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The Dark Night of the Soul: Its Causes and What Follows
Fear and the Mind’s Domain:
At the beginning of the spiritual journey, a person must isolate themselves internally, detaching from the external world. This detachment need not be physical but rather internal, where the mind separates itself from everything outside. This process takes place within the realm of the mind, which engages in separation, abstraction, and peeling away layers, protecting you from evils and impurities. The mind, acting as an agent of the self’s baser desires, can restrict even the most harmless things in life, leading one to see existence as mere vanity, inducing detachment. During this stage, when the mind dominates, a sense of fear emerges—a shrinking and constricting of the soul in response to external influences. This constriction shortens one's life span, as fear and negative emotions have tangible effects on the body and health. Fear’s message is to remind you that you have no self; you must either return to what you separated from or perish. These fluctuating emotions attempt to pull you back to meaninglessness and loss.
As a result of the negative emotions experienced in the mind’s domain, an individual enters what is known as the "Dark Night of the Soul," where fears and negativity surround them, isolating them from the external world. They become immersed in their darkness, cut off from divine light and sustenance due to fear, losing the strength to continue the struggle despite the mind’s ongoing battle. There is no escape from this but through heart guidance.
The Dark Night of the Soul and Heart Guidance:
The fears and negative emotions arising from detachment and immersion in the mind’s domain act as walls, isolating you from the outside and depriving you of light. The only way out of this prison is to follow heart guidance. Turning to the heart opens windows to goodness, allowing light to seep in and dispel all darkness and the ghosts or emotions that drain you. You realize that there is enduring goodness, meaning, and an essence that never fades.
While the mind teaches separation and abstraction, the heart teaches connection, belonging, and selecting what is truly good for you (the process of refining and purifying). As you strip away all those emotions, you come to see them as false, realizing that the only true feelings are those of love, peace, and tranquility. Through heart guidance, you learn how to experience and remain in these emotions. If you reach this stage and possess a sound heart, you can live in peace because you have learned from the mind to separate the impure from the good and, from the heart, to choose and act on what is good, leading you to the straight path. For those who recognize evil and refrain from it do no harm to themselves, and those who recognize and do good benefit their own souls—this is the ultimate success.
Many have experienced the dark night of the soul, but few emerge from it with meaning, essence, and truth. Those who fail to find a heart guide showing them the wholesome often experience a setback. Instead of ascending, they regress to an animalistic level due to their failure to overcome the darkness of the night and see the light within it.
The Spirit’s Domain and Spiritual Revelation:
During this journey from the animalistic level to the heart’s domain, a person perceives various realms. At the animalistic level, governed by the base self, one perceives only the world’s evils. In the mind’s domain, one sees nothing until transitioning to the heart’s realm, where a world of goodness and light is unveiled.
Relying solely on the mind is insufficient for moving forward; hence, the heart intervenes. However, excessive reliance on the heart also disrupts balance. Heart guidance opens windows of light, connecting one to divine sustenance, revealing a world full of goodness, dispelling evil and duality. Like a beautiful bird walking on the ground, thinking freedom in the sky is mirrored on earth, it faces traps and disappointments from earthly creatures, leading to disillusionment. These experiences, however, are not wholly negative. They serve as a purposeful reminder, urging you to balance heart and mind and acknowledge duality. This realization shows that handling life requires neither mind nor heart alone but a balance of both. Recognizing this, one enters the realm of the spirit.
Reaching a balance between mind and heart involves entering the spirit’s domain, where one perceives the world through both faculties. Spiritual revelation enables a harmonious balance between mind and heart, unifying them, which embodies beauty and perfection. We symbolize the spirit as a bird with two wings—one representing the mind, the other the heart. The spirit is their duality, and only after mastering both mind and heart can one find harmony in the movement of these wings, allowing the bird to soar freely in the sky. Reaching this stage signifies attainment of one’s ultimate potential.