Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dąbrowski once coined a term Positive disintegration which views tension and anxiety as necessary in the process of spiritual and psychological maturing. In other words, it is the friction within us that causes the mirror of our Souls to be polished enough for us to glimpse our True Nature.
Here are some signs you might be going through a Dark Night of the Soul:
You feel a deep sense of existential dread; a vast sadness for all that is hard to define
You feel an acute sense of spiritual isolation, as if you are floating on the fringes of ‘normal’ life
You have the constant feeling of being lost or condemned to a life of suffering or emptiness
You possess a painful feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness
Your will and self-control is weakened, making it difficult for you to act
You lack interest and find no joy or meaning in things that once excited you
You mourn for the loss of something intangible; a longing for a distant place or to “return home” again
My desire to live is as intense as ever, and though my heart is broken, hearts are made to be broken: that is why God sends sorrow into the world … To me, suffering seems now a sacramental thing, that makes those whom it touches holy … any materialism in life coarsens the soul. – Oscar Wilde
A true Dark Night of the Soul leaves a long-lasting impact on you – it changes you completely. When you exit a Dark Night, you will discover that something is always taken away from you (for the better), such as your beliefs, your perceptions, your former meaning in life, or even in rare cases, your ego. The metaphysician Ananda Coomaraswamy put it this way: No creature can attain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist. Have you ever seen a butterfly begin to emerge from its cocoon? It must struggle in order to strengthen its wings. If someone frees the butterfly from its cocoon prematurely, it won’t be able to fly because its crucial tempering stage will not have occurred. The same is true for trees. Trees need wind in order to build their structural strength to stay upright. The Dark Night of the Soul is your wind, your cocoon; it is an ego death whereby you shed the ego that prevents you from embodying your Soul. If you try to avoid the hard work of, as Ananda put it, “ceasing to exist,” or breaking down your old confining structures, you won’t have what it takes to truly embody your essential nature.
The burning question
A central question and concern that emerges over and over again during our Dark Night of the Soul is “What is the point of living?” Such a question weighs down on us like a heavy blanket, oppressing us constantly. Each day we might obsessively search for an answer, but find to our greatest dismay that the answers to such a question are as expansive as the waves on the ocean. Some people tell us, “the point is to serve God,” others tell us, “the point is to make a difference,” and others tell us, “there is no point: you make your own meaning.” These are only three of hundreds, even thousands of possible answers.
We walk down one path and immediately become dissatisfied, disillusioned, and repelled by what we discover. Then we walk down another path and history repeats itself again and again until we realise with horror, “Every path is meaningless to me,” and we collapse in grief and despair, winding up at square one again.
Such a cycle repeats itself over and over again during the Dark Night of the Soul, so much so that it can become like torment. I know because I have experienced it. The strange thing is that although we get to a point of complete desolation, we still hold a glimmer of hope that pursuing the same path over and over and over again will somehow bring us to a deeply satisfying meaning one day. We seem to think that the mind is the solution to our problems; that utilising the mind will release us from the original prison created by the mind that feels the need to quantify, measure, and define everything.
What most of us fail to do, however, is to question the actual questions we are asking and pursuing the answers to. Have you ever tried asking: Why must there be a “point” to living?
In reality, it is absolutely terrifying to have the ground beneath your feet ripped out from beneath you, and this is precisely what we experience during the Dark Night of the Soul. And yet, this experience is the greatest teacher of all to us because it illuminates what is fragile, transient, and subject to change, growth, and decay. We are subsequently left with a feeling of great inner emptiness, but within this emptiness, we eventually come to see what can never come, go, change or die, and that is the truth of who we are: pure, peaceful, and blissful conscious essence.
The mind is a product of our evolutionary development: it protects us and structures our existence, and through it, we can experience the beauty of life. But in order to truly come to any closure during our Dark Nights we must understand that the mind is limited, narrow and finite – and therefore so is our reasoning.
Why must there be a “point” to living other than the experience of being alive in all of its fascinating and shocking diversity? Why must we “pursue” or “find” something rather than simply experiencing each moment fully and completely in the simplicity of Being?
A spiritual awakening
As humans, the prospect of change is avoided and resisted because it is unknown territory. Therefore, we fear it. For this reason, we require a Spiritual Awakening. There are three ways that Spiritual Awakenings can occur: the first is at the hands of wise spiritual teachers, the second is through the spiritual drive of soulfully mature people, and the third is spontaneously due to life experience.
Spontaneous awakenings arrive in a number of ways: a terminal diagnosis, old age, a near-death experience, a physical accident, the loss of a loved one, a romantic breakup, the destruction of your home or homeland, suicidal depression, or the complete loss of your religious faith. The Dark Night is an herald, an omen, of change. It lets us know that we can’t continue living the way we have been living. There is no growth, no awakening in life, to life, without first seeing and acknowledging our existing disappointment.
Acknowledging our disappointment means becoming aware of the deeply held sense of “incompletion” that we all carry; it means becoming aware that something is desperately missing from our lives. Those that have experienced, or are currently experiencing a Dark Night of the Soul will know that something very fundamental at a core level is out of focus or completely lacking in their lives. Those going through a Dark Night will sense that so much more is possible in their lives, even though they don’t exactly know what that “so much more” is.
Paradise lost and found
One of the common reasons why Dark Nights occur and are prolonged is due to mystical experiences, or short glimpses of the divine, which spiritual teachers often refer to as “grace” or samādhi. Soon afterward, the person “loses” this experience, and is plunged into unhappiness again. This is called the “halo effect,” “afterglow” or what the Sufis speak of as the “sobriety of union.”
Why does the “halo effect” happen? It happens because of the stark contrast between one’s rediscovered Divine Self and the return to one’s disconnected and tormented Ego self. To the spiritually mature person, the halo effect sets the stage for a future encounter with the transcendental, with God.
However, for the less prepared seeker, the glimpse into the Divine stirs up even more distress as old habits, obsessions, thoughts, and behaviours reappear. Now, such a person realises that he has a long, complex, and demanding task of purification and transformation ahead of him.
In Spiritual Alchemy, there is a word for this experience called solutio; putting all the hard stuff in the waters of reflection (your ideas, your habits, etc.), where it dissolves and breaks apart, shows itself for what it is, and gives you the opportunity for a fresh start.
Transform and transmute
The solution to one’s suffering and disconnection from the divine realm can be any method of cutting away, dislodging, disintegrating and clearing old pieces of your life so that you can begin afresh. Essentially, the Dark night is a process of shedding away your old home and going in search of a new one. Understandably, this process requires a huge leap of faith into the unknown which can come at quite a sudden and frightening pace.
If you think you might be going through this journey, it’s important to understand that many of us have been where you are. Many people still are. There is no map, there is only the flickering luminescence of your Soul to light the way. Through my work as an ascension guide, I hope to encourage, embolden and support you if you are undertaking this descent into your Underworld.
Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes
to recognise its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
– “Sweet Darkness” by David Whyte
Cover photo: Lilli Waters Words: Mateo Sol