Dear Shari:

nerdy creator. com: “‘The Dark Night of the Soul’ is a term that is commonly used to describe a period of spiritual transformation. During this dark period, one feels depressed, lost, and lonely. Everything seems meaningless, hollow, and empty. There is no meaning to life and nothing makes sense anymore… Our soul is always full of aliveness, joy, freedom, and love. It’s always expanding and connected to the Higher Power. But the problem is most of us are not in tune with our souls. We act from the ego instead and therefore, we suffer.

“The Dark Night of the Soul signifies the beginning of a shift in perspective from our ego to our soul. We realize that the ego’s perspective no longer works for us anymore but we are not yet connected with our soul. So we are stuck in between these two states and have no clear sense of identity or a stable home to reside in… Previously, when we act from our ego, we derive our identity from our career, our wealth, our relationships, our roles, etc. But once we realize that these things don’t actually make us happy, we lose our purpose in achieving or acquiring them. The conceptual framework that once gave us meanings and kept us going in life collapsed. That’s why we experience an existential crisis and a loss of identity. We don’t know who we are, what we want in life, and what to do with our lives anymore…

“Someone who gets through the Dark Night of the Soul doesn’t completely identify with their ego anymore. You experience some kind of ego death and you know that you are not your thoughts. You are more connected to your soul, you have a new purpose in life, and you take on a different identity. There is some kind of transformation and spiritual awakening. Your old personality dissolves and you come out a different person” –

– there is plenty more in this website including suggestions under “What do you do during the dark night of the soul?”

I want to reply further in about 10 hours from now.

anita

Dear Shari

A few years back I felt something brewing and it was coinciding when my period was due, so I knew i was in for a rough couple of days so I told my ego/pain body that if it did not behave I would hit it with every bit of dharma I knew.

I put my self into semi retreat and watched the antics,  thought & emotions unfold. Sometimes I could see them coming in the distance like the four horsemen of the apocalypse other times beautiful thoughts would sweetly dance up to me only changing into sneaky gremlins at the last minute & all the time Mara was in the background playing chess.

I was grateful that I had the dharma on hand to help me. I kept safe and caused no harm to myself or others.

It is true that without nourishing & replenishing our spiritual practice that we once again become absorbed into this samsaric way of living.

There is a lovely book called In case of Spiritual Emergency. It is well worth a read as many of its references are christian based.

Wishing you all the best

Roberta

Dear Reader:

Paraphrasing what I quoted above, and shifting to the first person: the process of setting myself free from ego is about letting go of Fear, and letting in Life, love and joy. It is a shift of motivation: from protecting myself (and in so doing, closing in on myself and keeping Life out)  ===> to experiencing Life (opening myself to life, letting Life in).

Ego is what my brain does when I am afraid: it overthinks, and in so doing, keeping me occupied while existing, while my experience of Life muted, muffled, minimized. Soul is what the brain does when it allows itself to experience Life,  unmuted, unmuffled: it sees and hears and smells and senses all that’s there to sense.

anita

Dear Reader:

From above: “Fear.. makes us easy targets to being controlled by others“. What being-controlled-by-others means to me, as I type this, is that I care too much if other people like me, afraid that other people think less of me than they think of others, or that they like me less than they like others. And that it is so because I really am inferior to others, that I really am less than.

Looking at the title of this thread, feeling less-than really is the “dark night of the soul“. It is an injury to the soul. The soul is “one heart beating in all“, and so, when my soul is injured, the one heart beating in me- and in all the people I interact with- is injured. The injury takes away from the One as it divides us, turning one against the other.

An emotional and spiritual transformation for me means to heal that injury in the one heart beating in us all, to really  believe that I am not less-than anyone and that everyone is the same… almost like the same person, and perhaps it is best to put it this way: all of us are the same person.

We are of different looks, genders, nationalities, educational degrees, professional achievements, etc., etc., but outside these appearances, or better say, within these different appearances, we are the same person. I guess that the reason it never seems to work- that a person with low self-esteem manages to increase his or her self-esteem by improving or changing these appearances (looks, genders, etc.)- is because the only way to increase one’s self-esteem is to increase one’s esteem of everyone, seeing all as one person (underneath the different appearances).

An emotional and spiritual transformation is about shifting from ego-living (focusing on appearances and discriminating based on appearances) to soul-living (seeing what’s underneath appearances, treating all equally). Soul living is about never dehumanizing or objectifying ourselves or others in any way, no matter how commonly it’s done in society. It is about standing out of the crowd, never joining others in treating a person as less-than (or more-than) for being shorter or taller, heavier or lighter, poorer or richer, darker or lighter, a man or a woman, disabled or not, etc., etc.

Emotional-spiritual transformation is not concluded on the top of a mountain, where and when we feel elated and “transformed”. It happens down in the valley, as we live our everyday lives.

Emotional-spiritual transformation is about radically accepting all that we cannot change, no longer resisting and being uptight about what we cannot change, and yet (like Peter often says), still being fully engaged in living (as opposed to being indifferent).

There is this woman I know irl, I’ve been trying for so long to make her like me, trying to show her that I like her, so that she will like me back. It is only recently that I noticed that she routinely throws aggressive comments at me (I call it micro aggression), trying to hurt my feelings, and that she continues to do so no matter how hard and for how long I’ve been kind to her. And so, I figured that I need to stop these efforts of mine, that I will be civil when I see her (say hello, thank you, good night, with a smile), but I will not be sitting near her anymore, nor will I initiate or engage in any conversation with her. I understand that her aggression is born out of… soul injury, but I also understand that availing myself to her micro-aggression will not heal anyone’s soul. After a year or two of being drawn to her, being motivated to make her like me… I am curiously no longer drawn to her, no longer motivated to make her like me.

I used to engage in gossip but will never again. To gossip means to share untruths about someone’s private life, or to share what is true in any way that is unkind. Examples of being unkind: (1) betraying a person’s trust by sharing what was said to me in confidence, (2) making fun of anyone for any reason, laughing at them behind their backs, or to their face, of course, (3) showing joy or glee about another person’s struggles.

Gossip injures the soul!

Closing on the topic of gossip: I better not share with anyone whom I do not trust (to not gossip) anything about me and my life that I am not okay with everyone knowing.

In my over 7 years communication with members, I have asked members a lot of questions about their childhoods and very much pushed the topic on them. It is only recently that I noticed (when I was asked about my childhood) that it is very distressing to a lot of people and is therefore unkind for me to do. Although I intend to mention childhoods, I no longer intend to push it on members. It distressed me= it distresses others.

Invalid or excessive guilt are formidable dark clouds hovering over our soul,  causing the “dark night of the soul”. Invalid guilt refers to guilt over things that we feel were wrong, but were not really wrong. Excessive guilt refers to guilt over mistakes and wrongs that we did commit, but we continue to feel it after we’ve done all that we can do to correct our wrongdoings (as in nothing we do takes away that tormenting feeling of guilt). It is very important for every person to distinguish between valid and invalid guilt, to figure out how to proceed in regard to valid guilt, and once the guilt has served its purpose, to let go of it. Excessive, lingering guilt does not make us better people. It makes us worse people because our soul is in darkness.

Some people try to not create any waves by going along with whatever other people need and want: a recipe for disaster because no matter how hard we try to not make waves, we end up making waves, but waves we don’t desire to make. For example, a parent who goes along with whatever the other parent wants, to his/ her own detriment, creates the following wave: having taught their children to under-create waves (be passive) or over-create waves (be aggressive) in their own marriages. So, better we pay attention to the nature of the waves we are creating. Create… Soul Waves. Let the core soul within you, that heart beating in us all,  originate waves that wash over us all.

anita

Dear Reader:

Disengage from the-beast-that-never-sleeps, i.e., the egoic-thinking  part of the brain aka Ego. It thinks I/me as an independent, separate entity; it thinks me-vs-them. It thinks rigidly, conventionally, subject to judgments. If a highly intelligent and highly formally-educated person’s thinking is egoic, it is still rigid, conventional  and judgmental, leading to discontent, misery and sickness.

Switch to Beginner’s Mind, No Mind, a state of awakening, if only for a moment.

An example of conventional, rigid, judgmental egoic-mind thinking is: do people like me, why don’t they like me, am I less than others, I don’t like this person, who does he thinks he is? etc.

Very different from Ego (I), Soul is one-heart-beating-in-all,  a We/us. We humans are the same person, really. We are no less and no more than… we. When I harm another person, I harm myself. When another person harms me, they harm themselves. Of course, individuals should be held responsible for their individual actions and society should be protected from those who do such harm as rape and murder, and yet, looking at the big picture: when we harm others, we harm ourselves because in the big picture, we are the same person.

To increase one’s self-esteem, one has to esteem all people, regardless of different appearances (age, education, finances, gender, height, nationality, race, weight, etc.).

-more later.

anita

Dear Reader:

Further processing of my post of a week ago, above:

Spiritual transformation is the shift from Egoic living (I am) to Soul living (We are). It is the awareness of the “one heart beating in all” (the Soul), the awareness that we are the same person.

We people and all living things (other animals, plants etc.) have different appearances and yet, we are one life, one soul… one person. There really is no “I am” when it comes to anything that endures and persists. In regard to human appearances and behaviors, still.. same person: same physiology, same biology, same chemistry, same instincts, same needs, same motivations, same emotions… same person. The more aware we are of we (of our Soul), the better we treat us.

Disliking others for their physical appearances, nationalities, ages, disabilities, etc.,  is egoic, stemming from a sick sense of separation from others. Feeling superior or inferior to others stems from the same sick sense of separation. Since this sick separation is the rule, not the exception, there is so much unnecessary and devastating sickness and sufferings in the world.

In regard to being liked vs disliked by others: there is no way for me to avoid being disliked. There will always be someone who will dislike me (online and elsewhere). and this is true for everyone. When disliked, I look at what it is about my appearance or behavior that is disliked, and ask myself: is it really offensive or unwise (in other words, do I dislike it myself)? If I I dislike it myself, and I can change it- I will.

I want to be way more tolerant of people’s appearances, mannerisms, disabilities and weaknesses than I ever was, and to keep in mind that… again, we are the same person, none superior, none inferior.

It happened just the other day, a man was coughing and I handed him a couple of paper napkins. A young woman voiced her disapproval of me handing the man the napkins, as if it was a silly act, saying that he didn’t need the napkins. The man then proceeded to use both napkins. In this example, I did the right thing for the coughing man and the young woman’s disapproval was about her anger, her discontent. We all suffer so much from others’ misdirected anger and discontent.

The only way to increase one’s self-esteem is to increase one’s esteem for all humans and living things.

anita