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If you accept The Dark Night of the Soul, unconditionally,
the illusion of duality and separation can melt away.
Transcript:
More on the dark night of the soul.
As you enter this phase, what the mind says -that can only work in duality- is, “If… then…”
But you see, its ‘if’ is based on the past. It can’t see the future. So it says, “If I go into this, I will become completely detached from everyone. I won’t have any friends. I won’t have anyone to talk to.”
But you see that ‘if’ is based on old considerations, old situations. That ‘if’, that mind cannot see how it will really be when the duality dissolves. So the mind says, the duality of the mind says, “If I go in there, then…”. But that ‘then’ is based on duality. And in this new space, there isn’t duality in the same way. Yes, there will still be people that are separate from you and you still won’t be able to take their stories seriously and, therefore, not feeling so connected with them in a personal way.
But what happens is something that your mind cannot foresee. And that is, everything changes in this space. And this person isn’t separate in the same way as they were separate before. Now, even though they are telling their story, you feel a deep connection with a deep part of them. And that connection you had before, which was the two personals bouncing off each other seem so far away and so insignificant to this deep sense of… we’ll call it love, connection, oneness with this person, even while they’re chatting away unconsciously about their problems and their relationships and their money and things. It’s as though you are not really listening to that part because you are in touch with another part of them that is resonating with that other part of you.
So, before or as you enter this stage, the dark night of the soul, you may imagine you are going to be lonely. But what actually happens is, on one level, more like aloneness. But this aloneness isn’t what the mind thinks of aloneness. It is just that… it’s unexplainable. There is something else. You are now in contact with everything and everybody on another level. So, you are not only not alone… – I’ll just exaggerate it and call it blessed- you feel blessed. And that isn’t strictly true because eventually the blessing goes away. Because feeling blessed means there’s something to bless you. And what happens is you become the blessing. There is no separation. There is nothing to bless you. You are blessing. So the sensation is a feeling blessed.
So just to remind you again. Before, your mind is looking at everything in opposites, in duality. And it can’t anticipate, it can’t experience what it’s like not to have that duality, not to have that separation. The mind cannot experience oneness, it can’t imagine oneness. When it thinks of oneness, it thinks of twoness to give it its opposite to see it. But it’s not that. It’s something that your mind can’t describe. You can’t even tell yourself about it. But it’s a sensation. It’s an indescribable state. And in order to be in that state, it’s not an experience, it’s to be in it. To be in that, you just need to disconnect from all the ideas you have about anything.