Topic: Bliss to Dark Night

[ellenmoksha]

I'm not going to bother with the big *bang* bliss moment. Why is because it was long ago, and sure it means a lot. But the point is I'm gonna leap to the aftermath of that. Because I did hit 'that' once upon a time. But it was really, only another beginning, to me. But in contrast, I also did 'hit' the dark night shortly after that. I'm gonna post on another thread, a story from Deepak's book, The Path to Love. I have some of his books, read more than that. The story was pertient, though different, I can identify with the man he wrote about.

I think really, I went through that experience, bliss first, (which was odd, cause usually that's said to come after), then hit the dismal, depressing, empty death fear feeling, after, maybe to understand it at another level. Who can really know, what that is to understand or experience. Both experiences were when physically awake for the record. But just hit out of the blue, the other side of the spectrum. No warning, never happened before. Felt like an extreme panic attack, which I'd never had them, and haven't had one since. But it was this overwhelming realization I was going to die. I almost thought, I would at that moment. That weird finite, cut off feeling. I almost felt like, in a way, like Spirit, cut the cord, very briefly, so I would understand at that level, what that feeling 'is' like. Then it was like everything going pitch black, and I was under attack by some really, horrific force that took over the being. It was a really strange realization. It's a definite reality shift. Not any illusion or any of that.

Nothing really, triggered it at all. Nothing. And that was, really, what was scary in that situation too. So I was kinda left, not understanding, I had went from one extreme to the other, and even the experience of bliss, couldnt really resolve, that. I think in a way, those experiences, gave a contrast, in life, but where it can lead, when we are cut 'off.' But I also became aware, that its really 'us' who does it, in various ways. I hadn't done it, not intentionally. Of course, in that moment. It was just like I was meant to experience, the 'could-be' in that state of being. So it did give me the awareness I needed, also cause I never would want to get stuck in such a state.

Its only natural for us to fear death. But to myself, after that, there is something even more frightening than actually dying, and even suffering from a disease. Losing that link. That, is the most frightenign thing, one could ever, fathom, if they do that. If that dark night, ever became a permanent state of being. Its beyond, ceasing to exist.

So, in turn, that keeps me humble, at that level.

[ellenmoksha]

From Deepak Chopra's The Path to Love

Drew's Story

Having said that liberation is like a new birth, I'd like to relate the story of someone who went through that birth, my mystical friend Drew. Mystical is a term that has been attached to Drew since the day we met. It was at a meditation course years ago, and Drew attracted considerable attention.  He wore a white Indian dhoti, sandals, and more chains of beads than I had ever seen on a yogi in the Himalayas. When everyone gathered in chairs before the outdoor stage for presentations, he sat in lotus position under a grove of trees on a nearby hill. I'd never met anyone who had a foot more firmly planted in the 'other world,' and his talk was an outpouring of mind-boggling experiences of astral planes and angelic visitations. When I last heard of Drew, he was in Nepal, having taken vows in a monastic order deep in the mountains. In some ways I felt jealous of the life he had chosen.

Then one day he called me and asked if we could meet. He appeared at my door sans beads, sandlas, and dhoti, dressed in a sports shirt and chinos. We talked, and I quickly found out that, unlike ten years ago, Drew now never visits psychics or readers of any kind and in fact feels total indifference toward paranormal phenomena. "I haven't sold out on all that," Drew said. "Something deeper took its place." He proceeded to tell me about a breakthrough experience he had had, one so powerful it changed his life.

"You dont know me very well, but I've always been ambitious, fiercely so, some people would say. I fought to get into the best prep school, the best college, the best fraternity. I don't remember how I hooked up with the idea of mysticism and enlightenment -- maybe an old girlfriend or a trip on LSD -- but once bitten I wasn't going to give up until I turned into something magical -- sorcerer, warrior, seer, psychic, and prophet if I got that far.

"It was all rampant ego, as I look back on it now, but at the time my experiences were pretty fantastic-- I had the lights, the bliss, the angelic voices, and while it was all happening it never occured to me that what I was experiening was actually one and only one thing: my expectations. Mysticism was high drama, with me at the center lapping it all up. We're talking about ten years of extraordinary visions. Then one day I was in Vermont, walking up a perfectly green hill, when it all collapsed."

(continued)

[ellenmoksha]

"It was like being sucked down a drain. My head started spinning, and I had to sit down. I couldn't tell if I was plummeting down a hole or if the earth was sinking out from under me. It was a terrifying sensation. I had a sudden horror of turning around, for I expected to see the sky opening into a funnel that would suck out the world. I closed my eyes and lay down, praying that whatever this was would just end.

(Note on that: I did the same goddamn thing)

"It took about an hour. I might have passed out during that time -- I didn't have a watch on -- because even when I felt like I was coming back to reality, my head buzzed. (Note - coming back to reality - it felt more real and raw, but I know what he meant - cause it is like being sucked). I got up, still extremely wobbly, and walked down the hill to my cabin; that dizziness didn't fully go away for several days, and I continued to feel disoriented. What do you make of that?"

I had been listening to Drew without comment. "Well," I said, "if a patient came to me with that kind of experience, I guess I'd suspend judgment until we took a brain scan and ran a psychiatric profile."

"Bingo-- either I was dying of a brain tumor or I had suffered a psychotic break. That's exactly what I told myself. I ran to the village library and madly scanned old medical books. The thing was, I didn't have double vision or any return of severe dizziness. I didn't hae disordered or racing thoughts. The clinical explanations for this episode didnt seem to apply. Gradually my symptoms vanished, but not without a trace.

"I was different. It was as if someone had pulled the plug and drained out my -- what? Battery fluid. I didn't have any charge left. No ambition, curiosity, purpose, drive. I was pointless to myself, and my mystical experiences had disappeared completely. If I shut my eyes to meditate, there wasn't any light; I didn't expand outside my body or see angels. For a few days afterward I felt extreme anxiety, as though demons were going to get me, but that didn't happen either. So if it wasn't tumors, madness, or divine punishment, what was it? I waited for an answer."

(continued)

[ellenmoksha]

"Did you get one," I asked.

"Yes, but not the way I expected. The answer was a process, which I began to call 'ego surgery.' That dramatic moment on the mountain was like having my chest opened up by an invisible surgeon, and once opened I couldn't close myself up again. It hadn't occurred to me, in my headlong pursuit of the never-ending high, for that's what spiritual life had meant to me, that spirit is carved out of the very things a person doesn't want to face. Like most people, I wanted not to be sad, anxious, powerless, unlovable, and hostile. I wanted "It." The big spiritual payoff. But what I now got was every speck of sadness, anger, anxiety, and so on that I thought I had gone beyond."

"It must have been a difficult time," I said.

"To put it mildly. Whoever this surgeon was, he dug deep, probing for every hidden secret, every dark deposit of guilt and shame. There were mornings when I felt that nothing could be worse than simply living with myself. But I got used to what was happening, once I realized the surgeon was me, working on myself. At some deep level I had given myself permission to go through the dark night of the soul.

Ironically, I'd always gotten that getting to God meant climbing a mountain, getting so close to Him that He would say, 'Ah, you've made it, I see.' With a smile of approval. He would then grab my hand and pull me into heaven. There's only one problem with that scenario. What happesn to the parts that get left behind? I certainly didn't expect God to say 'Bring along your shame and guilt.' To me, being spiritual meant jettisoning the 'bad' me and boosting the 'good' me to heaven."

"But that would imply, " I said, "that God judges against the 'bad' you and only loves the 'good' you. Such a God couldnt be a God of love. He would be a God of ego, since thats exactly what egos do all the time -- judge against the bad and accept only the good."

"Exactly," said Drew. "I suppose that's why ego surgery was so difficult to face. Once these awful things -- the ghosts in the basement, I call them -- were exposed I actually had to take them back. You can't imagine how disgusting that seemed at first. I mean, all our dirty secrets look hideous in our own eyes, no matter how common they might appear to others."

(continued)

[ellenmoksha]

"I dont think its the horribleness of the unconscious that is the main block," I suggested. "It's more our fears about forgiveness. When you're talking about forgiving yourself so that you can take back your dark energies and turn them into love. What if that fails? What if you're stuck being ugly, dirty, sinful, and undeserving of your worst judgments say you are? That prospect is so terrifying that even tiny sins and blemishes get expanded into monstrosities."

Drew nodded and sat still for a moment. "There were times when I didn't think I was going to make it. A voice inside kept crying, 'You're going to die. You can't take anymore.' But I knew I wasn't going to die. My spiritual life had taught me at least that much. I went back to my old job as a stockbroker, and so far as I knew nobody had any idea what I was going through."

He noticed my amusement at the kind of job he had chosen. "You like literature, I recall. Didn't Hawthorne write somewhere that a man may go around to all the world looking like any other man while entertaining the most extraordinary ideas in his head?"

"In his journals, I thin. But that could apply to psychotics as well as visionaries," I said.

"True, but my point is that something that appears normal can be very wild inside. Which has not dawned on me when I was running around trying to become a visionary. I walk down Milk street with my briefcase, and I ask: Is a tree a tree, a skyscraper a skyscraper? What makes these things 'normal' is that they look separate, solid objects, but they're not. They're bundles of energy carved out of infinite energy soup of the universe, and so are you and I. Therefore at some level you and I are not simply connected with that tree and that skyscraper. We are that tree and skyscraper. And that is what a mystic knows, nothing else."

"You have closed the gap," I said both feeling moved and impressed.

"Something like that. Have you ever sat by a river, all alone, and tried to feel it? Of course you can't. You may say that you're feeling the river--its flow, its still depths, in constant change that runs unopposed from here to there -- but all you actually feel is yourself. If you can get close enough to it (and such feelings are tough to get close to), the sweetness of sitting by a river actually comes from a tiny point in your heart. That point of sweetness is perfectly still; it doesnt reach out for you, but it doesn't ever abandon you either. What is that sweet point?"

"Everything," I said.

"Yes, everything."

We both sat without speaking, relishing this moment of communication. Then Drew said, "The ego surgery ended. At a certain point the process spit me out. I can't say I did anything, really, but in some way I had been through the crucible, and now, past the flames, what was I? I was real. It's astonishing to realize what a difference it makes to find out you are not false, since to the rational mind of course I am real. But to really be real, that's the joy. That's the revelation. That's the ecstasy."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Michael]

I never would want to get stuck in such a state.

to be in such a state sans the emotional 'panic' or whatever - sans the fear - just looking down at the endlessness, and feeling ready.

[ellenmoksha]

to be in such a state sans the emotional 'panic' or whatever - sans the fear - just looking down at the endlessness, and feeling ready.

I dont know if anyone could ever be truly ready for that. Thats kinda the point, like the man who for ten years had all his phenomenal experiences. Then 'ego surgery.' I think my way, has been, sure, work on the reality of both ends, but somewhere in th emiddle lies, the place where the gap closses. But everything else opens and there's no worry about survival anymore. I'm not quite there yet. Only grazed it.

[ellenmoksha]

Also, to add on that, the Drew man, he went through a much longer, longer, experience than I did. I did just one night, at least with a hell of a lot of intensity. That was another realm of awareness. And its not the awareness, really anyone intentionally 'aims' at. It could be similar, to what was expressed by the story of Buddha, when he did wander outside the home, and saw all he saw. That kinda feeling coming over him, was probably what it was. That kinda reality check. That kinda shock. Stun. But then it just 'holds.' And I think with Buddha, it held on. And it was a situation which felt like, I tried to fight that off, but I couldn't fight it off. And its beyond a depression. To me a depression, at least way I view it, and why so many get trapped in that, people who are avoiding going to the bottom. Wherever that may be, or lead. When you 'avoid' that state, that is a depression. That is resistance to what, needs to be dealt with. Mind and soul, are drawing an individual, to a place, to deal with something, which must be faced. The ego, however, you want to state it, fears it, so it begins to resist. From that resistance, causes a depression, that state. Which is resistance and being stuck in an in between state, of awareness. Our culture, of course, medicates, and some do need it, chemisty is what it is. Or they couldn't function. However, if an individual 'only' medicates themselves, totally, never trying to seek a remedy to get 'out' what is within them, then still, medication can only postpone the inevitable. For that night for myself, it was like being on a string and swinging in bliss, and having all sorts of experiences with that, then fate took the shears and suddenly 'cut' that string, and I hit a bottom, at least in consciousness. We all have a very thin strand attached to us, and if it is cut like that, that is dark night. And the tougher part is, no matter what you've mastered up til that moment, or know, or how strong even 'faith' can be, or even reflecting on past experiences or victories, it will go out the window when in that state of awareness. But I also know, it was supposed to, for a purpose as well. So I would know.