The entire planet is going through a dark night of the soul. a spiritual crisis in the journey towards God.
When an individual becomes aware of what is their ego and what is their soul, or in other words, has a spiritual awakening, they have to shed whatever is unauthentic so they can be their true self and their highest potential. When this process happens, it can seem exciting at first, more positive and uplifting. It is the beginning of your journey of uncovering your true essence where you are guided by wisdom and lightness of your soul, but where there is lightness, there is darkness as one cannot exist without the other.
The dark night of the soul happens just before enlightenment or a revolution when everything is lost and seems dark. This can look like a major depressive, life-shattering time in your life. During this time is where individuals do shadow work-which uncovers a lot of unhealed trauma and aspect of oneself. Going through the dark night of the soul has you living in your shadow, and is the lowest of lows. It comes with lots of withdrawal from the world and the people around you. It shatters your belief system and sends you basically into an identity crisis. Everything you once believed in, you are questioning. You have gained a different perception than what you had in the past. To some of who are unaware of this cycle, may not realise you will get out of the darkness, but it is just a stage one must go through in order to truly be enlightened.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
Although we try to run from it, it is still there. Although we try to cover it up and smother it, it is still there. Although we try to put on a happy, smiley face and pretend it is away, it’s still there.
The Dark Night of the Soul is a period of utter spiritual desolation, disconnection, and emptiness in which one feels totally separated from the divine, Those who experience the Dark Night feel completely lost, hopeless, and consumed with melancholy. The Dark Night of the Soul can be likened to severe spiritual depression, it’s a type of spiritual emergency.
One of the biggest differences between the Dark Night of the Soul’s depression and regular depression is that the Dark Night is primarily a spiritual and existential form of crisis that can’t be treated or cured with therapy or psychiatry. Therefore, those of us going through the Dark Night can often feel an increasing sense of hopelessness, unease, and despair as we discover that no one can save us but ourselves. Inevitably, this makes us feel even more alone, frustrated, and confused about the world and about ourselves.
It's better to cry than to be angry; because anger hurts others, while tears flow silently through the soul and cleanse the heart.
6 Omens You Might Be Going Through a Dark Night of the Soul:
- You feel a deep sense of sadness, which often verges on despair.
- You have the constant feeling of being lost to a life of suffering or emptiness.
- You possess a painful feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness.
- Your will and self-control is weakened, making it difficult for you to act.
- You lack interest and find no joy in things that once excited you.
- You crave for the loss of something intangible; a longing for a distant place or to "return home" again.
Why am I here? And what is my purpose?
When the Dark Night of the Soul ends, everything in your life is transformed, and life becomes wondrous again.
People speak of the Dark Night as some kind of problem they have to "fix," or something they went through a long time ago. But what these people thought was a Dark Night may have just been a glimpse of the darkness within them, especially when they speak egotistically about it as if it were a badge of honour. A true Dark Night of the Soul leaves a long-lasting impact on you – it changes you completely. When you exit a Dark Night, you will discover that something is always taken away from you (for the better), such as your beliefs, your perceptions, your former meaning in life or even in rare cases, your ego.
No creature can attain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist.
Have you ever seen a butterfly begin to emerge from its cocoon? It must struggle in order to strengthen its wings. If someone frees the butterfly from its cocoon prematurely, it won’t be able to fly because its crucial tempering stage will not have occurred.
The same is true for trees. Trees need wind to build their structural strength to stay upright.
Your Dark Night of the Soul is your wind, your cocoon; it is an ego death, whereby you shed the ego that prevents you from embodying your Soul.
"While the Dark Night of the Soul is a process of death, the Spiritual Awakening Process is the rebirth."
Only those willing to walk through the dark night will be able to see the beauty of the moon and the brilliance of the stars. When everything around you becomes really dark, it’s easier to find the light within.
What the hell are we supposed to do?
A central question that emerges over and over again during our Dark Night of the Soul. What is the point of living? Each day we might obsessively search for an answer, but find to our greatest dismay that the answers to such a question are as expansive as the waves on the ocean.
Some people say "the point is to serve God," others might say, "the point is to make a difference," and others, "there is no point: you make your own meaning." These are only a few of hundreds, even thousands of possible answers.
What and Who is right, who is wrong … is there really is any "right" or "wrong” answer. We walk down one path and immediately become unsatisfied, disillusioned by what we discover, we walk down another path and history repeats itself again and again until we realise with horror, "Every path is meaningless," and we collapse in grief and despair.
These cycles repeat over and over again during the Dark Night of the Soul, it can become a torment. The strange thing is that although we get to a point of complete desolation, we still hold a glimmer of hope that pursuing the same path over and over and over again will somehow bring us to a deeply satisfying meaning one day. We seem to think that the mind is the solution to our problems; that utilizing the mind will release us from the original prison created by the mind that feels the need to quantify, measure, and define everything.
What most of us fail to do, however, is to question the actual questions we are asking and pursue the answers to. Have you ever tried asking:
Why must there be a point to living? Instead of, What is the point of living?
Although you might feel cursed, you are actually blessed. It sounds absurd, even insulting, but this is the truth. Before any true growth or healing can occur, there must be a process of destruction and complete annihilation of everything you thought would bring you happiness.
Many people experiencing Dark Nights realise this: that nothing makes them happy anymore; not bodily, not sexual, not emotional, not material, not political, not social, not even spiritual and this is the start of the purification process.
From birth you have been conditioned to believe that money will make you happy, a sexy/rich partner will make you happy, a high IQ will make you happy, a big house will make you happy, a thriving career will make you happy, a perfect life will make you happy.
But this is all a lie because whenever you pursue happiness, you are immediately losing touch with the fact that happiness is already here, right now, in this very second, without you having to do anything or question anything. Happiness IS.
This sounds like the most ridiculous thing you might have ever heard, and yet deep down you might sense the truth in it. If this is the case the first layer of your illusion has been peeled away; what a blessing!
A blessing in disguise …
In reality, it is absolutely terrifying to have the ground beneath your feet ripped out from beneath you, and this is precisely what we experience during the Dark Night of the Soul.
And yet this experience is the greatest teacher of all to us because it illuminates what is fragile, transient, and subject to change, growth, and decay. We are subsequently left with a feeling of great inner emptiness but within this emptiness, we eventually come to see what can never come, go, change or die, and that is the truth of who we are: pure, peaceful, and blissful conscious essence.