March 16, 2021 Tuesday Evening, Dharma Path III Class
Dark Night of the Soul
Barbara: Good evening. I’m going to start talking here, and then Aaron will come in.
Most of you know what’s happening with Hal. On Saturday at lunch he got some food into his esophagus; they were big enough lumps that they lodged there. He could breathe but he couldn’t swallow past the obstruction.
So finally, early Sunday morning our primary care physician said take him into the ER. They thought at first it would be a fairly simply procedure to get it out. But remember, Hal is 84 years old. It was not simple. He also had had no food or water since Saturday morning, so now it was Sunday night. They sedated him in the ER, intubated him to allow him to be able to breathe and to be able to avoid his breathing anything into his airway. They removed 3 chunks of food that were stuck in his esophagus. They had told me I could just take him home afterward. But this was not to be.
So now he has a fever. He has something happening in his lungs—probably pneumonia caused by food particles that were aspirated in his lungs. And he has a UTI from not having and liquids for 48 hours.
He spent Sunday night and Monday in the ER ICU and now he’s been released to the main hospital ICU. I’m just going to share this picture with you—a picture is worth a thousand words… This is Hal today… He’s obviously pretty uncomfortable…
The U of M ICU is a really wonderful place, and if anybody’s going to pull him through this, they will. But at this point there are certainly no guarantees. He’s very weak. He can’t breathe on his own. They’re doing everything they can. So, it’s been a rough few days for him and for me.
I was there with him most of the day, came home. Those who knew me personally will laugh at this—on the way home I picked up sushi! Ate something and went to sleep for an hour until time for class. But I was with him there in the ER until 5am on Sunday night. I was there most of yesterday. So, I’m very short on sleep and high on sushi(inhales!). And without my practice I couldn’t do this.
It oddly makes it a little easier that we were pretty sure we were going to lose him 3 years ago, when we didn’t. I made my peace with his dying then—not that I wanted him to, but that obviously I can’t keep him alive.
Still, I’ve felt waves of grief rolling through me all day. Just the human sadness. We really can’t control anything. Here’s the difference between sadness and suffering. I’m not suffering—I’m not even scared. I am angry a bit. I’m angry at myself. I can’t control everything. His food coming from a group like Meals on Wheels is supposed to be suited to him, and his caregivers know that anything that is too large or solid has to be cut up in small pieces.
This meal was steak, and it got past me. He never should have been given steak. I missed it when it was delivered. His caregiver missed it, that he shouldn’t have steak. The caregiver cut it up appropriately in finger-sized pieces, but not small enough that Hal could chew and swallow it.
So I’ve been watching myself blaming myself, and then realizing I can’t do everything, I can’t be on top of everything. Taking care of the home. Right now, last week, trying to work out the taxes, which are complicated by Hal’s stroke. Trying to make sure we have caregivers scheduled all the time. Teaching this class, which I love doing.
But looking at that, “I should be able to do everything perfectly.” Obviously none of us can do that. I’ve been doing some metta with myself. It’s very hard not to blame myself, “I caused this. How did this get past me?” And I was sitting there with him—we were watching a basketball game while he was eating. I saw the caregiver give him the plate, and I assumed it was a normal plate. I didn’t get up and look. Well, I’m not expected to get up and look. But, “I should”. “I should be able to control everything.” You all know that feeling. And it’s so easy to blame oneself, so hard to forgive oneself, especially if one causes what could be the death of one’s husband.
Here I’m saying, “if I caused it”. Everything has multiple causes. I can’t say it’s not my fault. I can’t say it’s anybody’s fault. Only, this is life. Objects arise out of conditions. I was part of the conditions in which he was served this, but only a part. Learning to take responsibility for what we truly are responsible for, and to let go of the rest. To be gentle with ourselves. Anybody else have trouble being gentle with yourself? It’s hard. That “I should have known better. I should have been able to make it right.” Being gentle with oneself.
So, there’s that anger at myself, there’s anger at Hal. Hal’s the 4th person this got by. He knows his condition. He knows what he’s allowed to eat. And there he was, watching the basketball game and eating chunks of steak! And probably engrossed in the game and not chewing them.
We can’t blame, just open our hearts to the human experience. Gain and loss—that to which we aspire, that which we don’t attain.
I’ve been pondering, as I was sitting there watching him struggle this afternoon and thinking about tonight; what did I want to talk about? It was very tempting to just hand it over to Aaron. And Aaron said no, I have to talk. So, I’m making an effort to do that, to do it without crying.
Aaron just said to me, “It’s okay to cry too. They all know you and love and they won’t blame you for crying.”
But this is not about crying or not crying. It’s about knowing the inevitability: everything arises from conditions and passes away when the conditions pass; and trusting. He had the stroke just over 3 years ago. He’s done amazing for 3 years, and we all hope that he’ll keep getting better. But I know he’s been exhausted by the effort, and maybe this is just his way of opting out, saying, “No, it’s time to go home.”
The cemetery where we will both be buried is right next to the hospital. Forest Hills; it’s a beautiful cemetery in Ann Arbor between the hospital and the arboretum, filled with rolling hills and woods. Our gravesites are right at the edge of the cemetery looking out at the Arb. He knows this. Maybe he’s saying in some way, “Okay, I’m ready to rest, to go sleep by the Arb for a while.” Obviously, we’ll do everything in our power to get him better, but ultimately, he’s the only one that can choose that. And he’s exhausted.
So, I think he’s going to make it; that’s my guess—if nothing else because he’s scared of dying, on the surface level.
We must understand what is beyond our control, and as we wake up we start to not suffer so much for what is beyond our control. And that doesn’t mean we won’t feel a lot of pain, a lot of sadness, even fear or anger. But there’s also a certain peacefulness to it.
Coming home after watching how weak he was today, I pulled my car over there—for those in Ann Arbor—on Geddes road, right there next to that cemetery. I was just looking into the woods and feeling the peace and beauty of that woods. (When I say woods, the Arb is dense woods. Right next to it, the cemetery is hilly with many trees, but not woods.) Feeling the peacefulness of it, and able to say to myself, “If this is what he needs to do, I can accept that. I’m at peace with it. I prefer for him to heal and come back home to me. But if he can’t, he can’t.”
Everything arising out of conditions and passing away—birth and death, gain and loss, joy and sorrow, all of it.
The doctors seem relatively positive, but they said with somebody as old as Hal and with pre-existing conditions with the stroke, sometimes what was supposed to be a relatively routine procedure can impact him and he just can’t get past it. I also see myself sitting there, holding his hand, stroking his head, trying to give him my will for him to heal. But again, that’s not something I can do.
He knows I love him. He knows all of you love him. He really enjoyed the—I guess we were in the ER—the Remembering Wholeness. Sunday, we were in the ER and we did Remembering Wholeness from the ER without personal darshan with the Mother, just the whole group holding that energy for an hour. I asked, “Can you feel it?” and got a thumbs-up from him.
Today, the Deep Spring Healing Circle spent 20 minutes with him. He knows how much people love him.
It occurred to me today that choosing to let go and say, “I’ve done enough and it’s time for me to go home,” is not wrong. And that he doesn’t have to fight for me or for our children. It’s okay for him to do what he needs to do. But also, not to let him feel I’ve given up on him. This is why I’m just staying there, just holding him in my presence and my love.
So, this is what I’ve been up to the past 3 days. It’s been tough. It’s been a gift, because there with the grief I also see how strong I am, how strong each of us really are. And that we each have the capability to move from a place of love, not a place of fear. The place of love says, “Do what you need to do,” while the place of fear says, “Oh no, stay with me!”
“Do what you need to do.” I haven’t said that to Hal. I’ve said to Hal, “I trust your ability to get better, if you choose to get better. It’s okay if you don’t. But this is not a fatal illness; people get past this. You got past the stroke, so you can do this. But if it’s too hard, that’s okay.” So, I’ve said that to him a few times, trying to really let him know that whatever he needs to do is okay, and also to let him know that this is not what is usually considered a fatal illness. And that this is a normal procedure; they do many of these in a month and it isnot expected to kill him. And so, we’ll just see what happens.
Please keep the prayers coming.
For me, my energy field feels like Swiss cheese, lots of little holes in it, shaky. I was going to meditate this afternoon and rest on the crystal bed, crystal light from the Casa. But I was exhausted when I got into bed and in 2 seconds I was asleep until the alarm woke me up. I will do that later.
It’s also much harder in that pre-covid probably all 3 of our sons would have shown up. And I have forbidden the two on the west coast to fly. No way. And so, if he becomes worse, our oldest son Mike, who lives about a 10-hour drive from here, near Albany, he’ll come. But I don’t want these sons to take that risk. They had a chance with the stroke to say goodbye to their dad and then to welcome back his life. But there’s nothing left unsaid. But yes, it would be welcome to have them here.
Okay. Aaron is going to talk tonight on the topic Dark Night of the Soul, which a number of you have asked about in the past month or two. It was part of his plan to get to it. Aaron, have you pushed it up a little because of all the questions about it? He says just a little. Is there anything you want me to say before it? Yes…
Aaron: I am Aaron, not yet incorporated. My blessings and love to you. I will incorporate later. I’m going to start the formal talk for a few minutes without incorporating so Barbara can easily come back to talk. I’ll probably expand later on what I am saying here.
There are two so-called “dark nights”—the dark night of the soul and of the spirit. There’s a lot of literature on both of these; I’ll read a little bit to you. Barbara will email out a packet.
The essence of this dark night is that one yearns to come home to God, to feel oneself inseparable from the Divine. But one sees the darkness in oneself that has not yet been fully purified, and one feels, “I can never reunite with the Divine because I am blemished. There’s something wrong in me.” This feeling leads to despair—feeling unworthiness, self-hatred, and despair. The despair leads into a place of darkness—a dark night.
I want Barbara to talk about one specific thing, perhaps out of place in the timing of the whole talk, but I don’t want her to have the strain to come back into the body and then leave the body again. I give you Barbara.
Barbara, we have been talking today about this—I’ll just use the word “this” for the moment; can you expand on your experience, here?
Barbara: Thank you, Aaron. I know we’ve talked about it, and I know that I know what you have requested I talk about.
I said that I could see myself blaming myself. “I should have caught this,” amongst the other 100 things I should have caught—are the caregivers all giving him the right medicines at the right time; are they doing his PT exercises with him, and correctly; is his laundry being washed properly— the thousand things I think I to need to check up on I think because we have 6 different caregivers, so there’s no one consistent person in charge. Each is here for a various shifts. And they’re good but being human, they tend to leave things, not always checking if it was done, not always checking with the next caregiver, not fully checking the log book. I don’t blame them for that. There’s no one person who’s overseeing it except me.
I caught myself blaming myself, as I have the past few months, especially since mid-December when the one more ongoing caregiver left; he was here 5 days a week and really oversaw everything. But he moved on to a full-time job in the hospital.
Letting go of this whole idea of blame. I could see that blame was coming from a place of sadness and fear that I could not protect Hal, could not control everything. And then the old psychological idea, “I’m bad. I’m unworthy. I’m blemished in some way,” which I have long since let go of, but it obviously pops up at times. So here it was again.
Then, when that idea pops up, I was not feeling unworthiness so much as self-anger. So, when I separate from the Divine in that way, cease to experience the divinity in myself, it’s a convenient psychological tool. I can then beat down on myself—”I’m not good enough,” etc., instead of just feeling an anger and sadness at the whole situation. I think it comes down to feeling lack of control. If only I could do that, I would be in control; Hal would be safe! But none of us are in control.
What I’ve found is most important is my practice leads me to a place of non-duality of darkness and light. This is what we’ve been working on—last year, Path of Clear Light, and this semester, Path of Sacred Darkness; getting to know the non-duality of darkness and light.
It has been an immense help to be able to not lose that light, to rest in the continuity of light, even in the times of darkness. So, this is how my practice has sustained me from going off the deep end. Just holding it together, and not getting lost in the darkness because the light is truly always there if I choose to open to it. And also, the dharma, knowing everything arises and passes away based on conditions. I’m not in charge of those conditions; I’m only one small piece of them.
Aaron, you’re asking about the dark night specifically, though. I think the most important thing has been that although there is grief and there’s anger at myself for not catching this, but I’m able to forgive myself, have compassion for myself, and not get caught in negative stories. I don’t feel myself separated from the Divine because of these feelings. I feel myself just part of the divine flow, and right there with the grief is love, and this path of sacred darkness and just sitting in that dark cave. Finding the light in that dark cave. And now here I am, literally in a dark cave, and there’s light. There’s darkness but there’s also light. The darkness and light blend.
I think where Aaron is going with this is, he’s going to talk some about how the dark night of the soul is not an inevitable experience. That is, as we move deeper into knowing the non-duality of light and darkness, we really at some level can bypass that dark night of the soul.
He’ll talk more about this, but he’s been talking about it to me this afternoon and pointing out to me that while I did have a dark night of the soul experience many years ago with my deafness, he’s pointing out to me that here I’m able just to take grief as grief, to take anger as anger, and that I am not feeling separated from the light because of these emotions.
Aaron, is that sufficient? Have I said what you need me to say? He says yes, thank you, that’s sufficient.
He’s saying, one more thing—he’s asking me, right now in grief and so forth, what is my predominant experience?
Love. Love and light. I’ve had Hal for 55 years. Nothing can ever take that away from me. The power of love. And the presence of light. I feel Aaron and the Mother and Yeshua and others just kind of wrapping me in their love, and all of you wrapping me in love.
There’s one other thing I want to share with them, Aaron. I have felt overwhelmed often in this past year, trying my best to take care of Hal. Doing it imperfectly yet recognizing that he would 99% certainly be dead by now if we had left him in the nursing home. So, although I did this imperfectly, still I’ve been able to keep him alive. I can give myself credit for that. Not just alive, but happy and comfortable.
Sometimes it seemed like an enormous burden, when I’d been exhausted at night, the caregiver would go and Hal would be in bed. I’d settle down to watch something on TV for an hour or read a book, have a cup of tea, and his alarm light would go off, Hal buzzing me. Just (whoomph), I can’t do this. —Yes, I can. Go in and see what he needed. Sometimes by the time I’d get in there, 90 seconds, he’d be back to sleep, why-ever he buzzed me gone. But the (contracted sound) coming up, and allowing myself to let it go.
I need to be totally honest, here. I see the part of me that has wanted him to live, and the part of me that said, “It’s enough. If he dies, I can relax.” And then becoming angry at myself for feeling that. “No, you shouldn’t feel that.” And taking it into meditation and being able to say there’s no “should/shouldn’t,” there are just feelings, honest feelings. I can feel the sense of pressure on me, like somebody who’s just carrying one too many packs on my back—can’t breathe, so much pressure—and it’s real pressure, but I don’t have to take it in a negative way. I can know that I can put any of it down if I need to, even to the point of saying, “That’s it—I can’t do it anymore. He needs to go back to a nursing home. I’ve done what I can—that’s not a failure.”
But looking at the anger at Hal, at myself, at the little part of me that says, “I could stop all this if he chooses to die,” and then being openhearted with myself about that. It’s not that I want him to die, just forgiving myself and opening my heart to myself for having that kind of feeling.
So it’s about accepting the wide range of our human emotions and that yes, there’s sometimes going to be anger and fear. The important thing, I think, is that they not become the primary voice. That we acknowledge that they will come up because all the conditions are not yet purified. That old “Don’t believe everything you think.” Just because the thought comes up doesn’t mean I have to get caught up in it. “Oh, how could I think something like that?!” Or, “Oh yes, that’s how it should be.” Just, “Okay, here comes a thought, arisen from conditions—breathe and hold space for it, it will pass.”
So, I know that my primary feeling is love for this man, and the willingness to commit myself to do what’s needed to take care of him. And that yes, there’s anger, there’s fear. There’s financial fear, among other things. Taking care of him is literally using up all of our retirement savings. I can’t help wondering, 5 years from now if he’s gone, what am I going to live on?
Letting go of that fear. Trust, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” It’s not a “Forget about reality—everything’s going to turn out fine.” It’s a “I trust. However it’s going to turn out, it will be okay.”
So, just taking it step by step. But it costs me over $6000/month for his caregivers, and obviously that’s going through our retirement money very quickly. There have been very generous donations from so many people. There’s a GoFundMe, and people have been supporting him through that. You have been very generous with your dana. I really have learned to trust my needs will be met; I’ll be okay. But here is part of the burden: If I run out of money while he’s still alive, how am I going to keep him alive? Breathe and trust, breathe and trust.
So, I really have learned to trust, and that trust allows me to hold myself in a place of light. When fear-based thoughts arise, to know them as fear-based thoughts. “Thank you, dharma. Thank you, dharma path.” To know these fear-based thoughts just arisen from conditions—”Hello, go sit there, have tea. Shhh.” Just present with the fear-based thoughts. They arise and the pass, and I have to respect them, that they do arise. And when I respect them, they don’t separate me from the light. The only way they separate me from the light is I don’t respect these thoughts and try to push them away, or negate myself that they arose.
I think that’s all I need to say here. Thank you for hearing me. Thank you for your loving prayers for both Hal and me. And whatever comes will come; we’ll be fine.
I know others of you in this class are going through very scary situations of loss, of pain. I’m not alone in this; it’s the human condition. If we’re born, then there will be sickness, old age, and death. This is what our mundane lives are about on the surface level.
But it’s been about so much more, and I think for those of you who are also in tight situations—it’s not just sickness, old age and death but love, and really learning the power of love. Just dissolving into the power of that love.
Life is good. Life is hard. Life is crazy. Life is good. It gives us a chance to really know the power of love.
Okay, I’m going to pause and bring Aaron in. Thank you all.
(pause)
(Barbara shares the following exchange she had with Aaron as she began incorporating him.)
Barbara: I heard him saying I am loving and brave. And I immediately had the thought that it was something negative trying to play with me.
And Aaron said, “Can’t I praise you?”
He says it’s not really praise, it is just stating the truth.
“You are a loving person and you are a courageous person. Why do you immediately feel that a negative entity is trying to play with you when I say that?”
Barbara: I am laughing. And then I feel what I know as his energy lovingly enfolding me. But it is interesting how as soon as I hear that, I think I know that’s not me. Why is it so hard for any of us to think of ourselves as loving, as courageous, as generous? What makes it so hard? (laughing)
Aaron: My blessings and love to you. I am Aaron. And, yes, you are all loving and brave. You are so loving and brave to be working so hard in this class, doing the deep dharma work you are doing to wake up; consecrating that intention to the highest good of all beings.
Can you accept my words, “You are loving. You are brave,” or do you have, as Barbara had, that “Who, me?” come up?
Please bring this thought into you. This is not pride. It is helpful to understand, yes, you are loving. You have pure hearts. You have deep aspirations to be of service to others that are not based on what you will get but are actually expression of a deep desire to give.
You are loving. You are loved. You are able to give and to receive love. Increasingly, you are able to bring forth the light that is your true essence, and to know and to feel that light as your true essence.
If you only believe that you are darkness, how can you ever bring light into the world? What does it take for you to come to know that you truly are that light, instead of constantly denigrating yourselves?
You are light.
I asked you recently, in that dark cave, to begin to find the essential light that you are, not to carry a candle on the next trip, but to simply go in finding your own energy, your own heart, lighting up the space directly. I asked you to read my tale of this in Path of Clear Light. You know the page I am talking about because we read it aloud.
I was lost in that cave in a past life. People around me were going to die. I was going to die unless I was willing to acknowledge the essential light. Why is it so hard to acknowledge that? I think part of it is the belief, “I am not good enough. I am not worthy.”
Really? What makes you unworthy?
“What will be asked of me?” is another question that blocks acknowledging the essential light..
Will it be asked of you any the less if you don’t acknowledge the true light? If people are suffering around you, and you refuse to acknowledge that your light has the capacity to help those who are suffering, are you not still going to ask it of yourselves?
You say it as, “I should do this.” Better said as, I can. I choose to do this. I acknowledge my light—whatever light I have. I choose.
I think part of Barbara’s struggle here is the thought, “If I had enough light, I could offer that light to Hal and give him the will to live, and the strength to live.”
I think he does have the will to live. I am not sure if he, at this point, has the physical strength. That is not something that medicine can give him. We’ll have to see.
But for Barbara, the whole thought, “I should be able to lift him out of this.” But nobody can lift anybody else. We can only shine the light that provides the love.
And it is up to each other individual whether they are able make use of that or whether they need to say for themselves, “No, I’ve had enough. I need to drop out.”
Once in a very different lifetime, in a very different place, I was part of a group of people in a long, long, race that went on for several days, running across the countryside. There were stations of sorts where you could stop and pick up a bit of refreshment. There were places where you could stop and rest. And of course, with a three-day race, you had to stop and rest. You could not run day and night for three days.
I was strong and I was fast. I had a brother one year younger than me. He was also strong and fast. We were both endowed with strong ability to run. There was a very wonderful prize—monetary and other gifts, for the winner of the race. My brother and I had decided we were going to cross the finish line exactly together, so that they would have to respond by simply dividing the prize, but we would both have the glory of winning the race.
We were quite far ahead. There was no one challenging us. But at the end of the third day my brother began to weaken. He was clearly exhausted. He was shaking.
I slowed my pace. I was almost walking.
It was forbidden to lift or carry a person, but I was walking beside him and talking to him.
I knew that if we did not move on the next runners would pass us.
He said to me, “Go on. I cannot do it.”
And I so much wanted to will my energy to him, to figuratively carry him because I could not literally carry him. But to give him my light, my energy. To give him something.
For whatever reasons—and I know he had trained with me and had run this far before—he simply couldn’t do it.
I blamed myself. I should have been able to give him the energy. I should have been able to inspire him. At his urging, I crossed the finish line. I won the race, but it was a bleak win because he was not with me. Of course, I shared the rewards with him as best I could, but it wasn’t the same as if we had won it together as we had planned. 1
For me, I went through a kind of dark night. Why was I not sufficient to be able to give him the energy he needed? To bring him the light he needed? If I was truly awake and strong and loving, I could do that.
Nonsense.
You cannot force that light onto another person. You can only offer it.
So many of you blame yourselves because you hold out that light and others seem unable to take it. This self-accusation is, in fact, the heart of the dark night experience. When you know your true divinity and are able to come into the cave, or are sitting in the cave in the darkness, to allow your luminescence to shine forth. There are always going to be some who run screaming from the room, saying, “Too bright! Too bright!”
There are always going to be some who say, “Oh, that’s nice, but back up a bit,” and barricade themselves from it a bit.
And there are going to be those who say, “Thank you.”
Where your light goes, how it is used, is not your concern. Your work is simply to support that radiant essence and invite all who can make use of it to come forth. Just that.
For all for whom this has positive use, I offer it. For those not ready to take it, I simply leave it lighting up the space so that when you next are ready to come into this space, you will find the light here.
So many of you are triggered by this. People in your lives are suffering, and the thought, “Why can I not alleviate their suffering when this is my primary concern, to eliminate suffering?”
But all you can do is shine forth with love and trust that others will receive that love, light, energy – when they are ready for it.
So, the heart of this dark night is this whole belief, “If I were good enough, I could truly save the world from suffering, and I can’t, so therefore I must be bad.” And then pushing yourselves back into the darkness.
Have you done this enough? Are you ready to let go of it?
Are you ready to trust in your own divinity and to know you cannot save another person, you can only offer them a hand? You can only offer them love. You can open the door. You cannot force anyone through it, including yourself.
I am opening the door for you during these three years. If you are not ready to pass through, the door will remain open. Don’t chide yourself if you cannot pass through today. Just rest in the knowing, “The door is now open and when the conditions are ready, I will pass through. When I have resolved any conditions that stop me from passing through, then I can pass through.”2
You are already awake, and yet you need to pass through that door to knowing your full awakened state. That will come when you are ready.
There is the traditional path of the dark night and the idea that each being must move into that dark night. You do have to experience it to some degree; you do not have to become mired down. The awakening consciousness can recognize the experience, “Ah, I am moving into the dark night. I choose not to get stuck in it.”
Notice the deep mud on your boots. “I keep walking into the deep mud.”I am going to take the higher path.”
Or, “I have hip boots and I can just walk through this. It does not have to ensnare me.”
It does not have to ensnare you because you are light. Your essence is of the divine. You are light.
You are human. There will be negative emotion: anger, fear, greed, pride. All of these will arise because you are human. Don’t let these define you, other than to say, “Yes, I am human. Here is anger, and I will take care of my anger. Ah, here is fear. I will take care of my fear. I do not let it identify me. I am not the fear, or the anger. I am the awareness, aware of fear, anger, other negative thoughts. I take care of them. I hold space for them until they dissolve, and then I come back to the light that I truly am, the love that I truly am.”
As we have worked through these classes these past years, one of my plans back at the beginning was to help you release some of the duality between the light and darkness, love and fear. Even in situations where there was contraction and self-centered thought, to begin to recognize that spark of love that is your essence and know that you are that.
The interesting thing is that as you come up to the entranceway of this dark night experience, mindfulness comes up and says, “Ah, I am coming up to this kind of experience and it’s based on an illusion that I am something separate from the divine.” It is easy to fall into that illusion because the negative emotions still arise. This is proof of the humanness. It is not bad.
The fact that you can watch such negative emotion arise without being totally swept away by them is proof of your divinity. As you are increasingly able to go into that cave, to experience the dark night, to experience the darkness of the cave, the terror in the cave, and instead of being swept away by that terror, to find the light, even if it is just a tiny spark, to find that light, and know that you are non-dual with that light, that love: darkness and light, darkness and light.
We do not curse the darkness. We recognize that the darkness is just a part of the light. When you truly understand this, then there is no more need to go the whole depth of the dark night of the soul. This path of nonduality of light and darkness truly is a way past the dark night of the soul, without the need to become enmeshed with it and struggle and suffer with it.
But to do this, you have to know your yourself as divine.
This is where your meditation practice takes you, and especially resting in awareness—Ahh…. resting in that light and spaciousness—and your vipassana practice, where everything in the conditioned realm dissolves, including your own ego and body, and you wake up (even just briefly) to the truth of what you are.
I don’t want to see you suffer unnecessarily. I don’t want you to believe there must be a dark night. I also don’t want you to believe that if you do experience it, there is something wrong. I don’t want you to believe, “Ah, I am experiencing a dark night so I must be on the right path; or “I am on the wrong path!” Either way, to say, I;’ll just keep banging my head against the wall and suffering.” Why do that?
You are light. You are love. You have a depth of mindfulness to observe the experience of the dark night arising, with its attachments such as self-blame, as Barbara was stating for herself about Hal. “Oh, this is just self-blame. This is just the voice of ego saying I should be perfect.” You’re human. You are already perfect, but on the human level you shouldn’t be perfect. You will get small skin eruptions, or a runny nose, or anger will arise. Confusion. That’s perfect.
Be who you are and recognize the power of love within you. In this way, all will move through this dark night, each of you in your way and own time, without getting thoroughly enmeshed in it, but just recognizing, here is self-blame, here is anger, here is confusion. Just be present with what arises. It ceases to be a problem.
Are you ready? Are you ready to wake up? Are you ready to let go of the self-blame, the eons of fear and diminishment of the self, so that your radiance can shine forth? Are you ready?
Your own guides, and I, of course, and many other loving beings are walking this with you each step of the way. Sometimes the light is going to dim and you are going to trip, skin your knees, perhaps, and then stop and say, “Where is my radiance? I invite it to shine out because this is my commitment, to be the light for myself and all beings, not because I should be but because I came into this incarnation with the intention to bring light, to bring love into this heavy density plane; to help this whole earth to shift into a higher density; to help beings everywhere to release the whole notion, ‘I must suffer. I am in a heavy density body.'”
We’re done with that. I am not saying there will not be any more suffering for a more evolved human. But maybe to some degree there won’t. There may be sadness. There may even be feelings of frustration, “Why are so many people still suffering?”
It’s up to them.
All you can do is hold the light.
Hold the light.
Looking at your pictures here, I am intrigued by L’s picture. Now, L is not more light than any of the others here, but her picture here, there is a light bulb and it is shining. Can you see the light shining out? When I look at all of you I see that same kind of light—not shining on the arm of your chair, but shining around you.
You are light.
Don’t be afraid of your power.
You are love.
Please don’t be afraid of the power of that love.
This path of sacred darkness is one of resolving duality between light and darkness so that you no longer believe in a duality of light and darkness, but are aware of the light even in the deepest darkness. And increasingly, do not push aside the darkness for the light, but know how to bring them together.
As soon as there is light in the darkness, the darkness is not thoroughly dark any more. I am sure you can understand that. There is still darkness, shadows, but one candle begins to light up a vast cavern.
The only way darkness has a hold on you is when you believe that it has some ultimate reality.
I am going to stop here and give the body back to Barbara.
You are so beautiful. All of you, even those who denigrate yourselves, your self-denigration does not reduce the truth that you are light, loving, and beautiful. It only blocks the clarity —- for a while.
So, if you want to go through this experience of dark night of the soul, if you really want to try this, you can. But you don’t have to. (laugh)
There is a bypass, and it’s a very wholesome bypass.
I greet you with love.
I will release the body.
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Barbara: as I read this, I realized I was that brother, and Aaron confirmed it. I feel a huge wave of gratitude to him. He has “carried me” in so many lifetimes, and now I am able to cross the finish line and to help others across. He points out to me what I taught him in that lifetime by being unable to cross.↩
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Twenty or more years ago, at the Ann Arbor Art Fair, a photographer I didn’t know (with magnificent photographs) rushed out, stopped me and said, “I have something for you.” He brought out a beautiful, large photo of a girl walking through a door. This quote was hand-lettered onto it: “I am the door to love without conditions. When you walk through, you too will be the door.” I later learned this quote is from Paul Ferrini’s book “I am the Door”. He wrapped it, hugged me and insisted I take it.
Google: Ferrini: Love is your essence, my brother and sister. Even when you are judging and feeling separate, love calls to you from within.
I have told you that — no matter how many times you have refused to enter the sanctuary — you have only to knock and the door will be opened to you. I have said to you “Ask, and it shall be given you,” but you refuse to believe me. You think that someone is counting your sins, your moments of indecision or recalcitrance, but it is not true. You are the only one counting.
I say to you, brother and sister, “Stop counting, stop making excuses, stop pretending that the door is locked. I am here at the threshold. Reach out and take my hand and we will open the door and walk through together.”
I am the door to love without conditions. When you walk through, you too will be the door.”Interestingly just now, when I googled the quote, it shows the drawing I have by my desk of Yeshua along with the quote and book.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AP7Z6V6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1↩