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The main purpose of it all is not to attain something. Rather, there's a certain consciousness — an awareness — that grows in the person who experiences this night. This will later lead to a full awakening — living from that 'higher mind' that Jesus refers to in his use of the word metanoia. God's presence is not something you attain, but something that's already there. You just become aware of it. You realize it... often through unlearning and getting rid of obstacles. That's why the journey of true spirituality is often referred to as a path of descent. You have to become less.
Dark Night, often called “dark night of the soul,” is popularly understood as a feeling of abandonment, but it is more complicated. St. John of the Cross, a Carmelite friar and friend of St. Teresa of Avila in the 16th century, wrote of how God works in the souls of mystics. Souls invited into Dark Night, he wrote, realize they just can’t pray anymore.
Not only does prayer cease, but those experiencing Dark Night lose the joy of the spiritual journey. But they hang on tightly to their commitment to Christ. This Dark Night is really only understood in the light of faith, through Scripture. St. John of the Cross points out two phases in this condition: Dark Night of the Senses and Dark Night of the Spirit, in his two classic writings The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The Dark Night.
KellyPrettyBear
If you stopped trying to describe yourself and define yourself,
and describe and define and 'attain' your 'real spiritual self'
all these struggles would go away and you'd be free.
KPB
KellyPrettyBear
this world is on a hamster wheel of destruction due to our traditional understandings..
If even ONE thing in the world actually 'worked', and I mean REALLY worked.. then the whole world would flock to that thing and it would be greatly successful. But in fact that has never happened.
KellyPrettyBear
Hi,
I'm posting this for a friend, but it's such a common phenomenon,
I thought various people might like the post.
A first death would be the physical body
When the 'soul' 'fully matures' then it does what it
does.. goes on to the spirit.. or goes 'elsewhere'
but when it goes you will know it.. as all the
spiritual power goes away.. the psychic ability
goes away.. all the light.. all the charisma..
the massive expanded aura .. all goes away.
This is the second death.
I wound up with
a 'soul' which was part of a bloodline tradition
of an occult group. Nasty little sucker. I suppose
I didn't act very 'Buddha like' by telling it to hit
the road -- but that was what I did. I could have
hatched the little dickens.. and learned more
about 'blood line traditions'.. but I didn't.
Once you are liminal --- without boundaries..
due to refusing to define yourself.. once
you stop clinging to life or death or light or
dark.. and once you are determined to become
a living embodiment of honesty and love.
you will build connections to your unconscious
mind.. and you will become a permanent
mana personality, without boundaries..
without burnout or dark nights of the
soul.. and you'll have to do nothing to
maintain this.
KellyPrettyBear
As you know, there is a constant stream of commentary
in our minds about ourselves and the world. This commentary
in fact is the entire problem. The 'spiritual' part of us is entirely
non-verbal and by filling ourselves with all these words, we
hypnotize ourselves away from the part of ourselves that we
yearn for. This is in fact the 'hole in our hearts' .
We are trying to damn up a free-flowing
river and to turn it into a statue of ourselves
The 'down and dirty' 'truth' about 'spiritual experience' is that you
can throw out ALL the 'spiritual stuff' and just rely on a model
of the conscious and unconscious mind and accomplish 90%
of what a 'spiritual path' accomplishes
But of course that is why they don't do that.. the 'movie' would
be over.. and people are lustful for tall tales of gods and demons
and aliens.. so the 'field' keeps producing this for us.. to keep us
from growing up