because when he is alone
his lower self appears to him
most strongly
with its host of demons and armies.
All raging
and roaring
the visible enemy you fight in your social life
now appears as if rising
from your own self.
It’s a sorry position to be in
but it’s also the only way
every Master is born.
For he has fought and won
over his lower nature.
(Bibiana)
I remember meeting a former colleague around the time when I left the firm we had both worked for. She had left the firm many years before me and had decided to be a stay-home mom instead. I told her about my plan to become an author and spiritual coach and she responded, “I hope that you are ready for solitude”. It seemed such an innocent remark at the time but for some reason it really left a mark. How right she was! While I had often complained about the stressful periods in my old job, I today also realize that I had enjoyed studying the ‘friends and foes’ that I engaged with at work. Each and everyone had a spiritual message for me in store. My professional life was the place where I discovered the workings of ‘the Way’. My work was my creative playground for discovering spiritual insights. It gave me something to write about every day. In hindsight it was also a place to feel great about myself. At day hanging out in high society, and at night moon-lighting as a spiritual guide to many.
Darkness is also part of an Awakening journey but in those days the demons always appeared as external: business and market downswings, colleagues who were out to eat my lunch, organizational power struggles, etc. Now, in this stage of my spiritual Awakening I can no longer blame my occasional struggle on anyone but myself. In solitude, the same demons show up, but they are reaching out for me from the inside; we all have different pressure points, but in my case, restlessness, judgment and repressed aggression sometimes get the better of me. Bibiana’s poem certainly nailed my journey on its head: every Master has to take the final step of liberation inwards, otherwise we will will slay demons in the outer world until the end of days, not knowing that they are self-generated.
Modern man (and the occasional woman) is always driven to be someone, to get somewhere, to accomplish to overcome and to conquer. He has very little time for inward reflection but plenty of opportunities to slay his outer demons, or risked getting slain by them. He has coping system to deal with the uncomfortable feelings that pop up now and then. The screaming match in front of the TV when the favorite team is playing. The wild night out on a date, or a girls-night out; a shopping trip, or binge eating and drinking. People who are willing to work on themselves add meditation, a meaningful love and family life, or a spiritual quest to the mix and are thus a step nearer to the healing of the underlying problems rather than just escaping from them. You might say, it is the transition from unhealthy coping to healthy coping. Eventually though, at least for everyone who has started an Awakening journey, the focus shifts to the inside. For them, mindfulness and solitude are the Way.
We spiritual folks may be wise or disciplined enough not to escape from our undigested feelings in meaningless activities, yet there is escapism even in our community. It is quite subtle though. Some feel lethargic and paralyzed, and are put off by the perceived hostile real world, while others seek refuge in positive thinking and excessive purposeful doing. Neither is the Way! No, just like we are encouraged to practice meditation in order to mind the endless chatter in our head, we also need to be honest and bold enough to just sit there in solitude of our being and open up to what is bubbling beneath the hood. Nisargadatta Maharaj once said, ‘All you need to do is to unravel being from the tangle of experiences. Once you have known pure being, without being this or that, you will discern it among experiences, and you will no longer be misled by names and forms.
I would most certainly encourage everyone to read about spirituality and to remind themselves of what lies Beyond with the help of powerful memes and self-improvement programs. There comes a time, however, when we are done with the external striving and searching and when we have to go within instead. Ultimately, we have to allow ourselves to be one with the pain, the fears, the regrets and the loneliness. Only by facing the demons within do we have a shot at realizing that they are not real; that they are entirely self-fabricated. It is said that Buddha meditated for seven years while Yoshua went into the desert for 40 days. Both described the scenes before their Awakening very similarly. They were surrounded by demons but they remained steadfast and unwavering. I am not sure that our ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ episodes have to be quite as dramatic as the tug-of-war that they had to undergo. Facing our demons can be more of a realization that by being compassionate for the darkness inside, by serving them tea and listen to their concerns, as Buddha once put it, they dissolve into nothingness. The power of mindfulness and solitude helps us transcend to the next spiritual level.
Even we light-workers are running away from our inner healing mission by striving to accomplish something worthwhile to accomplish, by going after our dreams or by helping people. We want to be enlightened; we secretly want to be someone; we want to be special in a holy way; we want to be loved and admired. We mind the darkness inside and try to white-wash them with our ‘holy’ activities’. I was raised a Protestant growing up in Germany, and even though no one at home forced me to, I was always caught in the collective ‘work, work, work’ energy. Without really understanding why, I had to be one of the best in high school, one of the best in my studies, both in Germany and the US, and trying my best to be one of the best in a company of over-achievers. Towards the end even that wasn’t good enough, I had to be a moon-lighter and write spiritual books in my free time. Then came God and told me to take a little time-out!
Listen to John Lennon’s ‘Watching the Wheel’ lyric. Do you get his spiritual wisdom? Could you do it, even for a little while?
People say I'm crazy,
doing what I'm doing.
Well, they give me all kinds of warnings
to save me from ruin.
When I say that I'm okay, well they look at me kinda strange.
"Surely, you're not happy now, you no longer play the game."
People say I'm lazy,
dreaming my life away
Well they give me all kinds of advice,
designed to enlighten me.
When I tell them that I'm doing fine watching shadows on the wall.
"Don't you miss the big time boy, you're no longer on the ball?"
I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round.
I really love to watch them roll.
No longer riding on the merry-go-round.
I just had to let it go.
Do not fear solitude when it comes but stand ready to embrace it whole-heartedly. Once you have understood that the outer world is entirely self-fabricated you in fact have a chance to make a difference for others. Discover the power of solitude!
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