How did your Dark Night of the Soul end?

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Have you ever read MCTB? http://static.squarespace.com/static/5037f52d84ae1e87f694cfda/t/5055915f84aedaeee9181119/1347785055665/ There's a lot here on how the Dark Night can happen through vipashyana, why, and how to get through. Not sure how this might apply to different practices, but I hope it helps.

[freeform]

passion is a thing whispered in the moment and then missed, not some grand project me that is going to absorb me, like a 5 year plan.

Wonderfully put!

 

And it may well end up being a 5 year project - but can only happen moment by moment, whisper by whisper

Edited March 21, 2015 by freeform

[steve]

Hi Nickolai,

Nice of you to share and cultivate your vulnerability as you are doing.

For me, I try to notice the one that is feeling these feelings. 

As that becomes clearer, I get the sense that there is a feeling there - sometimes good and sometimes very bad, but that feeling is not who I am. 

 

Our error (ignorance) is to over-identify with that feeling.

Then it is a problem.

When we do not identify with it strongly, it is seen for what it is.

A feeling that is there for a time, then gone as another feeling comes.

The one who feels and experiences all of these things is "something" altogether different.

It transcends feeling, harm, even death, although sometimes it doesn't feel like that.

That is the refuge to seek when the feelings are threatening for me. 

And when I can rest there, I know that I cannot be harmed by those feelings.

 

Good luck and blessings to you.

[Nikolai1]

Hi Seeker of Wisdom

 

I opened up MCTB and I was immediately hooked! I used to be very into Buddhism but I despaired of ever meeting anyone who understood it as I did.  For me, pretty much the whole power of the Buddha resides in his teaching on impermanence.  To understand this properly is itself liberating, but nearly everyone talks limply about change and decay, and summer turning to autumn...

 

ie the bloody obvious!

 

Impermenance is one hell of a lot more radical than that.  Impermanence is a truly shocking teaching, if understood.

 

Anyway, I'm glad that this writer understands impermanence as I do, and prioritises the Three Marks of Existence, rather than all this unedifying stuff about four noble truths and the eightfold path etc.

 

So, MCTB now emailed to Kindle to be read at leisure

 

Just wanted to edit to add this quote from the book:

 

 

The whole goal is to experience impermanence directly, i.e. things flickering, and what those things are doesn't actually matter one bit!

 

YES!

Edited March 21, 2015 by Nikolai1

[Perceiver]

In experienced Dark night of the soul recently - back in July last year. I believe it was as part of my spiritual awakening.

 

It probably lasted two or three weeks. It feels like forever when you're in it though.

 

I think it's an unavoidable part of a remapping of your consciousness; a stronger perception of emptiness is being opened to you, and you experience it as complete lack of stimulation and interest - for the time being.

 

My advice to you would be two-fold:

1. It doesn't last forever. And don't listen to the people who say it does. It can feel like forever, but it isn't. Just know that.
2. The key to beating it is to not try to beat it. Just be in the experience. Embrace the nothingness. Tell yourself "okay, this is what I feel. Cool. I feel nothing. This is an experience. Let me feel the nothing then. And let's see how long this lasts". Just accept it and be glad for experiencing what the moment gives to you.

Don't worry mate, you'll be fine

[Songtsan]

Hasn't ended - just keeps morphing! lol

 

I don't know that I believe in DNS anymore - I think it always is fixable and can always come back from any kind of source, such as: allergic responses, entity possession, parasites, gut flora imbalance, nutritional imbalance, lack of exercise, overuse of drugs, and many many more.

 

If you can do something to temporarily abate the issue, whether it be take some kind of recreational drug, or go on a vacation to a sunny place, or meet a new love and get in that honeymoon phase, then its something that can be altered if you try hard enough.

 

Too often, people view DNS as some spiritual initiation of some sort - I think that you should continue to research if this is your belief.

 

Where did the term originate?

 

Hopefully someone didn't already mention...I will see what I can find

 

EDIT: WIKIPEDIA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul

Edited March 21, 2015 by Songtsan

[Songtsan]

Like what if DNS is due simply to loss of that childhood energy and vitality (probably has some term that makes more sense)?

 

Was just looking at that Wikipedia link above and it is saying how several individuals had lifelong DNS....inlcuding Mother Theresa...

 

Maybe it more likely happens in those who think incessantly about spiritual matters? i.e. existential depression?

Edited March 21, 2015 by Songtsan

[Songtsan]

Maybe all that is needed is hormonal regeneration or somesuch thing...

 

children, before they start worrying what everyone else is thinking of them, are usually in the happiest of states...

 

I didn't end up in DNotS until my great existential depression days (still happening)

 

thinking is bad

[Lth]

Maybe all that is needed is hormonal regeneration or somesuch thing...

 

children, before they start worrying what everyone else is thinking of them, are usually in the happiest of states...

 

I didn't end up in DNotS until my great existential depression days (still happening)

 

thinking is bad

 

everyone is in a happiest of state if they can disidentify from mind

[BaguaKicksAss]

Anyone here have experience of a spiritual dark night?  

 

I'm not talking about depression, which is usually for some obvious reason.

 

I'm talking about that terrible dry feeling where it seems like nothing in the world can satisfy you or give you joy,  Where you go through life feeling like a robot, with no inclination for anything, and no particular aversion either.  Just feeling like you alone in this world and seem unable to see the point in it all, like you on the brink of death, but strangely aren't at all suicidal.

 

I'm sure some of you guys know this feeling!

 

Well how did it end for you? How did you know you were out of it? What are the tell-tale signs?

 

Thanks to you all!

 

That sounds more like depression than dark night of the soul to me personally; though each person does have a unique experience of this.

 

As to how does it end... well it gets far far worse than you described first.... for me it ended sort of slowly bit by bit.  I was much spiritually sronger after. 

 

There are some mini dark nights, and also 1-2 really big ones I have found (so far lol).  The paths like to test us . 

[hagar]

This latest dark phase was brought on recently by a week in French ski resort.  I used to absolutely love skiing, and it was an important part of my life, and all my friends.  But this time skiing gave me no more pleasure than walking or even sitting on the sofa.  All was the same to me.  So I found myself looking around me thinking. "Why are you doing this?  Why haven't you outgrown it like I have? Why have you all travelled halfway across Europe at extreme cost for this?"

 

So this is definitely something I have to work on.  Why do I even care what others do for fun? Why can't I come to terms with other people and the way they are?

Know exactly what your are talking about.

Skiing was (and is my life), but it´s growing ordinariness astounds me.

However, powder days... different story

[hagar]

Dark nights come in clusters.

 

I have a different, energetic take on them

 

For me it starts with the speeding up of "karma", and you spend time grappling with it. 

 

For me, a sign of the end of the Dark night is the slowing down of time; you seem to have all the time in the world, and end up sensing a feeling of silence and stopping. Things end early, days last longer. Less "content".

 

These two are interdependet; the speeing up and expending karmic energies, and then the slowing down of time. 
I have no clue how this happens, but it´s an empirical fact for me at least.

 

It comes and goes. Just like a clock winding up and down. 

 

They are deeply related to practice. Depression is reactive. Dark nights are a byproduct of real cultivation.

 

h

[Nikolai1]

Hagar - so how would you know that karma is speeding up? What happens?

[Michael Sternbach]

Hi Nikolai1,

 

Surely, both the languages of psychology and of spirituality are full with ambiguities. While psychological models sometimes provide insight, for most intents and purposes, I prefer the terminology offered by the Bach Flower Remedies system. Dr. Edward Bach categorized the various mental and emotional states that we can suffer from into 38 conditions which not coincidentally correspond with the 38 subtle remedies that are practically applied.

 

In the language of Bach Flower Therapy, what you are describing really sounds like a Mustard state to me:

 

http://www.bachcentre.com/centre/38/mustard.htm

 

In psychotherapeutic terms, Mustard states have the character of an endogenous depression which (unlike reactive depression)  has no obvious cause. It sometimes has a quality of poetic "world weariness" to it, that may be seen as a spiritual  component that in fact many artists are drawing from. Some say it has karmic aspects, and it definitely ties in with the Dark Night of the Soul.

 

This kind of depression is particularly wide spread in Northern European countries and is understood by neuroscientists as linked to the comparatively small amount of sunlight received in the higher latitudes. (The depression that many are suffering from after Winter is a lighter version of this.) As it is the sunlight that stimulates the pineal gland into production of the mood enhancing hormone Melatonin.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[Lth]

Hi Nikolai1,

 

Surely, both the languages of psychology and of spirituality are full with ambiguities. While psychological models sometimes provide insight, for most intents and purposes, I prefer the terminology offered by the Bach Flower Remedies system. Dr. Edward Bach categorized the various mental and emotional states that we can suffer from into 38 conditions which not coincidentally correspond with the 38 subtle remedies that are practically applied.

 

In the language of Bach Flower Therapy, what you are describing really sounds like a Mustard state to me:

 

http://www.bachcentre.com/centre/38/mustard.htm

 

In psychotherapeutic terms, Mustard states have the character of an endogenous depression which (unlike reactive depression)  has no obvious cause. It sometimes has a quality of poetic "world weariness" to it, that may be seen as a spiritual  component that in fact many artists are drawing from. Some say it has karmic aspects, and it definitely ties in with the Dark Night of the Soul.

 

This kind of depression is particularly wide spread in Northern European countries and is understood by neuroscientists as linked to the comparatively small amount of sunlight received in the higher latitudes. (The depression that many are suffering from after Winter is a lighter version of this.) As it is the sunlight that stimulates the pineal gland into production of the mood enhancing hormone Melatonin.

 

you may be sad for some time when the ego shatters, because you literaly die, or a part of you dies, your mental creation. so thats why you start contemplating on how you should be feeling if you still had the ego, but now you dont. needs time to getting use to rebalancing and getting use to the new state of awareness

[Lth]

Like maturing into an adult? You have to get used to all of the responsibilities and the fact that you can't act like a child anymore.

 

well you can have an ego that is identified with you showing your maturity, trying to be more mature than others. if you lose such an ego then you think you are not mature anymore and become sad, you lost a part of yourself that you believed in.

 

depression?

[Songtsan]

" As it is the sunlight that stimulates the pineal gland into production of the mood enhancing hormone Melatonin..."

 

-serotonin...

[Nikolai1]

I don't think all this talk about lack - of sunlight, nutrition etc - really applies to the dark night. Here is my perfect storm for the dark night to develop, and you'll see that the first is about what you've gained.

 

1) Insight, spiritual practices whatever have led to a massive increase is fundamental inner peace and equanimity. I often say to my wife that its like a can just get into a warm bath with a cold beer anytime I like. It's either always there or very close. Even at times of great upheaval it can be felt. This gain however wreaks havoc on your normal everyday will. Like freeform says, every situation is one of presence. Emotionally you recognise only sameness in all alternatives. And when the emotional component of the will is stumped like this, decision making is made very difficult. But your intellect sees very clearly the sheer arbitrariness of everything you do. This combination of emotional sameness and intellectual arbitrariness is very characteristic of the dark night.

 

2) Because you life up to this point has basically been focused on inner peace, it means that you have probably neglected to develop a well structured outer life. In my case, I paid virtually no attention to building a stable career or profession in my early twenties. Your outer life is therefore not on autopilot like many peoples - just ticking over, performing adequately but effectively, the cash coming in each month predictably. You are therefore constantly forced into developing strategies for survival, but without any clear emotional or intellectual rationale for doing so. This agonising state is the dark night all over.

 

3) If youre like me, You probably weren't born with the desire to sit full lotus each evening. My interest in spiritual cultivation was borne out of a vague dissatisfaction with everyday life that started when I was about 16. But it wasnt a strong thing, and my family and all my friends were basically just regular people with regular aims, and I was enough like them to share in those aims. Needless to say, there has been a slow drifting away from these people as I focused more and more on my inner path. Now, and this is also part of the dark night, I am left without any ability to connect with others I know in actual life. have never met another person in real life whom I can have the conversations I have on this forum. Sad, but true. So this another ingredient of the dark night: where you have allowed the spiritual process to completely dissolve your social identity, and have not yet gained any type of identity to take its place. And without a social identity, you lack a social network. And without a network, you lack the opportunities to remedy the survival issues mentioned in point 2. This, again, is agony...but the peace is always there...the warm bath and the beer are at hand.

 

My dark night has now come. And I can honestly say that looking back the warning signs were there when I was a 9 year old kid who frequently thought that grown-ups were ridiculous creatures who didn't know what they were doing. That fundamental insight has been simultaneously developing me and undermining me my whole life, and now I have reached an impasse. Some kind of second puberty is required, some kind of shift to a way of living that continues to bring me peace, but which is in itself immune to my own criticism and dissatisfaction. It has to be spontaneous and pure and self- authenticating. Like freeform said, it is Wu-Wei.

 

So when I ask people how their dark nights ended, I guess I am asking how they have learned to live wu wei?

Edited March 24, 2015 by Nikolai1

[hagar]

Hagar - so how would you know that karma is speeding up? What happens?

 

It´s based on my own experience of my life "unraveling", or deconstructing itself. It may or may not be a direct causal product of my practice, but it panned out into a decade of ordeals, and alot of stuff happening that may be attributed to "fate", but for me, the clearest indication was that they came in such a rapid - fire succesion. One upheaval after the other. Really close together. And seemingly beyond my control. I might be confusing correlation with causation, but that is how it felt. It also felt that way internally, like a clock speeding up. I felt it had to do with my Nei Dan work, and particularly with how certain energies "manifested" faster.

[Lth]

I don't think all this talk about lack - of sunlight, nutrition etc - really applies to the dark night. Here is my perfect storm for the dark night to develop, and you'll see that the first is about what you've gained.

 

1) Insight, spiritual practices whatever have led to a massive increase is fundamental inner peace and equanimity. I often say to my wife that its like a can just get into a warm bath with a cold beer anytime I like. It's either always there or very close. Even at times of great upheaval it can be felt. This gain however wreaks havoc on your normal everyday will. Like freeform says, every situation is one of presence. Emotionally you recognise only sameness in all alternatives. And when the emotional component of the will is stumped like this, decision making is made very difficult. But your intellect sees very clearly the sheer arbitrariness of everything you do. This combination of emotional sameness and intellectual arbitrariness is very characteristic of the dark night.

 

2) Because you life up to this point has basically been focused on inner peace, it means that you have probably neglected to develop a well structured outer life. In my case, I paid virtually no attention to building a stable career or profession in my early twenties. Your outer life is therefore not on autopilot like many peoples - just ticking over, performing adequately but effectively, the cash coming in each month predictably. You are therefore constantly forced into developing strategies for survival, but without any clear emotional or intellectual rationale for doing so. This agonising state is the dark night all over.

 

3) If youre like me, You probably weren't born with the desire to sit full lotus each evening. My interest in spiritual cultivation was borne out of a vague dissatisfaction with everyday life that started when I was about 16. But it wasnt a strong thing, and my family and all my friends were basically just regular people with regular aims, and I was enough like them to share in those aims. Needless to say, there has been a slow drifting away from these people as I focused more and more on my inner path. Now, and this is also part of the dark night, I am left without any ability to connect with others I know in actual life. have never met another person in real life whom I can have the conversations I have on this forum. Sad, but true. So this another ingredient of the dark night: where you have allowed the spiritual process to completely dissolve your social identity, and have not yet gained any type of identity to take its place. And without a social identity, you lack a social network. And without a network, you lack the opportunities to remedy the survival issues mentioned in point 2. This, again, is agony...but the peace is always there...the warm bath and the beer are at hand.

 

My dark night has now come. And I can honestly say that looking back the warning signs were there when I was a 9 year old kid who frequently thought that grown-ups were ridiculous creatures who didn't know what they were doing. That fundamental insight has been simultaneously developing me and undermining me my whole life, and now I have reached an impasse. Some kind of second puberty is required, some kind of shift to a way of living that continues to bring me peace, but which is in itself immune to my own criticism and dissatisfaction. It has to be spontaneous and pure and self- authenticating. Like freeform said, it is Wu-Wei.

 

So when I ask people how their dark nights ended, I guess I am asking how they have learned to live wu wei?

 

cool. that's about the same as me. though who cares if you cant hold a "normal" conversation with your peeps. show them their dysfunctional ways, and you will see that they will be happy for it, that's what started you when you were 9 year old, why stop now

 

other than that its pretty much boring out here. you have a family, so that's one thing you have to dedicate yourself to. there are a lot of stupid people out there, and parents who raise their kids carelessly. i think raising conscious worthwhile individuals is the most important thing you can do. and arent you gonna be pround raising those little einsteins ?

 

it can be boring ofcourse, but, so living wu-wei is finding the interesting in the boring, and its not boring anymore

[Yulaw]

Anyone here have experience of a spiritual dark night?  

 

I'm sure some of you guys know this feeling!

 

Well how did it end for you? How did you know you were out of it? What are the tell-tale signs?

 

Thanks to you all!

 

It ended in Blind violent rage 

 

I knew I was out of it because I sat in my truck shaking on the side of the road for 45 minutes

 

There were no tell tale signs.

 

I had spent months showing no emotion. i had developed a rather impressive talent per the counselor a friend convinced me to go see. I had developed the ability to take every single emotion that I had and turn it into anger, and then I was able to suppress the anger and it showed as having little or no emotion. This was the result of a betrayal and divorce. This was 20 years ago

Edited March 25, 2015 by Yulaw

[Nikolai1]

Am starting to think that my dark night is also what the Buddhists call 'stuck in emptiness'.  

 

The reason I simply see sameness in all alternatives is because I am stuck in the Absolute perspective.

 

Nagarjuna describes this trap as 'incurable', lets hope there is a bit more optimistic translation than that.

 

So maybe being stuck in emptiness is the oriental equivalent of the Dark Night. An inevitable phase but one you can pass through.

[C T]

Am starting to think that my dark night is also what the Buddhists call 'stuck in emptiness'.  

 

The reason I simply see sameness in all alternatives is because I am stuck in the Absolute perspective.

 

Nagarjuna describes this trap as 'incurable', lets hope there is a bit more optimistic translation than that.

 

So maybe being stuck in emptiness is the oriental equivalent of the Dark Night. An inevitable phase but one you can pass through.

Nagarjuna was simply putting an emphasis on the condition, to wake practitioners out of their bliss fields. Being stuck in the absolute is a construct of the mind, albeit one which has hardened somewhat more, as compared to other lesser traps of the path. 'Bliss fields' are not necessarily limited to positive states; being hooked and refusing to budge from any state is also considered as being stuck in the absolute. At that level, there is no differentiation in the unfolding - some are trapped by their ease, while others could be trapped by their pain - basically, there is no differentiation if grasping and aversion does not arise; the emphasis is solely on being stuck, and how to become unstuck. 

 

As with all constructs, there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. Once we can determine where we tend to frequently hover in that spectrum of mental activity, we can make the necessary adjustments to 'realign' the mind by allowing the accumulated karmic energy to dissipate. This determination can be helped with the combined meditative practice of concentration and insight.

 

We can choose to take the scenic route, which is the preferred option for lots of people, or we can cultivate certain practices which will hasten the dissipation. But first we need to know where we are standing, and work from there. Otherwise its like throwing darts in the dark. 

[mostly_empty]

Anyone here have experience of a spiritual dark night?  

 

Sure, and when I didn't get it right the first time ... a second chance came along in which there was no moonlight at all.

 

What you put your attention on is a choice. Some choices support a perspective which doesn't facilitate value discriminations in self and other. If such a state and unhappiness coincide it becomes very hard to express anything positive. Now it is hard to maintain the exchanges of energy and interest that support our life..... and we get stuck for sure. These choices interleave the personal and the social. In my case, the traps were first and foremost to do with my memory and self-conception. 

 

I have also seen people achieve this having simply not treated parts of themselves well enough. Lack of compassion for self is an easy on-ramp to these states.

 

Top few correctives:

1. Life in service - works great, takes time. There are always people in need, and needs in people. There is no real reason not to do what you can for others while you are on "hold".

 

2. Radical life transplant: although if you have already gone from England to Finland you probably have been working in this.

 

3. Paying as complete attention as one can to synchonicities. Everything you can perceive outside is also a reflection of you. So if you change your attentional structure to incorporate perception of ganying/ and even your basic changes of position you will find a remarkable improvement in interior states. Being an agent of synchronicity is even more fun.

 

Finally, the marker of when I was getting better was actually the return of my sense of humour.

 

 

Of course anything resembling advice from me should be taken for amusement purposes only: I fell into the abyss so hard I actually bounced when I hit bottom.....

 

Best of luck!

[Nikolai1]

Really interesting post mostly_empty thanks,

 

Strangely enough all what you said has by vaguely occurred to me myself in the last couple of weeks. I've really been trying I deliberately enlarge the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm becoming aware of choices that I didn't realise were there.

 

It's also helped to realise the broader context. I was in a dark night in my early twenties, which I snapped out of and actually entered a period of great change and productivity and happiness. But actually the deeper questions I left unsolved at that time. I either needed a break or wasnt wise enough to solve them, which is why I returned to functioning prematurely.

 

But within seven years the old questions started to return in pretty much the same form. Not personal issues, but very deep bewilderment at the meaning of life, the value of anything etc. This time it's darker and more serious and I realise that I either have to resolve it properly this time or I'll have to die, which I don't want.

 

One thing Im getting now is what I wrote in the Ludus Amoris thread, sometimes I can be stopped in my tracks by the most sublime feelings of beauty and love for the world. In these moments, nothing could be dark or meaningless, in fact there is no thinking going on to think such things. I have no idea of people live permanently with such beauty but the fact that it keeps happening to me makes me wonder if there is light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Anyway we shall see...I'm sure whatever happens will be reflected in my posts here ,!