The shadow of death, suffering and the torment of hell is felt especially acutely, and this comes from the feeling that you have been abandoned by God... and a terrible premonition arises in the soul that this will always be the case... The soul sees itself in the very center of the most diverse forms of evil, among the pitiful imperfection, devastated, yearning for understanding and thrown into darkness.
San Juan de la Cruz, "Dark Night of the Soul"

Failures are not evidence of illusory weakness or incompetence, they are a catastrophe of the Ego. This is their spiritual meaning.

Stanislav GROF
DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL (excerpt)<

The following pages will describe some of the most common critical and challenging types of experiences that come to the surface from the complex and confusing inner world of the individual during the process of transformation and which we are familiar with both from our own experience and from the reports of others. We hope that we will not discourage the reader by starting now to understand these difficult experiences. The dark night of the soul is only one aspect of the spiritual journey, and there are many others that are much more enjoyable.
The purpose of our study of this topic is, first, to express the unusual sequence of states during the process of transformation. Although there are many exceptions, most people who experience a spiritual crisis still have to plunge into dark areas and pass through them before they reach a state of freedom, light and peace. For those who undertake this journey, the positive feelings often seem more meaningful and intense in contrast to the difficult experiences they had previously encountered. Just as the sunrise feels especially bright and hopeful after a long winter night, so joy seems especially strong after pain.
With this in mind, the next question can be asked: What are the dark areas that a person may have to pass through? What are they like? And what kind of conflicts might arise there?
For some people in spiritual crisis - in both its dramatic and milder forms - the task of living another day, the task of maintaining the ability to function as usual, can be a serious challenge. Normal, seemingly simple activities that are part of daily life can suddenly become difficult or depressing. Often individuals in crisis are filled with internal experiences that are so saturated with emotions, power and energetic force that it can be difficult to separate vivid and vivid images of the inner world from events in external reality. In such situations it is often difficult to maintain concentration and this can be very difficult for people experiencing a crisis. Panic can also be caused by rapid, frequent changes in states of consciousness. Unable to function in their normal ways, people in this situation feel powerless, ineffective, and guilty.
One woman described her problems this way: “I could see and understand that there were things that needed to be done around the house, but I had the feeling that there was some kind of wall between me and these things that I used to do without any effort. I remembered that I needed to go out to do some work in the garden, and knew that this activity could be useful. However, I had a feeling that if I went that far, I might explode. On all those artistic and creative "The projects that I was so excited about before were now too difficult to focus on. And even playing with my children seemed like too much of a task. The only thing I could do during this time was take care of myself."
Some of the most distressing and distressing conditions that a person experiencing a spiritual crisis typically encounters include feelings of fear, a sense of madness, and preoccupation with death. Although these states are often inevitable, necessary and central parts of the healing process, they can become frightening and overwhelming, especially when there is a lack of support from others.
From the opening gates of the unconscious, a wide variety of repressed emotions and memories come to the surface. When a person encounters specific memories or experiences from personal or transpersonal, transpersonal areas, he may have experiences associated with fear, loneliness, madness and death. The person may have revived memories of serious illnesses, life-threatening events, or other disturbing events from infancy and childhood. Biological birth can also be re-experienced with all its complex, chaotic and dynamic manifestations.
A person may also encounter experiences of fear, loneliness, madness, or death during transpersonal states arising from the collective unconscious or even from areas of universal scope. Transpersonal areas contain both light and dark elements; fear can be caused by both, “positive” and “negative”. Someone may be fighting a monstrous mythological demon or reliving a battle from another era - feelings of anxiety and fear in such situations are inevitable. The fact that the feeling of fear sometimes arises even when an individual moves into the realm of light and beauty can be puzzling. In the next chapter we will discuss the challenge of "positive" realities.
Many people spend years with the feeling that their familiar world is well organized and that they have complete control over their lives. When they discover that they are not completely in control of the trajectory of their existence, they can experience a feeling of extreme freedom. But it happens that people are afraid of this, especially if they completely identify themselves with their busy lifestyle. They will ask themselves: “If I am not in control of my life, then who is? And is he, she or it - the one that controls my life - completely trustworthy? Can I surrender myself to some unknown force and know , that this power will take care of me?"
Faced with the fear of losing control, the mind and ego become very sophisticated in their efforts to cling to something; people in such situations can create complex systems of denial, convincing themselves that the way they live is completely wonderful and that there is no need for any change, or that the changes they perceive are simply illusory . These people may try to intellectually interpret the states of mind they experience, creating elaborate theories to explain them. Or they may simply try to avoid these conditions altogether. Sometimes the feeling of worry itself becomes a defense: when a person clings to his feeling of fear, it can quite successfully protect him from growing too quickly.
There is another form of loss of control, much less gradual and more dramatic. When in a spiritual crisis, a person may feel overwhelmed by powerful episodes of experience during which he completely loses control over his behavior. In such situations, the individual may explode in anger, burst into tears, tremble violently, or scream shrilly - in a way that he has never done before. This unfettered release of emotions can be extremely liberating, but before it occurs, the person may experience extreme fear of and resistance to the strength of their feelings. After such an outburst, the individual feels frightened and ashamed of having allowed his expression to manifest itself with such force.

LONELINESS.

Loneliness is another integral component of a spiritual crisis. It can be experienced in a wide range - from a vague and indefinite sense of separation from other people and from the world to a deep and complete absorption in existential alienation. Some of the feelings of inner isolation are due to the fact that people, during the experience of a spiritual crisis, come face to face with unusual states of consciousness that are different from the everyday experiences of their friends and family members, and they have never heard anyone describe anything similar. However, existential loneliness seems to be something that has very little to do with any personal or other external influences.
Many people going through the process of transformation feel isolated from others due to the very nature of the experiences they face. Since the inner world becomes more active at this time, the person feels the need to temporarily escape from everyday activities, being preoccupied with his intense feelings, thoughts and internal processes. The significance of relationships with other people may fade, and the person may even feel disconnected from their usual sense of who they are. When this happens, a person experiences a completely consuming feeling of separation from himself, from other people and from the world around him. For those in this state, ordinary human warmth and support are not available.
A young teacher told us about the feeling of loneliness he experienced during a spiritual crisis: “Although I habitually went to bed with my wife at night, I felt complete and unconditional loneliness. Throughout my crisis, my wife gave me great help and tried to make me comfortable. But during a period when I felt lonely, nothing she did helped me - not affectionate hugs, not any degree of support."
We have often heard individuals experiencing a spiritual crisis say, "No one has gone through this before. I'm the only one who feels this!" Such people not only feel that this process is unique and inimitable for them, but they are also convinced that no one in history has experienced anything like this. Perhaps this is precisely why they are so convinced of the specificity of their experiences that only a certain, trustworthy therapist or teacher is able to sympathize with them and help them. Strong emotions and unfamiliar sensations in such people sometimes take them so far from their previous existence that they can easily assume that they are abnormal. They feel that something is wrong with them and that no one can understand them. If such people turn to psychotherapists who mystify them, then their feeling of intense isolation only increases.
During an existential crisis, a person feels disconnected from his deepest essence, from a higher power, from God - and a person, be that as it may, depends on something that is beyond his individual resources and provides him with strength and inspiration. The result of this is the most devastating kind of loneliness, a total and complete existential alienation that permeates a person’s entire existence. This was expressed in the words of one woman experiencing a spiritual crisis: “I was surrounded by great loneliness. I felt as if every cell of my being was in a state of utter loneliness. I imagined myself standing on a rock, riddled with wind and looking up at the black sky. ", yearning for a feeling of unity with God, but in front of me there was only blackness. It was something more than human abandonment; this feeling was total."
This deep sense of isolation can come to many people, regardless of their personal history, and it is often a major component of spiritual transformation. Irina Tweedy, a woman from Russia who studied with a Sufi master in India, wrote in her book The Fiery Abyss:
"There was a great separation here... a strange, special feeling of complete loneliness... it could not be compared with any of those states of loneliness that we encounter in our everyday life. Everything seemed dark and lifeless. Nowhere, in nothing there was no meaning, no purpose. There was no God to pray to. There was no hope. There was nothing at all."
This sense of extreme isolation was expressed in the lonely prayer of Jesus on the cross: “My God, why have you forsaken me?” People who find themselves in this state, trying to explain the extent of their fundamental feeling, often cite the example of Christ at this most difficult moment of his life. They cannot find any connection with the Divine, and instead are forced to endure a painful feeling of rejection by God. Even when such a person is surrounded by love and support, he can be filled with deep and painful loneliness. When a person descends into the abyss of existential alienation, then human warmth, no matter how great it is, is not able to change anything.
Those who face an existential crisis not only feel isolated, but they also feel utterly insignificant, like worthless specks of dust in the vast cosmos. The entire universe seems absurd and meaningless, and any human activity seems trivial. These people may perceive all of humanity as immersed in an insignificant, mouse-like existence that has neither benefit nor meaning. When these people are in this state, it seems to them that there is no cosmic order and they have no contact with spiritual force. It seems to them that there is no way out of their miserable condition.

ISOLATING BEHAVIOR

A person during a spiritual crisis may try to be “different” for a while. In our culture of established norms and rigid calculations, a person who begins to change internally may not seem completely healthy. He may one day manifest his condition by starting to talk at work or at the dinner table about his new ideas or discoveries - for example, about his feelings associated with death, or asking questions about his birth; can talk about memories associated with long-hidden details of family history; about unusual prospects for solving world problems or about the fundamental nature of the Universe.
The abstraction of these problems and the insistence with which a person talks about them can lead to the fact that colleagues, friends and family members begin to feel alienated from him, which will only increase the already existing feelings of loneliness. A person's interests and values ​​may change and they may no longer want to participate in an activity. Or, for example, he may no longer be attracted to the idea of ​​spending an evening with friends over a bottle, which could result in him making a bad impression on others.
People in such a situation experience very unusual feelings associated with the very nature of the experiences they are going through. They can feel themselves growing and changing, unlike the rest of the world, which is so frozen in stillness that no one can follow them. Or these people may become involved in activities that are not supported by their loved ones. A person may suddenly develop an interest in prayer, in meditation, in certain esoteric systems such as astrology or alchemy, which will seem “strange” to family and friends and will only increase their desire to turn away from such a person.
People undergoing a transformational process may change their appearance dramatically. They can shave their heads or, conversely, grow their hair; may express affection for clothing that is clearly different from the norm. A number of examples of this can be found in the psychedelic culture of the sixties and seventies, when many had spiritual insights, but did not express them in ways acceptable to society, but preferred to channel these insights into the formation of a separate “counterculture”, with its characteristic expressive clothing, jewelry, long hair and even brightly painted cars.
Other examples can be found in various religious groups. Initiates of Zen Buddhism may shave their heads and live in ostentatious simplicity.
Followers of Rajneesh's guru not only wear a certain color, but also wear a rosary with a portrait of the teacher in the middle, called a mala, changing their regular names to Indian-style names. Followers of Orthodox Judaism often wear yarmulkes and long beards, leading a strictly religious lifestyle. Those who consider themselves part of the spiritual community will tolerate or even encourage such behavior. However, those who make a sudden decision to engage in such overtly expressive behaviors will find themselves in a situation where they are without any support for a period of time and may feel even more isolated.
For many of those experiencing a spiritual crisis, transformation occurs without such drastic outward manifestations of their alienation. But there are also obvious changes in behavior. For some, these new ways of behavior are a temporary stage of spiritual development, while for others they can become a permanent part of their new way of life.

EXPERIENCE OF THE STATE OF “MADNESS”

During a spiritual crisis, the role of the logical mind often weakens and the multi-colored, rich world of intuition, inspiration and imagination begins to predominate. Common sense becomes the limiting factor, and true revelations begin to come from something beyond the intellect. For some individuals, these journeys into visionary experiences can be spontaneous, exciting and creative. But more often than not, all this, clearly associated with conditions that are not considered normal, leads many people to the conclusion that they are going crazy.
The relaxation of rationality - a natural part of spiritual development - often leads to the disappearance of old limitations of traditional thinking, and this can sometimes herald the emergence of new, broader understanding and greater inspiration. Moreover, what disappears is in fact not the ability to reason sensibly - although sometimes this may be the case - but only those limitations in cognition that keep a person in a state of constriction and inability to change.
While this is happening, consistent thinking sometimes seems impossible, and the person experiences mental anxiety that his conscious mind is being overwhelmed by what is being released from the unconscious. Strange and disturbing emotions can arise unexpectedly, and the rationality that was once so familiar becomes useless in trying to explain what is happening. This point in spiritual development can be very scary. However, if the individual is truly involved in the process of self-disclosure, then all these worries will soon pass, and this moment itself can be a very important stage of transformation.
Some spiritual traditions offer an alternative vision of this kind of “madness.” "Sacred madness" or "divine madness" is known and recognized by various spiritual teachings, and it is considered by them to be different from ordinary madness, perceived as a form of intoxication with the Divine, which gives a person extraordinary abilities and spiritual instructions. In traditions such as Sufism and American Indian culture, the sacred figures of fools, or jesters, are the embodiment of this state. Revered seers, prophets and mystics are often described as inspired by just such madness.
Divine madness was described by the Greek philosopher Plato as a gift of the gods:
“The greatest blessing comes through madness, as if madness were indeed a message from heaven. It was in a state of madness that the soothsayers at Delphi and the priestesses of Dodona achieved what both states and individuals are grateful to them for in Greece. When these soothsayers are in in their right mind, they can do very little or even nothing at all... which is why madness is a divine gift, coming by the grace of the gods."
In the culture that exists on the island of Okinawa, this state is called kamidari. This is the period during which a person’s spirit suffers, a time of testing when a person cannot act rationally. The community supports such individuals, recognizing that their unusual condition is a sign of closeness to God. In addition, this person is revered as having a divine mission - perhaps a mission as a healer or teacher.

FACING SYMBOLIC DEATH

Confrontation with the manifestations of death is a central part of the process of transformation and the unifying component of most spiritual crises. It is part of a powerful cycle of death and rebirth in which what actually dies is the old way of being that stunted the individual's growth. From this perspective, everyone dies in some form or another many times throughout their life. In many traditions, the very idea of ​​“dying to death” is fundamentally important for spiritual development. Understanding that death is part of the continuous sequence of life frees a person from the fear of death and opens up the possibility of experiencing immortality.
In the 17th century, the Christian monk Abraham of Santa Clara wrote: “A man who dies before his death does not die at the time of death.”
A description of meeting one’s own death is given in the book “The Game of Consciousness” by Swami Muktananda. He vividly describes not only the experience of dying, but also the movement towards rebirth:
"I was terrified of death. My prana (breath, life force) stopped moving. My mind could no longer function. I felt my prana leaving my body... I lost all the strength of my body. Like a dying person whose mouth opens, and my arms stretched out, I made a strange sound and fell to the floor... I completely lost consciousness. I came to my senses after about an hour and a half, and it seemed funny to me to say to myself: “I died not so long ago, but I’m alive again!” "I stood up feeling deep peace, love and joy. I realized that I had experienced death... Now I knew what it meant to die, and death was no longer scary to me. I became completely fearless."
An encounter with death can manifest itself in various forms. One of them is a confrontation with one's own mortality. Someone who avoids topics related to death will likely have difficulty acquiring the deep inner experiences that show a person that his life is transitory and that death is inevitable. Many people unconsciously retain the childish idea that they are immortal, and when faced with the tragedies of life, they dismiss them with the usual statement: "It happens to other people. It won't happen to me."
When a spiritual crisis brings such people to an essential understanding of their mortality, they begin to experience extreme resistance. They will do anything to avoid what frightens them: perhaps they will try to stop the process that is happening to them through hard work, excessive sociability, short and casual relationships, or through the use of suppressive drugs or alcohol. In conversations, they may avoid the topic of death or try to ridicule it, moving on to relatively safer topics of conversation. Others may suddenly become acutely aware of the aging process, both their own and that of other people close to them.
Some come to a sudden awareness of the fragility of life, as in the case described by one patient, a teacher by profession: “For some time I was not serious about the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bmy own mortality. I was familiar with some ideas of Christianity and Buddhism about the continuity of everything that exists, but I never accepted it as something that pertained directly to me. Then came the day when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. I watched it on television and saw seven astronauts wave goodbye and climb into the space shuttle, which became their death trap. They had no way of knowing that these were the last minutes of their lives. At that moment, they were all confident in their lives, which would soon end. Watching this terrible drama, it was as if I was experiencing it myself. The philosophers wrote the truth: "Our life is ephemeral, and we all actually have only a moment of the present. No past, no future - only the present."
Such a discovery can be devastating for people who are unwilling or unprepared to face their fear of death, but it can also be liberating for those who are ready to accept the fact of their mortality, since full acceptance of death can free them to enjoy every moment of life.
Another type of such experience is the death of a limited way of thinking or living. As a person begins to change, he may find it necessary to let go of some of the limitations that are hindering his growth. Sometimes this happens almost by choice, through very regular therapy or spiritual practice that forces the person to consciously release old restrictions. It happens that this generally happens by itself, as a natural part of the development of this person.
However, for many people experiencing a spiritual crisis, this process is rapid and unexpected. Suddenly they feel their comfort and safety disappear, as if they have received some kind of push in an unknown direction. Familiar ways of being no longer seem appropriate and are replaced by new ones. The individual who undergoes such a change feels unable to cling to any manifestations of life, experiences fear and cannot return to old behavior and old interests. A person may feel that everything that he once was, that he paid attention to, is now dying. And this process is irreversible. Thus, a person may be consumed with great longing for his dying old self.
The state of liberation from various roles, relationships, from the world and from oneself is another form of symbolic death. This is well known to various spiritual systems as the primary goal of inner development. Such liberation from the old is a necessary event in life, and it naturally occurs at the moment of death - at a time when every human being fully understands that we cannot take with us those material things that belong to us, our earthly roles and all our relationship with the world we are leaving. The practice of meditation and other forms of self-enquiry lead seekers to confront these experiences even before the moment of physical death occurs. Such experiences give people the freedom to more fully enjoy everything they have in life.
Poet T.S. Elliott wrote:

Trying to have what you don't have,
You will have to follow the path of liberation from possession.
In an effort to go where you are not,
You will have to follow a path that you are not yet on.

In Buddhism, attachment or attachment to the manifestations of the material world is considered the root of all suffering, and the renunciation of this attachment is the key to spiritual liberation. A similar idea exists in other traditions, and it was also expressed by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras: “By the absence of all self-indulgence, at the moment when the seeds of attachment to suffering are destroyed, pure existence is achieved.”
More or less radical detachment regularly occurs during the process of spiritual crisis, and when it occurs, it can lead to increased stress and confusion. When a person begins to change, his attitude towards his loved ones, towards his activities, towards his usual roles in life also begins to change. A man who believes that his family belongs to him suddenly discovers that attachment to his wife and children only brings him great pain. He may also have the epiphany that the only constant thing in life is change and that he may be losing everything he thought was his.
Discoveries of this kind can lead to the realization that death ultimately equalizes everyone, and even if a person denies its reality in his life, one will still need to pay tribute to it at some point. While going through these experiences, individuals are forced to endure a painful state of inability to engage in daily activities to which they are attached, which they feel perpetuates their suffering. The process of detachment from attachments in itself is a form of death, the death of attachments. In some people this impulse towards detachment is very strong, and they begin to fear that in this way they are actually preparing for their impending death.
Individuals at this stage of spiritual self-emergence often have the misconception that the completion of the changes taking place in them will mean a complete withdrawal from the meaningful connections of their daily lives, and this will lead to the confusion of this new need for inner detachment with outer manifestations of detachment. Such people may experience an urgent inner need for liberation from all conditions that limit them, and unless they have the revelation that this process of detachment can be completed entirely on the internal level, they mistakenly begin to carry this into their daily lives. In the sixties and early seventies, many of those people who reached this stage through experimentation with mind-altering techniques and psychotropic substances also manifested this in outward forms of behavior, effectively leaving their family and social roles, thus creating a counterculture, trying to embody their newfound understanding.
At one of our seminars there was a lawyer who had reached a similar critical point in his spiritual journey and, turning to us, asked in desperation, “Does this mean I have to give up everything I’ve worked for all this time? I love "My family and my job. I've been married for twenty years and am very attached to my wife. My law practice is thriving and I enjoy doing what I do. But everything inside of me is telling me that I have to come to the point of giving it all up "Maybe I'm close to death? What should I do?"
After discussing this, he admitted that there was no need to give up his quite good and productive lifestyle and that the process of his spiritual unfoldment did not lead him to physical death. On the contrary, he had reached a normal and quite natural stage of detachment in which he felt the need to give up emotional attachment to certain important elements of his life. He was able to understand that everything that needs to die at this stage is only his limited, repressed attitude towards his usual roles, and that internally throwing them away can free him to the greatest extent in order to function. more effective.
An important way of experiencing symbolic death during transformation is the death of the ego. During the process of spiritual self-manifestation, a person moves from a relatively limited way of being to new, broader conditions. Sometimes, for this shift to be complete, it is necessary for the old forms of existence to “die”, opening the way for a person’s new self to emerge; the ego must be destroyed before a new, broader self can become possible. This is called the death of the ego. It is not actually the death of the ego that is necessary to function in everyday reality; it is the death of old personality structures and ineffective ways of being in the world that is necessary to achieve a happier and freer existence.
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy wrote about this: “There is no being who can reach the highest level of existence without ceasing his ordinary existence.”
The death of the ego can happen gradually over a long period of time, or it can happen suddenly and with great force. Although this is one of the most rewarding and most healing moments in spiritual evolution, it can be experienced as a disaster. During this stage, the dying process can sometimes be very realistic, as if it were no longer a symbolic experience, but a real biological catastrophe. As a rule, a person cannot yet see what is on the other side of what is perceived as the total destruction of the “ego” and what is a broader, all-encompassing sense of his true essence. The following lines from D. Lawrence's "Phoenix" reflect the nature of this devastating but transformative process:

Do you want to be squeezed out like a sponge?
purified to the limit, erased from life,
become nothing?
Do you want to become nothing?
Plunged into oblivion?
If not, then you are not willing to truly change.

When people go through the process of ego death, they often feel so overwhelmed and empty by the experience that all that they are or have been seems to have been compressed into a point with no hope of any renewal. As all of these individuals' identities are destroyed, they lose their confidence in their place in the world, in their true identity as parents, workers, and generally effective human beings. Old interests are no longer relevant, ethical beliefs change, friends leave, and the person loses confidence that he can function effectively in everyday life. In the inner world, they may experience a gradual loss of identity and feel that their essence on the physical, emotional and spiritual levels is destroyed by an unexpected force. Such people may feel as if they are actually dying, suddenly being confronted with their deepest fear.
Through therapy, spiritual practice, and other forms of self-exploration, it becomes possible to complete the symbolic process of dying on an internal level. A person can die internally while remaining alive and healthy.

R.M.Rilke

The shadow of death, suffering and the torment of hell is felt especially acutely, and this comes from the feeling that you have been abandoned by God... and a terrible premonition arises in the soul that this will always be the case... The soul sees itself in the very center of the most diverse forms of evil, among the pitiful imperfection, devastated, yearning for understanding and thrown into darkness.

San Juan de la Cruz, "Dark Night of the Soul"

“When the transformation process reaches its highest point, the decisive, final stage is often accompanied by severe suffering and internal darkness. Christian mystics called this state the “Dark Night of the Soul.” Outwardly, it resembles a disease that psychiatrists call depressive psychosis or melancholia. Its signs: a state of severe depression to the point of despair; a pronounced sense of one’s own unworthiness; acute self-judgment - completely hopeless and damned; a depressing feeling of paralysis of the mind, loss of willpower and self-control, resistance and inhibition in relation to any actions. Some of these symptoms may appear in a less pronounced form and at previous stages, without, however, reaching the intensity of the “dark night of the soul”

The mystics of the last century saw in it the path to “pure vision”: “Because the path of suffering is much safer than the path of joy.” They saw the bitterness of depression as a means to leave the world behind and work their way toward radiant balance and harmony. This shock is like “the gate of great despair, the gate that opens the way to a new being.” Depression or the "dark night" is both destruction and rebirth.